How to keep a positive attitude March 19, 2009
Sometimes life gives us lemons. As the old saying goes; make lemonade. While it’s easy to say that while you look at a table overflowing with lemons, it’s sometimes hard to think of making lemonade.
The main asset in remembering to make lemonade is keeping a positive attitude. Regardless of the stress of the situation if you keep a positive attitude you can get better results.
Keeping that positive attitude under difficult situations might be a challenge. Actually, because of today’s busy lifestyle constantly trying to throw us off balance, it might be easier to think of it as regaining or recovering our lost positive attitude. Here are a few tips that can keep help.
1. Say thank you. You, like me, might remember a birthday where your parents didn’t give you the present you wanted, but instead wrapped up underwear and socks. For added embarrassment, you opened all your presents while family and friends looked on. Even though this wasn’t much of a gift, or you didn’t get what you truly wanted, you still say ‘thankyou’.
When you say ‘thankyou’ you don’t have to accept the ‘gift’.
When you say ‘thankyou’ your mind (thanks to years of training) begins to think of how and where to use this gift.
2. Smile for no reason. This releases ‘feel good’ chemicals that, well, make us feel good.
Make others smile and laugh. This in turn naturally makes us smile. If you don’t believe me, walk down a street and smile at the strangers walking towards you. Most of those that notice will smile in return. Even in the most unfriendly cities you’ll still get some responses.
And even if you fake a laugh, this usually becomes funny in itself. Try it yourself with a friend.
3. Forgive others. Forgiveness is a funny thing. It is never about the other person. It’s never about you accepting that what was done to you is ok. It’s not even about making the other person feel better or stopping punishing them (when really it’s just punishing yourself). Forgiveness is simply about allowing you to release the attachment you have to a past event.
4. Hang around positive people. That doesn’t mean dropping all your negative friends, just limiting the time you spend around them. If you only know negative people, you need new friends!
5. Focus on the positive. That doesn’t mean ignoring the negative, just not reliving the negative. At the end of the meeting or day, remember what was good.
If you must focus on the negative, set a short time limit and do it with 100% commitment. No more than 10 minutes is ever needed.
6. Talk to yourself in positive terms. Harder than it sounds, but as a quick introduction start with eliminating the words: can’t, won’t, should, but, try. You will be more positive by simply removing these words.
Personally, when the world gives me lemons, I make margaritas. The best margaritas are made with lime, but when all you have is lemons…
Three kinds of meetings … March 4, 2009
… and one of them is a waste of time, effort, attention and money. The other two are the same thing.
As Seth describes, there are 3 types of meetings. From his post:
- Information. This is a meeting where attendees are informed about what is happening (with or without their blessing). While there may be a facade of conversation, it’s primarily designed to inform.
- Discussion. This is a meeting where the leader actually wants feedback or direction or connections. You can use this meeting to come up with an action plan, or develop a new idea, for example.
- Permission. This is a meeting where the other side is supposed to say yes but has the power to say no.
If you call a meeting simply to inform, there are much better (read more effective) methods to use. Things like: memos, email, word of mouth (the old rumor mill), phone calls, delegation, chain of command, newsletters and much more. Information based meetings are what give meetings a bad name.
The other two, discussion and permission meetings can be boiled down to one thing; decision making. If you pull a bunch of employees together to discuss something, make sure a decision is made at the end of the meeting. Even if that is just to collect more information to enable better informed decisions in the next meeting. A permission meeting is having the other side to decide one way or another.
Meetings are to make decisions. If a decision isn’t made, it’s a waste of everyone’s time, effort, attention and money.