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The wellness industry has taken the world by storm. It’s no longer funny to be self-deprecating and make light jokes about wanting to end it all. People will look at you like you’ve escaped an asylum.
Now it’s all about self-care, being your best self and being That Girl. You know, the girl who wakes up at 5 AM every morning, chugs down a smoothie with fruits you’ve never heard of, writes a best-seller novel, does a 2-hour Pilates workout AND feeds her cat all before 8 AM. She also tends to be white and skinny.
But there’s nothing inherently wrong with waking up early to take time for yourself before a busy day. And self-care practices have been proven to enhance self-confidence by 64%, increase productivity by 67% and improve overall happiness by 71% according to Mental Health First Aid. So clearly the skinny girlies are onto something.
The words “mindset” and “positive thinking” have taken a little bit of a beating in recent months, but it’s important to ignore the memes and the unrealistic TikToks that shadow its true benefits. Positive thinking can really do wonders for your mental health and your overall life.
The more optimistic you are about situations in your life the more likely they are to have a more positive result. Your brain is constantly looking for evidence to support your thoughts. If you’re walking through life hunched over, constantly complaining about the state of the world and how things never work out, that’s all you’re going to notice and experience. But if you train your mind to think on the bright side (which it’s innately wired to do anyway according to Tali Sharot’s book The Optimism Bias), you’ll start to notice more good things drop into your lap.
Have you heard of the saying “Ski the gaps, not the trees”? It pertains to the idea that if you concentrate on the bad things, that’s all you’re going to see (and repeatedly bump into) but if you’re focused on the good stuff, you’ll naturally stick to the path and enjoy the good things life has to offer.
Self-care and having a positive mindset can sound like a load of Gen Z gibberish sometimes but it has real-life positive effects. It’s not cringe or problematic to have a positive way of thinking or visualize good things happening to you.
We can’t do anything without our thoughts. If we want to do something, we think about it, we have an emotional response, we take action and then we have a result. And we all want that result, whatever it is, to be a good one, right? So why not make sure that first step has the best chance possible?
Still sceptical? Try it for yourself.