The potential of positive thinking


How successful you are in your personal and professional life is directly related to your attitude.  Positive thinking is essential for reaching your potential.  Positive thinking leads to positive outcomes.  Our work and lives are full of negativity, and it is detrimental to achieving our goals.  Negativity is one of the greatest tragedies of life because it increases your chance of failure.  It is self-fulfilling prophecy.  The key is catching yourself in the act of going negative.  These two techniques will enhance your positive thinking abilities.


The first step is to clarify your V.I.P.S. (Values, Interests, Personality Traits and Skills).  Create a list of five in each category.  This is the starting point for matching who you are with your goals.  Next, write work and life mission statements you can commit to.

Visualization is the powerful prep work that focuses your energy.  When you rehearse in your mind your ideal outcome and plan of attack, you create a neural pathway in the brain so that actions can be taken to achieve it.  This mental movie or image begins to attract everything necessary for the process to unfold.  For example, Olympians visualize their event and then begin to act like Olympians.  There’s an expression, “If you go there in the mind, you will go there in the body.” You have to feel it in your mind before you can experience it in reality.  Stay focused on these movies in your mind so you are not distracted by your mood changes.

Positive Affirmations

Everyone has an internal dialogue that goes on during the day.  We are mostly not conscious of this.  This self-talk can influence our daily life.  If the internal chatter focuses on the negative including fear, anxiety, worry, frustration, anger or pessimism, it tends to manifest in negative outcomes.  Negative self-talk is like cancer; it can spread like wildfire spoiling the present and ruing the future.

If the average person could read a daily transcript of one’s self-talk, they would be horrified by how negative it is.  Negative thinking sends messages to the subconscious part of your brain that sabotages your success.  If you keep telling yourself negative things like, “I can’t do it!  I don’t have the time or money!  It will never work!  I’m not good at it.  I don’t have the skills to do it!” then you begin to set in motion actions that support those thoughts on a conscious and subconscious level.  Don’t tell yourself that you are a loser.  It’s poisonous and unproductive.  Quit listening to the lies you keep telling yourself.  Rid your mind of this scarcity mentality.  Stop the Stinking Thinking!  Focus on abundance.  When you stop criticizing yourself and focus on validating, approving and thinking positively, your results will change.  Positive thinking is essential and not only to you.

Affirmations are motivational declarations that should be concise, specific and personal.  Using positive affirmations can reprogram your mind from pessimistic to optimistic thinking.  It is the conscious mind that sets goals, and the subconscious is the domain of achieving goals.  The subconscious can’t distinguish between real events and events you have only imagined.  It differentiates by how strongly it is embedded which is determined by repetition and emotional energy.  Saying positive affirmation at first may seem weird, but it will become more comfortable and easier over time.  When a negative thought enters your mind, tell yourself, “Erase the tape, erase the tape, erase the tape….” The temptation to think and behave negatively is easy.  It takes self-discipline to be perpetually positive.  If you load up on positive affirmations and stay committed for 90 days, your mind will not know if you are faking it or making it.  Constant repetition of positive affirmations creates a belief.

Positive affirmations can improve your belief system.  Beliefs are located in the sub-conscious and tend to be self-fulfilling because habits are stronger than desires.  You may desire to achieve a goal, but if you have a bad habit of thinking negatively, it is unlikely the goal will ever be achieved because you will take no lasting actions toward achieving the goal.  Your habits not your desires, run your actions.  Your job is to align your goals with positive affirmations to create beliefs that will help manifest your goals.

Affirmations are like exercise – you have exercise each day to gain the benefit.  Ask yourself, “What is the very first thing I say to myself in the morning?  Is it positive?” When you first get up in the morning say something positive to create the beliefs that support your vision and goals.  You may even want to print out your affirmations and post them to help reprogram your mind.

Here are some of my favorite positive affirmations: “Today will be a totally awesome day!” “Bring it on!” “Pain is temporary, but glory is forever!” “I am so happy and grateful now that…!” “I feel so blessed that…!” “I’m going to live today with enthusiasm.”I am totally confident.” “Money flows easily and frequently.” “I deserve success in my life.” “I am attracting positive people that are helping me become successful.”

Unfortunately, as we advance in years our enthusiasm seems to erode.  We fall into bad habits by focusing on what’s wrong instead of what’s right.  When the daily problems of life come up, it’s easier to spend more emotional energy on the negative than to seek the positive.  However, when you think and act optimistically, you influence everyone around you in a positive way.

A crystal clear vision of your goals coupled with visualization and repetitive positive affirmations is the starting point for reaching your potential.  You can either fill your mind with negative or positive thoughts.  You always have a choice.  You have to retrain your brain to seek the positive in all circumstances.  Your success starts in your head.  It is never too late to change your attitude.

Dr. Tom’s Career Tip: “Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier. – Colin Powell


Categories: General
Dr. Tom Denham

2 Responses

  1. Jean says:

    I couldn’t agree more. I have read two amazon books recently that are to the point, How to banish negative self talk and thinking by Erica Mcclean and Joel Osteen, Your best life now that helped me go through a very dark period in my life.

  2. Jean:

    Now go and today make it positive for someone else in need.

    Dr. Tom