Let the Positive Outweigh the Negative!

I'm currently taking an online psychology class, and each week one of our assignments is to have a discussion with the rest of the students. The teacher starts the discussion by posting a topic and we are graded on our response to her topic and also our response to the other student's comments.
This past week our topic was whether we think that positive and negative thoughts can determine how quickly we heal from an illness. I don't think there was one person who answered this question with a 'no'. Most of the students commented that not only can our positive and negative thoughts determine our healing, but they can also determine how well we do in a class, or on a test, or at a job. If we think we are going to fail, nine times out of ten...guess what?...we will fail. Even if we failed previously, we can go into it again with a different attitude knowing that we will not fail and we can 'think' ourselves into success.
This is something that has been very difficult for me over the years. As a child, my father made it clear to me that he thought I was never going to be worth much. He never told me or my sister that we were good at anything, but he was very quick to point out our shortcomings. I love my father very very much, but he was raised this way and this is what he handed down to my sister and me. This caused me to have incredibly low self esteem, and it cause my sister to rise above and do everything in her power to prove my dad wrong.
It wasn't until I married my husband, Mike, that I began to feel like I was worth something. He forced me to always look at the positive and ignore the negative. When I started going to school again, I told him I didn't know if I could do it and his exact words were "Well, you won't with that attitude." He pushes me every day, and when I do something well...he praises me for it! He tells me how smart I am, and that he's not surprised at how well I'm doing.
Mike has shown me that I must look at the bright side of things, that if I only look at the positive the negative will seem almost ridiculous to me. I still have problems with this, and I don't think I would get very far without my husband there to cheer me on, but I am getting better.
I've learned that the negative thoughts inside can destroy every bit of joy you have, and if you do everything you can to rid yourself of those thoughts the joy comes back very quickly. Eventually positive thinking will become second nature!
Be more conscientious about your thoughts. If you find yourself thinking something negative, reverse your thinking...force yourself to think about something else! Let the positive outweigh the negative!