Today, during practice 127, a brave young beauty shared she works through her explanatory style quickly at work; not so much in life. Dan asked why. She shared her physical expectations were set high. She chews the cud more at home than at work. At work she quickly shifts from “oh shit” to action. At home, however, she ruminates a bit more. She is very normal. Most of us have a fairly positive way we explain most events to ourselves. We tend, however, to go negative with certain people, circumstances, or situations and lose energy as a result. Life, remember, is an energy management problem more than anything else.
It matters the way you speak to yourself. It matters cause your explanatory style either gives you energy or robs you of energy. It’s not neutral. Here was my simple advice to today’s team regarding what to do when they find themselves starting to talk negatively in their cranium.
Don’t ruminate. Write.
Here’s why. When you ruminate your brain goes a bit negative and runs negative thoughts over and over inside your head. This develops into an automatic script that just kinda runs in your minds background. The more negative the script, the more of a debbie downer you become. STOP this. When a negative event happens in your work or life, turn the negative thought into PA (Productive Action). Go. Move. When you come back from your walk or your PA into your problem. Write what you learned. Write what you are thinking, feeling, and how you’re gonna turn it into action. Good.
Don’t ruminate. Write.
You just improved your minds ability to handle adversity. To learn more I suggest you start by reading the shortest BTL essential titled, Build your Optimism. Once you’ve read and written here, grab yourself some Seligman with his book, Learned Optimism and go a bit deeper. And, as Goalie reminded us, don’t be a dumb monkey and allow your negative thoughts to capture you cause you can’t let ’em go. Drop the banana. Go. There will be easier energy afforded you if you just keep moving.
Drop the banana. Move on. Who knew changin’ your mind could be so simple. Who knew…
BUILT TO LEAD 