How-to Practice Positivity at Work

[TheWorldNewsOrg]

Your attention plays a powerful role in your happiness at work.

This is the way your attention works: when you focus on something you not only take in more of that thing you are focusing on but your brain starts suppressing other visual information from reaching your conscious mind. Magicians rely on this, they distract your attention with hand motions and facial expressions, which you are wired to do, so that you don’t see the subtler movements. You can physically see them, but they don’t register in your conscious mind because you are focusing your attention somewhere else. 

When you focus your attention on the positive, you not only take in more of the positive but you also start suppressing some of the more the negative aspects of your situation or environment. 

Because of what is called by scientists our negativity bias, or as an academic peer reviewed paper calls it “bad is stronger than good”, what we tend to do is find that one person who bugs us and focus “why does she come at me with that attitude?” Or, “why does he always show up late and complain?” 

We focus on a thing we enjoy least in our environment even when we are not going to do something about it. If you are not going to do anything, or if it is something outside of your control, stop focusing on it, focus your attention instead on that thing you enjoy most in your environment! 

Focus on the positive if you are not going to act on it, or if it’s something you cannot act on, so that you will be feeding your consciousness more happiness, bringing prime brain real estate online so you do better work and enjoy doing it more. 

For more science-based insights from Happy Brain Science: