Hello and welcome to this episode of the ESG Fitness podcast.

My topic for today is broadly choosing to be positive, but also I want to touch on toxic positivity

and why those two things are very different.

Now, I'm sure it's going to come as no surprise to people that I'm described as quite a positive

person and a large part of that is a choice.

However, when you say positivity is a choice or I choose to be positive, there's always someone who will creep

out of the woodworks and will mention depression, which is of course not a choice. And to be fair,

I'm kind of having a dig there, but a valid point. And what I mean when I say that positivity

is a choice is that so many people ruin their day,

and quite honestly, like this seems extreme, but ruin their lives by letting tiny insignificant

annoyances impact their mood and thus impact their experience of life.

For example, if you're on your way somewhere and there's a delay which is

out with your control and so you're going to be late, that's quite annoying. Maybe you wanted to be on

time. Being punctual is usually a good thing. There is absolutely nothing you can do about the fact you're going to be late.

But are you going to be late, stressed and annoyed? Or are you going to accept that you're going to be

late and then find a bit of a silver lining? Oh, it gives me a chance to read a little bit more, listen to this excellent podcast by ESG Fitness.

Plan your weekly food shop, whatever, something vaguely productive or useful.

It's your choice to choose how you show up.

That's where choice comes in. And it's not as passive as what

many people think or expect. It's a conscious effort to choose to find a positive or to choose to

not let that impact your mood for the rest of the day. You being pissed off won't change the fact that you're late.

That fact will be the same whether you turn up stressed, annoyed, pissed off in a shit mood or

...