Optimism: an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome. – Merriam-Webster Dictionary

There are three frames of mind where you’ll most often find yourself: optimistic, pessimistic, and apathetic.

Optimism is the feeling or belief allowing the ability to perceive and understand challenges as impermanent and surmountable. In short, optimistic people seek the best outcome in each and every situation.

Contrast this with pessimism. These individuals often perceive challenges as insurmountable roadblocks that make it either impossible or extremely difficult to move forward. Sadly, pessimism takes the prize as the leading cause of broken dreams.

Finally, there is apathy – a lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern. Total, complete indifference is probably the only thing worse than pessimism. Why? Because there is no effort, passion, fight or struggle to be seen in apathetic people.

Now, if we are honest with ourselves, we can admit to feeling all three of these mindsets at some point in our lives. There’s a good chance that we are feeling one of these mindsets right now. The truth is we all need to feel more optimistic and a little more hopeful in our daily lives.

Here are some good reasons to be more optimistic. . .

4 Reasons Optimism is the Ultimate Success Formula

Reason #1: More people will trust and respect you. 

Co-workers, friends, family, and those you interact with will see your positivity and optimism and immediately respect and admire you for it. Trust and respect are two things that no amount of money or power can earn, and are huge factors in your quest for success and happiness.

Reason #2: People will be drawn to you.

When’s the last time you saw a Debbie Downer receiving admiration and praise? Not that you need constant approval from people, but you at least want to seem approachable and likeable. Right?

Optimists have magnetic energy, and people love that.

Reason #3: It is vital to success in anything.

Optimism is irreplaceable for success in business and in life, as optimists are incredibly resilient and strong individuals. They are seen as reliable, trustworthy, respectable, and confident individuals. Obviously, this has a tremendous impact both on what you believe you’re capable of and what others believe you are capable of. People want to know that you believe in yourself before they believe in you.

Reason #4: You are mentally and physically healthier.

When the Mayo Clinic, the top hospital in the United States, is publishing work on the health benefits of positive thinking and optimism, it’s a BIG deal.

Indeed, the organization has reported the following benefits to positive thinking and optimism: increased life span, lower rates of depression, lower rates of distress, greater resistance to illness, better coping with stress, lower risk of death from heart disease, and better overall mental and physical wellbeing.

In conclusion: be more optimistic! Granted, it can be very difficult at times – but it’s doable. It all starts with self-talk or the endless stream of thoughts running through your mind. There are many, many ways to induce more positive thinking into your thoughts– meditation, prayer, rest, exercise, and on and on.

Just find what works best in activating your optimistic brain and stick with it.

Stay optimistic, friends!

Join the Conversation: Why do you stay optimistic?

We all stumble, trip, or fall at certain points in life.  Many people bounce back right away, but some grow depressed, angry, or have difficult times finding their way out of the hole altogether.  No matter how many falls one makes, each one teaches a lesson. How well we learn those lessons determines how well we can bounce back.  Not only does it measure our resilience, it ultimately serves as an integral part of our unique character.

“What defines us is how well we rise after falling.” – Unknown

Now is the time to turn the corner on conquest.  It is your time to rise. 

Here are 5 ways to help you create a better bounce back in life:

yes

1. “Just say no” to no

Sometimes, you may find yourself in an experience where you just don’t feel right.  When you’re experiencing this, don’t be afraid to say no.  This “no” can be delivered to the physical experiences in life where you don’t feel comfortable.  And just as in the physical, it can be to the non-physical, in the form of negative thoughts trying to creep in or find fault in your positive thinking.

Your intuition is guiding you toward your own personal best, not someone else’s.  You deserve to follow that inner guide, and grow into the best “you” that you can be.

2. Reinforce your desires

If you want what you actually want, instead of what you don’t want, it’s important to call in backup for the battle of your mind. The reinforcement you want can be brought about through positive affirmations (click here to read more about them, and how to use them), mirror work, and many other positive thinking practices. You can also find like-minded communities to help you.  No matter what, your goal is to ultimately get out of the funk, or avoid it in the first place altogether.

And if you have a hard time asking for help from others, remember that it’s ok to ask for help from those around you.  Everyone has a perspective on some experience that can provide value.

3. Just say yes to yes

As you reinforce your desires, you’ll find that opportunities for those desires to be attained will come into view.  When these opportunities come, seize them!  If you ordered a salad at dinner and they bring it to you, you wouldn’t normally ask for the soup instead, would you?  Carpe opportunitatem! (Seize the opportunity!)

4. Be grateful, not hateful

When the opportunity arises for you to express angst toward someone, or have a negative attitude, it’s time to press the gratitude button.  If someone cuts you off on the highway, instead of yelling at them and serving the “one figure salute”, take advantage of the current moment to express gratitude for your awareness, or for the function of your vehicle’s brakes.  Remember, no matter what the story, it could always be written worse.

5. Give yourself room to wiggle

If you don’t reach your desired bounce-back point, that’s ok – nobody’s perfect.  Be grateful for the progress you’ve made, any amount gives us growth.  Even if it’s a little bit of regress, it may just be giving you something more to learn before your next big bounce-back.

Here’s to overcoming every challenge life has to offer.   Let’s talk about how you’ve used these tips to your advantage in the discussion below!

Nearly every expert speaks highly of a daily “to-do” list.  This list is supposed to cure stress and make you more productive and successful, right? So, we propose the idea of a different kind of daily list to create success in life.  It’s called  The “Like List Challenge”

Every day you have two choices. You can focus on what you like or what you don’t like. Essentially, you create your life based on where you keep your focus.

With every thought and word, you either add to the “Like List” or the “Do Not Like List”.

Which list are you adding more to right now?

For the next 24 hours,  consciously monitor your thoughts and words. 

Here is how you can take the “Like List Challenge.”

Observe what happens throughout the day, record the daily summary of your thoughts and conversations on paper.

If you find yourself with a large majority on the “Like List”, congratulations! You are allowing positivity to flow through you freely, which will result in more happiness, gratitude, fulfillment, love, and success. Your focus is on the positive direction and you will continue to see more abundance.

If you find yourself adding many items to the opposite list, the “Do Not Like List”, you are creating more limitations on yourself.  The limitations in your life are there because of your focus on negative thoughts.

When you begin to release your limiting belief systems and stop adding to the do not like list, you create space for the things you do want.

It’s very important that through this process you are easy and gentle with yourself. You’re not perfect. You may add to the do not like list sometimes, but that happens. In fact,  to a degree, knowing what we do not want can lead us closer to what we do want. It can give us experience and knowledge so we can grow our “Like List Challenge” circle and ask friends to join in.

Ideally, you want to keep your focus mainly on the “Like List”. Keep your “Do Not Like List” at a minimum, only using it as a tool to understand more about your like list, and adding to it.

Overall, strive to have 75% of your thoughts, words, actions, and reactions positive.

Keeping this strong focus on the things you like, will bring you more of what you like. The same is true for the other list.

So, YES it is really that simple.

You have the ability to allow your mind to be a fresh sheet of paper – a new list. You can write whatever you want on it, whatever feels good to you and is for your highest good.

Take the Like List Challenge and let me know what you find in the comments. Better yet, tag us on Facebook<3

“To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness.” ~Robert Muller

Do you consider yourself to be a forgiving or resentful person? If somebody has hurt you in the past or did something to make you suffer, would you hold on to those past events, thoughts and feelings, or would you just let them go?

I always say that where there is anger, hate, revenge, bitterness, there is also a lot of pain underneath, and I really believe that to be true. A person who is blissful and content with herself and the world around, no matter how many mean people she will encounter and no matter how much pain those people may cause her to feel, she will always respond with love, kindness and compassion instead of anger, hate and resentment.  Loving people know that an eye for an eye would only leave the whole world blind, like Gandhi said it, and they choose to do no harm to the world around them.

“If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives: Be kind anyway. If you are successful you will win some false friends and true enemies: Succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank people will try to cheat you: Be honest anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight: Build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous of you: Be happy anyway. The good you do today, will often be forgotten by tomorrow: Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough: Give your best anyway.” ~Mother Teresa

I know it’s a lot easier to give back exactly what you receive, and in this case, a lot of negativity, but we don’t want to do what’s easier, but rather what is best for our health, our well being and that of those around us. I know that people can be really mean sometimes, and that they can do horrible things to those they come in contact with, to those they love and care about, but I also believe that people can change, and this is why it’s so important to give up on your personal history that you might have had with those people, and allow them to show you just that.

If you keep an inner record of what this/that person did to you, and what they said to you, and how they made you feel, how much pain they may have caused you, etc. , every time you will come into contact with them, you will be reminded of all those things, and you will never be able to forgive and forget, nor to allow them to show you how sorry they are for what happened. No matter if they did all of those things on purpose or not, by holding on to grudge, anger or whatever it is that you are holding on to, you will bring even more pain upon your shoulders.

Just think about it. How is it possible to affect them with your hate, or whatever feelings you have towards them? You sit at home, ruminating about all the times they have mistreated you; and all the times they have hurt you; and all the many horrible things they did to you; making all kind of scenarios in your head about the things you want to tell them, and about the many ways you could get even… You spend most of your time doing just that, when the people you hate so much are probably having the time of their lives, not being affected by your feelings at all. It just doesn’t make any sense. Your ego might tell you that it does, but deep down in your heart you know that what you are doing is pretty crazy and disturbing.

I guess it’s time for you to stop, don’t you think? Forgive and forget, not for them, but for your own sake. Why spend your time thinking about something that would only attract more anger and drain you of your emotional, physical, and mental energy, ignoring all the beauty that is present in and all around you…? What’s done is done. Let it go. Detach yourself from it.

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

One of the many mistakes people make in this case, I would say, is that they choose to hold on to something that is not healthy for them, just because they aren’t willing to let go of some past resentments. Why won’t you let go of something that is causing you so much pain?

“Anger will never disappear so long as thoughts of resentment are cherished in the mind. Anger will disappear just as soon as thoughts of resentment are forgotten.” ~Buddha

Here’s what I would like you to do: take a sheet of paper and a pen, and write down a couple of questions, questions that are meant to help you see things differently, and help you let go of your own misery. After you write each question, try giving an honest answer to each and every one of them:

Who is the person that mistreated you? Is it your mother, your father, your spouse, is it your child, your best friend, your neighbor  your dog, your cat? Who is it?

Do you think they did what they did just to hurt you? Do you think they did it on purpose?

Do you think it’s possible for you to forgive them, and I mean, really forgive them?

Do you think it’s possible for you to forget everything and go back to how things were before?

Would you rather hold on to your anger than go back to being friends? Can you even remember how good it felt to be in their presence, to spend time with them?

Would you say that they are sorry for what they did?

Are you willing to give up on the relationship you had with this person because of what he/she did to you?

Is it worth being upset? Is your ego really that big?

What does your mind tell you to do?

What is your heart telling you to do? 

To whom are you going to listen? Your heart, or your mind?

And then make a decision. You either choose to continue being friends with that person or not. Whatever your decision will be, you will eventually have to let go in order to be happy!

Let go of that friendship, let go of the relationship you had with this person, let go of those past resentments, let go of the hate… let go of that person you once loved. You will have to chose, and no matter what your choice would be, you will eventually free yourself.

And here’s another tip for you. If you choose with your mind, who is so critical and judgmental, and most of the time telling you all kind of crazy things that would only attract even more anger and resentment upon you, you would probably have many regrets afterwards. On the other hand, if you choose with your heart, who is constantly trying to help you see that letting go of all that negativity, would not only bring you freedom but will also help you rediscover the inner peace and happiness. It doesn’t have to be as complicated as your mind is trying to convince you life should be. Simplify your life! Listen to your mind but always follow your heart.

Do you think forgiveness is an act of weakness or of strength? Is there anyone in your life you feel that you have to forgive? You can share your insights by joining the conversation in the comment section below.

With all my love,

Source: Written by Luminita Saviuc of Purpose Fairy, Guest contributor
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