If you're a business leader looking to foster a positive workplace, enhance team effectiveness, and navigate challenges effectively while focusing on strategic objectives, or if you just want to make work work better than join us for a mini workshop where we share three things you can do today. I'm your host Dr. Marc Reynolds, and today we're going to talk about navigating pain points that are beyond your control.
In the Dana Oakes interview, he said some of the most difficult pain points you can't do anything about. Then it's how do you live with it when you have no control over it? I encourage you to go back and watch that interview and check it out. One of the examples he gave was there are legislative laws that are passed. There are regulations and stipulations and a host of different things that come down in his world that he has no control with. He just has to comply.
I think you'll find that in your life. Either you experience the same thing or mentally in your mind you feel that same “What am I supposed to do about it?” Or “I have no choice. That's just what I have to do.” We want to give you three really practical tips to address this and empower yourself to still make growth and positive change, even when there's nothing you can do directly about the pain point in front of you. First is to stop and ask, what are my options moving forward?
What do I have control over? You need to focus on what you can control. By doing that, you won't feel stuck and paralyzed. There's always something you can do. It just might not be the solution for the entire problem, but you're going to make progress in your sphere of influence that helps bring hope, optimism, and a self-perception of empowerment. Second is to focus on solutions rather than problems.
So when you in your own mind, or when someone else starts complaining about a problem or a challenge that they can't do anything about, redirect the conversation by asking, “So what do you think our options are?” Or “what do you think we can do to improve the situation”. By focusing and spending the majority of your time on solutions rather than problems, again, it's going to lead to productivity. It's going to lead to growth, hope, and a positive workplace.
As soon as that shifts and we become problem focused, then productivity slows down, morale drops and we start losing momentum. Stay focused on solutions. It doesn't mean we can't discuss the problems. It doesn't mean we can't analyze the problem. It doesn't mean we can't take a moment to mourn its loss or to be frustrated. It's just proportionally, we want the majority of our day time and work hours to be focused on creating solutions.
Build resilience by seeing problems or challenges as opportunities to learn and grow. You might ask yourself, what are we learning from this? Don't linger on mistakes or fails, instead, celebrate someone getting back up. Celebrate resilience. Celebrate learning. Celebrate improvement and growth. If we celebrate those things, then instead of it becoming this burdened, labored activity to come to work, we're going to be looking for ways to get more of that celebration.
We're going to have that positive momentum and be motivated to do something good, rather than just avoid doing something bad. One way you can apply that today is to set aside a time at the beginning of every meeting, like Dana did, to make sure that you're celebrating the wins of your team. Take time to point out different individuals.
Make sure that you're covering each individual at different points to make sure that they know that they've been seen, heard, that they're valued, and that you need them They're doing their best work. I hope these tips help you make work work better this week. Also, don't forget to click like, subscribe, join our email list, check out our website. We would love to talk and work with you more to help you make work work better at your workplace. See you next time!