With the bombardment of bad news in the world, these techniques can help you retain your enthusiasm for life.

Everywhere you turn there is another tragic world event, another terrible tragedy, another devastatingly sad tale that makes you curl up in a ball and cry like a baby, and more economic news that sends you reeling with anxiety before you literally fall into bed after yet another sleepless night tossing and turning.

Our thoughts and emotions enable us to stay strong and positive; to help others get through difficult times and to help ourselves navigate life’s challenges.

When we are able to keep our head way up above the water, we can be a source of inspiration for others and a beautiful shining light in a sea of darkness and turbulence.

Here are 6 noteworthy techniques to retain your enthusiasm for life:

1. No More Auto-Pilot

Imagine if instead of watching the news every morning, you watched a vivacious entrepreneur present an upbeat, inspirational daily news program that concentrated on stories about love, kindness, compassion and spreading joy in the world?

Think for a moment how energized you would feel each day.

Refrain from acting on auto-pilot, it is now time to change your daily routine. Just because watching the news every morning or dwelling on the bad news stories in the newspaper is something you have always done, does not mean you need to continue to do so.

Research has proven time and again, the negative impacts watching the news has on our state of mind and body affecting our emotions, destroying our creativity and creating stress in the body.

Many successful entrepreneurs avoid watching the news and I personally have thoroughly enjoyed living life for years now without watching it. The great news is that I have definitely noticed a positive difference to my general well-being.

Change your routine and utilize your time more effectively in a way that will serve you by turning up your favorite song, talking to your children before school, listen to an inspiring podcast, respond to emails or use the time to go for a run with your dog.

2. Aim High

When you are feeling low and moving into negative territory, a fabulous way to immediately feel brighter is to determine what you are focusing on.

To stay focused and positive, think about the lofty goals you want to achieve this year.

Create images in your mind of you having achieved your goal or alternatively write your goals down on a note card and carry it around in your wallet or type those goals into your phone for easy access.

As Brian Tracy tells us: ‘Goals allow you to control the direction of change in your favor’.

3. Ultimate Loves In Life

Another way to stay enthusiastic about life and create a smile from ear to ear is to write down and think about everything that you love in life or even better say it out loud.

Start a game with your family or partner to get into the habit of focusing and talking about the things you love rather than what you don’t. If you talk about things that you love, you attract more of those things to you. The same goes for talking about things you don’t want, you end up attracting more of the same.

I came up with a list of thirty things from writing, singing, music, reading, beautiful cars, dogs, coffee, learning, midnight drives to meeting new people.

4. Turn It Up

Words create images in our mind and evoke emotions within us. This is why it’s important to be mindful of the conversations going on around us.

Therefore, if we are walking in a shopping center, catching public transport or working on our laptop in a cafe and we hear negative conversations, put your headphones in to block out the noise.

It is a great way to block out negativity whilst retaining a positive state of mind and it lifts your mood.

5. Run A Mile

Anytime you encounter a toxic person, run a million miles in the opposite direction in the nicest possible way of course.

There will be times when we find it impossible to escape via the first fire exit particularly if the person who is toxic is a member of our family.

Toxic people can infect an entire group of people within a short period of time. To make matters worse you can quickly move from feeling high on life to feeling depressed and sad. Not to mention, the rapid energy drain seeping from your body like a home that lost access to electricity with a flick of a switch.

6. Leave The Room

If you are talking with a colleague at work, a new acquaintance at a party or a stranger on the subway and the conversation quickly moves downhill. By downhill, I mean gossiping, judging, complaining about the doom and gloom in the world or harshly criticizing yourself or others, it is time to make a move.

Politely excuse yourself from the conversation and move on to talking with someone else, going back to your desk or moving to another carriage on the subway.

Like anything in life, the more we become vigilant with our mind in terms of our focus, what we say, feel and think the easier it becomes to change the quality of our life and navigate turbulent waters when we hit the rough seas.

 

This article was originally published on Inc.com