Can your perspec­tive influence your energy and your performance?

How can our perspec­tive on us and on our work environ­ment influence our results and relationships?

After one year of Covid and lockdown how are you looking on what has been happe­ning and how do you feel mentally?

I myself started off last year planning short-term and solving momen­tary problems like how to shift on-site coaching and training into the virtual world and how to balance business, homeschoo­ling, familiy and partnership.

Sometimes I felt strong and able and sometimes simply being pushed and driven. Sometimes I saw myself at the steering wheel and sometimes I saw myself being tossed around not knowing where to turn next. This situa­tion also influenced my thoughts, emotions and how I reacted on others and on situations.

Not feeling in control of my emotional state and my thoughts wasn’t me. At that time I came across a mental fitness training program. I have studied it and practice it since with great impact. Mental strength accor­ding to Positive Intel­li­gence founder Shirzad Chamine is „the ability of your mind to manage your thoughts, emotions and actions in a positive and construc­tive way when being faced with diffi­cult situations.“

Here are some ahas and quick wins for you to use right away:

Our brain is sometimes our enemy and sometimes our friend:

In 2005, the National Science Founda­tion published an article summa­ri­zing research on human thoughts per day. It found out that the average person has about 12.000 to 60.000 thoughts per day. Of those thousands of thoughts, 80% were negative, and 95% were exactly the same repeti­tive thoughts as the day before. So one of the tenden­cies of our mind is to focus on the negative and even repeat the negative stuff. There was another study of 2005 from Cornell Univer­stiy. Scien­tists had found out that 85% of what we worry about never happens. And from the 15% of the worries that did happen 79% could either be handled a lot better than expected, or the diffi­culty granted them a highly valuable learning. All in all, the conclu­sion is that 97% of our worries are baseless and result from an unfounded pessi­mi­stic perception.

As our fears often sneak in uncon­sciously, is there a way to control those unpro­duc­tive thoughts and emotions?

Become aware of your mental traps and inter­cept your saboteurs:

The first step is become aware when those saboteurs turn up causing negative thoughts and emotions. If you can label them, you can control them and get rid of them. That’s why it is highly relevant to become aware of the assump­tions and lies they tell you and of the negative impacts these saboteur attitudes, thoughts and emotions have on yourself and others. This helps unmask and dismiss them.

To only name a few: Do you know and recognize the hyper-achiever in you or others telling that you must be best to be worthy. Or maybe there is the stickler preaching perfec­tionism or a hyper-vigilant with chronic doubts who sees risks every­where and cannot rest. Or what do your saboteurs want you to believe?

Stay in self-command mode

What is a good way out once you named and inter­cepted your saboteurs?
By consciously focusing on sensa­tions you can actively shift from your saboteur brain where stress reactions reside to your sage brain where creati­vity and clear laser-focused actions prevail. By this, you run your brain rather than let your saboteurs run you.

Here is a little exercise to try out. It may seem silly and it is highly impactful, as personal experi­ence shows and research proves. You can use your sense of touch to activate your self-command:

Shift your perspective

Being more in self-command shifts yourself to more happi­ness using the sage perspec­tive of seeing chances, gifts and oppor­tu­ni­ties in all your challenges instead of judging them as bad and dreading the worst.

What does happy mean? Ask yourself: Have I felt mainly positive emotions in the past hours like peace, grati­tude, empathy, love, curio­sity, excite­ment of creati­vity, joy of clear-headed action and the like? If yes, you could say you were happy. If on the contrary you have felt manly negative emotions like stress, anxiety, anger, shame, guilt, blame, self-doubt and the like, then you could say you were unhappy.

Try out what you can achieve taking on the sage perspec­tive of positive emotions, being sure that every outcome and circum­s­tance can be turned into a gift and oppor­tu­nity. Look at the events of your day that causes you negative emotions and just unmask and label the negative mindchat as lie and let it go.

There is one psycho­lo­gical rule

Looking at a situa­tion, your saboteur perspec­tive is „this is bad“ and your sage perspec­tive is „this is a gift and opportunity“.

The answer to the question, „which perspec­tive is true?“ is: Whichever you believe becomes true! It’s worth trying.

I hope this article was helpful for you to try out new ways to deal with your challenges. For me mental fitness plays a big role as I experi­ences sustainable effects of practi­cing mental training on my results and on my well-being.

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