13th September 2025 is Positive Thinking day. Having an awareness day is good to share ideas on how to think more positively however making this a daily practice is what is really going to make the difference.
Yes and no!
We will naturally search for risk as this is a survival instinct. Therefore we will tend to see danger above beauty.
This worked really well when we lived in caves and there were a lot of dangerous creatures roaming around!
However in modern life, we don’t need to worry about sabre toothed tigers too much, but we still have a tendency to focus on risk. The difference being, often the risk we focus on is not real and is just a thought.
We develop strengths based on what we exercise – and if you exercise the negative mental muscle, that will dominate making it harder to see the positive.
But with a bit of training you can redress that imbalance.
Consider it a bit like going into a mental gym to build up your mental fitness!
Here is an easy workout that when you train regularly, you will start to see the world through a much more positive lens.
Exercise 1: Blue and green!
This is a game I love playing with kids – but it works just as well with adults too!
Take 5 seconds and look around you and see how many blue things you can see.
How many green things did you see?
The point is when you look for things you see them, but you don’t see what else is there.
Remember green and blue when you are aware of seeing things in the negative and remind yourself to look for the ‘green’ things – the positives that will be there, you just need to look for them.
There is a short video on this here that has the most likes of any of my Youtube videos suggesting to me that people relate to it.
Exercise 2: Practice Gratitude
Gratitude is a very powerful emotion and also serves to secrete chemicals into the blood stream that can help build a positive outlook.
A simple gratitude practice is, whilst brushing your teeth at night, reflect on your day and find at least 3 things that you can be grateful for.
They can be little things, like someone letting you out at a junction, or the sun shining, or nice text from a friend.
For more on the toothbrush exercise – how to build an attitude of gratitude, download the free resource here.
3. Flip it
This is the technique that time after time, people say they love the most.
It is so simple….and yet so powerful
Flip it is simply a way to help yourself (and others) to stop going down the path of catastrophising.
When you hear ‘What if…..’ and the rest of the sentence is a negative. You simply respond with the opposite.
For example
“What if I fail my exams?” is responded to by “What if you dont?”
“What if I don’t know any one at the party? is retorted by “What if you do?”
There is more on this ‘what if’ technique in this short video here
I very much used to be a ‘cup half empty’ person. This is not helped by the fact that the news is nearly all negatively oriented. And social media algorithms can feed you posts that are aligned with ones you look at.
However, we can all be in control of changing this.
And by practicing the three techniques above, not only can you fill your cup up, you can help others do the same as the energy you will be emitting can be contagious!
Happy #PositiveThinkingDay!
Caroline Cavanagh, the Anxiety Alchemist, is an anxiety specialist and hypnotherapist in Salisbury, Wiltshire. She is an author and professional speaker and would love to talk to you if you would like to know more about her work.
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