Life can be hard sometimes. It’s easy to admit that. It can be difficult to remember all the good that there is in the world when it feels like you’re bearing the weight of the world on your shoulders, whether it be from piles of homework, long hours at work, or personal problems.
I’m somebody who has always found it easier to just go with the flow and be pessimistic whenever life gets me down. Lately though, I’ve been trying to be a more optimistic person, and one thing that has been helping me get closer to my goal is being more grateful. I’ve been doing this through a few different methods, and it’s been helping me a lot.
1. Listing my gratitudes
I love to journal, so it was pretty easy to add a list of daily gratitudes to what I was already writing. I like to list out anything that I found myself being grateful for throughout the day, whether it was big or small.
Some examples from previous lists I’ve made are “riding in the car with the windows down,” “scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast,” and “sitting on the balcony and reading.”
2. Remembering something positive
Like I said above, it’s super easy to be pessimistic. Lately, whenever I catch myself thinking a negative thought, I try to think of something positive right after it happens. It’s not a huge thing, and I’m still working on catching myself every single time it happens, but it’s been helpful so far.
3. Spoken affirmations
The brain is a crazy thing, let me tell you. There are studies that show that spoken self-affirmations can actually help you be more positive and allow you to achieve what your affirmation is about. If you take the time to tell yourself several times, for example, that you’ll pass an exam you have in a few weeks, and take a few minutes out of each day leading up to it to say that affirmation again and again, that you’ll feel more positive and motivated about it.
4. Compliment yourself
Being positive about your own body is hard, no matter who you are. There are always things that seem to tell you that you don’t look good enough or aren’t fit enough or whatever, and all of that pressure can wear down on you.
Something that I started to do to combat this and my image of myself is to look at myself in the mirror each morning and say something positive about myself, such as “You have long eyelashes and they’re really beautiful.” It might feel weird at the beginning (it’s still a little weird for me), but it’ll make you feel more grateful for yourself in the end.