Positivity can be hard, especially when we’re struggling. This Tiny Practice can help us shed the mental habit of focusing on what’s not working and rewire us for healthy positivity. Have fun with this simple exercise shared by Geneen Roth during a talk with Eileen Fisher called This Messy Magnificent Life.

We are all vulnerable to the slippery irresistible slope of negative thinking. No matter the abundance of what may be going right in our lives, we can easily default into zeroing in on what’s going wrong.

Geneen Roth, author of the new book This Messy Magnificent Life, shared with participants at a recent event that the pull is so strong in the direction of the negative, that it often starts the minute we wake up. Before we know it, we are moving through the day this way.

“Noticing what’s wrong,” Geneen said, becomes “a habit of the mind.”

This turns out to be good news because as we believe and know here at Women Together, we can transform our habits. We have the power to shed habits that aren’t working and, with some effort and intention, develop ones that will.

“There are so many things that aren’t wrong than that are wrong,” Geneen says. “It takes a switch of the mind, and changing the neural circuitry so it’s not always obsessed with the negative.”

Ask yourself this question instead:
What’s not wrong right now?

And how do we flip that switch? With a tiny practice that Geneen recommends. It takes just a few minutes each morning (or evening, or afternoon).

Because our minds want to ask, “what’s wrong right now?,” ask yourself this question instead:

What’s not wrong right now?

Or, if you prefer: What’s right right now?

Try it:
What’s right right now?

Answer with the first thing that comes into your mind.

Then ask yourself again and again answer with the first thing you think of. Repeat several times. Pick a number . . . three . . . five . . . seven times?

Let yourself answer spontaneously and honestly.

You can make a list in writing, use the question as a meditation, or say it out loud to your partner or a friend (or to yourself in the car on your commute).

Notice how your body feels when you shift your focus in this way. Do you feel lighter? Calmer? More excited? Uplifted?

“When you start noticing [what’s right],” Geneen says, “it becomes its own habit. There’s an infusion of what’s right instead of what’s wrong.”

Pretty soon, it will become second nature, a shift in your whole attitude toward life. Yes, things may still go “wrong” and these things will get the attention they need. But why not have a go-to practice you can do whenever you want — make a list, flip the switch, and notice the difference, enjoy the riches.