5 Proven Actions to Fan the Flame of Positivity

You cultivate a soaring attitude when you practice positivity—even when there are those in your life who are negative and try to throw a wet blanket over your positivity.

You cannot control what others do around you, but you can control how you respond to your circumstances.

There five actions I took to counter the threat of negativity and discouragement during my detour. These actions work today as I continue to face a range of negative threats to a soaring attitude.

Action #1: Make your room great

You may not be able to control the temperature in the whole house around you, but you can control the temperature in your own room—the place where you play, your specific role at work, the place where you serve, your circle of friends, and the inputs you allow to enter your life through your eyes and ears.

Every day, when I woke up, my goal was to do something positive with the time I had and to find a way to add value to others. I had the freedom to sit in front of the TV all day, eat barbecue chips, and let life pass me by. But that would not have contributed to making my room great. I learned to tune out the negativity around me and stay focused on what I could control.

Action #2: Differentiate melancholy from negativity

A lot of “positive talk” fails to acknowledge the presence of legitimate loss and the emotional roller coaster that inevitably comes with adversity. If your positivity is a fluffy sentimentalism that says, “Let’s just be happy all the time,” it’s not the positivity I’m talking about. My positivity had room for melancholy and sadness as an unavoidable part of human experience.

The positivity I’m talking about is not the absence of adversity but a belief that you’ll get through what you’re going through, that people will show up to help at just the right time, and that there are resources you haven’t yet tapped into (including divine aid).

Real positivity believes in growth amidst hardship and fights against the downward pull of the feeling that life will never get better and nobody cares.

Action #3: Be the change you want to see

Mahatma Gandhi famously said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” The change I wanted to see was that I would be positive and hopeful in all my speaking, thinking, praying, believing, and responding. I learned to avoid being pulled down by the negativity surrounding me.

I chose to focus on positive self-talk, the good, the best, the pure, and the beautiful. Negativity is a powerful force, but I learned that I could also be powerful when I let my light shine brightly. I learned to live with true hope that said…

Things can and will get better!

Action #4: Invite others to join you

You can’t directly change other people, but you can change yourself—and, by doing that, you just might influence others to choose to make their own change. If your life radiates a peaceful spirit, a strong faith, a persevering attitude, and kind words and actions, others will take notice.

There is something magnetic about people who live what they believe and boldly invite others to join them in that way of living.

Positive people make an upward-pointing attitude believable.

Action #5: If others fail to join you, press on

Positivity believes in a bright future and the difference one life can make. No one is born with a positive attitude. Some people are more optimistic by temperament, but, no matter who you are, you can cultivate positivity by practicing it every single day.

Throughout the toughest days of my detour, I learned to focus on what brought life instead of on what drained me of energy and optimism. When surgeries revealed more problems, when my recovery was met by major setbacks, when work opportunities vanished into thin air, I focused on what I had left and who I wanted to be that day.

What factor speaks most directly to you and your situation?

What is the next step you need to take to move towards greater positivity?

Order your copy of Detour: A Roadmap For When Life Gets Rerouted for help navigating your own detour. Everyone needs a tour guide when traveling adversities road.