THERE’S a trend on Facebook which involves declaring three positive things for five days and then passing the nomination to three friends.

Now, I have to confess, I find this kind of thing a bit cringey and self-serving with people claiming “going to the gym” or “cooking a healthy meal” as a positive where I would see that as simply looking after oneself and therefore a bit self-centred.

But, trying to be positive, I suppose it depends how you look at it. If a gym workout boosts your mood and self esteem so you radiate goodwill to all men and patience to all children, then that’s good isn’t it?

Now, I’ve not been nominated yet, which may have something to do with my attitude as indicated by the above. So, I’ve been doing some hard thinking, just in case I get caught out.

Gratitude helps us to handle adverse life situations. It improves physical and mental well-being. Being upbeat also makes us more creative, energised, resilient, helps us to think more clearly and perform better. So it’s worth being grateful.

Now, I often say to my slimmers (I’m a Slimming World consultant) if you can’t visualise yourself slim, you’ll always struggle to achieve it. So to achieve that goal you have to work mentally hard to overcome physical cravings.

Well, it’s the same with gratitude. You have to imagine yourself being grateful and actually practise it, because moaning and negativity come naturally to human beings.

Being genuinely happy for your fab looking, rich friend when she’s won the Lottery is really hard work, particularly if you’ve had to visit the foodbank that week.

So how do you say: “I’m delighted for you” without a facial grimace or clenching of teeth. By training yourself, that’s how.

By thanking your lucky stars that foodbanks exist, that you’ve got two working legs to get you there and that it was open when you arrived. It’s not easy cultivating an attitude of gratitude, but you’ll be grateful if you master it.

So after considerable thought here are my three positives for day one should I ever be nominated.

1. I’m grateful that despite times of intense hardship I’ve never had to visit a foodbank.

2. I’m grateful for having a brain that can be trained to be positive and upbeat if I make it work hard enough.

3. I’m grateful that I can read because I’d never have had the pleasure of one lady’s positive declaration about the return of her pet tortoise that’d gone AWOL.

Heaven knows what I’ll come up with for the remaining four days.