DON'T BE LIKE NANCY, BE LIKE POSITIVE POLLY

How did you start your week?  Either you started like 90% of Americans and thought “not another week” or “I hate Mondays.”  There is a common denominator with most people’s thoughts on a Monday morning, negativity.  While the intentions are not always to think negative, it is engrained in our culture and our habits.  So let’s do something new.  Let’s flip this around and remember that it is a new week.  Whatever happened last week is done, it is in the past.  Monday means RESET.  Lessons were learned, and remember those, but don’t carry the emotional baggage through the Sunday gate.  The first step to starting your week the right way is simple awareness.
                Alright people, time to turn your brains on and think.  Take a sip of that warm dark roast coffee, take a deep breath, and close your eyes.  Think back to the moment your eyes opened this morning.  Think back to the moment you entered the new week.  What were your first thoughts?  What was the first couple of things you did? Alright, now that is done I want you to grab a piece of scrap paper.  Write two columns.  On the left side you are going to write “Up” and on the right side “Down.”  While you are walking back through your thoughts, for every perceived negative thought I want you to write a “+” in the “Down” column.  Do the same thing for all of your neutral and positive thoughts.  I want you to walk through all the way to your first couple of interactions with people.  Make sure you really become aware of what you said to these people.
                Now we have a clear visual aide on how our days and week began.  I would not be surprised if most people had more in the right column than the left.  If you don’t there are probably two reasons.  One is that you already are an extremely happy person or you are like most people and have a hard time categorizing your thoughts.  Don’t be discouraged by this because it is something that can be learned.  It just needs some practice.  And with that let’s figure out how we can modify our beginnings.
                There are a couple EASY ways to flip your week on its head.  The end result we are looking for is a morning filled with positive thoughts.  That right column in our Up/Down table will be blank.  The first thing you need to do is immediately say something positive about yourself.  This needs to be done before you even get out of bed.  If you can, you will get the best results from saying it out loud but simply thinking a positive thought will be effective.  That’s one for the Up column.  Your next step is to walk over to your journal, which everyone should be keeping, and write AT LEAST ONE thing you are grateful for that day.  It can be anything!  You don’t need to overthink this.  “I am grateful for the ability to breathe.”  “I am grateful to be alive.”  “I am grateful for the people in my life, especially my wife.”  Those are just a couple examples but the list can be endless.  So that is the minimum I want you to do.  After completing these very easy and quick items the rest of your day/week will start to flip.  You will begin to see everything through a positive subconscious viewpoint.

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We are all extremely lucky to be alive.  No, tremendously lucky to be alive.  Do you understand how lucky you are?  The odds of you being born are 1 in 400 billion.  That is the greatest lottery of them all, and you won.  Every day you start your day as a winner, remember that and you will have a net positive life.

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