Success Tweet: It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it. Don’t dwell on the negative, use it as a springboard to action and creativity.
Successful people have a habit of focusing on the positive and putting the negative out of their minds. Positive habits like this are an important key to career success. Habits are like muscles. The more you use them, the stronger they get. Dan Robey is the King of Positive Habits. His e-book, The Power of Positive Habits, is one of my go-to books when I need to give myself a little boost.
Dan’s book is based on the idea of cognitive restructuring. According to Dan, cognitive restructuring is learning to identify your personal cycle of negative thoughts, habits and routines and replacing them with positive thoughts, habits and routines that will provide you with lifelong benefits.
Today, I’d like to discuss an important positive habit – proactively managing your stress. When I was a kid about a million years ago, there was a popular song. I believe it was a show tune. A couple of the lines went like this...
You’ve got to ac – cen – tu – ate the positive, and e — lim — in – ate the negative
I don’t know the show. If you do, please leave a comment letting us know. I’ll give a free copy of the e-book version of Straight Talk for Success to anybody who knows the name of the show and shares it in a comment. Anyway, I was thinking about that song the other day because I came across a new book on stress management by Evelyn Brooks called, Forget Your Troubles: Enjoy Your Life Today. Evelyn suggests that you get S.M.A.R.T. about managing stress…
S - Smash the negative M - Maximize the positive A - Act R - Relax T - Target your next action
Sounds a lot like the advice in the song. As they say, “there’s nothing new under the sun.” And, more importantly, as a career success coach, I agree. It doesn’t matter if you “accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative,” “smash the negative and maximize the positive,” or do a bit of “cognitive restructuring,” you’ll be on your way to managing your stress and becoming a life and career success. Stuff happens as you go through life; positive stuff, negative stuff, happy stuff, sad stuff, frustrating stuff. The important thing is not what happens, but how you react to it. In other words, smash your negative thoughts; replace them with positive ones. Don’t dwell on the negative, use it as a springboard to action and creativity. Maximize the positive in your life by creating positive habits and routines. When something goes well, take the time to celebrate. You deserve it. And, small celebrations when you succeed are a positive habit that will put you in a positive frame of mind, which in turn, will help you create more life and career successes. I have given away almost 1,000 copies of the e-book version of Success Tweets. I mention this because I’m celebrating. I want to get the positive message in Success Tweets into the hands of as many people as I can. I’m accentuating the positive, or if you prefer, maximizing the positive. You might say 1,000 people choosing to receive a free e-book is a not reason for a huge celebration; but I do -- and I’m following my own career success advice by doing some cognitive restructuring -- creating a habit celebrating small successes. Celebrating small wins is a great positive habit for me. It will help me manage my stress and not get overwhelmed by the negatives that will invariably creep into my life. I’m sticking to it. The common sense career success coach point here is simple. Successful people follow the advice in Tweet 37 in Success Tweets, “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it. Don’t dwell on the negative, use it as a springboard to action and creativity.” Get competent. Create positive personal impact. Become an outstanding performer and a dynamic communicator. Build strong relationships with the important people in your life. Positive habits, will help you do all of these. Smash the negatives in your life and create positive thoughts, habits and routines. Use the negatives that come your way as learning experiences and positive thoughts, habits and routines to create small victories. Treat these small victories as a reason for celebration. Celebrating small victories is a good way to keep things in perspective and build the resilience necessary for dealing with the tough times – and for ac – cen – tu – ating the positive, and e -- lim -- in – ating the negative. Take it from a career success coach, positive habits are powerful and will help your obtain the life and career success you deserve. Springboard to career success image from Shutterstock
