How to master the art of positive thinking 

By Siddharth Cheema

‘Positive thinking’ – two words that nearly every teenager, adult or child knows. But, hardly any of them understand its use in the right situation. There are a lot of questions and wrong perceptions about the same for sure. ‘What is positive thinking?’ ‘Why is it important?’ ‘Why do humans lack this skill?’ ‘How can this affect our personal and professional life?’ ‘How can one create a positive mind set?’ 

I will try and answer these questions.

Positive thinking is a state of mind or in simple language: a feeling of happiness and positivity. It can be seen as a folder which includes positive thoughts, calming memories and moments that give us happiness whether it is real or just a speck of imagination. All of these combined, create a mind-set that we can call positive thinking.

The reason it is important is because this acts as a fuel for our everyday activities. It brings out several human capabilities that we weren’t even aware of. Positive thinking can increase the working capacity of a human and create better surroundings, for us as individuals and as well as for our friends, family, colleagues, etc. Having a positive mind set can help us control many of our habits and lead us to achieve many goals. It may even improve our life expectancy!

All of this sounds pretty good, right? But then why do we lack this power? The simple reason is: Our minds tend to bend towards the negative thoughts rather than the positive ones. Our brain often tries to find excuses to not take a step forward and in that process, neglects all the positive thoughts that encourage us. The root cause of this misguided thought process is overthinking.

When we think too much about a situation or a problem, it leads to a negative thought. The fear of failure makes us think about things that haven’t even happened yet. It is basically our creation of a negative virtual future.

We never live in the present. We either think about the past or the future. This is the reason that we never enjoy the present and invite negativity. But then, can we tackle this problem? Can we stop overthinking? No, we can’t. But, we can simply pick the happiest thought at that time and allow our mind to ponder over that instead.

The learning is to try to look at the bright side of things or situations. Whenever you’re feeling low, just think about a calming or a happy thought. Remember: “A ray of light can be found even in the darkest of times, we just need to convert the beaker full of negative energy into positive energy and then use it to serve the greater good”