“Surround yourself with the dreamers and the doers, the believers and the thinkers, but most of all, surround yourself with those who see greatness within you, even when you don’t see it yourself.”
Unknown
This was a quote that flashed on my feed. I loved it. It’s the embodiment of empowerment.
We all know them. People we encounter who seem to suck the joy instantly out of the room and fill it with negativity. I call them “mood hoovers”.
When you interact with a mood hoover, any positivity, confidence, hope or self-believe gets shaken. It is like stepping into a vacuum. Everything gets sucked away and in its place is a chasm-sized void. The trouble with mental voids is they get filled with doubts. So, you flip from “I’ve got this!” to “I’m being stupid going for this!” in the space of 10 minutes.
Unsure if someone is a mood hoover? Observe at work. If a group of happily chatting colleagues are joined by someone and the atmosphere plummets (you can add your own dramatization of a deep chill and darkness), bingo – there’s the mood hoover!
When it comes to chasing your dreams, people like this act as dead-weight. And you wonder why you can’t take off and fly.
But here is the point of empowerment that I saw in the opening quote. We get to choose who we have in our life. We can surround ourselves with people who bring us down, hold us back, suck out all positivity and leave us in a void or we can surround ourselves with people who fan the flames of your passions, spark your positivity and champion your infinite possibilities, believing in you even when you don’t see it yourself.
A career coach will always be your tinderbox and help ignite your passion so you can chase your dreams, but more than that, I help you step by step on the journey to reach your goals. If that means counter-acting mood-hoovers, so be it. When you unplug their power – these people really are just a bag of emptiness, and some just filled with dirt.
How to get rid of the mood hoovers and watch your dreams soar.
- Identify them. Once you know who they are, you can consciously reduce contact or remove it entirely. These people are not your friends – real friends can be summed up by the description in the quote!
- Bring in the cavalry. When you increase the time you spend with positive people and real friends, it is hard for a mood hoover to combat against. So dilute them by actively building relationships with a great network of positive people.
- Hire me. I’ve had my fair share of encounters with mood hoovers operating alone or in cliques and I will certainly help you build your dreams on a solid foundation free from the rot that prevents building at all.
If you want to have fresh insights into how to get your dreams to soar, you are in the right place. The Mapleleaf Vision blog talks all things career coaching, life coaching, leadership and education – but most of all, it is about helping people to have the courage to live their dreams.
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