Building Resilience: Positive Mindset

 

Today begins your 2-week break; I thought I would give you a mini Montana vacation again during this time.  Today's photo is from my back yard of Mandy enjoying the sunset. 

Let's consider how you can build resilience through a positive mindset. You can learn to see and interpret the world positively; however, I am not saying that if you want something enough and really believe in yourself you can make anything happen. This is simplistic thinking, and there are other important elements to consider, such as talent, opportunity, encouragement, focus, hard work, resilience, and luck. The challenge is in finding the skills and techniques that help you maintain a balance between the extremes of negative thinking and naïve positive thinking. 

People who habitually see "problems as threats" undermine their resilience, in part because their bodies are continuously experiencing adrenaline and cortisol associated with stress and negative emotions. This results in their bodies being in constant alert, ready to deal with perceived and actual threats.  

In contrast, an achievable challenge is seen as a potential source of satisfaction. Broadly speaking, one can look at the world in two ways: as a threat or as a challenge. Persistent negative thinking often results in a pattern of negative consequences that can be self-fulfilling, and as a result people become trapped by their automatic thoughts in response to a situation, thoughts that make them feel worse and less able to cope. The first step in correcting negative thinking is to recognize automatic negative thoughts and their possible consequences. Here's a brief list of common automatic negative thoughts, and likely consequences, together with alternative, more positive ways of thinking about the same situation.  

Automatic reaction	Consequence	Alternative
I will never get done	Takes longer to complete	I will get done if I take it step by step, so I will only focus on my next step
There is no point in trying	Won't even try to do something about it	There is always a way
My chair hates me	Does not interact with chair	Let's see if I can understand my chair's point of view.  If that doesn't work out I will try to find another chair.

 Next time, we'll consider this further by looking at increasing optimism. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Send me an email with your ideas. leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu