Turn on the TV and all you hear is about is politicians who can’t be trusted, stories of innocent people being victimized, and horrible diseases that are threatening our health. Scroll through social media and there’s more of the same.
Then, depending on the attitudes of your closest family members, friends, and co-workers, you may get an even bigger dose of negativity in your own inner circles. This can leave you feeling like you can’t get away from it, but you can. It’s not all that hard either, as long as you do a few things.
Limit Your News Time
While it’s important to stay informed, that doesn’t mean that you have to watch the news for an hour every morning and every night, subjecting yourself to all of the sad affairs going on in the world. Instead, choose one or the other and, once the stories start repeating, decide that it’s either time to turn off the TV or change the channel and move on to something else.
Another option is to download an app for your favorite local news sources and set the notifications so you only receive them for breaking news. This enables you to stay up on all of the big stories without being brought down every time a new sad story gets posted.
Put Positivity in Your News Feed
You can also take a more proactive approach by filling your social media feeds with positivity. This implants good thoughts and feelings in your mind without having to go out and actively search for them.
Follow someone who always makes you laugh or like a page that continuously posts inspirational quotes. And for those friends and family members that you want to stay connected with on Facebook but don’t want to always see all of their drama, unfollow them. This enables you to stay friends without them constantly invading your feed.
Be Careful Who You Socialize With
Some friends tend give us energy and others take it away. The more time you spend with someone who falls in the latter, the worse you’re likely to feel.
When your close circle of friends prefer to complain about their lives versus changing them or they like to blame others for their lack of progress, it’s easy to get sucked into that same poor state of mind.
The opposite is true too. Surround yourself with people who are positive and happy to be alive and you’ll feel that wat too. Keep your distance from everyone else.
Be a Positive Force
Have you ever noticed that when you smile at someone else, nine times out of ten they will smile back? That’s because this positive gesture is fairly contagious.
Decide to be that type of force with others you come in contact with. Instead of joining in on their complaining sessions, talk about your blessings instead.
You won’t necessarily change the way they look at life, but it may get them to be less vocal about their negativity because they know that it won’t penetrate you. And if it does cause them to pause and rethink their approach, then that’s a win-win.
