The 12 Stress Less Days to Christmas: Day 6

Day #6: Focus on what’s going well rather than what’s not going well

When you’re tired and you focus on the negative stuff – it will drain whatever energy reserves you have left at this time of year. This will make you even more tired and can lead to you being more irritable and stressed!

Avoid using phrases like:

“It never rains but it pours”

“No-one ever tells me anything”

“I’ll never get everything done in time”

We can end up thinking these things particularly if we set ourselves unrealistic expectations!

So focus on what’s going well and what you’re managing to achieve each day, even the ‘small wins’ 🙂

It’s all about a positive mindset

28 Day Blog Challenge – Day 8

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty”

(Winston Churchill)

How do you stay positive when faced with negative situations?

They may be

• something you don’t like
• something that’s popped up unexpectedly and stopped you in your tracks
• an illness
• a set back
• a job change/loss

I’m sure you can think of other examples.

The key to positivity is in how you view the situation and how you talk about it to / with yourself.

For example:

“I really don’t like my new team leader. That role should have been mine.”

These type of thoughts will lead to other unproductive thoughts, which will affect your relationship with your team leader. At best, this could lead to you under-performing, at worst you could risk your place in the team.

So what can you do about this situation? What is in your control?

Turning your thoughts into more positive and productive ones is a great start and gives you the best chance to move forward from this unhappy situation. For example:

“I have a new team leader. Although I wanted that position, perhaps I can learn new skills from them which will put me in a better position for a different promotion in the future.”

Going back to Churchill’s quote, this is an example of seeing “the opportunity in every difficulty”.

If you continually have negative thoughts about something, ask yourself; How am I benefiting from this? and How is that helping me?

Something I’ve often found is that choosing to have a positive mindset can also make you stronger – physically as well as mentally.

So whenever you’re having negative and unproductive thoughts, especially about things you have no control over, think about how you can rephrase them into more positive ones. See what other opportunities this situation can present for you, and how much stronger you feel as a result.

(Photo courtesy of Graur Codrin)