When you are focused on the negative, there’s no room for the positive.

It goes by many names. Positive thinking. Manifestation. Good vibes. And I’m not a scientist nor a new age expert, so I have no proof that it works. But I’m 100% certain that it does. And whatever your goals may be, the most important step in realizing those goals is by focusing on the positive aspects of your goal.

To be honest, I’m not sure I have the word to properly articulate this, but I’m going to give it a try.

For a moment, let’s talk about something not business related. Think about the last fight you had with your spouse or child. I’m going to use a silly example. I have one of those built-in hampers in the bathroom – you know, the cool ones where there’s a hinged door that you put your clothes in, and then they drop into a basket or cabinet below? Anyway, the hinge broke, and I asked my darling husband to fix the hinge. I know from experience this will probably take him less than 10 minutes to do, but for him, it hadn’t been a priority. Every day, I would ask him about it, and every day, he’d say he would do it. Then every night, I’d go to put my clothes in the hamper and I’d get annoyed all over again. What happens when we get annoyed? Our brains like to dwell on that. Mine, in particular, has claws of steel that latch onto negative ideas and like to grasp onto the smallest negative idea and poke it and prod it until it swells up and takes over everything. This small little thing was starting to blow up in my mind to “Why doesn’t he think my needs are important?” (Which was ridiculous. But no one ever said our emotions are logical.)

Here’s the kicker. My GOAL wasn’t to get the hinge fixed on my cabinet. In fact, I couldn’t care less about that particular hinge. My goal was to have someplace to put my dirty laundry that didn’t annoy me. But I wasn’t focusing on that. I was SO FOCUSED on this small bit of negativity that I was spending zero time on anything productive that could actually solve the problem.

When I took a step back, acknowleged my frustration, and then let it go… I started putting my clothes in his hamper. And guess what… not only was I no longer annoyed, but this was a better solution for me. It was fewer steps for me. It meant fewer trips when I had to carry the laundry to the washing machine.

So now let’s think about a business goal. Perhaps you want to grow your team, and it’s not growing as fast as you’d like. Maybe you’ve set your goal to add two new people to your team in a month, and you didn’t add anyone. Now, that negative “hamper voice” is saying “You didn’t meet your goal.” That leads to thinking about all the things you think you did wrong. Or perhaps you go down the path of all the things you didn’t do. Or perhaps you start lowering your goals and telling yourself that the last ones weren’t attainable (and then thinking about all the reasons why.)

Here’s why that’s a problem:

• From a business perspective, every minute you spend on a negative action/thought is a minute that you aren’t spending on a positive activity. We all have the same 1440 minutes in a day. Do the math. The more you wallow, the less you get done.
• From a mindset perspective, not only are you now less productive, but you’ve surrounded yourself and your goal with all of those negative vibes. And say what you will, but the energy and vibes around you are absolutely a real thing. And they do affect us.

So take a step back. Your goal isn’t really to add two people to your team. Sure, that’s a goal that you set, but it’s an arbitrary number. What’s your “why?”

• Maybe your goal is to share your love of a product and service with people. Guess what – when you are obsessed with why your team isn’t growing, you’re not sharing your love of your product or service. When you ARE sharing that love, people can feel it. They feel your enthusiasm (not your dejection) and … here’s the kicker, they’re going to want to join your team.
• Maybe your goal is to make more money or earn a leadership bonus. Guess what – when you are obsessed with why your team isn’t growing, you’re not looking at the different ways you can make money. (My company has at least 12 or 13 different ways you can earn!) Once you focus on how you CAN make money (even before having the growing team) then people will see that. Again, they feel your enthusiasm; they see your results, and … (see where I’m going with this?) They want to join you.
• Maybe your goal is to earn recognition. When you are obsessed with why you didn’t meet one goal, you’re not looking at the other ways you can earn recognition. And… once you do earn recognition, people will see that. People will feel your enthusiasm. And – yep – they’ll want to join you.

Another way to say this is: when you are focused on the negative, there’s no room for all the positive.

So, how do you combat this?

1. Continue to make goals, especially big, challenging goals! They are fun, and they’re exciting. And they are important to help you set the pace for your business. Goals are the stepping stones to help you get to your “why.” (They’re just not the ONLY way.)
2. When you set your goals, focus on the activities that are important to reach them. If you know you want to sell $2400 in product in a month, but you aren’t doing the things needed to make sales, then you’re not going to hit the goal. (Nothing new so far, right?)
3. Here’s where it gets different. CELEBRATE the activities that are important to your goals. Most of us have several things that we do to make our business successful. (I’m sure I’ll post later about DMOs or “daily methodds of operation.” Just because you haven’t hit your goal yet, you’re DOING ALL THE THINGS! That’s awesome! Enjoy them! Keep doing them! Get others to do them with you!
4. When you see the negative talk start to “hamper” you (see what I did there?) just acknowledge it. Then focus on what positive things you can do! Then repeat #3. Do them and celebrate them.
5. If you don’t know what to do, or what you do is consistently not working, then try something new! Ask your leadership, look for training, and don’t be afraid to try something else! As I learned with the hamper, there is more than one right way to do anything.

A therapist once aptly pointed out to me that we can’t control the behaviors of other people. We can’t always control our circumstances. But the one thing we can ALWAYS control is our response to those. There’s a quote out there that puts it quite well (source unknown.) It says, “You can choose to complain because roses have thorns, or you can celebrate because thorns have roses.”

What will you choose to look at?