I had recently done some research and surfing about positive thinking and being optimistic in life. Later on, I wrote an article on this topic which entitled ‘Positive Thinking – A Useful Tool For Students’
Now it’s the modern era of our civilization where everything in our life is moving at a rapid pace. With so many things to be worry about, so many social problems to handle and everything to think of, surviving in this modern age will be a tough nut to crack. Humans are bombarded with all kinds of different questions that will arouse their curiosity and hence making them ‘busy’ mentally. It’s always important that we know what we should embed in our minds because it’ll definitely influenced our perceptions and our stands on certain matter in life. All of our feelings, beliefs and knowledge are based on our internal thoughts, both conscious and subconscious. We must always be aware that we are in control. Now, discussing about positive thinking, what is positive thinking? Positive thinking is a mental attitude that admits into the mind thoughts, words and images that are conductive to growth, expansion and success. It is a mental attitude that expects good and favorable results. As Abraham Lincoln once said that, “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Hence, positive thinking is an invaluable and powerful tool for us as students.
Positive thinking is one of the main criteria and the main factor that will enabled a person to achieve success. When we set a goal and dream of success, by being optimistic and always thinking on the bright side, we will never lose sight on our goal and the only thing running in our minds would be I can achieve my goal if I persist and press on. In life, nothing is perfect. So perhaps along path upon achieving our goal, trials and tribulation may occur but with a optimistic mind, we will face all those obstacles with a fearless attitude knowing that we have nothing to lose but lots to gain. Besides, positive thinking will ultimately lead us to be more enthusiastic and passionate on what we are doing. This will also serve as an affirmation on the things that we are doing indicating that we are on the right track.
During any encounter with problems in life, the most important thing that we must advocate is that we must always have confidence in our own self in everything we do. A person who is negative minded will always reject themselves making them incapable of performing appropriately and making the right decision during times of need. As for an optimistic person, they will always identify their weaknesses and their strengths which will make them utilized their strengths well and always make an effort to overcome their weaknesses. Despite all odds, they will always have confidence in themselves and in everything that they do. Without a doubt, this will also make them have the courage to try out new challenges and taking risks, see learning and change as opportunities. And this is what that makes them shine among others during good times and a survivor in hard times. Hence, this shows that positive thinking will polish the diamond in the heart oneself, making them a valuable asset which will contribute towards global growth.
Positive thinking helps with stress management and can even enhance our health. According to some studies, result shows that optimism and pessimism can affect how well we live and amazingly even how long can we live. These personality traits played a crucial role in lives of students as it’ll definitely bring a whole world of good if student cultivate optimism mindset from young. Positive thinking is also a key part of an affective stress management strategy. Students nowadays are having a tough time dealing with their homework, tuitions, pressure from parents, peer pressure and also temptations. If all these stress is not controlled in an orderly manner, this will eventually lead to self negligence, pessimistic, low self esteem, or even commit suicide. Besides, there are some medical research stated that positive thinking will make an impact in our lives as it will reduce risk of coronary artery disease and greater resistance to catching the common cold.
As quoted from Winston Churchill“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” To put it all in a nutshell, positive thinking is an essential tool for students that will open doors to the many opportunities beyond what they can ever imagine as the positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.
So what are the ways that we can help ourselves and stay away from negative thinking? A person who is mainly pessimistic or negative minded tend to self-talk themselves in a negative way. This doesn’t mean that you’re doomed to an unhappy life. All this is just mainly because of your own misconceptions, lack of information and distorted ideas that had overpowered your reasoning and logical thinking which will eventually make you depressed and stress. One that is pessimistic will always filter out every positive things in a sitution and magnify the problem, blaming ownself when something bad occurs, always anticipating the worst and bad things will happen and polarizing every single situation meaning that there will only be good or bad with no middle ground. We can always overcome all this slowly. Firstly, we must always have confidence in ourselves and always challenge your misconceptions or negative thoughts with logic and rationale. This will eventually making your self-talk gradually becoming realistic and also self-affirming. All we have to do is follow one simple rule which is ‘Never say anything to yourself something that you won’t say to others.’ To enable us in doing so, we must have the commitment and determination in doing all these efforts, control of our ownself and challenge ourselves everyday to improve our lives making it colourful and creative.
In the end, I will leave you guys with something to ponder,
‘Is your glass half full or half empty?’