Most of us have heard the phrase or have said the phrase “is your cup half full or half empty” in our lifetime. Well, we know that what is being said has its roots in whether we have a positive or negative mindset to how we look at a particular circumstance we are navigating to being optimistic or pessimistic towards something or someone. Let’s take a quick moment just to say that a half full mindset is always better than a half empty one.
Since we know that being half full, positive, optimistic is better for our mindset, why doesn’t everyone walk around with this? A fair question to ask really. To answer this question and help those who may be struggling with this, a deeper drilling down is required.
Re-Fill Is Better Than Depletion
Before we can really drill deep, we must understand the principle of being refilled. If you pour water into a cup and never stop, the cup stays filled up, and it is able to overflow onto the table, the floor, another cup… whatever it is a full, overflowing cup has the ability to give. If the cup doesn’t receive any filling, it will eventually become depleted of its value. Five inches of water in a cup outside in a summer heat will evaporate. The same is true for our mindset. If we do not fill it with positive, optimistic thoughts or behaviors it will eventually become depleted, and depression, frustration, and over time incapacitation will occur.
How then, can we adopt a mindset of being half filled vs half empty? To effectively maintain a continual flow of positive optimism, we need to understand three critical pieces of…well, the water we drink.
Becoming Water Wise
The three critical pieces of understanding water is to understand hydration, filtration, and purification. The first correlation that we can make is that we all need water to stay alive. If we do not maintain a hydrated state, we become dehydrated. Seems obviously simple, yet so many people walk around dehydrated just not enough to see it clearly. Maintaining hydration will put our bodies into what is called homeostasis – our perfect operating state. Our mindset is no different. If we maintain a steady flow of positivity (not that everything around us is positive, but that our outlook and the people in our life, and the content we consume are based around positivity), we can begin to build and maintain a homeostatic mindset, so that no matter what is happening, our first response is no to react, but to evaluate.
It is not enough though to just stay hydrated. Not all the water that is given to us is good or good for us. We must learn how to filter out the good from the bad. This is a process but understanding that it is something that we have to accomplish, elevates our thinking beyond just being simply positive. Filtration is the process of recognizing what is blocking the movement of liquid. We cannot fill something that is blocked. When we recognize the blockages (people, relationships, circumstances, etc.) that keep water from flowing, we can take steps to remove those blockages, and thus we are left with a free-flowing system, in this case, our mindset.
Having a free-flowing system, we now enter into the third critical piece of creating a half full mindset, that of purification. Purification is removing contaminants or extracting something from a substance. This is the process where we take the action to remove those people, places, or things that are blocking our mindset from freely being half full. This process can take minutes to years to complete. IT may very well be the hardest, most arduous process you have ever taken on, however the results of having a positive mindset far outweighs the blockages that have kept you from filling yourself up.
Why Is This Even Important?
Each of us have the ability and the privilege to be a change maker in this life. When we fall into a half empty mindset, we can often begin to spiral and stay in a downward vision of negativity and of scarcity and feeling (and being) stuck.
Having a positive, half full mindset positions us to not just help ourselves, but to be able to help others, to be grateful. Gratitude demands us to act in a positive way. It doesn’t force us to but is does say that when we are grateful and see things through gratitude’s eyes, the world becomes better.
If you are half empty, acknowledge your need for hydration. Oftentimes a few simple tweaks of how we show up can make a massive impact on our mindset. If you are struggling, reach out and let me help hydrate you. Then, lets recognize what filters are blocking you, and finally, remove those blockages in order for you to show up purified and ready to take on the world. The new year is around the corner. Don’t wait, start today. Take a drink.