How To Develop A Positive Mindset

The mind is the most powerful asset you have.

Everything that’s ever been created was first created in someone’s mind (kind of wild to think about!).

Not only that, but the quality of your life totally depends on your mindset.

You can hype yourself up and then completely talk yourself out of doing something due to irrational thoughts that create negative thoughts and feelings.

Whenever you feel insecurity or fear it’s due to your thinking.

So, today I’m dedicating a post to how to develop a positive mindset to live a more happy and abundant life and feel good about yourself and the decisions you make.

And spoiler alert: this might be a little different than what you’re expecting!

How To Develop A Positive Mindset

The key to developing a positive mindset isn’t really what most people think.

It’s not about finding “silver linings” (which can lead to toxic positivity) and it’s not about seeing the good in everything.

Instead, a true positive mindset is about growth and acceptance.

When you choose growth over comfort, your mind and mental health expand and so does your life. This is the best possible pleasure you can ever experience in your life.

When you choose acceptance, you choose to embrace the negative in life, which ironically makes the negative not so bad.

With growth and acceptance, you’ll find yourself truly having a more positive mindset—one that leads you to the most positive results in your life.

Here are my best tips to implement this in your life…

Tip 1: Trade Short Term Discomfort For Long Term Pleasure

When you trade the short term discomfort for long term pleasure, you get the best pleasure of your life.

This means putting down the glass of wine and instead going to the gym. It means turning off Netflix and working on your goal.

It’s the discomfort of growth now for the long term gratification of truly living your dream life. This is what it’s all about.

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Tip 2: Cultivate Your Inner Coach

I like to think that we all have an Inner Coach and an Inner Critic.

Your Inner Critic is your default brain that’s super harsh and critical. This is that voice in your head that punishes you when you make a mistake—it’s the voice where you’re beating yourself up.

Your Inner Coach, on the other hand, is something you can cultivate and use to talk back to that mean voice in your head. Your Inner Coach loves you unconditionally, supports you even when you make mistakes, and showers you with love.

More on this here—Your Inner Critic And Inner Coach Podcast.

Tip 3: Allow Negative Emotions (Like Anxiety And Stress)

Allowing negative emotions may be the best secret there is to having a positive mindset.

Typically, people will resist negative emotions, like anxiety and stress, and doing everything they can to avoid them (drinking, overeating, etc.). This just masks the problem and the emotions come back worse.

Instead, the key is to allow the emotions. In my Free Anxiety Training, I teach 7 steps to do this, but the gist of it is that you want to welcome the negative emotion as if it were your friend.

When you allow negative emotions, you stop making them bigger and instead allow them to move through you.

Feelings are simply vibrations in your body, all of which you can accept—the good and the bad. And when you do, your life transforms in the very best way.

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Tip 4: Become BFFs With Your Body

Creating a relationship with your body that’s intentionally based on unconditional love (regardless of what your body looks like) is truly one of the best things a woman can do for herself (myself included!).

For example, one of the best ways to start the day is to look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself how much you love yourself. Sounds a little bit hokey, but it really does reframe how you look at yourself.

I like to say that “me and my body are BFFs.” This is a way for me to personify my relationship in a way that feels positive and true.

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Tip 5: Indulge In Positive Thoughts

Positive thoughts lead to positive feelings, which feel good.

Instead of coming up with positive affirmations, I teach “Thoughts To Borrow.” The difference is that instead of repeating thoughts you don’t believe (like you do with affirmations), you try on thoughts and see how they feel for you.

Your thoughts will be activated only if they feel good in your body. So try on positive thoughts and choose those that feel amazing. Then indulge in them.

So often we put off our own joy and happiness—we don’t think we deserve to feel good.

You my friend are worthy of feeling amazing, and I want you to know it. Positive people develop a positive mindset. So, feel the positive thoughts and indulge in all those positive words. The power of positivity and positive mind is amazing.

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Tip 6: Start Journaling Every Day

Getting your thoughts down in writing is a powerful way to declutter your mind and think more deliberately.

To do this I recommend either a gratitude journal or using a notebook with my 75 Journal Prompts For Moms.

With guided journaling, you’ll be able to notice any negative self talk and recognize your negative mindset because you’ll get it down on paper in addition to redirecting your thoughts and choosing them more intentionally so that you’re living from a more abundant state of mind.

Up next: Take my free class on How To Cope With Negative Thoughts As A Mom

Tip 7: Cultivate The Feeling Of Generosity

Finally, start practicing feeling the emotion of generosity. It’s one of my FAVORITE emotions to play with.

When you feel generous, it feels amazing. You end up giving from the most abundant, joyful place. There’s truly nothing like it.

This doesn’t mean give with expectation. It means give just because you want to give.

I do this all the time, both intentionally (through charitable giving) and unintentionally (through random acts of kindness). Most recently, I’ve loved giving really big gifts for events I attend for no reason at all other than I love giving.

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A Final Note!

The goal with a positive mindset isn’t to “stay positive” when you want to feel negative emotions (like when someone passes away and you want to be heartbroken). The goal is to move into acceptance of all of life.

This is the most positive way of thinking you can have. You’ll accept the good and the bad. So that the bad isn’t so bad after all.