Is Your Glass Half Empty or Half Full This Holiday Season?

Monday, November 22, 2010

Why attitude is critical to a productive & happy workplace.

There are only 30 shopping days before Christmas.
How does that make you feel--a little tense? This Thanksgiving, not only will we eat too much turkey and watch a lot of football. We will kick off the "perfect storm": End of year projects, 2011 budgeting, poor eating, traffic, parties, shopping, and holiday stress converge in a short 4-week period. It's enough to make the most organized person feel overwhelmed.

Being overwhelmed leads to feelings of inadequacy, tiredness, and apathy at work.
Holiday stress leads to lack of energy, loss of enthusiasm -- and it's contagious. The vast majority of interpersonal communication occurs through mood and body language. In fact only 7% of communication is words. So, imagine if you will: Your coworker walks in at 8:20am, frenetic, late. He barely says good morning and grumbles something under his breath. You can almost see the black cloud over his seat. He is, without a doubt, in a poor mood. How long until that mood creeps over to your side of the room? You can't help it. His negative emotions are contagious.

Take control for a healthier, happier work environment.
If you are in contact with people (especially if you are a manager), you have a responsibility to be a positive role model--because luckily, happiness and feelings of empowerment are also contagious.

Simple changes in our approach to challenges make a huge difference in attitude. Everyone has a positive side, it's just up to us whether we choose to exercise it. See some examples below of typical negative self-talk and how you might apply a positive, "winning", twist:

Negative Self-Talk	Positive Spin
I've never done it before.	It's an opportunity to learn something new.
It's too complicated.	I'll tackle it from a different angle.
I don't have the resources.	Necessity is the mother of invention.
I'm too busy to get this done.	Let me re-visit my priorities and make this happen!
There's no way it will work.	I can try to make it work.
It's too radical a change.	Let's take a chance.
No one bothers to communicate with me. (passive victim)	I'll see if I can open the channels of communication. (confident owner/driver)
I'm not going to get any better at this.	I'll give it another try.
I can't do this.	How can this be done?

Optimism takes practice--but it's worth it.
At first, giving a situation a positive spin takes conscious effort--and you won't always succeed. Look at it as a new exercise in your routine, though. Before you know it, you'll feel better, happier. You'll also have a more positive effect on the people around you, making the holidays a little brighter for everyone.

Enjoy Your Holiday Season!