[Note: This special guest post is courtesy of Phil Gerbyshak, a social media, customer service, and management consultant and author. Phil wrote this post for me several years ago as part of a guest-post series on how to re-energize the workplace, and his message still applies. Here’s Phil’s advice to employees.]

• First, avoid commiserating with co-workers who are not energized. Negative people will suck the absolute life out of you. Instead, invest your time on the folks who lift you up, who breath life into you, and who are willing to lend a hand when you need it.
• Second, focus on what you can control and not what you can’t, and encourage others to do the same. You can’t fix the economy by yourself, you can’t make your 401(k) suddenly go up the 40% you lost last year, and you can’t make the news broadcast positive stuff instead of always focusing on the negative. What you can do is bring a lunch to work one more day a week to save a few dollars, you can bring coffee from home, you can contact a financial planner to make sure you are still investing the right way, and you can turn off the TV and stop buying the newspaper.
• Last but not least, find something new that you’ve always wanted to learn about and check out a book from the library about it. Dedicate one hour a week to learning more about this new thing, and at the end of the year, you’ll be 52 hours closer to being an expert in whatever you chose to study.

Things may stink right now, but remember: it’s always darkest before the dawn. If you make a few small changes now, to your thinking, and to your life, when things get better, you’ll be well positioned to make your life GREAT!

[Phil Gerbyshak is vice president of sales & marketing for Advisology.com, where he works with financial advisors to generate new leads, replicate their existing book of business and be seen as an industry leader using a blend of social media and traditional sales strategies and tactics. Learn more from Phil at SocialMediaCoach.com.]