The Sunday Mail
Changing Perspectives
Rutendo Gwatidzo
Outlook determines outcome. What you see affects your feelings, emotions, thinking and actions.
If all you see are problems, you are likely to be defeated.
But if you see opportunities, you are likely to be victorious.
Negativity, if not controlled, can become an incurable disease that can lead you to see darkness all around you. Having an attitude that leads you to think that things will never change stops you from seeing victory.
In most cases, it is not your environment that holds you back, it is your mind.
Thinking that time will change things is a sure and slow way of failing.
Get up and do something to change things.
Organisational status
Both employers and employees must learn to appreciate one another and to be positive towards each other to achieve desired results.
We are hard-pressed on every side.
Organisations do not have all the answers to employees’ problems and the employees do not have all the solutions to organisations’ problems.
Understanding the gap between expectations of each group assists in coming up with solutions.
In most cases, each side is frustrated and ends up blaming the other for challenges encountered.
Negativity has become the norm in most organisations.
The things you hear employees saying about their organisations, management and owners are so negative at times.
Choose positivity
Positivity is a choice.
Your happiness depends on the quality of your thoughts.
You don’t need everything to go right in order to be happy.
You need to tell your mind to be positive and hopeful.
Be excited that things will change for the better and do what you do best.
Negativity may blind you to the extent of failing to see opportunities right next to you. Sometimes all you need is a different perspective even under the same environment and circumstances.
Zig Ziglar, a wealthy American man, once said: “One small positive thought can change your whole life.”
Teddy Roosevelt also once said: “Believe you can and you are halfway there.”
Positivity and negativity hardly mix.
They are like light and darkness.
You cannot have a negative mind and expect positive results.
The mind controls your life.
These days organisations are filled with people with negative mindsets, which makes things difficult than they probably are.
I have been to organisations where upon arrival, without even inquiring, someone tells you all the negative things that happened or happens in that organisation.
How then can that organisation achieve results with that kind of attitude. If we put positivity first, I believe a good number of our problems will disappear.
Personal experience
I started excelling in life when I surrounded myself with positive people, who would tell me that things will get better one day.
They encouraged me, and still do, to keep doing what I do best without quitting even if it doesn’t pay sometimes.
I learnt to keep moving in the positive direction even if others around me are going the opposite direction.
One day, I was in a discussion with a lady in one organisation I work with; the lady had just resigned.
I asked her why she had resigned because she seemed troubled by the decision she had made.
She said it was because many people were resigning.
She then begged me to ask her bosses to ignore her resignation letter and give her another chance.
Sadly, it did not work out in her favour because a replacement had already been found.
Sometimes when things appear to be falling apart, they may actually be falling in pleasant places for you.
The lady did not realise the promotion opportunities that were coming up as a result of people leaving.
We all have two lives, according to one anonymous author.
The second one starts the moment you realise that you have one.
Know what makes you happy, what gives you positive energy and surround yourself with such.
You only live once and if you do it right, you will realise that once is good enough.
Beyoncé, the American singer, once said, “Don’t try to lessen yourself for the world, let the world catch up with you.”
Always try to shoot for the moon because if you miss, you will land in the skies, which is still good enough.
If opportunities do not come knocking at your door, build one because you may not have the door for opportunities to knock. Every day may not be good but there is something good in every day.
Be challenged, be encouraged and be inspired to train your eyes to see what is good.
Rutendo Gwatidzo is a culture change strategist, HR consultant, speaker, mentor and author of the book “Born to Fight.” Contact: +263 714 575 805/ [email protected] / Rutendo Gwatidzo Official on Facebook.
