How to lean positive all day, every day
You can learn to be positive. It’s one of the many benefits of a mindfulness meditation practice.
Default Negative: It’s not your fault
If you’ve been called “not positive” in the past, indulge me this Robin Williams-Good Will Hunting moment:
It’s not your fault.
Our brains have a built-in negativity bias dating back to the cavemen. Back then, cavemen had to kill and gather their own food. More important than worrying about a T-Rex trampling their herb garden, they had to survive being killed by bigger, stronger and faster predators. So, if they heard a sound while out gathering berries, they were much likelier to live to talk about it if they feared the worst and immediately hid or ran. They also had to protect their prized kills—from other animals and competing cavemen clans. That kill had to be protected and made to last until the next one. So being on 24×7 anxiety alert was key to survival.
Sure, we’ve evolved since then, but our brain structures, not so much. We still have the fight, flee or freeze response when threats, imagined or real arise. So, in our lives, including in the business world, our wiring leans toward the negative, darkening our moods, outlook and self-perception.
For example, in the finance world, the default is often controlling costs before investing in new initiatives without a guaranteed ROI. While this tendency might be great for survival, it doesn’t help us thrive and contributes to anxiety disorders and overly fear-based decisions.
Mindfulness Rewires Your Brain for Positivity
An active mindfulness practice creates a self-awareness on what’s currently present for you. That can include positive things. That can range from a favorable quarterly report, the successful completion of a difficult email, or a pleasant exchange with a co-worker in the cafeteria.
Mindfulness can help you lock in that positive experience, because it positively changes your brain’s physiology. Over time, positivity becomes second nature because it’s now hardwired.
How it works
- Acknowledge – If you have a positive experience, big or small, recognize it and let yourself be with it.
- Savor – Take 10-20-30 seconds or more to enjoy your positive experience (e.g., completing a report that was favorably received). Really feel it in mind and body. Try to feel it as intensely as possible.
- Soak – Pretend that positive experience is a liquid and it’s soaking into every pore of your body, like water into a sponge. Let that experience become part of you.
How the positivity sticks
“Take in the good” in the good multiple times per day. Literally every time you see, hear or feel it. Then rinse and repeat. Mother Nature will then take its course.
In his book, Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence, Rick Hanson, Ph.D. refers to this as Self-Directed Neuroplasticity.
Dr. Hanson states, “How you use your mind sculpts your brain. It’s like building a muscle: if you get a bunch of neurons firing together for positive experiences, which will build new neural structures. The more you take in the good, the more your brain will change for the better.
Benefits
Adopting a more positive outlook enabled by an active mindfulness practice considerably increases the likelihood of happy moments in your day. It just takes self-awareness and practice. Dan Harris, former anchor of ABC’s Nightline, wrote a whole book about this path to positivity via mindfulness, 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Really Works – a True Story.
It’s part of why one of the 12 EQ competencies is “Positive Outlook,” which is “the ability to see the positive in people, situations and events, and our persistence in pursuing goals despite obstacles and setbacks”. Cultivating a positive outlook will lead to your happiness and more effective leadership, which reminds me of a quote from Abraham Lincoln:
“Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
Becoming a happier person and a more effective leader can be as simple as making the choice to do so, with a little help from a daily mindfulness practice.
To start on your mindfulness journey, check out our Resources section for a guided meditation.
