Kevin Solomons's Blog

Negative Emotions Can Kill Your Self-Confidence

Self-confidence is an important part of your life, in almost every way. Unfortunately, many people have a hard time achieving or maintaining their self-confidence due to the negative emotions they harbor about themselves. Maybe you are one of them. Without a positive sense of self-confidence, it can be hard to work towards achieving one. And if you have trouble with building or maintaining your self-confidence, then achieving overall success in your life can become exceedingly difficult.

You can draw confidence in yourself from confident people, and from the people they associate with. Gaining the confidence of others is one of the best ways to bolster that positive feeling within yourself, and set your course for success.

Take Control of Negative Thinking

Becoming aware of negative feelings that diminish how you feel about yourself, and learning to eliminate them, or deflect them entirely before they can take hold of you, is the most important skill in learning how to heal your self-confidence. The faster that you can learn how to achieve this, the faster you can regain your self-confidence.

Positive self-reinforcement is necessary in order to make a lasting change in your negative thinking. If someone gives you an accomplishment on how you handled a project at work, or tells you how good you are at playing the guitar, for example, that’s great. But you need to believe what they are saying, and think so yourself.

If you tend to be overly critical of yourself, these kinds of complements can be lost, and will hinder your efforts at regaining your self-confidence. Learning how to accept positive feedback through developing a positive inner dialog will go a long way toward establishing a strong sense of self-confidence.

Turning Things Around

Reducing negative feelings about yourself, or learning to deflect those that come your way, is key to having a strong sense of self-confidence. Learning to mentally filter out your negative thoughts, or finding a way of turning them into positive ones can go a long way. Resist immediately jumping to negative conclusions about the things you do. Often those conclusions are feelings, not facts. Learn to identify the difference.

Avoid negative self-talk. The more you put yourself down in front of others, the more they will begin to believe what you are saying about yourself and start to treat you with only the respect that you give yourself. When this happens, you can begin to believe that you don’t deserve to be treated better, and your self-confidence will begin an even bigger backslide.

When you are down, try to distract yourself from the feelings that are causing you to feel that way. Pick up a book and let yourself get drawn into the story. Play a computer game that requires some concentration or start planning for something that you are looking forward to.

Taking Control

Take control of how you value yourself. You should always expect the best from yourself. If you expect to be successful at what you do, or to be popular with new people that you meet, for example, most likely you can make those things happen. Self-confidence breeds self-confidence.

Taking responsibility for yourself means you must also know your limitations. You may not always be able to achieve your means, and that’s okay. Every situation isn’t perfect, every time. Pick out the parts that you have control over in making them positive experiences and learn to let the rest go.

If you learn to believe in yourself by releasing your negative thinking, you are well on your way to achieving the self-confidence that can make you feel better about yourself, and making your life easier to live all around.

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Living with Someone Who is Mentally Ill – How to Keep Your Chin Up

Caring for someone who is mentally ill can be challenging, but it doesn’t have to be an insurmountable task, or take away your own identity either. Often, with your help and that of others, such as a therapist, someone with a mental illness can pull themselves out of their darkest places. If they stay on track, then managing a mental illness day to day becomes much easier for both patient and caregiver.

Sometimes that is not the case. Clinical depression, or bipolar depression, can sometimes run so deep, for so long, that much more caretaking is involved, and the caretaker can get sucked into the process, becoming depressed themselves. Other mental illnesses may be accompanied by sudden, unanticipated and sometimes violent outbursts that can scare everyone involved, making them live in fear of when the next outburst may come and what might happen.

Mental illness is often a chronic disease, and there can be a slow road towards finding the right mix of therapy and medication to bring someone to a stable situation, that must then be monitored for life. But it is not fatal, and if a patient can maintain stability, your life need not be one of walking on eggshells.

What You Can Do

If someone you love is mentally ill, and the task of caretaking has fallen to you, it is by no means an unmanageable situation. But it does take vigilance, and a certain amount of knowledge in learning how to anticipate an episode and bring it to a halt before it can get out of control.

The best thing you can do is educate yourself about the type of mental illness your loved one is living with. Get to know the doctor, or doctors, who will be managing your loved one’s illness. The more information that you can absorb, the better you will understand the process and be able to jump in when a crisis erupts.

Day by day, try to keep a positive, non-judgmental attitude about the situation. This can help a person focus on improving their health, rather than dealing with feelings of guilt about what you may be going through because of their illness.

Help your loved one develop and follow routines, such as establishing regular sleeping and eating patterns. This can make other tasks, like getting ready for school, or just getting up to face the day much more manageable for both of you.

Support and accept what the person can do. Praise improvements, however small. When you are critical or overprotective, your loved one may feel frightened.

Help focus the person’s energy on activities such as walking, jogging, swimming, and dancing. Activity may calm the person down and give a sense of success.

What About Your Own Life?

Caring for someone with a mental illness can take a lot of energy and create a lot of stress, causing overwhelm and even caregiver burnout. You need to make sure that you take care of yourself, and feel like you have an independent life from that of caregiver.

Look around in your area for a support group. Sharing stories with other people who are facing the same challenges you are can help you better cope with your situation and its impact on your life.
Schedule time for yourself, every day, to relax. Don’t feel guilty when you find yourself beginning to resent your life arrangement. Accept your feelings, and look for ways to maintain a balance in your own life.
Every once in a while, take time to get out by yourself and go to the gym, the movies or out to lunch with a friend. In this way, you can maintain your independence as a person in your own right, not just someone’s caretaker.
Make sure that you don’t neglect your own healthcare. Go to the doctor and dentist regularly and make sure your own prescriptions get filled on time, too. As a caregiver, you need to stay as strong and healthy as possible.

Most importantly, don’t let yourself fall into the same boat as your loved one, where then you both need help. Making sure you keep yourself physically and mentally stable will put you in the best position to help your loved when they need it.

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The Importance of a Positive Self-Image

Your self-image is just that — your image of yourself. It is the combination of the impressions your experiences in life have made on you, whether for good or bad. When these experiences combine to give you a negative self-image, you constantly doubt yourself. You worry about whether the decisions you make were the right ones and if they expose you to criticism by others.

When you have a positive self-image, often you possess feelings of high self-esteem, popularity, happiness and competency. These feelings can often motivate you to seek success in other parts of your life, such as money, health and independence. Having, or developing, a positive self-image can help you face, and tackle, the challenging parts of life, such as poor health, financial problems or even physical disability. The ability to achieve a positive self-image is so important, in anyone’s life.

A Positive Self-Image Requires Positive Self-Esteem

In a survey conducted by the American Psychological Association, adults rated the most important factor to achieving a positive self-image and feeling of well-being is self-esteem. Without a positive sense of self-esteem, it is nearly impossible to maintain a positive self-image.

A positive self-esteem can be gained through the practice of deflecting, or deleting, the negative thoughts or feelings that you feel. Without being able to develop a way of learning to feel good about yourself on a consistent basis, it will be difficult to maintain a positive self-image.

Most of all, avoid negative self-talk. Don’t ever undervalue yourself, put yourself down or put yourself down to others, even in jest. Soon others will begin to believe it, and it will be even harder to pull yourself up.

Your Personal Self-Image

Your self-image has a strong impact on how your feel about yourself and your actions. How you react to life around you can affect those with whom you relate. Just because one person throws some negative comments your way doesn’t make them true. Projecting a positive self-image will make people more likely to see you as a positive, capable person. This turn can help reinforce your own feelings that you are a positive, capable person.

How you can see yourself varies quite differently from how others see you. You may project a sense of bravado outwardly, projecting an image of having it all together, but inside, you may be constantly worrying that you are going to be found out, because you don’t believe that the image you are portraying is true. This is sometimes referred to as “imposter syndrome,” the feeling that you are not the person you convey yourself to be.

On the other hand, those who have had a very difficult life, with multiple hardships may have a very positive self-image. They manage to stay positive despite, or maybe because of, the pitfalls they have faced. If you see yourself as capable, you’re more likely to reach out for something you want, and you’re more willing to take smart risks. Developing a positive self-image makes it easier to let yourself be seen for the accomplished person that you are.

Sometimes having an occasional negative thought or criticism can enhance a positive self-image by encouraging a desire to defeat that criticism through hard work and perseverance. Other times, having too positive of a self-image can encourage underachievement and arrogance. Finding a balance between feeling good about oneself, but still having realistic goals is important.

Your self-image is constantly changing. This why you have the opportunity to turn it into a more positive part of who you are, challenging the distortions you may see in your internal mirror. Self-image changes throughout your life. It begins with learning to accept yourself for who you are, and being accepted by others for who you are as well, not what anyone, including yourself thinks you should be.

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Attitude of Gratitude: How Gratitude Has an Impact on Self-Esteem

Gratitude is a powerful feeling.  It can make you feel better about yourself in a variety of ways by helping you to improve your self-esteem. What you probably aren’t aware of is that gratitude works to help you improve your overall sense of well-being, all year round.

How Gratitude Can Help

Expressing gratitude on a daily basis can help you boost your mood and self-esteem in many ways, including:

Helping you appreciate your positive life experiences
Improving your sense of self-worth
Providing an effective way of coping with stress and trauma
Encouraging the tendency for you to improve your moral behavior
Helping you build, and strengthen social bonds
Keeping you in the present, helping you learn not to take things for granted, and not to dwell on past negative experiences
Reducing the incidence of emotions like bitterness, greed or anger

Accentuate the Positive

People have the tendency to focus on negative feelings, which can bring on anxiety, depression and even compromise your physical health. Focusing on positive feelings, and the positive things that happen in your life from day to day, can help you reverse those tendencies. It can lighten your mood and improve your outlook on life in general. Consciously expressing thanks daily can help you focus on the positive influences in your life, and deflect the negative feelings that come your way.

There is a field of medicine called positive psychology. It addresses what is most important to people and how they can incorporate a positive sense of well-being into the beliefs that you value. Positive psychologists concentrate on what they consider to be a core of “signature strengths” that people have. These strengths can help you build up feelings that make you feel better about yourself. One of those signature strengths is gratitude.

Making Gratitude a Daily Commitment

There are many ways to incorporate gratitude into your daily life, most of which are easy to do.

The first, and probably easiest, is to start saying thank you to people when they help you out. You may already do this subconsciously, but try to make a point of noticing when you say thank you, and how it makes you feel. Thanking someone for their help can make that person feel good, which in turn can spark a good feeling in yourself for making someone else’s day that much better. It is truly a small effort that can reap you great emotional rewards.

Keeping a gratitude journal is another way to easily incorporate thankfulness into your life. Keep a notebook and pen on your bedside table, and each night, before you go to bed, spend just a minute or two recording even one thing that made your day better, for which you can be thankful. Eventually, it will become second nature to record those thoughts, and help you trend away from focusing on the parts of your life that can bring you down.

Your mood can hold you back or allow you to see the world for all the good that it can offer. Improving your self-esteem is the key to being able to absorb positive feelings instead of negative ones, and gratitude is a powerful tool to keep in your arsenal.

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Laughter Therapy: Harness the Emotional Benefits of Laughter

Someone says something that makes you smile. Before you know it, that smile has turned into a laugh. Soon you are laughing so hard that your face starts to turn red and you can’t catch your breath. But you still can’t stop laughing. Chances are that you’re happy. Even if you were in a foul mood just minutes ago, the sheer act of laughing has transformed your mood into a positive one. After that laugh, there may just be a spring in your step for the rest of the day.

What changed? You laughed. Researchers have spent years trying to unravel the benefits of laughter, and time and time again the results seem to be the same. Laughter improves your mood. It is an expression of positive emotions — happiness, surprise, joy, amusement. Laughter can reduce stress, anxiety and depression by relaxing you enough to be able to let your guard down and just enjoy the moment.

A Healthy Dose

Having a good sense of humor guarantees a healthy dose of laughter in your life. Researchers now believe that laughter can improve your psychological and physical health as much as feeling in control of your life does, be it related to work, the future or even relationships.

And then, the humor you enjoy is very personal. The type of humor you are exposed to will also influence how much it will make you laugh. If you go for slapstick humor, then The Three Stooges can probably put you in stitches, while someone who goes for a long joke with a great punch line at the end might not be so taken. British comedy is another type of specialized humor that can send some into fits of laughter, but again it is a type to which one must be inclined in order to make them laugh.

Laughter as Therapy

Studies have shown that people who laugh a lot are less inclined to dwell on the everyday negative events in their lives, that otherwise might bring them down. Of course, it is necessary to have a bit of moderation in life and not laugh everything off. Some not so funny events in life require attention as well, such money issues and personal health. You may trip over a chair, remaining unharmed, and can draw guffaws from everyone in the room, but if you’ve hurt yourself in the process, those laughs need to die down so that you can attend to your injury.

The reason, he thinks, is that cheerful people may pay less attention to threats to their physical and psychological well-being. “In the short term, I think it is helpful to be optimistic about a particular illness,” says Friedman. But the same good-natured attitude that helps us laugh off the threat of illness (“I’m going to be just fine”) may work against us when we’re presented with the opportunity to eat unhealthy foods or light up a cigarette.

Why It’s Good to Laugh

So, what are some of the specific benefits of laughter? Here are just a few:

It relaxes your whole body
It triggers the release of endorphins, the body’s natural feel-good chemicals
It burns calories — about 40 calories for every 10 to 15 minutes of laughing
It diffuses anger and other negative emotions.

Stress relief is probably the best benefit you can reap from having a good sense of humor that makes you, and others around you laugh. Stress has been shown to cause a varieties of maladies in the human body, so finding a way to release your stress is very healthy.

So, while eating right and exercising are common recommendations for improving your emotional health, there other, easier ways to get an immediate boost, like laughing. As they say, laugh and the world laughs with you.

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Using Facebook to Boost Your Self-Esteem

Using Facebook can boost your self-esteem, according to a study from Cornell University. Facebook allows people to put their best face forward, according to Jeffrey Hancock, associate professor of communications at Cornell. Being able to choose what to reveal about yourself and filtering out anything that might reflect poorly on you gives you a chance to weed out the negativity that may be lurking in your brain and making you feel glum.

Projecting a Positive View

It’s all about having the control to project a positive view of yourself to the world, without being deceptive. The fact that you are a concert pianist may not come up in everyday chit chat, but you could post something about one of your performances on Facebook and let everyone know without seeming like you are bragging.

Facebook lets you put your best face forward. It also allows you to filter out anything that might make you feel bad about yourself. It can help you depict yourself in a very positive light, without the imperfections that a mirror might reflect, whether or not they are just in your head.

Getting Back in Touch

Getting back in touch with old friends and acquaintances through Facebook can make you feel good too, especially when someone from your past seeks you out. Perhaps you were once great friends with someone, but over time you grew apart as your lives started to go in different directions. On Facebook, you can reconnect and “talk” when each of you has time from your different lives.

You’ll notice that even though you may have let your relationship slide, you can often pick up right from where you left off, sharing the same types of jokes that you always used to, and reinforcing that there are many people in your life who value and respect you and like spending time with you.

Polish Up Your Profile

Your Facebook profile is where you have the chance to express yourself to others the way you want to be seen. Make sure you keep your personal information current. Post pictures and comments about yourself in everyday situations that others can identify with, which may get them to interact with you, or respond to your posts with a “Like” or a comment.

And by all means, toot your own horn whenever you get a chance. If you’ve won a scholarship, or written a book or finally paid off you student loans, that’s positive news to convey, news that makes you feel good about yourself and will invite positive comments from other Facebook friends.

Avoid Negative Posts

Don’t get carried away, though. You might see a post on Facebook with which you don’t agree and be tempted to challenge that person’s views. This can quickly escalate into an online argument, for all of your friends to see, revealing a negative side of you that you’d rather not express. It’s important to put a filter on what you post and say on Facebook to keep it the source of positive self-esteem that it can be.

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Airbrushed Model Photos Can Damage Your Body Image

They are in fashion magazines, on TV, in videos and nearly everywhere online. Models with seemingly perfect bodies — rail thin, tan, not a blemish in sight, no wrinkles and gorgeous looking. Body image is a big problem in America, especially with obesity running rampant across the country. Teens are especially vulnerable to this type of exposure, as they think they should look like the models they see everywhere they look, not realizing that even the models themselves don’t look the way they appear to the public.

Perfect Bodies?

Rarely does a model look the way she appears on the pages of a magazine or anywhere online. There are people who make a living making models look perfect to maximize the effect of advertising on a company’s targeted buyers. What comes across to many, aside from the fact that they could look like the model if they buy the advertised product, is that they should look like the model.

The truth is, though, that even the model doesn’t look like her picture. Few stop to think that airbrushed model photos are almost always edited to remove any unsightly bulges or blemishes. When a woman, or teen-aged girl, compares her own body to that of the airbrushed models they see, body image problems begin to emerge. And for someone with body image issues, eating disorders often follow.

Body Image

After seeing these airbrushed beauties everywhere they look, women begin to feel they are too fat or too pale or not beautiful enough for the rest of the world to see. This kind of dissatisfaction with one’s own body can easily lead to problems with self-esteem, which can then cause anxiety or depression. Another approach that some women take is to try to keep up with the images they see.

Trying to emulate these airbrushed models often results in women getting eating disorders such as anorexia, particularly teens who are trying desperately to fit in with what they think is the norm. Some will just about starve themselves and never feel thin enough, while others go as far as having cosmetic surgery to fixed perceived flaws.

All of this influx of emulated beauty is contributing not just to poor body image, but also to feelings of low self-esteem and low self-worth as women consistently fail to achieve a look that is not even possible for the model they are trying to emulate.

Changing Perceptions

Women need to be exposed to images that are healthy and attainable. People are not just the body they inhabit, but the more they are led to believe how important an outside image is, the more their inner beauty diminishes.

As the influence of mass media continues to grow, more and more images of airbrushed models are showing up — on bus stop kiosks, in movie trailers, on billboards and innumerable, and expanding, online venues — and more and more negative input is absorbed by those thinking that they don’t measure up if they don’t look like the models they admire. What you see in the mirror does not reflect your self-worth.

There needs to be a shift towards more positive thinking, about body image in particular. People need to speak out about the negativity that is being created as a result of the airbrushed photos of models. It is hard to stay away from the images, but there are ways to have an influence: stop patronizing companies that use airbrushed images, unfollow sites on social media or even sending a message directly to an advertiser expressing discontent with their practices are steps that anyone can take to bring healthy-looking role models into magazines, on TV and online.

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Giving Thanks Can Help Depression

Got the blues? Need a quick pick me up? Try to come up with something to be grateful for, instead of focusing on the negative thinking that’s bouncing around inside your head. You’ll feel better for it.

Being thankful, or grateful, for what you have, instead of sorely dwelling on what you don’t have, can improve symptoms of depression, bring about better physical health and even make one inclined to exercise more regularly. These were the results of a study that appeared in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. And if gratitude is practiced regularly, it can improve your whole outlook on life.

Gratitude Affects Brain Chemistry

In another study, from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), researchers found that while subjects focused on feelings of gratitude they had higher levels of activity in the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus controls a person’s eating, drinking, sleeping, metabolism and stress levels, among a variety of other bodily functions. Increased activity in the hypothalamus can contribute to such positive effects as a decrease in depression, establishing a better sleep pattern and even help reduce those little aches and pains that everyone suffers from day to day. All this can result from just appreciating what you already have.

The study also showed that feelings of thankfulness have a direct impact on the region of the brain that is associated with a neurotransmitter called dopamine. When dopamine is released into a person’s system, it imparts a feel-good emotion. It is sometimes referred to as the reward neurotransmitter. When feeling grateful or expressing gratitude gives you that feel-good emotion, you are likely to continue acting that way, to get the reward of the pleasant feeling that dopamine releases.

Gratitude Isn’t a One-Shot Deal

A one-time effort at being grateful isn’t likely to help reduce your depression or increase positive thoughts and actions in your life. Like most things that make you feel good about yourself, showing gratitude takes practice.

Exercising helps you stay toned and in shape, and helps keep your weight in check only as long as you continue to do it. Once you start slacking off, your muscle tone begins to fade and the pounds begin to creep on. As with many things in our lives, the old adage, “use it or lose it,” rings true in respect to the benefits you can gain from being thankful.

Other researchers who studied the benefits gained from practicing gratitude on a regular basis came up with the following findings:

People can feel less hostile and thereby lower their blood pressure
They are more likely to quit smoking or lose weight
Caregivers for relatives with Alzheimer’s disease may feel less stress, lightening any depression that may be creeping into their lives
Phobias, bulimia, depression and alcoholism appeared to be less likely to crop up in the lives of those who practiced gratitude

Maintain Your Attitude of Gratitude

Even something as simple as writing a thank-you note can lift someone’s mood, just by thinking that they made someone else’s day better because you made them feel appreciated. The more you express a feeling or attitude, the more you amplify it. Therefore, if you consistently express gratitude, you become more grateful, and being grateful has been shown to have positive effects on your well-being.

It is a fact of life that you will run into negativity on a regular basis, but how you handle it can dictate the way you look at life. Saying thank you, and hearing it, helps to boost your self-esteem and feel valued as a member of society. In this way, gratitude can motivate us to offer more of ourselves to others, and in reducing depression, helps us to have a better outlook on the world in general.

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Filing for Bankruptcy Doesn’t Have to Bankrupt Your Self-Esteem

Living paycheck to paycheck is very stressful. Filing for bankruptcy is even more so. So many people tie their self-worth to their net worth that dealing with financial pitfalls can take hard emotional tolls on one’s psyche. Just because you are having financial trouble, maybe even serious financial trouble, it doesn’t mean that you are less of a person because of it. You are still the same you that your friends and family know and love.

Nonetheless, bankruptcy wreaks havoc on your stress level. This if often because so many people put so much emphasis on money. Declaring bankruptcy can lead to low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, guilt, shame and even anger management issues. People are embarrassed by having to declare bankruptcy and tend to avoid others so as not to have to discuss it, but having a social network at such a time is crucial.

Getting Through It Emotionally

Bankruptcy is not the end of the world. It can feel like it has crushed your self-worth and self-esteem. While it may be a little out of whack at the moment, your emotional health is still intact. There are ways to handle the stress that comes with declaring bankruptcy and come out on the other side feeling okay about yourself. Try these:

You are not alone. Financial setbacks occur in almost everybody’s life, and chances are that people will be able to identify with your predicament more than you think.
You were probably not taught how to handle money when you were younger, so you never had a financial plan in place. Let go of the past. You can’t do anything about it. But now that you know how not to handle your finances, take solace in the fact that now you can start making a solid plan of how you should handle them in the future.
Try to figure out where the chinks in your financial armor are, the ones that got you into trouble. Take some time to learn about them so that you can protect yourself from those pitfalls again.

It’s not necessary to get down on yourself for declaring bankruptcy. More than one millionaire has experienced monetary setbacks on the way to financial success. It takes some gumption, but you, too, can learn to get up and start again. And there is the sense of relief that comes with finally being out from under the yoke of financial burden.

Other Options

If your emotions are getting the best of you over having to file bankruptcy, one option is to pursue counseling. A counselor can help you deal with your present situation and help you work toward preventing future financial hardship. There are also support groups for people dealing with bankruptcy and similar money issues. Regularly attending a support group can help you realize that you are not alone in your predicament, and can help you learn from others how they are handling their situations.

A Fresh Start

When you declare bankruptcy, you may feel as if your world has ended. And in a way, it has —  your mountain of debt has gone away. Now it is time to start shaping yourself a new world. Get a financial advisor and whatever other help you think you may need and start planning a happier, more successful life.

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Understanding Gratitude

We all know what gratitude is, but do we all know the power that it has? Being able to understand, and feel the effects of consistently expressing gratitude can be eye-opening. Practicing gratitude and recognizing the role it plays in the world around us is one of the easiest ways to change your life.

What Is Gratitude?

Gratitude is having an appreciation for the good things that come your way in life, no matter how small. It is appreciating the beauty of a field of wildflowers as you drive by in a car. It is meeting someone new, with whom you look forward to establishing a relationship. It also can be more literal, such as writing a thank-you note, or expressing thanks for a kindness that someone has shown you. Gratitude helps you replace negative thoughts with positive ones. In essence, gratitude is anything that makes you smile.

The Power of Gratitude

The power of gratitude is tremendous. It can lift any feelings of insufficiency that you may be carrying around with you, feelings that you are not “good enough.”  It can help replace those feelings, including those of depression, with an improved sense of self-esteem and self-worth.

As you practice making gratitude a conscious part of your life, every day, you will begin to notice that the sun shines a little brighter, music is more inspiring, and maybe even that the traffic lights seem to turn green for you more often. Perhaps the best thing about expressing gratitude is that it is one of the easiest things you can do in your daily life.

In Praise of Gratitude

You will discover many reasons to be happy for the way that gratitude can enrich your life, from the inside out. In strengthening your mental health, it can help you stand up to any adversity that comes your way, and help you deal with it more effectively than you may have in the past. It will show you how to be thankful for what you have, instead of constantly striving to reach that one thing that you feel you need to make you happy. Being thankful helps you focus on what you have instead of what you want.

Gratitude Can Be Motivating

Gratitude can be motivating. Expressing thanks has been shown to improve your physical and mental well-being. When we remember to count our blessings, we are able to focus on the positive things in our lives and diminish, or eliminate, the negative feelings that bring us down.

Being more positive is motivating but the feedback you receive from expressing gratitude, makes you feel good about yourself. You will want more positive feedback to continue feeling good about yourself, and therefore will be motivated to continuing practicing gratitude, however you can, to maintain that positive rush.

Don’t wait until you need to give your self-esteem a boost to chase away that “down in the dumps” feeling. Start today. Start a gratitude journal, where you can catalog your gratitude daily, and have it to review when you need a pick-me-up. Or just thank someone for his or her help. Once you understand gratitude and how it can work, it can do wonderful things for you and your whole outlook on life.

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