The P Factor
Editorial writing is just crazy fun. I never know who or what will succeed in pulling the pin on my mind grenade, detonating and propelling my thoughts onto the next writing adventure. Take today for example.
Given the volatile discourse flooding both traditional news and social media channels many thoughts have taken up residence and decided to play emotionally charged cerebral ping pong in my noggin of late. In my writing I do my best to distance myself from the hot button topics of the day as they don’t necessarily lend themselves to healthy, positively thoughtful discussion and feedback.
Over passionate knee jerk reactions that arise from all sides of any heavily over debated issue have a tendency to cloud all if any meaningful discourse that may ensue. Mostly what does ensue is meaningless and vitriolic name calling with no one learning anything and only listening to what they say or wish to hear and accept.
Whatever happened to higher learning and critical thinking? Much of what I have seen and heard seems to center on mudslinging critical screaming, with psychological and even physical punches thrown in for good measure. Like anyone who pays attention to such things I have my personal opinions and I’ll keep them to myself thank you.
So today I happened upon a social media post that instead centered on a discussion of employees being let go from jobs and how to handle such a situation emotionally. Some of comments made were praising the situation as an opportunity while others wrote as if it were the end of the world.
In full disclosure I can write with firsthand knowledge about losing a job that you didn’t want to lose. Like many people, I’ve been there. In fact I’ve been there more than once. I can tell you that it’s not the end of the world. Especially when you pick yourself up off the ground, stop feeling sorry about a situation that may or may not have been your fault, and finally choose to move on down the road to your own personal success, and yes, even happiness.
I’ve put together a short primer I call “The P Factor” to help those people who may have found themselves in such a situation recently, are currently moving through such a situation, or may find themselves in this situation at some point. Chances are high that most everyone in their adult life will indeed find them self facing the loss of a job and the financial and emotional security it provides.
The P Factor Primer consists of five critical elements to being resilient and bouncing back from the emotional and economic body slam of unemployment. There’s an order to these elements which is important in their application to your situation if and when you find yourself neck deep in it. What’s most important is to realize that, no matter what, you are never in it over your head or alone. There’s always someone who can lend an ear, a comforting thought, useful advice or a helping hand when you feel that life has just blind sided you.
The P Factor in simple terms comes down to understanding and accepting that your situation and all of life really, is a matter of Perception, Perspective, Purpose, Possibilities and Perseverance.
More often than not our “Perception” of any given situation is flat out wrong. Human nature, thanks to our lizard brain, (and yes this is a real term by the way), assesses and divides everything we experience into two simple reactions. These are flight or fight. The stronger of these two reactions is flight.
Since humans don’t have wings flight means running away and hiding from whatever it is that we perceive to be a threat to self preservation. In the basest terms our lizard brain tells us that “If it ain’t good for us it’s gonna’ kill us, so run like hell and hide!” We find a hole. We climb in. We hide. We tremble in fear and pull the proverbial blanket over our head to keep the monsters away, even when our perception happens to be wrong. Monsters only exist in our minds because we make them up.
The other simple reaction is fight and that only happens when we force ourselves to face the monsters we make up and confront the reality of the situation. When we do we start using more than just our lizard brain and figure out ways to overcome our fears and the obstacles in our life. Perception can be either your friend or your foe. The beauty of this is we have full opportunity and control over how we choose to perceive things.
Your “Perspective” is often clouded by both your current and previous experience and beliefs. Whether you believe you will succeed or you don't believe in your success you are correct. Personal “Perspective” overrules our ability to overcome obstacles in life by giving us one narrow accepted view of all the possibilities that are available to us. We box ourselves into a belief that nothing different is possible and that everything will remain the same as it always has. The often used term “thinking outside the box” is a tool to get people to look up, outside and around and to see the monster of fear and despair for what it really is; a temporary situation and an obstacle to be overcome.
Our “Purpose” in life is simple. It is to do and be our very best with the talents, skills, education and opportunities we have both been provided with and that we personally create. If you have found yourself in a flight situation, maybe one where you’ve lost your job, you may find this difficult to accept, but the obstacles we face and failures we experience in life are just as important as our successes. In fact I truly believe that our failures are often more important than our successes. Success in the face of adversity is what builds character, strength, integrity and wisdom. Your purpose in life is to discover how to adapt, improvise and overcome, so that you are best you can possibly be.
I’d like to add this. To say, or to believe, that someone has zero purpose in life is just a lie we either let others tell us and choose to believe, or one we tell ourselves and choose to believe. It's usually a combination of both. This is the single greatest deterrent to personal happiness and accomplishment for anyone. If you find yourself believing this for yourself I encourage you to seek professional counseling to help you overcome this feeling. If you believe this is true for others I encourage you to reexamine both your “Perspective” and “Perception” on what it means to live a life of character, strength, integrity and wisdom.
Your “Possibilities” are endless, but only if you choose to perceive them as such. I guarantee that a positive mindset of "all things are possible" will assure a better chance of success than the false belief that "all things are impossible". So many people have and continue daily to succeed despite what others have thought, said or believed. There are people who do the impossible every day, and the wonderful thing is that each of us has that same capacity and opportunity to make things possible if we only believe in ourselves. I encourage you to do a search for the stories of people who have defied the odds and made the impossible possible.
There’s nothing that tops “Perseverance” on your road to success, Your “Perseverance” is what will get you to your goals. Make “I will never ever give up” your motto and mantra to live by and nothing will be able to stop you on your way to achievement and reaching your goals except for one thing; not having any.
The thing is you have to have goals to begin with in order to succeed. No goals, no success. It's that simple. Too many people don't have goals that fit what they truly need to make them happy these days. They don’t know what to persevere towards because they haven’t figured out where the hell they are headed. Don’t be that guy who doesn’t have goals. Create some and then use your “Perseverance” to reach them. If you don’t know how, reach out to me or the score of other mentors, coaches and accountability partners that can help you create the right ones for you. I tell people that I am in the business of helping people find their Smile. The P Factor is the first step to finding yours.
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Michael D. Davis is a communicator by vocation, a mentor by avocation and a social media maven by choice. His work can be found on popular channels on the web and on his blog at https://thedailychalkboard.tumblr.com/ Michael welcomes your comments and invites you to join him. Just Google #michaelddavis or #thedailychalkboard to find him and request to connect.