I am a big believer in fostering a positive mindset. Nobody likes a negative Nancy or a chronic complainer. It’s just a better way to live, and I do my best to practice it religiously. I’m practically obsessed with finding a positive spin on everything, and my fianceé likes to tease me about it when she catches me doing it.

I’ll tell her about something crappy that happened to me, and I explain how I’m already working on turning that loss into a gain. She may find it amusing, and hopefully endearing, but I do it because I know it works. I have tasted the fruits of the harvest enough to know that I do not wish to plant any other seeds of thought in my mental garden than positive, constructive ones.

Some believe that fostering a positive mindset is equivalent to being an unrealistic optimist, but when done correctly, that perspective is far from the truth. Positive thinking isn’t about denying reality; its about finding opportunities for growth in everything, and finding more constructive ways of thinking that increase the probability of beneficial outcomes.

Recently, I have found that a useful way to understand the benefits of fostering a positive mindset is to find the correspondence between positive thinking and economics. Thoughts are like currency, and ideas and ideals are like investments.

Every thought you have that supports a certain idea or ideal is like adding dollars to an investment account. Over time that investment grows and you reap larger and larger rewards with consistent contributions.

It is important to acknowledge that this concept applies in both the negative and the positive direction. Unfortunately, most people invest their thoughts in the negative direction. However, if you can notice yourself engaged in negative thought, then you can understand its power by perceiving its results in your life, and then work to correct the way you invest your mental energy.

That low confidence you have? Well, if you’re always talking down to yourself and thinking about what a crappy person you are, then why are you surprised when that’s the result? The reason its so hard to change that mental habit of thinking negatively about yourself is because you have been doing it for so long that the investment has become so large that it has more buying power than other thoughts. Stop contributing to the negative thought bank and work on taking those funds and reinvesting them into the positive thought bank.

Although most of your mental investments have been towards negative beliefs or ideas, that the same effort can be applied in the reverse direction, and constructive change is the result. You just have to be willing to make the effort to notice and then change your way of thinking.

It is in your best interest to invest in thinking and acting, and believing that you are the best person that you could possibly be because by doing so you increase the probability of receiving the best return on your investment. What I mean by investing in this example is to continuously support that ideal, that you are going to be the best person you can be, with thoughts of that nature.

You would benefit from thinking of good thoughts as investments. When you make the effort to think good thoughts, such as thoughts of strength, betterment, excellence, and those that promote your personal growth, you should think of them as mental investments that grow and increase over time just as monetary investments would. 

When you invest into a mutual fund, the more money you put into it, the more return you get on your investment as it grows. As your contributions continue over time, that return grows larger and larger. So it is with your thoughts and actions and beliefs.

Every time you think in a positive manner, you increase the likelihood of performing actions that benefit your life. Every positive action creates a positive effect, and soon all areas of your life will improve as a result of your investment in good thinking. 

Say for instance, you want to be the best version of yourself. So, you must invest in the belief that you are the best you can be, and the way you do that is to collect evidence of that belief, or to become aware of your return on your mental investments.

Ask yourself when confronted with a situation, what would the best version of me do? Then do that. Every time you succeed in your action, you collect evidence to support that belief and soon you will eventually see the rewards of being the best person you can be.

You start to act like that best version of yourself would, and you think like that version would and soon enough you begin to feel better, look better, think better and your life becomes more enjoyable by a simple, yet consistent investment in that ideal.

The action and the results of that action support the thoughts of being the best person you can be, and so you think more thoughts of that nature and those thoughts promote more action in the positive direction and the cycle continues until you have compounded your investments into receiving the return you wanted: you are the best person you could be.

It’s all about increasing the chances of success by contributing investments. Think about it like this, if I had the desire to improve and my ideal was to be the best person I could be, but I was a chronically negative thinker, then would continuing with my current mindset increase the probability that I would achieve that ideal? The answer is no.

If I want to improve myself but I fail to improve the way I think, then would it be likely that I changed the way I behave or act? No, and therefore my situation does not improve. However, if I instead acted like a scientist and questioned my thoughts and actions by asking would the best version of me do or think this, and then thought and acted in the way I thought that person would, then the likelihood of seeing improvement in every direction increases dramatically.

Fostering a positive mindset is more scientific than it is mystical when it comes to manifesting results. Its all about experimenting, collecting and observing results, and adjusting your thinking and behavior accordingly and therefore increasing probabilities to obtain the desired results.

If you don’t believe me, then give fostering a positive mindset an honest effort and be a scientist and experiment with it. There is everything to gain and nothing to lose but a negative mindset, which if you are currently unsatisfied, then it doesn’t serve you well anyways.

Start investing your thoughts and actions into something that provides a beneficial return. Start taking out all the energy you invested into the negative thought bank and transfer those funds into the positive thought bank. Invest in the return you want. Take a chance on being better because if you don’t, then the only thing you are guaranteed is the same thing you already have.

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