The global pandemic has taken a toll on our mental health, and many of us are feeling overwhelmed with our efforts. It's important that we find ways to lighten up so that we can take care of ourselves and support each other.
We all have an impact on each other, and when I think about lightening up, I think of it like a candle. When your candle is lit, you have a lightness about you. And best of all, a lit candle can light an unlit candle, and can continue lighting other unlit candles.
Something most people do is pursue happiness. For many of us, being happy is the ultimate goal of life, and we want to find this in our careers, family, and friends.
But I believe that pursuing happiness is precisely the problem with being happy. We treat happiness like some distant destination we have to reach. So in this post, I’m going to share six tools for you to be happy right now.
If you ask lousy questions, you will get lousy answers. This is why I wrote my second book, What’s Going Well?.
The benefits of asking yourself, “What’s Going Well?” are too numerous to list here. The question and the practice gets you to focus on the positive things in your life even the things and people that you may be taking for granted.
My friends know that I’m a big-time jokester, so I enjoy adding in some light-hearted jokes throughout my day. For example, when I go to Starbucks, I ask for my tea with 3.14159265359 inches of steamed soy. Many times the barista will give me a double-take, confused by my ultra-specific order, and others understand that I’m referring to Pi (Sunday, March 14th was Pi Day, by the way!).
In this episode, you’ll hear how Shannon Boxx went from a good soccer player to great, and how she learned to focus on one thing at a time in order to achieve her goals. During her professional career, Boxx also was dealing with an autoimmune disease called Lupus, and she’ll share how she has overcome that diagnosis and is still battling it.
What we focus on and the questions we ask casts a spotlight. This spotlight sets our mindset and determines how we see the world. Remember when you bought your first car, and then you began to see others like-it—the same make, model, and color everywhere? It’s like they magically appeared. But they didn’t. They were always there; you merely weren’t casting your spotlight in that direction until you had one, and then you began to see them.
Have you ever met a negaholic and thought to yourself I wish I were more like them?
It’s much easier than you might think.
Here are some surefire ways to jump-start your negaholic journey. World-class negaholics adopt all seven of these habits, but if you can make just one of them a habit, you will be well on your way to being a negaholic.
The What’s Going Well mindset movement needs you. Look around, and you must admit the world needs positivity right now. The What’s Going Well mindset is not one of those movements or ideas where you’ll want to sit on the sidelines. If you do, the “Negaholics” will win—in your communities and workplaces.
In chapter six of my book, What’s Going Well, I teach readers how to apply the What’s Going Well mindset professionally.
In my experience, the workplace is one of the last places people receive genuine appreciation and acknowledgment—and it shouldn’t be. Recognizing people for their accomplishments and acknowledging a job well-done are essential to employee engagement and satisfaction; it also boosts productivity, changes behavior, and impacts the overall workplace culture!
This year I have noticed an interesting pattern. When clients request a keynote presentation, I ask which speech they want me to deliver--one focused on Water The Bamboo, Unleashing the Potential of Teams and Individuals or What’s Going Well? The Question that Changes Everything?
It’s been about a 50–50 split.
I developed a keynote and a half day workshop around the What’s Going Well mindset. Below is a short video that gives you a flavor of the new book and keynote.
Watch the What's Going Well Video
And if you are not familiar with the Water The Bamboo keynote and workshop here is a video to help you gain an understanding.
Every year instead of setting a New Year’s resolutions, I pick a word that I use as a theme throughout the year. Last year, 2018, I chose the word “momentum.” I have to give momentum lots of credit for helping me power through and finish my new book, What’s Going Well.
Creating a What’s Going Well culture puts team members in an optimistic frame of mind, and interpersonal bonds and team relationships are strengthened at a deeper and more sincere level. The strong relationships that result lead to increased job satisfaction, engagement and loyalty. Acts of cooperation, teamwork and empathy generated by a What’s Going Well culture can also directly influence an organization’s bottom line. A What’s Going Well culture is a competitive advantage for organizations that implement it broadly and systematically.
Since we only have the capacity to focus on a fraction of what we encounter, our brains are constantly filtering what gets our attention. In this filtering process, our brains are easily distracted because we are wired to pay attention to any new stimulus, especially if we perceive it to be a threat to our survival. This filtering causes us to have what psychologists call a negativity bias.
