5 ways to start your morning with a positive attitude

Wake up in good time and have breakfast, tea or a glass of your fresh juice. This sounds obvious but many of us have experienced waking up, getting ready and leaving the house straight for work or jumping head first into our day’s errands. Rushing places unnecessary stress on our minds and bodies and can cause you to become forgetful and agitated. Taking the time for yourself first thing in the morning is very important and eating breakfast energises you and provides your body with fuel to kick-start the day.  This time may be the only peace and quiet you get throughout your day, so why not set your alarm 10 minutes earlier and cherish the morning tranquillity? Some people also meditate for a short period in the morning to relax the mind and prepare themselves mentally for their daily activities.

Practice gratitude. Happy, healthy people find things to be grateful about.  Daily stresses can overwhelm us and cloud our ability to see the beautiful things in life that we often overlook due to our busy schedules or life’s stresses. Ever heard of the expressions, light at the end of the tunnel or every cloud has a silver lining? That’s basically what gratitude is; consciously choosing to see the positives despite whatever else is going on at that moment.  Mentally strong positive people practice gratitude on a daily basis. It puts you in a hopeful frame of mind, rather than a negative one and others will find you pleasant and enjoyable to be around if you can choose to find the light in situations.  Things to be grateful about could include; the sun shining outside,  any achievements you have made, the fact that we live in a part of the world where we have easy access to fresh water, a friendly neighbour and so on.

Visualise how you see your day going and how you will conduct yourself.  If you visualise a happy, smooth flowing day you put yourself in the mind frame to receive a happy and productive day.  Imagine waking up thinking today is going to be a disaster. Most likely you will be looking out for negatives, and responding to anything unexpected with irritation, anger or in an uneasy manner.  We can’t control or predict how our day will actually be unless we are blessed with a fortune teller’s vision, however what we can do what we can to put ourselves in a positive frame of mind. Visualisation helps this, look at it as a method of actively programming the mind to be positive and ready for the day’s events.

Remind yourself of your purpose. What do you want to achieve from this day? What are your objectives? When you consider your purpose you act accordingly, and it provides you with motivation for the day. Ask yourself what you want to achieve from the day and how your daily activities can contribute to your purpose?

Surround yourself with something that pleases you. You could look at photographs of happy memories, wear your favourite colour, take a walk in the park or a route to work with eye catching scenery or listen to an interesting podcast.  Whatever interests or intrigues you spend time doing that in the morning because it can help put you in a relaxed and happy mood at the start of the day.