Keep Your Mind Free of Negativity

Even after you have eliminated the lampreys from your mind, pessimism will continually try to worm its way back in. But you can protect yourself. And you can help people you know protect themselves. Read the material and practice the principles. And when you have a good handle on it, help someone else get a handle on it (you'll reinforce in yourself and make the world a better place).

The four ways pessimism worms its way back into your mind are:

1. Through your brain's negative bias

2. Through the negative bias of some kinds of communication

3. Because reality functions in some ways as if it has a negative bias

4. And of course, the media's negative bias

You can protect yourself by reminding yourself of the four negative biases, questioning the motives of the source of your information, and taking control of your input.

These are ways to protect yourself from a pessimism infection, which is important and it needs to be done, but the real fun is in accomplishing a worthwhile purpose. Do you have one? Do you have a purpose that makes you feel passionate? That turns you on? That makes you want to get up in the morning? That's where to focus most of your attention.

And when you're helping someone else protect themselves from pessimism, that's where to keep their mind focused too. Yes, you need to know how pessimistic or disheartening or demoralizing thoughts get into your mind, and you need to protect yourself, but then put your attention back on your purpose and move it forward. That's where the juice is.

Find your purpose.

Adam Khan is the author of Antivirus For Your Mind: How to Strengthen Your Persistence and Determination and Feel Good More Often and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.