Fall solstice is upon us and with it comes the end of summer when plants grow, the sun shines for hours on end, kids and adults play on vacation. For businesses it brings the hard push to make it happen in the 4th quarter while doing the added work of budget planning and year end reviews. Anyway you look at it, fall can definitely have a forbidding feel to it.

However, for some they choose to see it differently. These people might speak with excitement about the cool crisp days, the bright foliage colors, Halloween, and the beginning of something new at school or work. The point is that you have a choice as to how you see things in life and in work.

The work I do with individuals and companies has led me to develop a very strong bias toward developing the optimistic outlook. The impact of doing so has been documented in so many directions, Dr. John Gottman’s work on relationships and child development, David Cooperrider’s Appreciative Inquiry, Jim Thompson’s Positive Coaching Alliance, and Jon Gordon’s books to name a few, all speak to the importance of focusing on the positive more than the negative to improve results, increase commitment and ultimately generate energy.

So if all the data is there to support focusing on the possibilities rather than the risks, why do I and so many others struggle with making the positive choice. Why do so many people and organizations see only problems rather than opportunities, lack joy and love in their lives and cultures only to focus on fear, anxiety and anger?

For me I think the answer is that I was letting someone else carry the positive torch for me. In my last post I wrote about my father and what an unbelievable force he was in my life and many others because of the unconditional positive regard he had for life. He was a positive energizer bunny, banging away relentlessly on his drum, fearlessly focusing on what was possible as opposed to what was broken. Jon Gordon would call him a Chief Energy Officer.

Now that he is gone I’m realizing just how much I relied on him for that. Upon reflection I think I had to counter him with some sense of reality, especially toward the very end of his battle with cancer. If he was the metaphorical Spring and Summer, I was Fall and Winter. In a way we balanced each other out. Now that he is gone, I’m out of balance, one of my gimbals is locked and a degree of freedom in my life is temporarily lost. This is a scary place to be, but also an opportunity not to be missed.

The risk I see is that I may look to someone else to enroll as a replacement for my father rather than developing a more positive mindset for myself. The fuel that drives me is the memory of my father and a sense of urgency that is strong because his death is a reminder that life is short, so I better well make the most of it and appreciate everything along the way. The data also suggests that I will be a lot better off, personally and professionally, if I reset my locked gimbal quickly and make it my own rather than outsourcing it to someone else again.

Not an easy task, but my strategy so far is to start exercising again, getting outside more to appreciate the natural wonders that are beyond me, and consciously choosing to look for what is good, in order to acknowledge it and do more of it. It’s early but I’m happy to report that there appears to be a momentum to my life again. Despite the days being shorter and the impending proverbial curtain coming down in the Northwest, my days are slowly getting brighter.

So my invitation to you on the day the seasons change, is to take a moment to ask yourself who or what is your source of positivity? If you are counting on someone or something else to carry that torch for you, be forewarned that it could unexpectedly disappear if you don’t do the work to create it for yourself. If upon reflection it is someone or something other than you, then take another moment to acknowledge what they provide to you and appreciate how lucky you are to have that in your life. Just remember that it is ultimately your own choice as to how you see the cup. Starting today I’m choosing to see it half full on my own, which is new for me and is because something had to die. What do you choose?