A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a person perfected without trials. ~Seneca
Life isn’t perfect. Often, far from it. The sooner we realize this truism and embrace, or at least tolerate, the imperfections, the better our mental health. Mistakes and failures happen. People disappoint. Sometimes life requires us to turn tragedy into triumph.
This mindset approach is critical because it is foundational and a requirement for all attempting to live their best. Moreover, negative events happen frequently, every day, all the time. So, the ones that can turn change, challenge and difficulty into opportunity are not only going to have advantage over those that don’t but will—by removing obstacles, often self-created—flourish and thrive.
As Carol Dweck, author of the bestselling, Mindset, wrote, “When people believe their basic qualities can be developed, failures may still hurt, but failures don’t define them. And if abilities can be expanded—if change and growth are possible—then there are still many paths to success.”
But saying and doing are two very different things.
It would be helpful to have a plan in place to implement when we fail, things turn sour, projects go south, and disruption is normalized. A plan that helps us shift our mindset from negative default to positive default. Following years of researching positive psychology, and experiencing plenty of failures and mistakes, here’s a few evidence-based ways to overcome the vagaries of life:
Re-focus with Intention. Any successful change in mindset must begin with a resolve to see things differently, believe differently and especially, behave differently. We can’t expect new outcomes from old behaviors. How we responded in the past must be replaced with a healthier approach and a fresh, new start to the process; this means that you must first decide to change. This fateful decision, clarion call, and new focus becomes a North Star, guiding you to a better place; intention to change is the first logical step, opening the door to possibilities and better outcomes.
Manage Self-Talk. This, of course, is that voice in our head that often provides editorial commentary to the aforementioned vagaries. It’s our ongoing inner monologue, which can both describe and guide our eventual response. Unfortunately, researchers report that 80% of our self-talk is negative. If that is even close to accurate—could you imagine?!!–what does that predict for our outcomes? Negative in the computer—negative out! That conversation we are having with ourselves is our most frequent one and most influential, which means we need to get better at it. The first arrow that does damage is the negative event (change, challenge, disruption, failure): an outside force that shifted our momentum or steered us in the wrong direction. Happens all the time. But we tend to make it worse by describing the event in the absolute worse terms—this bad habit becomes the second arrow and does the real damage.
“Nothing is good or bad,” wrote Shakespeare, “but thinking makes it so.”
This second arrow and the accompanying negativity stick around for a while, needlessly raising anxiety, lowering well-being, and stealing our body’s healthy resources. Each time we raise our anxiety and our stress level, our nervous system responds by releasing adrenaline and cortisol. Simultaneously, our adrenal glands get the signal to cease creating white blood cells, key to our immune system. Ever wonder why you get sick following a few stressful days? There you go.
Again, bad, negative or disappointing events occur throughout our lives. Sometimes, all in one week or even, heaven forbid, a single day. It’s not the bad event that does the most damage, it’s what we then tell ourselves about that event that has the most profound and long-term effect.
But if this is true, and we’ve had a lifetime of negative inner monologue, how do we reverse these now instinctive, and habitual conversations? Is it even possible?
The answer is an unmitigated yes. If we learned certain behaviors in the past, we can unlearn them, and replace them with better behaviors. And to make this easier, every time we engage in the new and better behaviors, we get rewarded with dopamine. Again, need some encouragement, there it is.
Replace and Reframe. A few years back I was walking my dog around the block. Sasha was an old dog so the walks were short. Halfway through this brief stroll, I recall stopping in my tracks; I had caught myself grousing over a family issue that I had no control over. What a waste of time, I thought. With Sasha looking up at me as if to say “let’s go”, I continued the rest of the way but reframed my thoughts to the present. I eventually arrived home with different thoughts and a much healthier mindset than I began. A few things of note here. 1. The negative trend of my thoughts is very common because we all have a brain that tends to recall the negative easier than the positive, a.k.a., our negativity bias. Given free reign, like a mindless walk with the dog, chances are the bulk of our thinking will travel easily down a negative path. 2. Because we tend to be reflexively negative, intention (again) becomes a great counterweight. Draw your focus to your own thoughts, looking to catch yourself when you are needlessly negative. This unique human ability to think about our thinking is called metacognition. The more we metacognate–catch ourselves in negative thought–and then reframe to more positive thoughts, the healthier we’ll be.
Ultimately, what we are doing is replacing old habits that just don’t work with healthier new habits. When we reframe to the positive, savor positive memories or spend a few moments being grateful, we take up space that was historically reserved for negative thoughts. The happy chemicals that then get released, make it easier to repeat or engage a positive mindset in the future.
The solution is not to suppress change, challenge or difficulty—that will never happen; those all-too-common life elements will arrive whether you like it or not. Rather, it is to encourage positive experiences and thoughts, so they emerge easier, more consistently, and integrate into who you are and how you act.