Wind in Your Sails

…continued from a previous blog

Our last article began defining four dynamics that will help leaders move their teams and organizations forward. The last to consider is motivation.

Where We Find Motivation

We rarely get to choose our circumstances. We always get to choose our response to life’s events. Success is less about talent and opportunities, and more about commitment and motivation. Here are five ways to keep the wind filling your sails as you chart a course through rough seas.

Stay connected with positive, optimistic people. You weren’t wired to make the journey through life alone. All of us benefit from relationships that help us maintain perspective, remind us to believe in ourselves, and give us valuable, even candid, insights when we need them. If you don’t know any optimists — find some. You don’t have to lose touch with reality to maintain an attitude of optimism and hope in the face of whatever you encounter.

Minimize time with people that enjoy a negative view on life. You will always find plenty of people that will do what they can to encourage you to be as miserable as they are. Use social distancing as a reason to stay away from them or maintain clear boundaries in how you allow their thinking to influence you. Negative people have an amazing ability to pull the unaware and unguarded to incredible levels of misery.

Manage your mental input. You don’t give anyone unguarded access to your money or your time. Why would you allow anyone free access to your mind? Analyze what you engage with on social media, the blogs you follow, your movies and weekly shows. If your mental diet is negative, it will be hard for you to stay positive. Begin and end your day by reading something positive or listening to music that relaxes or energizes you — depending on what you need at the time. What you consume mentally has a lot to do with how you feel emotionally.

Keep active. Your doctor isn’t the only person who will tell you regular exercise releases endorphins — powerful, natural mood lifters. You don’t have to train for a marathon to gain significantly from physical exercise. Thirty minutes of moderate exercise can do wonders in keeping your motivation high. Get up after every video conference and move around. Your body and brain will thank you.

Keep moving. Study the lives of highly successful people from any corner of life, across history, in any environment, and you will discover they share one trait: They keep moving forward. Sometimes slowly. Often with great difficulty. Frequently after painful mistakes, defeats, or failures. In the past 150 years there have been over 45 financial crises impacting one or more countries. The majority of those have been in the last 35 years. We will find a way through this.

We’re beyond looking for quick solutions and temporary options. It’s time to put together a game plan that will drive whatever growth we can create. We’re not alone and we are far from finished.

Adapted from Sharpen Your Life, Copyright © 2016 Joseph M. Jordan/Jordan Development, Inc. Used by permission.