During tough times, one of the toughest things to do is to stay focused upon the few things that you can control, while refusing to be distracted by the many things you can’t. In my experience, I’ve found only three things that I can consistently control –my thoughts, my attitude and my effort. Let me also add that I often fail at my efforts to control these things. Nonetheless, it remains within my power to do so.
Thoughts
Earl Nightingale, father of modern motivational thought, said, “you become what you think about”. George Fuechsel, an IBM 305 RAMAC technician/instructor in New York, is credited with coining the well-known phrase, “garbage in, garbage out”. Zig Ziglar made a career out of warning us against the hazards of “stinkin’ thinkin’”. The point is clear –whatever we allow into our minds and choose to dwell upon will profoundly impact our behavior, for better or worse.
So, if we feed our minds a steady diet of doom and gloom, we inevitably become gloomy ourselves. Many studies have proven that the vast majority of things that we worry about never come to pass. So, if you want to play with winning odds every time out, then simply choose to focus upon the present versus borrowing trouble from the future.
Attitude
I won’t forget a lovely theme I heard when I was in college –your attitude is your altitude. In other words, the altitude you attain will be determined by the attitude you maintain. And, it all starts with an attitude of gratitude.
Ungratefulness is not only unbecoming, but it is undermining to all forms of positive progress. The spirit of ungratefulness stealth fully slithers into our lives, robbing us of joy and sapping the very strength we need to press on. Slowly but surely, we begin to dwell upon what we don’t have instead of the countless blessings we do.
As you can see, our attitudes and thoughts are inextricably linked. When you think about it (pun intended), attitude is simply the outward expression of your inner thoughts. So, if you’re guilty of stinkin’ thinkin’, your attitude will follow suit –it will stink too.
Effort
We’re all familiar with the saying, “don’t confuse effort with results”. What is less familiar is what I believe to be the more accurate interpretation of this saying. The author’s intent was to suggest that effort really doesn’t matter –only results count. However, I believe it is far more helpful to focus upon making the best possible effort (something we can control) versus obsessing upon results (something usually out of our control).
There’s no avoiding the fact that the first step towards getting through tough times is to simply work harder –more hours, more effort. The proverbial “all you can do is all you can do” wisdom only holds true if you are truly doing all you can do.
A fool is said to be someone who continues doing the same things while expecting different results. It’s not enough to simply work harder during tough times. You must also work smarter. Look for low yielding activities and STOP doing them. One of the worst things you can do is re-double your efforts on non-productive activities. Be ruthless in culling out such tasks on your To Do list. If you don’t, your work-life balance will suffer unduly.
Kenrick Vaz 