I want to start my story by saying that I’m on a diet of positive emotions.

There is a lot of negativity going on in this world. When you turn on the TV for example, usually what you hear are the news about wars, hoax calls, bomb explosions, people who are injured or killed, death toll. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Rescue workers wearing hard hats, creeping through a gap, looking for survivors after an earthquake. All around them collapsed buildings, twisted bits of metal, jagged chunks of reinforced concrete, terrible destruction…

Nowadays, it has become much more frequent on the news to see the devastation caused by natural disasters.

I would never forget the man on the TV with a handful of soil in his hands, looking desperately at the sky, scanning it for signs of rain. On all sides, there were withered crops and cracked earth.  He was in despair because of the severe drought.

Whereas, in some parts of the world, there is no rain, in another parts, there is too much.

Recently, I’ve seen pictures on Facebook from one of my Canadian friends – his area has been severely flooded. People were wading thigh-deep in the muddy water, trying to salvage their property which was floating about. It was devastating to look at those scenes and to witness the despair of the people.

So I have decided, enough is enough! And I cut off the supply of the negativity. I no longer watch TV or listen to the radio, specifically the news. I may follow some of the news on the Internet, but I decide which one to see. I’m in control.

Like Dean Graziosi says - News drains our confidence and causes us to slip into a fear-based mentality.

Do you agree? What’s your opinion? How much does hearing negativity in the news take away from your ability to embrace the positive things in the world?

In the health-conscious time we are living in, we pay so much attention to the food we eat, to physical exercises, going to the gym, but we fail to take care of our minds and souls.

We need high-quality food for our body if we want to be healthy. But the same goes for our mind, too. We need to feed it with positive food, as well. That’s why I try to nurture my mind regularly with positivity by reading, watching, listening to inspirational books, videos, podcasts. That’s why I’m on a diet of positive emotions. If you focus on something, it grows. If you dwell on the negativity, it becomes double negative. But if you focus on the positive, it become double positive. Beware of where your focus is!

Increase the daily diet of positive emotions and positive words! It is very important with what you feed your mind.

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Download my other stories for free here - English with Inspirational Stories by Dimi +  more – get the gift of positivity - three of my books  

I put my students on a special diet. We always start and finish with it. This special diet is the diet of positive emotions. Emotions are contagious and positive emotions help us to become more resilient to the setbacks. Positive emotions help us to thrive.

Based on the daily diet of positive emotions, I created The Daily Diet of Positive Words. You can find it here:

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Increase the daily diet of positive emotions and positive words! It is very important with what you feed your mind.

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You can also get a free gift – 3 of my books

After my 8-days digital diet – 8 days without social media, I felt really great. I felt refreshed and most importantly free. However, the moment I started using social media again, I fell in the old circle of bad habits. While I was downloading something and waiting for it, I found myself checking my social media accounts, again! – without any particular goal, just to kill the time. I logged off all my social media accounts. But then I started checking my email constantly. Basically, I replaced the bad habit of checking my social media accounts with another bad one – checking my email constantly!

Then it dawned on me that I have to replace the bad habit with a good one. While I’m waiting, I can read aloud from my book, or I can listen to a podcast, watch a video (all of them selected in advance – in a special folder in my computer), I can even stretch, do push-ups – There are so many healthy choices. I just have to be self-disciplined. Self-discipline starts with small things. And the more self-disciplined you are, the more self-confident you feel – That’s what I found out in my daily struggle against digital distractions.

And what about you? Do you have the same problem? How do you handle it?

Being on a diet is great, but there is no point of this diet if after it, you go back to your old way of living.

For instance, if you are on a diet of losing weight and you restrict yourself to eating particular food, but after the diet is over, you go back to your old way of eating, there won’t be any positive change. As a result, you can even gain more weight.

I have to apply a new way of living on a constant basis – To have a plan and not to kill my time every day.

My new habits:

1.    Checking social media and email – only 2 times a day – in the morning and in the evening (If miss it, skip it!) (You can leave an automatic message saying that “I’m checking my email only 2 times a day. I will get back to you, when I get back to my email. In case of emergency, call me on the phone)

2.    Before turning on the computer – make a plan, write down on a piece of paper your goals and the time limit for them, set mobile reminders!

Self-discipline starts with small things like learning to control your digital distractions. The more self-disciplined you are, the more self-confident you feel.

Self–discipline - the ability to make yourself do things that should be done despite having the desire or not.

When you have discipline, you have self-control.

You might want to read also: Why Are You Wasting Your Time? - http://englishwordoftheday2010.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-are-you-wasting-your-time.html