We all have experienced many hard times in our lives. The difference in the outcome is our
perspective on the situation. Let’s take
my daughter, for example, a hard time might be when gymnastics is canceled. For a parent on the other hand a hard time
might have the means to provide a new pair of shoes when your children wear theirs
out. For a manager, it might be making the
decision who to furrow in a time of crisis because there are not enough funds in
the account to pay all of the employees.
We all suffer, the outcome is strictly depended on our
outlook for the situation.
The outlook is the key. A
bad outlook will cause you to feel that the situation is worse than it really
is. While a great outlook will make the
situation pass without much stress.
What can cause you to have a dismissal outlook? One possibility is that you can’t see past the
current situation. When you can’t see
any type of positive outcome for the situation it causes stress. Another might be that you are micro-focused
on the negative. Focusing on the negative
will cause you to only see the negative side of life. Before long, you won’t be happy anywhere
doing anything. Yet another thing that
might be that you have been in the same situation a few times in the past and
never before has the outcome been positive.
When you have been through it before it can be hard to see how this time
it will work out any different. One of
my favorite quotes is from Albert Einstein, “the definition of insanity is
doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. What most people don’t take from this awesome
advice is that all you have to do is change one variable to change the
outcome. Your attitude could be that variable.
On the flip-side, what can you do to get and keep a positive
outcome for any situation? Here are a
few of our suggestions.
Spend some time in the word and works of God. Take a few moments and open a bible, but don’t
stop there take time to read it too. Another
way of spending time with our makers is in prayer. A lot of times I will simply say, “Good morning
God, how are you today?” The answer you
get might surprise you. This always
brings me to the “light” of any situation.
He helps guide my thoughts to know that this is happening for a
reason. I never said that I know the
reason it is happening, I have to have faith that he knows what is best for
me.
Work out, or take a walk or a run, get some exercise. Get in a good ole workout and see what it
does to your perspective. There is something
about getting the blood flowing throughout your entire body that will cause you
to have a positive perspective. Sometimes
when I am extremely frustrated with something I burn my body out in the
evening, then miraculously the next morning my mindset is completely different. My body suffers but my mind is a better
state.
Get some rest. Sleep is
the best thing for your body and your mind.
If you are sleep deprived then your mind has a harder time functioning,
therefore it is harder to have a positive perspective. It seems like when we are younger we have a
tendency to spend all night running around and somehow think that it doesn’t affect
our productivity the next day. The older
I get the more I realize that my body functions best with about 7 hours of
sleep, my wife on the other hand needs about 8.5-9 hours of sleep. Why do I bring this up? It is definitely no to show that I am a superior
human being compared to her, lol. It’s because
we are all designed with different needs.
Just because I can function on 7 hours of sleep not everyone can. I am sure that there are people out there who
only need 5-6 hours of sleep every night to function. Nevertheless, I would guess that they would
do more than function if they started getting a little more sleep every night.
Try finding a positive outcome for the situation. In every situation that I encounter I eventually
find a positive outcome, and then I focus on that outcome. Here’s what that does for you. It causes you to see put in more effort to
make it happen. You won’t even realize
it but you will work 200 times harder to make that positive outcome now because
you know it will happen.
Take a break to reset your mind. Taking a break with the intention of not
focusing on the situation will help you find a positive outcome when you come
back to the issue. This one is extremely
hard to master I know that no matter how hard I work at this I still fail at
times. What I have found is that when I am
able to accomplish it I seem to find the answers I am looking for as soon as a
come back to the situation.
Find a podcast or book that can help you find answers. Podcasts are a great newer tool that is
completely free. I will almost guarantee
that there is a podcast episode out there for the situation that you are currently
facing and I would bet that they have a solution. Be sure to take every podcast at face value
though. You will definitely find a few
out there that are not giving good advice.
Surround yourself with positive people. The people that you are around playing a huge
role in your ability to find positive outcomes and how hard you push
yourself. If you start spending time
with people who are unmotivated then you find that you lose your motivation. If you spend time with people who are always negative,
always make fun of others, are mean, mock others. You will find that you start doing the
same. On the other hand, if you surround yourself
with people who are always positive and always smiling then you will start
being more positive and smiling more. You
will have more fun and not be as stressed.
Be sure to surround yourself with people that push you to be better a
person, not the opposite.
There are so many different ways that you can work towards
seeing the glass half full for every situation.
These were just a few of the ways that I use.
Your mentality will be the biggest difference between succeeding
and failing, seeing the positive compared to the negative. Mindset is what causes you to win or lose. Don’t let your mindset be the reason you don’t
succeed in everything that you do in this life.
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