I am the type of person who used to have a very negative attitude to most aspects of life. I am not alone in thinking this way as most of the people I meet seem to be constantly moaning about different things and basically feeling sorry for themselves. This article looks at the reasons and benefits of having a more positive outlook on life.

About ten years ago I decided that I needed to have a change of approach. I wanted to be a happy and care-free person and was fed up of always being stressed and worrying about the future. To achieve this I started to read many self-help, confidence type books and websites.

There was a regular message which came from this literature which was to think more positive and to believe in your ability to succeed in whatever you attempt to do.

This is easy to write or say, but in reality it is difficult to implement in practice. Of course I tried but in truth I did not really believe in the whole practice. I would go into a task thinking, I can do this, but it would still end up in failure.

I could not understand what was going wrong so I therefore went back to the books to try to learn more. There was a new and even more important message which I had missed the first time around. What I had to do was to take a positive out of whatever happens to me, even if this is learning from my failings.

As an example of taking a positive from whatever happens in life, is something which happened in my family recently. My nan has recently passed away, she was eighty-eight. I used to visit her at least once a week at the flat where she lived. She was a very honest person and always talked very openly to me. Around two months before she died she told me that she was very tired and that she no longer wanted to be on this planet.

I was quite shocked by her admission and asked her what was wrong. She stated that she had nothing to look forward to and that she did not want to reach a point where she could no longer bath herself etc. She continued that she hoped that I would not grieve for to long when she did die and that she wanted me to be happy for her.

This was quite upsetting for me to hear but at least she was being honest of course. Two months later my dad phoned me and told me that my nan had passed away in the night.

I was obviously upset and the thought of never being able to see her again hit me hard. I then thought about what she had said and looked up to the sky and gave my nan a smile and a message, I love you.

I thought positive about the whole event and was actually happy for her. I hope that one day we will meet again.