Are you a negative person? Are you surrounded by negative people in your personal or professional life? Negativity can harm you in so many ways! It can stop you from seeing the potential that lies all around you, and it can thwart your reward of fulfillment.

On the flip side, reducing negativity in your life can have amazing and far-reaching beneficial effects that seem to ripple outward once they begin. These ripples will reach people, through you, that may not have been able to experience the benefits of positivity before.

Here are just a few of the many potential benefits of reducing negativity in your life:

Greater Confidence
Most negative thinkers do a lot of negative self-talk. This makes them feel small, insignificant, and unworthy of good things. When you eliminate this negative talk and replace it with positive uplifting talk you will see your confidence increase enormously. And when you have confidence, you can accomplish anything.

Greater Room for Positive Things
You don’t realize how much room negativity takes up in your mental, emotional, and physical lives until you begin to actively reduce that negativity. And once you do – you want all that “space” back! Because you can then fill that space with all kinds of positive things such as new friendships, new positive surroundings, and maybe even a new job! The possibilities truly are limitless.

Fewer Feelings of Depression and Fear
When you increase your positivity, your positive self-talk, and your confidence, you find yourself with greater feelings of adequacy. In turn, this reduces your

feelings of fear and depression, because you realize just how capable you really are!

Expanding Focus
When you’re stuck in negative thinking, you have a very narrow view of the world, people, and possibilities that surround you. When you work to reduce that negative thinking, you’ll begin to see all kinds of possibilities surrounding you that you weren’t able to see before. This can lead to amazing outcomes, as your focus expands, and you begin to have hope for better and greater things.

More Room for Love
When you are feeling confidence in yourself and your abilities, it gives you the space to give and receive love freely. No longer will you be tied to that negative self-talk and thinking that you don’t deserve love, companionship, or friendship. Now, you’ll see and feel more love around you. You’ll be able to receive that love, and you’ll be able to give it out whenever you want because it truly has no limits!

 

Worry can truly suck the joy out of any situation. Worrying – especially worrying about things we cannot control – is a negative feedback loop that just keeps going lower and lower until we’re stuck in a hole that we feel we just can’t get back out of.

But what’s the solution? We can’t just stop worrying, can we?

Worrying is a choice that you make, and there are those that do, in fact, learn to stop worrying. But it’s not an all-or-nothing proposition! Here are three steps that you can take starting right this minute to help you lessen the time you spend worrying so that you can spend that time living your life!

  1. One of the most effective tactics to use with worrying (or any negative emotion, in fact) is to give it a time limit. The worrying then does not go on endlessly without any self-control. When something has you worried, or a worry pops up into your mind, set a limit of an hour, or three hours… whatever you feel comfortable with. But when that time is up, that’s it. You move on. You don’t let the worry stop you from living if it’s past the time you give it. This is a technique that works great for depression, sadness, anger… any of those negative emotions that threaten to take us over if we’re not careful.
  2. Ask yourself if there is anything you can do about what you’re worried about. Many times, there are things you can do to help stop the worry, but you’re reluctant to do them. Why? Well, it could be that you’re afraid to step outside your comfort zone. It could be that you’re reluctant to take the actions you need to take to stop the situation you’re worried about. Fear plays into this a lot, so you have to ask yourself some hard questions, namely, “Am I willing to do what it takes to stop this worrying by changing my situation?” Whether the answer is yes, or no, you should quit the worrying.

3. Take a good look at the stories you tell yourself. You may be worrying about something that is simply not true, or not realistic. Very often, we tell ourselves stories about a situation, and when we tell ourselves the same story over and over, it becomes real to us. But it may, in fact, just be a story. So, take a look at your worries, and examine whether they are based on real facts and situations, or just old stories that you haven’t updated in your mind.

 

When you’re at the end of your life, do you think you’ll look back and think, “I’m sure glad I worked so much!” Probably not. In fact, it’s a known fact that the elderly in their last days talk about the regrets they have, and one of those big regrets is usually not taking the time to enjoy life, have fun, and be present with the ones they loved.

We each have about 27,000 days on this earth, give or take. If you consider that a third of those days are reserved for sleeping, and another large percentage makes up your early childhood years which no one can remember, what you’re left with isn’t much!

As the great philosophers have said, realizing how short life is, reminds us to live fully and live presently in the moment! Knowing your time isn’t endless is what makes us value that time so very much. And when you value something, you’re reluctant to waste it.

There are lots of ways to minimize wasted time from the time that each of us has. Off the top of your head, what things can you think of that waste of your time? Watching TV? Staying in a dead-end job that doesn’t fulfill you? Here are some other common ways that you reduce the enjoyment of the time you have:

●  Allowing yourself to become surrounded by negative people who suck the happiness right out of you. It pays to make the decision to show these people the door. When all of that negative energy isn’t taking up space around you, you have the space to let in so much positive energy!

●  Complaining about things you have no control over. There are things you can control, and many, many situations that you can’t control. Take control of what you can to make your life better, but stop complaining and worrying about those things you simply can’t control.

●  Being afraid to ask for help when you need it will increase those feelings of isolation and aloneness. There is no shame in asking for help, and when you do, you allow someone else the amazing feeling of giving that help.

●  Don’t let anyone other than you dictate how you live your life. These people who offer friendly (or not so friendly) “advice” are usually feeling pretty bad about their own situation.

●  Chasing money, or happiness of the moment, rather than long-term happiness and the true meaning of life. Money is simply a conduit to those experiences that fulfill you and fill you with joy. Use it for it’s intended purpose, but don’t chase it just to have more of it.

Take Charge of Your Life!