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Mindset is one of the most underrated but most powerful tools in our arsenal. A mindset can change everything, from a thought, an emotion even to an action. This all depends on where your state of mind is. If you wake up one morning and look at your calendar and see you have a busy day ahead, this could make you stressed and put you in a negative state of mind, even before your day has properly begun. Due to you currently being in this negative mindset you are more likely to have a bad day. The way this works is that you will subconsciously notice more negative things throughout your day than positive all because of this mindset. What your brain is doing is trying to justify that initial limiting belief, so you may notice things that you would have not noticed if you were in a different mindset.
A positive mindset will work in the exact same way. If you wake up with the thought that today is going to be a good day, you will be subconsciously looking for things to make that day a good day.
Now, you are in charge of your own mindset, you have the power to change and challenge your mindset throughout the day. It could almost feel as if you are having an argument with yourself in your head. If you wake up feeling like today is going to be a bad day, challenge that negative thought, ‘Why is today going to be a bad day? How could you possibly know what the world has in store for you?’ You could wake with that mindset to then find out that you have a slice of left-over pizza ready for your breakfast, you may have forgotten that you got that bottle of freshly squeeze orange juice ready for you in the fridge, you could even get your dream job! I use this example with my clients all the time, yes you could have a bad morning, but does that mean you are going to have a bad day? If you carry that initial mindset with you then yes.
One thing you can do to help yourself switch mindset is look for things that make you happy. Look around the room, look outside your window, look at your photos on your phone and find something that is going to make you smile. Something that I personally do to help shift my mindset is ask myself ‘What am I grateful for?’ (we will be looking at gratitude more closely in a different blog) what this question does is allows me to look at my life, the events that happened, the people who are in it, the memories that we have shared, and it makes me really appreciate what I have. Which helps switch my mindset into a more positive one by reminding myself of all the amazing things that have happened in life and makes me excited for the even more amazing things that could come.
The events that make a day good or bad do not have to be huge things. It could literally be enjoying a cup of tea or coffee, the postman smiling at us, a memory or photo, or even your favourite song coming on in the car you just must open your eyes and look for these positive things because I can guarantee there will be something, you just have to search for it. Another great tip that I use with my clients, is to look back at your day before going to bed and looking for ‘3 good things that have happened today’ – this gets them to look back at their day and really reflect on what has happened, sometimes this task is easy and they may be able to list more than 3 things, sometimes it is hard BUT they will be able to find those three things, they just need to look a little harder.
Yes, people can have bad days and it can be hard to move past that mindset. We are all human, but it is impossible to say what kind of day we are going to have as we have no control over what is going to happen to us that day, but we do have the power to change how we think about it and how that we are going to let it affect us.