Hope Leslie & Heidi are having fun on their vacations this weekend :)
This weekend, try having positive interactions with everyone you come across, whether it's friends, family, kids, spouses, or strangers at the grocery store. It will build you up like you can't even imagine. And it will pump you up with more resolve! What I love about the following article is that it is just as detrimental to be 100% positive to others as it is to be 0% positive to others. You've got to find that percentage that is real, that is you, that makes you and others around you successful and happy. And I think this applies to us in our own weight loss & fitness journeys. If we're in a good mood, doesn't that make us want to work out & be careful with what we eat? If we're in a negative mood, doesn't that make us want to seek the sofa & comfort foods? So if there's any tactic or strategy out there for increasing the # of our good moods and decreasing the # of our negative moods, shouldn't we at least give it a shot? Taking it a step further, looking at our interactions with those we deal with on a regular basis, are they building us up or are they discouraging us? Try limiting (hard to do, but sometimes necessary) your interactions w/ those who always leave you downtrodden or discouraged. Try increasing the # of your interactions w/ those who uplift you, motivate you, support you, listen to you, cheer for you, etc. Result? More peace and more productivity. AND more success in your weight loss & fitness goals!
From Jon Gordon:
The Power of Positive Interactions
"John Gottman's pioneering research found that marriages are much more likely to succeed when the couple experiences a 5 to 1 ratio of positive to negative interactions whereas when the ratio approaches 1 to 1, marriages are more likely to end in divorce. Additional research also shows that workgroups with positive to negative interaction ratios greater than 3 to 1 are significantly more productive than teams that do not reach this ratio.
So what does this mean for you and me? For most of us it means we need to increase the number of positive interactions we have at home and at work and reduce our negative interactions.
We need to engage each other with more smiles, kind words, encouragement, gratitude, meaningful conversations, honest dialogues and sincere positive interactions. And to foster these actions we need to create personal and team rituals that help us interact more positively. If we make them part of our organizational process and individual habits they are more likely to happen.
For instance, at home you might decide to take a walk with your spouse each night after dinner and talk about the positive things that happened at work. The more you practice this the more it will become ingrained in your life. At work you might make it a point to smile at your co-workers and customers more often. As a manager you would spend more time praising your employees for the things they do right rather than always focusing on what everyone is doing wrong. A manager I know makes it a point to personally praise 5 people every week. As an organization you might gather all of your employees on a call once a day to share a positive message. Or perhaps you might gather your sales team together each week and have your team members share success stories. The ideas are infinite. The key is to intentionally cultivate more positive interactions to fuel success.
However, please know that this doesn't mean we should never have negative interactions. There is research by Barbara Fredrickson from the University of Michigan that shows if a work group in a company experiences a positive to negative interaction ratio of 13 to 1 the work group will be less effective. This implies that no one is willing to confront the real problems and challenges that are holding them back. Sometimes we need to confront a situation to move past it and, as we know, ignoring problems that stare us in the face doesn't work. Negative interactions are necessary so long as they occur much less frequently than positive interactions."
OK, ladies. Now comment and tell us how you have gotten yourself surrounded by people who believe in you and support you in your weight loss & fitness journeys! How did you get your families on board w/ supporting your new lifestyle? How do you handle negative family members or friends who either don't believe in you or who are jealous of your weight loss success? How do you remain upbeat and determined to hit your goals? Do you do it all alone w/ a one-woman-cheering-section?
