Creating Positivity on Demand

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I love it when I feel naturally positive. I feel like I can conquer the world and do anything. This usually happens when I think up some genius idea and Friday rolls around so I think about all.the.time. I will have to work on it. The feeling fades as the weekend rolls quickly through and Monday rears it’s head again.

Having a positive outlook feels great. Sometimes like the best feeling in the world. My brain rolls around. I imagine it doing backflips and jumping around in excitement in my head because of how positive things are.

Then there is the opposite side to positivity. Feeling negative, down and in one of those gloomy moods. It isn’t full-on depression, just one of those bad kind of days where you feel unmotivated, not good enough, and in a mental block that just won’t go away.

It’s usually the feeling you have of wanting to throw your jotted notes to the side, grab your laptop in a fit of redirected determination, and spend the rest of the night binging on Netflix to ease the pain. Ahhh, I just finished watching Freaks and Geeks all the way through for the second time in a row.

I don’t want the whole Netflix defense mechanism to become a common activity. So, I’ve thought through the ways I’ve gotten past a mental block and put focus into creating positivity on demand.

Big poster boards are your friend

I used to think creating mood boards/dream boards was just some baseless thing used more as an icebreaker back in school rather than anything important. Well, I was wrong. They are freaking fantastic. Although I just stick with calling them my “big white poster board full of an overflowing amount of goals I’m trying to make sense of”. It’s a longer name than mood board, but it works. 🙂

I buy a 50 cent poster board (or if I’m feeling spiffy, a nice dollar foam board) and get to work creating a road map of goals: three months, six months, one year, and so forth. I’ve made a point of looking at it every morning before I go off to work. Good way to see what I’ve written down over and over!

Re-stating your goals to yourself= great solo accountability

In the last few weeks, I’ve gotten into the practice of saying my goals and wishes out loud to myself once a week, usually on Sunday nights. This has helped a ton in “lighting the fire under me” to keep going on what I’m doing and remember what things I still want to do.

Repeating my goals to myself out loud makes for great solo accountability.

Be aware of the things that trigger your positivity

I’m not much of a quote person. They’re great but other things help in creating positivity on demand even more. What are they?

A big one is nature. I really love going on hikes. It’s a goal of mine to visit The Grand Canyon, Horseshoe Bend, and several national parks in the U.S. in the next year. Even when I’m not actively doing this, simply looking at the photos of past ones makes me feel more positive.

Books give me a jolt of inspiration. The big thing around town seems to be reading several self-development non-fiction books but I get inspired and positive from non-fiction and fiction alike.

I’ve read the first chapter of David Arnold’s Mosquitoland too many times. The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t Have to be Complicated is something I’m constantly marking up.

Podcasts are another positivity boost. Lately, though I’ve been yearning for shorter podcasts (5-15 minutes) to listen to while I clean or brush my teeth. I’m loving Paul Jarvis’s The Freelancer so far. The podcasts are short and to the point.

Longer (30 minute to one hour) podcasts I listen to include Brian Clark’s Unemployable, Kayla Hollatz’s #createlounge, and Climb Out of The Cubicle with Amber Monaco.

What are ways you go about creating positivity on demand? Recommendations always welcome!

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Colin // RebelwithaPlan

Colin Ashby is the writer behind Rebel with a Plan, a website dedicated to people who choose to rebel against the norm of living in debt and feeling financially unenlightened. He believes everyone has an eccentric quality to embrace and that lattes are sometimes a necessity (despite what the personal finance community tells you).

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