Positive Mindset in the Workplace

by Alex Manzi, Life Coach, Public speaker and host of the In “The Moment”-Podcast.

We’ve all heard people say ‘just be more positive’, ‘see the bright side’ or ‘positivity wins’ and it’s easy to see how these can apply to everyday life, but how can you make these apply to being at work and in your workplace?

From my time working inside big corporations — in Advertising and then working in Social Media at the BBC — and now working for myself as a freelancer, as well as building up my coaching business, I can fully understand the pressures that come with your work.

But what if I told you that those pressures always start with you?

Our minds work in a very powerful way so that whatever you focus on the most, your brain will choose to look out for the evidence to back that up.

For example, when you have a huge to-do list staring at you or a big deadline approaching, if you focus on how much there is to get done, your brain will automatically backup your thoughts by reminding you of the endless amounts of tasks and sign-offs that are needed to complete your project or tick everything off or your to-do list.

For all of the worry and stress that this can create, can you actually remember the last time you didn’t get everything completed when it really really mattered?

Me neither!

So if you know that you will inevitably get through all of the work, you could instead focus on getting each task done individually and what you will feel like once you do manage to complete everything. By doing this, your brain will help you find the solutions to powering through your list.

What you have to realise is that the external factors that are happening at work, don’t directly affect your thoughts and feelings. In fact, it is your thoughts and feelings that create the experience that you have.

Every thought you have comes with a feeling attached to it, either good or bad and this creates your experience in the moment, before the thought slides right on by and then the next thought comes into your head. Spoiler alert: each thought generates randomly.

However, when you attach yourself to any particular thought and feeling, you then create a deeper experience by giving the thought more power than it deserves. We know this as ‘overthinking’ or even ‘controlling’ your thoughts.

While I do believe it is possible to create a more positive thought process; controlling your thoughts can only lead to overthinking because when you are trying to control your thoughts, you are only adding more thinking into the mix!

But when you allow each thought to pass without attaching yourself to it, your brain will default back to clarity.

So how can you apply this understanding to your work?

From personal experience, I have always struggled at work when I feel as though my brain is cluttered and I’m trying to stay on top of more than one thing at once. My focus slips, my productivity goes down and my thought pattern becomes negative.

To combat this, you have to allow yourself to be fully present and focussed on each task as you do them, you have to allow yourself to work from a state of clarity. And this can feel pretty impossible when you have a million things whizzing around in your head.

There are a few things which I have found particularly helpful when trying to default back to this level of clarity so that I can work from a positive mindset.

First of all, knowing when you need to step away from your desk is super important. If you need to step away and go for a short walk, do it. If you need to step away and take 3 deep, beautiful breaths, do it. If you need 15 mins to go and read the newspaper with a cup of tea so that you can allow your stream of thoughts to reset, do it.

Taking these moments can be really powerful. Remember, it’s all about allowing your mind to work from a place of clarity. If you can recognise when your thinking is clogged up, you have to allow the thoughts to fall away so that you can refocus to your work.

Secondly, I’ve always found it really helpful to separate out ‘organising’ vs ‘doing’. Find the moments in your work day to check and respond to emails, to schedule your day, to organise your to-do list, to arrange meetings and separate these out from making calls, working on your presentation, writing your article, etc.

There are clear differences between ‘organising’ work and ‘doing’ work. So you might want to break up your day something like this; spend 30 mins in the morning organising your day, then 2 hours completing tasks, then another hour of organising before a couple more hours of doing.

The more you can separate these out and focus on each one, the more clarity you will find. There’s nothing worse than being mid-flow during writing a presentation, only to be distracted by an “important” email. When you try to move between too many tasks, you create too much thinking.

Which brings me on to the next point, which is prioritising. Knowing how to prioritise your work is key. If you really want to be working from a positive mindset, you have to know that you can give your full attention to the task you are doing. If you have 10 things on your to-do list; which are the 4 most important to complete? Tackle those one-by-one and then focus on the rest of your list.

If you’re working on a task knowing that there is something way more important to be doing, then your thinking will be distracted. Remember this is all about working from a place of clarity and allowing yourself to be fully focussed.

But what about other people and their negative energy?

You can’t let other people’s energy affect you. Every person will carry their energy in different ways but you can only control what you can control and ultimately that is how you react and respond to other people and external situations.

You have to take ownership of your own energy. Carry yourself with the positive energy you want to give out. And if there are people at your work who always carry negative energy with them and suck the fun out of every situation, just remember that only you have the power to affect your energy.

Being positive is all about perspective. It’s about taking a step back and having a ‘zoomed out’ look on the big picture. It’s about recognising how your thoughts are creating your experience and the energy that you are giving out.

It’s about accepting that it’s fine to have moments of stress and worry, as much as it’s fine to have moments of joy and excitement, as long as you understand that each of these moments are temporary and will pass, unless you give them undue attention and create a deeper feeling or begin overthinking.

A positive mindset at work really wins when you allow yourself to find the moments of clarity. From here you can fully focus on the task at hand, knowing that everything else will be dealt with whilst you are dealing with it.

The way I see it, we spend our time living our lives through our thinking so by stripping everything back to the default clarity of our mind, we can allow our ourselves to live and work from a more positive mindset.

If you’d like to connect with me, you can find me on instagram @IAmAlexManzi or via email on alex@thedreamersdisease.co.uk