Positive Thoughts For Only $3.99

Things have been a little crazy these days. From challenging customer service issues to collaborating with the inspiring Jenny Dempsey on some super top secret customer success ideas, sometimes it’s hard to keep your thoughts on track through all of the hustle and bustle. But fear no longer, my fellow competitively minded customer service champions! For the low price of only $3.99 I invite you all down to your local office supply store (or work supply closet) to snag a bag of some trusty rubber bands. If for some reason your work doesn’t have rubber bands, and there’s not a budget in place to purchase more, then please use this time to think some positive thoughts on finding a new job…

The game is simple. Here’s what you need:

• Two arms with wrists
• A bag of rubber bands (the more the better)
• Awareness

At the beginning of your work day, when you are feeling inspired and ready to deliver some awesome customer service, grab your bag of rubber bands, and put 25 on your left wrist (Disclaimer: The internets states that the average human thinks 12,000 to 50,000 thoughts in a day, so feel free to increase the amount of rubber bands accordingly). Congratulations, you have started the day breaking even with your thoughts, now let’s start to make a positive profit. Most days I find my thoughts slamming around through my head so fast that before I’m able to analyze one I am on to another. This game is designed to get you to slow those thoughts down, and really analyze their beneficial or not-so beneficial impact on your daily life and the success you meet at work.

Think a positive thought? Awesome! Move a rubber band from your left wrist to your right wrist. That’s 1 more positive thought under your belt today than you started with, keep it up! Vice versa it goes the other way, did someone steal your stapler and your thoughts turn south? Then swing a rubber band over to your left wrist. How are you doing now? At the end of your work day, you might have more rubber bands on your left wrist or your right wrist, tally up all those positive thoughts on the right! Use this as a barometer of success for the next day, challenge yourself to think more positive thoughts than the day prior. It’s time to take some control on the direction of your day.

Set a goal for yourself, if you end up with 10 rubber bands on your right wrist at the end of your work day, then make an attempt to have even more positive thoughts the day after! Set a goal at the end of the week to maybe have all of the rubber bands on your right wrist, talk about an epic week of positive thoughts! By this time you might be asking yourself, what’s the point of all of this? It’s simple, to make positive thinking a habit. It’s easy enough to form a habit with something physical, say going running every day or remembering to feed your dog, but making a habit out of thoughts is another matter all together. I brainstormed this all day, and have determined that the trick to forming habits with thoughts is to correlate them with a physical action, a way to measure your thoughts and compare/analyze them like a business analyzes profits.

Feeling extra competitive? Do you like to crush others in the glory of victory? Then challenge your co-workers to a little positive thought championship. Share that bag of rubber bands, get more people aware of what they are creating during the day, and compare the results at the end of the day. Who needs a football pool when competition and the desire to be a positive winner can be played 365 days out of the year?

Always remember, reinforce those positive habits with an awesome reward. Whatever that might be for you, ice cream, video games, maybe just a nice quiet day to yourself. Set a goal, meet it, and savor the victory!

[custom_author=derricka]