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Being positive is a productive tool in improving decisions and activities. The focus should be on how do we do things better rather than what is wrong. While analysis, better decisions and understanding risk are critical issues, passion and intuition can be the keys to success.
Unfortunately, much of our environment is negative. Tensions and economic uncertainty create significant stress in our society. Crime, hate, and racism have created much apprehension. Lingering stress from the Pandemic and other uncertainty have made us worried and apprehensive. How do we get more positive?
Two famous quotes illustrate a positive is perspective:
"It’s a wonderful thing to be optimistic. It keeps you healthy and it keeps you resilient." — Daniel Kahneman
“There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?” Robert Kennedy
Some considerations:
Understand and maximize goals and needs. The simplest technique is to understand needs and goals. Set realistic goals that create potential accomplishment but can be achieved. For example, short term versus long term, quality versus quantity, and the environment are issues that should affect your behavior.
Collaboration is really underrated. Important outcomes can result from more collaborative decision making. As decisions become more complex, the need for diversity, and expertise expand. New ideas, different inputs, new alternatives and measurement aspects of collaboration all help generate better decisions.
Be Crazy Enough to Change. You have to give emerging trends more than just a passing thought or else you may very well miss out on opportunities for growth. We must consider multiple and dynamic alternatives, goals and methods. For example, goals like profit versus growth can change radically based on the phase, environment, or business conditions.
A critical perspective is that challenges should be thought of as win/win and that failure is part of building success. We need to allow mistakes. In sports success in wins, shooting % batting average and completions is frequently less than 50 %. We need to focus on the wins and how to improve rather than simply abandoning losses.
Caring, Passion and Emotion are important dimensions to both reduce stress and improv e performance. Failure is part of any process and needs modification with solutions rather than just critiques.
Learn to prioritize. Once you’re able to determine what is working and what is failing it’s time to determine how you can devote more resources to success in the right areas. Sometimes our fear of change inhibits our ability to understand that opportunities and not challenges have the most potential.
Take more risks. When it comes to responding to today’s challenges, it is a time to let go rather than hold back. People are generally averse to taking risks, especially if it involves changing the way you do things. I am amazed how little kids do a decent job of judging risk. They generally have a good feel knowing when to get up and keep trying, when they need support from a parent and (sometimes with a little testing) when to avoid some risky activities.
Have Fun!!! Overall, the most important thing to keep in mind is to have fun. Don’t lose your passion. If you’re truly happy doing what you’re doing, your customers will want to buy into it. They will feed off of your excitement!
Environmental and external influences can greatly affect risk as well. Inflation, and supply shortages are causing great disruption today, but they will also create opportunities. Electric cars, the chip shortage, and logistics are areas where unknown opportunities will emerge.
In summary, positive thinking can add to the excitement and potential of behavior. Prioritize tasks, set realistic goals, accepting risk and managing change allows you to maximize your efficiency and accomplish more. We can afford more risk and pursue more outlying opportunities and don’t underestimate the upside potential of an effort. Winning the lottery, a sporting event or profiting in the stock market can simply have more gain than we consider.
Related: Lead Yourself to Success by Being the Best Leader You Can