The world is a lot right now.
Protecting your positivity from this dumpster fire is not passive.
It requires a deliberate choice about what you let in.
Welcome to Ask Coach Tony!
Hi, I’m Coach Tony, and this is Ask Coach Tony.
These are unfiltered field notes from the goal-crushing life: coaching wins, personal breakthroughs, and the failures that taught both me and my clients the most. All real, all useful, all here to help you move forward.
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A lion walks into a bar and says "Gimme ........... a beer".
Bartender says, "Why the long paws?"
Are You Pouring Fuel on the Negativity Dumpster Fire?
Last week, we talked about the dumpster fire.
You didn’t light it. But it’s burning in your backyard, and you own what happens next. We talked about E+R=O, the idea that you can’t always control the events in your life, but you can always control your response. And we talked about how knowing your goal gives you a North Star that keeps you moving even when everything around you feels like it’s on fire.
That was the foundation. This week, we’re building on it.
Because here’s something I’ve noticed. Most people are working against themselves without realizing it. They’re trying to protect their positivity while simultaneously pouring fuel on the dumpster fire.
And that fuel has a name. It’s called your information diet.
The Problem With What You’re Consuming
Think about this for a second.
You wake up after a good night of sleep and start your day with a clear head.
Then you pick up your phone and spend 20 minutes scrolling through news headlines, social media arguments, and comment sections. Then you watch the news for a few hours. (or is that just me?)
By lunch, you are aware of every outrage in the world, have no faith in your fellow humans, and wonder why you’re even bothering with your goals.
That is not a coincidence. That is cause and effect.
What you allow into your brain shapes how you see the world.
Your brain is designed to find and reinforce patterns. Feed it a steady diet of outrage, division, and disaster, and it will start finding evidence of those things everywhere it looks. Not because the world is only outrage and disaster, but because you’ve trained your brain to scan for it.
This is how the dumpster fire spreads.
Not just from outside events, but from what you choose to consume about those events.
I’m not saying disconnect from the world. I’m not saying ignore reality.
I am saying that we all need to be deliberate about how much we consume, when we consume it, and what we do with it. Because right now, most of us are not being deliberate.
We’re on autopilot.
And, as I have said over and over again, autopilot is the enemy of your goals.
Choose What You Feed Your Brain
Here’s the flip side of all of this. It’s actually good news.
If the problem is that your brain finds more of what you feed it, that works in both directions.
Feed your brain cynicism, and it finds more reasons to be cynical. Feed your brain gratitude, and it starts finding more things to be grateful for. This is not wishful thinking. This is how the brain actually works.
One of the most powerful things you can do to fireproof your positivity is to build a daily gratitude practice. It doesn’t have to be a huge ceremony that takes hours with new age music and scented candles. I’m talking about a simple, consistent habit of intentionally identifying what is going well in your life.
Start small.
Every morning, before you open the news or scroll through social media, name three things you are grateful for. They do not have to be profound. Your coffee. A good conversation yesterday. The fact that you woke up with goals worth protecting.
Over time, this practice rewires what your brain scans for.
You start moving through the world with a different filter.
You still see the dumpster fires.
But you also see the things worth protecting. The things that are still good. The reasons to keep going.
That shift doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because you decided to feed your brain something different.
Your Team of Firefighters
Choosing your information diet deliberately, building a gratitude habit, and protecting your positivity on purpose. These are all individual actions. But they are a lot easier when you are surrounded by people making the same choice.
That’s exactly why I am hosting our next Goal Crusher Coffee Chat.
Fireproof Your Positivity
Protecting your positivity when the world’s a dumpster fire.
In this session, I will share strategies from my Coach’s Notebook that work best for my clients when avoiding the dumpster fire.
Then, during our roundtable, we will each answer one simple question:
What’s one thing you can do this week to fireproof your positivity?
This is a free event. No pitch. Just a virtual room full of people choosing to protect their positivity together.
Click below or visit OperationMelt.com/CoffeeChat to save your spot for this free event.
You didn’t ask for the dumpster fire. But you own the response. Choose what you let in, build the habit of looking for what’s good, and watch how differently the world starts to look.
You’re here for a reason. Let’s take the next step.
Meet Coach Tony
Tony Weaver is a master life coach, technologist, consultant, writer, and founder of Operation Melt.
He helps project managers and other left-brained high-achievers pursue their biggest goals.
Through free resources, personalized coaching, and his proven Project Manage Your Life system, Tony empowers clients to move their dreams from “someday” to success… one step at a time.
Learn more about Project Manage Your Life, the system my clients and I use to crush our goals, at OperationMelt.com/PMYL/
Meet Coach Tony