The mind holds the key to success or failure. There is a range of emotions we experience during various situations in life, but the dominant attitude we hold while working on any task determines the likelihood of success or failure. Think of your physical body as a ship sailing at sea, with your mind as the ship’s wheel and your attitude as the weather. While a bit of wind can be helpful with moving the ship, if negativity runs rampant in your mind, it is as if a wild storm is forcing all the sails to roll up, rendering you to the mercy of external circumstances.
Many events in life bring unexpected, and often undesirable, outcomes that may trigger negative emotions such as anger, anxiety, or sadness. Depending on our natural tendencies, childhood upbringing and other social conditioning, we may be inclined to create a typhoon in our minds causing emotional pain to ourselves and perhaps to others; and unbeknownst to us, during these instances of intense negativity, act as an immobilizer causing inability to complete any productive work.
There is no shortcut to being a better manager of your own emotions except to practice the following introductory steps:
- Write down three recent moments when you have been angry, overly negative or anxious.
- In each of these instances, describe the aftermath from how you have responded to those situations.
- Lastly, write down how you could have achieved a more desirable outcome by taking up a different attitude than what you have just listed.
By identifying our own negative thought inclinations and how there are better resolutions, we have begun the first critical step with improving ourselves. There are additional steps that add to this process of honing our mind such as positive attitude and positive reframing that I'll discuss in another post. While it is not possible to be stay positive at all times, we can definitely improve our ability to respond to unforeseen setbacks or unexpected circumstances.
Would you agree? Please leave me comments and let me know what you think.