I often get asked the question, "Julie, how can I keep a positive attitude during difficult times?" If you find yourself wondering the same thing, read on. 

During difficult times, we tend to sit stagnantly and dwell in our sorrow. However, it's important to spend time every day allowing your mind separation from the stresses and strains of your day-to-day life. Simple ways of accomplishing this are, meditating, yoga, journaling, self-hypnosis, exercising, and breathwork. 

In a book written by Norman Vincent Peel, The Power of Positive Thinking, he talks about creating your inner happiness. This means you are responsible for your inner happiness because unhappiness is usually the byproduct of you thinking sad thoughts, having negative feelings, resentment towards others, or just having an overall crappy outlook on life.

When times are difficult and you think negative thoughts on a regular basis, it will only make your life feel worse. 

You must learn to keep a positive attitude during difficult times. 

"You have to force yourself to not think negative thoughts," Peel says, "We have to get into the happiness habit by thinking upbeat cheery thoughts throughout the day."

So how do you keep a positive attitude during difficult times?

Put on upbeat music, go do something productive, get in the gym, or go hang around friends that make you laugh. It can be tough at first and it might not feel right. It may feel like you're forcing it because you are, but eventually, you will start to feel better.

Miracles are happening all around you. There is beauty all around you. Pay attention. Open your eyes to see the sun shining, listen to the birds chirping, and feel the warmth of the sun on your skin. There are simple beauties all around us. So if you want to start to feel happy it starts with you wanting to feel happy. We need to short circuit the negative thoughts. When you begin to feel bad or find yourself gossiping, feeling guilty, feeling angry, or any other negative feeling, turn it around. Force yourself to think positively. Do positive things, and while it might not feel right at first, keep going because you're on the right path to a more positive attitude.

The antidote to anxiety is that people waste a lot of time and energy fuming and fretting about things that they cannot control. If you look at Stephen Covey's principle; circle of concern and circle of influence, focus only on what's in the circle of influence. Everything else in the circle of concern you can't control, so it's healthier to move on. When you allow your mind to spend time in that space you're wasting your mind's energy, and this will not help you to keep a positive attitude during difficult times. 

Peel says we need to slow down to relieve our anxiety and attain peace. He suggests that we devote at least 15 minutes daily to calming and relaxing by thinking peaceful thoughts, or not thinking at all through meditation. Something he shares in the book to help get rid of the tendency to worry and get angry is to relax and spend a few minutes thinking about beautiful peaceful settings. Imagine hearing the birds chirping, feeling the sun on your face, or your feet on the cool grass. It's just a matter of you thinking about what's pleasurable in your mind. 

Close your eyes and open your mind to a place where you've been on vacation before and go there for 15 minutes. Smell the smells, feel what the sand feels like on your feet, or feel yourself plunging into the ocean. The antidote to anxiety is all about clearing your mind. Whether you're working out at the gym, doing yoga, or going to cycling class, take time to allow your mind separation from the stresses of your day to keep a positive attitude. 

Always expect the best from yourself. If you expect to fail you will fail, if you expect to win you will win. What seeds are you planting in your mind? Are you planting seeds of positivity or seeds of negativity? Your life is going to give you back what you are putting out.

Start focusing on the positive. Start focusing on how things can go right. When things go wrong say:

"There's a lesson in this for me because life doesn't happen to me, it happens for me. Everything that's happening is here to teach me a lesson. This isn't a setback, it's a setup and I'm going to learn from it. I'm going to get better."

How to keep a positive attitude during difficult times.

Don't waste your time worrying. Doctors and psychologists agree that worrying shortens your life and damages your body, therefore, we need to clear our thinking before we go to sleep. Imagine your worries flowing out of your body like water out of a glass.

Replace worry with hope by setting goals. You can start with three goals: 

1. A financial related goal

2. A health-related goal

3. A professional goal

Replace worry, anxiety, and fear by building a plan that gives you hope. Set goals that give you hope. Allow it to be something that gets you excited and you want to work towards, something you want to achieve because you know that if you did, your life would be better as a result.

We all have problems that we need solutions to, desires, dreams, and goals. You need to take yourself out of the busyness of the day and allow your mind to free up and look for inspiration around you. Know that whatever solution you're looking for is going to come to you.

When Peel talks about problem-solving and gives problem-solving techniques. For every problem, there is a solution. Believe that your problem can be solved. While it may be difficult and you don't have a solution right now, there is a solution and oftentimes there's more than one.

1. Maintain your serenity as you address a problem so you don't feel anxious. You need to be calm and hopeful that there's going to be a solution.

2. Try not to force an answer by a specific time because sometimes you can't force it. Life often happens for you, so you just need time for a solution to reveal itself to you.

3. Gather all relevant information. Do as much research as possible

4. Write down all facts about the situation to gain an understanding of the problem. You need to get clarity on the problem so you can get clear on what solutions you need to solve it.

5. Spend time meditating on the issue you are confronting. Always make time to think about it when you're walking in nature. Yes, take time to think in nature and allow your mind to flow. When you separate yourself from the stresses, anxieties, and busyness of the day, allow your mind to think about solutions.

6. Believe in and seek guidance from a higher power to help you resolve the issue. Whatever your spiritual beliefs are, remember everything is energy. Even your thoughts. When you're open to receiving messages from the ether, you have a higher probability of coming up with quality solutions.

7. Rely on your inner gifts of insight and intuition. There are things that we believe we should do and there are things that we know we should do. You need to listen to yourself and it might take time, patience, and some maturity for you to realize what you're great at.

8. The answer that develops in your mind or comes to pass is the right answer, so just allow the thoughts to come into your mind. Whenever you have an inspired thought, write it down or make a note on your phone. Think about it, ponder it, and say "You know what? This idea is something I want to dig deeper into."

This is how you're going to find solutions to your problems.

Last but not least, how to handle heartache. Everyone at some point in their life experiences heartache and it's tough. Peel says that for us to get over heartache we need to resist the heartache by staying busy. If you're getting a divorce from your husband or wife, just broke up with your girlfriend or boyfriend, lost a loved one, or a loved one passed away, he says

"In order for you to get through it, you need to stay busy and return to your normal activities as soon as possible." After a loss or a defeat, you need to resist the temptation to brood and feel sorry for yourself.

Get back to work, to your goals, to the gym, to eating right, to hanging out with your friends and family, and listen to the music you were listening to. We have to return to life, and sometimes we just need to be sad and work our way through it.

The key is to not allow your mind to dwell on negativity for too long because it's not handling the heartache, it's allowing heartache to take control of you.

If you want to keep a positive attitude during difficult times, expect to win because our perspective shapes our reality. If you expect to fail you will fail, and if you expect to win you will win. You get to choose your destiny.