I am all for positive thinking, catching and flipping our negative thoughts, but sometimes this can feel extremely hard. Whether that be due to global events, country chaos or family matters.

Recently, I’ve been asked how to stay positive when madness surrounds you. When you feel constricted by events happening in your community or world and here in the UK, it certainly feels a little crazy.

All too easily, any of us, even those with the strongest and most positive mindsets, can drop into low energy. Find ourselves in a place where negative thoughts are on a constant loop, and you add to them with more disaster ideas, concepts and possibilities.

It’s like you can’t stop yourself and suddenly ‘enjoy’ doom scrolling news and social media to prove your thoughts right. Seeking out evidence that the sky will fall in, which it won’t!

On a more serious and business note, dropping into low energy, a place of lack or fear, can damage your business. It can impact your ability to make solid decisions, worse, not act upon them and miss opportunities that present themselves. We’ve all had days like these, and as you know from experience, you can and do move past them.

But perhaps with all that is happening here in the UK and beyond, you might find it harder to keep a positive mindset. Possibly, you’re worrying about launching a new programme, and if anyone will buy. Maybe a client has moved on, which has resulted in you convincing yourself more will follow. Maybe the investment in your business you’d been planning suddenly no longer feels like the right decision, and you are shrinking away from it.

But enough negative talk. Let’s flip the switch and change the tone.

Below I’m sharing five ways to stay positive, which will help in and out of your business. But first, let’s focus on your business.

I want you to reconnect with your why. The reason you started your business, the vision you had and the impact you wanted to make. Remember with joy, get excited again and connect with those you choose to serve, the difference you make and why that’s important to you.

Then review the past six or twelve months and write down every amazing event, achievement, or activity. Perhaps the first blog you wrote, the clients who paid in full, the projects you completed – nothing is too small or BIG to celebrate. This is a great exercise to realise how far you’ve already come.

Those two little exercises will have shifted your energy in the time it took to complete them. So, you are now in the perfect place to make the most of the following five ways to stay positive.

1. Stay in your lane and focused on what you do have control over, in and out of business. No second-guessing, trying to work out each and every scenario – just in your lane, moving forward and doing your thing.
2. Take practical steps to alleviate your fears. Act upon your decisions because action creates momentum and helps you feel in control. Start with one small task, and before you know it, you will move forward with another.
3. Protect your energy by silencing your social for a while and restrict the amount of news you consume. This doesn’t mean you don’t care or aren’t interested; it is simply taking of you (for now).
4. Start a gratitude diary and write at least three things you are grateful for daily. It can be the birds singing, a smile from a stranger, a new client, or an old one returning. A paid invoice or even finding the lost dog lead.
5. Surround yourself with positive people, those who like you wish to maintain a positive outlook – there are plenty of us. And if you can’t remove yourself from a particular group, simply decide not to engage in negative conversations.

Do what you need to do for yourself and your business.

Stay in your lane. Continue to put your plans into action, and keep making extraordinary decisions for your business based on what you can control and act on. Do not hold back or shelve your incredible ideas because there will never be a perfect time to relaunch, rebrand or bring a new product or service to market. Now is the time!