When it comes to your career journey, how do you fuel up? Do you fill your mind with a high-octane, positive perspective or do you pump it full of toxic sludge? Is what you put into your brain positive and inspiring or negative and demoralizing?
What you focus on affects how you see the world. That in turn affects what you have the potential to achieve. The more positive your outlook, the better the potential for a positive outcome.
Unfortunately, most of us are on a mental junk food binge. You don't have to go any further than the nightly news to find an abundance of that toxic sludge being served up for us to consume. If the stories that show up day after day are any indication, the world is a mighty dark place.
Sure, there is darkness, but do you really need to focus on it? What kind of effect does that have? How does it make you feel? Tragedy. Disaster. Violence.... Not exactly the stuff of dreams, is it?
Why not make a conscious choice to swear off the sludge and feed your mind with positive messages? Inspirational documentaries like Emanuel's Gift and Born into Brothels, for example.
For me, inspirational documentaries are mental multivitamins. Often, they spotlight how people can succeed in spite of incredible adversity. That both inspires me and reminds me how little in life is really out of reach unless I decide it is. They also often highlight people who are making the world a better place, and I love that—it is core to what I do and who I want to be in the world, and it makes me want to do more.
How do you fuel your mind?
After years as a professional malcontent, Curt Rosengren discovered the power of passion. As a speaker, author, and coach, Rosengren helps people create careers that energize and inspire them. His book 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work and his E-book The Occupational Adventure Guide offer people tools for turning dreams into reality. Rosengren's blog, The M.A.P. Maker, explores how to craft a life of meaning, abundance, and passion.
Reader Comments Read all comments (2)
Curt Rosengren of WA 3:10PM December 04, 2008
JohnOpincar of TX 1:38PM December 04, 2008