Happiness and Positive Attitudes

Those with positive attitudes are a magnet to others while those with negative attitudes often alienate those around them including themselves because of their critical and self-critical feelings. How can they like others when they think so little of themselves? Can negative people change their attitudes?

We all want to be happy and thinking positively is a good start to being happy. If we anticipate that we will find good, we usually will. I once heard a visitor to our province say that the people of our large city were not friendly and they don’t smile. Had he presented a friendly, smiling face, he would have found that we are a friendly city. Most people are happy to be acknowledged but someone has to be first to make the overture.

Positive thinking is a mental attitude. If we visualize success, we will succeed. We can look for the bright side of life in each situation; look at our cup as being half full; look for opportunities; be optimistic; be motivated; be determined to succeed; laugh and smile often; persevere, and never give up. Happiness comes from within – we are the only ones who can make us happy. A lot of our feelings of happiness will depend on how we perceive things that happen to us and how we cope with adversity. If we put a smile on our face and ‘act’ as if we’re happy, we’ll end up truly feeling happy.

It is important to be self confident, even if it means initially pretending to be; the pretense of confidence begets real confidence. It is also important to work on self-esteem; visualize positive outcomes; listen to others’ inspirational stories; think creatively; be self-disciplined, and work energetically. The more we do this, the more successful we will be in reaching our goals and the happier we will be.

Thinking positively will eventually be something we no longer have to make an effort to do – it will come naturally.