Positive People: Take The Good And Reject The Rest

Do you know a person who always seems happy and positive about themselves and life in general? They never seem to have a problem and seem to be able to deal with things in life with composure and grace. Do you wish you were more like them and able to deal with your life circumstances like they do?

Before we go deep, today in our image section in this post, we've featured an elderly man cheerfully listening to good music on the headset. There's no doubt he is happy despite the fact that he looks like he is too old to do something like dancing on the headset. He is the kind of person who has a positive outlook that we're talking about. The reward for these kinds of people is usually healthy, long-life, full of happiness.   

These people have a way of seeing life as being the “half-full glass” where even if things are going in the wrong way, they find something positive in it to focus on. This way of viewing life is natural for some people, but for the majority of people who use this approach to life, it is a learned response. It results from making an intention to look at the positive and not to dwell on the negative and then practicing doing this, day after day.

Sounds easy when it’s on paper, but in the reality of life, it’s usually not. How do people learn to focus on the half-full glass and not the half-empty one and remain positive? It’s not easy to be thankful when faced with terrible, difficult circumstances. However, practicing gratitude helps us deal with all but the most difficult experiences we may face in our lives. It is the key to the optimism that we see in the positive people we tend to admire so much.

When we complain all the time, we can quickly lose our perspective. Yes, the worker may have taken hours to complete a job that another worker may have completed in much less time, but before we complain at the bill, consider the work quality between the two. Maybe our concern is justified, but if the work produced is more superior in quality, then maybe the extra time was justified! 

Half-glass full thinking seeks to clarify a situation before complaining about it. It asks whether a complaint will make the situation better or worse and if it will help to resolve the issue. In most cases, the answer to both these questions is no! On those occasions when it is justified, then we should do something about it. 

A clear perspective on the situation can help us to resolve a seemingly irresolvable problem. Maintaining an attitude of gratitude helps us maintain a positive perspective on most things that happen in our life. It helps to keep the glass half-full even in the most horrific and difficult situation. 

Take the Good in Life and Reject the Rest

When was the last time you watched a bee as it busily went from flower to flower collecting the nectar and pollen that would become the life-saving energy source for the larvae back at the hive? While some bees are happy to collect pollen from many different plants and flowers, others specialize in only collecting from certain species. The honey produced in the hives of these specialist bees is premium, a highly sought after for its unique qualities and flavors.

In our life choices, we can be like the specialist honey-bee, taking the good things offered to us in life, and rejecting the rest that will potentially harm us, or our quality of life. Learning to say no is a powerful tool that many of us rarely use, if ever. There is nothing wrong with the pollen and nectar that the specialist bees reject. They have the potential to produce delicious honey too, but for the honey-bees that are searching for a special type of pollen; they represent imperfections and time-wasting activity. These specialist honey-bees know that not all glitters are gold.

“A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, 

and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.” 

Luke 6:45, NLT. 

Learning to reject or say no to what will hurt or harm us in the long term is the key to reducing the amount of stress we carry each day. And to feel better about ourselves on the choices we make in our life. As we learn to reject the things that will harm us, we are more inclined to accept the things that will help us. Perhaps more importantly, we are able to learn to tell the difference between the two.

How can you tell the difference between what to accept and what to reject to help you stay stress-free? Most of us know instinctively what is going to cause us distress. These things are never accepted and must be rejected from our life, but what of those things that will cause us stress but not distress? Can we trust our instincts with them?

The answer is: growing through stress is not a bad thing and sometimes we do need to move outside of our comfort zone to achieve progress in our life. The key to knowing what will produce good stress and what will produce negative stress is to have a life plan and only accepting those things that contribute to our long-term life plan. Saying no to other things helps keep us focused on our goals and thinking positively about our life experiences.

Here's a video by Brendon Burchard, the author of the book: High-Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way. Here he gives us insight on how thoughts are generated and how you can develop the habits of thinking the positive thoughts on demand.