“The secret of life isn’t what happens to you, but what you do with what happens to you.” – Dr. Norman Vincent Peale

In 1952 Norman Vincent Peale published “The Power of Positive Thinking”, in my opinion, one of the greatest positive thinking books of all time. It is the foundation of many positive thinking books that are on the market today.

The publishing of that book was the springboard for Dr. Peale to go on and publish a number of other positive thinking books as well as “Guideposts”, a Christian based positive focused monthly magazine. My mom read guideposts for the entire time I knew her and it was because of her I became interested in the power of positive thinking.

Since Dr. Peale, every self-help guru on the planet has said that the way to experience happiness, prosperity, and health is via the doorway of positive thoughts. The interesting thing is that power of positive thinking is easy to talk about and put into action when everything is going great in your life. The problem is that it may not have the same uplifting power as things are crashing and burning all around you. But don’t despair! There is a great deal of potency in the power of positive thinking. When you begin to focus your mind on the positive you can take control of your thoughts and use them to guide you in the direction you want to go. And remember, your thoughts are the driving force toward your destiny.

Use these four simple positive thinking tips to help you achieve the life you want to live:

1. Cultivate and Maintain an Attitude of Gratitude

Most psychologists will tell you that how you experience life depends on what you pay attention to. For each of us every day, some things go right and some things go wrong. Nobody’s life is 100 percent either way. But it’s the things you pay more attention to that makes you believe your life is the way it is. So if you pay attention to the negative events in your life you’ll believe your life is negative, while if you focus on what goes right, you’ll experience more happiness.

Pause throughout the day and think about things that you are grateful for. This might be your job or your relationships, or your health. If you have difficulty thinking about things to be thankful for just be thankful for being alive. What you’ll find is the more you practice developing an attitude of gratitude, the better you’ll feel about life and about yourself.

An easy way to cultivate an attitude of gratitude is to smile and greet everyone you encounter warmly. In case you hadn’t realized it, smiles are contagious. An added benefit is you’ll instantly begin to feel a positive difference inside yourself.

2. Surround Yourself with People Who Have Positive Attitudes

I once heard the late great Jim Rohn say “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” I believe he’s right. People who soar to incredible heights of accomplishment in their lives do so because they surround themselves with encouraging people who have positive attitudes.

Make a determined effort to spend less time with negative people and decide to invest more time with people with positive attitudes, who speak words of support into your life. It’s difficult to cultivate a positive attitude when the people around you are constantly whining and complaining. Instead choose to hang around people who are positive and are going places in their lives. What you’ll find is as you surround yourself with people who routinely seek the good inside of you, you’ll begin to do the same. As a result you’ll experience greater power, self-confidence and joy.

3. Learn from Negative Thinking

In order for positive thinking to truly make a difference in your life, you have to learn how to cancel out your negative thinking. Even more important, however, is developing the ability to get whatever benefits you can out of those negative thoughts before you erase them from your mind.

Whenever you experience negative thinking, ask yourself: “What else could this mean?” If someone treats you unfairly, it could mean that they don’t like you very much. But it probably means they’re just having a bad day or that they are having problems at home or in their job. Instead of jumping to conclusions ask yourself, “Is there anything I can do to help?”, even if it simply saying “I’m sorry you feel that way.” At the very least it’ll help you feel better about the situation and you might be able to help them get out of their funky mood.

Your negative thoughts probably have some validity to them so before discarding them, ask yourself “Is the critic inside of me trying to teach me something valuable?” If there is a lesson to be learned, take note of it, and then quickly discard the negative thought. The best way to do this is by simply replacing it with a positive perspective on the same situation.

4. Practice Positive Self Talk

What happens with most people is that when faced with a stressful situation, they resort to a pattern of negative thinking and behaving that has become a habit. So how do you create new habits that support your success instead of sabotaging it?

You can use positive self talk to replace your negative thinking. What you say to yourself on a regular basis, your self talk is vital to creating a positive attitude. How do you create these positive statements?

Write out what you want in life and the qualities you want to possess. Write these statements in the present tense, and use positive language. For example “I am earning a monthly income that creates over $150,000 a year,” or “I am living with the man/woman of my dreams”. Repeat these statements to yourself every morning when you wake up and every night before you go to sleep. Do this every day, and before long you’ll find that you believe the words of the positive self talk statements you’ve created for yourself.

As Napoleon Hill taught in his classic book ‘Think and Grow Rich’ “What the mind of man (or woman) can conceive and believe it can achieve.”  Once you believe you can do something (except for things like flying without wings of course) nothing can stop you. So if a negative habit of thinking a certain way is holding you back, decide to create a new habit.  Try using positive self talk today and experience its power for yourself.

You Can Become a Positive Thinker!

Remember, the negative thoughts of the critic inside of you can serve a valuable purpose if you allow them to. In NLP we say “There are no failures only feedback.” Mistakes are merely learning experience. When you decide to learn from your life’s events so that you don’t make the same mistakes then the lessons you receive can be extremely powerful.

You can begin to harness the power of positive thinking for creating the life you desire today. Apply these positive thinking tips to move you closer to the joy and success you deserve. Begin using them today!

Wil Dieck is a life and health coach and the founder of Total Mind Therapy . You can sign up here to receive these positive thinking tips delivered by e-mail weekly