Make 2022 Your Best Year – How to Be More Positive
How to Cultivate a Positive Personal and Business Year
Thanks for the lessons 2021, but we’re quite happy to finally send you away with love. Furthermore, we are going to ensure that 2022 is a much more optimistic and successful year.
Join us as we choose to start the year off on a good foot. This year scale your list of New Year’s Resolutions down to just one – Be More Positive. If you can get this right, everything will fall into place from there. It will also support you in staying mentally sane no matter what unexpected blows might come your way.
Easier said than done right? Wrong! In this blog, we take you through just how you can easily become a more optimistic and joyful person:
- Reasons to create a positive mindset and environment
- How to stop negative self-talk
- Help your brain focus on the positive
- Practicing an attitude of gratitude
- Surrounding yourself with motivated people
- Creating a positive environment
- How we practice positivity at Focus Rooms
Reasons to Create a Positive Mindset and Environment
Better Health – Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania conducted extensive research with the University of Michigan. The study followed people from 26 to 65 to find that pessimists’ health deteriorated far more rapidly as they aged.
Researchers at Yale and the University of Colorado have also found that pessimism is associated with a weakened immune response to tumours and infection.
Researchers at the University of Kentucky confirmed by injecting optimists and pessimists with a virus to measure their immune response. Optimists had a much stronger immune response than pessimists.
Improved Performance and Results – Aforementioned Martin Seligman also set up a study where he followed insurance salespeople. He conducted the study with people that were either optimistic or pessimistic in their work. The positive salespeople sold 37% more policies than pessimists, who were also twice as likely to leave the company during their first year of employment.
Improve Business Overall – Positive work environments allow for more engaged employees. In studies by the Queens School of Business and by the Gallup Organization, disengaged workers had 37% higher absenteeism, 60% more errors and defects and 49% more accidents. In companies with low employee engagement, they experienced 18% lower productivity, 37% lower job growth, 16% lower profitability, and 65% lower share price over time.
Stop All Negative Talk
The first step to be more positive is to decide to stop all negative self-talk – immediately! Sure, this kind of thinking is engrained in us and can be a tough habit to break, but you do it by being conscious. Just by being aware you can stop the bad thoughts in their tracks.
The truth is that a lot of these thoughts aren’t actually the truth, they just come from protective instincts. So, when they bubble up, you can stop them from gaining power by practising the next step.
To Bloom, You Have to Follow the Sun
The next step is to help your brain learn what you want it to focus on — the positive.
After enough practice at this, it will come naturally. First, you must give your brain a little help by consciously choosing something positive to think about. Especially when those negative wanderings come along.
Take it a step further by implementing a rule of “Only Positive Talk” in your business. When a person says something pessimistic, politely ask them to quickly say three positive things about that topic. You can even make it fun and have an equivalent of a swear jar. When the negative starts falling out the mouth a donation gets made to the jar. At the end of the year, the person that is voted the most positive wins the collection.
Practice an Attitude of Gratitude
Set up a daily routine where you set time aside to be truly grateful, and do it your way. This can be walks where you think of only the good in your life, or a daily list of ten things you’re thankful for, or even just some prayer time.
Research conducted at the University of California found that people who worked daily to be grateful experienced improved mood, energy and substantially less anxiety. This practice can even reduce the stress hormone cortisol by 23%.
Surround Yourself with Motivated People
“The only thing that will change your life, change your business, change your relationship, is that you must raise your standards. Get rid of negative people who bring you down. Surround yourself with people who lift you up, lend you knowledge and help you learn from your mistakes.” – Tony Robbins
One thing all motivational speakers seem to be able to agree on is that we become like the people we spend the most time with. That’s why it’s so important to make sure that your friends and employees are all positive and motivated people. To be more positive, you have to be with positive people.
Create a Positive Environment
“Clutter is the physical manifestation of unmade decisions fuelled by procrastination” – Christina Scalise
If you want to feel clarity on your thoughts and ambitions, it’s vital that you create a positive environment wherever you operate. Be it home or the office.
Clear out the clutter, position your furniture in such a way that energy can flow, decorate with minimalism and items and colours that spark positivity.
You Change Your Life by Practicing Positive Habits Consistently
One of the most important tips we can give you is this: Be gentle with yourself and others. Just because you aspire to be and do all these things, doesn’t mean you immediately become the perfect person.
We are all human, which means we make mistakes. It’s about being kind and allowing space for growth. When you get distracted, forgive yourself and start again.
At Focus Rooms We Walk the Talk!
At Focus Rooms we feel so strongly about the above pointers that we don’t just write a blog about it – we practice it. So much so that when we set up our new amazing premises we called in a Fengshui expert.
Everything you see when you walk through our doors has been thought through. From colour choices in the various areas to our furniture, everything is chosen to create a great vibe.
So, if you want your team to get out for a bit, you know you can come to us and continue to implement your changes towards positivity. Come and check out why so many people rave about our building, energy and culture.
Let’s get inspired by each other.
