In a crazy world, here's what I do to stay positive and cheerful. This is important because
the world is pretty crazy. I'm a professional psychologist. I'm going to share with you my
five-part process for staying positive no matter what's going on out there.
In these five parts, I've even got a special gift for you with part number three so watch for that.
My primary specialty as a professional psychologist is positivity and acknowledgement.
You're going to hear about toxic positivity. This is where people just pretend that everything's
peachy. It's like they close their eyes to the pain or the challenge of real things that are going on
in real people's lives paste on a smile and just think positive. How annoying and irritating is that?
Look, as a professional psychologist I know the psychology behind positivity.
I know what the brain is doing to create the feelings that we experience on a regular basis.
So, we're getting past the trite fluffy just think positive into the real science and art
of positivity and how we can create it by choice. This is what I'm calling pathological positivity.
That's the title of my first book and I've taken a little bit of flack for the title because some
people think I mean toxic positivity. No, I make a distinction here. The word pathological in the
world of psychology means disordered, disconnected from reality, crazy, and it sounds a little crazy to
some people to consider what I'm presenting in these strategies that I'm sharing with you here
today. That you can choose positivity no matter what. Pathological also means compulsively driven
like in the term pathological liar, they can't stop.
And someone who's pathologically positive develops a dogged determination to choose positivity
regardless of the circumstances. It's not ignoring the pain it's doing something different with it.
So, the first of these five parts is to practice brain maintenance. This is important because your
brain is the main control center over everything else that's going on. This is what determines what
you think, what you feel, what you do, the brain. How do we take care of the brain? I'm drawing from
something that I learned from Dr. Ed Hallowell in a conference probably over 25 years ago
where he shared this four-part process for brain maintenance. Here you go, step one get enough sleep.
Sleep is enormously important to your brain. Step number two, eat a balanced diet. Now, diet doesn't
mean restriction. I mean diet like when you go to the zoo and you see the little placard on
the animal's enclosure that says diet small rodents or whatever. It just means what you
eat and having a good diet is important to your brain because your brain is part of your body and
incidentally is the number one energy hog of your entire system. You've got to be putting good fuel
through the system. Number three in the brain maintenance model is regular exercise. Get your
body moving. Get your heart pumping. You'd think that this is important for your physical health
but remember your brain is part of your body and it requires the same things that your physical
body requires because it's an organ in your body. Number four on the brain maintenance part
is regular periods of prayer slash meditation. Remember, this is coming
from Dr. Hallowell's work, this isn't coming from some spiritual or religious organization.
Prayer, meditation, those kinds of things quiet the noise in your world and allow your brain to
be more healthy. Part two in this five-part process is to practice positivity. Meaning, to engage in it
on purpose regularly. I do this every day. My practice I'm a psychologist and my practice
is positivity. I literally practice positivity. I have people ask me sometimes, "Dr. Paul how do
you stay so positive and cheerful?", I practice it daily. I talk to my clients about it. I share
ideas with you here on YouTube our coaching platforms are all built around positivity
and not just the think positive that we hear from motivational speakers or gurus from the
stage. We're talking how to operate the equipment of your own mind and practicing it on a regular
basis, that's huge. Make an intentional effort to do this, it'll change everything. Let's go to part
three but before I get to that and the gift that I promised you. I want you to take just a moment
and do yourself the favor of subscribing to this channel, hit the notification bell.
I'll help you to practice I promise. We'll bring new content to you every week that will help you
with that practice. Now, on to part number three of our five-part strategy watch the input. When
I was talking about the brain maintenance in Dr. Hallowell we talked about diet okay, what you're
putting into your mouth. What are you putting into your mind? What is the kind of literature that you read?
What kind of videos do you watch? What kind of music are you listening to? It matters. It has
a profound impact on the output. The gift that I promised you is my top 10 list. I have put together
my current top 10 list of favorite personal development books. Don't worry about trying to copy
it off from the screen. I'll put this in your inbox. Just go to drpauljenkins.com the URL is right
here on the screen forward slash best books all one word. I'll put this in your inbox and a little
disclaimer these are my current favorites. My list changes from time to time but go grab it and I've
got reasons for each of these books being on the list. I'm sharing this with you as a gift because
what we put into our brain matters and if you are carefully selecting from the best materials out
there you're likely to have a whole lot better outcomes when it comes to remaining positive
and cheerful. Here's part number four in our strategy make intentional time for rejuvenation
and key relationships. When I say make intentional time it's going to show up on your calendar
somewhere. When are you going to do this? I talk toa lot of people who are so busy with their life,
their job, their responsibilities, they're like well when would I ever do that? It's a good question.
Make sure that it's a question not a statement disguised as a question. Do you hear the difference?
Oh, when would I ever do that? See, that's not a question. Let's turn it back into a question, when
would I ever do that? Good question. Find the time, put it on your calendar, and then you have to
protect that time as well. I did a program years ago with Dan Sullivan called the strategic coach
and one of the principles that was constantly reinforced for our little group of entrepreneurs
was free time first and Dan Sullivan describes free time as being completely
disconnected from our normal work responsibilities and focused on those two things rejuvenation
and key relationships. The word rejuvenation is interesting because the root of that word
is the same root as in the word juvenile and it means quite literally rejuvenation means to make
young again. What activities could you do that would help you to feel
young again? Do you like that idea? This is what rejuvenation is all about. We're going to
make intentional time to do that and then the key relationships, this is primarily your family. Those
closest relationships to you. So, it might be your spouse or your partner it might be your children
and there's other key relationships that you could define. You're spending that
time specifically to enhance and enrich those key relationships. So, make the intentional time for
rejuvenation and key relationships put it on your calendar commit to it. And finally, part five is to
focus on creating value for others. This ties into a philosophy that i teach in our coaching
programs called happynomics without getting into all the details about that understand that there
are reasons why we've learned through our whole life that service is important. Get out of yourself.
Go serve someone else. Create value for others. There's psychological reasons why this creates
happiness and the energy inside of ourselves and without sharing all of the reasons for that right now.
Trust the process as you focus on creating value for others it creates a positive flow.
Positive flow meaning in your own life and in your own psychology. Yes, it creates value for them too.
That's kind of a strategic side effect to the fact that this puts us in a position where we get to
experience positivity and cheerfulness now. Think about one of the times when you've been trapped
in your own thinking or feelings where you're feeling down or dark or depressed or inadequate
and what happens if you get up and serve someone? If you create value for someone else what happens
to your own feelings? You've already got enough experience to know that this is true. Let's make
it an intentional part of our five-part process for creating that positivity and cheerfulness.
This is what I try to practice on a regular basis. This is what I teach and coach others
to do as well. I promise it works. If this content is really resonating with you make sure you queue
up that next video, how to reprogram your mind to stay strong and positive. I'll see you there.