Life is full of choices. What to have for breakfast? Which socks to wear? Even what your mindset will look like. Do you want to be a crabby patty or a positive petunia?

Choosing to be positive is harder than letting the negative creep in and take over. The work to create mental and emotional habits that enforce a sunshine-like demeanor will become the building blocks for your future hurdles.

Last week I opened a new building block set. It wasn’t the name brand expensive option to be clear. Rather it was a set similar in style but much easier on my pocketbook (we are on a budget in this house!). This is a new hobby for me, and I was excited to start a new project. But to my surprise, when I opened the package and dumped out the blocks, they were MAYBE one eighth the size of a the bricks I am used to working with. The gears in my head started to turn; was this really a thing I wanted to do now? It’s not what I expected. This would take much longer than anticipated. I will need my glasses and a whole lot of patience.

But then, a light shone down, and the trumpets blared. So what if the pieces were small? This minor roadblock wasn’t going to stop me from building a sweet green dinosaur that typically resides in video games from my childhood. I wanted him as my sidekick and out of screen and was willing to move mushrooms and mountains to achieve my goal.

That, ladies and gentlemen, was a moment of mindset shift.

Shifting and choosing our mindset when approaching every day (and one off) issues and situations is critical. It’s a learned habit. You can choose to be triggered by everything – my teammate made a mistake, I’m not being helped fast enough, etc. Or you can choose to meet people where they are and come from a place of understanding.

 If you see a mistake your teammate made – (don’t freak!) - reach out and ask if they need help or a review of the process. Help them understand why the issue at hand is important, not just that they did something wrong. Deciding how we are going to approach situations lets us make the decision about how we are letting it affect us. Am I going to just get mad? Or am I going to see an opportunity for myself or others to improve? I promise seeing the opportunity feels much better.