The Truth About Building Positive Currency
Posted on August 23, 2016 by Justin Jensen, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.
Everyone has the potential to build up their resiliency by way of positive currency. The question is, are YOU doing it?
Haven’t heard of Positive Currency before?
Neither have I until recently when I came across an article written by the Harvard Business Review.
Positive Currency is a fantastic concept to strengthen your resiliency, boost overall happiness, and gives you tools to weather some of the rough waves life tosses our way. By building up a healthy “bank account” of positive currency you’ll be able to go a long ways towards your career, health, and relationship goals.
In many ways, we build up our positive currency already, so it’s not like we’re totally empty of this. But I like this concept of currency because how you build it is a lot like what we would do to deposit or withdraw money from a bank. By building up positive experiences you “deposit” them into your “bank account”, and something you “withdraw” from when needed to pull yourself through a tough time.
What’s the best way to build a nice bank account of positive currency? Through gratitude.
BUT before you roll your eyes and tell me you’ve read a million articles about how important gratitude is. It’s important to understand one fundamental principle about gratitude. And that is:
Gratitude is a SKILL
The challenge I find with most people building the habit of gratitude is they either think it’s:
A) Dumb
B) Feels weird
C) Doesn’t feel genuine
D) They don’t think the things they “should” be grateful for are that great or they don’t deserve them.
Do any of these ring a bell?
Think for a moment about a time when you practice a new skill. Maybe it was learning how to cook, or learning a new language, or play an instrument. Really connect with this experience.
Did you absolutely nail it the first few times of practicing?
Probably not.
These are the same feelings we experience when learning just about ANYTHING new. Try learning to a new language. Did you feel dumb? Did it feel weird? Did it at all feel genuine?
Of course not.
But with practice and repetition it started to make more sense, you built confidence with it, and slowly, this new skill started to feel a bit more normal.
It’s the same way with gratitude. The more you practice it, the more normal it becomes, and the more normal it becomes, the more you wake up happy, refreshed, and excited for the day. This is where the energy comes from because practicing gratitude also makes it easier to sleep because your mind isn’t placed in worrying about it’s problems. It’s focus is now on all the cool things going on in life.
Not only more energy in the mornings, but also, when problems come up. These problems don’t become problems anymore, they become opportunities.
This practice can literally change your life and everything in your life because, while the world hasn’t changed, your perspective of the world certainly has. Think about the impact and implications of having a new positive perspective would have on your dating life, social life, work life, and, well, life in general.
Do you think your dates would go better than normal?
Would your relationship with your significant other deepen?
Would people at work be more open and friendly towards you?
Do you think you could get more done?
If I were a betting man (and I am), I would bet yes on all of the above.
Some Quick Daily Gratitude Actions
1) When you wake up in the morning, and perhaps with a cup of coffee, refrain from checking your phone, email, Facebook, Instagram, etc.
(I know, it’s blasphemy to even write this)
The reason why this is so important is because we tend to watch news (which is almost always negative). When we check Facebook or Instagram most people compare themselves to what they see and if they feel it’s better than what they have they get depressed.
So instead, check-in with yourself. Write down some answers that come to mind from the questions below and keep a log of them.
What are some really cool things going on in your life right now? Not just the big stuff, but how about the small stuff too?
What was something really hard that you went through in the past, but without, wouldn’t make you the person you are today? Our greatest difficulties are often our greatest opportunities for growth.
What are five things you have right now that make it possible to live a nice life?
What are you most thankful for about today? Is it more opportunities to further your career, health, or relationship goals?
2) In the evening, check-in again for 5-10 minutes. Again, write them down and log them.
What were some cool things that happened today?
Did you do something hard that you didn’t want to do and succeeded?
What were 3-4 small good things or small wins that happened today?
Remember, what you end the day with you carry with you into tomorrow.
3) At first, write these down each day and evening so you can keep track.
This isn’t about coming up with the most awesome things on the planet to be grateful for. It can be as simple as having food, clothing, a car, a cell phone, and friends in your life. It’s NOT ABOUT BEING PERFECT or being where you want to be. It’s simply about appreciating what you have today. Not focusing on what you don’t have.
Above all, this is simply a practice. Like learning a new language or how to play the guitar. Your mind will come up and try to tell you it’s dumb and pointless. But do this for a solid two weeks and you’ll notice the thoughts shift from “this is dumb” to “this is awesome!” You didn’t give up on walking or learning a native language because it was hard and difficult so why should this be any different?
Do this often and your stack of Positive Currency will be building up rapidly.
(If you still feel this “isn’t for you” then I challenge you to test this assumption. Test it out and gather some data. After 30 days evaluate the results. This is your 30-day challenge. Up for it?)
