7 Steps to Build –and Keep- a Positive Mindset

The power of a positive mindset –or positive thinking- is a trendy concept, almost a cliché, but not for that any less real. Its mental and physical benefits have been proved and demonstrated by many scientific studies; it can give you more confidence, improve your mood, and reduce the risk of developing hypertension, depression, and other stress-related issues.

So far, so good, but how can we build and maintain such a positive mindset?

Here’s a list of seven steps to take to accomplish that goal:

1. Start your day with positive affirmations. The actions you take in the morning set the tone for the rest of the day; go to the mirror and say to yourself: “today is going to be a great day,” or “I’m going to be awesome today,” and watch in amazement how your day will improve.

2. Keep your focus on the good things. There’s no such thing as a perfect day; whenever you bump into an obstacle, look for the good in that situation, no matter how small.

3. Look for the funny side in bad situations. We’re used to saying, “someday we’re going to look back on this situation, and laugh,” so, why wait? Just by looking at it with a smile, the way out or through the situation will show faster and clearly.

4. Turn failures into lessons. Mistakes are always going to happen, so instead of focusing on the failure, think about what you’re going to do –or not do- next time, and create a roadmap highlighting highways, shortcuts, roadblocks, and bumps.

5. Transform your negative self-talk into a coach. Your negative self-talk usually creeps up unnoticed, and soon it turns into internalized feelings that reinforce your conceptions of yourself. We have to turn our inner critic into an inner coach, so thoughts like “I’m so bad at this” become “once I get more practice, I’ll be great at this.”

6. Focus on the present. We need to live the moment. Most negativity sources come from a memory of a recent event or the exaggerated visualization of a potential future event.

7. Surround yourself with positive people and environment. When we do that, we hear positive outlooks, stories, and affirmations; their positive words and actions will sink in and affect our own line of thinking, words, and actions.

Everyone, no matter the situation, can take these steps and increase their positive attitude.

A positive mindset will always offer compounding returns, so the more often we practice it, the more significant benefits we’ll collect.

Stay strong!

One of the core values we have as a company is to inspire and empower people in all aspects of their lives. Additionally, if you want to read about our Custom Software Solutions and Consulting Services, please visit www.isucorp.ca, or book a meeting to review your software project.

Keeping it together through fear and uncertainty

There are two types of uncertainty; the one we always welcome, like starting a new relationship or a new job, which in some way foreshows good times and are manageable and predictable.

But there’s also the other type that presents us with an unpleasant situation we’re not familiar with and takes us outside of our comfort zone. We don’t feel secure anymore and start wondering how we will get through or if we could ever handle it.

We need certainty. It’s a fundamental human need that provides us with a feeling of security and safety. At the same time, uncertainty always involves fear of the unknown and the sense that we’re no longer in control of our lives.

Nevertheless, we can take charge of our actions and reactions to these situations. We feel the fear, but we discipline ourselves to look beyond it and focus on a positive outcome.

Like Nelson Mandela said, “Courage is not the absence of fear but the triumph over it; the brave man is not he who doesn’t feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

Whenever we’re faced with uncertainty, there are a few things to be mindful of so we can bring peace of mind to any chaotic situation:

. Trust ourselves. We’ve done it before; we’ve made it through all kinds of adversity, and we can make it through this one too.

. Tough times don’t last; tough people do. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger (except bears, of course, bears will kill us 😉). We may not feel strong at the time, but we will be wiser, stronger, and better equipped in the future.

. Things always work out, one way or the other. Sometimes, when we get to a roadblock, we feel disappointed when in reality, it was a detour to take us to an even better destination.

. Life goes on. There will come a time when we’d look back at that situation and wonder why did we worry so much in the first place.

. We can only grow outside our comfort zone. We need to learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable so we can succeed and enjoy life.

. Everything looks clearer in retrospect. Once we’re able to look back, we’ll understand and appreciate the way things unfolded and even why.

Steve Jobs said it right, “you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking back, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”

Uncertainty is a normal part of life, and we need to learn to see it that way.

It’s challenging to feel confident when we can’t see where we’re going and easy to perceive everything as a threat, but often, those uncertain times lead us to a brighter future.

The roads we know can only take us to places we’ve already been. If we’re willing to take risks and travel uncharted paths, we can open up a world of possibilities and opportunities, new beginnings that won’t happen if we cling to what we know.

Let’s take that chance; we’ll make it through, and, in the wonderful words of Alain de Botton, “feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty, and reason.”

Stay strong!

One of the core values we have as a company is to inspire and empower people in all aspects of their lives. Additionally, if you want to read about our Custom Software Solutions and Consulting Services, please visit www.isucorp.ca, or book a meeting to review your software project.

The Key to Your Personal Power

What is power?

If you look it up, it is defined as the ability to act, to do something in a particular way.

Unlike the word, power isn’t something you have to look for, it’s already within us; we just have to use the right method to wake it up.

People who are successful at anything have a conscious or unconscious strategy. They may have developed it by trial and error, discovered it by chance or intuition, or learned it from someone else; and so can we.

We can learn those strategies and use them to awake our personal power.

When it comes to success and learning, you need to remember that any success comes from good judgment; good judgment comes from experience, experience comes from bad judgment… so all we have to do to start this cycle is to take action.

If you take action, would you have your success guaranteed?

Of course not.

So, what do you do if you try something and it doesn’t work?

Try something else.

And what if that doesn’t work?

Try something else.

For how long? Well, until you try something else that does work.

Ask yourself this question; how long would you give your average baby so he or she can learn how to walk?
Stupid question, of course. The baby is going to keep trying until he or she learns how to walk!

What a concept, right? It’s something natural on all of us when we’re kids; but as we grow up, we tend to avoid those kinds of situations to avoid the pain of frustration, embarrassment, or disappointment.

But reality is simpler than that, all you have to do is try something different, be flexible on your approach.

But the reality is that if we want anything, we need to study that thing in depth. We can’t leave it to chance, or postpone it saying “someday we’re going to do it”… It’s been said that the road of Someday leads to the town of Nowhere.

If we want something, we need to take action and move in its direction. That’s where our power lays, in our ability to act.

Once we awaken this power, all we have to do is to follow this simple steps:

1. Know your outcome! What is it that you want? And why do you want it?

   The ‘what’ gives you the clarity to know where to move, and the ‘why’ fuels you to get you and keep you moving in that direction.

2. Take Action. Once you know what you want, you have to decide to take action, decide that you will have it, that you won’t settle for anything less than that.

3. Notice what you’re getting from your actions. Develop what we may call acute sensitivity, which means you need to pay close attention to what you’re getting… Are you moving towards or away from your goal?

4. If it’s not working, change your approach. And keep changing it until you succeed.

In order to save time and energy, use role models to accelerate this process:

1. Find someone who’s already getting the results you want

2. Find out what that person is doing

3. Do the same thing, emulate their state, and you’ll get the same results.

Remember:  It is impossible to fail as long as you learn something from what you do.

Stay strong!

One of the core values we have as a company is to inspire and empower people in all aspects of their lives. Additionally, if you want to read about our Custom Software Solutions and Consulting Services, please visit www.isucorp.ca