7 WAYS TO CULTIVATE A POSITIVE MINDSET

As much as your health depends on the way you nourish and stay active, what you choose to do is also highly dependent on who you choose to be. Let’s explore the connection between your actions and mind.


BY: RACHEL HARVEST, MS, RD, CDN

What you think and feel is a primary part of this whole wellness puzzle.  

You can’t control what happens in life…forget it.  You have no control over that, whatsoever.

What you do have control of, however, is how you respond or react to what happens. What you do with your experience relies on who you choose to be.  

Our response or reaction to what’s happening all around us relies on the attitude we choose to have about experience as a whole.

A response is a consciously chosen thought or emotion that leads to a conscious action. Responding takes an optimistic, hopeful attitude to calm you down and let you see the bigger picture.  

A reaction is an unconscious thought or emotion that leads to unconscious actions. Being reactive is often the result of a pessimistic or negative attitude.  

Pessimism is linked to decreases in overall healthiness, increased rates of depression, higher medication use, doctors visits and mental health needs.  A negative attitude is linked to decreased memory and cognitive function with age, with an overall shortened life span.

Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?

A bad attitude is, simply, a sickness.  

Since responses are conscious, you have a choice and a myriad of opportunities to follow every time you respond.  The unconscious habit of reacting leaves you without a choice, without a means to shift away from the potentially dismal, depressing, and short life ahead of you.

Here are 7 ways that you can shift out of a negative mindset and into a happier, fuller, more optimistic pattern:

1. THINK ABOUT IT FOR YOURSELF.

Honor where you can improve your attitude and consciously choose to return to your natural state of optimism.

2. BE AWARE OF YOUR INTERNAL DIALOGUE. 

It takes conscious effort to create positive self-talk in your unconscious.

3. ASK YOURSELF POSITIVE QUESTIONS. 

What am I grateful for?  What can I learn from this?  What am I committed to?  What about this experience moves me forward?

4. PRACTICE POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS. 

Speak in the now about how optimistic you want to be.  Faking it until you make it is crucial to an actualized, potent life.

5. SET POSITIVE, ATTAINABLE GOALS. 

Aim for things you will do, be or have vs. things you need to stop or overcome.  Make them specific and incremental.  

6.  VISUALIZE POSITIVITY.

Describe, journal and imagine as if what you want to be, do, or have, already exists in your life.

7. LAUGH OUT LOUD. 

Look for the humor in it all and downplay the seriousness. Life’s too short, don’t let it escape you.

Adapted from the original article.
HEADER IMAGE: JAKOB OWENS

Rachel Harvest, MS, RD, CDN is a NYC-based Registered Dietitian, behavioral health nutritionist, and wellness coach.  With her philosophy centered around the love we need to give ourselves before finding our health and happiness, Rachel is on a mission to help you dig deep within to create the life you want for yourself.  To work on you with somebody who loves you no matter what, visit Rachel at The Harvest Method.

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