Work Success Secret #3: Shift Your Focus

This is the third in a series of posts designed to provide you with tips to be more successful at work, despite the increasing demands that are occurring across industries and across job titles. In the first post, I talked about creating, setting and communicating boundaries (Set Your Hard Limits). I covered how I learned this the hard way, and realistic, small ways to begin to enforce your own limits. The second post talked about shifting your physical state out of fight-or-flight mode to access your creative mind (Nourish Your Creativity). I provided a couple of easy ways to calm and center yourself. This third post is all about your focus.

Through my life coach training and in my continuing studies, I’ve been fascinated to learn more about how the brain works. Our brain is constantly adapting to our environment, our responses and our thoughts. When we think a thought, our brain likes to prove itself right, so it looks for evidence to back up this thought. So whether we think “I work with a bunch of idiots” or “I work with some really great people,” your brain will be focused on finding evidence to prove either one. (Which thought do you think is going to make you enjoy your work more? You get to choose. And before you go defending yourself with “But Emily, I really DO work with a bunch of idiots!” notice my second thought said SOME great people.)

Thoughts that we think over and over again become beliefs. These are created over time, influenced by our families, our upbringing and our communities. Some of your beliefs may be more conscious than others, but regardless of whether you are conscious of them or not, they shape the patterns of your thoughts, and therefore, what you experience.

Right now, take a minute and jot down the first three words that come to your mind when you think about Work.

Surprising? I was blown away to discover some of my own undercover beliefs about work. The connections in my mind were not at all positive. (If you didn’t write down your own beliefs about Work, do it now. Just write the first things that pop into your head.)

If the beliefs you hold about Work do not match what you want for yourself (and mine sure didn’t!), try this: write what you’d like to experience and try to find evidence for it in your current job. For example, perhaps you want to experience fun at work.

Now your brain is used to its existing patterns. You’ve built up strong neural connections between work and the beliefs you wrote down, compiling evidence to support those beliefs for years. It’s completely natural for you to have resistance to this, but you can create new neural pathways, new ways of thinking. It’s like a brain teaser, so play with this idea for a minute.

If you consider “Work is fun,” try and come up with at least 3 pieces of evidence how this could be true. Perhaps it’s fun when you get to collaborate with certain people, or it’s fun when you finish a big project. The more evidence you find, the more this new idea will get cemented in your brain.

If you go into a situation looking for trouble, you’re bound to find it. But if you go looking to be amazed, it’s amazing what you’ll find.