If your job has you down, reframe your situation as a success to beat job blues.
Job blues can come from:
- unemployment (involuntary loss of work)
- underemployment (not enough hours or challenge)
- misemployment (being in the wrong job)
- retirement (leaving workforce)
Whatever the source, job blues can take a big toll on your psyche and brain. A feeling of loss or failure can slow your brain down.
Chase the job blues away when you reframe your situation as a success story.
Learn how by watching Grace work through her job blues in the movie Better from Within.
Despite being laid off, Grace reframes her situation as a success story. As a result, she closes the open failure file, and frees up her brain for her next win. This process is described in the excerpt below from Better from Within: 7 Steps to a Wise Brain, available in the 4th quarter of 2024 (click here for availability updates).
Think like a brain
We are going to get busy right now finding some wonderful words to describe your life story, which has been a string of successes so far. You might be thinking the opposite, that your life has been a series of losses. But you are wrong.
If you don’t see it that way, you are using the wrong definition of success. Forget about your dopamine-driven mind’s notions about success. When it comes to our story, we need to think like a brain.
Our brain is very smart in defining success. Since the brain is an organ, its yardstick for measuring success is survival. If you are alive, your brain thinks you’re a winner, no matter what horrors you have endured. We only have wisdom to share from our experiences if we live through them.
If you learn from life experiences to grow richer in wisdom, your brain thinks “Woo-hoo! We survived that disaster! We won! The future is open wide!” As the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said, “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.” Stronger and wiser.
Reframe your situation as a success
You have had some big setbacks in your life. Other people, happenstance, or unforeseen consequences may have caused some. Perhaps some of them have resulted from your own mistakes or poor choices. But even if you have moved on and forgotten about the failures, you might be keeping your brain stuck in the past.
Sometimes, a past “failure” can stop your story in its tracks. When a setback gets stored in memory with the label “failure,” it’s like having an open file on your computer. These “open failure files” can create rogue memories of past losses. Negative rumination and toxic self-talk, like “I’m a loser,” easily arise from these rogue memories and sap your brain’s energy.
Over time, this open failure file can produce chronic negative thoughts about the self. This pattern of poisonous thoughts can wreak havoc with your brain. As your mind overworks your brain by ruminating about past setbacks, inflammatory debris builds up in the brain and wakes you up at night.
Your brain will hold the “failure” file open until your mind finds the words to reframe the setback as a success by learning from it. Once you use words to close the open failure files, your brain will rewrite the rogue memory. Without open failure files, your self-talk can work for you, rather than against you.
Keep positive view of self
The power of positive thinking about yourself is the key to growing a wise brain throughout life. Chronic positive feelings about yourself refresh the default network and excite the mind to take charge of your story and look for your next win.
The point of a personal life story is a golden harvest of wisdom to share. No setback need stop your story in its tracks if you reframe losses into wins by learning your lessons to cultivate wisdom. But it is up to you to reframe losses and reveal the point of your personal story: why your life has been worth living from your own perspective.
Now, let’s look at how to apply this information to your current situation. Grace’s yoga session with her Aunt Nonie and the Triumph Tale tool will show you how to chase the job blues away when you reframe your situation as a success story. This will get the power of your words working for you, rather than against you.
This excerpt is from Better from Within: 7 Steps to a Wise Brain, available in the 4th quarter of 2024 (click here for availability updates).
Other books by Phyllis Strupp:
Better with Age: The Ultimate Guide to Brain Training
#Inspiration #Success #Storytelling #Self-help
