How to use negative thinking in a positive way

Since launching the "Mindset Shift Mini-Course." I've received a lot of emails asking me how to make the positive effects of the course more permanent in their lives.

Most of these messages present a similar issue: 

"I found the course extremely helpful while doing it but I found myself going back to my negative thought patterns just a few days after finishing the course."

I'll address this FAQ in two parts:

  1. The truth of the matter is that the Mindset Shift Course is NOT designed to be a quick fix or the last word on developing an effective mindset. Life is messy and isn't always solved by one specific philosophy or set of rules. I've found the most effective way to make mental strategies and habits stick by taking daily actions and having a variety of tools at my disposal that help me feel balanced and focused.
  2. When I was just starting my journey, I also got discouraged when I found myself thinking "negative thoughts." Over the years, and after some study, I now know that I can use these kind of thoughts to my advantage! Negative thinking does not have to produce a negative outcome.

Because of books like The Secret and The Law of Attraction, many people think that we should never have negative thoughts and that negative thoughts are always a bad thing.

I wholeheartedly disagree. Not only is this idea impractical and stressful, I’ve found that it’s simply not true. We don't need to completely rid ourselves of negative thoughts, we just have to learn how to use them to our advantage. 

3 Ways to Increase Your Happiness

To be clear, this isn't a "get-happy-quick" post. Rather these are some concepts and mindset shifts that you can apply to your life in a way that makes sense for you.

1. Make peace with your past

I used to drive myself crazy trying to figure out why certain things happened the way they did. Usually it was some kind of negative event that I wished had happened differently. I would replay different scenarios in my mind over and over again, wishing I would have said this or done that, etc.

Doing this stole a lot of my happiness. Even if something wonderful was happening in my life at the moment, I couldn’t fully enjoy it because I was mentally stuck in the past.

Have you ever experienced this?

I’m going to tell you something that you already know, but may need to hear again:

No matter how much you dwell on the past, it will never change it. It will only take away from your ability to enjoy the present moment.

Also, obsessing over negative past events makes it more likely that you’ll recreate those same kind of events in the future since that’s where your focus is.

We’ve all had challenging things happen to us—maybe even things that seem unfair or undeserved. I don’t mean to discount these at all. I only want to remind you to focusing on things you cannot control (like the past) greatly diminishes your happiness and focusing on things you can control has the power to increase your happiness.

Does reaching goals actually make you happy?

If you follow my Instagram, you know that I love goals and highly recommend having them. But probably not for the reasons you might think...

No doubt you've heard the saying "Life is about the journey, not the destination." Yes, I know it's a corny cliche. But for good reason... it has a lot of truth.

For instance, you know that place in life you think you need to reach in order to feel like you've "made it?" Your ideal version of success? Picture it. Visualize it. Feel it. Got it? Good.

I hate to break it to you, but someone, somewhere is already at that place and guess what...they don't feel like they've "made it."

In fact, they're probably looking at the person ahead of them saying, "Hey, why am I not THERE yet?"

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