Attitude Schmattitude!
Last week I felt a little bummed out. I don’t need to go into the “whys,” but I had my “low attitude moments” last week. I’m sure you do from time to time as well (we all do).
While I was feeling down, I found it hard to get a lot of work done, and I certainly wasn’t fired up to write, market, or do anything all that productive. But I still did.
This got me thinking about the concept of “having a positive attitude.” This may sound weird for motivational blog, but I am going to talk against the concept of “positive attitude.”
Not that I think it’s a bad thing. I think everyone should have as positive an attitude as possible. What I am actually writing about is the reliance on a positive attitude.
Positive attitudes are great. They can do wonders for unleashing your creativity, improving relationships, and making life more pleasant and worth living. Sadly, no one can have a positive attitude 100% of the time. If you are relying on your positive attitude to get you out of bed, make you productive, and get you following your dreams, then you are setting yourself up for failure. When you feel down, nothing gets done. This halts progress and breaks momentum, and before you know it another year has gone by…
Some days you’re up, some days you’re down. The key is to keep at it regardless of how you feel. By all means, have a positive attitude. Stay optimistic. Dream big! But once you have done that, follow these three steps to keep progressing regardless of how you feel
When You Feel Good, Create a “System”
Systems are great (I have written about them before, in my Stupidly Simple “Systems” post). In simple terms, a system is just a plan to get you the result that you want, which you have set up in a way to make it easy to follow. For example, my plan is to write every morning. My system involves setting my alarm to get up early, putting the laptop on my desk ready to go (rather than on my coffee table in front of my TV), and having at least the title of my next blog post done. This simple system helps me write whether I feel up or down.
Systems should be no-brainers. The less you have to think, the less you have to rely on “feeling great!” to do the work. The most consistent gym-goers are the people who automatically go the gym when they wake up, or at lunch, or right after work. They don’t think about whether they feel like going or not; it’s just what they do.
The key is to create your system when you feel good, not when you feel bad. When you feel good is when you can think the clearest and most realistically about your plans. If you wait until you feel down, you will probably overreact by creating a ridiculously huge plan that you will never end up following (i.e. “I am going to get up everyday at 4AM and workout for two hours before my day starts!” Good luck with that…)
Trust the Process, Not How You Feel on a Day to Day Basis
This is a quote from my friend and fellow speaker, Marc LeBlanc. Sometimes when you feel down it is easy to look at your plan and say, “Blah! What’s the point? This will never work!” Resist that urge! When you feel this way, remind yourself to trust the process.
This is why it is so critical to develop a good system while you are feeling good. If you don’t have a process, you can’t trust your process.
This also means that you have to design your system to be effective not only for when you feel up, but also for when you feel down. It’s easy to feel motivated and make a huge plan that works assuming you will always feel that good. Since you won’t always feel that good, it’s much smarter to make a plan that will also work when you feel bad.
Most importantly, when you feel down, don’t waste the day waiting for motivation to come back; trust the process and do your daily work anyway.
Evaluate With a Clear Head
Evaluating your activities and results while in a foul mood is a bad idea. When you feel down, things seem hopeless and useless. You focus on all that you haven’t achieved as opposed to giving yourself credit for what you have accomplished. You see the worst in everyone and everything.
It is at this moment that you will want to throw away your plan, or give up on your dreams. You would be well advised to wait until you feel better!
I’m not saying that you won’t ultimately decide to change your plan or let go of a dream. But if you do, do it when you are feeling good and thinking clearly, not when you feel lousy.
Too often people fall into the trap of relying on their mood to get them to take action (myself included). However, if, when you feel down, you still take action (no matter how small) and trust the process, you will find your mood lifting. Use the ideas in this post to flip the script: instead of letting your attitude guide your actions, let you actions guide your attitude.
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About
By Avish Parashar. As the world's only Motivational Improviser, Avish uses techniques from the world of improv comedy to engage, entertain, and educate audiences on ideas around change, creativity, and motivation. Connect with Avish on Google+