The three gifts
The Positive Intelligence programme invites you to think about life's events neutrally.
We are so used to filtering everything through the lens of good and bad, that it's easy to judge everything that happens as one or the other and get sucked into a spiral of negative thoughts that reinforce the counterproductive behaviours and results I explained above. And while it is justified to do that when something truly tragic happens, we often do it when we spill the milk or have a bad meeting.
In the sustainability sector, keeping level-headed and optimistic, and developing resilience is absolutely key to reaching the results we want and influencing others to become sustainability advocates.
So how can we do that in practice?
We can think about three kinds of gifts this "failed" situation is offering:
- The gift of knowledge: what have I learned from this situation?
In my case: I learned that I can overcome my overwhelm in this kind of situation by preparing well, and then I can deliver a cracking presentation.
- The gift of power: what power or strength has this situation exercised?
In my case, resilience and compassion for myself.
- The gift of inspiration: what idea can the situation spark that can give back to you more than you lost this time?
For me, it was realising that your own mindset is the most important factor in good communication. This has already shifted my focus for my book and will be a real game changer.
Over to you: thinking about a recent "failure" or negative event, what are the three gifts hiding behind it?
This article was originally written for the Green Gorilla weekly newsletter. If you liked it, subscribe to receive more articles like this and learn how to communicate sustainability better, how to be more productive without selling your soul to the work devil, and how to make an impact in the world. Here is the link: https://newsletter.thegreengorilla.co.uk/