How Can Writers Use Positive Thinking?

Many years ago, I challenged my online writing group to draft an end of the year review that outlined only the positives of their writing journey. They could share anything they wanted, but it had to be framed in a positive light. Not only did our members enjoy looking back in a positive way, they realized just how much they actually accomplished.

But what is positive thinking? How does it work?

What is Positive Thinking?

Positive thinking is more than just uttering a few happy words and then allowing your fears and self-doubt to take hold again. Positive thinking is a mental attitude that, with practice, allows you to have positive thoughts and uses daily affirmations to help you to see a positive outcome to almost every situation.

Judi Moreo, life coach and author of You Are More Than Enough: Every Woman’s Guide to Purpose, Passion & Power, encourages her readers to make conscious choices to think about themselves in a more positive light. Moreo says we must stop criticizing ourselves and demanding perfection in what we do, and that we need to change the mental pictures we have of ourselves. Through the use of daily affirmations and by visualizing our success, we can achieve the desired results.

Daily Affirmations and Creative Visualization

Daily affirmations are positive thoughts you can affirm throughout the day to uplift you and make you feel better about yourself. Judi Moreo uses them throughout You Are More Than Enough because, as she says, “Changing your life is a process.” Positive thinking isn’t something you can use randomly. If you want it to work, you have to practice it every day.

Moreo dedicates an entire chapter in her book to creative visualization. She says that you can use your imagination to create pictures of those things that you want “to be, do, and have.” On the flip side, you can also imagine that you aren’t able to accomplish what you want because you aren’t smart enough or good enough. Which person do you want to be?

How Positive Thinking Molds Your Future

If what we see is unmet goals, then there is no desire to move forward. Why would we expect anything to change? When we focus on all the good that came out of our efforts, not only do we feel a sense of accomplishment, we can consider changes to help us achieve more goals in the future.

How Can Writers Use Positive Thinking? 

At the beginning of this year you--hopefully--wrote down a list of S.M.A.R.T. goals. Then you broke down that list into smaller, more manageable chunks before creating weekly or daily to-do lists.

Look at your goals and all you’ve accomplished this year. What do you see?

My goals for 2018 included:

GOAL 1: Submit Clever Tom to agents

GOAL 2: Participate in STORYSTORM

GOAL 3: Blog twice a week on all four blogs

So what have I accomplished?

GOAL 1 (not exactly)

GOAL 2 (yes)

GOAL 3  (mostly)

Clever Tom is a children's story I had a ton of fun writing. Something (I couldn't put my finger on what) held me back from submitting it to agents. I tweaked it and then tweaked it some more. I reread it numerous times. Finally, it hit me--it's too long. Just the other day, I sat down with the story again and made the last edits to cut out over 300 words.

Did I meet my goal? Not yet, but on a positive note the story is better because of it.

STORYSTORM is an annual event to generate story ideas. This year I met my goal of 30 story ideas for the month of January and celebrated with a great big ice cream sundae. Rewards help you accomplish more too!

When setting the third goal, I knew it was aggressive considering my limited writing time. But who doesn't love a challenge? I began time blocking my calendar more regularly and have increased my blogging time this year. That's a win as far as I am concerned.

Looking Forward

Use these last two months of 2018 to move ahead with a positive attitude and see what else you can accomplish before Father Time pushes us into the new year. This will give you a head start on practicing positive thinking by the time January rolls around. Then use daily affirmations to keep you focused on the positive and visualize your success.

You have the power to make 2019 your most productive year yet!

Cheryl C. Malandrinos is a freelance writer and editor. She is the author of Little Shepherd, A Christmas Kindness, Macaroni and Cheese for Thanksgiving and the recently released, Amos Faces His Bully. A blogger and book reviewer, she lives in Massachusetts with her husband and two daughters. She also has a son who is married. Visit Cheryl online at http://ccmalandrinos.com and her children’s book blog at https://childrensandteensbookconnection.wordpress.com