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One of the problems with the positive thinking literature is its obsession with cheerfulness and enthusiasm, which often translates into acting cheerful or enthusiastic, which often translates into being phony. And being phony doesn’t feel good. That’s one way “trying to be positive” short-circuits itself.

But cheerfulness and enthusiasm are not the only two positive or worthwhile emotions. Many other emotions are superior, especially around other people. It can be annoying for other people when you are acting cheerful and enthusiastic when they don’t feel that way at all. Especially if they suspect you’re faking it.

But nobody would be annoyed if you were cultivating the feeling of affection or kindness. Those are also positive emotions. And they focus your attention outside yourself.

Another good emotion to aim for is calmness. Another is a feeling of determination.

Once you know what emotion you’re trying to cultivate, it will influence what you do. When you’re aiming for calmness, for example, you will probably change your posture a little, and maybe change the way you breathe. You might take deep breaths more often. You’ll speak differently. Trying to cultivate calmness might change the way you’re thinking and the way you treat people. And the result will be: You’ll feel more calm and relaxed. Whatever emotion you cultivate influences you.

Most of us want to be “a more positive person.” And that’s admirable. It would make the world a better place. It would make us personally happier. But let’s do it in a way that feels good inside. And let’s do it in a way that helps others feel good too.

Think about the possible positive emotions, and choose to cultivate the ones you really like. W. Clement Stone liked enthusiasm and showed us how to cultivate it. Napoleon Hill liked cheerfulness and showed us how to cultivate it. What emotions do you like?

Tags: direct your mind by Adam Khan
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In the antivirus for the mind, you learned a simple fact: Whenever a setback or failure occurs, you will explain it. You can’t help it. Your explanation will come quickly and automatically. And your explanation will seem entirely self-evident.

Some of your explanations are good, some will make you feel bad unnecessarily, and some will make you less capable of dealing with the setback successfully.

The main technique in the antivirus for the mind is to look at your explanation and see if you’ve made any thought-mistakes.

If you then find mistakes in your explanation, you will naturally form new explanations of the setback. The question for today (What would be a more reasonable explanation?) goes straight to the task of creating a new explanation. You can use the question as a sort of shortcut to the antivirus for the mind once you’ve trained yourself to detect mistakes in your explanations. You can also use this question if you don’t have time to look for mistakes and want a quick and dirty method. After a setback occurs, notice the explanation you automatically made for it, and then ask yourself what would be a more reasonable explanation.

For example, let’s say you have a goal to make ten thousand dollars this month but by the end of the month, you didn’t achieve your goal. This is a failure, and you will explain it automatically. Let’s say you explain it like this: “The economy isn’t doing very well right now.”

But then you use today’s question. You ask yourself, “Is there a more reasonable explanation?” Not that there is anything horribly wrong with your first explanation. It’s that not bad. It takes the blame off yourself, so it will keep you from feeling too bad about it. But on the other hand, the explanation leaves you somewhat powerless. It doesn’t give you any avenue for finding a way to make ten thousand dollars when the economy is doing poorly, which leaves you somewhat helpless in the face of forces outside yourself.

So you try to think of another explanation. “I didn’t do all I planned on doing. That’s why I didn’t make the ten thousand dollars.” This explanation gives you an avenue to pursue that might actually lead to you achieving your goal next month regardless of what the economy is doing.

It’s always good to come up with more than one alternative explanation and then choose the best one. So you try again. “I wasted a lot of time on the least profitable part of my business. If I eliminated that part of my business, I would have more time for the more profitable things.” Again, this could lead to actions that might make you more capable of hitting your goal next month.

Every failure is probably influenced by many different factors. Trying to come up with alternative explanations opens your mind to factors in your power to control, and that not only makes you feel better, it makes you more capable of changing things in the future.

If an event happens and you feel bad about it, your feelings derive from how you explained the event. And your ability to deal with the setback is influenced by the way you explained it. However reasonable your automatic explanation is, can you think of an even better explanation? If you can, it will change your feelings and your capabilities.

Tags: direct your mind by Adam Khan
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