I went to a sports tournament recently to cheer on my daughter and her school team. It was fun. As a parent I loved the opportunity to cheer this group of nine-year old girls on as they ran around the court, but I have to be honest as a sports team, they aren’t very good. They tried their best and were initially enthusiastic but ended up losing their first two games. By their third match, having failed to score anything, heads were drooping, feet were getting heavy and it was clear that most of them would rather be anywhere other than on that court. It was hard to watch from the sidelines as these little girls struggled to keep going.
Shout a little louder
Between their third and their fourth (and thankfully final) game myself and the other parents did what we could to raise morale and promote every kind of positive vibe you can think. When the match started, all the moms and dads were cheering on our team, shouting encouragement and positivity, and generally being loud and enthusiastic. I’d love to tell you that our team won but they didn’t. Did the encouragement help? Yes it did. They had more energy and didn’t look as defeated. There were moments when the girls even played better but they still lost. For all the positive thinking, encouragement and loud ‘You can do it’s’, our team still didn’t achieve a positive result.
Power of positivity
So often in life when things are tough or you have to dig a little deeper to realise your goals you’ll be told to ‘think positive’, ‘believe you can do it’ or ‘visualise a positive outcome’. We’ve been encouraged to believe that by changing our attitude and giving off positive vibes we can work miracles. It’s true, being positive does make a difference to how you feel, your energy levels and your overall outlook but sometimes being positive alone won’t go far enough towards taking you out of your current state and putting on the right track to achieve something bigger.
Reality check
It didn’t matter how positive my daughter’s sports team was, they were never going to be as strong as the other teams. They didn’t need to be positive, they needed to improve their skills and spend time practicing in order to improve and become stronger. We sometimes hope that thinking right or looking on the bright side is going to be the key ingredient to securing us a win, but in many circumstances if we don’t have the basics down and haven’t put in the work beforehand positive thinking is just feel-good noise and hot air.
Make a change
Maybe your life doesn’t look the way you want it to? We all have moments when we look back at the dreams we had and realise that somewhere along the way they got a little lost and our current situation doesn’t quite measure up to the heights we once hoped for. When that happens you have a choice. You can be positive, visual your preferred reality, boost your confidence with affirmative statements and ‘believe’ everything will turn out fine. Or you can make a change, begin working towards greater things, make decisions that will alter your course, and actively pursue a better tomorrow.
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