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Want to be Successful? First Build Your Positive Reflex

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Emotional Resilience is an important trait of Leaders

If you’re a professional looking towards climbing the next rung of the corporate ladder, then you must be able to demonstrate the trait of emotional resilience.

Teams look up to their leader for directions and inspiration in challenging times. Of course, you are human and don’t have all the answers. None of us do.

But demonstrating grace under fire and keeping the team working as a cohesive unit to achieve the daunting task at hand is sure sign of Gravitas and Executive Presence.

Sylvia Ann Hewlett, founder and CEO of the Center for Talent Innovation, surveyed 4,000 college-educated professionals (including 268 senior executives) to find out what coworkers and bosses look for when evaluating executive presence.

Three criteria proved critical:

  1. How you act (gravitas): 67%
  2. How you speak (communication): 28% (check out my post on vocabulary and executive presence)
  3. How you look (appearance): 5%

Gravitas signals intellectual expertise, but also confidence and credibility. Senior executives picked projecting confidence and grace under fire as presence’s most important qualities.

Simply put, your actions or reactions are important. Let’s go deeper into the subject.

 

What is your reflex action when you get bad news?

 

Do you react to negative experiences from a state of rage or grace?

Many times, our reaction to our environment and the events in our life create even more stress for us. There are many ways that we can control our reaction and hence our stress levels. I recommend building your positive reflex action.

In other words, help yourself by controlling the effects of your negative experiences by building a positive psychic and spiritual foundation to attract good things in your life.

I learnt a long time back that it is not the actual experience whether positive or negative, big or small that determines how my life is turning out but my response.

When I was younger, reading about the Yulin Dog Meat Festival or finding out about the massacre of innocents would upset me. My knee jerk reaction would have been to express my outrage about the state of things on social media along with others in their rants and complaints.

Fast forward today, by building my positive reflex muscle, I am able to step back from the situation and assess it for what it really is. After that, I take actions both at a personal and community level that can actually make a difference in the long run.

 

How do you react to Life’s curve balls?

 

React or be proactive to Life's curve balls?

 

Our reactions to our life’s experiences are based on the state of our mind or awareness of life which in turn is from mental acceptances. The pattern of thinking, which is formed from these mental acceptances, governs our reaction to life.

The habit pattern of reacting in a specific way to an experience is a conditioned reflex.  Since a negative reaction to a negative experience produces further negativity, I needed to re-train the reflex of my mind and condition its reaction to negative experience with a positive rather than negative reaction.

Just as in the Pavlov’s Reflex that we all learnt in school, one needs to first set up the environment for the success of this retraining. Accept that the reflex would be applied to every negative experience that occurs in one’s daily life.

We also need to accept that every experience that happens in life has a hidden spiritual good which one may not be able to see at the time of the experience.

 

Facilitating a Positive Reaction

 

Repetition to create habits that are positive

 

 

To facilitate the positive reaction, use daily positive suggestive affirmations to create the foundation for using the negative experience as a conditioned reflex signal to react positively.

Become aware of the impact that negativity has on one’s physical self and the resulting cynicism that robs us of the simple joys of life.

Understand that when faced with a negative situation, one has the choice of how one wishes to react.

Changing one’s mindset to react positively to a negative experience or trying to find something beneficial in that experience can be challenging initially.

It takes time and practice to re-condition one’s mind to replace the existing conditioned reflex of reacting physically to a negative experience with a more positive reaction.

It also requires developing the skill of mental toughness.

 

Karmic Ally Coaching’s Solution to Facilitate a Positive Reaction 

 

To facilitate the positive reaction, use daily positive suggestive affirmations. This creates the foundation for using the negative experience as a conditioned reflex signal to react positively.

This is also the first exercise that I share in my Self-Improvement Strategies Workbook.

Become aware of the impact negativity has on one’s physical self and the resulting cynicism that robs us of the simple joys of life.

Understand that when faced with a negative situation, one has the choice of how one wishes to react.

From my experience I know that changing one’s mindset to react positively to a negative experience or trying to find something beneficial in that experience can be challenging initially.

 

Karmic Ally Coaching’s Mindset Bundle: Develop the Right Mindset to Boost Your Career and Business Success+ Success Mindset Planner

 

It takes time and practice to re-condition one’s mind. To replace the existing conditioned reflex of reacting physically to a negative experience with a more positive reaction.

 

2 Simple Techniques for a positive mindset

Positive mindset techniques

 

When we are trying to change the way we view the world and our own mindset, becoming aware of our actions is just part of the solution. We need to gently retrain our mind at the subconscious level too.

I’m going to share 2 techniques that work well. Even if you think they are too metaphysical, believe me, they work.  The techniques are:

 

The Art of Invocation and

Using Negative Thoughts to our Advantage

 

There are times when the original negative reflex surfaces but that too can be viewed positively by studying it and determining the weaknesses in the conditioning, much like repairing cracks in a wall with reinforced material. The benefits exceed the efforts to recondition.

By gaining further positive control over ourselves, we enhance the strength of the Law of Attraction in our lives. At the same time, we open the pathways for better health, happiness, success and prosperity making the challenges that life presents us easier to overcome and move forward.

Your turn, how do you reframe your reactions to create a positive change for yourself?

Do you demonstrate ‘grace under fire’ or is there some inner work to be done? 

 Karmic Ally Coaching's Executive Presence Checklist

 

 

 

 

14 Responses to “Want to be Successful? First Build Your Positive Reflex”

  1. CK Kochis says:

    Wonderful pearls of wisdom for strengthening our positive reflexes, Vatsala! I shall pay closer attention to my reactions and determine how to be a better leader, friend and individual. Thank you, as always, for your guidance.

    • Karmic Ally says:

      Self-awareness helps to monitor our actions and also leads to higher Emotional Intelligence when we apply our new knowledge about ourselves. To you success, Cindy!

  2. Barbara Parcells says:

    This is great. I wish I would have had this kind of support when I was young and in the working world!

  3. This is an area I have been practicing myself, Vatsala. It is ‘easy’ to default to our typical reactionary mode, however, with some objectivity and consciousness, I find we can shift from our typical negative reaction to actually see the situation or circumstance in the light of ‘what is so’, making it easier to move our own energy and to reframe the circumstance in a more positive light. I caught myself yesterday, as my mother had a bit of a ‘crisis’ and I immediately overreacted when I called my brother to tell him. I found being more conscious and stepping back and really seeing what was happening, helped me to calm down, and view the situation in a more positive light. Everything turned out fine too.

    • Karmic Ally says:

      Falling back into default mode does happen, Beverley, especially when the emotional trigger is a strong one. The fact that you managed to take back control of the situation in a mindful and conscious manner demonstrates your mastery of this important skill. Hope your Mom is feeling better.

  4. Natasha Botkin says:

    Thanks for sharing. I teach social skiils and speaking, listening strategies and love this post!

  5. Tricia says:

    This was a great post. It is also a great reminder, as I know when I am tired or not feeling well my patience level is low and I tend to react vs responding. Something I work on.

    • Karmic Ally says:

      Thanks Tricia. We all tend to react instead of responding when our energy levels are low. A good reason to defer decisions when we are tired. 🙂

  6. Suzie Cheel says:

    This is an area I have been working on and delighted to report that my meltdown now have a short recovery time XX

    • Karmic Ally says:

      It takes time, Suzie, but well worth the effort. Congratulations on reducing your rebound time!

  7. Reba Linker says:

    Terrific post, Vatsala. Our attitudes and intentions are so important. Thank you for focussing on this. We tend to think of balance as some state of meditation high up on a mountaintop, but it really is the balance we maintain while swimming in the stream of life.

    • Karmic Ally says:

      Thanks Reba. You are so right! Balance is a state of mind but one which we need to find while living a life – not away from it. I remember the late spiritual leader of the Radha Swami’s discourse where he emphasized the fact that true spirituality cannot be achieved away from the activities of daily life. A good message for those of us who feel that the spiritual and temporal worlds cannot be integrated.

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If you’re a driven, passionate, talented and ambitious professional  who’s hit a speed breaker in your business or career and want to create your desired breakthrough to reclaim control of your situation, then you’ve come to the right place because we can work together on customized strategies and tactics that deliver results.

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I really get it, because I’ve experienced that dark night of the Soul. I know firsthand the outcome of getting lost in my work rationalizing decisions that were detrimental to other aspects of my life.

Like you, I’ve struggled with and won battles of stress management, corporate politics, life balance and career decisions to emerge in a place where I can confidently say that I live my desired life according to my personal Manifesto and have created a business that provides me with a platform for my desired lifestyle and self-expression for myself. I want that for you too!

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Email: Vatsala(at)karmicallycoaching(dot)com Phone:91 9818517664
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