It’s that time of the year when everyone is tired and counting down the days to a well-deserved break is just about the only thing one can concentrate on. This is also the time of year when people start to reflect on the year passed, and certainly on themselves as well as others.
Be kind to yourself.
You may have done super well this year, or you may be a little hard on yourself and think that you could have done better. Whatever your thoughts are about yourself, professionally or personally, you need to be kind to yourself. What I mean is, take the good with the bad. Focussing on the negatives or the positives crowds the true perspective of your failures or successes.
While circumstances play a huge role in whether your plans are executed the way you would have liked them to be, what you think and how you react to those circumstances plays an even bigger role. Thinking positively and acting positively is the difference between thinking that it’s unlucky for a rosebush to have thorns or thinking how lucky the thornbush is to have beautiful roses.
What you think of others is a reflection of yourself.
Never has a saying ever been more true. Think about your colleagues, for example; you are more likely to spend more time with the person you think most positively of, and to share ideas with and be more friendly toward them. The opposite is true of those you don’t think so highly of. And perhaps you need to go and think about why you don’t hold these people in high esteem, is there something that you see in them that could be reflecting badly on yourself? How can this change?
Negative thoughts are counterproductive. Stop that.
Moaning, complaining, whining and sulking all result from negative thoughts or opinions. You waste precious time you’ll never get back by being miserable. And to top it off, you’ll still have to do the work, only you’ll now have less time within which to complete it. When these things happen, you can choose to see the job or project as a thornbush with potentially beautiful roses, and then work at making those roses the centre of attention. Everyone will thank you for it.
Start making positive thoughts a habit, so that they become a way of life.
They say it takes 66 days to transform a habit into an automatic behaviour. So, before this year has bowed out for good, why not start thinking positively? Think positively about yourself, your abilities, your friends and family, your colleagues and your future and then watch it all unfold before your eyes.
My challenge to you: For every one negative thought you have, write down at least three positives. Before you know it, you’ll stop writing them down and simply start thinking them instead.
