Blog
At the beginning of 2020 I had the best start to any year I’ve ever had in my business. I had bookings all across Europe and my diary was full well into the second half of the year. I had finally made it and I was going to enjoy the rewards of all the hard work I had put into building this business.
These were extremely exciting times, and I could see the world opening up to my Mental Resilience message. I had visualised this time coming and how momentum would carry this forward with minimal input from me.
I loved travelling across the world experiencing new cultures and meeting amazing people who I learned so much from and created great friendships along the way. Life was good and I was loving it.
It all came crashing down
Then in March Covid 19 hit and everything changed. All my bookings were cancelled and within days and I was left with nothing. I sat in my office at home wondering what was happening and trying to stay as positive as I could. It was hard, very hard.
People assume that motivational speakers like me have a unique characteristic which means we aren’t affected by negative circumstances and we always walk around with a positive disposition. Well, I’m here to tell you that this is not the case. We are all human and when the world comes crashing down it hurts.
It hurts so much that we wonder if we are going to get back up one more time. We have doubts, we experience fear and we wonder if this is it. There aren’t any people out there who aren’t affected when disaster touches their lives. We are all the same in that respect.
We are all affected by negative situations
Everyone including you and I are affected when tough things hit us, death of close ones, businesses going down, marriages breaking up, serious illness being diagnosed, Covid 19. It is a normal human response to be affected negatively when things go wrong.
What I have discovered over the past 11 months is that we can use techniques to help us get out of the hole and back up fighting again.
There are two key principles I work with in my Masterclasses and talks
The conscious mind can only think of one thing at a time.
Your thoughts directly affect your feelings.
If you are constantly dwelling on the negative things in your life you will feel bad because your thinking affects your feelings. It’s a very simple principle what you think is what you feel. Remember that you can only think of one thing at a time, so if you are thinking of something positive you cannot be thinking of that negative situation.
To change the way you feel you need to change your thinking. If you dwell on the negatives of Covid 19 or any other problems in your life you will feel low and even drift towards hopelessness. This can creep up on you over a period of time often without you being aware of it.
Once you understand this simple principle you can start to change the way you are feeling by changing your thinking.
There are two ways to do this.
- Switch your thoughts to something good in your life. List the things you are grateful for in your mind in pictures or words. Do this for a minute or two and as you do this you will start to experience a change in your feelings. Your mood will start to lift because what you think is what you feel. Once you are feeling a little better take swift action on something and don’t go back to what you were thinking about.
- Use mindfulness to change your state. You only experience stress when you think about the past or the future. When you are in the present moment you cannot be stressed. Mindfulness is focusing on the present moment nonjudgmentally just experiencing the moment. As you focus on a bird in the tree, or beauty of the clouds, or the photograph of your loved one you will experience peace and calm.
Do these two things many times a day. Every time you find yourself thinking about something negative use one of these to help you. When you are in a negative state you have low energy. When you have low energy, you achieve less so you feel bad. When you feel bad you have low energy so achieve even less and so it goes on.
There is a better way
You have to change your thinking first in order to get back up and fight again.
This is what I have been doing for the past 11 months. Yes, I have had many times of concern wondering if at the age of 67 I can build another business – a Virtual business. I am human I have doubts when things go wrong. But what I do is use these techniques not to stay down for long. I get back up firstly in my mind then outwardly in positive actions.
This has led me to achieve some good results
I have written a second book which is proving to be very popular. I have redesigned my website to address the new way of doing business. I have created online Masterclasses which I have been delivering successfully. I have worked with some great people to help me do this thank you Michael and Luke. I am about to embark on developing an online Mental Resilience Course available to everyone across the world.
“It’s not what happens to you in life which counts, it’s how you respond which makes all the difference.”
Two people can experience the same negative event yet each one will respond differently. One will survive and even thrive the other will spiral into despair and hopelessness. It is down to how they process the event in their minds.
I am not superhuman, but I have found a way to minimise the effect of negative situations and a way to introduce positive thoughts and feelings into my daily routines.
Thoughts for the week
- This week every time you feel down list off the things you are grateful for in your mind and observe your feelings. It takes practice don’t give up.
- Practice mindfulness several time each day. Simply focus on something for 20 or 30 seconds and just enjoy everything about that thing.
- Understand that it’s normal to be affected by negative situations but know that you can turn things around by changing your thinking and your actions.
Well that’s it for this week have a wonderful weekend and stay positive
Warm regards
John
Purchase your copy of one of my books using the links below:
https://jdmindcoach.com/product/off-the-wall-how-to-develop-world-class-mental-resilience/
https://jdmindcoach.com/product/100-days-to-mental-resilience/