Our unconscious minds are constantly scanning the environment, trying to make sense of the millions of pieces of information flooding in through our senses. Because this filtering process is based on our beliefs and our memories, we tend to match familiar patterns - in other words, we often become aware of what we expect to find, ignoring anything which doesn't meet our expectations. The maxim is, "what the thinker thinks, the prover proves".

If you read "happiness is nowhere", then don't despair - it is possible to retrain your mind to become an optimist, simply by always trying to find an optimistic thought or belief to counter each pessimistic one. One way to do this is to use the ABC model, which stands for Activating Event, Belief, Consequence.

For example, you get stuck in a traffic jam (Activating Event), then think to yourself what a waste of time it is (Belief), and then you get annoyed (Consequence). By recognising and changing the belief or thought, for example "it is an event out of my control", you could start to see it as an opportunity to chill out and listen to the radio instead...

Another powerful way to retrain your mind is to take a few moments every night before you go to bed to start noticing the positive things which have happened that day - no matter how small. Perhaps someone said or did a kind thing for you, maybe something lucky happened to you, maybe you took a moment to appreciate nature, or perhaps you had an optimistic thought.

Think of around two or three positive things each night, and you go to bed in a positive frame of mind, which makes it more likely that you will wake up in a similar state. Pretty soon, you will begin to notice even more positives each day.