Tips to Cultivate Positivity

Life can get tough. Through all of the responsibilities in life, it can be really hard not to fall into a cycle that feels like you’re just trying to get through the next day. Although responsibility is normal and we all fall into those ruts, it is important to be intentional about keeping ourselves mentally and physically healthy. Here are 3 tips to help you cultivate more positive feelings on the day to day basis.

Schedule Positive Activities.

This one can be fun because you get to plan things to look forward to. One way I recommend practicing this is sitting down at the beginning of each month and coming up with at least 2-3 things for the month that you can enjoy. This could be big things such as a trip or concert, or smaller things like planning to take a half day at work or going to your favorite café. The hope is that you’ll have these in the back of your mind as you go through the month which will help you to feel more encouraged and excited during those harder or more mundane days. If we don’t schedule positive activities, it can be easy to go through weeks or months without doing anything for yourself. We all need those pockets of fun and enjoyment in our lives. This is a good place to start if you notice you’ve been struggling in this area.

Practice Gratitude

Practicing gratitude is something we all know how to do, but we probably can do more of. Gratitude is literally the idea of being grateful or thankful. Being intentional about daily gratitude helps frame your life in a more positive light, because you’re focusing on the good. For some people, prayer or meditation is a good way to practice gratitude, or for others making a list or journaling is a better fit. To do this, you want to focus on good parts of your day. Some examples could be; ‘the sun is out, work went well, I talked to my friend, my trip was fun’. As you can tell, you can focus on a range of things that can be small or big. You can do this in any way that makes sense and feels good to you, but practicing gratitude is a great option for something you can do to lift your spirits on the day to day basis that doesn’t take much time.

Acknowledge the Small Wins

A lot of times we’re focused on getting to the next big accomplishment. Graduation, then getting that job, then getting promoted, getting married, having children, and so on. For some people it may take longer to get to some of those accomplishments, or you can reach them all very quickly and then feel like there’s nothing for you to look forward to. When you acknowledge small wins, you look to your daily life for fulfillment rather than long term goals. A small win may feel less important because it’s not a huge milestone, but a win is a win, and when you take the time out to praise yourself it can help you to cultivate positivity, confidence, and self-esteem. Take some time to think of some recent small wins. Did you celebrate or did you move past them quickly? This is a great way to feel positively about yourself while also normalizing the way it feels to be doing well outside of some of those larger milestones’ society deems important.

I hope these tips are helpful. Although we can’t control our lives, we can be intentional about what we focus on. These tips help you to focus on the positive, despite whatever else may be happening. Remember- what we water will grow.