Sherry Lachine
I find it fascinating that you can take something tiny, dry, and seemingly without purpose, like a seed, and under the right conditions (soil, moisture, and sun), it grows and blooms, and becomes food, shade and more. I suppose the key is “under the right conditions.”
Keep that seed trapped in a dark drawer and that reaction doesn’t happen, ever. I know, I have many drawers filled with seeds from many years of working hard on growing a garden. I can confirm, there are no flowers or tomatoes in there.
I have a sense that our mindset or how we perceive the world may also require the right conditions to grow, to be positive and fruitful. But what are soil, moisture, and sun for your mind? Ever heard of positive psychology? Finally we are no longer strictly looking at abnormal or ill when it comes to our behaviours, emotions, and thoughts. We can engage in some mental sunshine and learn tools to support a more positive mindset. I am certainly not suggesting a heavy dose of rainbows, bunnies, and happy faces, but real tools for everyday life.
Shawn Achor of The Happiness Advantage may agree. He suggests that using tools and accepting reality, not fake infusions of happy, are the keys to improving your overall well-being.
5 Must Tools
Choose Your Interpretation of Events
Do you consider yourself lucky or unlucky? We invent or decide the interpretation of events in our lives. People who consider themselves “lucky” see opportunities where those who consider themselves “unlucky” may see obstacles.
Social Investment
In times of stress, buddy up, don’t isolate. We are better off together to navigate mazes, solve problems, and feel supported. Social connections become fuel for happiness and possibly an antidote to stress.
Happiness = Success
This goes contrary to the belief that we work to be successful, and then we become happy. We become more successful when we have a positive mindset, not the other way around.
Read Every Day
Reading or listening to book will help nurture this positive mindset. Keeping an open mind to concepts that, perhaps, seem “out there” can possibly introduce you to a new way of thinking and being. Take a look at mindfulness and meditation, which research shows can increase your sense of calm and well-being. They are used by many professionals and are gaining traction for teens and adults alike. Good news: there is an app for that.
App Assist
The Calm App is an app that helps alleviate stress and anxiety, and it’s free. CBT, or Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, can assist in giving you skills to interpret events in a way that helps create a more positive mindset and way of interacting with others. These tools, although simple in nature, can be challenging to implement. Re-wiring ourselves to be positive, when perhaps we were originally wired for the negative, requires skill and practice.
First Step
The first step is to open your mind to the possibility and try. We actually have those seeds of change available to us; we just have to give them the conditions to flourish. We need to be understanding and hold a firm intention to interpret our situation in a way that helps us. To remember that social capital, the networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, needs to be present and nurtured. By choosing a positive mindset, you will find your definition of success.
