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Climbing the Mountain is About Believing It’s Possible

/ Dave Eberwein / Leave a comment

You hear it.

No one else hears it, yet it can be quite loud — as well as effective. ‘Self-talk’.

And, it’s critical for effective Leadership.

When we talk about Leadership qualities, most of the conversation tends to be about what an effective leader DOES. Leadership is certainly about doing good stuff but, at the heart of it is having the right inner voice. Leaders who have it propel themselves through a solution-seeking lens of optimism and hope and are the ones who lead us through difficult times.

There’s an interesting article on self-talk by Dr. Shonna Waters (The Power of Positive Self Talk and How You Can Use It, June 2021) where she discusses this strength.

WHAT IS SELF-TALK?

Self-talk is the stream of consciousness that runs through our head every day. It can be positive or negative — and typically falls in line with whether you are a positive or negative person. Successful people use positive self-talk to overcome the stray negativity that enters their mindset from time to time.

I’d rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right.

Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster.

Elon Musk

Besides the obvious benefit of using positive self-talk as a spring board to create solutions, there is some research that also points to some interesting physical and psychological benefits:

benefits-of-self-talk

These are big WINS that are worth paying attention to!

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Resilience – Digging Deeper Than We Thought We Could

/ Dave Eberwein / Leave a comment

Human beings possess what some researchers call a psychological immune system, a host of cognitive abilities that enable us to make the best of even the worst situation.

Lara Aknin, Jamil Zaki and Elizabeth Dunn, The Atlantic (July 2021)

We are capable of more than what we probably think we are capable of sustaining. Researchers Aknin, Zaki and Dunn conducted a review of close to 1,000 research studies examining hundreds of thousands of people across nearly 100 countries and they came to a conclusion:

We are remarkably adept at finding solutions to what might appear to be insurmountable problems.

THE MENTAL HEALTH CHECK

You’ve probably heard that the coronavirus pandemic triggered a worldwide mental-health crisis. This narrative took hold almost as quickly as the virus itself. In the spring of 2020, article after article—even an op-ed by one of us—warned of a looming psychological epidemic.

As clinical scientists and research psychologists have pointed out, the coronavirus pandemic has created many conditions that might lead to psychological distress: sudden, widespread disruptions to people’s livelihoods and social connections; millions bereaved; and the most vulnerable subjected to long-lasting hardship. A global collapse in well-being has seemed inevitable.

Lara Aknin, Jamil Zaki and Elizabeth Dunn, The Atlantic (July 2021)

Alarm bells were ringing.

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I’m Positive About Being Positive

/ Dave Eberwein / 2 Comments

I think I’m a fairly positive person.

I tend to stay relatively calm even when the seas are choppy. I try to look for the learning in a situation rather than creating a complaint when things don’t go well. I look for reasons when I see someone’s behaviour that is rude or negative. I try not to jump to conclusions by assigning intent when I really don’t know.

Babies are Positive When it Fits – Adults can Make a Choice

But, by no means am I perfect. I’m quite imperfect actually.

I have my moments of frustration and if you hang out around me often enough you will see me get a tad ‘grumpy’ every now and then. I get like this when when I’m especially tired or overwhelmed — or when everything around me seems to be an overly dramatic soap-opera.

Being positive is often a choice. So, I work to choose positivity whenever I can. I think better. I respond better. I know I make better decisions.

But, can one’s positive mindset actually make a difference in other areas?

  • Physiologically?
  • Emotionally?

Research seems to think so. We’ve all heard of the placebo effect and how someone with a positive mindset about a drug or therapy can help overcome a physical ailment of some kind. And while it might seem obvious, I went looking for some evidence to see if there is any link between a positive attitude and a better educational experience.

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