As far back as I can remember I have been waiting for the worst things to happen to me because I have become almost accustomed to it. 

Every kid should have a mother. Mine died when I was thirteen.  Unfortunately that happening has left a residual scar on my life that really came to the surface with the birth of my son.  When your mother dies early, life really punches you in the face.  Cancer, AIDS, car wrecks, drugs or good old fashioned heart disease I have had so many people I care about die that you become used to it. That is a shitty thing to become used to. 

When you are constantly waiting for bad news there is a feeling in your life that around every turn something bad is going to happen or that a piano is going to fall on your head.  Now that I have a son I need to do everything I can to change that.     

By and large I consider myself to be a reasonably positive person, I love to laugh and I think any of my friends would tell you that I would be the 1st person to be happy for any of their successes.  Peel the onion a little more though and you will find someone that was always highly cynical and who thought of the worst case scenario first in any situation. 

Now I have been through my fair share of therapy, anger management, counseling and have come to learn that a lot of this is learned behavior and a coping mechanism that I used to insulate and protect myself because there was no one else there to help me through it.  At least nobody I truly trusted and would be willing to accept as someone who really loved and cared for me.    

We get out what we put into the world, so if you are constantly worrying about impending doom more often that not than that’s eventually what is going to find you.  Once my son was born every thought was something bad is going to happen and that scared the hell out of me.  Not the bad thing happening but more the fact that his father could not help himself from thinking about bad things happening to his son. That is not constructive nor is it healthy and it needed to change.   

How do I make that change? Now again between all the professionals I have spoken to and all the books I have read on my own the one real truth that I have learned and now know with every fiber of my bones is that it is just a matter of thought and If I can change the way I think then I can change that mindset.  Sounds easy enough but nothing worth doing is ever easy and this is certainly not one of those things. 

For me we are talking about a lifetime of thinking one way and trying to have a completely different thought process, impulses, instincts.  Rewiring a computer may be easy if you know what you are doing but rewiring your brain when you have no experience is not as simple. For me it has been an arduous process and I am still so far from where I wan to be be. 

That is where the Power of 3 comes in.  It is a scientific fact we learn and process things better in threes.  So for the next year I am going to implement the idea of doing 3 things weekly 3 times in the hopes that in a year from now I can say to you I am a more positive person for doing these things and with being the tangible proof that it works.  During the next year I will write a weekly blog to keep me accountable and to make sure I follow through.      

The 3 things I will be doing are simple but I believe can be very powerful. The first is to do 3 nice things a week without expecting anything in return, that could be buying the person behind me their coffee too or walking a little faster to make sure I hold the door for someone.  Nothing earth shattering but 3 kind gestures that you know you have done for others each week. 

Next and another way I think you can turn a big world into a small one is compliments.  People like a pat on the back, a that’a’boy, it makes them feel good.  So one way I think for me personally to become more positive and to have a mindset of gratitude is to let other people know they are doing something that is working, it could be telling someone they have nice penmanship or that they are wearing a cool pair of sneakers. 

Tell 3 different people a complement each week and I think we can lift each other’s spirits.  Lastly I am going to reach out to 3 people a week, they could be social media friends, old friends, co-workers or just people in our phones! Relationships and friendships are like plants they need to be nurtured and watered to grow and survive.  Why have the relationship if you are not going to want it to grow?    

These 3 things may seem simple but for me they will not be.  That is why I am starting weekly and not daily because I do not want to bite off more than I can chew and I am rooting for myself, I want nothing more than to be successful and for this to work. 

The end result would be a more positive,  grateful and happy version of myself. Which is all I would ever want or need and more importantly it its what my son deserves and I want him to grow up and think about life the same way.  

If some of you out there implement any of this into your life I would love to know if it has helped you at all too.  This is unchartered territory for me so I am hoping it will not just help me, that if other people out there do this it could also help them turn their frown up side down.  In the meantime I will keep you posted and my fingers crossed.