Guest Blog Post: Sensei Mike I. 4/21/15

This month at Amerikick Medford we are focusing on ways to have a positive attitude. Each week our Instructors encourage the students to connect our weekly theme to theme for the month of April. This week's them is looking on the bright side. At it's core looking on the bright side means maintaining a positive attitude and looking for a silver lining to take from negative situations. This can be as simple as learning a life lesson. A personal example that I always use is how I learned to deal with being bullied. No one likes being picked on or called names, but these situations provide a valuable opportunity to learn how to deal with bullies in a healthy way.

We found some good tips on how to look on the bright side on OperationBeautiful.com:

How To Look On The Brightside

By Caitlin, the editor of the Operation Beautiful site

• Count your blessings.  Even on your worse days, there are things to be thankful for.  Got both legs?  A family who loves you?  A dog that licks your face when you come home?  A job?  A car? I used to get caught up in what Ididn’thave, but now I focus on what I do have.
• Never say "I can’t."  You can do anything. Really.  But you’re never going to accomplishment a single thing if you think it’s impossible.
• Be quick to forgive and forget… the first time.  My issue was that I never cut people slack.  I never put myself in their shoes.  Being more apt to consider the other person’s perspective has drastically reduced the number of arguments I’ve gotten into (I’m a little hot-headed).  That being said, don’t turn into a doormat.  Being walked all over is never good for the soul.
• Pretend like every conversation is your last.  Per the hot-headedness, sometimes I really want to kill the Husband for little things.  Whenever I start to get worked up over something small, I fantasize what I would feel like if it was our last conversation.  Don’t sweat the small stuff.
• Do nice things for other people.  And don’t expect anything in return.  You’ll get your due karma, I promise.
• Fake it until you make it.  Even if you have to "pretend" to be positive, do it. Because eventually, it will become true.
• Re-assess your thinking from time to time.  There’s a positive way to approach every situation.  Life is hard enough without beating yourself down mentally.
• Ignore Negative Noise and Energy Vampires.  Energy vampires suck away your positive energy and you feel exhausted after dealing with them. Negative noise are small actions that distract you, stop you from being productive, and threaten to ruin your day.  Most urgently, negative noise threatens to overwhelm all the positive encouragement in your life.