Sunday Night Success

Physics, buckets, and positive energy

When I am teaching or tutoring high school students in physics I use a bucket analogy to help my students understand the difference between gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy (if interested in the full physics analogy let me know). As a recovering pessimist I am always looking for ways to improve my outlook on life and be more positive in all of my daily interactions and relationships. While explaining this analogy one day I realized that I could adapt it and apply it to my state of mind each day so that I could keep track of how I was feeling and how I was responding to my environment.

It works like this

1. The bucket can be filled with positive (blue) or negative (red) energy.
2. Positive responses during the day fill the bucket with blue.
3. Negative responses during the day fill the bucket with red.
4. Positive responses cancel out negative responses.
5. During the day the bucket can be overall blue (more positive), overall red (more negative), or neutral (equal positive and negative responses).
6. By the end of the day the colour left in your bucket gives you an overview of how you responded to circumstances during your day.
7. My goal is to have more blue in the bucket as many days as possible.

Over the course of the day this analogy lets me quickly assess how I am responding to the activities I face each day. I simply ask myself “What colour of a day am I having?” If the answer is a blue day I am being positive and from there it is usually fairly easy to continue on a blue pathway. If the answer is a red day I am being negative, and I know I need to change my focus and work harder on being more positive and filling the bucket with blue.

An example

Hopefully an example will help make the process clear:

Driving to school I manage to spill my coffee and roll my eyes wondering why these things always happen to me (definitely a negative response so one unit of red goes in the bucket. I mentally score my day so far as “one red”)

I get to school and have a student waiting for math help. Still groggy I comment to the student that they should not have left getting help so late. (another negative response so one unit of red goes in the bucket. I mentally score my day so far as “two red”) Now, I know my day is heading in the wrong direction so I mentally tell myself to smarten up and get some blue in the bucket.

A student asks the same algebra question for the third time, I give him a big smile and explain that for some people it takes a few tries and I help him out. (a positive response so one unit of blue goes in the bucket, this cancels out one of the red units. I mentally score my day as “one red”)

The peer tutor in the class is sitting and chatting with two students, completely off topic, instead of helping them. I call her over and ask her to mark some quizzes for me. (a positive response, so one unit of blue goes in the bucket, canceling out the red unit. I mentally score my day as “even”)

During break my wife calls and mentions that the car needs $300 worth of work at the dealer. I know we don’t have the money but realize it isn’t the end of the world and we can pay it off next month. (a positive response so one unit of blue goes in the bucket. Mental score “one blue”) I am now back on track for the day and from here will hopefully continue being positive.

By the end of the day I have a total of four negative responses and nine positive responses. My overall score for the day is “five blue”, I am feeling good, and I have had a positive day.

So, there you have it, positive thinking via “The Bucket Method”. As I write this it seems a bit complicated and maybe not all that useful (a negative response, I just got myself one unit of red) but it works well for me and will hopefully help someone else out there with being more positive (look at that positive, a unit of blue, I am back to even).

What analogies or symbols do you use to help with your outlook each day?

Check out the last Success Tool: Pessimist – Optimist Tables.

I will admit that I was hoping that more sites would pick up on positivity week providing me with a much lengthier list of great positive websites for people to visit. I also could have spent some time seeking out webistes with content dealing with positivity, but I decided to stick with my original plan: to focus on sites that were partaking in positivity week. So, here is the short list of sites I have collected.

When I Grow Up Coach: Michelle is a fellow ICA student and has been promoting positivity week through her blog and the twitter group #positivityweek. In the short time I have known about her blog she has posted thoughtful and helpful articles and is always ready to take part in replying to those who leave comments on her site. Check it out and join in.

Old Soul Ink: Although Emma was not directly involved in positivity week on her site she has supported the event through posting on Michelle’s site as well as here at Sunday Night Success. So thanks for the participation Emma.

Vision Powered Coaching: Iris also supported positivity week by making a comment to one of the positivity posts here on Sunday Night Success, so take a look at Iris’ website.

That is all for now, tomorrow another tool from my success toolbox that I call “Energy Buckets”, and, if anyone else knows of blogs or sites participating in positivity week leave me the link and I will add it to my list.

The pessimist persists

I have spent a great deal of my life as a pessimist, definitely a glass half empty kind of person. Recently I have had a lot of great things happen in my life: I am living part of my dream by recently moving to a small mountain town, I have a 17 month old son, and I am more financially stable than I have ever been before. However, even with all of these positives I still tend to drift towards the negative side of things too quickly when something goes wrong.

The pessimist can help

This is something I have started to work on aggressively in my life and in this past year and a half I have started to achieve some success towards this goal, but I found, in most cases, that the pessimist was still there. I have read positive thinking books, success books, and books on coaching and all have helped me to improve my outlook when things go south. Yet still, he was always there, the pessimist never left. So, in a way, I gave up and the pessimist gets to stay, but I have managed to trick him, because now, the pessimist doesn’t work against my positive thinking, he helps out.

Using pessimism to become positive

How? Now, whenever I am faced with a situation that is getting me down and I have a choice between going the route of the optimist or the pessimist I try to look at the situation from both perspectives. I allow the pessimist to have a look and comment, but then, I give the optimist a chance to give some input. In most cases, and it gets better as I use it more often, by comparing the pessimist’s view with the optimist’s view I realize that going the route of the pessimist is a waste of my time and that everything will move forward more quickly, or resolve itself if I follow the path of the optimist.

Pessimist – Optimist table

If I have time I actually write each perspective down so that I can see my choices on paper. For me, as a very visual person, this makes the two choices much more real, much more concrete and easier to see the difference between my choices. However, I can’t always put words to paper when the negative comes knocking so I complete the exercise in my head.

It is quite simple, I just fill out my Pessimist-Optimist Table by answering the following questions side by side:

What would the pessimist do in this situation?
What do I gain from following the pessimist?
What do I lose by following the pessimist?

What would the optimist do in this situation?
What do I gain from following the optimist?
What do I lose from following the optimist?

Optimism hasn’t lost yet

The questions are definitely weighted against the pessimist, but that is the point. By quickly running through the exercise in my head I can change my outlook on a situation and respond in a much healthier and positive fashion. For larger decisions or situations I can take the time to write my thoughts out and show myself clearly that the path of the optimist is always a better choice. I am not perfect by any means, and sometimes the pessimist still blindsides me and gets to run the show, but, slowly, I am making a move towards being an optimist.

I would love to hear what tools or tricks you use to change perspective?

What is more positive than a bonus post on a Monday?

I was having a “blah” morning editing upcoming blog posts and needed to lift myself out of a funk, and quickly realized what I had to do. There is one sure fire method I have of improving my mood, and, although it may seem a bit strange to some, it has never failed me. What is my secret?

“Punk Rock Girl” by the Dead Milkmen

For some reason, whether it is the upbeat melody, the bizarre lyrics, or the fact that, really, they don’t sing all that well, this song has always been able to lift my spirits and usually results in me singing along (with equally bad vocals) and generally feeling better.

So, as I listen to another round of “Punk Rock Girl” and am now feeling much, much better I am wondering:

What song helps you out of the “blahs” and turns things positive?

Join us for one, or all, of our positivity teleclasses as we
open up the virtual doors of ICA for the world to share their
positivity intent.

Register now – > http://tinyurl.com/daf63b for any of the following teleclasses:

The coaching school that I attend, International Coach Academy, is holding a positivity week all week this week. The aim of the week is to increase the amount of positive energy in the air during these times of financial hardship. To help celebrate positivity week you can read the following posts on Sunday Night Success:

1. A list of free ICA teleclasses surrounding positivity on Monday.

2. Success toolbox posts on Tuesday and Thursday to get some ideas on how you can make yourself more positive.

3. Links to other sites joining in on positivity week on Wednesday.

4. On Friday you should have enough positive energy to set yourself up for a great weekend.