33 Tips On How To Have & Keep A Positive Mindset In Life And At Work

Do a quick Google search on how to cultivate a more positive mindset, and you’ll see that there are tons of suggestions out there! We’ve gathered some of the most popular and most evidence-backed methods here, but don’t hesitate to search for more if you need them.

To view the original article from Positive Psychology click here

Larry Alton from Success.com lists 7 practical tips to help you get more positive:

Start the day with positive affirmations (scroll down to see some example affirmations).

Focus on the good things, however small they are.

Find humor in bad situations.

Turn failures into lessons—and learn from them!

Transform negative self-talk into positive self-talk.

Focus on the present instead of getting mired in the past or losing your way in the future.

Find positive friends, mentors, and co-workers to support and encourage you (2018).

A successful author, speaker, and coach Brian Tracy (n.d.) echoes some of these tips and adds a couple more:

Remember that it’s your response that determines the outcome of a situation.

Use positive affirmations or phrases to chase off negative thoughts.

Find inspirational quotes and messages to bolster your positivity.

Decide to be happy by being grateful and assuming the people around you have the best of intentions.

Challenge yourself to maintain a positive attitude when something goes wrong—show the world how resilient and positive you are!

For a more specific list of habits and actions you can take to develop a more positive mindset, try these 10 suggestions from Megan Wycklendt (2014) of Fulfillment Daily:

Keep a gratitude journal.

Reframe your challenges as opportunities for growth.

Get good at being rejected—it happens to everyone!

Use positive words to describe your life.

Replace have with get (e.g., I have to go to work → I get to go to work).

Don’t let yourself get dragged down into other people’s complaints.

Breathe—consciously, purposefully, and mindfully.

Notice the righteous and good in times of tragedy and violence.

Have solutions ready when you point out problems.

Make someone else smile.

Finally, these 11 techniques from Dr. Tchiki Davis (2018) can also help you adopt a more positive attitude:

Ask yourself, “Do I think positively?” Take a test or quiz on positivity to see where you stand.

Strengthen your memory for positive information by using positive words more often.

Strengthen your brain’s ability to work with positive information with exercises that involve positive words.

Strengthen your brain’s ability to pay attention to the positive by routinely redirecting your focus away from the negative to the positive.

Condition yourself to experience random moments of positivity (use classical conditioning on yourself to build positive associations).

Think positive—but not too much—and think negative when you need to; sometimes we need to grieve, think about the negative consequences, and use negative emotions to motivate and engage us.

Practice gratitude (perhaps with a gratitude journal).

Savor the good moments (stop to “smell the roses” and celebrate the positive).

Generate positive emotions by watching funny videos

Stop minimizing your successes and acknowledge the efforts you put in.

Stop all-or-nothing thinking; this cognitive distortion is not in line with reality since things are very rarely “all good” or “all bad.”