7 Strategies to Stop Getting Drained by Your Problems & Focus on Possibilities

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But I'm excited for what I'm growing for. There's this balanced approach. Notice how I'm not just putting forward the other extreme. Life isn't just about saying I'm at one extreme. How do I get to the other extreme? I'm negative. Let's go to positive. I'm not grateful. Let's be grateful. It doesn't work like that. That's too simple. The answer is far more gray. The answer is not black and white. The answer is not on one or the other side. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every one of you that come back every week to to listen, learn and grow. Thank you so much for tuning in, turning up for your transformation. I am so, so happy to get to spend this time with you every day, every week, multiple times a day maybe. And I want to thank all of you that have been leaving reviews I'm always learning. I'm always trying to improve with your feedback, always trying to make this better. And I'm so happy that we've always kept this absolutely free. The podcast has been free since day one. You have over four, a half year's worth of content that's available. Make sure you go back and listen to incredible episodes, all the way back in 2019 and just last week. So today I want to talk about something really important. And I think a lot of the time we've heard a lot about positive thinking. It's all about positivity, they say. And I think as time's gone on, we've all realized that positivity or positive thinking, it doesn't really work. Because when we tell someone to be positive, what we're telling them to do is think good things, right? Just be positive. Ignore the negative. Ignore what's wrong in your life right now. Don't accept your emotions or your feelings. Don't acknowledge what you're going through. Just be positive. So someone says to you, like, oh, I'm really worried that I may not get this job. Oh, just be positive. You'll get it. And then it comes around. They didn't get their job. And they said, well, I was being positive. Why didn't I get it? The truth is, maybe there was feedback, maybe there was a lesson, maybe there was learning. Maybe that job wasn't right for them. Maybe they didn't try hard enough. Maybe they needed to understand their feeling of worry and know how to transform it and move away from anxiety. But telling someone to be positive doesn't get them the result they want, and it stops them from dealing with the emotion, right? Telling someone to be positive doesn't get them the result, and it stops them from acknowledging how they're feeling. So I think toxic positivity has been around for a long time, and often people assume if someone's telling you to think bigger or think more mindfully than they're saying, be positive. And I don't think that's the case. So I want you to know that today I'm not telling you to be positive. I'm not trying to just get you to think about the good things in life. That is not what I'm encouraging you to do, because I think there's a lot more to it than that simple statement. Now, there's three types of thinking, positive thinking, problem thinking, and possibility thinking. I want to talk to you a bit about problem thinking, the opposite end. So if positivity is one extreme, where you force Yourself to just be like, everything's going to work out, everything's going to be great, everything's amazing, right? Which it isn't. You have to do stuff, you have to work through stuff, you have to figure things out. The other extreme is problem thinking. Everything's a problem. Oh, I can never do that. That's never going to work out. That's impossible. That won't work for me. I can't do it. It's not going to happen, right? We do the opposite. Just as we were blindly being positive, we're now blindly being negative. Just as we were being positive for the sake of being positive, we're now being negative for the sake of being negative, right? There was no basis, there was no evidence to our positivity and now there's no evidence to our problems. We just keep pointing out the problems. Even if someone presents a solution, we find the one negative in that solution and it just continues to go round and round and round. So I want to present to you possibility thinking, right? The possibility mindset. This isn't imagination, this isn't delusion. Possibility mindset is saying, instead of being falsely positive, instead of being falsely negative or falsely problem looking or problem spotting, let me think in possibilities. Let me always look for possibilities. Instead of problems. Let me look for what could happen, what we could figure out, let me look at what and how we could approach it differently. Let me look at what is possible. Let me look at the possible over the impossible. Let me look at what's probable instead of the impossible. Let me stop discounting or deflecting things as just being full of problems and let me actually find the way. Now, the way I want to address this is, is I want to share this with you as if you have a possibility mindset or a problem mindset. So if you have a problem mindset, you will believe there is only one way. We do this in our careers, we do this in our passions, we do this in our marriages, we do this in our relationships. If you're someone who believes there is only one way, it means we're stuck in problem mindset. We believe this is the only path. And if this path doesn't work for us, then it will never work for us. We believe that this is the only job that will make us happy. And if we don't get this job, then we can't be happy. We believe that this is the only way we'll get to where we want to go to. And if we don't go it this way, then it won't happen. If you are someone who believes there is only one way to get to where you want to go, you are living in problem mindset. Now, someone who's living in a possibility mindset will say, let me find another way. There must be another way. The back door, the trap door, the secret door, the revolving door. There are so many other doors than the front door. That is a possibility mindset. There's windows, right? There's cat flaps. I'm totally going off. But you get the point. The idea is you want to train yourself to remember there's always another way. There's always another door. There's always another possibility. You have to look deeply, search for that possibility. Thomas Edison once said, when you believe, you've exhausted all options, remember this? You haven't. I remember at a certain point in my life, I believed that the way to making a living was through having a job. Now, that's totally normal and totally fine. And there's nothing wrong with that, right? That's normal. And if you're successful at your job, things are going fine for you. That's actually an amazing way. But as someone who realized how insecure that was at times, I recognized that I needed to have multiple sources of income in order to be safe because I wasn't doing a job I loved or a job that I was doing, you know, propelling at. And to me, this was a really, really important learning that there was another way to live. Right. It never even occurred to me before that that you could have multiple revenue streams or that was a way of living. At one point in my life, as crazy as it sounds, I really didn't believe there were many jobs in my head. You could only be in a couple of jobs because everyone around me was in a couple of jobs. So I didn't even know you could be in media or be in journalism or be in communications. I didn't know roles like that existed. It's fascinating to think, but it's true. I'm sure there are times in your life where you didn't believe there were certain types of music and you discovered a new type of music. And this is what it's all about. Discovery. When we're living in a possibility mindset, we're allowing ourselves to discover, we're allowing ourselves to unravel, reveal something. So I want you to think about, where in your life have you developed a problem mindset where you look for the problems and you think, oh, this is the only way, and it's not working. I've failed. And how can you challenge Yourself. How can you push yourself to actually look for the possibilities, even when it seems like there are none, Right? Remember those words of Thomas Edison, when you believe you've exhausted all options, remember this. You haven't. When you think you've exhausted all options, when you think you've been down every path, I promise you, there's another one. If you really care about the goal, keep trying a new path. If you don't care about the goal, then change your goal. But if you care about the goal, keep finding a new path. Now, if you're living in a problem mindset, when you see a plan, when you see your goal, you actually just see a list of issues, right? If you're living in a problem mindset, you're someone who, even though you have a goal, even though you have a habit you want to build, maybe you have a physical goal, a mental goal, an emotional goal, a career goal, but all you do is you think, oh, God, I got too much to do. Oh, gosh, I need to be there. Oh, that's not going to happen. Right? Instead, someone with the possibility mindset will list out all the areas of growth. They'll list out the skills that they have in order to get there, and they'll list out the gaps as well. Notice how that's a different mindset. There's a different mindset between listing the issues and listing the problems and then listing areas of growth. Now, this is what I want you to do. As a practical step, make a list of everything you have ever achieved. Right? Make a list of everything you've ever achieved. It could be the developing of a skill, it could be a qualification, it could be a degree, Whatever it may be, it could be a job promotion. And ask yourself two questions. One, what are the skills that you developed or have that helped you get there? And second of all, was that a traditional route you took or did you take an untraditional route? The first question is important because you have to realize that you have skills in order to get to where you want to get to. And some of the problems that you're pursuing or some of the problems you're facing, you actually have the skills to solve those problems. You've actually done that before. And the second question is important to help you realize that often you may have done things in a slightly different way. You might have done things in a roundabout way. There is plenty of possibility that you approach things differently. And when I practice my possibility mindset, if I have a goal, I always look at it and go, okay, what would I need to learn. Okay, what would I need to develop? Okay, great. Where do I need to start? Right? Rather than looking at, all right, this is going to get in the way. This is going to get in the way. I would say this is going to get in the way. But how do I create a plan around that? Right? That's the difference between possibility and positivity thinking. Positivity thinking is thinking, well, everything's going to go great, everything's going to go to plan. There's no issues. Possibility thinking is, yeah, I know that's a possibility, but how can I make it less of a probability? Right? That's what possibility thinking is. I know that's a possibility. I know it's possible that things could go wrong, but how do I reduce that probability and actually have a proactivity approach to solving it if and when it happens? That's a possibility Mindset this segment about possibility is brought to you by AT&T. AT&T believes Connecting changes everything Sometimes we're our own worst enemy and our own harshest critics, and this self doubt often prevents us from reaching our full potential. It doesn't just affect us individually, it can also hold back our teams and entire organizations. This is what we call default thinking. It's when we get stuck in our usual ways of thinking, limiting our options, stifling creativity, and stopping us from exploring all the different ideas and opportunities that are out there there. To open the door for more opportunities and possibilities, we need to shift from default thinking to scenario thinking. Scenario thinking simply means being able to think about multiple different possibilities at the same time and being ready to act when opportunities come our way. When you adopt this strategy, you start thinking what if instead of this is our only option or we don't have another choice. This change in how you think will gradually make you see things from a different perspective, one that's curious and open to new experiences. As you get used to this what if approach, you'll discover a whole world of options and solutions you might not have seen before. This newfound flexibility can be the key to achieving great success in your personal and professional life because it equips you to deal with the ever changing challenges and opportunities that come your way. So how do you make this shift to scenario thinking and open up more possibilities? Here are a few practical don't let fear hold you back. Face your fears and doubts head on. Understand that fear can often stop you from exploring new ideas. By acknowledging and pushing past these fears, you can start thinking about different options without hesitation. 2. Think about what you want to achieve. Begin with a clear picture of what you want to accomplish. When you have a goal in mind, it's easier to explore different paths that can lead you there. Visualizing your success can motivate you to make changes. 3. Come up with different options. Actively brainstorm various possibilities, even ones that may seem a bit unusual or risky initially. By considering a wide range of options, you increase your chances of finding creative solutions. 4. Identify and assess your stakeholders. Think about the people or groups who might be affected by your decisions or actions. Engage with them to get a variety of perspectives and feedback. This collaborative approach can help you make better, more informed choices. The next time you hit a roadblock. Exercise those four ways to find more creative solutions for your next challenge. This has been brought to you by AT&T. AT&T believes connecting inspires, unites, heals, and helps us grow. Connecting changes how we live our lives for the better. Now Someone who's got a problem mindset relies on doing things in the mind alone. And someone in the possibility mindset realizes you have to take action. So what I mean by that is if you're thinking about problems, you usually just think about them in your head and you go, yeah, that won't work. That one worked. That won't work. And you try to figure it out in your head. It's almost like mental gymnastics or mental arithmetic. It's like trying to solve a math problem in your head when you're not that good at math, right? And so what's so interesting about that is you just keep going round and round in circles in your mind, trying to figure it out rather than just taking action. Again, it comes back to that proactive possibility mindset. How can we take action? How can we move forward? How can we just take one step? If you're struggling with problem thinking, it's because you're being blocked. To actually take a step, the step could be ordering a book. The step could be taking a class. The step could be doing a course. The step could be trying it once, right? The step, the action doesn't have to be a big risk. It doesn't mean you have to take on a huge burden or carry a huge weight. It can truly be the simplest step forward. So the next one is the problem Mindset says nothing is ever enough. We always forget that where we are today is somewhere we once probably dreamed of, right? There are things that you have achieved today that once upon a time you are ambitious to pursue. There are things that you have attained today that at one point you can believe you could get to. It could have been a job. It could have been a partner. It could have been a financial position. Please, please, please think about this for a second. But nothing is ever enough. It's always about what's next. That's problem thinking. Why? Because if we're always wondering what's next, then even when we get to next, we'll be lost in what's next. It just keeps going on and on. Whereas a possibility mindset says, I'm grateful for what I have, but I'm excited for what I'm growing for. Right? I'm grateful for what I have, but I'm excited for what I'm growing for. There's this balanced approach. Notice how I'm not just putting forward the other extreme. Life isn't just about saying, I'm at one extreme. How do I get to the other extreme? I'm negative. Let's go to positive. I'm not grateful. Let's be grateful. It doesn't work like that. That's too simple. The answer is far more gray. The answer is not black and white. The answer is not on one or the other side. So how can we really develop this mindset? The first is when you're grateful for what you have. You don't have to just be content. I think people mistake gratitude with saying, I don't want more. Right. That's not what gratitude is. Gratitude is, I appreciate where I am. I appreciate myself for how far I've come. If you're climbing up a mountain, half of the mountain, you're like, I'm grateful to myself for getting halfway up. You're going to get the energy. It's going to give you the boost you need to get the other half. Whereas if you're looking at it going, gosh, I've still got half left to go. I haven't achieved anything. Do you think that mindset is going to help rather than the mindset of, this is amazing. I'm doing great. All right, let's push forward. Right? You can either motivate yourself out of love and compassion and gratitude, or you can motivate yourself out of fear and anxiety.

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Fear and anxiety get you started. Don't get me wrong, they work, but they don't get you far. Fear and anxiety will get you started, but they won't get you far. Whereas love, gratitude will get you far on the journey of life. If you can talk to yourself with compassion, talk to yourself with grace. Talk to yourself with love. You'll actually be able to push forward. Now this is where it really shows up. And you might see this more in your friends, but I want you to notice in yourself. If you have a problem mindset, you're likely to discourage others. When others share their ideas, when others share their thoughts, you might be like, ah, that's never going to work. Oh yeah, did you hear so and so? Starting an app? Oh, did you know that person started a podcast? Or did you know that person's trying out something? You know, whatever it may be, we'll find another way to constantly make it feel like that's not going to work. And I think we do that all the time. Sometimes we do it, sometimes our friends do it. We kind of discount what is possible for other people. We talk down on other people's dreams. We make other people's beliefs feel like they're not going to work. Right. I think this happens a lot, and it happens to many, many of us where we just don't realize how limiting we are of other people because we've developed a problem mindset. Or when your friend tells you an idea instead of thinking about how it could be good, you think about all the problems you think you're helping. And by the way, telling someone the challenges they may face is a good thing, but you're not also taking a moment to say, well, that could work. That could happen. What about this? What about that? And by the way, the reason I'm saying this is I remember pitching my ideas to so many people who wrote me off. And I've seen how easy it is to write other people off as well. It doesn't take a brain cell to write someone off, yet we all do it. So a problem mindset person discourages others, whereas a possibility mindset person talks about the possibilities. Hey, have you thought about this possibility? Hey, have you thought about this possibility? By the way, this possibility may be an obstacle or a challenge, and this possibility may be a way out. Have you thought about it like this? You're not telling them to do it or not to do it. You're not also replying and just saying, oh, you're amazing. This is the best idea. I wish you all the best. It's going to be incredible. You don't want to lie to your friends either, but think about that for a second, right? When and how can you help others as opposed to discourage others? That's the problem versus the possibility mindset. Now this one's a huge one. The problem mindset doesn't choose their words carefully. It chooses words carelessly. And the possibility mindset chooses thoughts and words extremely carefully. Look at the difference between this. You can either say, I can't do this, right? Or you can say, how can I do this? You can either say, it won't work or what can I do to make it work? Notice how you're not just saying, I can make anything work. I can do anything, right? You're not just lying to yourself. And again, using these very empty statements, you're actually twisting the thought into a question. So instead of I can't do this, asking yourself, how can I do this? Instead of saying, that won't work, what can I do to make it work. Notice how when you turn it into a question, you take responsibility for your journey, you take accountability for your journey. You take this purpose to do something about it. So one of my friends asked me the other day, they were like, jay, does this thought stuff really work? Now? I think the reason why people think this thought stuff doesn't work is people think it's spiritual. And actually it's more coding than it is spiritual. When you say something to your brain, when you say something in your mind, you are simply coding, right? That's what it is. You're saying something that you're going to repeat. And the question you want to ask yourself is, is this coding? Is this repeated thought helping me get to where I want to get to? Chances are, repeating I can't do this is not going to lead to something creative, right? Chances of you saying this won't work means it probably won't work, right? That isn't going to happen. So the question mark is, can you do it by asking yourself the question, right? Can you switch that mindset? Now, when you start to switch the thought to, how do I do this? How do I figure it out? Guess what? You start figuring it out. You start answering the question. When you start answering the question, you start seeing change, right? You start seeing change. So changing your thoughts is not just some spiritual activity. Changing your thoughts is rewiring your coding. Another thing you might find in the problem mindset of people around you is they think they're an expert, right? They think they're an expert. Whereas people of the possibility mindset think like a beginner. A lot of problem mindset people will be like, oh, yeah, that won't work because of this, this, and this. Oh, yeah, I saw that once. Whereas a possibility mindset goes, I'm willing to learn. I'm ready to sit with Masters to figure out what to do here, right? I'm willing to figure it out. And this also tips over to the next point, which is armchair philosophers. A lot of people, you may have a lot of friends Who Talk on WhatsApp groups, who talk on text groups. They're always just armchair philosophy. They don't take any action. They just talk big things. Whereas a possibility mindset finds people who are doing big things, right? Ask yourself, are you surrounded by people who talk about big things, or are you surrounded by people who do big things? And what I mean by that is even people who do big things have to talk about them first. But are you around people who just have big conversations, deep conversations, in order to sound smart? And feel like they're doing great work and make themselves feel smart and all the rest of it, or are you actually around people who are like taking strides in their life? If you want to grow, if you want to develop a positivity mindset, you have to be around people who think in possibility, who are making possibility happen, who are making shifts happen in your life and their life and everyone's lives. Right? It rubs off. And in order to do that, we have to study people who made the impossible possible. We have to consider others crazy ideas to be possible. We have to find that abundance community. And I think so often we've just surrounded ourselves by so many people who are constantly negative and down about their own life, your life, everyone's life that we adopt that. Thank you so much for listening to On Purpose today. I'm so grateful for your time and energy. Please share the practice that you will be putting into action in your life. Thank you for joining again.

Hey, it's Joel and Matt from how to Money. If your new year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back prices, they're still high and the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right, yeah. Each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on, and the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to how to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is Dr. Jesse Mills, host of the Mailroom podcast. Each January, men promise to get stronger, work harder, and fix what's broken. But what if the real work isn't physical at all? I sat down with psychologist Dr. Steve Poulter to unpack shame, anxiety, and the emotional pain men were never taught how to name.

Part of the way through the valley.

Of despair is realizing this has happened and you have to make a choice whether you're going to stay in it.

Or or move forward.

Our two part conversation is available now. Listen to the mailroom on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.

Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Walley.

And I'm Hari Kondabolu.

It's a new year and on the podcast Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health, which means.

Being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early. Is there a chronotype for that, or am I just depressed? Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone.

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