YOUR BUSINESS AUTHORITY
Springfield, MO
It feels incredibly cliche to say the past few years have been challenging. Dealing with the pandemic, recession fears, political divides and life’s pressures can produce much anxiety and unhappiness for people.
Keeping a positive attitude today isn’t easy. Sometimes, we need someone or something to point out our lousy attitude to give us a fresh perspective. Let me tell you about something that happened to me.
The vice president of a company that’s a client called me and, although I was having a difficult day, I thought I had managed to remain upbeat. I attempted to cover it with small talk, but he could tell something was off. “You don’t seem very enthusiastic about talking to me today,” he said.
I jumped to my feet with a jolt of energy and to explain myself, I attempted to use my busy schedule and fatigue from traveling as an excuse. But my tone and attitude couldn’t be denied – he could hear it in my voice. In hindsight, I should have resisted focusing on work difficulties and been in the right mindset before taking his call.
You can have a bad day once in a while. It’s only natural for us to think negatively sometimes. That’s true, but someone whose mind endlessly looks for evidence to feed a negative narrative tends to constantly share that negativity with everyone. Thus, it potentially spreads negativity and damages morale for themselves and others.
Fortunately, every day, we get to choose our attitude – and that’s something negativists can lose sight of.
Here are five tips on how to stay positive during trying times in 2023.
We all face difficult circumstances and moments we cannot change, but our attitude is one thing we can control. When we notice our negativity or someone points it out, we must reject an attitude of discouragement and replace it with a positive one. A positive attitude can help us overcome tough times, see the good in people and situations, and be more resilient.
Consultant, professional speaker and author Mark Holmes is president of Springfield-based Consultant Board Inc. and MarkHolmesGroup.com. He can be reached at mark@markholmesgroup.com.
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