Your EQ is showing, what is it telling people?
Struggle and pain occur in our lives, we can’t stop it, but we can stop dwelling on the negative.
When a challenge occurs and your stress level rises, your attitude in response to it can either make things worse or not. Negative thoughts can further increase your stress level, affect your relationships, cloud your judgment, and generally make it harder to get through the challenge, or the day.
Do these negative thoughts do anything whatsoever to help resolve the challenge? No. As a matter of fact, those negative thoughts make it harder.
It is not unnatural to have negative thoughts pop into your mind as a new struggle or problem emerges, but it’s what you do next that counts. Do you dwell on those negative thoughts and foster more of them, or do you make the conscious decision to push them out of your mind for something better?
Trying to shift to positive thoughts amid a struggle is not easy. And I’m not suggesting you should be jumping up and down shouting ‘give me more’ amid a struggle. Positive does not have to be overjoyed.
Positive thoughts can be: ‘this won’t last forever and I can get through it,’ ‘this could be a good learning opportunity,’ ‘I’ve faced similar challenges and can work through this one,’ or ‘this issue doesn’t define who I am.’
The steering wheel of your car controls the direction of travel, your attitude controls the direction of your emotions. Where your attitude steers, there goes your emotions. Don’t let the challenge control you, don’t dwell on negative thoughts. Recognize the negative thoughts when they arrive and replace them with something positive. You can’t control when challenges arrive in your life, but you can control the outlook you have for the day and your life.