10 Hints & Tips for surviving a temporary recession – HT One

Image via WikipediaOne for sure way just about anyone can get themselves down, depress themselves and think negative thoughts is quite literally to surround themselves with a constant stream of bad news. Who on earth would choose to surround themselves with a constant stream of bad news you ask?

Well, anyone who watches the news on television, the radio or the net, morning, noon and night.  Seem familiar?

One of my best friends calls this kind of thing ‘The Train Wreck’ scenario. Imagine you are in the vicinity of a serious train wreck. You are so close it is just a few steps away. How likely is it that you would you walk over and take a peek? And, having taken a peek, would you keep looking, perhaps for just a short time?

Take a look at just about any news program, any internet news site, any newspaper web site and the vast, vast majority of the subjects is negative, worrying news. Its a fact, Bad News sells, it grips audiences and it can become compulsive viewing.

Do it morning noon and night and any time in between and I can just about guarantee it will have an effect on you. Probably not a good one. Repeated exposure over time will, I think will exacerbate effects.

Of course, the global media aren’t exactly responsible for this current temporary recession BUT they seem to be doing their best to perpetuate and exacerbate it by selling BAD NEWS.

Allow me to share with you a short personal story.

Some years ago I left my safe secure and thankless programming job. While in the process of setting up my current business I got into the habit of looking at internet news several times a day and within the space of less then a month was feeling uncharacteristically negative about a lot of things. I searched for what was different in my life, I had left a horrible job, decided to start a business all good things. So what was it?

What was getting me down was the constant stream of bad news I was subjecting myself to each day. So instead of watching the news several times a day I began looking at it once a day, then once a week. My mood changed considerably.

Can you learn to avoid ‘The Train Wreck’ scenario? Can you stop looking in one direction and choose another, a better direction?

Here is a tip I invite you to try out for yourself, and to notice what changes.

• Take a measure of how you feel, right now, today. Write this down ( so you have something to compare with later )
• For one week, stop watching/listening to news programs be they on the internet or television.  If this is too much and you are worried the world might freeze over cut the exposure down to once per day with a time limit. I strongly invite you to stop altogether.
• At the end of one week measure how you feel. If it is better you can keep watching less and less bad news.

If you find this useful and you have explored this tip for a week, please pass it on to a friend and please feel free to leave a comment about how this worked out for you.