It has to be emotionally exhausting to be a person who seeks the worst life offers. Yet, there are so many who are mired in this mental state of negativity. And, of course, from them we hear that nothing seems to ever go right. There’s a reason for that.

When person always expects and seeks the negative in life, guess what they find and get? Negatives. The mind searches for, selects and dwells on whatever we tell it to. Tell it to hunt for everything that is negative and it finds everything that is negative. But that is not of much use to the person seeking to make progress.

To progress in life, in any venture, the mind must be trained to dig for and uncover the positive aspects that can be gathered and stacked, one atop the other, into achievements. Opportunities for advancement within any venture only come from uncovering the positives.

  1. Learn to switch off the negativity by consciously developing a habit of seeking some positive element, even during the most negative happenstance. For those of you who relate to oriental philosophy, this is the practical application of theory of “Yin and Yang”.
  2. Develop a habit of self-reliance and self-confidence. Trust that you will be strong enough and intelligent enough to improvise and to think through solutions at the time of even the worst events.
  3. But, don’t be foolish. Don’t ignore warning signs and events that have logical consequences related to cause and effect. If you know of a cause, expect the effect. If you can change the cause, you will get a different effect. Cause and effect are always linked. Change one, change the other.
  4. Crack open the egg shell. Every problem has a solution within it. Discover how the problem originated. Who has the problem?  How intense is it? What or how will it affect other events or other people? In other words, spend time discovering the full spectrum of issues.
  5. Pain points are essential steps to solving problems and turning events into your favor. Those pain points can be your own or those of others that may be acting as obstacles. These can be emotional, financial, imaginary or real. Who is feeling the pain and why?
  6. Are you able to address the pain points? If not, can you be instrumental in negotiating or bridging resources that are capable of doing so? Can you delegate to others who have the skills?
  7. Recognize that no building springs up overnight. Likewise, no solution is intantaneous. Be satisfied with small steps in the right direction towards a solution. Use those small steps as learning experiences.
  8. Stay alert. Be alert to opportunities that may arise from each step. Often, the mere act of becoming involved, or of experimenting with any changes, will alter the trajectory and the dynamics of events such that unplanned opportunities may arise.
  9. Plan, but remain flexible. Be ready to make changes to your plans when facts and data make a forceful case for change.
  10. If it appears that you can’t win, call in additional resources if you are certain those resources can bring the matter to a positive resolution. Otherwise, if you can’t win, make an early decision to abandon the effort while costs remain at their lowest point.
  11. Remain realistic. When someone presents problems or issues, stay positive, seek the positive elements, and lay out a positive response, but keep both feet firmly planted on planet earth.