Motivational

Rule 35: Be cheerful and positive

August 22, 2016

Nigerian Female Enterpreneur, Madam Pamela Adedayo, Founder, Tastee Fried Chiken

If you go into work
each morning with a positive vibe it sets you up as the sort of person to whom
stress and troubles and problems are but as water off a duck’s back. You thus get a reputation as being someone
who is in control, smooth, relaxed, confident and very mature. And all for the sake of a few bars of Moon
River, whistled as you make your way to your desk.

Be cheerful at all
times. So it’s raining out there and
it’s a dark and depressing winter’s afternoon.
Business is slack, interest rates have just gone up again and the boss
is in a foul mood and everyone’s keeping their heads down. It’s still no reason to lose your smile. So it’s a bad day, this too will pass and the
sun will come back. Whatever your
situation things will always get better.

Maintaining a
cheerful and positive outlook is a trick.
At first you don’t have to believe it – just do it. Act it.
Pretend. But do it. After a little while you’ll find it isn’t an
act, you’re not pretending, you genuinely do feel cheerful. It’s a trick.
You are tricking yourself, no one else.
Putting on a smile triggers hormones.
These hormones will make you feel better. Once you feel better you will smile more and
thus produce more hormones. All it takes
is the first few days smiling when you don’t feel like it and you will start a
cycle going that will make you feel better all the time.

“Every
second spent moaning and bitching is a second taken off your life. Every second
spent being cheerful and positive is a second added on. Take your choice”

Once you are seen as
someone cheerful and positive, people will want to hang out with you more –
there is nothing so attractive as a cheerful person.

Bring some flowers
into work and brighten up your desk.
Whistle. Smile. Laugh.
Never reveal that you feel like the pits inside. It’s all too easy when someone says ‘How are you?’ to reply ‘Oh, Ok, I
guess, can’t complain, mustn’t grumble, you know, struggling on’. It’s a
cliché. It’s a habit. Try instead ‘Fine, really good actually,
doing OK’. There’s a trick for you.

So
someone brings you more work that you imply have to do – it’s unavoidable and
part of your remit, and just when you thought you could see a little light at
the end of the tunnel. Easy to say ‘Oh
no, not more bloody work. Can’t
everybody see how busy I am? This really
is too much’. If it’s unavoidable
and moaning isn’t going to change a thing then maybe saying, ‘fine just dump it there, I’ll get on with
it in a moment. Thanks’. Why berate the messenger. I’m sure they didn’t personally generate all
this extra work just to piss you off. So
it’s a drag having extra work to do. So
be cheerful and get on with it. Every
second spent moaning and bitching is a second taken off your life. Every second
spent being cheerful and positive is a second added on. Take your choice.

(Excerpts
from THE RULES OF WORK by Richard Templer Read “How to ask Questions” from The
Rules tomorrow on Asabeafrika)

Rule-to-Work Series