By Jessica Rector, keynote speaker, founder and CEO, Vitalize Unlimited
Is there a Negative Nancy (NN) and Toxic Tim (TT) in the company who are being kept longer than should be? Would the company let them go if it weren’t so short-staffed? One Negative Nancy or Toxic Tim infiltrates the whole company, and it spreads throughout affecting everyone.
Think of it like this: An employee attends a meeting that NN is in. Upon leaving, the employee approaches Positive Polly and shares, “It’s so frustrating dealing with NN. Why is she still here? All we do constantly is listen to her babble about her unhappiness.”
Before people know it, they become Negative Nancys, and the Positive Pollys see the impact the original NNs have made on those people and the team. It only takes one person thinking negatively to bring the whole environment, culture and team down. In order to help, Positive Polly shares the following.
A person has 60,000 thoughts a day and 80% of them are negative. These come in the form of doubt, worry and stress; and are linked to poor attitudes, declining engagement and poor performance.
Most people think they are positive and optimistic, yet negativity shows and they don’t recognize it. In fact, 95% of people’s thoughts are repetitive. So, all of the negative thoughts keep getting repeated, impacting how people show up, speak out, lead and live.
People’s thoughts are the fundamental foundation of everything they do and everything they don’t do, yet oftentimes people don’t think about them.
If like most, people think the same way they always have thought, resulting in the same behaviors, actions and results. If people want to change relationships, communication, interactions and personal confidence, they must first change how they think. Once people change that, then everything else will change as well.
Here is a five-step process to help people change their thoughts to invoke different actions, behaviors and results, and develop a positive work environment.
- Identify – Recognize one’s thoughts. There’s an exercise to help people specifically identify negative thoughts. It’s called the stand-up/sit-down exercise. This is a great exercise to do as a team. Have someone read a set of statements. For every statement people agree with, they will move their bodies. Everyone starts in a stand-up position. For example, if the first statement is “If you’ve ever thought you’re not smart enough,” and people agree, they sit-down. If people disagree with the statement, they remain as is. If the next statement is, “If you’ve ever thought you don’t have enough time,” and people agree, they move (either stand-up or sit-down depending on what was done for the first statement). This repeats every statement read (there should be about 15 statements). During this activity, people can expect to hear laughter evoked by the group, as they are moving for most of them, which shows that negative thinking arises without consciously knowing it. And there are a lot more of them than believed.
- Write it – Once people have identified negative thoughts, it’s important to write them down. Something happens in the brain when writing things down. The thoughts tend to become real, and people remember them more. So, when writing down negative thoughts, people become more mindful when they arise. Follow the rest of the process with just one negative thought. Once one has been mastered, work on another.
- Triggers – What are the triggers for negative thinking? Triggers can be a place, situation, mood, experience or thing. If people have ever had a conversation with others and walked away saying, “Why do I even bother,” then it is known that people can be a trigger too. And many times, it is people. It is important to write down all of the triggers. When people are aware of their triggers, they can be on the lookout for them. When they come up, as they will, people are armed to not allow negative thoughts to follow.
- Reframe – List all the ways to reframe the negative thoughts. There are two ways to do this reframing. First, say the opposite of the negative statement. Instead of saying, “I’m not a good enough leader,” say, “I’m an awesome leader.” The second way is to ask questions. For example, “What courses do I need to take to become a better leader?” “What leadership book should I read to improve my leadership skills?” “Who can mentor me into being a better leader?” People’s brains constantly are in motion. If people say they are not good enough leaders, their brains will validate it in all the ways that it’s true. If people say they are awesome leaders, their brains will validate it with all the ways that it’s true. So, listening to the positive part of the brain will make all the difference in work and life.
- Action – Once people have reframing options, they should pick one to take action on. Nothing changes until action is taken on it. Small action makes a huge difference. If people want to know the best leadership book to read, they initially may think of none or not know any, however, the brain can solve that dilemma. It’ll reply with ideas to look up leadership books on Google, put a post on Facebook asking friends for recommendations or look up Amazon book reviews. Then it’s time to decide which action to take (which book to order and then order it). Small consistent actions are key to eradicating negative thinking.
The more people work through this process the more positive thoughts they have. They will soon recognize negative thoughts in others which can help them master their mindset. People will become the Positive Pollys and help develop positive work environments that employees don’t want to leave.
As the founder of Vitalize Unlimited, the first comprehensive SaaS platform to prevent and end burnout, Jessica Rector helps organizations, leaders and teams Say Yes to eradicate burnout and enhance mental health. As a burnout trailblazer and author of 12 books, her research is used in her consulting and speaking, and often shared on her podcast, “Burnoutable.”
More information: www.JessicaRector.com, www.VitalizeUnlimited.com
