Dear Leader,
I trust this letter meets you in pursuit of wisdom.
There is this new challenge I’ll like us to play this week, and the purpose is to teach us to focus on positivity.
In recent times, I realize how much trauma a lot of young people in Nigeria are facing. It is showing in the simple things we share on social media in form of jokes or cruise and the kind of content we allow to go viral from our handles.
People are happily sharing stories of failed relationships or marriages and producing negative opinions of deceased influential figures.
As a leader, you don’t need to have an opinion or voice an opinion over every trendy topic. Most times, it reveals the condition of your mind. Most of us have been conditioned to talk more about our failures than we do celebrate our successes.
For example, It is easier for people to remember 10 ways they messed up than come up with 10 victories or small wins they had in a day. It's a conditioning, and as leaders, you must re-condition yourself for success.
So, I was thinking about a simple challenge we can all play:
Ask your spouse, room mates or family members to collect N1,000 from you anytime they catch you utter negative thoughts or comments. It’s that simple.
Will you be willing to do this challenge for 40 days?
In the start of this challenge, it will be amazing how much you will have paid, but if you continue with the challenge after some days, there will be fewer negative thoughts and comments coming from you because you will have become more aware and stopped the negativity before it comes out of your mouth.
According to research, the average person talks to him or herself about 50,000 times a day, and the research shows that 80% of that self-talk is negative. Whether you know it or not, negative thoughts have powerful effects on us. Negative comments come from negative thoughts and they affect our attitude and motivation to act.
The key to dealing with this is to realize that YOU are ultimately in charge of whether to listen to, to agree or to share the negative thoughts and comments.
YOU ARE IN-CHARGE.
Just because it came to your mind or because a popular influencer said it doesn’t mean it is true.
Ask yourself:
Is this thought or comment helping me and others or is it hurting me and others?
Will this get me and others close to where we want to go in life or take us further away?
Is it motivating me and others to action or is it blocking me and others with fear and doubt?
You have to learn to challenge every thought and words that are not serving you and the society you live in to create greater success.
And the challenge I provided above is one way to challenge it.
Will you take the challenge?
Until next time,
Stay Focused.
- Great Owete