How To Turn A Negative Situation Into A Positive One

Note: This post was originally published on BrianTracy.com

Negative emotions are the single biggest enemy that any of us have.

If we had no negative emotions, our lives would be wonderful — as would our relationships, our health and everything else.

I’ve spent more than 4,000 hours studying this, and today I will be providing you with some strategies for turning negative situations into positive ones.

Where Do Negative Emotions Come From?

The great business of life is to eliminate negative emotions. To solve this, we have to answer the question:

Where do negative emotions come from?

Almost all negative emotions depend on blaming someone or something else for negative situations that happen in their life. The problem here then, is that people hold on to those negative emotions, even if they cannot change the outcome and are angry about it.

The Key To Eliminating Negative Emotions

The key to eliminating negative emotions is this:

Take responsibility for yourself, your reactions and your situation.

You cannot take responsibility for your life, your situation, and your reactions and be negative at the same time. Your mind can only focus on one thought at a time, positive or negative.

So anytime you feel negative say to yourself over and over again:

“I am responsible.”

You might be thinking right now: “But Brian, in a situation involving other people, how can I be responsible for what they did?”

Here’s how: In every situation, whether it involves you directly or not, you are always at least partially responsible for what happened.

You got yourself into the situation, you stayed in the situation, you did or said certain things in the situation, so you’re not completely innocent. You at least had something to do with it.

Here’s another possibility: Let’s say you had nothing to do with the negative situation, maybe you weren’t involved at all. You’re still responsible for how you respond to it.

This is what is called your ‘response-ability’ — your ability to respond in a positive way. And again, to respond in a positive way, you simply repeat to yourself “I am responsible.”

You Have Complete Control

The truth is nobody can make you feel negative, other than you. If you think about things that make you feel unhappy or angry, you are going to feel negative. If you think about things that make you happy and excited about your life, you will feel positive.

The most important thing to remember about negative feelings is this: you have complete control over the way you feel, the way you respond to any situation and the things you think about at any minute of the day.

Exercise your ability to respond positively, take responsibility for your role in negative situations, and allow yourself to let go of negative feelings that might be trapped inside of you.

Before we wrap up, I’d like to leave you with a thought to share with your friends and followers:

“Accept complete responsibility for every part of your life. Refuse to blame others or make excuses.” @BrianTracy  Tweet This 

Now I’d love to hear from you. So my question today is:

“Which recent negative situation in your life can you turn into a positive?”

Leave a comment below, and I’ll be sure to follow up with you.

Part of turning negative situations into positive ones has to do with your level of self-confidence. Learn what your current level of self-confidence is by taking my self-confidence assessment.