One of the more valuable lessons I’ve learned to date is the importance of keeping a positive mindset, no matter where you are at in life. I’ve found that this requires you to feed yourself with as many positive vibes as possible – from the people you see and talk to on a regular basis, to the information you read and even all the way down to what you watch on TV.

One of the best habits you can develop is to fill your mind with as much love and goodness as humanly possible on a regular basis and to soak in all things uplifting. Most importantly, in doing this we begin to train our mind to have happier thoughts because of the fresh material that begins to populate it.

The idea I’m getting at is the one you’ve probably heard hundreds times: “Change your thoughts and you can change your life.”

As cliché as that sounds, your thoughts can play a role in the dictatorship of your life. Let’s not forget that God is the overall dictator of everything, including your life, but there is relevancy in the validity of this statement even though YOU are technically not doing anything on your own. I will say that if you want a positive life, full of positive new beginnings, guess what? Your thoughts need to be reflective of that desired reality.

Simply put: Thought change leads to life change.

I can remember when I was at the height of my emotional bankruptcy; I would catch myself thinking negatively all the time and then I would wonder why I continued to feel sad, depressed or frustrated.  The more I paid attention to this, the more often I was able to recognize it, pray about it and then, slowly but surely, correct it.  I began to notice patterns of things that may have been contributing to my Debbie Downer self-talk. My recognition lead me to:

3 Effective Practices to Build More Positivity

1) For starters, I eliminated people from my life that caused me to feel anything but happiness. This was a hard, but necessary, step in the equation. I wasn’t stable enough to deal with my own problems, let alone have someone else’s drag me further down.  So, the draining relationships went, well, down the drain.

2) Secondly, I stopped watching TV.  The shows and news are all full of nothing that brings any sort of productiveness to my life.  I highly recommend cutting TV out completely.  If that makes you cringe, maybe you can get comfortable with the idea of substantially cutting back.  The less you watch it, the less you miss it. Promise.

3) I replaced TV with reading.  I’m not talking about fiction books either.  Love stories, murder or mystery books do nothing for my mind but take me to fantasyland. No, what I’m talking about is books that help me LEARN new ways of doing things and the books that really get me going are the ones that show me a different perspective.

Obviously, if you have read any of my previous posts, you know that I’m a confessed Bible thumper, as some would call it.  I’ll own that…and proudly, if I might add.  So, reading naturally means the Bible for me as I get my positivity fix from the nourishment of our creator’s words. But for those of you who aren’t comfortable with that reading plan yet, let’s just start with non-fiction.

My point is: I started reading as much as possible. The more I read the more my thoughts changed in that direction. For me, my newfound thoughts surfaced from the spirit of God inside and the more I connected to His words, the louder I could hear.

If I wasn’t reading my Bible or a book, I was reading a blog or articles online about faith, motivation, how other people do things, etc. The next thing I knew, my mind was so focused on all the new information I was stuffing my brain with along with my strengthened faith that subsequently,

“What Had Happened Was”…

First, my attitude about life changed.  I started to notice things shift ever so subtly from not watching TV and filling up on productive, positive information. This had immediate impacts on my every day life and outlook.

Secondly, I became so engulfed by new thought processes and knowledge, that I had less time to worry or feel sorry for poor, old, addicted me.  Motivation surfaced to help me take my bad habits by the throat and strangle them to death for holding me back from the goodness and potential that was locked away because of the grip they had on me.

We get so roped into habits, routines and the monotony of everyday life.  It can suck us in and make us think there is nothing else.  When you start to submerge yourself into a practice that builds positivity and faith, your eyes are opened to the whole world of potentiality you were previously blocked from.

As your submersion beings, you begin to swim in the possibilities. Tread there for a while. Feel the buoyancy as you float in your pool of positivity. You get lighter, as do your problems.

Doors start opening. Sparks start to fly. Ah-ha moments rise to a new frequency level. MIRACLES start to happen.  It’s then that you realize…they were brewing all along.