Practice Positive

Did you see the sign posted by the Pope at the entrance to his apartment? It says “No Whining!” Even better is advice at the end of the warning sign “stop complaining and act to change your life for the better”.  I couldn’t agree more!

Recently I came up with 50 Life lessons on my other blog and one of them was don’t complain, act instead. It’s one I need to remind myself often as sometimes I revert to seeing life’s glass as half empty. Continuing our series of behaviors and habits we can modify for mind and memory wellness, this week let’s talk about attitude.

As I have learned and the Pope reminds us, it’s never good to just complain-we need to act instead. Attitude and how we view our lives impacts not only our mood and those around us-it influences our memory wellness too.

A common denominator of those who have aged well with superior cognition in their later years was having a positive outlook on life. Whining and worrying about life is like rocking in a rocking chair, there’s a lot of movement but it gets us nowhere! Instead, let’s act to change our lives for the better.

But how? If your glass skews half-empty, how do we shift to seeing it as being half-full? It’s easy: practice.

Purposefully practice seeing the positives and the bright side even in a gloomy moment. The sun is always behind the clouds somewhere and there’s always something positive about a situation. Instead of cloudy negatives, let’s see the sunny positives. Somedays that’s more difficult than others, but it can be done! Practice this skill and soon it’s a habit not only improving our lives and memories but possibly others too!

Here are a few ways to practice positive daily:

• Plan some fun every day. If you don’t plan it, it may not happen!
• Help yourself by helping others. Helping others not only helps them but gets our minds off ourselves.
• When tempted to worry, complain or think negatively, stop, switch & search for a positive instead.
• Pray, meditate or otherwise let go of the negative and then don’t grab onto it again.
• Celebrate the small. Even the little things are worthy of our attention and helps us focus on the beauty of  everyday.

Let’s not whine, complain and see all of what’s wrong. A daily practice of seeking positive resets our attitude and helps us enjoy our lives and leads to a better memory in the process. It’s a win, win situation and a much healthier way to live for all of us!

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