Positive Mondays: How you can turn your week around for the better

It is yet another Monday morning. If the Gallup Global Workplace Survey is to be believed, 91% of Indians are not psychologically committed to their workplace. Even worse, 35% of Indians are active disruptors - they are actually encouraging others to leave. Chances are if you're still reading this column, then you face these 91% people and are keen to do something about it. 

Given the unprecedented challenging times (of faith, ethics, finance, ecology, leadership, spirituality, sexuality, gender biases, changing or vanishing roles and role models), it is easy to get distracted and perform actions that diverge from positivity. Before you go ahead, do either or preferably both of these things. 

First, pull out your smart phones and send an email to someone who has done something even slightly above average for you yesterday or last week. It need not be a big thing. It could be someone who helped you with an excel sheet, gave you a sales lead, helped you close a sale, was an inspiration for you because she won an award and you learned something from her, someone who helped you carry boxes or helped meet a deadline, someone who gave you a good advice or directed you to a new vendor. Anything small. But it should be someone who you did not properly thank. Make sure that the email you write has a minimum of 30 words. 

Second, while stuck in the miserable traffic, (remember safe driving though), scroll through your phone book, till you come across an old school friend, ex-colleague, ex-boss, an aunt or uncle, a grand parent or parent. Quickly, without thinking, hit the call button and have a five-minute conversation. Even better set up a coffee date with them. So how did you feel? How do you think the people who received that email or phone call felt about your gesture? 

At the very core, people want to be positive. Innately, instinctively, intrinsically, intuitively, people pursue happiness. Positivity is our Ground Zero. It is our natural state. Positivity, is the state in which humans find themselves at their most satisfied best. Positivity is when we thrive and flourish. Positivity begets positivity. 

So rather than studying the negative people who are moaning, rather fashionably, about their bosses, canteen food, traffic, weather, increments, re-structuring and the latest inexplicably random policy change, let's study the people brimming with positivity. This segment is focused on their work and what goes on in their brains. 

Let's go back to a study conducted by Danner, Friesen and Snowdon, in 1993, called the Nuns Study. They found that, in 1930, the Mother Superior of the North American Sisters, sent a letter to each sister asking them to write a sketch of their lives, on a single sheet of paper. They were asked to write about any interesting event of their childhood and influences that led them to the convent, religious lives and other outstanding events. 

The autobiographies of these 180 Catholic nuns were studied. The mean age was 22 at the time of writing the diaries and all of them lived in a convent, therefore their life conditions were similar. Despite similar instructions, the participants had written their essays rather differently. 

One sister wrote, "I was born on September 26, 1909, the eldest of seven children, five girls and two boys... My candidate year was spent in the Motherhouse, teaching Chemistry and Second Year Latin at Notre Dame Institute. With God's grace, I intend to do my best for our Order, for the spread of religion and for my personal sanctification."

Another wrote, "God started my life off well by bestowing upon me a grace of inestimable value... The past year which I have spent as a candidate studying at Notre Dame College has been a very happy one. Now I look forward with eager joy to receiving the Holy Habit of Our Lady and to a life of union with Love Divine."

The coders identified all the words that reflected an emotion and they were classified as positive (accomplishment, amusement, contentment, gratitude, happiness, hope, interest, love, and relief) or negative (anger, contempt, disgust, disinterest, fear, sadness, and shame or neutral (surprise). They found some rather profound differences. The happiest nuns outlived the most pessimistic by 10.7 years. The researchers found that with an increase of every 1% in positive emotion sentences, there was a 1.4% decrease in their mortality. 

You may find this study endearing, but it is not an isolated study. There have been many such longitudinal studies, which emphatically prove that happy people live longer. The most flourishing people have a 25% lesser chance than their languishing brethren of contracting a cardio-vascular disease. 

So is positivity genetic? Well, that is half true. Fifty percent of your positivity is grounded in your genetic make up. Your genes will have half the say on your positive mindset. As a matter of fact, the famous Twins Studies show that identical twins seem to have more similar positivity levels. You would have come across many twins and siblings with differing outlooks despite the similarity of the genetic pool and life conditions. 

Some people think that the city they live in, the car they drive, their marital status, or change in marital status, having children, their income levels, education degrees, their next promotion or title change, the next large TV screen or phone, or choice of location will determine their happiness levels. Well that is true. But for about 10%, that is it. Only 10% of a person’s happiness is determined by life circumstances. The 40% advantage is how you channelise your emotions, how your emotions help you interpret the events around you into progressive thoughts, actions and behaviours. 

Dr Barbara Fredrickson’s breakthrough work, called the Broaden and Build theory came up with two core truths, which started the entire, “happiness tide” that we seem to be witnessing. 

The first core truth: Positivity opens our minds and hearts, making us more receptive and creative. 

The second core truth: Positivity transforms us for the better. The better you are, the better you are able to face the challenges of life. 

Certain discrete positive emotions, including, joy, interest, contentment, pride and love, all work to broaden an individual's thought action repertoire and build their enduring personal resources including physical, intellectual, social, psychological and cognitive resources. 

Hardships are inevitable, they wont disappear because you increased your positivity, but they become easier to handle. Positivity opens us and expands our peripheral vision. We come up with more ideas and are more creative. Graduate admission tests show, that if you give a gift to students before the test, they score better. 

It is not about the yellow-faced sunny smileys. Positive emotions are important, but the grouchiest of them all, with a permanent frown on their foreheads might be leading the most positive lives and building a flourishing future for themselves. 

Can you build positivity in your lives right at this moment? Begin with the two ideas! Send an email everyday at 9 am and make a coffee date once a week. Two very small, but not insignificant ideas. 

Therefore, on this Monday morning, wish you a very positive week ahead.  

The author is the Founder of The Positivity Company and also has over 23 years of global sales and service experience. This is the first in a series of articles by the author called 'Positive Mondays' about how positive thoughts can have a multiplicative effect, simultaneously impacting all work and life outcomes.