There are many ways to have a positive attitude towards life. One approach is to follow your principles in pressure situations and do your best to get positive results.
Some people actually welcome such situations. They may do this when tackling a challenge, managing a setback or helping other people during troubling times.
Such people believe that following their principles enables them to behave in a consistent way in a potentially chaotic situation. They have a personal compass that provides them with the strength to tackle such challenges.
Some people do this in their personal lives. Some do it when working in professional situations. One person expressed this approach in the following way.
“I get a lot of pleasure from my daily work but I also like tackling so-called pressure situations. This gives me the opportunity to test following my principles when tackling challenges.”
Different people follow this approach in different ways. Let’s explore how they may follow these themes in different situations.
They Have A Positive Attitude
Such people choose to have a positive attitude. They focus on the possibilities and opportunities. They take this approach rather than worry about what some would see as pressures.
When asked if they worry, they may then give the following well-known response.
“Will it help if I worry? Probably not. So I aim to do my best when tackling potential challenges.”
Such people clarify what they can control in a situation. They then take the following steps.
They clarify their principles … They aim to follow these principles in the pressure situation … They do their best to get positive results.
Different people will express these in different ways. Let’s explore how some people translate these into action.
They Clarify Their Principles
Some people start by clarifying the principles they want to follow in their lives or work. They find that taking this approach provides them with a compass they can follow in situations.
Such people aim to follow their own moral compass, a spiritual faith or a philosophy they believe in. They focus on their principles when making decisions, managing situations or working towards a goal.
Different people will obviously follow different principles. Here are some that people mention when exploring this theme.
Principles – The principles that I
want to follow in my life or work are:
To encourage people … To be kind … To build on my strengths … To follow strategies that work … To always do my best … To keep improving … To do work that helps people or the planet.
Imagine that you want to follow this approach in your own way. If you wish, try tackling the exercise on this theme. This invites you to clarify the principles you want to follow in your life or work.
Some people start by brainstorming lots of principles and then settle on the three main principles they want to follow. Here is the exercise.
Imagine that you have clarified the principles you want to follow. Let’s move on to the next step taken some people.
They Follow Their Principles
In Pressure Situations
Different people will do this in different situations. Some may do this in their personal lives. They may aim to be kind, encourage people and do practical things to help people during difficult times.
Some people aim to follow certain principles in their professional lives. They may do this when caring for people in Accident & Emergency, playing a sport or tackling certain kinds of challenges.
Some people took this approach after the shocks provided by elections in Europe and the USA. After a period of mourning, they chose to follow caring principles in a potentially uncaring world.
People who follow their principles recognise this can bring both pluses and minuses. The pluses can include them feeling true to themselves, helping other people and doing their best to get positive results.
The minuses can include feeling alone, not seeing instant results and being criticised. Bearing this in mind, such people try to build on the pluses and manage the consequences of any minuses.
Different people follow their principles in different ways in challenging times. This was exemplified by how different people behaved during the Covid crisis.
Some people chose to care for their neighbours, support medical staff, supply food banks and help others. Others chose to make a quick profit by selling faulty medical equipment, marketing fake cures or phishing.
Samual and Pearl Oliner have studied when people follow their principles in extremely challenging times. Their books include The Altruistic Personality and Do Unto Others.
The Altruistic Personality chronicles the activities of people who protected Jews during the Holocaust. Up to 500,000 non-Jews risked their own lives to rescue the victims of Nazi persecution.
These were ordinary people, say Pearl and Samuel. They were farmers, teachers, entrepreneurs, factory workers, rich and poor, parents and single people, Protestants and Catholics.
Different people helped the Jews in different ways. Some offered them shelter, some helped them escape from prison and some smuggled them out of the country.
The rescuers committed themselves to helping Jews, knowing that capture would mean death for their families. Why? Many said, “It was the right thing to do.” Individuals also said things like:
“I was always filled with love for everyone, for every creature, for things. I am fused into every object. For me everything is alive. I sensed I had in front of me human beings that were hunted down like wild animals.
“This aroused a feeling of brotherhood and a desire to help. We had to help these people in order to save them, not because they were Jews, but because they were persecuted human beings who needed help.”
Samuel illustrates the moral of the book by describing his own experiences. As a 12-year-old Jewish boy in Poland, he fled the Nazis after his parents were captured. Knocking on the door of a family he hardly knew, he was taken in by the mother, Balwina.
Protecting him from the Nazis, she gave her instructions. Change his name to Jusek; go to church every Sunday; learn the Catholic Catechism; get a job and ensure nobody saw him undressed.
Balwina protected him for a while, but then the situation became too dangerous. He trekked across the country with other refugees and finally found safety.
Looking ahead, can you think of a situation where you may want to follow your principles? How can you do this in your own way? If you wish, try tackling the exercise on this theme. This invites you to complete the following sentences.
They Do Their Best
To Get Positive Results
Some people follow their principles in challenging situations and do their best to get positive results. Sometimes these may be small things, sometimes they may be bigger.
A carer may help a loved one to get through each day … A medic may help a person to heal … An educator may help a dyslexic child to build on their strengths and get a success.
A footballer may use their money to run a foundation for people in their homeland … A mediator may help people to find solutions to a conflict … A scientist may make progress towards finding a cure for an illness.
People who follow their principles may get a win each day by being true to themselves. Some may also aim to do positive things that help people or the planet.
Imagine that you have clarified your principles and aim to translate these into action. This can be relatively simple in everyday life but it can be more difficult when facing challenging situations.
Some individuals actually relish tackling such situations. They sometimes say the following things to themselves.
“This is an opportunity to follow my principles in a tough situation. It is something I have imagined and prepared for. Now is the time to translate these principles into practice.”
Such people aim to do their professional best in the situation. Different people may do this in different situations.
They may focus on doing their
professional best when aiming:
To counsel a troubled person … To manage a specific crisis … To perform in a sporting event … To mediate in a conflict situation … To perform a critical medical operation … To defuse a bomb … To tackle a daunting challenge.
Such prepare properly and rehearse what they are going to do. Moving into action, they are fully present and follow their chosen principles. They then do their best to achieve the picture of success.
Some people define this as doing their professional best rather than simply their personal best. One person expressed the reason for this in the following way.
“I often switch into professional role in certain situations and move into another dimension. I become alive, alert and use my antennae to focus fully on the task in hand.
“I tend to forget myself and, whilst still trying to be a compassionate person, I clarify what needs to be done. I then do my professional best to achieve the picture of success.”
Good organisations also aim to follow their principles. This can be relatively easy when things are calm. The hard part is following these in stormy weather. It can therefore be useful to test how to follow the principles in challenging situations.
One company I worked with took this approach. The senior team began by involving key people across the business in agreeing on the principles to follow in the future.
The company then held employee workshops where people explored how to translate these principles into action. It included this exercise.
The Principles Challenge
Choose a situation where it may be challenging to follow the principles.
Clarify the possible options for tackling the challenge together with the pluses and minuses of each option.
Clarify which of these possible options is the one where we can – as far as possible – follow our principles and translate these into action.
The employees threw themselves into the exercise and produced plans for tackling most scenarios. Sometimes there were no easy answers. The key was to encourage people to prepare properly, however, and follow the option that was closest to pursuing the principles.
Following Your Principles
In An Unpredictable World
Great workers, teams organisations often focus on stability, stimulation and success. But this begs a question: How can you maintain stability in an unpredictable world?
One approach is to continue to follow your principles. These provide an inner compass and consistency in what can sometimes be chaotic circumstances. Let’s explore this theme.
During the past thirty years it has become a cliché to say that we live in a VUCA world. The term was coined in the 1990s to describe a world that had become increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.
Some people find such a world to be frightening. It creates opportunities for demagogues who promise simplistic solutions or who create scapegoats.
How to live in such a world? How to deal with challenging events in the midst of what sometimes appears to be chaos? As mentioned earlier, one approach is to keep returning to your principles. It is to ask yourself the following questions.
“What are the principles I want to follow in my life or work? How can I follow these in potentially challenging situations? How can I then do my best to get positive results?”
You can make your principles the internal compass for your life. These will help to prevent being tossed around by events. When in doubt, you can return to these principles. These can help to provide some stability in your life.
Let’s return to the main themes. Looking ahead, imagine that you may face a potential pressure situation in the future. How can you follow your principles and do your best to get positive results?
If you wish, try tackling the final exercise on this theme. This invites you to complete the following sentences.
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