In part 1 of our two part blog on setting yourself up for success in 2016, we looked at the importance of revisiting your long term plans and creating a realistic 90 day plan to kick start 2016. You can see part 1 here.

Setting yourself up for success in 2016

We now turn to something of possibly even greater importance. Keeping yourself positive, motivated and on track throughout the year.

You can have the greatest strategies and plans in the world, but your mind and negative thinking can totally hijack you. I therefore want to share some strategies with you to help keep you on top form throughout 2016.

Positive Insight (and the subject of my book) is about how we view ourselves, our situation and other people. Maximising your Positive Insight is key to your self-empowerment.

To do this we first need to manage our negative thinking. We all have a negative voice and thoughts in our head, it’s about how much power we allow them to have over us.

I advocate 4 steps to deal with negative thinking:

  1. Become aware that you have lapsed into negative thinking as this can almost happen on auto pilot.
  2. Ignore the message if you’re convinced it’s nonsense, as we can all indulge in that form of negative self-talk!
  3. If not obviously nonsense, you then look for a different and more helpful perspective.
  4. Finally, if the negative thinking is directly alerting you to risk and a problem, you must get into action and take the first step to do something about it.

 

As well as reducing the impact of negative thinking, we also need to develop and strengthen our positive thinking. We all experience reality through our own perceptive filters and the human condition can tend towards filtering for negative things that may occur. To shift this we need to move to a more optimistic view of ourselves, other people and situations. One simple technique to do this is to take more note of the positive things that happen and go on around you. You can simply journal 5 good things about the day every day and this will shift your filters to look for the positive and for opportunity.

Being present also carries great benefits. With much of our thinking stuck in the past (guilt, regret, rumination) or future (anxiety, fear) being present and in the now is a way to combat this and purely focus on what is happening now. This is the essence of Mindfulness. Interestingly the parts of your Neurology that are associated with positive thinking have been proven to strengthen when spending more time being present. So there is a double benefit of being more present!

Another aspect that drives the way we experience our lives is the intentions we have for ourselves. Often we can live without clear intentions. But if you truly want to experience certain feelings on a regular basis, are you setting up your life and each day to do this? What you focus on is what you get, so it is important to think about what you intend to feel daily.

Finally, keep an eye on the language you use internally or about yourself. The language you use impacts on your thinking and your behaviour. Often the language we use about ourselves is harsh or riddled with self-doubt. Become aware of your language and use positive language and certain language.

If you need help and inspiration to start 2016 with a bang, why not join us at our PI Leadership Discovery Workshop on January 11th, which you can see details for on the right. It would be a pleasure to help start the year the right way with you.

Or please feel free to give me a call on 07912 143040 or email me at tony@theleadershiptrainingworkshop.com and we can discuss how we can help you.