If You Don't Have Anything Nice To Say...

 

With all of the stress, negativity and yes, even prosperity, it's easy to fall into the rut of complaining and being negative. You may even notice that this can become a habit. Now, it won't feel that way to you. You'll spin it in your head like you are just being "realistic," or telling it like it is. But little by little this perspective can not just erode your happiness, but your relationships and career as well.

In today's day and age social media plays a huge part in most peoples day to day lives and all of the negative comments, trolling and news coverage can be overwhelming. It is so easy to get caught up in the cesspool known as facebook, twitter, instagram and pintrest.

Oh... You may be wondering why when starting this post I listed prosperity as one of the things that can drive us to be negative. Well, sometimes we have it so good that we don't realize what we have and we can become entitled. For most of us, no matter how bad we have it, there are people who are bearing much harsher burdens than us. Heck, if you have clean drinking water, food in your belly, a roof over your head and are in even fair health, you're doing better than billions of people already! That's even before we count the fact that if you're reading this you probably have a computer and/or smart phone. Not to mention if I had to guess you have indoor plumbing, if so, you are ahead of the curve of pretty much everyone throughout history... including royalty of days gone past!

So, stop commiserating about what you don't have and think about what you're grateful for. Think what is at the root of our fear, frustration, agitation, worry, bitterness, entitlement, etc? Because this state of mind is also emotional, trying to wish or think our way out of it is nearly impossible. So what can we do to snap out of it? According to Dan Baker author of "What Happy People Know," the neurology of the brain cannot be in a state of appreciation and a state of fear at the same time. [p. 81]

With that in mind here are a few action steps to help get you out of a negative state:


Action Step Exercise:

#1 - Take a couple minutes sometime today and list the things you are thankful for.

#2 - Everyone you talk to today say something that you admire about them and are thankful for.

#3 - Exercise! Do something physical to take your mind and emotions off from your negativity.

#4 - Do something to help someone else w/no strings attached, no expectation. Do it just to do it. 


Create a new habit of appreciation rather than continuing to spiral into a negative state. It takes work, but it's worth the effort!


Keep going,
~Craig


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An Uncomfortable Situation

Image
  Funny pic (and movie) about a not so funny situation… In training as in Life, it’s better to treat people with dignity and respect. However… What does that look like in the moment? Being that I’m teaching a Women’s Assault Prevention and Response Workshop this weekend - it’s probably a good time to talk about… Uncomfortable Situations Let’s talk about training at the academy for a minute… We run open co-ed classes at the local academy. What does that mean? Men and women train together, but we don’t stop there. People of different skill levels, backgrounds, ethnicities, sexual orientations, careers, religious beliefs, political affiliations, ages, injuries, pre-existing conditions, life experience, training expectations etc. etc. train together! We ALL work together! Overall, I think it’s better this way. Of course sometimes there’s static, you know, conflicts, and misunderstanding. When something happens, most of the time it’s just that, a misunderstanding… Sometimes people ...
Read more

What'd You Say?!

Image
  You ever have a conversation with someone who really lifted your spirits? How about having a conversation with someone who’s a real downer?! We spend a lot of time talking to people. Matter of fact, talking is one of the most under rated and under trained aspects of protecting yourself. It’s much better if you can talk your way out of a bad situation, rather than having to resort to some form of physicality. This is why we spend so much time on sharing effective communication frameworks in the PeaceWalker course. But All of that Aside… When we think about communicating, we often just think about talking to other people. We forget how we talk to ourselves! You may have heard it called, “Self talk.” All day long we talk to ourselves. We carry on an inner dialogue in our heads that only we can hear. Unfortunately, this means it's very easy to be hard on ourselves. There's something about privacy which makes it easy to say the things you would never say out loud to another living...
Read more

Cracks in Your Foundation?!

Image
  Last night we had one of our weekly coaching calls for the PeaceWalker Evolution Course. What a great call! Rob and Jenn, a couple of the Level II - Momentum folks (people who graduated from Evolution last year and came back for the second Level.), were tasked to run the meeting as part of their training. I must say, they did a stand up job! The topic of discussion was building an Unshakable Foundation. WTH is that!? It’s basically the way you live. Your habits. What you do in your day to day life. How do you train your… Body  - Your physical health Mind  - What you’re filling your head with Mouth  - How you’re communicating Heart  - How you foster your relationships Why?! Without a solid foundation it’s difficult to remain balanced. When you are not balanced, it more difficult to stay calm, cool, and collected, (especially) under pressure. As I often say,  “You can’t hide crazy.” (It eventually comes out!) Regardless… You don’t have to be in the PeaceWal...
Read more