“When the Sun is shining, I can do anything; no mountain is too high, no trouble too difficult to overcome.” ~Wilma Rudolph

Please Note: This is a brilliant post by the lovely and energetic Atiba Shaikh. More about her at the end of the post.

Adopting a positive attitude to succeed and be your best is common talk in today’s world. But exactly how does positivity help you succeed? How do optimists achieve more in life compared to pessimists? What’s the magical secret here? Besides, how can you effectively use positive thinking to achieve and succeed in your life?

In this post I’ll try to go in detail about how you can use positivity to keep doing more and achieving more in your life, highlighting the use of positivity in every step from dreaming to achieving.

So let’s start at the place where every journey to big success starts – dreaming. Fact is, while we may dream big – big possibilities, opportunities and ultimately, success, it’s not that easy to go further than that. We find that our dream is near impossible, that we are unable to find resources, opportunities, abilities etc and there are numerous other obstacles on our way that make it seem like it can never be for real. So we refuse to take any action at all and just be the way we have always been.

If you try to think positively, you will believe that no matter how impossible it seems, it is still something worth trying. You won’t simply give up without doing anything about your dream. You start taking steps, however small they may be, and work towards getting what you want. That’s how a dream starts turning into a reality – one small, shaky step at a time.

But your dream is totally impossible, so how can you believe that it can be real, while you know that in all probability it will never happen?

Just decide to be slightly more positive in life. You don’t need to have a blind faith that things will work out. But just like you are mostly sure that it won’t happen, let a small part of your thinking say that it’s possible. For example, even if you are 80-90% sure that your dream is impossible, let the remaining 10-20% of your thinking say that it’s possible.

Start using your imagination and positive thinking to plan.

Use the positive part of your thinking to plan, not the negative one. Imagine how you can get there; if there are no opportunities right now; imagine how you may get some. Imagine how much time it can take before you get an opportunity, start using it to get there, and finally the time you may require to realize your dreams.

If you get any negative thoughts in your head – ‘but you cannot get there, so why bother?!’ Just remind yourself that you are simply planning it out using your imagination. And planning and imagining things can do no harm.

This way, you’ll start doing something which is going to help you turn your dream into reality. You’d have successfully completed the first phase of achieving, which is dreaming, and moreover, believing in your dreams, even if that belief is not that strong.

Now, it would be time to move on to the next step, which is getting into action.

By the time you are done with planning and imagining it all, your thinking would have become positive enough to motivate you to actually try at least some of your ideas. Use this new found positivity to start working on it. Again, you don’t need to take giant leaps, but just small easy steps. Whenever something seems too uncomfortable, drop it for a while, take a break and then start again.

But note that you need to balance taking action and having a break, because initially everything would seem daunting and hard. That won’t mean that you have to back out of it all together. You can get an idea of when to work and when to stop by setting a rule such as ‘even if I drop everything due to my fears, I’d keep doing one thing, however small, to reach my goals.’ That way you won’t be overburdening yourself nor will you stop working altogether.

Just keep incorporating more positive thoughts in your mind – celebrate each small-big achievement you make, note your progress in a book etc. The positivity that you keep gathering in the process will help you overcome any obstacles that come your way. Whether it is a sudden negative thought that enters your mind, someone else dissuading you from doing it or a temporary setback or failure – positive thinking will give you the courage and ability to fight your way through it all. It will give you the persistence to keep working towards your goals and patience when the times are tough.

Thus you will keep working towards your goals, slowly turning some elements of your dreams into reality, and one day you’d find, that now your dream is not a dream any longer – that you are actually living your dreams for real!!!

In my opinion, this is the way positive thinking works inside your mind and behind the scenes, and finally helps you succeed and be happy in life!

What is YOUR opinion? How does a positive attitude help us in becoming successful? Share your thoughts in the comments. Lets get positive together 🙂

About the Author of this post:

Atiba is a medical student from Aurangabad, India who loves spreading positivity and happiness in others’ lives.

She likes sharing the knowledge she’s gained by applying positivity & self-reflection in her life on her blogs:  Curious Happy Blogger :http://curioushappyblogger.wordpress.com/ & Curiously Happy: http://curiouslyhappy.todaysvisions.com/

♥♥”Thank you SO much for reading! Please, share this article on your favorite social networks. Every share, like or tweet makes me reach more people who need a positive healing nudge in their lives. I truly appreciate you!”♥♥

With Immense Love & Gratitude,
~Zeenat~

GET YOUR ‘POSITIVE HAPPINESS GOODIES’!!! Get the latest articles(FREE) as soon as they are published, by Email OR RSS.PLUS if you are an Email Subscriber, You get the Positive Living Handbook+My Ebook “The Best of Positive Provocations”+ “Your Self Healing Starter Kit”. Come Join the facebook community & follow me on Twitter and Google+ for Positive Provocations Everyday!

Other Positive articles you will love:

• Positive Challenge for September: Focus on Just One Positive Quality
• The Two Minute Morning Ritual to Start Your Day on a Positive Note
• 2 Ways to Start Seeing Yourself with Love, Today!
• Don’t Wait To Heal ~ Positively Affirm Your Healing Today!