How are the effects of inflation affecting you?

Yes, inflation impacts us both individually and in business.  This is due to lowered purchasing power when the value of money decreases over time and cost of goods and services cost rise.

While we all know it is important to understand what inflation is and how it works, I believe it is more important to understand the impact that inflation has on us emotionally.

At times we think that inflation is the reason for your tiredness and being upset with yourself and others, but have you ever considered that thinking negatively could be the reason? Studies have shown that negativity or pessimism affects more than just your emotional health. In fact, these studies have found that people experiencing high levels of negativity are more likely to suffer from degenerative brain diseases, cardiovascular problems, digestive issues, and recover from sickness much slower than those with a positive mindset.

To make things clear, you cannot go from negativity by adopting an ‘I’m always happy’ attitude. I am a firm believer that you need to see things as they truly are before you can make any type of improvement, and become more resilient to life’s events.

Now, don’t get the idea that you need to be so negatively emotionally driven that you become ‘negative Nancy’ or ‘downer Dan’. Please remember that negativity can display itself in many ways, for example:

• Cynicism: A general distrust of the motives of people that approach you.
• Hostility: Unwilling to develop relationships, or just plain unfriendliness.
• Jumping to Conclusions: Supposing that you know what will take place before any action is taken; or assuming that something bad will happen because of circumstances in the present.
• Catastrophizing: The strong certainty that difficulty ahead is inevitable.
• Blaming: Accusing others for personal problems, or feeling that you are a victim to life’s events.
• Making excuses; While you may have made an error, you make arguments as to why it got messed up.
• Denial: This is never admitting that you may be the person who caused something because of your own pride.

Why is this important to understand?

It is because if you are displaying any of the above examples on a regular and public basis, you are creating your own economy. You may be asking ‘economy’, my actions are not about money? Oh contraire!!! Please remember that every action you take has financial implications either for you or the business you are working in.

Let me give you an example from yesterday. I stopped by a local business just to introduce what I do and how I help others. I could tell she was not having a good day by how negative she was. In the less than 30-seconds I was with her I saw cynicism, jumping to conclusions and blaming. What this person fails to recognize is that she has competition, and due to her attitude if I want the product or service she is selling, I will probably not be purchasing it from her establishment.

As you can tell, this blog was just a warning. It is a warning because if we let things occurrences like inflation affect us in any type of negative way – and we are showing it publicly, it will not be good long-term for us.

To conclude a question; what can you do to start to reduce the strong and crippling negative emotions in your life?