Staying Positive in a Negative World

February 23, 2016 Dr Dean Prentice

Personal Development, Professional Development, Thought Provoking, Work Problems

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Sometimes, being a positive person is exhausting. There are days when I feel like everyone I run into is trying to rain on every parade; like their mission in life is to ensure positive people are drowned out. Honestly, some days it takes all my strength not to just come off the top ropes on some of my coworkers, boss, or others at work. It reminds me of a meme I saw the other day which stated “you are about to exceeded the limitations of my medication.”

Is this just me?

There are times I think some folks take great joy in creating a negative environment. Whether it is to make themselves feel better, or for them to have a sense of power or control, or because they are just a negative person, these types at work partners make life challenging. This negative environment can turn to toxic rather quickly. To a leader, this is a challenging situation even if you are a more positive person. If your tendency is to be more negative, you may not even notice what is happening.

Recently I had a conversation with another leader who most would consider a positive person. This leader was talking about recent experiences they had with their boss and the organization as a whole. As we were talking about what was happening, it was obvious my friend was losing their “sparkle” of positive attitude. When I asked about how it was making them feel to work for this boss, my friend said, “it seems like there are days when I want to just give up, to quit, or not to care so much.”

Have you experienced this?

So my friend and I continued our conversation, discussing our experiences with negative people. We both had to admit that it seemed recently it was getting more difficult to deal with some of these negative people. Our struggle, we agreed, was to not let these individuals impact our attitude…or leadership ability. The impact on our leadership ability, how we focused, worked, accomplished goals, was negatively affected by these individuals, and it bothered us.

Have you had this experience?

The discussion then quickly came to, what are we going to do about our situation? How are we going to face the negative people impacting our organization?

My friend and I did some research and when we came back together we came up with a list of 6 thing you can do to protect your positive attitude from the negative life suckers out there.

Remain positive; you choose your attitude. I know this may sound trite, but it is key to being successful. Don’t let anyone cause you to act differently. It takes courage and energy. Sometimes you just have to fight to maintain your balance. In other words, remain faithful to being positive.
Bad days are here. There are days when it is just plain bad. That is ok. The focus here is not to let them impact your attitude or actions. Your faithfulness to being positive is going to see you through, so focus on your goal.
Negative people suck. It’s life, they are everywhere. Your goal is to realize you cannot change them. There are things you can do to help them. Other times, you just have to walk away from them. Remember there is a difference between quitting and letting it go.
Be Elsa…Let it go! Let negative people go. Don’t choose to hang out with or to become involved in a lasting work relationship with negative people. They will drain your energy and create havoc for your work life. And if the negative people start banding together, run, don’t walk, away from the group. Let them go!
Positive people bring light. Finding other positive people for support and strength is vital to keeping yourself motivated and encouraged. It will be these colleagues which you will collaborate with to make a difference in your organization. The support and synergy created by a positive attitude creates a change in an organization.
Celebrate! You know we don’t celebrate enough. Take time out today to celebrate your “positiveness”. Is that a word? Being a positive leader, a good positive leader is not all that common. Too many leaders think positive people are shallow, simple, don’t understand the real world, and can’t handle the tough calls a leader must make. You know what I say….pffffssst (insert raspberry)! That is just their poor excuse for bad behavior and poor leadership! You need to set yourself apart…celebrate that you take things from a positive paradigm and move on! Take a bow and bring someone else along for the journey!