Learning from Life
Over the last 8 months I’ve been faced with some challenging situations both at work and in my personal life. Tough decisions to make, problems to resolve and difficult situations to deal with. With each of the scenarios has come a barricade of emotions: disappointment, fear, heartache and hurt feelings to name a few.
We all get tough times in our lives and when they seem to arrive one after the other, it’s easy to find yourself heading in a downward spiral of self-pity and self-defeat, to look inwardly at your situation and to feed yourself an inner dialogue of negative thoughts.
I wanted to share with readers though some of the positive things that have come out of these challenges, the things that we can all benefit from remembering and working on:
• We have a choice about our attitude and how we view the things that happen. We can choose to feed our inner dialogue with negativity and self-pity or we can choose to reflect on the positive things in life and to learn from what has happened. What a powerful position to be in.
• We need to monitor our attitude though – it’s surprising how the highs and lows you experience have an impact on those around you at work, at home, how you perceive them and they perceive you. Become attitude aware and regularly check in with yourself to make sure you carry the right attitude to that client meeting, that family outing, that team gathering. It’s not always easy to make the change of attitude but it’s definitely worth working on because it makes things so much easier to tackle.
• If we use positive language like, “we’ll find a solution” when talking to others, it makes them positive too and spreads the ‘can do’ attitude.
• We can either waste energy on negativity or build energy by taking positive action. Supporting a close family member through illness, has driven me to reconnect with family and friends I don’t see often enough and I’ve had some brilliant times catching up and doing things together.
• It’s important to find ways to distract yourself from the stresses of life by throwing yourself into other activities. For me this has included supporting my son with his fundraising for a trip to the World Scout Jamboree in Japan next year. But not just throwing yourself into it but doing so with the enthusiasm, determination and spirit that makes us feel empowered to make a difference.
• Do what makes you happy and be kind to yourself. It’s so important to give yourself a break from the pressures of everyday life and to take time out to do things for yourself.
• Appreciate the things around you that make you smile such as family and friends, your home and your beloved pets.
My point is to highlight the importance of attitude in all that we do, the importance of recognising where we are at in our lives, how we are reacting to situations and the impact we are having on others. Key to all of this though is that it changes constantly which means we need to check in with our attitude and make sure we don’t take our eye off the ball.
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