Ask 100 people if they want to go skydiving and then look at their faces as a response. Of course, many will jump on board and love the idea but what about the people who don’t? When asked “Why?” you will get a lot of excuses like “I’m not jumping out of a perfectly fine airplane!” and the infamous, “What if the chute doesn’t open?”. At first, I was one of those people and I completely understood where they were coming from, but it took for me to change my perspective on life, and on a whim, I decided to jump out of an airplane and I loved it. What I learned is that everything that I feared about jumping out of a plane never even happened. That’s when I started questioning everything. Questioning my fears. Questioning my negative thoughts and that’s when this lightbulb turned on. WHY ARE THESE THOUGHTS EVEN HERE?.

What I’ve come to realize is that our thoughts are the way they are because of traumas and insecurities introduced to us from our past. Why does somebody have trust issues? Most likely because an event in the past that hurt them either physically or mentally and now that person refuses to trust in order to keep from feeling that pain again. It’s like a self defense mechanism. Many of those thoughts possibly weren’t even experienced in person but rather seen on a screen or heard of. Like why is the average human being so afraid of killer whales even though there has never been any known attacks in the wild? While dissecting these thoughts and reasons behind these thoughts, I have realized that almost everything that we have become has been built of fear and getting hurt. Once you understand, that is the only time that you can change the way that you think. How do you fix that? By thinking positively on purpose.

Let me show you what I mean. Next time you are aware of having a negative thought, purposely change that thought into a positive. It sounds really hard but try it and I promise you that any scenario will have a positive perspective or point of view. The moment that you change that thought into a positive, evaluate how it makes you feel or see if it will push you into a productive direction. I can almost guarantee you that it will.

I will be 100% honest and transparent with you. I am not a therapist. I do not have any degrees or any training behind any of my ideas and theories. I will say though that I have become extremely observant through the years and tend to see things in ways that most people don’t. Once you continue to be aware of your thoughts and purposely change the perspective into a positive, before you know it, it will become second nature.

Back to the sky diving question. Instead of thinking about the chute not opening, think of the thrill. Think of the experience and the view. Think of the story being told later. There are so many other amazing things to think about that won’t keep you from leaping.

You will eventually not have to intentionally think positive. It will become a part of who you are. Somebody who once had road rage will eventually thank somebody who cut them off because of the positive belief that “they cut me off to save me from an accident that I may have been a part of a mile down the road.” Instead of having a breakdown when somebody lost their job they would instead think that “Now I have enough time to work on myself and now have an opening for a better job”. Think positive on purpose and become the positivity that you want to see in the world.