Change Your Mind!
Our outlook and attitude to life in general plays a huge part in determining how happy our lives will be, and ultimately, it influences how successful we become.
It’s no accident that the most successful people in the world are those that hold a positive attitude.
Someone who thinks positively about everything is more relaxed, calm, and will smile much more than someone who always focuses on the negative side, allows stress to get the better of them, and permanently wears a frown.
After 15 long months of coping with the disruption of the Covid pandemic it can be quite a challenge to maintain a head full of happy thoughts! Many people’s lives have been changed dramatically and permanently losing jobs, family and friends to this relentless pandemic. Life-changing events like this make it almost impossible to maintain a positive outlook.
Negative or positive attitude?
But make no mistake about it; thoughts are very powerful. Not only do they affect your general outlook on life, but thoughts can reflect on your physical appearance and health too. And it doesn’t end there. Your mind-set can also affect the people around you as well.
Have you noticed how a positive attitude attracts people, whilst a negative one repels them? Positive thoughts have an uplifting and invigorating effect, and people in contact with someone radiating an optimistic personality are usually energized by this type of attitude. The person who goes through life optimistically is better able to deal with life and its challenges, plus they are able to bounce back and recover from problems or set-backs more quickly.
On the other hand, people tend to shy away from those who carry a permanently negative attitude. Negative thoughts have a depleting effect on everyone around them, and aside from making you look gloomy and sad and diminishing your health, a bad attitude can turn a happy festive gathering into a funeral wake. In short, our mood affects our daily lives. Developing and maintaining a positive outlook is essential if you wish to lead a positive, fulfilling and healthy life.
Hold that thought
Since thoughts can either be positive or negative, you can only have one thought in mind at any one time. Therefore choosing to be positive will create optimistic thoughts, feelings and actions, which leads to a happier more creative person who is able to achieve their goals with less effort. When you positively change your attitudes, beliefs, and behaviour, you open the door to lots of new possibilities.
Your quality of life is determined by how you think and feel from moment to moment, and changing the way you think can dramatically affect how you see and deal with life. Only you can change the way that you look at things, and changing your mind-set is within your power. A positive mental attitude leads to a confident and ultimately more successful person, rather than one full of negativity which leads to a lack of self-confidence and low self-esteem.
Make it a habit
There are many ways in which you can develop a more positive outlook and begin to change how you think and feel about many situations that you encounter in day-to-day living. Changing your attitude without slipping back into negative thinking takes a little time until it becomes a habit, but eventually the new outlook will become second nature to you.
Essential oils such as bergamot can help bolster determination and willpower whilst driving out negativity and indecision during your development. Geranium essential oil is also useful because it balances and calms emotions, dissolves frustration and irritability and helps us to become more centered. See the side panel for a list of other essential oils you can use.
Five key points for a positive attitude
- Commit yourself to thinking positively, and practice at this on a daily basis. Set your mind on completing one task at a time and think only of a positive outcome, continually reminding yourself how good you will feel when you have completed the task. Never give in to doubt or let yourself think that you have taken too much on – just keep going.
- Don’t allow your conversations to become negative. Whilst talking to friends don’t let them discourage you, particularly if they have a negative outlook on life. It’s easy to fall back into old habits, so if you find yourself in miserable company turn the negative talk into something more positive. If this strategy fails, move away
- Look for the positive attributes in everything and everyone around you, and be sure to point them out when you find them. This way you will encourage a more positive attitude in everyone you come into contact with. Remember; like attracts like.
- Stay vigilant, and don’t allow yourself to become distracted from your goal. It takes time to change the way you feel and think about yourself and the world around you – especially if you have been down on yourself and the world for a long time. Your new outlook will take a while to develop and become permanent, so don’t allow others to drag you back into negativity
- Let go of grudges – and forgive. Holding on to grudges keeps us in the past and prevents us from achieving our full potential by encouraging resentment, unhappiness and fear. This prevents us from finding true peace within ourselves. Forgiveness is one of the true keys to happiness.
Over time, you will find many areas of your life will be improved just by changing your outlook from gloomy, to optimistic and outgoing. You will find that your self-esteem improves, you become more popular, you feel happier and are more confident than before. You will also be able to tackle the tasks you once hated without them causing you stress and anxiety, plus your personal relationships will improve.
Clinical studies have shown that such an attitude actually retards aging, improves your health, helps you maintain a better stress coping mechanism, and has a very positive effect on all the people you meet every day. So use your essential oils to help you ‘change your mind’, for the better. Remember that good health and happiness requires a willingness to learn new ways of both thinking and doing things.
Want to improve your life? Start by changing your mind.
Copyright © Quinessence Aromatherapy Ltd 2021. Written by Geoff Lyth
