5 Points to a Positive Mindset

Staying positive amidst challenge can be tiring. Sometimes moments of progress appear, and then another road bump shows up. If you keep your focus on a positive outcome and consider a few healthy measures, it will be okay.

Here are five tips to stay positive and on track:

1. You Are Not Alone

There isn’t a challenge (or some variation of it) that others just like you have not successfully overcome. It’s likely that at this moment, there are thousands of people dealing with the same issue.

The demands of life make it easy to feel isolated. You are not alone. Others before you dealt with health or financial issues. Some took a step toward becoming an entrepreneur and succeeded. Others paved a way through to success, and so can you.

2. Success Starts with Vision

When you expect roadblocks with a new project. Obstacles exist if you look for them. That’s not to say challenges won’t show up; choose to see them as opportunities. There may be road bumps along your path and taken one at a time with reasonable speed; they become a thing of the past, a faded memory.

Looking back, I remember growing up with black and white television, no Internet, cellphones, or microwave ovens. As a five-year-old, it excited me when John Glenn launched into space. Look at our world today and the multitude of inventions that are now a reality in our lives. They exist because someone created a vision and made it happen. The human mind is creatively powerful, and you have the same capabilities within your imagination. Perhaps your challenge is not putting someone on the moon. Maybe it’s starting a new business or overcoming a hurdle.

With a vision of completion, take action, and keep focused, then watch where you can go.

3. Be Willing to Make Adjustments

By now, you know you are not alone, and creating a vision is essential. You’re aware you need to take action, but which way do you go? Don’t be like the blind-folded kid swinging a bat in every direction, trying to hit a piñata full of candy. You need a plan of action, and not one that’s carved into stone.

In my business, I’ve identified approaches that weren’t working efficiently, and I’ve consistently adjusted. I’m not suggesting that I’m some business guru. I recognized when something was not performing, and I made a change. That’s a key to successful people: they start with a plan, take action, look at the results, and adjust.

Few people are entirely successful at their first try. Thomas Edison made 1,000 attempts to develop a working lightbulb. I read somewhere of a reporter that asked how it felt to fail 1,000 times. As the story went, he replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The lightbulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

When you’re working on a project and unsure which direction to go, be open to finding the solution in unexpected places. Allow for a fresh perspective by taking a walk or switching to another task. A mental pattern-interrupt forms that allows your mind to free up creative and cognitive problem-solving space. When you allow lateral thinking, you invite fresh ideas.

4. Partner with a Good Coach

When working through challenges, it’s not uncommon to feel overwhelmed and struggle. Refocusing your attention on the positive can help ease those feelings, but if they persist, then it might be time to consider a coach.

This is an area where I’ve enjoyed helping people overcome challenges, identify life goals and achieve them. I don’t suggest this because I’m a coach; it’s not about me, it’s about YOU finding a coach that’s committed to your goals, listens to you, and acts as your accountability partner.

When I started my practice, I started as a therapist. My focus was helping women with decades of long-term abuse. Because of the gravity of that work, we needed face-to-face visits. Their travel alone was burdensome and expensive as they arrived from 17 states across the U.S.

While they could financially see me, I pursued a broader base of people and added the coaching element. I describe this because even though they needed therapy; it was the coaching that got them to their goal. If you seek a coach, be sure you find someone that you have a level of comfort with. Also, know that coaching is a partnership and there’s an expectation of your participation to get you to the finish line.

In today’s technology through phone or video, your ability to identify and reach your goals are available to you without ever leaving your home.

5. Build a Positive Foundation

For many years, I’ve told my clients that “we attract what we think about.” I’m not talking about some kind of “Positive Thinking Mumbo Jumbo”. It’s really about your choice of a response to life around you. When your day is bad, you become a reactor, expecting the negative. You exude adverse energy that others pick up. It’s bad for your interpersonal relationships and it’s bad for business.

Now, think back on an outstanding day. A day when people around you are getting along… the smiles and the cooperation… how each person responded well to one another. That environment produces an energy that draws people TO you and you become a “responder”, strengthening interpersonal relationships. In his book, “As a man thinketh”, James Allen wrote, “The Vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone in your heart — this you will build your life by, this you will become.”

To draw your life closer toward the life you want, create a vision of your future and be a positive responder.