There are times when we must go through negative situations. Maybe people say something negative about us, or they show rejection or even resentment against us. In such situations, it may be difficult to stay positive. We may be inclined to react negatively to them. That won’t do us any good though; doing so will just make the situation worse. People may behave even more negatively to us. Our day would be filled with anger and disappointment. At the end, nobody wins.

Though it’s not easy, it’s important to stay positive in negative situations. Beat the negative situations by staying positive. Here are 10 tips on how to do it; pick the ones that work for you:

1. Never respond (verbally or via email) when you are not calm. If you are not sure that you are calm, don’t respond. Take time to calm yourself down first.  Take a deep breath as a first step to calm yourself down.
2. Realize that you can find opportunities in negative situations. Albert Einstein said: “In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.”
3. Look at the content of what people say to you for something positive that you can act upon to improve yourself. Don’t just reject the whole messages.
4. Maintain a positive view of the person. Maybe you don’t like their messages or behavior, but that doesn’t mean that you can hate them personally.
5. Realize that having negative feelings will just hurt you, not them. Resentment, anger and other negative emotions will only make you feel worse.  
6. If you make mistakes, be open to admit it.  If you make mistakes, remember this quote by George Bernard Shaw: “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”
7. If you can, listen to motivational audio program or read a positive book to feed good thoughts into your mind.
8. Talk to a positive friend who can encourage you.
9. Look at the negative situations as your training sessions for real life. The higher you climb in life, the worse the negative situations would be, so you’d better be prepared for them.
10. Realize that you can’t please everyone. In fact, nobody can. Sometimes you need to just let some people go. Realizing this will relieve you from a lot of unnecessary burden so that you can focus on the people that you can positively interact with.

Author: Donald Latumahina