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Change Your Life Through One Simple Act….

Today, I want to talk about something I remind my clients of regularly to watch out for.

And that’s negativity bias.

Negativity bias is a psychological phenomenon that suggests our brains are wired to pay more attention to negative information and experiences than positive ones.

Especially if that negative information fits our current belief system or narrative.

It’s like shopping for boots online then when you get on Facebook you’re shown a bunch of ads for companies that sell boots.

Facebook goes hey, I see you are looking at boots, let me show you some more because this is what you want, right?

Your brain is acting like Facebook in this example.

Except our brains are skewed toward the negative pole of most things.

That’s the default setting, unfortunately.

But you can work on switching up that default setting and purposely, with intention, seek out the opposite.

Here’s an example.

Let’s say you are feeling unappreciated. Your dominant thought is ‘my partner never appreciates me.’

This causes you to look for all the times you didn’t get appreciation in the way you wanted it.

And soon enough, that will expand to feeling unappreciated by coworkers, friends and family.

As you can imagine, this will cause you to resent your partner and might even lead to arguments or worse.

The fastest way to change this feeling, is to first notice you are dwelling on not getting appreciation the way you wanted it.

Now, do the opposite.

Look for all the ways in which you HAVE received appreciation for what you do.

And not just from your partner.

Look for subtle ways people have shown their appreciation.

Not everyone is going to show grand gestures or come right out and say it.

Which means you might even have missed expressions of appreciation because it didn’t come in the form you expected.

So next time you become aware of negative thoughts and emotions, consciously challenge those thoughts and look for examples of the opposite.

Remember, overcoming negativity bias takes time and practice, but it’s worth it for a more positive outlook on life.

Here’s another thing, being more positive overall leads to you having a higher vibration overall.

Possessing a higher vibration makes you MORE LIKELY to attract into your life the experiences and relationships that you WANT.

So learning to shift your outlook, could literally change your life.
Take It Deeper

If you want to apply this more deeply to your life, here are a couple of journaling questions that can help clarify things for you:

Next time you are feeling negative emotions, do a thought dump so you can get to the heart of what thought exactly is creating the feelings for you. To do a thought dump, ask yourself why you are feeling this way and just write down everything that comes up. Some of it will be nonsense, but you’ll end up with a nugget or two.

Once you have the exact thought causing you the emotional upset, challenge yourself to look back through your memories and come up with the OPPOSITE as proof. Or as you go about your day/week, challenge yourself to look for examples of the opposite out in the world.

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