Southbourne Positive Living Group: Top 5 Tips for Living a More Positive Life

This is a part of Darren Rowse´s writing project “Top 5” over at Problogger.

I´ve mentioned all of these suggestions once or twice before but really like them since they are very useful if you want to improve your life.

And, besides, I´d bet that few besides me have read the whole archive anyway.

1. Appreciate, appreciate, appreciate!

People often want appreciation from others. It can become a craving need. Instead, start to appreciate everything around you, such as:

– The sunshine and the weather.

– Your food.

– Your health.

– The people around you. Your friends, family, co-workers and just about anyone walking down the street.

– A good TV-show, a movie or a song.

– A good conversation.

– Your roof and your house.

– All the great things you can find online.

– Yourself. If you just look there is a lot to appreciate about yourself.

It’s a quick way to turn a sour mood into a more positive and useful one. Just try if for a minute and see how it changes how you feel. And it’s a win/win solution. You feel great because you are appreciating your world and the people you appreciate feel great too because they feel appreciated.

And since the Law of Reciprocity is strong they’ll often start to appreciate you too thereby starting a growing upward spiral of positive thoughts and emotions.

But don’t focus too much on that though. Just focus on appreciating your world and let rest take care of itself.

One way to use appreciation to get a good start in the morning is by asking yourself a set of questions.

Read more about that in How to Start Your Day in a Better Way.

2. Focus on what you want, not on what you don´t want

The more I do this, the more I discover that it is so key in improving your life. It´s simply filling your life and time with more of what you want.

The thing is that it is very easy to fall into a habit of focusing your thoughts on what you don´t want rather than what you want. If you do that then it will be hard to get what you want in life.

If you want to improve your finances then focus on having a great financial situation rather than your lack of money and your debts. If you want a new relationship then focus on meeting a lot of new people and forming great relationships rather than focusing on your loneliness and your lack. If you don’t then you’ll miss many opportunities that you mind just blocks out since it’s focused on your lack.

But if you do then opportunities will suddenly start to pop out of all that stimuli that is your world. Your mind can mostly just see what you focus it on. So focus on what you want in life.

Read more about this suggestion, the Reticular Activating System and The Law of Attraction in this article.

3. Educate and explore yourself

Self-education can be a great help to live a better life. Read great books on the areas of your life you want to improve. Maybe it’s it your financial situation or your health. Or maybe it’s your relationships.

Ask people with more success in that area than you what they did to improve. If you have a problem in your life, most likely a lot of people have had that problem the last few thousand years. And, at least one of them – or more likely a few – has written down how they solved that problem.

This is also a great way to get to know yourself better and understand why you think, feel and do – or don´t do – the things you do. And knowing yourself better – and other people too, since we share so much that make us alike – is pretty useful if you want to improve your life and lives of other’s too.

Feed your mind daily – or weekly – with great solutions and inspirational and useful information. Some really great sources I have found so far are listed in Recommended Personal Development Products.

4. Take a lot of action in your life

Yeah, this one’s maybe easier said than done. But there is also good information on how to go about it and it’s a great way to improve your life.

“Just do it!” is a nice slogan. But if you feel like you really can’t do what you want then it will probably not be too helpful. If you feel that fear is holding you back from doing something then there are good and practical solutions that has been used throughout hundreds or thousands of years.

One of my favorites is taking small steps and confronts your fear little by little and thereby creating a momentum that lets you move on to the next step. Another is learning to surrender and accept the now. For more on that suggestion and other strategies to reduce fear (such as redefining failure), check out 5 Life-Changing Keys to Overcoming Your Fear.

Other suggestions to remove or reduce blocks that stop you from taking action is to explore some techniques – such as guided meditations – that can help create a forward momentum within you. More on that can be found in How to Move beyond Being a Self-Help Junkie.

Procrastination is of course also a big problem when trying to take action and getting things done. My favourite technique to beat it so far is using the “Get around to it” Paraliminal. Paraliminals are a sort of guided meditations produced by Learning Strategies. 7 other free and useful methods to beat this problem can found in this article (and you can find one more here).

5. Improve your social skills

So much of the happiness, value and fun in life come from interactions and relationships with other people. Improving those interactions and your communication skills can greatly improve your life. And – as a bonus – as you focus your attention more outward, toward other people instead of focusing inward much of the negative feelings that can come through overanalyzing and feeling self-conscious mostly just disappear. You just are. And that’s a pretty good feeling state to be and communicate in.

Southbourne Positive Living Group (SPLG) meets on the last Wednesday of the month (excluding holidays).

Join a group of like-minded people and rediscover the purpose and meaning of your life.