Surveys. If you’re not getting a survey in your inbox a few times a week, you may be living under a rock. Every company wants to know how they are doing in customer service, customer experience, and functionality of their products. Feedback helps shape product offerings and customer retention so companies stay in businesses.
Surveys can be contradictory though. If one question’s response weighs more than five other questions, the results can be misinterpreted and the wrong thing can receive more attention than necessary.
For instance, I worked at a national insurance company as a claims adjuster and after every claim with an insured, they received a survey asking for input on their experience in the insurance process. As claims adjusters, we were measured by the answers on those surveys even though the questions addressed parts of the insurance process we had no control over. In fact, if the insured answered a question negatively that we had no part of, we were penalized by the poor scores on the survey.
This is the problem with surveys measuring the wrong things.
In your schedule and activities, are you measuring the wrong things? Are you focusing on the negative things, out of your control, that affect your productivity, your mindset, and your work ethic? Do broken systems in your workplace inhibit your best work?
If you are measuring the wrong things in your workflow, you’re going to become disillusioned, disappointed, and overwhelmingly discouraged in your daily activities. This applies whether you’re working, retired, or vacationing. The mindset you possess will determine the vision of your future. Negativity always brings more negativity. Positivity brings positivity and helps you deal with the inevitable negativity.
Even if you became the leader of your own company, schedule, or have enough money to never work again, you’ll never escape the ongoing, persistent, negativity that is everywhere. The question is how will you overcome all of the negativity so it does not affect your productivity?
Consider practicing some of these positive mindset exercises:
Focus on what you can control. In the insurance story, my supervisor readily accepted that the survey system was broken. He asked us what we were going to do about it. What will you do about a broken system that you have no control over? Simply control what you have power to control, and let go of what you have no control over. Do the best at what you can do.
Worry less. Most worrying situations never come to pass but they sure take up space in our minds. Think more about the positive options rather than the negative options. When you land on negative soap operas in your mind, it affects your outlook on the future. Surely, this situation can only end badly. Surely, that person is out to get me. Surely, no one supports my obvious gifts and talents I bring to this organization. Even if your worries are legitimate because of organizational toxicity, don’t let it take up space in your mind.
Believe more. Your belief muscle needs exercise. You actually need to build this part of your psyche on a consistent basis so you can operate in a positivity mindset. You have to focus on the best possible outcome of situations. You have to trust that people generally have decent intentions. You have to believe that your future is full of opportunity and not fraught with disappointment.
Practice gratitude. Being thankful for the little things actually helps you get through the negative bigger things. Don’t take the normal, everyday things for granted. Be thankful if you got up this morning. Be thankful if you have a consistent roof over your head. Be thankful if your table has enough food. Your gratitude is the daily fuel for your positivity tank.
Just laugh. In some cases, humor is the best thing in negative situations. You won’t be able to laugh in bad situations if you’re deadly serious in every other circumstance. Enjoy life for crying out loud.
In the Vision Planner, you get to set the theme for every new month you plan. Consider how you can build your positivity mindset into forecasting the potential of the next month. You attract what you expect. Maybe not word for word but concept for concept. If you look for a problem hard enough, you’ll find it. If you look for a treasure long enough, you’ll discover it was hiding in plain sight all along.
Build your positivity, work through negativity, and modify your approach to the present in order to shape the reality of your future.
Happy planning!
The Vision Planner is available in nine different hardback covers and is timeless so you can begin at any point in the year.
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