What is Positive Thinking and How Does it Works

Often time, we heard peo­ple talk­ing about ‘Pos­i­tive Think­ing’, like how pow­er­ful it is and how the pos­i­tive think­ing can change a person’s life and so forth, before putting the pow­ers of pos­i­tive think­ing to work in your per­sonal and pro­fes­sional life, you must first under­stand exactly what pos­i­tive think­ing is.

By def­i­n­i­tion, the word pos­i­tive means deal­ing with mat­ters of fact; expressed clearly, or in a con­fi­dent or peremp­tory man­ner. How­ever, in the con­cept of pos­i­tive think­ing, the word pos­i­tive is meant to sig­nify a man­ner of think­ing: a man­ner that puts empha­sis on pro­cess­ing thoughts in a more desir­able, upbeat way. Pos­i­tive think­ing can be described as the prac­tice of embrac­ing the affir­ma­tive in our thoughts, our feel­ings, our actions, our reac­tions and our speech.

Pos­i­tive think­ing can also be described as a type of atti­tude. Happy, opti­mistic peo­ple are usu­ally described as hav­ing pos­i­tive atti­tudes and express­ing pos­i­tive thoughts. Peo­ple who con­sis­tently “look on the bright side” are uti­liz­ing pos­i­tive thinking.

Most impor­tantly, pos­i­tive think­ing can be described as a skill that can be acquired by any­one. By learn­ing the process of pos­i­tive think­ing, you can more eas­ily reach your goals, whether they are per­sonal or pro­fes­sional ones.

So, in one sen­tence, pos­i­tive think­ing is the act of review­ing thought processes and per­sonal actions for areas that need improve­ment and for areas with neg­a­tive impli­ca­tions, and then using the appro­pri­ate tools to change those thoughts or actions in a pos­i­tive, goal-oriented way.

How does pos­i­tive think­ing work?

Pos­i­tive think­ing begins with a con­scious desire to pay atten­tion to and rec­og­nize the affir­ma­tive in any given sit­u­a­tion. Once the affir­ma­tive, or pos­i­tive trait, of a sit­u­a­tion or thought can be rec­og­nized, then the process of pos­i­tive think­ing can be uti­lized. In essence, the abil­ity to pin­point and uti­lize the pos­i­tive in your thoughts and actions enables you to bet­ter reach your goals, real­ize your dreams and make a pos­i­tive impact on all of your endeavors.

The actual process of pos­i­tive think­ing works to bring about desired out­comes in both our per­sonal life and our pro­fes­sional life in a vari­ety of ways.

By act­ing in a pos­i­tive way, you nat­u­rally draw pos­i­tive peo­ple to yourselves.

By believ­ing in pos­i­tive out­comes, you more read­ily accept them as fact and open your­selves to their reality.

By think­ing pos­i­tive thoughts, you are bet­ter able to see alter­nate, more advan­ta­geous routes to take.

And by truly accept­ing a pos­i­tive way of think­ing, you are bet­ter able to see the path to suc­cess and bet­ter able to use our know-how to get there.

You know, the basic mechan­ics of pos­i­tive think­ing are sim­ple — the process involves con­sciously search­ing for the affir­ma­tive in any sit­u­a­tion, rec­og­niz­ing the ben­e­fits of each pos­i­tive trait and then employ­ing a can-do atti­tude to fol­low through on these pos­i­tive thoughts.

For exam­ple, Bill has been carv­ing wood as a hobby for over twelve years. Recently, Bill decided to write a short, infor­ma­tional guide to wood­carv­ing and sell it on the inter­net as a source of extra income. So he used his sav­ings to have the guide pro­fes­sion­ally writ­ten, to have a web site designed and to buy some ban­ner adver­tis­ing for his new site. Although Bill had a fair num­ber of vis­i­tors to his site his guide was not selling.

After one month Bill decided his idea was hope­less and was ready to give up. His wife, how­ever, believed whole­heart­edly in the guide and wasn’t ready to see Bill quit. After con­vinc­ing Bill to try it her way, they sat down and made a list.

First, Bill and his wife made a list of all the good points of the guide. After look­ing at the results of Bill’s ini­tial research, they both decided that the guide was a good source of basic infor­ma­tion for peo­ple who were new to wood­carv­ing. After real­iz­ing this, Bill decided to focus his sell­ing tech­niques on begin­ning wood­carvers. Next, they looked for mar­kets that catered to wood­carv­ing beginners.

Instead of decid­ing that the web site wasn’t work­ing and call­ing it quits, Bill decided to look for fresh and inno­v­a­tive ways to mar­ket his guide.

Dur­ing this search, he hap­pened upon a web site that spe­cial­ized in wood­carv­ing tool kits for begin­ners. Upon see­ing the site, Bill’s pos­i­tive think­ing wife knew two things, one is that there was a mar­ket for Bill’s guide and two, that with a lit­tle cre­ativ­ity, the tool site’s cus­tomers could become their customers.

Excited by the pos­si­bil­i­ties, Bill’s wife con­tacted the own­ers of the tool site and struck an agree­ment. In exchange for pro­vid­ing a link to the wood­carv­ing tool web site, that site pro­vided a link for buy­ing Bill’s guide, within a few weeks, Bill’s sales increased dra­mat­i­cally, buoyed by con­fi­dence, Bill began con­tact­ing other mar­kets and increas­ing his affil­i­a­tions and refer­rals.

See, pos­i­tive think­ing can work when you remem­ber to fol­low the basics. Bill’s wife decided to search for a pos­i­tive trait in the guide instead of dis­miss­ing it as unwanted in the wood­carv­ing field. Used the power of pos­i­tive think­ing to fol­low through on his goals. By focus­ing on the pos­i­tive ben­e­fits of his endeav­ors, Bill was able to har­ness the con­fi­dence nec­es­sary to con­tinue work­ing towards his desired outcomes.