Tips for a productive outlook on life

It’s a natural human reaction to get upset or angry at things, people, situations, or even yourself. Over the years, I’ve noticed that I rarely get worked up over anything and tend to view everything through a rosy lens of cheery optimism. By analyzing my own reactions to the world, I think I’ve narrowed it down to a few key strategies that can help anyone else do the same:

Realize that not everything is under your control. More specifically, realize what you can indeed control. Most of the time, there are a whole bunch of constraints imposed upon you and there’s very little you can do to turn tides in your favor. People tend to get angry because of everything they have no control over. Instead, I would suggest trying to focus on what you do have power to control and then do your absolute best at it. The internal satisfaction that you did your best is immense, trust me.

Adopt the viewpoint that everyone around you is doing the absolute best they can. It’s so easy to lash out at someone for not showing up on time or failing to do a certain task. Sure, there’s a few instances where it can be attributed to pure laziness or lack of motivation, but in the majority of times, people are just doing the best they can. If you’re not satisfied with them, just tell them why constructively instead of channelling that frustration through other means.

Treat all negatives as constraints. This is something especially useful for designers or anyone in creative fields. Tough client? Being forced to do busy-work? Gotta pull overtime? Every single thing that negatively impacts your performance can be seen as just another design constraint that you have to work with. As a creative, it’s your job to deliver the best product or experience that satisfies all these limitations. If you simply treat all the cons as constraints, it will simply be that much easier for you to do the work without burning out or feeling overworked.

Make people feel good about themselves. If I had to pick one of all these, this would be it. There’s a famous quote somewhere along the lines of “People won’t remember what you did, said, or showed; they will only remember how you made them feel,” and it’s especially important in today’s age of digital interactions. It’s not hard either. Just ask someone what the hardest part of doing this work was and validate their thoughts. Compliment them on the work they did and pride them on the decisions they made. Even if they don’t remember your actual feedback and thoughts about the work, they will remember how you made them feel.

This also works in the opposite way: if you simply attack people with words while still stating that their work was amazing, that person will feel worse about their abilities than the person who was complimented for acceptable work. This is a delicate tactic that needs to be handled with care depending on what the situation requires.

There’s plenty more tips and strategies that lead to positive and successful lives, but these are some of the foundational ones which you absolutely must live by if you want to remain optimistic in a world turning progressively more hectic by the day. Taking a step back and analyzing what you did wrong or right after every experience or encounter can also help immensely in framing your own mindset about your reactions to the world. Hope this helps anyone who wants a better outlook on life.