People may assume the phrases of “be positive!”, “see good in others”, “you can’t have positive outcome with negative attitude”, “have a positive mindset” are overused—if not mainstream, that they lost the true meaning. Nevertheless, before you claim so, you should know why people expect others and encourage themselves to be positive!
Actually, how we see things (even ourselves) will greatly impact the physical world around us. Ever met someone whose spirit is way younger than their actual age that you can’t believe they are older than you? Next time you encounter this kind of person, check their mindset! Or else, check yours! Take a look at your thinking pattern lately or in a certain period of time, what you have been focusing on, be it with positive or negative mindset, would turn out become the things you expand in your life. Someone whose performance are near to excellent at work, most likely have a positive mindset towards their works, equipped with spirit to learn. On the other hand, the one who always complains would tend to experience more things to complain about.
Neuroscientists explained, any repetitive thoughts and beliefs would create neural pathways in our mind, and through this process our neurons would recognise and mark these particular thoughts and beliefs. So, once the thoughts reappear, the neural pathways that have been formed before would become stronger. This is why our mindset would establish its “go-to” pattern and in result, we have our own perceptions on things. If you know the whole detailed process about how neurologically our thoughts and perspective are formed in our mind, you would become familiar and understand about different perspective of others’, since there are just so many factors that influence our perception to begin with. Therefore, we can never really force others to believe in anything that we consider as “true”, or “real”.
The good news is, our neural pathways are changeable. Meaning that, in order to have a more significant change in outcome, we can begin by rebuilding new beliefs or thoughts in our mind and voila, new neural pathways are created! So, if you right now are having a negative mental thinking about your goals that you become very pessimistic about achieving them, then you always have a chance to establish a more positive mindset and become optimistic about the outcome. Now that you have the power, it is your call whether you want to take command of your thought and be the creator of your own reality, or you just want to be passive, stay in your negative vibe, and follow the external impulses.
One thing to pay attention to is, sometimes being passive about our thoughts is not a mistake at all as long as we are already aligned with our positive attitude. For instance, we feel good about our job, always motivated to meet the standards without humiliating our colleagues, we are keen to learn, open-minded, and also known as a very supportive counterpart—thus we get ahead in our career. In this case, you do not really have to change your mindset, it is okay to be passive and depend ourselves on autopilot unconsciousness, unless we want changes in our career. But if we keep on encountering painful and bad experiences in the course of your life, then you should not be a passive person who wishes to attract more luck that may (or may not) come to your doorstep one day without changing your mindset and attitude Sorry but the universe does not work that way!
As mentioned before, our perceptions of ourselves greatly impact our physical world and fortunately this is true. As human beings, you can be the best version of yourself with a set or capabilities you believe you are able to achieve—set your mental thinking to believe that everything is possible. An experiment conducted in 1979 proved that, even our perception of reality can impact the ageing process. During the experiment, participants aged 75 years old were placed somewhere that was set in the 1950s. Every single detail in that area was adjusted in the era of 1950s, from the newspaper, books, pictures, and etc. They consciously aware that they actually lived in 1979 but the examiner told them to talk and behave like they did when they were in their 50s to be in line with the whole 1950s setting. In a week time, the 75-year-old participants begun to construct a new mentality believing that they were in their mid 50s, they started to see themselves as younger people due to their behaviour that forced them to act as if they were younger than they actually were. After the experiment, the participants went through a health checkup. The result was so shocking that it showed any improvement in each category, such as increase in stamina and flexibility, as well as improved eyesight and memory condition.
So, be careful with your own thoughts that it would actually become your reality. With our limitations as human beings, why do not we enjoy the rest of our existence by being the best version of ourselves through positive mindset and attitude?