This edition first published 2019.
© 2019 Gill Hasson
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hasson, Gill, author.
Title: Positive thinking pocketbook : little exercises for a happy and successful life / Gill Hasson.
Description: Hoboken : Capstone, 2019. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2018046260 (print) | LCCN 2018052956 (ebook) | ISBN 9780857087515 (Adobe PDF) | ISBN 9780857087409 (ePub) | ISBN 9780857087546 (paperback) | ISBN 9780857087515 (ePDF)
Subjects: LCSH: Self-actualization (Psychology) | Positive psychology. | BISAC: SELF-HELP / General.
Classification: LCC BF637.S4 (ebook) | LCC BF637.S4 H368 2019 (print) | DDC 155.2—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018046260
Cover Design and Illustration: Wiley
Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself. Plato
Is it true that if you can change your thinking, you can change your life?
Yes. It's true.
Anything and everything can be explained in both positive and negative ways. Negative thoughts interpret ideas or events in a pessimistic way and can cause you to get stuck in feelings such as fear, anxiety, disappointment, guilt and resentment. Positive thoughts, meanwhile, can positively influence how you feel and how you respond to situations. In a range of situations and circumstances in your life, positive thinking encourages you to feel capable and optimistic.
A couple of years ago I wrote a book titled Positive Thinking: Find happiness and achieve your goals through the power of positive thought. A number of people got in touch to tell me how much they'd gained from the book; that one way or another, they could see how learning to think positively would be a game changer for them – that positive thinking could effect a significant shift in their current way of doing and thinking about things and change their lives for the better.
Readers said that they particularly liked the practical activities and exercises, tips, techniques and strategies. This book, Positive Thinking Pocketbook includes many of those activities and exercises, tips, techniques and strategies.
It's the fourth in my series of Pocketbooks. Just like the others, with Positive Thinking Pocketbook you can, as one reader wrote ‘dip in and out of it and read a page – any page – at a time, so there's none of that discipline needed to sit down and read a whole book properly. Good for lazy people like me!’
There are four parts to this book.
Part One: Positive thinking vs negative thinking
Part Two: Positive thinking and positive action
Part Three: Making positive thinking a habit
Part Four: Positive thinking for difficult situations
Part One explains the difference between positive and negative thinking and explains why we think in negative ways. It suggests ways to recognise and challenge negative thinking and to move on to more positive ways of thinking.
Can you achieve and get what you want in life simply by thinking positive thoughts? No, you can't. Positive thinking alone won't get you what you want; you can't just think about what you want and how you want things to be and hope to attract it. Instead, positive thinking means being proactive; in a range of situations and circumstances, positive thinking needs to be followed by positive action. The chapters in Part Two explain what you can do to turn positive thoughts into positive outcomes.
Positive thinking requires practice. The more you think and behave in positive ways, the sooner it will become your normal way of thinking and behaving. As well as suggesting positive ways to relate to other people, Part Three explains how small, simple changes to the words you use can make a big difference to the way you think – they can really help you think and behave in helpful, positive ways.
So, does all this mean that if you become a positive thinker, life will always be good? No. Having a positive, optimistic outlook doesn't mean that you are always feeling good and happy. People who are positive still have worries, they still feel sad, disappointed, guilty, angry and so on. But their positive outlook prevents them from getting stuck in unhelpful thoughts and enables them to manage difficulties in a way that doesn't drag them down even further.
Part Four recognises that life is often difficult and sometimes very tough. And that's when you really need positive thinking. In Part Four you'll find a range of difficult scenarios and positive helpful suggestions for managing difficult emotions, disappointments and setbacks, trauma and tragedy.
Positive Thinking Pocketbook has over 100 simple tips, techniques, ideas and suggestions for a wide range of situations where positive thinking can really make a difference. Keep this book in your bag or your pocket for whenever you need to feel more positive. You'll find that the tips, techniques, ideas and suggestions in this book really can help you think and act positively.
As the musician and singer Willie Nelson said, ‘Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results.’
Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results. —Willie Nelson
Positive thinking can be understood in terms of an ‘explanatory style’. Your explanatory style is how you explain situations and events; how you interpret, make sense and meaning of how and why things do and don't happen.
When you interpret an event, a situation or circumstances in a positive way, you take a favourable view of past, present and future events, situations and circumstances. You're likely to look for the best in other people, and to view yourself and your abilities in a positive light. You're optimistic – you expect a favourable outcome for future events. You're not unrealistic though – you know that things don't always work out. But if things go wrong – when there are problems – you don't dwell on them; instead you look for positive solutions. You also look for the silver linings; you recognise that often, challenges and difficult situations have a positive aspect to them.
However, if you have a negative way of explaining and interpreting things, you resign yourself to having no control over or solutions to problems. Negative thinkers are pessimistic – they tend to see and anticipate difficulties and problems. In a variety of situations, if you think in negative ways, you may see yourself as a victim; you feel that you've been deceived or cheated and you look to lay blame when things go wrong. Even when good things happen, negative thinkers tend to notice and dwell on the negative parts – the not so good aspects – of a situation.
Let negative thoughts take a hold, and in a variety of situations, you're likely to feel overwhelmed and powerless. But if you can think positively, you'll feel able to manage and do well.
You are what you think. And what you think, you are. —Author unknown
If positive thinking is the most helpful, beneficial way to think, why, then, do we think in negative ways? Negative thoughts are integral parts of emotions such as fear, anxiety, disappointment, guilt, regret, resentment and jealousy. These emotions often include thoughts such as ‘I can't do it’. ‘It's not fair’. ‘I'm such an idiot’. ‘It's their fault’. ‘Nothing ever goes right for me’. ‘I wish I hadn't done that’.
Because emotions such as fear, worry and guilt make us feel bad, we usually think of them as ‘negative emotions’. And yet these emotions, like all other emotions, do actually have a positive intent.
Take, for example, the emotion of guilt. Typically, the thoughts that accompany guilt are ‘I've screwed up, I shouldn't have done that, it's my fault. I feel bad about what I did’. How can this way of thinking be positive? Well, the positive intent of guilt is to prompt you to recognise your wrongdoing and to do something to put it right or make up for what you did. If, though, you simply wallow in your guilt, berate yourself for what you did wrong or ignore or deny how you feel, then your thoughts and actions (or lack of action) remain negative. They do you no good.
The positive intentions of ‘negative’ emotions act in the same way as the positive intention of physical pain. If you touch something really hot, the pain makes you pull away; it feels bad, but the positive intention of that pain is to protect you. It's the same with emotional pain – it can prompt you to think of positive ways you can take positive action.
And not only can an emotion such as guilt make you feel bad and prompt you to respond positively, the fact that you know that guilt can make you feel bad can actually motivate you, too. It can motivate you not to do something in future that could result in you feeling guilty!