The Teetering Leader: 6 Principles of Positive Outlook
Janice is a stable manager, with all the skills and techniques she needs to run a smooth organization. Her confidence is established, and her folks respect her.
Yet in recent years, Janice has begin to put her health on the back burner in favor of a higher production level. Exercise occasionally? Well, sure. But it always seems to come at a cost of something else giving way. A missed deadline or poor attendance at a company function.
Janice faces that time crunch that we all experience at work. How to make it all happen? Work, health, personal life! And hey, better get some retail therapy in there or you’ll be cranky for a week.
At the heart of this dilemma is Janice’s belief system. Mantras like: if I take the time to leave at lunchtime for exercise, several tasks will go unfinished. Or this one: I cannot take the time to eat well because my options are limited and that keeps me from making the right choices.
A heightened awareness of those belief statements and our resulting actions are the keys to adjusting them.
Aha! If you got this far in that story, maybe it applies to you to some degree. Being in touch with your wellness beliefs is critical in managing a healthy lifestyle and a intentional growth.
But wellness here is just a metaphor for a host of many priorities. This could apply to anything that you are looking to change, build, grow, or eradicate!
My gift to you … a list for stabilizing your mindset and outlook. No fancy biofeedback or electric nodes to attach to your frontal lobes …. Just a few things to keep you centered.
6 Key Principles of Outlook Management:
- Each day begins as a blank. Head the positive direction from there.
- Look at the need to change as something small and manageable. Small changes lead to big changes.
- Problems, causes, and solutions are not always related or even inter-connected. Compartmentalize the problem from the solution. Practice possibilities thinking.
- Don’t underestimate the value of goal-setting.
- Be decisive about what you want. (Knowing what not to do is at least as important as knowing what to do.)
- Our possibilities are only limited to the ones we allow ourselves to see.
We don’t see things the way they are.
We see things the way we are.
And when all else fails, relax on the back porch with a rich Cabernet (or a rich man .. or both)
Skirt Strategies is an online resource for helping women manage their leadership potential. Subscribe to the free monthly tips or upgrade to subscription that’ll get you into all our webinars for free.
Adapted in part from New Life Story, by Dr. David Krueger. Katie is specialty certified and licensed in New Life StoryTM Coaching.