Let’s get passionate!
How about turning ‘Stress’ into ‘Passion’? What if you could turn all those things that cause you stress into opportunities for something else – learning something new, building or mending a relationship, getting some feedback, stepping out of your comfort zone, widening your horizons, influencing the working culture, helping someone through a challenge, coaching a colleague? Well, is there anything stopping you, other than your own mind and free-will?
“I feel sorry for the person who can’t get genuinely excited about his work. Not only will he never be satisfied, but he will never achieve anything worthwhile.”
Walter Chrysler
In the same way as stress creeps up on you unawares, step by step, until you feel physically ill, passion builds up too – but rather than become ill, you feel vibrant and energised. Stress can start with one incident – a negative comment from a colleague, manager, partner or maybe team member, a meeting which didn’t go well, a client who didn’t buy, a target missed, a task you have to rather than want to do, sheer volume of work.
Whether you allow the stress to build up will depend on your thinking. It’s easy to allow your thinking to downward spiral – the customer who didn’t buy on one occasion becomes ‘the market is becoming more difficult’ or ‘I’m a lousy salesman’. The manager who says ‘not right now I’m really busy’ becomes ‘he never listens to me’ or ‘I can’t get my point across’. The meeting that didn’t go well becomes ‘meetings are a waste of time’ and so on. Let’s call this blue square thinking – because your thoughts can get stuck in the corners whilst you are feeling ‘blue’. Thinking in this way is unproductive, and at worst can cause extreme stress and illness, and as Walter Chrysler says ‘you are unlikely to be satisfied or achieve anything worthwhile’.
But wait, there is light at the end of every tunnel. It may not seem like it when you are in the darkest depths, but it is there nonetheless, and as long as you don’t decide to stay in the darkness, you will eventually find it. It stands to reason therefore that every blue square thought has the possibility of being positive. Let’s call this alternative orange circle thinking – because there are no corners to get stuck in and orange suggests light and growth. So, if you want to turn stress into passion then begin to look for the orange circles, i.e. the opportunities. In the same way as stress creeps up then so will passion as you turn incidents into opportunities, enjoy work more and attract other people with your positive outlook.
I am not just talking about positive thinking – of course this is important, and if it was so easy why isn’t everyone thinking in this way? Well, it’s usually because the ability to judge other people and circumstances happens with lightening speed. If the judgement is negative then this influences the following thoughts, and pretty soon you have a head full of the stuff.
So, the first step is to replace judgement with curiosity. Making a judgement means that you have taken an incident and placed a meaning on it. If left unchallenged your unconscious mind will gravitate towards finding evidence to support your judgement and sure enough you will probably be able to find it. In the process you may have unwittingly ignored all evidence which supports a contrary view. Making the judgement has closed the door on all other possibilities. Instead of making a judgement ask yourself –
- I wonder what caused him to say that?
- What is making me think I am being micro-managed? (see Quadrant 1 E-Book – Working with Patterns)
- How could the meeting have been improved?
- What could I have done to make the delegation go better?
- How can I utilise this feedback?
- What is it that I am doing that causes people to think I don’t trust them?
- What can I do differently that will help me to get my idea across?
- What do I know about this person that will help me build a more productive relationship?
- How can I help Sally to understand?
By being curious you give yourself time to look for orange circles of possibility. You also retain the responsibility for making things better instead of handing it to someone else. This means that you are much more in control and less likely to develop the feeling of being out of control and stressed. You are also taking more responsibility for your own behaviour and not merely pointing the finger of blame in other directions. When you seek to blame you place the power in the circumstances and thus disempower yourself.
Let passion creep up on you, build those orange circles into a boiling cauldron of positive energy, satisfaction, learning and enjoyment.
Pat Hutchinson
If you need help with techniques for building passion call us on 0870 762 1300 to discuss the pathway most appropriate for you.
Passion is infectious – why not be a champion?
