Or How to Stay Positive When You Don’t Feel It
Most business owners know by now that you have to stay positive to make it in business. It’s been revealed that how you think affects your outcomes. See books such as Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking and Oprah’s favorite, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.
But what can you do when you’re just not feeling it? When there just seems to be a black cloud hanging over your head that no amount of positive thinking can dispel? When you wake up and just know it’s all going to come crashing down?
Sometimes, those negative thoughts and feelings come unexpectedly, out of the blue, for no seemingly good reason. At other times, perhaps you’ve been sitting on the precipice of doom, with one bad move following another. No matter where they come from or how based in reality they are, it’s imperative to your health, happiness and success that you find a way to stay positive no matter what.
Start Questioning the Origin
It helps to look for a logical reason for why you can’t seem to stay positive, whether it’s just one negative day or several weeks’ worth of spreading darkness. Begin with some basic questions. You may find a common source of negativity, which may include:
- Am I eating right? Low blood sugar and hunger are two culprits that can make it difficult to remain positive. Eat something nutritious and you suddenly may feel cheery right away.
- Have I gotten sufficient sleep? A lack of a solid six-to-eight hours of sleep sets you up for a potential bout of depression that’s hard to overcome with positive thinking. Take steps to get enough sleep and the blues may just fade away on their own.
- Did I do something immoral, illegal or unethical to bring about the bad karma that seems to be coming my way? If you’ve made a mistake, clean it up. If you owe someone an apology, do it and that black cloud may soon turn pink again.
- Am I “shoulding” myself? No one’s perfect. As soon as you get over all the “shoulds” you think you need to have under control — I should have done more, I should have known better, I should have called him back right away, I should have asked someone first, I should (place anything here) — the sooner you can enjoy your life as a fallible human being once again.
Dig Deeper
Negativity and pessimism seem to be built into some people. Perhaps character flaws that you’ve lived with all your life are keeping you from the ability to stay positive and overcome the bouts of catastrophizing you may be going through. Those deep-seated beliefs most likely have been with you from childhood or developed as a survival mechanism to help you get through troubling times. Negative personalities share a number of characteristics, such as:
- Blaming others for everything that goes wrong
- Feeling like a victim with little or no control over outcomes
- Personalizing everything so it’s always about you
- Overgeneralizing so that situations always seem all good or all bad
- Giving too much credence to your emotions instead of looking at the facts
- A strong need to always be right, even if it’s to your own detriment
If you fall into any of these categories, it may be wise to invest in a good therapist to help you work out the kinks left over from childhood that aren’t serving you well anymore. Self-help books and groups where people help each other overcome negative thinking and behavior can be helpful.
Moving On
No matter how much you change, sleep or eat, there still are going to be days when the black harbinger of doom sits on your bedpost just waiting for you to get up so he can tell you how bad it’s going be. To stay positive and deal with those now occasional days of darkness, fill your toolbox with tips to get and keep you on track so that you can put your thinking cap on straight. It’s really no secret that when you stay positive, you act positive to your best end. (And everyone around you benefits too.)
The next time you have trouble finding a way to stay positive, consider:
- Turn it over and look at a situation (or your life) from a different perspective. For example, maybe you didn’t land that big client because a better one is in the wings. Or perhaps you realize that running on fumes for your business is actually jeopardizing your health, so you take action — and both get healthier.
- Get moving physically. Take a walk outside, hit the gym hard or take in a dance class you’ve been meaning to attend. Exercise releases endorphins, those feel-good hormones you need to stay positive.
- Take a risk. When you feel stuck in a rut, it can lead to some pretty negative reactions like: “Not that again,” or “I’m going to scream if I have to do that one more time.” Shake things up and buy into a new marketing campaign, let the Debbie-downers in your office go and hire some upbeat employees, call that big client who turned you down last year.
- Remember the good times. When it seems like you’ve become a dumping ground for the world’s waste, it’s easy to jump on that garbage truck and continue the dumping on yourself. Turn it around by remembering your successes, your great talents and the people and circumstances that got you where you are today.
- Take a break. As a small business owner, you may be notorious for skipping vacations, worried that the business won’t survive if you aren’t there to handle it. A vacation is in order when those negative days seem to be gathering more often than usual. And really try to unplug, leaving the day-to-day to others or freeing up your schedule even for a long weekend. Start planning the vacay now and the anticipation may be enough to allow you to stay positive right now, even before the jet has left the tarmac.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
