Good Vibes, Good Life

1/9

What’s in it for me? Learn how to choose love and positivity.

Consider for a minute: Are you really happy? We often tell ourselves that our lives would be better if we had more money, or more free time, or a different job. 

But that’s not really how happiness works. In fact, as you’ll find out in these blinks, the key to unlocking your best life is already in your hands – and it starts with self-love. 

Learn tried-and-true techniques to welcome joy into your world, and discover how shifting your mindset can change your reality. Packed with inspirational wisdom and insightful advice, this is your guide to leading a good life. 

In these blinks, you’ll learn

• how to harness the law of attraction;
• why pain is an opportunity; and
• what atomic energy has to do with happiness.

2/9

According to the Law of Attraction, your thoughts dictate your reality.

When the author was a student, his family had very little money. So when friends asked him to join them on their vacation, he knew he couldn’t afford it. But then, just a few weeks later, a check came in the mail for £500 (about $650) – almost exactly the amount the author needed. 

What could have possibly happened? The author believes it was all thanks to something called the Law of Attraction. The idea goes that if you believe something good will happen, you make it more likely that it will happen.

The key message here is: According to the Law of Attraction, your thoughts dictate your reality. 

The opposite is also true: if you dwell on negative thoughts and expect the worst, then you increase the likelihood that this will come true instead. In the author’s case, he spent weeks thinking he would be able to afford the vacation, and the universe responded by making it so. 

But even though he had some success using the Law of Attraction, the author found it didn’t always deliver. He realized that even though he was thinking positively, his thoughts were often accompanied by negative feelings. And this combination made him feel confused and inauthentic – not a great recipe for success. 

To combat this problem, he came up with his own law: the Law of Vibration. According to the Law of Vibration, when you radiate joyful, positive energy, your reality becomes positively charged, too – and you attract joyful, positive things. 

This theory might sound far-fetched, but it’s based in real science. Consider that everything in the universe, including our minds, is made up of atoms that vibrate. It follows, then, that everything else, including our thoughts and emotions, must also vibrate. The author believes that joyful, loving emotions have a high vibrational frequency, whereas angry, depressed emotions vibrate at a low frequency. 

It’s through tapping into these vibrations that you can start to influence the world around you. When an atom vibrates, the atoms around it start vibrating at the same frequency. So if your emotions vibrate higher, then your reality will start to vibrate higher, too. The result? Your external world becomes more loving and joyful. 

3/9

You can take control of your vibrational frequency.

It might seem unlikely, but when it comes to emotions, you have a lot in common with green algae – or, more precisely, a particular species of green algae that gets its energy from other plants.

Like the algae, you draw your emotional energy from other people and your environment. In fact, when things are going badly, summoning positive energy from your surroundings can change how you feel. 

So, in order to vibrate higher, your first priority should be to spend more time with positive people. 

The key message here is: You can take control of your vibrational frequency.

Good vibrations are contagious. If you mix with friends who radiate love and joy, their emotional state will rub off on you. Once you start to vibrate on their high frequency, you’ll start attracting even more positive people into your life. 

A second way to heighten your emotional frequency is to adopt more positive body language. Research shows that smiling – even when you don’t have anything to smile about – gives you a rush of endorphins; these are your body’s “feel-good” chemicals. So next time you’re miserable, try forcing yourself to smile – and feel the benefit!

You can also give yourself an emotional boost by striking a pose. Social psychologists have found that standing or sitting in a powerful way for just two minutes a day leads to a 20-percent increase in testosterone, a hormone that boosts confidence. 

Third, you might also find you need to take a break from socializing if you want to vibrate higher. Stepping back from the constant buzz of modern life can help you recharge your batteries. And while it might feel antisocial, it’s perfectly healthy. Mexicans even have a word for the feeling of wanting to be alone after socializing: engentado, or being “peopled out.” 

Finally, try spending time alone in nature to take your vibrations even higher. Research shows that just being in the natural world gives your body and mind a boost. You could take your work outside to the garden, or perhaps go for a stroll in your local park. Plus, if it’s a sunny day you’ll get extra benefits because the sun’s rays provide vitamin D and serotonin – two things that naturally stabilize your mood. 

4/9

It’s not selfish to cut toxic people out of your life.

We’ve seen how spending time with positive people can raise your vibrations to a higher level and help you to be the best version of yourself. Well, the opposite is also true: being around negative people can leave you feeling hopeless, weak, and insecure. 

While you could argue that no one can make you feel anything, and that a truly secure person can’t be brought down by other people, most of us aren’t spiritually strong enough to remain unaffected. 

If you find yourself in this situation, don’t tell yourself you’re weak or guilty for being made to feel bad. But be aware that if you don’t cut off contact with these people, you’ll start vibrating at their low, hateful frequency, too. Soon you’ll be passing their bad vibes to other people in your life – and before you know it, your reality will be full of anger and sadness.

The key message here is: It’s not selfish to cut toxic people out of your life.

Think of your personal growth as if you were an acorn. If you’re rooted in a toxic environment, you won’t be able to grow into the strong, sturdy tree you have the potential to be. 

But while you shouldn’t accept toxic people into your life, it’s important to reject your own toxic behavior, too. When we’re out of line, we often excuse our actions by saying we were in a bad mood or feeling upset. We assume that everyone around us is doing fine and that, because we feel bad, we have a right to act out. The thing is, you never know what other people are going through, and when you start to take your emotions out on those close to you, you could be doing them real harm. 

All too often, when someone accuses us of hurting their feelings, we tell them that what we’ve said or done isn’t that bad. We avoid taking responsibility, and we blame them for how they’ve interpreted our behavior. 

The truth is, we have no right to tell other people whether their feelings are valid. If you’ve hurt someone, accept it and try to do better next time. Although this might feel difficult, taking responsibility for your actions is an important part of self-love. You are giving yourself the message that you deserve better than toxic behavior – whether that behavior comes from you or anyone else in your life. 

5/9

Love yourself to become more secure.

If someone asked you to list five things you love, what would you say? Would you list yourself in that top five? Sadly, many of us wouldn’t. That’s because our society is suffering from a lack of self-love. 

In today’s world, we are often consumed with what other people think about us. Whether they like us. Whether they respect us. But we don’t stop to ask whether we love or respect ourselves. 

This is a problem because true happiness and satisfaction come from loving yourself unconditionally – and not caring what others think or feel about you. 

The key message here is: Love yourself to become more secure. 

Insecurities are a dangerous thing and can contaminate your closest relationships. Consider the jealous boyfriend who secretly looks through his partner’s emails and texts. His jealousy comes from a place of insecurity; perhaps he thinks he’s unlovable or not good-looking enough. Because of his actions, the relationship is probably doomed. 

What’s more, people tend to be attracted to others who are at ease with themselves and radiate inner confidence. So, if you don’t love yourself, other people will pick up on your negative vibes and will find it harder to love you, too. 

Part of self-love is accepting your physical self and appreciating the body you’ve been given – which isn’t easy when you’re constantly bombarded with images of models and celebrities on social media. These pictures invite comparison, and you might start feeling you don’t measure up. But even though it might seem like all these beautiful people are happier than the rest of us, they often struggle with exactly the same feelings of self-doubt. 

The author once spoke to a social media icon who said she’d felt pressured into having plastic surgery to improve her appearance. Later, the author talked to one of the woman’s followers; she felt insecure about her own looks and believed that her life would be much better if she could look like her idol. What this fan didn’t see was the doubt and unhappiness that lay behind the social media images of so-called “perfection.” 

It’s age-old wisdom, but this just goes to show that what’s on the outside isn’t all that important. What matters more is having a solid foundation of self-love so that you can accept yourself just the way you are. 

6/9

In life, you can choose to sow either the seeds of joy or the roots of unhappiness.

Learning to love yourself is all well and good, but to get to a point where you can change your life, you need to understand that you actually have two minds – not one. 

Your first mind is your conscious mind. It holds all the thoughts, feelings, and information that you’re consciously aware of. Your second mind is your unconscious mind. It holds all the beliefs and assumptions that exist below the surface. 

It’s helpful to think of your conscious mind as your garden, and your unconscious mind as the soil that your garden grows in. 

The key message here is: In life, you can choose to sow either the seeds of joy or the roots of unhappiness. 

Let’s imagine, for a moment, that your beliefs are the seeds that take root in your unconscious mind. You either have helpful or unhelpful beliefs, which in turn lead to either a joyful, serene garden or a toxic wasteland. To successfully change your reality, you need to weed out the bad seeds. 

Start by reviewing your beliefs, and ask yourself where they’ve come from. When the author examined his own belief system, he discovered that, deep down, he thought people were predestined to live a certain kind of life. Some people were just lucky and would lead successful lives, while others were unlucky, fated to a life of hardship. He believed that your path in life couldn’t be changed.

But when the author explored the roots of this belief, he realized he’d received it from an adult authority figure as a child. And because he saw other people agreeing with this authority figure, he started to give credence to this belief. 

The negative belief led the author to think that, because of his poor childhood, his life would always be hard – no matter what he did. But it was simply an unconscious bias. 

When looking at your own beliefs, ask yourself whether they’re positive or negative. Will they improve your life or hold you back? To let go of negative beliefs, look for evidence for alternatives. The author, for instance, read up on successful people who had also had a difficult start in life. 

As you'll discover in the next blink, seeing other people triumph over adversity could help inspire you to action. 

“Don’t spend your life being imprisoned by a belief system that limits your potential.”

7/9

You don’t need a lot of resources to make your dreams come true.

Positive thoughts and beliefs are important, but your reality won’t change unless you couple them with action. For many people who want to be more successful, doing something is the difficult part. Positive action means hard work and dedication; it means putting in effort, even on those days when you’d rather sit back and relax. 

Many people fail to take action to reach their goals and then wonder why their positivity isn’t bringing them rewards. They tell themselves that there are too many barriers to achieving their dreams – they don’t have enough time, money, or expertise. When they get these things, then they’ll take action. 

The key message here is: You don’t need a lot of resources to make your dreams come true.

The thing is, all you need to do is make your goal a priority – and be prepared to sacrifice your comfort in order to reach it. If you think you’ll just wait until you feel ready, you’ll be waiting a long time. 

Consider the story of Richard Branson, the British business tycoon, who at the age of 16 made his first steps as an entrepreneur – by starting a magazine. It was no mean feat because, on top of being young, Branson was also dyslexic. Most people in his place would have told themselves they couldn’t possibly have the expertise to start a magazine, but Branson didn’t let it hold him back. Since then, he’s started over 400 different businesses. 

Often there’s only one difference between people who become successful and those who don’t: successful people keep working toward their goals, even when they don’t feel like it. This is what’s known as grit. Even when you’re not feeling motivated or inspired, you grit your teeth, roll up your sleeves, and keep pushing on. Over time, these continuous efforts add up to significant positive results. 

Perhaps you want to take action toward your goals, but you can’t seem to find the motivation to get up and do it. A great way to overcome this is to break your bigger goal into several smaller tasks.

One of the brain’s key chemicals involved in motivation is dopamine. Every time you achieve something, you get a hit of dopamine, which encourages you to keep going. By breaking your ambitions into bite-sized pieces, you’ll reach smaller goals more frequently and get a dopamine rush every step of the way. 

8/9

You can’t control what happens, but you can control your reactions.

Like Richard Branson, you might be able to control your actions and take positive steps toward your goals, but you can never entirely control the world around you. Unfortunately, this means that painful experiences are in store for all of us at some point during our lives. But when the worst happens, you can practice self-love by refusing to become a victim. 

That’s not to say you shouldn’t feel sad when bad things happen – but you do have a choice about how you view the situation. And as we’ve seen, whatever choice you make will affect your vibrational energy and influence your reality. 

If you choose to always see yourself as a victim, your vibrations will always stay at a low frequency. In other words, life will keep treating you like a victim. 

The key message here is: You can’t control what happens, but you can control your reactions. 

On the other hand, if you see your painful experience as an opportunity for personal growth, then you will vibrate at a higher frequency and attract more high-frequency energy. You can look forward to better things happening in the future. 

Painful events can seem cruel and meaningless, but they often make you stronger. Pain is the fire that forges the best version of yourself. So try framing your view of pain differently – tell yourself, “This is not happening to me, this is happening for me.” 

The Greek philosopher Aristotle said that everything happens for a reason. You might not see it at the time, but in later years when you look back, you’ll understand how events in your life – both good and bad – have influenced your development. 

For instance, when the author was very young, his father died. The author grew up in poverty and was even homeless during some periods of his early life. But looking back, he sees that losing his father made him who he is today; it gave him the motivation to help other people who have experienced loss and hardship. Without this painful experience, the author might have become a completely different person. 

To practice self-love is to accept yourself just as you are. That means accepting all the experiences that have shaped you – positive and negative, joyful and painful. They are all threads in the unique tapestry of your life. 

9/9

Final summary

The key message in these blinks:

When you send good vibes out into the world, the universe rewards you with good things. You can vibrate higher by loving yourself, surrounding yourself with great people, and using each day to take small steps toward your goals. 

Actionable advice:

Say your dreams out loud. 

Help your wishes become reality by saying them aloud every day, as if they were already true. For instance, if you want to become more confident, you could chant “I am a confident person” every morning. These affirmations will take root in the soil of your unconscious mind, and you will unconsciously work even harder to turn them into reality.