The How-To Post

How-To Accelerate your Career with True Positivity

Have you already asked this to yourself: “How can I boost my career? How can I stand out at workplace?” You are not alone – not at all! There are zillions of factors written about, which are said to affect how others perceive you in your workspace and which are supposedly predictors for career success. Yet, these often remain quite confusing, in particular as many of these factors are hard to define and hence hard to work on.

In fact, there are many personal traits e.g. charisma, attractiveness or network that can play an important role for bringing your career to the next level, however, one of the most underutilized and under-reported one is “Positivity”, true and authentic positivity.

Besides all those competencies like marketing, selling skills, understanding a P&L, etc. etc., which you can all attend courses for or you will get taught on-the job, the single most important trait, not only for a successful  career but also personal growth, integrity and eventually fulfilled and happy self, is “Positivity”.

What I don’t mean with “Positivity” is running around your workplace, meetings or customers and pretending everything will be GREAT (I think we all remember too well leaders bullshitting us by again and again repeating how great all is and how great it is going to be. This, of course, is a totally fake positivity, it’s not authentic and most people know or at least feel that something is just not right here.

What I mean with positivity is a true and genuine approach to challenges ahead of you, focusing on the opportunities rather than all the risks and threats. This mindset can actually be applied to both business and personal matters and is probably one of the most powerful approaches that could transform your life – in many ways.

Surely you have heard someone telling you to think positive when dealing with a genuine challenge, isn’t it? Here is the thing: “think positive” does not even come close to such inner positivity, I am writing about here in this blog. Think positive is just a platitude, an empty phrase, a mind-fuck that does not connect to your inner self, unfortunately.

What I am referring to as “Positivity” is a positive energy that you can learn to create in you and that your co-workers, your team, your boss, your customers and, of course, your family can feel. Once you have found your way to ignite your very own source of positive energy in you, you and everyone around you will experience a transformation of yourself that will blew everyone’s mind off. I have experienced it myself, repeatedly: people proactively coming to me asking me where I get this incredible positive energy from, a positive energy that is felt and that has become one of my signature traits all along my career and that has been one of the key underlying traits to build such a successful career of my own. There are quite a few excellent research papers out there (in particular the ones from Emma Seppaelae & Kim Cameron – LINKS) that substantiate and proof why, what the authors call “positive relational energy“, is the single predictor for success that outpaces any other like charisma, influence, personality, attractiveness, etc..

Here are the steps what to do, for starting your journey to become such bundle of positive energy, not only for accelerating your career but also for becoming a more fulfilled, a happier you – professionally and personally:

Step #1: Observe the bandwidth of your own emotions yourself & asks people close to you to provide more immediate feedback about the emotions they observe in you

For becoming a source of positivity at your workplace, developing a deeper awareness about the emotions affecting your day by day interactions with the people around you and the results of your own work is your goal. As you know by all the awareness campaign around you and our life’s, awareness needs to be build, literally, hence do not expect to happen overnight but only by being steadfast about your goal of creating this positivity.

Insight

It is much easier and much more efficient having someone around you who you appreciate for giving you candid feedback.

Step #2: Try to identify emotion patterns in yourself and try to understand underlying drivers behind such patterns

In order to identify “patterns” I truly advise taking notes about your own observation. As a silent reminder best always have a small notebook with you for writing down moments of more intense emotions – both the positive and the negative ones.

Alert

It is absolutely humane to over-access the self-control we think we have over our actions. Hence be aware of this psychological trap and take measurements to proactively counter this over-confidence in yourself LINK https://www.britannica.com/topic/hindsight-bias

Step#3: Focus on the most dominant pattern identified and do a thorough analysis by identifying the opportunity to break/improve this pattern to the better

Be smart and pragmatic about making first significant progress towards becoming a positive energizer. Review the notes in your notebook, take time out of your busy schedule e.g. by going for a walk to reflect upon your own observations and emotions and seek feedback from a person of trust to help you focus on the most regular pattern you display and to find angles how to change/break this pattern, effectively. One identified push yourself (initially it needs pushes) to identify positive aspects around any specific challenge you are facing.

Advise

Whatever pattern identified, try to switch perspectives on how to look at this pattern. The ability to proactively switch perspectives is another powerful trait that speed up not only this journey but your career itself – more about this topic in a separate blog.

#4: Pick a low hanging fruit e.g. an already positive energy you could identify in you or a negative emotion affecting your professional life a bit too often and try to transform it into positivity by exploring opportunities around the situation facing.

Once you are relatively certain about a specific emotional pattern identified, try to reach the next level by picking a single emotion or moment of energy in such pattern and identify perspectives (here we are again J) that would allow you to attach a (even) more positive view to it. Try to reinforce the elements that support such transformation and try to switch perspectives around negative vibes around it.

Warning

Go with your pace and remain patient if you don’t see immediate results with such an approach. As we all know, changing behavior and established patterns is bloody hard and often results in two steps ahead and then one step back. Another great opportunity to test your progress in looking at the small but positive successes made and to stay persistent along your journey.

Step #5: Surprise yourself and the people at your workplace with a new sense of positivity and the impact on the goals and results deliver

Become an agent of positive change in your workplace by building upon the first success, no matter how small you might feel these might still be and become more confident trusting your now more positive emotions. Accept any feeling of risk/taking proactively focusing on positive outcomes – be it relational matters or executional matters. Continue to observe and reflect and to have someone around you who can act as a mirror and how isn’t afraid giving candid but constructive feedback to you so that you can stay on that path, which eventually will accelerate your career to the next level – without a thought of doubt!

Final encouragement

Stay confident about the behavioral change you are driving in yourself. It is you and only you who can bring out the better you in yourself. It certainly requires some energy and resilience for you to focus on exciting opportunities ahead of you (rather than all the problems) and to generate a more and more positive approach to work matters but it is totally worth it and it will transform yourself and your career. Use your inner drive to accelerate your career to at the same time become a better AKA more positive you.

With these 5-steps you already have a lot at hand to start your journey for truly becoming a positive energizer and to transform not only how you are perceived by e.g. your boss but also the quality of the results you deliver for the company and, probably most important, a much greater happiness, in whatever you do.

Follow my 5-steps above and let me know how creating your own source of positive energy works out for you. I am truly keen to hear back from you coaching@patrickmausfeld.com.

You got this!