There are five ways positivity can power up your joy and happiness. You're in the
right place if you're looking for some ways to increase your happiness right now. There's
five areas of your life where this has a profound impact. I'll go over all five of
those. And stick around till the end because I have a special gift for you just for watching.
The first way positivity can help with your joy and happiness is in your mental health.
Now, this might seem obvious because this is the first place that positivity will have a positive
impact on your functioning. But there's some reasons for that. Look, mental health has been
my career. I'm a professional psychologist, I had a traditional psychotherapy practice for about 15
years after which I transitioned over to a positive psychology practice where I do life
and family coaching. The fundamentals of mental health are pretty easy to understand and grasp
when you understand what positivity really is. We're getting past the trite fluffy stuff that
you hear from the stage all the time. This is the psychology of how to operate the equipment
of your own mind. And what I've found is either you drive your thoughts or your thoughts will
drive you. Understanding how those processes work will put you in a position of choice where your
mental health actually becomes something that you can choose. Now, I get some flack for saying that
sometimes because people question. You know, well, what about the chemical imbalances? And what about
those genetic processes that contribute to mental health? Yeah, all of those things are part of the
picture. I'm not denying that at all. What I'm saying is that your thought processes
when understood and when you take appropriate control or exercise choice in that area can have
immediate positive impacts on your mental health. Let me give you a quick example of how that works.
One of the thoughts that causes depression is the thought that things are not as they should be.
Now, it's just a thought. Do you know? Like for sure. Like you've got some grand connection to
the great scheme of all things. Do you know for sure if things are the way they should be or not?
No, I'm not asking if things are the way you want them to be or things are the way
that you would prefer them to be if you had all the control. That's not what I'm asking.
I'm asking are they the way that they should be. Well, actually yes, they are.
Now, this is just a thought. But what I want you to experiment with for just a minute is thinking
things are not the way they should be. Just think that for a minute. And
check in with your feelings. How do you feel when you think that?
Disappointed, maybe frustrated, upset, depressed. Yeah. You're always right about
how you feel. How you feel is 100 percent consistent with the way your own mind
is handling the psychological processes that makeup positivity. But just notice how that feels.
Now, let's switch the thought. Do another little experiment. Things are exactly as they should be.
Now, you might have a little fight on your hands or in your head actually when you bring that up.
Just push through that and ask yourself. How would I feel if I really believed that?
That's a pretty good question. Can you imagine how it would feel to really believe I'm right
on schedule? Things are exactly the way that they should be. Now, my point is we don't know.
And it's just a thought. What if you could choose which thought you're going to practice
or entertain or install into your mind? Would that make a difference in your mental health?
Absolutely. Now, we're up against programming, okay? Because whatever we're used to thinking
comes naturally to us, we've been trained taught, and educated to think in certain ways.
It's not your fault. It's just your training, your programming. And it takes a little work to
overcome that programming just like learning a new language. You can choose to learn a new language,
right? Sure. And you can see that it's more than just a choice, right? It's a skill set so
you have to practice it. It's the same thing with positivity. Your mental health will be profoundly
affected. The second area that this will affect is your physical health. We've actually got studies
that prove this. In fact, I was just reading one in the Harvard Business Review recently
about the profound effects of positivity on our physical health. Wow! Now, does that surprise you?
It shouldn't surprise you too much because your brain is in charge of everything. Everything
that's going on in your body. We know that immunity changes based on your attitude,
your position, your positivity. We know that cardiovascular health, blood pressure,
your tendency toward headaches or migraines. All of these things were affected by the way your mind
is operating. Stress is caused primarily in the brain. And stress has a direct chemical effect
on every other system in your body. So, when we talk about psychology, we're actually talking
about the integration of your thoughts with your physical body. And it has a profound effect. You
know conversely, you can affect your brain health by taking care of your body. Big surprise actually
when you realize that your brain is actually part of your body. It's an organ in your head. And it's
the biggest energy consumer of any other system in your body. So, what we do physically matters,
and what we do mentally affects our physiology. Your physical health will be improved through
positivity, guaranteed Third area that is improved through positivity is your relationships. My
clients know that we get to focus on seven key relationships. Your creator, yourself,
your spouse, your children, your extended family, other people, and things. Those seven
key relationships are all affected by positivity. You might do a little experiment. Actually,
let's make this a thought experiment so that we don't go create more damage than we need to. What
would happen if you were to engage with your family today in some really negative ways? Can
you picture that? Can you think of any way that you could make your family relationships worse
today.
Now, would you ever do that on purpose? No, but look at how quickly your brain can
come up with half a dozen ways to pull that off. It's not even going to take very long.
You could go say something very negative or derogatory or judgmental towards your spouse,
towards your child. And what's going to be the effect on your relationship.
This isn't rocket science. It is. However, relationship science.
It is psychological science. And it's important to understand those principles because these are not
chance outcomes. What would happen conversely if you were to come up with some intentionally
positive ways to interact with your spouse or with your child today? Can you see that would
have a very different outcome? Positivity is the number one principle that affects all seven of our
key relationships. You know I'm really curious what you've noticed positivity doing for you.
I'm a psychologist, I'm observing my own life and the lives of my clients. But what about for you?
Go to the comments below. Would you just share ways positivity has changed or impacted your life?
What aspect of your life has it changed and how? Share in the comments. Let's start a conversation
about that. The fourth area of your life that will be drastically improved by positivity is work. Our
productivity is affected by our feelings. Our feelings are affected by our thoughts.
Our thoughts get to be primarily negative or primarily positive, and you get to pick which
one. We already know the positivity has a profound effect on our mental health on our health, on our
relationships, and that's why it has a profound effect on our work. But also I have found in my
own career that productivity is tied to wherever my mind is. And if I'm in a negative funk,
I have a hard time creating anything of value. If I'm feeling grateful and positive, it gets
the juices flowing on creativity and productivity and everything that affects our outcomes at work.
Not to mention the relationships with co-workers and teams and leadership. All of those things
are affected by positivity. You know one of the CEOs that I coach and I work with his company a
little bit on a regular basis told me recently the positivity probably accounts for at least
50 percent of the increases they've made in their revenues over the past year. Interesting that
he's seeing an effect on the bottom line. And I think when you really look at it, you'll see that
too many resources are expended on lack of positivity. So, if we can put that positivity
in place, we're going to be not only saving money, we're going to be creating a whole lot
more value in the ways that we uniquely can as a company. And then that obviously leads to the last
category number five that I wanted to share with you today. Money, you know we have known forever
that there's a correlation between happiness and success. Between positivity and productivity. And
we made a mistake for years and years and years. I think we misinterpreted
the data and we saw it backwards. Thinking oh, therefore when we're successful, we'll be happy.
It's the other way around. It is the other way around when we are happy, we are successful. I
mean, first of all, that's how we define success, right? When we're happy. What else do you want?
But we've also found that happiness and positivity impact every other measurable aspect of success
that we've ever looked at. Kind of cool. I don't think it should surprise any of us that positivity
will impact all areas of our life. I've shared five of them with you that are really fundamental
to how we experience our life. would you like to dive in a little deeper on positivity? I've
given you a little overview here today, but you might want to get into the actual models
that support positivity. And all five of these areas of your life. Go to the URL on the screen,
drpauljenkins.com/positivity. Where I will connect you to a web class on positivity. We'll
spend a little more time getting into the actual psychology behind it. This is completely free.
It's my gift to you. I want to spread as much positivity as I can in ways that empower people
like you to have a more fantastic life. Go to drpauljenkins.com/positivity. I'll see you inside.