Starving Negativity

Early in my husband's and my personal development journey, we became very aware of an unwelcomed presence that had been slowly infiltrating our relationship over the past several years of marriage. This presence was negativity. Initially we were in denial of it because we were typically happy people who were incredibly committed to our relationship, and excited about life. But life happens. Negative events, behaviors, and words can compound over time and become the new normal if you're not conscious of it.

Being negative is easy, and it's all over the place. You find it in the media, among co-workers, movies, certain family members, and dozens of other places. Sounds like a dire situation...but there is good news! Once you are consciously aware of negativity in your life, you can proactively start to take control of it. For us, our faith is our foundation so we prayed about it then started to build a defense against negativity. It's a daily mindset we had to choose that was more difficult in the beginning, and still not perfect everyday. Here are some tips and habits that have made a huge difference to how we shield against negativity in our life.

Going Cold Turkey

To jump start our journey to starving the negativity, we decided to test the waters for 7 days and literally not allow ANY negativity into our relationship that was within our control, fast from it completely...sound easy? It wasn't, try it. We were not going to criticize, point fingers, gossip, or have a victim mentality about any mistakes or short comings. We agreed that we would both participate and if either of us started speaking any negative, we would (kindly) remind each other of the fast. What we found in those 7 days was that our conversation had no choice but to be positive, we felt united and empowered.

Dilute the Negative

But what if someone's personality leads them to trend more pessimistic? My husband, for example, tends to have a more melancholy personality overall. He analyzes and internalizes much, and had a hard time expressing his feelings. What helped him was to dilute the negative. By that, I mean pour in more positive each day so that your mindset over time will have a greater concentration of positive. Whatever has the greater concentration internally, will most likely be expressed externally. How do you dilute negativity? We started by changing some behaviors, instead of watching movies or shows, we read books on personal development and listened to pod casts. Eventually we found the number one way to dilute negative was to check who we were associating with. We became very aware of how others were impacting our thoughts and made the decision to pursue people that were "bucket fillers" instead of "bucket drainers". Once you start focusing on becoming more positive it gets easier to identify the way people in your life have influence. Consider finding a mentor or someone that is at in life where you want to be and pursue their guidance. No human is an island; I believe we were created to help each other during our time on Earth.

Make Personal Development a Habit

Prior to experiencing mentorship, personal development was not a habit of mine. I often blamed "lack of time" as my excuse not to read or listen to and audio. Here's the truth, in order for things to change, you have to change something. Instead of TV watching at the end of the night, I have learned to read or listen instead. It becomes easier with time. The OverDrive app has been a huge benefit for my husband when it comes to audio books, he can listen during his commute or at work. Some of our top picks:

1. Personality Plus by Florence Littauer
2. The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon
3. The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy

Be Mindful of Self -Talk

What you say to yourself has power. Negative self-talk will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more you tell yourself you're not good at something, the more your brain will start to believe you. Your actions will begin to prove your thoughts right and prevent you from accomplishing your goals. The reverse is also true. You can positively speak to yourself and over time, your brain will start to believe it and growth in that area can be accomplished. A few examples of how to encourage positive self-talk:

1. Daily positive affirmation/quotes/messages on phone via apps.
2. Writing positive statements on sticky notes, mirror, or white board to look at first thing in the morning. Make sure it's a statement of what you want or how you want to feel, i.e "I enjoy meeting new people and adding value to their lives."
3. Saying out loud what you're thankful for every morning and every night (parents I encourage you to do this with your kids).

Give Yourself Grace

My husband and I recognize that to change behaviors, heck, to change our mindset we were going to encounter setbacks and days where we let negativity win. In those moments we feel defeated and really have to reflect on all the positive changes that we have made and keep encouraging each other. But really it's an everyday challenge to our individual self. If you feel negativity getting the best of you in a moment, don't let it bring you down even further. Encourage yourself that you are worthy of a happy life and are working to become more positive (even a little bit) every single day.