Be Positive

Negative people are not promoted. Sales people who rubbish their competitor’s product do not achieve sales, employers who malign their bosses or their organizations find themselves candidates for de-selection. Remember, if you run your organizations or job down what you are saying to others and yourself about whom and what you are?

If you or the people you choose to associate with, regard work as

• The daily grind
• The rat race
• The funny farm
• The treadmill

It will become just that and your chance of success, how-ever you quantify it, will be minimized.
Positive people appear confident, in control, attractive and they are usually the candidates for organizational reorganization and promotion.
It is difficult to be negative and happy at the same time. Yes, of course there will be difficult and trying times both for yourself and your organization and part of the way through those difficulties will be achieved by being positive.

Personal affirmations

One of my favorite quotes is from Henry Ford who said, lf you think you can or you can’t, you‘re right.
To a certain extent we are who we tell ourselves we are.
It is all in the head as we are told. We behave in the way we think we should and act according to who we think we are. Like most things this is sometimes helpful and sometimes not so.
We continually have conversations with ourselves inside our heads. Those of you who doubt this are probably thinking. Do I have conversations with myself? If and it is this inner voice which gives us information about ourselves who we are and what we are. Sometimes, though, this information is planted there at a very early age by significant adults who are not always correct in their judgment. You will remember that story of the ugly duckling who thought he was just that and presumably acted accordingly until he was told he was a beautiful swan. If you think of yourself, and tell yourself you are just a progress chaser, personnel officer or sales person, it is unlikely that you will make Materials Controller, Human Resources Director or Sales Director.
Junior people act, behave and dress differently from senior people in organizations. If you tell yourself you are a junior person you will think, act, behave, perform and dress accordingly and, mainly because of this, you stay there. If you choose to stay low in the organization, then that is fine but if you wish to move on then affirmations will certainly help.
Now what is interesting about affirmations is that they should be phrased in the present tense as if you are that person already. If you say I am trying to become a Data Processing Manager/Judge/Brigadier, just think about what you are really saying to yourself.
It is far better with your affirmations to project yourself into the future. Then repeat your affirmation to yourself on a regular basis.
It is said of one of the present Cabinet ministers that in the 1950s as young man he wrote on a napkin in a London restaurant in 1990 Downing Street. He has not made it yet and but he is very close.
You might find this difficult to believe, that by telling yourself about yourself you can change your future, in fact change your environment. If you are one of these people then tell yourself, as an experiment, for 21 days that you are a lucky person. Just say it on a regular basis and I am a lucky person. You will be amazed at how lucky you actually become.

And you can see how this is a loop and once you are in it you can spiral up constantly improving yourself, your work and your situation.
Affirm yourself to become yourself and achieve your career ambitions. Remember Henry Ford: If you think you can or you can’t you‘re right.
Now you cannot expect affirmations to achieve miracles (although some people with an incurable disease have done just that) or reverse history. It would not be helpful for me to say I have a full head of hair or I am President of the United States since I am fairly thin on top and I was not born in the USA. But I could say, if it was what I wanted, I am an attractive person or I am a person of influence in politics. Clearly, an affirmation will not make me a teenager again nor a champion swimmer since both require me to be under 20, but there are lots of things I want to achieve and affirmations will help.
There is an activity for you to do on affirmations at the end of the book.
Here are some things to do with your affirmations:
Print them on cards and read them morning, noon and last thing at night.
Place affirmation cards on mirrors, headboards, desks and other suitable places,
Say them out loud; better still, chant or sing them to yourself during private
moments.
Make a recording of them and play them to yourself regularly.
Review how far you have come in the achievement of your affirmation.