How to Handle a Quiet Negative Week

26.3.16

How to handle a quiet negative week

I’m sure I am not the only one in business who has experienced a quiet week of activity. After the hectic weeks leading up to the trip to Dubai it was a big change to experience a quiet week. These times are going to happen to everyone because it’s just the way it is in life. Sometimes it can be too busy and then sometimes not busy enough. It is quite rare to have just the right amount of business flowing through each and every day.

When these times happen it’s how we respond to them which is critically important. We can get negative in our thinking, or we can use techniques to keep us positive and moving forward. I have observed that when you are positive good things seem to happen, and when you move into a negative state, bad things seem to happen.

Delayed decisions

This quiet week is down to several decisions I have been waiting for being delayed. These are nice pieces of work I am looking forward to, but for various reasons no decisions were made last week to go ahead. This can prove a little frustrating and if you let the emotions become negative, things just don’t seem to work out well.

So it is important to use various techniques to keep a positive mindset during these quiet times. The first of these is to look at what is going well in your life and to focus on that every time you feel a negative thought taking root. I have many things in my life to be grateful for and I simply go through these for a minute or two and I Immediately feel more positive.

Energy flows back

I can feel the energy flowing back into my body and my mind seems to clear ready for the next action to take. Successful people seem to keep a high level of energy even when things aren’t going well for them. Behind every success story there is a back story of pain and tough times.

We can look at the people we know personally or see in the news and it looks on the face of it like they had it easy and they are now successful. Nothing could be further from the truth and there is often a story of fighting against the odds, working harder than they ever imagined and never giving up. Even when it seemed impossible they kept going and eventually received the breakthrough they had dreamed of.

Keep a positive mindset

Our stories are no different and wherever you are on your journey you will face tough times and it’s how you respond to these which determine if you will succeed or not. The people who have made it, all tell a story of when they nearly gave up and just as they thought it was all over the breakthrough came.

They kept a positive mindset when others would have given up. They used techniques like gratitude and the reframe technique to ‘go again’. By keeping their energy levels up they had the ability to bounce back from setback after setback. The reframe technique is used to find a seed of positivity in every negative situation you find yourself in.

Reframe Technique

What could be positive about being under pressure at work? On the face of it pressure at work seems to be totally negative but when you look deeper there are positives. For example; you have a job, your boss trusts you with this work, the time flies by, you are learning new things, you are growing as a person and your comfort zone is expanding.

By using these techniques I’ve had a productive week with some new client meetings set up, plus a phone call arranged with a company in Dubai to discuss potential work. So rather than focus on the lack of activity with potential clients I am waiting to hear from; I focussed on what I could do to generate more client leads and that made this quiet week a good week.

Barclaycard Online campaign

One thing I am proud of is to be chosen to front the Barclaycard Twitter marketing campaign for the month of March. This Barclaycard Motivation Tip for the week goes out every Tuesday with the last one next Tuesday. Why me? I guess it’s the fact that I have something useful to say and at the age of 62 have great motivation to achieve as much as I can over the next 18 years!

Thoughts for the week:

1. Be aware that there will be times in your life when things don’t go to plan
2. When negative things happen in your life, look for a seed of something positive
3. Focus on that positive for a while until you start to feel better
4. If you focus on the negative you will lose your energy, if you focus on something positive your energy will flow back
5. Anything worth doing comes with a price to pay – are you willing to pay that price?
6. Make a list of all the things you are grateful for in life. When you face tough times look at that list to change your focus from negative to positive
7. “What you see and what you say is what you get” – so keep away from negative thoughts and words

Well that’s it for another week.

Enjoy this wonderful Easter holiday and stay positive.

Warm regards

John