Maintaining a positive attitude can be a real challenge in our world. After all, plenty of bad things happen every day and people will point to those things as irrefutable proof we live in a cruel world where we are at the mercy of everything outside of ourselves and that we have limited control over the grander issues in our lives. Most people point to the crappy circumstances in their own lives as further proof and throw themselves a constant pity party. Anyone who tries to be positive or adopt beliefs that reflect the awesome power we have in shaping our lives will be met with a host of negative responses. You will be called stupid, naive, unrealistic or simple. People will think you are living in some kind of fantasy world and jump to refute your way of thinking any chance they get. It will be easy to start doubting yourself and the level of doubt will be in direct proportion to how strongly you have laid the foundation of your new line of thinking.
Listen, lots of stuff happens in the world and I am in no place to make any definitive statements about why; all I know is that when I started focusing on improving my little corner of the world, the way I thought influenced everything that happened on the outside. Good things happened for me all the time once I started directing my attention towards the things I wanted rather than the things I did not -- maybe a particular opportunity did not pan out in some cases, but the line of thinking still brought me what I wanted in another way. That is all you can do really, is focus on your little corner and work on making it better. And to do that, you need to find ways to reinforce these more friendly beliefs, when you are faced with their exact opposite on a constant basis.
Let's face it, while most people are not completely miserable SOBs, they are generally pretty negative in most lines of thinking. They assume the worst, expect the worst to happen and generally lay the blame on outside circumstances to some degree, when it comes to the problems in their life. Most of the stuff that comes out of their mouths is gossip, complaining, fear-based thoughts and other negative junk. Being surrounded by this way of thinking can really put a dent in your plans to improve your life because all the good stuff trying to take root will have a difficult time making a permanent space in your mind.
You need to minimize this exposure as much as possible. It is difficult for sure, but you must take the opportunity anytime you can. For example, if you frequent internet forums where the topics of discussion lead to conversations geared towards fearful thinking, negative thinking, self-pity and blame, simply leave the site. Do not read the postings. Do not post your own responses. Stop watching the news obsessively -- this idea that if you do not digest every piece of information out there, you are ignorant, ill-informed person is nonsense. What purpose is gathering all of that information serving? Sure, you now know about all of the problems in the world...now what? If it inspires you to act in some way, great. But, let's face it, most of the problems are not something we as just one person can directly solve. So becoming engrossed in all of these happenings is only detracting you from focusing your mind on bettering your own life, which can lead to you being able to do things that may actually help larger numbers of people.
Given all the things working against you, constantly feeding your mind information conducive to leading a better life is not an option. Books, blog posts, spending time with like-minded people, whatever works best for you. Read about the lives of successful people -- this one thing right there is proof enough that this way of thinking is the way to go. Do you think people like Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs got where they were in life by feeling sorry for themselves and thinking their lives were dictated by outside circumstances? No, they did not. So, which way of thinking do you think you should pick? The thinking of these types of people or the majority of people around you living unhappy, unfulfilled lives?
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