HOW I BECAME A MORE POSITIVE PERSON

Hey Prepsters,

It’s crazy to think how far I’ve been able to come over the past 5 years. When I started blogging, I was a major low-point in my life. I was dealing with a bunch of school related issues; friend problems and I found myself becoming somebody I didn’t even like, nor recognize. But now, I graduated from school, I turned my passion for blogging into a real career and landed a dream marketing job within a month of graduating. The change didn’t come overnight, and it required self-awareness and hard work, nevertheless, I’m proud of who I am now and I definitely have seen an amazing change in myself. Okay, I’m done tooting my own horn, but here is a list of things that really were effective and made me become a more positive person.

Self-Awareness

I always find reflecting on yourself and the way you think, and behave is the first step to improving any aspect of your life. So I had to teach myself that in the face of adversity, I had two options; to think of the glass half full, or to think of the glass being half empty. Just knowing that to any problem, that there is always a solution or a lesson to be learned is the best thing to take away from it.

Surrounding myself with quality people

I think everyone has the phase where they want to think of the number of friends they have and be “popular”. But I actually learned this the hard way, to only keep people that actually have good intentions around me. I’m the type of person who will give a lot of love, but if you’re not willing to reciprocate… the exit is too the left. Life is too short for negativity.

Self-love

One of the biggest catalysts in becoming a more positive person was learning to love myself. After my university dilemma, I started to become a lot more introverted in person, but outspoken online. During that time period in my life, I learned how to become my own best friend. Sounds crazy and weird, but I had to learn to love myself in order to become a better person for others in my own life.

Doing things that make me happy

As I mentioned earlier, life is short. So unless something is making me happy, I don’t want to do it. I’m not going to allow myself to be surrounded by negative people, or keep myself in a bad situation/environment. It’s just not worth it. I would recommend being strategic in how you choose to leave bad situations however. For example: a few years ago, I was working a part time job that I started to really despise and it was at a point my blog was taking off. So once I finally had enough money coming in from my blog and I knew that I had another option – I ran for my life.

Seeking help from professionals

I grew up in a Pakistani household and talking about mental health was just something that wasn’t discussed. I knew that I was going through a lot – and the one thing that put me on the right track was seeking help from a therapist. My therapist and I started doing Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (breathing exercises are my personal fave) and it worked really well for me.

Gratitude

This trick definitely works well for me even to this day – especially when I’m stressed out. I like to think about 3 things that I’m grateful for (could be anything) and it instantly makes me feel at ease.

This whole blog post is obviously based off my personal experiences and it maybe different to what you’re going through in your own life. But if you’re in a space in your life where you want to look for a positive change. I would recommend seeking help from a therapist. It may sound like an uncomfortable endeavour at first, but it will truly be a big game changer. I hope this blog post was able to help anyone out there. If you are comfortable enough to do so, I will absolutely love to hear your personal stories in the comment section, via direct message on social media or even via email.

Thanks for reading,

Syed Sohail, The Prep Guy