Having a home-based business is challenging – in this economic climate having any kind of business or job…is challenging and keeping oneself in a positive frame-of-mind regardless of the current circumstances can be daunting.

“They” say that you can both affect [influence] and effect [cause a change] the outcome of a thing by how you think about it.  That could very well be true.  The actions we take are heavily influenced by what we believe we are capable of.

Take for instance the case of the person who “sabotages their own success.”  We’ve all heard of this phenomenon – and it boils down to how that person thought: the person had the skills and talent to succeed at whatever it was, but they truly didn’t believe they would succeed and so their brain went to work to make sure they didn’t succeed.  Our brains are so cooperative, aren’t they?

If the negative frame-of-mind works…then why not the positive frame-of-mind?  Why not make being of a positive mindset a way of life?

Dedicating oneself to being and having a positive frame of mind is a new concept.  It seems to be more than “Gee, I’d like to be a positive thinking person.”  To be dedicated to something is to persevere at it – to work at it continuously.  It’s an action, not just a philosophy.  It is literally something to do not just to think about.

Many people put positive thinking in the realm of abstraction, as if it is a philosophical discussion point.  But, what if it isn’t?  What if positive thinking was a real time activity that requires refinement and honing over time to perfect?

The key question becomes, “How do I actually re-frame the manner in which I think?”  Is the “how you think” a machine-like process?  Can it be re-tooled so that information coming in is actually processed in a new way?

Why would this be important for a small home business person?  Because of the affect of the “D” words:

• discouraged
• depressed
• dogged tired
• defeated
• disappointed

Every person will have days:

• when the phone does not ring
• the response to their offer is “no”
• the email or letter does not come
• the sale didn’t go through
• the distributor quit
• when simple fatigue makes it hard to smile one more time

If a pattern, a habit if-you-will, of positive thinking were in place…a tooling of the mind that allows every situation to be filtered through a “glass half full” mindset, then the “D” words wouldn’t win.  Your mind would counter with a positive spin and seek solutions.  A negative mindset would simply agree with the “D” words and offer nothing constructive.

It could be that positive thinking can result in more than just waking up each morning with a smile.  The habit of choosing to put in place a positive filter can keep someone ready to recognize new opportunities [customers, distributors, clients] when they present themselves.