Positive thinking can make it easier to take necessary actions to increase your wealth. It can also make it easier for you to bounce back after a financial setback, better able to make and stick to a financial plan, and less likely to suffer from self-defeating anxiety and stress over finances. Positive thinking can be used as one tool that will help you as you work toward your financial goals.

Here are five ways you can use positive thinking to contribute to your path toward wealth:

1. Start with a grateful attitude about your current situation

Spend some time looking at your own life and the world in which you live. Take a moment to consider the blessings of modern technology and medicine. We live in an era where diseases that can cause death and devastation have been largely eradicated or can be treated with medication. We can learn new things and easily communicate with one another. Do you have access to education, clean water, food and safe travel? If so, you have many things for which to be grateful.

This doesn't mean that you have to be perfectly satisfied with your current financial situation. There is nothing wrong with wanting to improve. But improving is easier if you start from a place of gratitude instead of a place of resentment and anger. It is much easier to feel hopeful about the future if you can find something to appreciate now.

2. Visualize with a purpose

Professional athletes, CEOs at multi-million dollar companies, even students at Ivy League colleges use visualization to help them obtain their goals. The key is to use visualization with a purpose. This means avoiding general visualizations, and instead picturing yourself successfully taking steps that will result in increasing your wealth. The more specific the better. Here are some examples:

• Visualize yourself shopping and sticking to a budget. Then, visualize putting the money you save into a fund to take a vacation.

• Visualize earning a bonus at work and then putting that money into an investment fund.

• Picture yourself avoiding daily temptations, such as expensive morning coffees and going out to eat for lunch. After that, imagine that money going toward a savings fund.

• Visualize an emergency, such as an unexpected car repair, and then imagine having savings to cover the cost of it.

3. Say it out loud

Take your visualizations one step further and add your voice. It has been proven that the more senses you involve, the more you are going to incorporate information and thinking into your behavior. Again, the point is to be specific and focused. Things like, "I am wealthy," "I am financially sound," or "I make good financial decisions" aren't going to do much to contribute to your financial situation. However, if you affirm out loud that you are going to save at least 10 percent of your income, for example, or that you will place your tax refund into a savings account, you will actually be more likely to follow through when it is time to take action on your intentions. Write these things down as your goals. This will result in your bringing the fruits of your positive thinking to reality.

4. Write down your financial successes

Financial advisers will tell you to keep a financial diary. The purpose is to track income and spending in order to get a better idea of your financial habits and behaviors. This is great advice, and you will benefit from following it.

However, this is not the only financial diary you should keep. Keeping a diary of your financial successes will help you leverage your positive thinking about your financial situation into something tangible. It's great to think about — and be able to see — the things you have done right when it comes to building wealth and prosperity. If you grow your personal savings account by 25 percent in three months, write that down in your financial success journal. If you have managed to go a month without breaking your budget, write that down. This will help you to maintain your positive energy when you are feeling discouraged.

5. Spread all of this positivity by giving it back

This list began with an encouragement to count your blessings. And it is going to end with an encouragement to pay your blessings forward to other people. As you are going through your own financial journey, encourage others throughout theirs. As you visualize, say your affirmations or record your financial accomplishments, ask yourself what you have done to make a positive contribution to others. Provide real, tangible assistance to people who need help and support. Then, once you have done this, you can encourage others to use positive thinking to have the prosperity that they deserve.