This viral TikTok teaches us how to have a more positive mindset in 2022

It all starts with the mind

Young woman, eyes closed, low angle view, profile - stock photo
(Image credit: Getty Images / Gary John Norman)

With a new year can come a lot of pressures, whether it’s strict resolutions, following new fitness trends, feeling like you want to reinvent yourself, or wanting to top the previous year. However, the New Year can just mean a simple, fresh start—especially when it comes to your mindset and happiness. This viral TikTok shows us how we can all start to achieve a more positive mindset.

There are a lot of things we can do to lift our moods, and ward off negative thoughts, whether it’s prioritizing self-care days, distracting ourselves with the latest Netflix shows, or things like meditation. But sometimes it all starts with the mind, and us needing to tackle the negative feelings right from the source.

Woman Meditating While Sitting At Home - stock photo

(Image credit: Getty Images / Vicens Prats / EyeEm)


Simplifying Sam, a mindfulness and manifestation coach with over 300,000 TikTok followers has shared the perfect video to kickstart positive thinking.

The video, titled, ‘How to shift your thoughts from negative to positive’ now has over 200,000 views and 70,000 likes, and the method is so simple to follow.

@simplifying.sam

♬ original sound - Samantha

Samantha begins by explaining that changing your mindset takes time, it’s not an instant thing, using her own experience as an example she says: “You can’t go from one end of the spectrum to the opposite, meaning I can’t go from ‘I hate my body and I’m so ugly’ to ‘I love my body and I’m beautiful.' You don’t believe that thought yet, but I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to.”

Instead, you follow these simple steps:

 

1. Become aware of the thoughts 

Listen to them and recognize exactly what your negative thoughts are, and write them down—even if they’re horrible. It’s important to understand exactly what they are. Sam says to then pick out the one that causes the most pain, like ‘I hate my body.’

2. Invert that thought and turn it into a ‘what if’ 

Pinpoint and invert that thought and change it to ‘what if I loved my body?’ or ‘how would I feel and act if I didn’t hate my body.’

If that’s difficult for you, try instead: ‘what do people who don’t hate their bodies do? How do they act and feel?’

3. Sit for five minutes

Sam then says to sit and think about these inverted questions for five minutes and try to imagine the feelings that these scenarios bring. You should eventually feel a shift, or some sort of relief, like a burden is lifting—and then carry on with your day.

Another important step is to not berate yourself about your negative thoughts and feelings, because this only adds more ‘blockages.’ Sam says to just try and imagine what you would think or feel about yourself if you didn’t have them and go from there.

She also adds that many can get hung up on not feeling they can change anything until they believe their inverted thoughts, but this is just not the case. 

She says: “What do actors do before they become well-known actors? They go to auditions, they take acting classes, they network with other actors, they move to cities where actors are found. You don’t get to become an actor after your first movie comes out. It starts here.

“Change your negative thoughts by turning them into inverted what-if questions and see how your energy changes.”

Naomi Jamieson
Lifestyle News Writer

Naomi is a Lifestyle News Writer with the Women's Lifestyle team, where she covers everything from entertainment to fashion and beauty, as well as TikTok trends for Woman&Home, after previously writing for My Imperfect Life and GoodTo. Interestingly though, Naomi actually has a background in design, having studied illustration at Plymouth University but lept into the media world in 2020, after always having a passion for writing and earned her Gold Standard diploma in Journalism with the NCTJ.


Before working for Future Publishing’s Lifestyle News team, she worked in the Ad production team. Here she wrote and designed adverts on all sorts of things, which then went into print magazines across all genres. Now, when she isn’t writing articles on celebs, fashion trends, or the newest shows on Netflix, you can find her drinking copious cups of coffee, drawing and probably online shopping.