Life Strategy: Choose a "Successful Response" and Move On!

Maintaining an optimum level of energy, passion, and creativity, requires a specific method for responding to the vast array of challenging events life throws your way. You may not be able to control the event, but you can always choose how to respond to it. Let's face it, as a participant in life, you are always going to be blindsided by something, whether you have anticipated it or not. When you respond to these situations in a positive manner, you maintain your attitude and, more importantly, your personal energy. These positive feelings you generate also provide fuel for neutralizing the negative circumstances that may get in the way as you progress towards your goals. When you exhibit strong negative emotions toward what you experience, such as intense sadness, anger, jealousy and frustration, you shut down your ability to listen, to focus, and to deal creatively with what you're facing.

Choosing to address negative experiences with a "successful response" at the time they happen is the only effective way to let them go and remain empowered. Otherwise, they become emotional baggage, unnecessary toxicity that chips away at your energy, attitude, and ability to develop creative solutions. After a day of committing your time and energy haphazardly, upon arriving home, you can easily lack the momentum to enjoy the rest of the evening. In order to program yourself to respond in a way that preserves your energy and leaves you feeling good about whom you are and what you're doing, I have developed a method of responding called the "successful response."

The key to my "successful response" method is an immediate recognition of what you can and cannot change about your experiences in life. This recognition allows you to do two things, control your time and energy and allocate it more positively towards those situations that help you reach your personal and professional goals.

As an example, let's say that on your way to the office or an appointment during rush hour traffic you suddenly get cut off by an impatient driver. You have two choices. You can get ticked off at the other driver and commit energy towards making them know exactly how you feel, thereby committing precious time and action to an event you cannot change. Or you can quickly realize that you have no control over what is going on in their head, let the event dissipate from your mind, and remain focused on your intentions for driving and the rest of the day. One response preserves your energy while the other takes you out of your game plan, leaving you stressed, unfocused, and feeling drained. Your goal is to preserve your time and energy for what you value most instead of wasting it on random events, soon forgotten, that have little to do with your true goals and intentions.

Use this "successful Response" method as you negotiate your way through the maze of events you encounter throughout your day, and begin to experience the emotional and physical balance it brings into your life.