Staying Positive Can Be Hard. Let's Work on It.

I always thought of myself as a pretty positive person. I found joy in the little things - jamming out to music in the car with all the windows rolled down, walking along the beach watching the sun set over the water, the smell of warm chocolate chip cookies (my favorite dessert) coming out of the oven. It never took much for me to get excited. But as I got older, I started finding it a lot harder to see the good in things. I was becoming much more aware of all the problems I deal with every day, the problems my friends and family deal with, and not to mention the overwhelming amount of negative and often scary news stories I read and hear about Every. Single. Day. 

Without realizing it, I was feeling more and more pessimistic about life and it was really impacting my mental health, my relationships, and especially my happiness. Driving in the car with the windows down and music blasting irritated me - my hair was in my face, the music was too loud. It took a little while but when I noticed how much I had changed from this fun-loving person into a bit of a downer, I didn't even recognize myself. So, I decided to make a change. I missed the positive and happy person that I was and I wanted her back. I started looking for ways to boost my mood. I got outside more, watched less news, made more time to do activities that I really enjoyed, spent more time with my friends, wrote in my journal more, the list went on and on. The issue was that I was searching for ways to improve my happiness but I was not truly putting in the effort to feel better. I would go through periods that lasted a few days where I would wake up early, work out and eat healthy, write in my journal, make lists, hang up positive quotes on my bedroom walls. But after doing these things for a few days, I lost motivation. I felt like I was faking it. 

I had to sit down and really think about why I found it so difficult to find positivity in my life. I love writing and something that helps me a lot whether I am struggling or just wanting to get my thoughts down on paper is writing in a journal. I wrote out a list of things that bothered me and a list of things that I loved. Then, I started writing out how I wanted to feel. I wanted to feel happy, positive, excited, inspired, encouraged. This seriously helped me a lot. For a long time I was feeling all these emotions but I never really knew how to articulate them. By putting them down on paper, I got a better idea of what I needed to do in order to change. Just to be clear, I wasn’t this super negative person who got angry at everything under the sun. But I definitely was not as happy as I wanted to be. And thus, phase two of becoming a more positive person began.

I know it probably sounds weird to say that I started “phase two” of being positive. Just writing it out makes me sound like I’m plotting some kind of grand scheme. Honestly though it really was phase two, round two, a second try, whatever you want to call it. I was going into it with a completely different mindset and that had a big impact on how I was feeling. I got a daily quote calendar and read the new quote every morning and BELIEVED it (this is the one I use! → Quote Calendar). That was so important for me. I didn’t just read it and move on. I let it sink in and truly tried to believe the words I was reading. Some days I believed them and other days I knew I was not feeling it. But that’s just how life goes - some days are better than others - and so I continued reading the quotes. I still read the news because I like to stay in the know but when I found myself feeling overwhelmed, I turned it off and went on a walk, read a book, took some photos, started writing, turned on my favorite show, baked a delicious dessert, took out my sewing machine, pretty much anything that I enjoyed doing. 

Another thing that has truly relieved so much of my negativity and stress is learning to let go of things that did not serve me well. I slowly stopped allowing myself to get irritated by things that were out of my control (this definitely was a gradual process that I am STILL working on - and that’s okay!). The car that cut me off at the four-way stop, the woman who spilled her coffee on me and did not think to apologize, the internet deciding to slow down so much so that I have to stare at a loading screen for 15 minutes just so I can watch Netflix (I guess I’m still not completely over this one LOL). Life is so far from perfect and we get thrown curveballs daily. Dwelling on the minor inconveniences only put me in a worse mood. Now believe me, I know how hard it is to refrain from throwing your remote across the room when the Internet isn’t working or yelling when someone cuts you off. But how will that benefit you? Sure if you need to get out the emotions you're feeling then do what you need to do but then move forward. It will ultimately make you a much more content person. 

I am so much happier now from making those small changes - taking time in the day for myself, knowing when to cut myself off from the news and turn my attention toward something else, and working on controlling my emotions by not dwelling on things. These things are just a start but they really have brought me back to the happy and positive person I remember being. I definitely am not the same person as I was years ago, no one is, and I am not super happy ALL the time. I’m human - I get mad, I get sad, I feel discouraged and sometimes hopeless. But I also crave positivity and light. I get inspired by happiness because I know what it feels like not to have it. We are in a very weird time in the world right now and it is so easy to fall back into a negative mindset. But I am working on that because I know how much better I feel when I choose positivity. Let me just reiterate that it is OK to not be positive all the time. It is also OK to sometimes get annoyed by messages that imply you should  “always be happy” because I understand how unrealistic that can be. All I am suggesting is that you make an effort to bring more positivity into your life because it is an investment in yourself that you DESERVE. Now, I once again absolutely love driving with the windows rolled down and music blasting. I had lost that feeling. Now that I am starting to get it back in the simple ways that I used to, I cherish it so much more. And let me tell you, as difficult as it can be to stay positive, especially during tough times in the world and in your personal life, finding a bit of positivity or gratitude in each day, even if it is as small as the fact that the sun was shining that day, will help so much in the long run.