5 Strategies to Promote Positive Thinking

Reviewed and approved by the psychologist María Alejandra Castro Arbeláez.

Written by Zuleyvic Adriana Cuicas

Last update: 27 December, 2022

Keeping your mind positive all the time can be a very difficult task for both children and adults. In order to be successful, you need to reeducate your mind and encourage positive thinking.

Simply choosing to think positively and toss out any negative thoughts doesn’t suffice. You also need to learn to act consequently in order to reach your goals.

Children need to learn strategies for positive thinking from a young age. This provides them with a valuable tool that helps them in their development.

We all have negative thoughts and doubts. However, the excess of negativity can annul hope in your family regarding meeting different goals.

When adults focus intentionally on their mental conversations – the soliloquy of the mind – they discover that the thoughts that emerge are more dense than those expressed out loud.

The bad thing is, they often aren’t positive thoughts. Rather, they tend to be related to guilt, worry, etc.

Even though we don’t always express our negative thoughts, they still have power over our actions. In fact, our actions are based directly on our thoughts. If we think positively, then our actions will begin to change for the better.

Below, we’ll evaluate some strategies to help teach children think positively all the time. This may seem like a daunting challenge. However, it’s no difficult task at all. Children are able to master this ability from a very young age.

Avoid negative topics if you can’t offer solutions

As an authority figure in your family, you should moderate the conversations you have within your home. How are you orienting your conversations. Are they positive or pessimistic? Do you speak constructively or destructively?

The first thing you should do is analyze the above questions. It’s not easy to produce a change until you get to know your own daily thoughts.

Sometimes, as adults, our words become negative as a result of unpleasant situations we experienced as children. These unfortunate events and sensations can become engraved in our minds.

You may notice your inner voice to be very self critical, constantly pointing out your supposed defects. Perhaps you find yourself saying things like “I’m too slow” or “I can never do anything right.”

Any time you see someone in your family saying they can’t do something, encourage them to try. Encourage your family to dare to try new things, even when they seem difficult or challenging.

History has shown that most successful people reach success by daring to do something really hard and refusing to give up.

Use positive affirmations

Repeating positive expressions to ourselves over time opens new paths in our subconscious, creating the possibility of developing a new thought order.

Positive affirmations are a very important tool. You should repeat them out loud, with feeling and true intention in order for them to work. 

Just reading them doesn’t help very much unless you really feel what you are saying. Teach your child to repeat positive affirmations as well. Together you can create some motivating phrases for your family.

Come up with positive scripts

This strategy is quite simple. Invent a story with a happy, motivational ending that can work as the script for a movie. Don’t worry too much about the story making perfect sense. What’s important is that it makes you feel good.

The more time you can spend on writing your happy story, the better. Do it as a family. The only limit is your imagination! You can even make the story about how you reach one of your family’s goals.

Write positive stories that help you and your family internalize your goals and dreams, as if you had already accomplished them. This unblocks your mind in a very effective way. It also teaches your children to have positive thoughts.

Stay away from negative influences that come your way

Identifying external factors that have a negative effect on your family’s development is very important. 

You need to be careful not to allow these influences to affect or impact your family. If not, you’ll start to take on these negative thoughts as your own without realizing it.

Therefore, it’s best to stay on alert for negative external influences, and also negative influences that are inside your home. In general, these influences disguise themselves as friends. However, you should limit your exposure to these kinds of people as much as you can.

Try to surround your family with people that are healthy on an emotional level. Their positive thoughts will motivate your family to act positively. You’ll notice that you can go from feeling uninspired and unmotivated to feeling full of positive energy.

Keep your eyes on the present

Don’t overwhelm yourself with plans about the future. Torturing yourself is far from positive. When you least expect it, you may realize that you’re bewildered with all the things you need to do. In the end, your mind falls trap to an endless list of worries.

Change your inner discourse, leave anxiety aside and act upon the present. You can’t control the things that happen in the future, but you can take the necessary steps now that will allow you to have a better tomorrow.

Taking these steps will help you refocus your thoughts on the present.

Remember that your children will observe and imitate the way you think and act. So, think positively and your children will learn to do the same.