Have you ever stopped to think about what you’re thinking about? For a lot of people, they might be surprised at how negative their thoughts might skew. We don’t intentionally mean to beat ourselves up over a bad workday, where we are in our career versus where we thought we would be, or maybe something as small as sleeping through our alarm that morning, but if we don’t catch those thoughts in the moment, they’ll likely spiral and dictate the direction of our day. Days can turn into weeks and weeks into months. Before you know it, you’re wondering how we got into a rut.
Positive Lens
Life is all about perspective. How are you viewing yourself, your environment, and your peers? Life will never be perfect, but if we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change. If you’re frustrated from a leadership perspective, try thinking about what lessons you’re learning in this season. What will you take away from this situation so you can grow as a leader and help your team learn from it too? The same applies to your environment and peers. Leaders tend to have big ideas which might clash with the ideas of others. If you find yourself in a similar situation, change your perspective to understand where the other person is coming from. What can you pull from their idea that is valuable even if you don’t fully agree with all of it?
Positive Opportunities
When our perspective shifts, we often find new opportunities coming into our lives. Being open-minded allows us to not only see more opportunities but to say yes to them as well. With time it’ll become a habit to find value in differing opinions and routines. Something to consider: maybe the opportunities were there all along—we just didn’t have the eyes to see it.
Positive Life
The compound effect will come into play at this point. It’s hard to feel disgruntled with life when you’re approaching each day with an open mind and finding lessons in every hardship. The hardships and challenges will still happen, that’s life, but it’s easier to navigate through those times when you’re not resisting it. This will strengthen you as a leader, and you’ll find invaluable lessons through it all. You can then turn around and help your team to approach their days the same way.
“It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.” –Dale Carnegie