Overcome the negative spiral
4 tips for positive thoughts and a strong mindset
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Many people are familiar with negative thought spirals and know how difficult it can be to get out of them. With these five tips you will be able to think more positively and work sustainably on your mindset.
In these times, many of us are struggling psychologically with current events – be it the never-ending pandemic or the war with all its threats. For others, very personal issues dominate their thoughts and make it difficult for them to remain optimistic and look to the future with confidence.
We can learn to think positively. These tips can make it easier for you to work on your mindset and avoid getting lost in the carousel of negative thoughts, even in challenging times. (Of course, this does not apply to people with serious mental illnesses, for example Depressions. In this case, you should talk to your doctor about suitable treatment options.)
4 tips to cultivate a healthy mindset and positive thoughts
1. Identify the negative thoughts
Before we can change negative beliefs and thoughts, we must first become aware of them. So listen carefully to what your head is telling you. Is your inner critic constantly putting you down? Do you keep reliving difficult situations from the past in your mind? Or do you always assume the worst and imagine negative future scenarios that haven’t even happened yet and probably won’t?
It may help you to write down such thoughts as they arise. This way you can always remind yourself how unnecessarily difficult you are making things for yourself.
2. Accept the thoughts
Very important: the radical acceptance of the current state – inclusive of all thoughts. We often want to get rid of everything negative straight away and try with all our might to push it away. This usually doesn’t work. Because we first have to fully accept negative feelings, like failures and destructive thoughts, before we can let them go.
You can practice this very well in meditation. Classic mindfulness meditation teaches us exactly that: we learn to accept everything exactly as it is in this moment. Ideally, at some point we will no longer see our thoughts as the ultimate truth, but as something that our head produces – based on what we feed it with. Ultimately, this is something we have in our own hands.
3. Change your perspective
Next we can work on our angle. As soon as we encounter a negative thought, we perceive it and try to transform it into a positive one. For example, instead of saying, “Shit, I totally missed the conversation with the customer,” we could think something like, “That conversation didn’t go well. But now I know what to pay special attention to and hopefully I can do it better next time make.”
Of course, this takes practice and is very challenging, especially at the beginning. But if we continually work to see not just the bad, but also the opportunities that present themselves to us every day, we can train this type of positive thinking – just like a muscle. Over time it will become easier for us. Regular repetition is the key – we have to make it a habit and constantly remind ourselves not to fall into negative thought patterns.
4. Practice gratitude
Gratitude is an excellent tool for specifically practicing positive thinking. You can do this, for example, by keeping a gratitude diary in which you collect everything that you are currently grateful for. Maybe it’s enough for you to remind yourself of these aspects at a fixed point in the day – for example in the evening before you go to sleep. Especially in difficult phases, gratitude is important so that we don’t lose sight of what we have.
Admittedly, this is probably not very helpful for someone who is currently living in a war or going through a serious life crisis such as a loss. But if we are basically doing well, we have everything we need to live, such as a nice home, enough to eat, perhaps a happy relationship, children or pets and a job – then it can help us a lot to focus on these To fix things instead of focusing on the areas that aren’t going well.
These steps will help you cultivate an open, strong mindset and positive thinking, in which negative thoughts are of course allowed to arise, but do not play the main role. It will probably take some time until we really internalize this and don’t immediately fall back into old patterns. But it’s worth it because it allows us to ride the big and small waves of life without letting them carry us away.
Sources used: healthline.com, yogaeasy.de