March Blog
I’m a pretty happy guy—in fact, people are always telling me how positive I am. Despite struggling with some difficult things in my youth, I’ve managed to build a life I find incredibly fulfilling and a mindset that allows me to approach most days with a positive attitude. So what’s the trick?
It’s not one single thing, but rather it’s about having a purposeful approach to life. I put effort into developing a perspective that allows me to be happy and focused on gratitude and the positive things in my life. I’m also lucky to be able to say that I truly love my job, and that’s one of the greatest gifts you can have because your job defines what each day looks like. If you spend most of your time doing what you love, consider yourself fortunate. My passion for what I do influences every aspect of my life, even the way I come across to others.
It’s the combination of these things that has allowed me to succeed in my goals, grow my business, and find personal fulfillment. With the right kind of attitude and passion, I believe you’ll get much further in life, so here are my top lessons on cultivating it.
Develop a healthy perspective
Your personal outlook on life is one of the most influential factors in your happiness and fulfillment, but a healthy perspective doesn’t just happen by chance. It has to be intentionally built and maintained. The greatest challenge lies in staying aware of your perspective and consistently making choices that foster a positive viewpoint.
A positive mindset is built on a foundation of gratitude. Gratitude is a word that gets thrown around a lot, but I simply mean recognizing the important and positive things in your life and taking some time to appreciate them. And for the people you’re grateful for, showing them your appreciation is even better. Gratitude is the core of contentment, and without it, happiness will always seem fleeting.
For me, practicing gratitude regularly means stopping to celebrate what I’ve accomplished and the best aspects of my life—my family and the sense of purpose I have in my work. Recently, I brought my wife and daughter with me to speak at conferences and enjoy family time in Asia, and it allowed me to reflect on how far I’ve come in life—to be able to travel the world with some of the people dearest to me. It’s the kind of thing I dreamed about as a young man starting with almost nothing. Celebrating the successes and remembering where I started helps me keep a healthy perspective on life.
Passion gets you through
I was lucky to discover a career I’m incredibly passionate about, and that’s a key component of what makes me so positive. All jobs come with challenges and sometimes miserable days that you just have to push through, but it’s so much easier to do that when you’re passionate about what you do. If you’re dragging yourself out of bed every morning and approaching the workday with dread, there’s a chance you might not be in the right career to fulfill your sense of purpose.
It may seem daunting for those in that situation, but it’s worth it to consider a career change. Too many people are miserable in their jobs, but no one should spend the majority of their life doing something they hate—that doesn’t make a life worth living.
Discovering your passion can take time and careful consideration, but it’s well worth it. Doing so requires cutting through the noise of various opportunities and jobs that may seem glamorous to discover what actually makes you happy. The truth is not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur. Learn what makes you content and what gives you a sense of purpose, and follow that.
What is success to you?
Whether you’re planning on changing roles or simply becoming happier within your current role, an important step is defining what success looks like to you. But here’s the trick: your answer doesn’t have to remain the same throughout your life or even throughout a year or a week. Success comes in multiple levels, from the small achievements you can make every day to larger ones that take a lifetime of work. Both are important to recognize and celebrate.
In addition, you likely have a few guiding principles about what success means to you. Success isn’t about money—it’s about my choices and the people around me. I see money as a tool to enable me to make choices that serve my sense of purpose by positively influencing the world around me. So as I continue to grow my business, success means that I’m able to grow my business to help others, create better lives for my employees, and give more to causes I care about. I think this attitude has allowed me to feel much more content with what I achieve and keep a strong sense of purpose in all of my life goals.
Create positivity around you
Finally, one of my favorite ways to create positivity is by spreading it. You affect your environment and the people you interact with, and in turn, they affect you. The happier you make people around you, the happier you will be. Simply taking the focus off yourself and putting it on others makes you more positive and content.
Create a practice of reflecting on your mindset regularly and making active choices to build a more positive perspective. Being purposeful about your mindset is necessary to create a life you’re content with.
