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How to be a more Positive YOU!
Have you gotten in the habit of believing the worst about yourself? Maybe someone talked mean to you when you were a kid, and you can’t shake the things they said. Or perhaps you feel like you’re always messing up… or maybe your bestie really betrayed you and now you don’t know who to trust.
Wherever they come from, feelings of self doubt, self hate and sadness can totally weigh us down.
It’s easy to get trapped in ways of thinking that keep us in dark places, and we end up thinking that’s where we have to stay. Somehow, it’s easier to put ourselves down than not - as Julia Roberts put it in Pretty Woman: “The bad stuff is easier to believe.” Why?
What’s going on?
Our world is filled with messages about how to look, think and live better. Even this website has a bunch of articles about how you can improve your appearance and health. We do it ‘cause we love you, honest! - but know that in a world filled with ‘voices’, it can be hard to hear your own. And when we do, it often tells us we need to try a little harder, weigh a little less, workout more, buy more stuff.
It’s getting harder and harder to just be content, and enjoy the life we’re living. How can we let ourselves off the hook and just chill for a bit?
It’s not my fault!
It takes a while to trust people when we’ve been hurt - if we’ve started to think down about ourselves as a result of bad experiences with friends for example, it’s really hard not to let those feelings and insecurities affect new friendships.
If you’ve ever been bullied, or put down by another person, it can be really hard to be positive about yourself. If someone tells you something often enough, it’s understandable you might start to think they’re right after a while. Like, if someone tells you you’re fat and ugly over and over it can totally destroy your confidence. There are people who spend their whole lives feeling like ‘the fat kid’, all because someone teased them when they were young. Not cool!
Though other people can have a huge impact on how we see ourselves, blaming them won’t make us happy. Choosing to think differently will.
Be your own bestie!
When we’re constantly down on ourselves, it’s like we reinforce our insecurities - even make them worse. Ever hung out with someone who’s always putting themselves down? Often it’s like nothing you say or do can change their mind! Seeing yourself in a positive way can start with something as simple as not talking negatively about yourself to other people.
Instead of saying things like:
“I’m so fat, I hate my thighs”, “I always mess up”, “No one ever wants to hang out with me, I’m such a loser”
STOP. When you feel the words creeping to the tip of your tongue, don’t let them out! As soon as you speak them, you put yourself down - and no one benefits. Not you, not the person you’re talking to, not anyone.
When we like someone, we talk well about them. Even if they mess up we defend them in front of other people. Learning to do that for ourselves is a really good first step to being more positive and loving who we are.
It takes time.
Breaking negative thinking habits can be the hardest thing ever, but our minds have so much power over how we live our lives. Keeping them full of positive thoughts, not negative ones makes a huge difference to how we live. Think of negative thoughts like ‘weeds’ - things to be removed so good stuff can grow instead. It can be slow and a little messy weeding out the bad stuff, but it’s totally worth it!
If you’ve been in the habit of putting yourself down for a while, it might take time to turn it around. Give yourself a little room to make mistakes, and don’t get down on yourself it when it’s hard. Change hardly ever happens ‘just like that’ - it takes time to change how we see ourselves. Its like a kid learning to walk. They take a while to find their balance, and they fall down a lot. But you don’t tell them to stop trying… You celebrate the progress they’ve made!
Try this. Ok, so we’ve worked out that:
a) Blaming other people for how we see ourselves won’t make us happy
b) Putting ourselves down does more harm than good
c) It takes time to change
We’re going to focus on the positive, not the negative for a second! Grab a pen and write a list of 10 things you like about yourself.
It sounds cheesy, and you might find it hard to do, but even if one of the things you like is how you pick your nose and flick it when no one’s looking, write it down. At the end, you should have a list of at least 10 things you love about you.
Next time you start to get down about yourself, pull out the list and have a read. Changing how we feel about ourselves takes practise, and it takes time. This might not totally change how you see things, but it’s a start.
Note: You might even find there are MORE than 10 things you like about yourself - the list can be as long as you want!
Check out more Positive You articles
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i agree, it made me smile too  Posted by 10415 "on" 03/05 "at"09:25 PM |
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my real name is briar but i like to be called bri or something that maks me feel good aboute my self u see i have trubble with my self asteam as i grew up with bolling due to my dissabilatey Posted by briar "on" 02/08 "at"11:07 AM |
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Made me smile(: Posted by Jaay. "on" 01/03 "at"08:11 PM |
Best of the rest
