The Positive Outlook Approach

I’ve been thinking about writing blog posts for weeks now (even worse, I started this one on April 4th but I am determined to finish this time!) but each day comes and goes and I am not able to sit and do it. The last few weeks have been insane. I sort of knew they were going to be because of predictable timelines at work. Since my plan for March was to be kind to myself (more on this later, I promise) I decided that I would tackle this new milestone with a lot of self-compassion, patience and optimism.

I don’t mean optimism in the “things are just fine” rosy glasses, way. I mean that I would approach each day with the expectation that things would turn out ok. And that if they are not okay, it wouldn’t break me. I would just do my best with that day and try again the next day. I also decided to take on the positive outlook approach. I woke up each day thinking about how the day was going to be fine and each time anxiety came up, I’d remind myself that it didn’t mean anything and things were just as likely to go well as they were likely not to go well.

I greeted my family with love and tried not to take out my frustrations out on them. And I tried to have a reasonable idea of which of my personal goals could be dropped on the floor, which could wait, and which would have to get done anyway. I just wanted to be extra-aware this time around and try to set myself up to succeed.

And while the timeline is still playing itself out, I’ll say that this overall approach definitely works. Because here’s what I learned about anxiety and panic: they don’t help. In fact, they hurt. When I am anxious and panicky, I am more likely to react as opposed to act. I am more likely to make decisions from a place of anger, stress and fear. I am more likely to spread my stress, thereby affecting others, too. Which, of course, affects how they�perceive�me and my ability to keep my cool. But, even worse, now they are stressed and they are spreading their stress around, too. It perpetuates.

I already know that when I am in a stress-response, I am not using my pre-frontal cortex and instead making fight-or-flight like decisions which are survival based. Clearly not where I want to operate from at work where I have complicated decisions that require a lot of thinking and evaluation.

This all seems obvious in retrospect (or even when you say it out loud) but the trick is to really apply it in the moment. Just like it’s super obvious that if you want your kids to stop yelling and fighting, yelling at them to be quiet is not the right approach. Alas, the problem is that when you’re in the middle of it, it “feels” like a fight-flight response situation. You feel the stress, the panic, the anger, the frustration and you don’t feel like you have the extra two seconds to not react.

But, you do. You always do.

(unless there’s a tiger in front of you, about to jump. Then you don’t.)

When moments like this happen, I forget that I am at choice. I just panic. I think of the worst scenario, I worry about failing, I feel like it needs to be instantly resolved. I mean instantly.

Alas, it does not.

So, setting these new expectations of myself and being dedicated to being positive and being in the present moment allowed me to sail through March and beginning of April much more smoothly. Not to say I didn’t have some rough days and things didn’t trigger me. But I did much better than usual.

A few weeks before my milestone began, I was struggling with a similar issue at work and feeling like I was constantly triggering on the panic. One of the solutions I came up with my coach was to take a ten minute break when I first noticed the problem. I wasn’t allowed to resolve it for ten minutes. I had to go take a walk, be with my kids, or do something else and then come back to it. I figured this would give my panic time to subside without really impeding the swift resolution of the issue.

What was amazing is that I didn’t even need to implement it. The next time something went wrong, I handled it calmly without having to take my ten minutes. Just knowing it was there for me gave me the shift I needed.

I think this isn’t rare. Most things start with awareness and setting intentions (another thing I’ve been thinking a lot about lately) and once you start paying attention, you can be a lot more purposeful and intentional about the way you live life. And it pays back immediately.

So that’s where I’ve been. Apologies for the quiet here. I will say that I’ve really missed writing and made a commitment to be back here regularly. I hope you’re still here, too, and thank you for your patience with me 🙂