Your thoughts sway how you feel about yourself, how you respond to situations and how well you do in life.
Yes! Your internal dialogue creates tangible results in your life whether for good or not so good. And whether you buy into it or not, you determine what you bring into being by your thoughts.
Turn it around by challenging yourself:
What If I’m Wrong? More likely than not at some point, you’ll act upon something as though valid when it isn’t. If you don’t confront your limiting thoughts, you’ll end up harming not only your career today but your future as well.
Let me share a case in point. A client and I were discussing an up-and-coming meeting with her boss. We covered a lot of topics one of which was identifying my client’s ultimate career destination at the company. Toward the end of the call, she was already questioning her worthiness, as she observed: “I’ve only been with the company for a year, so I think it is too early to reveal my long-term goal. That’s something I’ll hold off and speak about next year.”
No!! That’s a diminishing lie that accomplishes nothing but shrinks your future. Putting off crucial conversations may seem a safer tactic, but you’re losing a lot of valuable time in moving your career forward.
Do I Practice Cultivating My Thoughts? Amidst the chaos and stress of your everyday work life holding positive intentions are not easy to preserve. Falling prey to negativity restricts the breadth and depth of your career possibilities. So, learning how to cultivate a spirit of optimism—you know the “half glass full” view—enhances your professional evolution. Start turning your thoughts upside down by:
- Flipping the switch on your thinking—Check your emotional pulse to see if you may have developed unhelpful thought patterns where you tend only to focus on the unconstructive while missing the positive.
- Recognizing molehills instead of spinning them into mountains—It’s easy to get so lost in the minutia of the problem you become overwhelmed when, in fact, it is minor in the mainstream of your career. In hindsight, it may even be the event that propels your career into high gear. Take a deep breath; stop losing yourself in the finicky detail, gain perspective and move forward focused on the end-result desired one step at a time.
- Identifying points of gratitude—Every day in every way, count your blessings, and your attitude will take a dramatic turn for the better. I know you hear this advice everywhere you turn. Why? Because it works!
Am I Allowing Fear To Hold Me Small? Fear is a good thing when facing a saber tooth tiger—not so much when spawned by every day problem-solving. To move through fear into assurance:
Begin with recognizing when you’re spiraling into destructive thoughts.
- Disrupt your adverse thinking by slowing down and calming your breath.
- Shift your focus to execution-style activities thus reconnecting to the thinking part of your brain. Fear-based judgment has you sliding into fight or flight or freeze mindset which by-passes your cerebral cortex (the thinking part of your mind)!
Gaining traction in your career is hard enough without repeatedly dragging yourself down, thus getting in the way of your glorious, outstanding future.