How To Stay Positive During Difficult Times: A Complete Guide To Positivity

Table of Contents

Introduction: Importance Of Knowing How To Stay Positive During Difficult Times

Life is a mixed bag of good and bad times. During good times, people bask in positivity. But when bad times come, they become get negative. Their attitude and thought process turn against their well-being. They grieve, give up, and lose all hopes of a better tomorrow. All this takes their life in the wrong direction forever. So, it is of immense importance to know how to stay positive during difficult times. When you learn to stay positive no matter how the circumstances are, you become the creator of your destiny. So, you have to find ways be optimistic during tough times. Remember, life is a choice, and to make the right choices, you have to stay strong & positive.

Positivity & Negativity During Good Times

Staying positive during difficult times is no magic. You do not become positive suddenly, by chance, or by pushing yourself too hard. Compelling yourself too hard to do anything will only make you full of stress. So, you have to become positive naturally, sustainably, and in its truest possible sense. Thus, before we find out how to stay positive during difficult times, we need to see how we behave during good times. We need to see if the problem lies in the roots, which is mostly the case.

How Do People Stay Positive During Good Times?

Generally, most people are positive during good times. They are happy and hopeful that good things will come to them. How are they able to do this? There are two explanations for this. In the first case, the positivity from good things is high enough to keep people’s whole focus on good things. They can ignore negativity completely, which keeps them positive mentally. In the second case, they are not able to ignore the negativity. But the high positivity from good things exceeds the low negativity from bad ones. So, their mood remains positive and cheerful. Thus, there isn’t any problem over here. Negativity is not too troublesome till now, and staying positive is possible and easy.

Why Do People Become Negative Even During Good Times?

The real problem arises when people are negative, even during good times. Have you ever wondered what causes negative thinking in people? Sometimes, it’s perplexing! People may have all the good things to look at in their lives but they still choose to focus on the negatives. They always think about what they lost or might lose in the future or the things they can’t have. It is a misuse of your mental faculties and not negativity in the real sense. Also, it is the root cause of your inability to fight negativity in adverse situations. How do you stop being so negative?

You can fight negativity and minimize it, but you also need to learn to focus on the right things. If your focus lacks direction, even a minuscule amount of negativity can trouble you a lot. So, difficult situations and negativity are a choice and not an accident or punishment! You can learn how not to lose hope during rough moments of life by choosing to acknowledge & admire positivity rather than focusing exclusively on negativity.

Train Your Mind Not To Focus Only On Negativity

You should train your mind not to focus only on negativity. By doing this, you would be able to fight negativity easily in any situation! How do you do this? You should decide against seeing only negativity in things or life in general. If you cannot ignore negativity altogether, you should at least choose to acknowledge & appreciate the positives too. It will make lives much easier even when you find yourself surrounded by dense negativity. Appreciating the positives will help you attain the wisdom to live hopefully during demanding conditions.

I would not suggest ignoring negativity altogether because it will make you unrealistic & impractical. Negativity is also of value, although only when it is in the right amount. What you should aim at is:

Learning to convert negativity into positivity,
Minimizing negativity, and
Knowing how to focus on positives too.

Minimize Negativity By Turning Negativity Into Positivity

turn negative thoughts into positive thoughts. — How to stay positive during difficult times

How can you convert negativity into positivity? It all starts from the mind. Convert negative thoughts into positive ones. It will help you turn negativity into positivity in real life too. It’s not a difficult thing to do. You need to add a positive thought in front of the negative one. It means that you need to answer the doubts you have in your mind regarding something. For example, if you get negative thoughts about a possible job rejection, you need to remind yourself about your satisfactory preparation. And even if you do get rejected, you will have many better job offers in the future. You can also start your own little business, making you your boss. So, negative thoughts can give you positive results if you add positive thoughts in front of them. It is also an effective method to lift your confidence during the inconvenient stages of life.

The other important thing to be kept in mind is to work hard on your skill-sets consistently. Positivity to be sustainable needs some basis. Right? You cannot fool yourself! You have to have a positive mindset apart from continuously working hard to back it up.

So, work hard, stay true to yourself, and you will generate positive thoughts and develop a positive attitude towards life naturally. Repeating this trick for every negative feeling will minimize negativity in your life. It will make you reach a level that will contribute positively to your growth. Price rise is hurtful for the economy, but we do need it in the correct numbers to let and make the economy grow!

Learn To Focus On The Positives Also

Once you have reduced negativity in your life to its lowest possible, you now need to learn to focus on the positives. Minimizing negativity will automatically shift a little bit of your focus away from it. But you still need to train your mind to focus on positivity too. This training will come in handy during the ‘rainy days’! It will give you an approach to keep yourself fearless at the nightmarish junctures of life.

Here are some tips and tricks to teach your mind to become positive:

Be thankful for god’s most precious gift to you, which is that you are alive at this moment!
Take notice of the things and people you have in your life. (It could have been much worse!)
Realize that your losses could have been heavier than what they currently are.
Buy a pet. There is no better way to learn to be carefree and more positive!
Take a stroll in Nature and absorb the intensity, positivity, and calm.
Meet new people, visit new places, try new cuisines, among other newbies.
Try exploring the new sides of the people you know. Freshness always brings in positivity.
Release the stress from your mind & body through yoga, meditation, head & body massage, spa, steam baths, walking, cycling, jogging, exercising, traveling, hiking, picnics, other explorations, and expeditions.
Read inspirational books and watch motivational movies.
Help the needy, serve the poor. Positivity grows exponentially by serving others!
Feel blessed and make an effort to see the positive side of everything you come across.

You have now learned to optimize the negativity & positivity levels during good times. Also, you learned how to focus on positive things worth appreciating within and around you. It means you have done the groundwork to learn how to stay positive in difficult times. You are now fully ready to combat negativity with everything you have got. So, let’s begin!

Negativity & Positivity During Difficult Times

Bad or difficult times bring a much higher amount of negativity and a much lower amount of positivity. This makes it harder to figure out how to stay positive during difficult times. During good times, you could manage negativity relatively easily because its amount was quite small. You could even manage it by shifting your focus on positivity and ignoring negativity altogether. But the times have changed, and tables have turned now. When there is too much negativity around, it is much tougher to stay positive. How do you stay positive during difficult times with a lot higher density and intensity of negativity? We will start from the hardest to the most practical way of doing it. Here we go!

How To Stay Positive During Difficult Times: Focusing Only On The Positives

The first way to stay positive during tough times is to try and focus only on the positives. It is something you did without any qualms during good times. But it’s more difficult to replicate during bad times as there will be too few positives. So, positive thinking during difficult times needs something concrete & reliable. If you have worked hard in the good times and have practiced focusing on the positives, you might be successful in repeating it during the bad times.

But this strategy might not last too long. First of all, it is too hard to stay positive during bad times as the amount of positivity to focus upon is very small. Secondly, even if you succeed, it would be increasingly harder to stay focused on positivity. Negativity might keep rising which would get you sooner or later. Also, trying too hard to hold onto positivity here would mean that you are trying to avoid reality. It would mean that you are too fearful of it. Some day, negativity will get the better of you. So, focusing on the positives during bad times may be a good short-term strategy. It may buy you some extra time. But it is not the optimal strategy that you can reliably bank on when you are trying to stay positive during stressful times!

How To Stay Positive During Difficult Times: Work Hard, Keep Fighting & Never Give Up!

So, what is the best way to fight negativity and stay positive during challenging times? It is the strategy that you adopted during the good times! Yes, you need to fight negativity by working hard. Weaken, reduce & finish it bit by bit. If you have gone unemployed, you need to keep improving & updating your skill-sets apart from keeping the job-hunt on. If you have put on too much weight, you need to stop eating junk, start eating low-fat & healthy food apart from doing physical exercises regularly. You have to keep the fight alive till the time you either defeat negativity or till good times come back in your life once again. Let’s make things more clear. When you decide not to give up, to start working harder, and to fight negativity during difficult times, there are three possibilities:

1. Fighting Without Success:

When you decide not to give up during bad times, negativity cannot defeat you any longer. It cannot increase in your life because you will continue fighting it. But you might not be able to conquer it either. It is the worst-case scenario when you fight negativity during bad times. But it’s just enough! You can keep the fight on till good times arrive at our doorstep once again. It’s like taking refuge under an umbrella till the rain stops! You might not have found a way yet, that tells you how to stay positive during difficult times, but you have surely managed to learn how to survive to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

2. Fighting With Some Success:

Here, you get some success in your fight against negativity. You can reduce it to some extent but not fully before good times return. If the negativity positivity ratio was 90:10 before, you probably reduced it to 80:20 now. It is more than just a morale booster like in the first case where you had barely survived. It is real progress and marching steps towards positivity during difficult times.

3. Fighting & Winning:

This is the best-case scenario. Here, you not only stand tall in front of the bad times or get some success by reducing the negativity but with your hard work, you defeat them both simultaneously. You move from a high negativity situation to a high positivity scenario. It means that you carved your way out of the bad times to reach the good times before they could reach you. You have minimized negativity as you did in the good times. To put it simply, you have removed all the boundaries between good and bad times for yourself. You have achieved the perfect balance in life. You don’t have to differentiate between positivity & negativity anymore! It is because you can turn any type or amount of negativity into positivity at will! Hence, you can now use bad times & negativity to your benefit.

But it takes a lot of work to reduce a very high level of negativity to its minimum. It might take many cycles of good-bad-good times. It’s possible that it takes a lifetime for some people, while it may take just a decade or two for other fast learners. You require a high level of patience, persistence, and intelligence to do this! But once you achieve it, there is no looking back. You have devised your own unique formula telling you exactly how to stay positive during difficult times. Bad situations or negativity won’t ever touch you again if you keep doing what you have learned from the whole process.

Conclusion: Positive Focus & Hard Work Helps You Know How To Stay Positive During Difficult Times

Learning how to stay positive during difficult times is not a cakewalk, but it’s not impossible either. To STAY POSITIVE, you first need to BE POSITIVE. You can do this, either by focusing on the positives or minimizing negativity and learning to appreciate the positives. Minimizing negativity requires constant work. It means that good times are generally about focusing on the positive things while bad times are majorly about working hard to optimize negativity & positivity. It means that with the correct focus and the optimal amount of hard work, you can learn how to stay positive during difficult times!

Burning Questions Related To ‘How To Stay Positive During Difficult Times’

Knowing the general way to positivity during tough times helps. But you should also know the answers to some specific questions throwing light on how to stay positive during difficult times. We will take some of the most burning queries over here. Let’s go!

1) How to stay positive during difficult times when trying to lose weight

Overweight or Obesity, apart from being a personal challenge, also carries a social stigma with it. It fills you with negativity when someone makes fun of you, bullies you, or doesn’t take you seriously.

Follow the following steps to stay positive when you are trying to lose weight:

People may make fun of you, but you always have to like, love, & respect yourself and enjoy your own company.
Stop giving importance to what negative people say about you.
Don’t make too strict a plan on dieting and exercising. Take it forward step by step and slowly. Patience holds the key!
Replace all unhealthy food with fresh fruits and green veggies, among other things, to keep your mood light and spirits high.
Develop a habit of meditation. It will set your mind free and remove the compulsiveness to overeat naturally.
Watch and read inspirational content to stay on track.
Do not curse yourself for failing to follow the plan. Stay calm and keep improving.
Never give up and keep bettering your records. Do not compete or compare yourself with others.
Finally, develop a healthy (eating and exercising) lifestyle to stay fit.

Anxiety is the enemy of positivity. It attacks positivity and doesn’t let it exist in its presence. So, you must plan to defeat anxiety while it’s not there. We feel anxious either in a particular situation or when we fear something, for example, stage fright. The first thing you need to do to remove anxiety is to accept it. Until you spot it, you cannot fight it or remove it. Next, do deep breathing exercises to make your mind relaxed. Then, you need to practice regularly in the situation you feel anxious about. Imagine yourself in that situation every day to prepare yourself mentally. Conduct the activity when alone or in front of a friend regularly.

Don’t Worry & Trust The Process

Do not worry about how well or bad you are doing it. You also don’t need to give yourself fake positive feedback, but you don’t need to feel bad for below-par performance either. Initially, all that matters is doing the thing. You need to go through with the process day after day. Gradually, with time, you will keep improving at it, which will start bringing results. And ultimately, positivity will win over anxiety and negativity!

3) How to stay positive during difficult times after a miscarriage?

Nothing can be more painful than a miscarriage. The negativity attached to it is limitless as a mother loses her child without even seeing him. Yes, the trauma may be slightly lower as there won’t be any memories that could increase the grief. But losing any child in any possible way is as painful as it can get. So, how do we stay positive after a miscarriage?

It’s perfectly normal to mourn the unborn. Positivity won’t help when the loss is this big and involves the loss of life. The best you can do is stay sad for some time and eventually move on. You can tell yourself that maybe the child is in a better place. To move on, the whole family needs to stay together and get united. They should regroup as a family, support one another, and express love for each other. And when the pain is gone and the time feels right, the next baby may be planned. One positive, out of all of this is that you will give double the amount of love to the current child than what you would have given to the lost one!

4) How to stay positive during difficult times in a competitive work environment?

Modern-day offices have become more competitive than many contemporary sporting events. There is a lot of pressure. The heaviest load of expectations comes from the boss, who thinks every employee is a superman. Next, colleagues may act like friends but are fiercely competitive. They compare their performance, salary, and growth with their counterparts, wanting to outperform them in every possible area. The result is a cut-throat competition that is too negative and difficult to survive in. So, how do you stay positive in such a competitive work environment?

You don’t need to join the rat race! You should be happy within yourself. At least, you should DROP YOURSELF out of all the comparisons and competitions. If you put yourself under pressure, then the situation will worsen when your colleagues and boss step in. When you remain stress-free, you can work to the best of our ability and get good outputs. Mental freedom & positivity translate well into success and some concrete form of positivity. When you are brimming with positivity, you would also stop taking the pressure, stress & negativity from your friends at work and your boss!

5) How to stay positive during difficult times after a divorce?

Staying in a meaningful marriage is like heaven. But if the marriage is abusive and full of tragic incidents, it’s better to take a divorce. But divorce is still a taboo in our societies. Due to this, people who get divorced feel the negativity around them and become negative themselves. They somehow catch the feeling that they won’t ever get the right person and that they will die alone. Doubts start creeping into their minds about themselves. They think maybe they were the reason for the divorce. How do you get around this negativity after a divorce?

Everybody deserves to be happy and have a partner who loves them. But if unfortunately, you don’t get what you wanted, it doesn’t mean everything is lost. Life means everything can be started from scratch any number of times if things go wrong. The same applies to marriage as well. Nobody wants bad for themselves, but if things don’t go as planned, one should be ready to move on and build it again. Life will keep giving you chances. You have to remain open and positive. Stop listening to what society has to say, keep meeting new people with hope and positivity, and you will find what you truly deserve!

6) How to stay positive during difficult times in a lockdown?

Covid-19 took the world by storm. It made millions sick and killed many people. If negativity had a face, it would have looked exactly like the condition during Covid-19 across the world. Lockdowns were imposed, which made matters even worse. Many people lost their jobs. Many businesses had to shut down. Sitting home, people don’t know what to do. They are desperately trying ways to reduce the negativity. How can you remove the negativity and stay positive during the lockdowns?

You have to look at the positive side of this. Appreciate the fact that you have got so much extra time to spend with our family. The lockdown has given you the time to take care of your health. You can also change your lifestyle for the better, which you had ignored for so long! You can pursue your hobbies and do things that you have waited to do all your life. In short, you can once again keep yourself happy and get healed.

Yes, there were job and economic losses, but it is like a trade-off for the things you have gained. And it’s worth it, which you cannot deny. On the economic front also, it can be treated as an opportunity to start your own little digital business. It will allow you to work from home and will keep you close to your loved ones forever. If you want to stay positive during the lockdowns, you won’t miss following this excellent advice.

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