The Power To Think Positive
The Singapore Women's Weekly|July 2019

Achieving your goals require determination, but you can also make it easier with ways of thinking positively and adopting habits that bring you joy

The Power To Think Positive

It’s claimed that success doesn’t happen by accident, but by the choices we make as a result of our daily habits.“As humans we’re inherently hopeful and therefore predisposed to strive to do and be better, and every year we tend to set goals from a place of optimism – that these are achievable if we want them enough,” says Dr Lilian Nejad, a clinic psychologist at Omnipsych.

And one of the best ways to achieve these goals and keep them at the forefront of our minds is to structure daily habits around them.“Breaking your goal into smaller, more specific, simple habits and repeating them consistently over time generates a ‘habit loop’, which means they automatically become part of your day and naturally much easier to attain,” adds Dr Nejad.

According to neuroscience studies, our brains have shown a remarkable capacity for change.“No matter how entrenched a behaviour, you have the power to generate new ones by altering habitual patterns of behaviour,” says Dr Nejad. Here, we share three daily habits that can help make positive changes in your life possible:

None of the world’s best and brightest leave their mornings to chance and this is not a coincidence,” says Benjamin Spall, co-author of My Morning Routine.

“When you have a morning routine, made up of as many positive habits as possible, then you’re starting your day with intention and bringing your morning ‘wins’ with you into the rest of your day, while also working to deter bad habits along the way,” he adds.

A study published in the journal Emotion found that the key to happiness is structuring your day so that it includes activities that are likely to make you happy. As Benjamin explains, “Setting a habit that brings you contentment or joy as soon as you wake up will have an equivalent ripple effect on the rest of your day.”

This story is from the July 2019 edition of The Singapore Women's Weekly.

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This story is from the July 2019 edition of The Singapore Women's Weekly.

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