Do you tend to forget to stop and smell the roses?  Or do you get so bogged down with the unhappy parts of life that you forget to counter-attack that negativity with things you love.

I find myself forgetting to do this often, and I am not afraid to admit it.  I am human, and I have flaws; one of them is falling into the “Negative Nancy” trap at times.  I know sometimes I just want to have a bad day.  I want to wallow in my misery and be upset about where I am in my life and dream about what I want and be mad about why I can’t have it right now.  Everybody does it sometimes, and if you don’t, I need your secret!  But, on other days, I try to remember to make an effort to count every blessing.

I have to admit, I get lost in the negative too much.  I have so much to be grateful for and I forget to highlight the more positive parts of my life.  I have a wonderful husband and a beautiful daughter that I wouldn’t trade the world for.  I have a pretty good job, and although it is not the dream job for me, I am not in a mountain of debt, my bills get paid on time, and we have food on the table and a roof.  I may walk around with $1 in my pocket, but if I have food at home I am doing alright.

I used to get so hung up in the fact that I feel I should be worth more than what I  am getting professionally and that I don’t have stacks of money or I am not doing what I absolutely love to do.  I felt so unhappy with it, that I didn’t bother to try to make the most of it.  I let work overwhelm me, and it spilled over into other aspects of life, and it really sucked.  One thing that has been drilled into my head constantly is that whatever I am doing now, is merely setting me up for my future.  I can definitely be impatient at times and I dig my heels in the fact that I want what I want right at this moment.  I try to always tell myself that this part of my life is just a chapter of a bigger novel, and I try to keep myself uplifted in the fact that I have so many things to be happy about that I have no room to be sad or upset.

I decided to make a more conscious effort in finding the balance in my life.  The first thing I did was identify the things I loved doing.  I recently began carving time out of my day to go to the gym at least 4-5 times a week, reading and writing (hence the blog 🙂 ).  I also am continuing with writing my first novel, something that I vowed to finish and possibly self-publish this year.

I realized that I can continue to do things that make me happy, and they will outweigh the stressors of life.  So far, I have done pretty good.  I still have my days, but they are becoming few and far between. I have adopted a new attitude and a new outlook on how I see the things happening in my life.  I have learned that sometimes I just need to take a breath, slow down and see the good in my life, instead of looking at it negatively.  I have to stop saying “this is not how I see my life going”, and say “this is setting me up for the great things coming forth in my life.” I will continue to keep the positivity flowing in my life, because it has made me a better person in the long run.