Today I have a cold. I am sitting here in front of the computer feeling sick, wallowing in self pity, and watching the pile of used snotty tissues steadily building around me. Gross huh? But this little cold has also reminded me that sometimes it is too easy for us to get caught up in feeling sorry for ourselves and being negative. It is too easy to play the life isn't fair card and sook in the corner about what is going on.

Just because it's easy to do doesn't make it right to do it though.

I could sit here feeling sorry for myself and my runny nose. I could mope about and pretend as if somehow this cold is a sign of the world "picking on me" and I could whinge about it to everyone I see, telling them of how things just go against me.

Or I could take a lesson from How I met Your Mother character Barney Stinson:

Whenever I start feeling sick, I just stop being sick and be awesome instead.

That is the perfect example of how to use a positive attitude to turn a bad situation around. Being sick already sucks so why make it worse by being a negative nancy? It's a terrible waste of time and effort. Try being happy and positive instead. Try being awesome, even if you have to pretend at first.

This is exactly what Barney does in that same episode when asked if he is sick:

I'm fine. My nose is just overflowing with awesome and I had to get some of it out.

I love it!

That is the exact opposite of what most people do when they are sick. Everyone likes to complain and feel sorry for themselves when they are sick but what does that really achieve? Is being a pain-in-the-arse, negative, so-and-so achieving anything other than annoying everyone else around you?

Positivity Breeds Positivity

This doesn't just apply to being sick either - it applies to EVERYTHING in our lives.

Ever noticed when you start having a "bad day" that things just seem to get worse? You might sleep through your alarm and miss your train, so you rush to work but then you realise you've got the wrong pants on and you left your wallet at home which makes you angry, and then while you're trying to think of an excuse to avoid that annoying meeting you've got later on you stub your toe outside and spill your coffee all over yourself. It makes you feel like screaming about how bad your day is.

I've got some bad news for you. You created that bad day. It is entirely your fault that you had such a bad day.

Many people will disagree and try to lay the blame somewhere else, but the reality is that any emotional judgment of your day is 100% in your control. You control how you see and interpret the world. If you train your brain to only see a set of negative experiences than that is exactly what you will see. You will only notice the bad stuff while all the good stuff just flies by unnoticed.

The flip side is that if you choose to start with a positive attitude, and start being awesome, then you will start having more of the good days. Those days where everything just feels right. Those days where you are happy, excited, and energetic. Those days where you cannot help but smile when something bad happens because everything else is just so damn good!

Eventually those bad things just wont happen as often. Your positive attitude will draw in more positive actions. You will attract people, situations, and events that mirror your attitude. Your life will be filled with so much positivity that those "bad" things will just be minuscule blemishes on an otherwise wonderful life.

You control your attitude. You determine whether you see things as good or bad, happy or sad, positive or negative. You have the power to make your life better by simply changing your attitude.

Start being awesome. Image: photostock