How to stay positive at work without faking it.
The truth is you're going to be spending at least one third of your lifetime at
work doing work and hopefully it is something that you're inspired by.
Hopefully it is something that brings you fulfillment and
when I say being positive at work,
I'm not talking about some woo-woo think positive thoughts and
everything's going to be okay. That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about true fulfillment.
I'm talking about how can you be congruent with positivity?
How can you be truly deep inside, at your core, in your heart of hearts,
feeling that this is where you belong? So I'm going to give you six steps
that you can take to be more positive authentically at work without faking it.
Step number one is to be congruent with positivity. It's just like marriage.
I mean you can't expect to go into a marriage and that it will make you happy.
You have to already be happy when you go into that marriage and then you will
have a better chance of
ensuring that that marriage will be happy and to be concurrent with positivity.
And the same is true of your career. You have to already be a happy person.
You have to already be a positive person and recognize that everything that you
do, all the decisions that you make,
all the decisions that you don't make or that to avoid making,
all the actions you take are driven by your desires and your emotion around
those desires. So everything you do is driven by the emotions of that desire.
So go and watch my video video I did on how to find fulfilling work,
what they don't teach you in school where I talk about the six basic human
needs, these basic human needs are,
they represent deep core desires that you have and
these core desires of what drive your actions.
So start by recognizing the emotions and the desires that motivate you rather
than the barriers that are
in your way. And you'll notice that the perceptions,
is all about your perceptions, how you perceive the
situation that comes your way.
And you could be able to control the situation from your mind. So for example,
if you do look for positive things about your career, you're going to find them.
And the same is true on the other side.
If you are going to be searching for negative things to confirm your suspicions,
you will also find those too.
The key is to experience the emotions because you will nonetheless,
regardless of what you do, encounter positive and negative,
you will experience a set of emotions. The key is to experience them,
but not be overwhelmed by them. And definitely not to let them run your life.
And the way to do that is to develop a greater level of emotional intelligence.
And that's when you can weather the storm,
the negative things that come your way, the challenges,
the failures that you will inevitably face. You know that they are unavoidable,
but suffering is a choice. That is a choice.
So your response to the challenges and failures that inevitably will come your
way along your career journey,
the response that you have to them that will change the playing field.
It is a completely new game when you respond to them in a way that is productive
and that is conducive to you achieving your career goals.
Step number two is to focus on your impact.
Find the meaning behind what you do, the impact of what
you do and connect to your daily tasks,
especially those that are trivial to you. Look for meaning behind
what you do in terms of, for example,
the relationship you have with your coworkers or the work that
you do and if none of those apply to you,
if you're struggling to find meaning there, connect it then to a cause
that you are passionate about. For example, during my career as an academic,
there were a lot of things about doing research,
about being a PhD student that were definitely trivial and that I did not enjoy.
And so my adoptive parents, they are from Uganda,
what they do there is they have an orphanage
called Eagles Wings Children's Village,
and so what I did was I dedicated my task to earning to give,
and this is a concept where I would give a percentage of my income to their
orphanage and for them they transformed that country of Uganda,
hundreds of children, orphans otherwise who had had no chance of a future.
Now they are provided for it. They have the basic survival, they have education,
clothing, medical care,
and for me that was my outlet for finding meaning in what I do.
Comment below, how were you feeling negative at your work?
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Step number three is to reward your accomplishments.
Now I know I understand that when you have a to do list,
you have that checklist of items that you need to do it feels so satisfying to
check those items off. But what if it was filled with things that were,
that you were dreading? Things that you didn't quite enjoy,
things that you found trivial, then the motivation is lost.
It is harder to check those items off the list
because you just don't feel like doing them.
So one thing to get around that is to award your accomplishments.
Use what I call if-then statements.
So you would say something like this, if I finished my 300 page report,
if you know, say you had a
300 page report that you need to write, then you would say something like,
if I wrote the first page, then I will reward myself by buying a latte,
you know? Or if I finished answering,
I cleared my inbox for the day of emails responding to customers,
then I will award myself by buying myself a milkshake or
going to a nice lunch.
And so that works in terms of anticipating our reward and also,
but it's an if-then statement, so you have to,
you only get the reward if you do what you set out to do, right?
And make sure that your
award is commensurate with the accomplishment that you make.
So if it's a bigger accomplishment, for example,
you're landing a deal with a collaborator or you are presenting and convincing
your team to go a different direction,
like something that deserves a bigger reward, right?
So a bigger reward could be whatever that means to you.
You get to go skiing or you get to go to
happy hour with a bunch of friends, whatever that is,
make that if-then statement valuable, something that you can look forward to.
Step number four is to think of the worst case scenario.
So ask yourself what's the worst that can happen?
Because sometimes the worst that can happen is very unlikely and it isn't that
bad.
So when you go through this exercise of going through what is the worst thing
that can happen
if I'm making this presentation or if I'm trying to make a deal with this
collaborator, what's the worst that can happen?
And sometimes you might find with that exercise that the stakes aren't as high
as you made them out to be. But more importantly,
thinking through the worst case scenario will help you to
take the steps to avoid it.
Step number five is to improve your space.
The things that are around in your immediate
environment really can affect how you feel.
So make sure that you surround yourself with things
that foster more of a positive mindset rather than a negative one. For example,
when I was working in the corporate world,
a lot of the things that I did in my role, it didn't inspire me.
And a lot of times I found them trivial.
So I surrounded myself in my office and in my immediate surroundings with things
that reminded me more of home. You know, I would include pictures, you know,
a calendar of photos that really inspired me,
that brought on a positive mindset that I've really enjoyed and some of the
things that are sentimental to me. And also in your environment,
it also includes people you know, surround yourself with people who support you,
people who understand what you're going through, people that you can trust,
that you can open up to.
And also people that are winners themselves. They're not complainer's,
they're not the type that always
talk about negative things because you know the saying that misery likes
company. So make sure that you surround yourself with your environment,
with people, with things, and with objects that foster a positive mindset.
Step number six is to practice gratitude.
Remember to thank those who have helped you along the way,
and give credit where credit is due. Because practicing gratitude, you know,
being thankful for the things that you already have,
that is an insurance policy against egotism,
because you simply can't feel negativity
when you are appreciated and when you are thankful.