“The power of positivity” is more than a catchy phrase. A negative state of mind wears away at your confidence, preventing you from reaching your full potential or from realizing the personal and professional opportunities at hand. Positivity, on the other hand, tends to blaze the path towards career reward, success, and satisfaction [Tweet This].
Kathy Caprino, a trained marriage and family therapist, career coach, and author of 10 Ways Being More Positive Improves Your Career, has seen the effects of negative behaviours and language first hand. Through her decade of working with people with career struggles, she’s seen that those who are constantly more negative than positive suffer from unhappiness in their day-to-day life, and an eventual collapse of their career potential.
Everyone runs into bumps in the road. You’re more likely to let these road bumps derail you if you have a negative mindset, focusing on what went wrong and then falling into a slump.
If you feel that you have a negative mindset and want to start thinking more positively, you can begin your transformation by being more aware of how you operate in the world, specifically in regards to your interactions and communications in the office. Make sure you have at least five positive actions/thoughts to every one negative thought for everything you do. Keeping a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative actions will starting making you a more positive person overall—and the closer you get to a 1:1 ratio, the more negative you’ll be.
Still need some convincing to the power of positivity? Here are four benefits that positivity has on your personal and professional life:
1. Positivity Helps You Bounce Back Quicker
Everyone runs into bumps in the road. You’re more likely to let these road bumps derail you if you have a negative mindset, focusing on what went wrong and then falling into a slump [Tweet This].
When you radiate positivity, and have a ratio of at least 5:1 positive-to-negative thoughts, you become more immune to negative outside occurrences. You know these bumps happen, you know that they happen to everyone, and, as a result, you’ll remain resilient and bounce back quickly.
2. Positivity Makes You a Better Communicator
You’re more willing to communicate with those around you when you have positive mindset, both in the office and in casual settings. You’ll be more engaging because you won’t worry about whether your ideas, insights, and initiatives will be shot down or not. Instead of remaining quiet during brainstorming sessions, you’ll be first one with the wild ideas. When you think negatively, you assume that your ideas don’t hold much weight, and then become less communicative and outgoing.
3. People Will Gravitate Towards You
It’s hard to talk to people with negative attitudes because they’re always shooting ideas down, hard to communicate with, and essentially surround themselves with a “shield” that’s hard to break though.
A positive attitude, however, is a magnet for your colleagues and friends [Tweet This]. You’ll see an increase in social interactions, and a willingness to speak to people—whether to the CEO of the company, or a stranger at a coffee shop—that wasn’t there before. The positivity makes you focus on what’s going right, rather than what’s going wrong, and, as a result, people start to feel more comfortable and happy around you.
4. A Positive Attitude Creates Opportunities
You’ll notice the doors open a bit easier when you have a positive mindset. You’ll apply for that job because you know you’ll do a good job, instead of ignoring it because you assume that’ll you’ll mess up somehow. When you meet new people, you’ll be more willing to talk about yourself and your accomplishments—and they’ll keep this in mind when they see an opening in their organization—rather than downplaying your achievements because you don’t think much of them. Positivity, in short, highlights your capabilities and achievements, making you more confident in your abilities when an opportunity comes your way.