7 Steps to Build –and Keep- a Positive Mindset

The power of a positive mindset –or positive thinking- is a trendy concept, almost a cliché, but not for that any less real. Its mental and physical benefits have been proved and demonstrated by many scientific studies; it can give you more confidence, improve your mood, and reduce the risk of developing hypertension, depression, and other stress-related issues.

So far, so good, but how can we build and maintain such a positive mindset?

Here’s a list of seven steps to take to accomplish that goal:

1. Start your day with positive affirmations. The actions you take in the morning set the tone for the rest of the day; go to the mirror and say to yourself: “today is going to be a great day,” or “I’m going to be awesome today,” and watch in amazement how your day will improve.

2. Keep your focus on the good things. There’s no such thing as a perfect day; whenever you bump into an obstacle, look for the good in that situation, no matter how small.

3. Look for the funny side in bad situations. We’re used to saying, “someday we’re going to look back on this situation, and laugh,” so, why wait? Just by looking at it with a smile, the way out or through the situation will show faster and clearly.

4. Turn failures into lessons. Mistakes are always going to happen, so instead of focusing on the failure, think about what you’re going to do –or not do- next time, and create a roadmap highlighting highways, shortcuts, roadblocks, and bumps.

5. Transform your negative self-talk into a coach. Your negative self-talk usually creeps up unnoticed, and soon it turns into internalized feelings that reinforce your conceptions of yourself. We have to turn our inner critic into an inner coach, so thoughts like “I’m so bad at this” become “once I get more practice, I’ll be great at this.”

6. Focus on the present. We need to live the moment. Most negativity sources come from a memory of a recent event or the exaggerated visualization of a potential future event.

7. Surround yourself with positive people and environment. When we do that, we hear positive outlooks, stories, and affirmations; their positive words and actions will sink in and affect our own line of thinking, words, and actions.

Everyone, no matter the situation, can take these steps and increase their positive attitude.

A positive mindset will always offer compounding returns, so the more often we practice it, the more significant benefits we’ll collect.

Stay strong!

One of the core values we have as a company is to inspire and empower people in all aspects of their lives. Additionally, if you want to read about our Custom Software Solutions and Consulting Services, please visit www.isucorp.ca, or book a meeting to review your software project.

Simple ways to find your smile every day

Don’t wait to be happy

There are always reasons to be happy. Happy times are coming and going like trains in a train station; sometimes, they are right there right in front of your eyes, waiting for you to shift your focus and notice and appreciate them.

Whatever is going on around you, you can feel happy, be productive, create success, and enjoy yourself; all you have to do is change your focus and the way you think.

Create your happy moments

We all dream of being happy someday, but only when the conditions are right. Until then, we’re overworked, overstressed, and less than pleased. We create a utopian destination out of something that should be part of the journey.

If we don’t train ourselves to feel happy along the way, what makes us think we will feel it when we get there? Happiness is an emotion we can create by setting ourselves up with the right state (mental, emotional, and physical) to build momentum, and when those ‘right conditions’ are met, we’ll be there already.

Get in a happy state

A joyful life is the best kind of life we can hope to achieve. It creates those positive, feel-good vibes and allows us to look to the future with optimism. Bliss and pure joy seem like ephemeral emotions, but we can learn to hold on to it and relish in it and eventually create it at will.

In short, stop worrying so much, appreciate all the small things (and the big things you may be missing out too), surround yourself with positive, loving people, smile more, laugh more, hug more, and love more…

After all, what can be better than that?



Stay strong!

One of the core values we have as a company is to inspire and empower people in all aspects of their lives. Additionally, if you want to read about our Custom Software Solutions and Consulting Services, please visit www.isucorp.ca, or book a meeting to review your software project.

Recondition Yourself for Success!

Did you know?

70% of smokers say they would like to quit but can’t.

92% of people fail at their New Year’s resolution within the first month.

85% of drug and alcohol addicts relapse after recovery.

95% of people who lose weight fail to keep it off long term.

98% of people die without fulfilling their dreams. 

People want to progress; they want to be and feel better.

The problem is they have developed characteristic patterns of thinking and behavior; they focus on the same images and ideas, and they keep asking themselves the same questions. They do want a new result, but they continue to act in the same way.

You have inside the necessary resources to change anything in your life. It’s just that you have a series of associations that usually prevent you from utilizing your full potential. These associations have their pathways already linked in your nervous system, making you react to situations in a certain way, which, in most cases, has nothing to do with the event itself.

If you want to get new results in your life, knowing your outcome and getting some leverage will not be enough. You can be motivated to change, but if you keep doing the same things and repeating the wrong patterns, your life will not change; all you’re going to get is more pain and frustration.

You need to change your approach.

Remember the old record albums? Those discs (we called them LPs back then) can consistently reproduce the same sounds because of the groove in which the sound is encoded. But what would if happen if you picked the record, took a needle, and scratched it back and forth several times?

The pattern encoded in the groove will indeed be deeply interrupted, and the record will never play the same way again.

Likewise, interrupting your limiting patterns of behavior or emotions can change your life.

Just like Marianne Williamson said, “you must learn a new way to think before you can learn a new way to be.”  

Three things must be in place for you to make these changes and make them last. They are the three fundamental steps of Neuro-Associative Conditioning:

1.      Get leverage on yourself. You need to make a decision and acknowledge that:

• Something MUST change.

• You MUST change it.

• You CAN change it.

2.      Interrupt your current pattern of association. You have to scratch the olf pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving by doing something weird, out of the ordinary in the way you talk or move your body (use ludicrous words instead of the harsh ones you say when you’re angry, for instance).

3.      Condition a new, empowering association. Install a new alternative, and work on its reinforcement until it’s conditioned. Like an out of tune piano, human behavior needs to be continuously reinforced until it becomes a habit. Piano tuners have to keep checking and adjusting the strings until they stay in tune –notice that we call the process ‘conditioning,’ which means that you’ll have to regularly check and reinforce the changes, so you don’t allow the option of getting back to the old way.

Always remember to link pleasure to your new alternative. Reward yourself emotionally each step of the way to accelerate the development of the new pattern.

Let’s continue this topic next week.
Until then, stay strong!

One of the core values we have as a company is to inspire and empower people in all aspects of their lives. Additionally, if you want to read about our Custom Software Solutions and Consulting Services, please visit www.isucorp.ca, or book a meeting to review your software project.