I’m not sure why, but in the last few months, whenever I have been waiting for a result in something – anything – I have been negative.

Like, will someone call about some proposal? Or will my quote be accepted? Is load shedding going to hit our suburb on the weekend? Is petrol going up again? As I said, anything. Without exception I have been assuming the response will be bad.

The fact it isn’t always does nothing to stop me believing everything is bound to be against me. And of course, the more negative I am, when some things didn’t go my way, I reinforce my negative attitude by saying to myself, “See, I knew it was going to be NO. This ALWAYS happens to me.”

I’m not sure what made me change my approach. I suppose I just got fed up with all the negativity.

So, just as an experiment I began reversing my predictions from it won’t happen to it will. “This time it will go in my favour.” And surprisingly things started going my way.

Although I’m not silly enough to believe my thinking one way or the other has any effect on the result, it just suddenly seemed they were mostly going for me.

Now I firmly believe (sometimes I have to consciously force myself) all my quotations will be accepted; all my calls will be returned; if I’m looking for something, I will find it.

In other words, I am positive about everything as opposed to the misery I was inflicting on myself by believing nothing would go in my favour.

As a result I am far more relaxed, worry (ruminate) less and am surprised when things go wrong for me, as opposed to when they go right. And all I did is change my attitude.

P.S. I do actually suspect more things are going my way nowadays … which is weird.