Closing the SPDS Annual Conference, Debra Searle MVO, MBE, a professional adventurer, author, entrepreneur and BBC presenter, gave delegates inspirational insights into how adopting a more positive attitude can transform your personal performance.

Searle knows this better than anyone. In 2002, she shot to fame after successfully rowing across the Atlantic solo, as a novice rower. “The plan wasn’t to row the Atlantic alone,” Searle laughed, sharing how she started the challenge with her then-husband, who had to be rescued after two-weeks due to developing a crippling phobia of the open ocean.

Searle could have given up, but she decided to continue alone and rowed the 3,300 miles from Tenerife to Barbados. What should have taken six weeks as a couple took her three and a half months alone, but she made it, and has since gone on to undertake other expeditions across the globe, founded five companies and presented 40 programmes for the BBC.

“We’ve all got our own oceans to cross,” Searle told the audience. “Things going wrong forced me to build my resilience muscles and find mindset tools,” she added, going on to share how she had successfully adapted ideas from her time at sea to her life on land.

Here are some of Searle’s practical tips to help you improve your attitude and achieve more, even in the most challenging of circumstances`

Aim for ‘contagious productivity’

Searle recalled that even at the lowest points on her solo row, she made the conscious decision to “be contagiously positive” when she spoke to her team on land. “If you can’t exude a contagious positivity that it [a challenge] can be done, how can you expect anyone else to come with you on that journey?” she asked. She advised attendees to think about “what it’s like to be on the receiving end of you”, sharing data that proves the business impact of adopting a more positive mindset in the workplace, including it leading to greater sales, higher productivity and increased creativity. If she’s feeling negative before a Teams call, she revealed that she won’t log in before listening to a song that puts her in a better mood, as “smiling is contagious”.

Use the ‘how bad is it scale’

Searle shared that while in her boat, she developed the “how bad is it scale”, where one was being eaten by a shark and 10 was arriving triumphantly at the finish line in Barbados. Any time she felt hopeless, she would work her way back up the scale and realise things weren’t as bad as she thought. “Stress can make us completely lose perspective,” she said. “You have to shift your perspective to shift your attitude.”

Celebrate small wins

During her row, Searle began noting down anything positive that happened in a ‘small wins’ notebook. She soon noticed that seeing the good made her see more positives, effectively rewiring her attitude. “We can start to notice small wins and it develops a pattern to see more positives,” she said. This is just as important in business, where celebrating small wins can help keep positivity and energy up during long and challenging projects. Searle advised starting meetings by asking people to share their small wins, which can help shift the dynamic and mood.

Find your positivity boosters and make them a habit

Searle shared several scientifically proven ways to feel more positive, including exercise, sleep, gratitude, music, being in nature and acts of kindness.  The key is to identify which ones work best for you and then find a way to make it a habit. Searle advised practising “habit stacking”, the process of attaching a new habit to an existing one to help it stick, for example putting your exercise gear by your bed while brushing your teeth to encourage morning exercise.

Shift your comfort zone

“Being shifted outside your comfort zone provides the greatest opportunity to innovate,” said Searle. She added that by controlling what is possible (what she referred to as “controlling the controllables”), your comfort zone will shift. “When your back is against the wall, you’ve got that opportunity to innovate,” she said. “It’s the perfect time to try new things. What opportunity is there for you at the moment, your biggest challenge, to use as a launchpad?” Taking that first small step in something that you are in control of can set you up in a “competence confidence loop”, she explained, where every new small thing you master leads to increased confidence, creating a virtuous loop.

Remember positive words are free

Searle recalled the power of receiving messages from friends and family while on her solo row. “The words cost nothing,” she said. “We all have an abundant, never-ending supply. And how we choose to give them, particularly once we get into management and leadership, is the cheapest tool we’ve got.” But, she acknowledged finding it a challenge as a leader to find the time to send positive messages to her team. During the pandemic, she made a commitment to send a message of gratitude or encouragement to at least one of her colleagues every day. “I couldn’t believe the difference it made,” she said. “It’s still my biggest leadership challenge because I get busy and forget, but using our free words is a must if we want to keep productivity high.”

Choose your attitude

Searle’s final tip is “always remember you have the power to choose your attitude every morning.“ She wrote herself a note while on her row reminding her of that. “That’s the one thing I always have a choice about, nobody else,” she said. She added that choosing her mindset gives her “the resilience to know that on the really hard days, there are always better days to come.”

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Session sponsored by Matrix.

Blog by Katie Jacobs, an award-winning freelance journalist, writer and editor, who specialises in writing about the world of work. She was previously Editor of HR Magazine and Senior Stakeholder Lead at the CIPD.