Step Back and See the Bigger Picture.

What a fascinating week this has been. I had the privilege to speak at a conference in Stockholm Sweden earlier this week and then ran my Mental Resilience Masterclass on behalf of Live and Learn for Expertise Home Care in Maidstone Kent.

The talk in Stockholm was for a large organisation and I was booked on the back of someone seeing me speak in Dresden Germany earlier this year. I have never been to Sweden before and it was a great experience to enjoy the culture of this city.

A great experience

I was scheduled to speak after lunch to inspire the audience and the combination of my stories, proven mental resilience techniques and robust researched evidence was well received.

The Masterclass for Expertise Home Care was great fun and they were an excellent group who really enjoyed the day with very positive feedback. My mum Janina is 96 and care workers come to see her every morning and every evening, so the great service Expertise Home Care deliver really resonated with me.

I came across this article and it made me think:

Step Back and See the Bigger Picture.

“One day the Chamber of Commerce in a small town invited a successful businessman to come and speak. The local economy was bad and they were discouraged, so his job was to motivate them.

He took a large piece of white paper and made a red dot in the centre of it. ‘What do you see?’ he asked the audience.

One person replied, ‘I see a red dot.’ The speaker said, ‘Fine, but what else do you see?’

Others chimed in, ‘A red dot.’ The speaker asked, ‘Don’t you see anything else besides the dot?’ The audience responded with a resounding ‘no!’

The speaker said, ‘You’ve overlooked the most important thing; you’ve missed seeing the sheet of paper!’

Then he went on to explain that in life we are often distracted by small, dot-like failures and experiences.

They keep us from seeing the blessings and successes that are more important than the disappointments that try to monopolise our attention and drain our energy.

The poet wrote, ‘Two men looked through prison bars. One saw mud, the other stars.’ What are you looking at?

Are you so preoccupied with what is that you’ve lost sight of what can be?”

What we think about affects us emotionally

This is something I talk about in my Masterclasses where each day we experience negative things which appear in our day like dark dots. They could be a traffic jams, the children not getting ready for school, being late for a meeting, bad phone calls, tough meetings or a client pulling out of an agreed deal.

What we focus on determines our future

If we focus on one of these dark dots, we experience negative feelings usually fear or anger. These negative emotions change the way we feel very quickly, and we soon lose energy and feel down.

To change this, we need to see the bigger picture and focus on what is going well in our lives. As we do this the positive emotions change the way we feel, and we experience higher energy levels and a feeling of positivity.

Thoughts for the week:

1. Do you focus on the negative things more than the positive?
2. Every day negative things happen, and they appear like dark dots in your day.
3. As you focus on these negative things your energy levels drop and you feel down.
4. Change your focus to the bigger picture and focus on what is going well in your life.
5. As you do this observe your improved energy levels and feelings.

Well that’s if for this week have a wonderful weekend and Don’t Give Up. .

Warm regards

John

Off the Wall – How to Develop World Class Mental Resilience available HERE
http://www.jdmindcoach.co.uk/product/off-the-wall-how-to-develop-world-class-mental-resilience/ (Special offer. Put in code 10POUND when prompted to receive a signed copy for £10 including postage and packing – UK only)