A lot of people are skeptical about the power of positive thinking. How can something as internal as your thoughts possibly have a significant effect on the external aspects of your life?
But it’s true. Simply focusing your thoughts on the positive side of things and keeping the big picture in mind rather than fretting over small matters can do a lot of good for your life, especially for your health and career.
The Health Benefits Of Positive Thinking
One common misconception is that positive thinking is some half-baked idea cooked up by so-called self-help gurus to help them sell books and book speaking gigs.
That’s not at all the case. Mayo Clinic is the largest nonprofit medical group practice in the world, and it’s widely regarded as one of the best practices in the world as well (currently, the U.S. News & World Report ranks the headquarters of Mayo Clinic in Minnesota as the 2nd-best hospital in the U.S.).
If positive thinking were worthless, Mayo wouldn’t list the following health benefits for positive thinking on their website:
- Longer lifespan
- Lower stress levels
- Reduced risk of depression
- Reduced risk of contracting a viral disease
- Reduced risk of health disease
Also, positive thinking has proved to be a vital tool in treating drug abuse and other mental health issues.
Build A Better Career
In addition to giving a boost to your physical health, positive thinking will help you reach your career goals.
Warren Buffet, one of the world’s most successful businessmen (specifically, his $60.8 billion net worth makes him the 3rd-richest man in the world, according to Forbes) gave this piece of insight on what kind of mindset it takes to succeed in the business world:
“If you go from the first floor to the 100th floor of a building and then go back to the 98th, you’ll feel worse than if you’ve just gone from the first to the second, you know. But you’ve got to fight that feeling, because you’re still on the 98th floor.”
This addresses another common misconception with positive thinking: that it somehow makes you a weaker person, that being cynical and focusing on the bad in things is somehow inherently stronger or more intelligent.
Quite the contrary – as Buffet’s quote illustrated, staying positive and keeping things in perspective allows you to move forward in a way that benefits you the most rather than waste your time wallowing in despair or frustration. That’s the power of positive thinking.
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