Free advice, no matter whether it's given with the best of intentions, is sometimes worth exactly what you pay for it. Other times it can be invaluable; just what you needed to hear at a particular point in your life. Because every person and every circumstance is different, when reading my blogs please listen to your heart to determine whether it's the right advice for you in your current situation.
I would never presume to tell you or anyone else how they should live their life. That choice is yours and yours alone to make. What I am trying to do, however, is present a perspective that may perhaps open your eyes to a new way of thinking so you recognize additional options and opportunities as they come your way.
So with the above caveat in mind, read on with an open mind... and think positive!
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It's well documented that women are far more self-critical than men. As a general rule, women hold themselves to much higher standards and judge themselves more harshly than they judge other people. In fact, many of us bend over backwards to excuse behaviors we would never condone from ourselves. How often do you hear yourself justify bad behavior with "that's okay, he's just tired" or "it's all right, she's just having a bad day", when in reality what was said or done was truly inappropriate and something you would never accept from yourself? If you're like me, in all probability you do this far more often than you arguably should... but that's a whole different blog!
The point of this month's blog is not to lecture you on the hypocrisy of this double standard way of thinking, but rather to point out the negative consequences of holding yourself to unreasonable standards and judging yourself too critically.
Let me start by first qualifying unreasonable and too critically. While I certainly believe we need to set high standards and hold ourselves accountable to them, we also need to ensure that what we decide upon is reasonably achievable without setting ourselves up for failure. This means not getting caught up in the Superwoman Syndrome - striving for perfection in every role (mother, wife, career, volunteer/community leader, friend, running a household) and aspect of an overly full schedule and basing one's entire self-worth on their ability to have it all and be it all.
Thinking carefully about the type of person you want to be, how you want to live your life and the goals and dreams you aspire to will help you establish realistic performance standards for yourself. This will allow you to keep focused on what's important when you need to make difficult choices about how to spend your time, with less chance of feeling guilty because you can't do it all or be it all. It will also build your self-confidence as you continuously experience success rather than failure.
On the other hand, when your performance standards are not realistic and therefore unattainable, there is a very real danger of internalizing non-performance as personal failure as opposed to circumstantial mishap due to faulty expectations. And the danger of internalizing circumstantial mishap as personal failure is that when self-esteem continuously takes a beating, it sets the stage for personal failure to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
When we think in terms of I'm too this or I'm not enough that, we create self-limiting beliefs that hold us back from achieving our full potential. For example, seeing yourself as weak will prevent you from being strong. If you believe you're dumb, you won't seek new challenges in areas where you don't think you're smart enough to succeed. If you think you can't, you won't even try (or you may not try very hard). In other words, self-limiting beliefs generate limited thinking, which gives rise to limited behavior and limited results.
On the other hand, non-limiting beliefs can lead to unlimited thinking, unlimited behavior and the potential for unlimited results. So knowing that, what do you think would happen if women everywhere began to focus more on our known strengths as opposed to our perceived limitations?
Here's what I think would happen:
- We would all come to understand that we as women, together and individually, are a lot stronger and more competent than we currently believe.
- We would also realize that it's okay not to be perfect at everything we do, and that our goal must therefore be to do the best we can under the circumstances at hand.
- We would learn that failure is not necessarily absolute; it's often only a temporary stumbling block.
- We would learn to let go of labels like weak, stupid, fat, lazy, ugly, unlovable, and in doing so let go of self-limiting behaviors that hold us back from being all we can be.
- We would recognize that our true potential is unlimited and that life's possibilities are limitless.
- Most importantly, we would find the courage to be ourselves, but be all we can be, because anything else would be selling ourselves short.
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In my very first blog back in August 2010, I stated that every woman has within her the innate ability to be great, and I defined greatness as tapping into one's full potential in all aspects of their life in order to be all they can be.
Your ability to be all you can be hinges upon how successfully you can do what I talked about in last month's blog, which is to proactively take charge of your life so that it unfolds on your terms as opposed to other people's agendas and expectations.
Proactively taking charge of your life is not a simple one time event. Rather, it is a disciplined, lifelong practice that can be difficult to maintain when life's ongoing distractions and challenges threaten to overwhelm your ability to cope with what's going on around you.
Believe me, I get that. It's very easy to lose sight of your personal agenda when it feels like everything and everyone wants a piece of you. And when that happens the door to self-sabotage swings open, whether you're aware of it or not.
Lack of sleep, poor eating habits, family expectations and having too much on the go are examples of common stressors in today's world, and they often go together. Each of them has the ability to impact our focus and judgement, and when there are multiple stressors the impact is multiplied.
I would argue that when you're not thinking clearly, it's much easier for your boss to convince you to take on a side project even though it will detract from your ability to learn the skills necessary to advance your career as quickly as you planned, particularly if it's in your nature to be helpful. It's also much easier for family and friends to persuade you to do things with or for them, even though you really don't want to and their requests will prevent you from accomplishing more important items on your personal agenda.
So how does one guard against making self-sabotaging decisions that prevent you from living life on your terms and realizing your full greatness potential? Here are a few thoughts to consider:
- Be aware of the dynamics that lead to self-sabotage so that you can learn to recognize when you are in a potentially self-sabotaging situation.
- Before saying "yes" to someone else's request, take a moment to carefully consider what that "yes" might cost you in terms of your own personal goals.
- If your gut feeling tells you something isn't right for you and/or you're going to regret saying "yes", then think carefully before you agree to do it.
- Don't be afraid to negotiate. Remember, someone wants something from you, so you are in the driver's seat. Perhaps the other party can wait a week until the timing is more convenient for you. Maybe they can live with receiving only part of what they're asking for.
Keeping focused on your personal agenda is difficult at the best of times, but it becomes even harder to stay the course for longer term goals that may not come to fruition for years down the road. It can be hard to remain motivated and focused on a goal when the end result is so far away (and perhaps not very clearly defined) that today's effort hardly seems worth tomorrow's reward.
Let's face it. It can take time to build the future you want for yourself. When you're starting out, you may not have all the skills and resources necessary to be successful in your venture. Indeed, you may not even know what those required skills and resources are yet. The timing may not be right. You may have young children who are at an age where they require too much of your time, market conditions may not be appropriate or you may have to save up enough money to get yourself started. And stuff happens - family responsibilities may pull you off course for a while or what appears to be another opportunity may temporarily take precedence.
When struggling with these types of issues, I urge you not to give up on being all you can be because your heart's desire appears too complicated, too hard or too uncertain. Understand that becoming great at anything is a process, and often one of trial and error. It takes time to build the foundation of knowledge and experience necessary to be successful in any venture.
Most certainly it will be tough at times, and perceived lack of achievement can be disheartening. But recognize that you're in it for the long term and remember to stay focused so that short term distractions and self-sabotaging decisions don't pull you from your long term path. Successful people have lots of opportunities to give in to distraction and give up on their dreams, but they stubbornly persist in their endeavors until success is assured.
The bottom line: Unleashing your greatness potential is a process, and if it's going to happen it needs to start sometime. So why not today?
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This month's blog is about the importance of understanding how your choices today are going to affect how your life unfolds tomorrow.
If we want to live a life of our choosing, we need to choose it. Sounds pretty obvious, doesn't it. But that being said, how many of us are proactively choosing the kind of life we want for ourselves?
Most people I know have a general idea about the kinds of things they'd like to do and have for themselves, but they're so caught up in life's daily demands that their hopes and dreams remain just that - hopes and dreams. I, myself, have recently taken a long, hard look at what I've been focusing on over the past couple of years and come to the uncomfortable realization that what I've been doing has taken me off course from where I'd really like to be right now in that I have been so caught up in my employer's agenda that I lost sight of my own.
But Lisa, you might argue, you should be caught up in your employer's agenda, because that's what you're being paid to do. And I couldn't agree more! Ethically, morally, and responsibly, you most definitely should be working in concert with your company's goals and objectives, and striving to achieve them to the best of your ability. But what happens when your employer's agenda is not congruent with your own personal agenda for career growth and self-development?
Some people are fortunate enough to recognize this right away and start looking for another position that is more in tune with their career aspirations. Others, like me, are slower to recognize the problem, particularly when it's a great company they're working for and their contribution is consistently recognized and appreciated. If, like me, they feel any sense of dissatisfaction, they might choose to ignore it until something triggers some deep self-introspection and they're forced to recognize that, consciously or not, they've chosen safe and comfortable over challenge and opportunity for further growth.
Now there's nothing wrong with choosing safety and comfort. There are many people who do just that, and seek their challenge and growth opportunities from family, friends and activities outside work. I certainly have no issue with that. In fact, I wholeheartedly applaud any person who chooses to focus their time and energy on creating the best possible family life for their loved ones and living life to the fullest outside the hours of 9 to 5. In my opinion, if more people were to do just that, this world would be a much better place. So if that's what's going to give your life greatest meaning and satisfaction, you go girl! And don't let anyone ever try to convince you otherwise, or make you feel like you're lacking motivation or ambition by not choosing to have a "career" over a "job". You have just as much right as everyone else to follow your own chosen dreams, regardless of what anyone tries to tell you your dreams should or ought to be.
But for those of us who have chosen our careers as the main channel for our creative expression and continued personal growth, I'd like to suggest that once our "career" begins to feel more like a "job", it is time to critically evaluate why and determine what needs to be done in order to get your career back on track. You may not necessarily need to move on to another company, but what you're doing will need to change if you're going to get yourself fired up once again.
So now let's circle back to the main point of this blog, which is to emphasize the critical importance of making the right choices today so that our tomorrow unfolds the way we want it to. I have used the example of job versus career since employment is something most of us have in common and can therefore relate to.
But if you truly desire to live a life of your choosing, it's not just your work that you need to critically evaluate on a regular basis - it's your entire life! Because if you sit back and simply let life "happen", you'll end up living everyone else's agendas - not just your employer's agenda, but also your spouse's, your kids', your friends' and arguably anyone else who has an opportunity to influence or impact upon your life.
I'm not suggesting you need to be a selfish bitch and put your wants and desires over everyone else's; there will always need to be some negotiated give and take between you and the rest of the world if you're going to build strong and enduring relationships with the people who matter in your life. But knowing where to draw the line in the sand will help you make better decisions about what and where that give and take needs to be so that your life can and will unfold the way you want.
Understanding who you are and what you want in life is a critical component of self-empowerment, and without it, I would argue, we simply cannot live a self-empowered life. That's because if you don't know where you are going, the odds are low that you'll get there and even if you do, how will you know you've arrived? Life by chance is the very antithesis of a self-empowered life.
So take some time to honestly and truthfully evaluate who you are and where you're at in life, and then whether you are living the life you want to live, and more importantly, being the person you want to be. If you're not on the right track, don't beat yourself up. Rather, congratulate yourself for having the courage to admit you're off course, and then challenge yourself to start making some positive changes to get yourself moving in the right direction.
After all, you deserve to be all you can be. Don't sell yourself short.
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I've learned over the years that the best way for me to deal with potential conflict is to face it head on, no matter how unpleasant that can sometimes be. Putting it off because I'd rather not deal with it usually turns out to be a decision I come to regret.
I think most of us have a natural tendency to avoid things that might make us feel uncomfortable, such as conflict with family, friends, a boss or co-worker. After all, who enjoys fighting with people they either want or need to get along with on a long term basis? And so in an effort to maintain a peaceful harmony, or at least the illusion of it, within the group, who wouldn't be tempted every once in a while to pretend things are okay when they're really not?
Let's be honest. We all do it. And sooner or later we all end up dealing with the consequences.
If we could all put off making uncomfortable decisions or taking uncomfortable actions with no fear of negative consequences, life would certainly be a whole lot easier. But serious people conflicts seldom go away of their own volition, and indeed unresolved issues, if they are not dealt with right away, have an unfortunate tendency to get worse over time.
For example, many years ago I was asked to work on a project with someone I didn't particularly like working with because, quite frankly, she wasn't very pleasant to be around. There were a couple of statements my co-worker had made in one of our initial discussions that I didn't agree with, but not wanting to deal with the conflict I knew would result from my challenging her, I let it go.
As the project progressed, I realized that we weren't at all on the same page and so I would either have to speak up or pretend to go along with something I strongly disagreed with, which my conscience simply wouldn't let me do. I put the dreaded discussion off for over a week, even though I knew the project due date was coming closer and our ability to deliver could be compromised. When I did finally speak up, my co-worker was very upset, and I had the embarrassing task of explaining to my boss how and why things went wrong. Believe me, that incident was one very hard lesson well learned.
So the point of this month's blog is to encourage you to deal promptly with potential people issues before they become bigger problems, even if doing so is going to cause you some pain and discomfort that you would rather avoid. The longer you wait, the shorter your window of opportunity will be to satisfactorily resolve an issue and make it go away before it becomes a much bigger problem. And as that window closes, your stress level is going to rise and compromise your decision making ability, as well as how confidently you are able to address the situation.
As you can probably imagine, the week that I stewed about how to come clean with my co-worker was a very stressful one. And the more I stressed about it, the less I was able to strategize about how to be as professional and tactful as possible in my approach. Instead, all I could think about was how she was probably going to react and how I was probably going to feel, and how I probably should have dealt with the issue up front instead of letting things get to this point. So when I finally did sit down with her, my approach mirrored my expectation. My hesitant words, conciliatory tone and submissive demeanor made me come across as guilty as I felt, and gave her the ammunition she needed to blame me for everything and justify her previous behaviour towards me.
Dealing with an unpleasant situation such as personal conflict is not fun, but more often than not avoidance makes it worse. Take it from me, the longer you push it off, the more you're going to stress out about eventually having to deal with it and the bigger the monster will grow in your mind. Once this happens, you will be less effective at resolving the issue to your own satisfaction. So I highly recommend that once you become aware something has been compromised, take active steps to fix it as soon as you can before it breaks.
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Back in January 2015 I wrote a blog entitled Perception Creates Reality, which talked about how our individual thought patterns and belief systems play a major role in how things turn out for us in life. I suggested that by changing our thought patterns and belief systems, it was entirely possible to change some of our behaviours and choices that might be holding us back without us being consciously aware of it. More often than not we have many more options open to us than we realize, and looking at things a little differently may help us recognize and act on an opportunity that we otherwise would have missed.
That January blog encouraged you to think about your own reality. This month I want you to consider other people's realities.
Everyone perceives the world a little differently, and while there are sometimes close similarities, no two people's realities are ever exactly alike. But it's been my experience that people often speak and act as though everyone else thinks like they do, and are then surprised (and often very angry) when others don't interpret their words or actions as intended.
For example, many years ago when my immediate boss announced he would be leaving the company, I went to his supervisor and requested that I be promoted to my boss's position. I proudly told him I deserved the promotion because I was a hard worker, and all the extra hours I put in at the office proved it.
The man simply shrugged and told me, "You know, I used to think the same thing when I was your age and I worked all kinds of extra hours to get ahead, just like you. But then I got a lousy review from my boss, who accused me of being inefficient with my time if I couldn't get all my work done within regular working hours. So after that I learned my lesson, and began to work smarter rather than harder. I don't work past 5 pm, and I don't see why you need to either. So I'm not impressed by you working extra hours and I'm not giving you the promotion."
I was quite taken aback by his response, and at the time felt quite justifiably furious that my actions could be so wrongly interpreted. In fact, very shortly after that I left the company. But in looking back years later, I can't help but wonder how much truth was in his statements, and how much I might have immediately benefited if at the time I'd been able to step back and objectively analyze them. Perhaps if I hadn't reacted with such righteous indignation, I would have received some valuable coaching about exactly how to work smarter in order to more quickly move ahead in the company.
The point I want to make is that just because someone thinks very differently than you doesn't mean there might not be some truth to their thoughts and opinions, even if your initial reaction is to reject what they're saying. Instead of becoming angry when you feel you are being unfairly criticized or your good intentions are being misunderstood, take a deep breath to regain your composure and ask for clarification as to why the other party feels the way they do.
It could be their explanation is completely out to lunch from your perspective. In that case you'll need to evaluate the situation to determine whether further discussion would help, or whether it would simply be a waste of time. Sometimes people are not going to get you, no matter what you say or do. If that's the case, thank them for their thoughts and then move on. Just as you are entitled to your opinion, they are also entitled to theirs, no matter how inappropriate or distasteful it might be to you.
On the other hand, perhaps the other party has a valid point, even if your instinctive response is to deny it. So try to look at the situation from their perspective and evaluate their reasoning as objectively as possible. What you discover could be a major eye opener that gives you some valuable insight into something you're saying or doing that's damaging your credibility and holding you back.
Remember, just because someone thinks differently than you doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong, just different. So hear them out. Who knows? You just might receive the valuable coaching about how to work smarter as opposed to harder that I regretfully missed in the naiveté of my youth.
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In my opinion, daydreaming is highly underrated. Today's business world is focused on delivering hard and measurable results with maximum speed and efficiency. As a result, daydreaming is therefore viewed by many as a frivolous waste of time that could otherwise be put to more productive use.
More and more, I find people are working on too tight schedules that don't allow enough time to effectively deal with problems that arise as a normal part of the business process. Particularly when working through others, many elements of an end deliverable are beyond our control and therefore things don't always go according to plan. When the appropriate time cushions are not built into the business process, panic often ensues. That's when tunnel vision sets in and snap decisions which do not fully consider all the available options are made, often with less than desirable results.
Another result of a too tight schedule is a tendency to approach each new project and each new day exactly the same as yesterday. We fall into a routine because it's comfortable and therefore reduces our stress levels, and also because it allows us to more easily process with the sheer volume of work in front of us. Perhaps from time to time we (or someone else) may recognize that change would be beneficial, but we justify remaining status quo by arguing that right now there's no time to properly introduce change and work it through the system.
But there are real problems associated with remaining status quo in a constantly changing market. As the saying goes, if you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got. Now that might be perfectly okay if life were static and you were quite happy and successful where you were. However, life is not static, and turning a blind eye to constantly changing market conditions, buyer preferences and competitor activities puts a company (or individual) at a competitive disadvantage which at best limits growth opportunities and at worst leads to financial disaster.
To stay on top of our game, we therefore need to remain cognizant of market changes and their potential ramifications. We need to proactively examine our current strategies, policies and processes and regularly question how we can make them better. There's always room for improvement, and our ongoing challenge is to dig deep enough to find the best way to leverage market changes to our greatest advantage. Not only for business purposes, but also for our lives in general.
And that's where my argument for daydreaming comes in. How often have you wrestled with a problem and given up in frustration, only to have the answer come to you out of the blue from seemingly nowhere? That nowhere is the unconscious portion of your mind which runs in the background just below your level of awareness, organizing and directing the physical and mental processes that keep you functioning.
Our conscious mind wrestles with problems relatively slowly, primarily because we are aware of our thoughts and, well, consciously directing them. But our brains are capable of processing information much faster than that, particularly when they can break free from the habitual thinking patterns we impose upon them when we're in charge of the thought process. Current research suggests that the more complex a problem, the less effective the conscious mind will be at finding a solution, particularly for multifaceted problems where many different variables must be taken into account.
Frances Vaughan, psychologist, educator and author, believes we are consciously aware of only a small fraction of what we really know. When we daydream, we relax and let our mind flow as it may, so that it is free to draw upon the vast warehouse of all our knowledge and experience that's tucked away and not always accessible by our conscious mind. Free of the constraints that we unknowingly impose upon it, the unconscious portion of our mind can identify and explore many viable options that our limited conscious mind can't envision, particularly when it's stressed out and fixated on other issues. The answers we're looking for are then delivered to us through a process often referred to intuition.
So give yourself freedom to sit back, put your feet up and imagine "what if _____" where you fill in the blank. Make it a habit and schedule the necessary time to regularly question the status quo, identify what changes might improve your efficiencies and/or competitive position, and develop a process to implement these changes. Do this not only from a business perspective, but also in your personal life. (For additional thoughts on this from a personal perspective, see my July 2008 blog - Developing Your Master Plan.)
However, there is one caveat to all of the above. Edward Russo and Paul Schoemaker argue in their book, Winning Decisions, that intuitive decisions often exaggerate the upside while underestimating potential risk. It can be hard to critically evaluate the reasoning process behind an intuitive decision, because often the decision maker can't clearly articulate it. Therefore all ideas, no matter how great they instinctively seem, should always be subject to critical review prior to implementation.
The power of daydreaming should never be underestimated. I believe a key factor that separates true visionaries from the rest of us is the ability to leverage their unconscious mind to imagine what the rest of us can't. So learn to appreciate and nurture the power of your own unconscious mind, and start this today by daring to daydream about where yours could take you.
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This month's blog is about the importance of learning to think outside the box if you truly want to be the best you can be in a particular career, activity or sport - or just about anything at all, for that matter.
I find it ironic that there is so much peer pressure to conform to societal norms, yet the greatest rewards, whether they be personal, professional, financial or otherwise, tend to go to those who dare to be different. It's those individuals who are able to recognize opportunities and who have the courage to challenge the status quo in order to pursue them who ultimately excel in their chosen fields and contribute significantly to the betterment of society.
I'm not necessarily referring to the exceptionally brilliant or specially gifted. More often than not it's regular people like you and me who develop breakthrough solutions to problems they encounter in their daily lives and make the decision to capitalize on their potential.
Take Bette Nesmith Graham, for example. A high school dropout who worked her way up to executive secretary, Bette invented Liquid Paper because she was tired of having to retype entire pages after the introduction of electric typewriters with carbon film ribbons made it impossible to correct mistakes neatly with a pencil eraser. Her inspiration came from watching painters decorating bank windows for the holidays and noting that they covered up imperfections with an additional layer.
And then there's Marion Donovan, the inventor of disposable diapers. Tired of the thankless, repetitive task of changing her youngest child's soiled cloth diapers, bed sheets and clothing, the post World War II housewife crafted a waterproof diaper cover out of a shower curtain. When no manufacturer would consider her invention, she struck out on her own and it debuted at Saks Fifth Avenue in 1949 as an unqualified success. She then created a fully disposable diaper, which sadly was considered superfluous and impractical by every manufacturer she spoke to. It took almost a decade before Victor Mills recognized Donovan's vision for the brilliant invention that it was and created Pampers®. Marion ultimately went on to earn a total of 20 patents in her lifetime.
Dr. Temple Grandin is a prolific woman inventor who has earned a PH.D in animal science and become a world-renowned teacher and speaker, all while living with autism. The social stigmas attached to her diagnosis may have helped develop her belief that animals should not be mistreated or subjected to a lower quality of life. Based on her beliefs, Dr. Temple Grandin designed a number of inventions that use behavioral principles rather than excess force to control animals. Her center-track restraint system is currently used to handle nearly half of all the cattle in North America. She also has designed livestock handling facilities around the world (U.S., Canada, Europe and New Zealand), and developed an objective scoring system for assessing the handling of cattle and pigs at meat plants.
Although the 3 examples I've provided are for individuals who achieved commercial success by bringing their inventions to market, you don't need to be an inventor, or even an independent entrepreneur for that matter, to benefit from thinking outside the box.
What you do need to do is dare to be different in those aspects of your life for which you would like to excel. Don't fall into the trap of doing things a certain way because that's the way they've always been done. Learn to critically examine the way things are, and continuously ask yourself "how can I make things better?"
"The box" is the result of programming and conditioning, and is self-created in adulthood. For most it is so ingrained within us that we're not even aware of its existence. To break free of this constraint, we need to rediscover and nurture our childhood curiosity. We need to remove ourselves from autopilot, start looking at things from a different perspective and be open to doing things differently.
How we learn to do that is the million dollar question. While it would be wonderful if I could provide you with some sort of definitive magic formula for learning to think outside the box, I don't believe one exists. I do believe, however, that awareness is the first step to initiating change. And if I've now got you thinking about how you might begin to break free from your box, then I've accomplished my objective.
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Last month's blog talked about not letting fear limit your options in life. This month's blog is about not letting other people's opinions limit them, either.
We humans are quite opinionated by nature, which has led to all kinds of problems throughout history. Entire nations have been at war with each other for centuries due to religious and cultural differences. Communities have shunned individuals for not complying with the societal norms of the day. Peer pressure in churches, the workplace, schools and even within family units demands people to conform to someone else's expectations. And those who don't conform are usually subject to ridicule by their peers, and labeled "loser", "weird", "black sheep of the family", and so on.
While we are children and lacking in life experience, it makes sense for our parents, teachers and other influential adults to more closely monitor our behaviour and guide our decision making processes so that we remain safe from harm and learn how the world works. But once we become adults and have presumably collected enough life experience to make intelligent life choices, I believe it's time for these people to step back and let the future unfold as it may.
Unfortunately, not everyone is willing to do that. I've learned through the years that most often it's the people who are closest to us that apply the most pressure for us to behave in a certain way and are the most spiteful and cruel if we don't comply. Yet if you were to call them on it, these well-meaning folk will look at you in astonishment, or perhaps hurt, and tell you they only have your best interests at heart.
And it's most likely that they do. However, they don't see that they are looking at life from their perspective, not yours, and it doesn't occur to them that your perspective could be different, and that it's okay for it to be different. Life is a journey unique to us all, and that's what makes each life so special. I think it's very unfortunate that human beings can't learn to appreciate and celebrate everyone's right to make their own life's journey in their own special way.
Never let anyone tell you that what you're doing is wrong if it feels right to you. The only person who should decide on what is right and what is wrong about your life is you! You're the one who has to live with the consequences of your actions, so it's only fair and appropriate that you choose those actions of your own free will.
However, take note there are many different ways to get where you want to go, and there are benefits and consequences to each choice. It may therefore pay to carefully consider any and all options that are brought to your attention, even if they are presented in a less than respectful manner. So when someone says "do it this way", asking "why" instead of getting your back up and saying "no" may prove more helpful to you in the long run. The more knowledge you have, the better the odds you'll be able to make the best possible choice for you.
But never let anyone try to convince you that the final choice isn't yours to make. Be cognizant that you ALWAYS have a choice, even though it may not always feel like it at the time. Sometimes your choices may alienate certain people who are close to you, and while that hardly seems fair, it's unfortunately the price one must pay for making certain choices in life. Analyzing whether that price is worth the payoff must therefore be part of one's decision making process.
And of course the flip side of the coin is that if you believe you deserve the freedom to live life on your own terms and in your own way, it's only fair to grant others this same freedom. When someone shares their plans with you and you're concerned for their welfare, eliminate "should" and "ought" from your vocabulary and instead offer to provide them with additional information that they may not be aware of. In other words, share your insight and experience and perhaps even your concern, but not your opinion about what they should do (unless of course it is specifically asked for).
Set the example for how you yourself wish to be treated. Perhaps if enough of us do this often enough, the rest of the world will eventually get it.
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How many times have you held back from trying something new because you were afraid you might not be successful? If you're anything like me, probably more times than you'd like to admit to anyone, including yourself.
Fear of failure is not conducive to achieving success. In fact, it often hinders and even prevents success. Fear of failure makes us hold back, whether we're conscious of it or not. It makes us think twice about giving something our all, even though giving our all is precisely what is required to maximize our chances of success.
Fear of failure can drive us to find all sorts of perfectly logical reasons to hold back, which is why we're not always conscious that this is happening. For example, it seems perfectly logical to think twice about changing jobs or careers when you have dependents and financial obligations that must be met. Now I'm not trying to suggest that it isn't logical to consider these things. Of course it is. But other people successfully change jobs and careers, so it's also perfectly logical to consider that you can successfully do it too.
I believe that one of the most damaging consequences of fear is that it locks us into "tunnel thinking", where we fixate on what we're afraid of as opposed to how we might overcome it. For example, say Jane was offered a huge promotion that meant relocating to a new city where she didn't know a soul. Jane realizes it's a fantastic opportunity, but being extremely shy she's intimidated by the thought of having to work with new people and rebuild her social network. So Jane instantly weighs the benefit to her career against the personal cost of being alone in a strange place and having to work with people she may not like and who may not like her, and turns down the opportunity right on the spot. She walks out of her boss's office feeling a mixture of regret for missing out on the opportunity, resignation that she will not likely receive such an offer again, and relief that she didn't have to step outside her comfort zone.
I'm not suggesting that Jane was wrong to make the choice that she did, but rather that her methodology for getting to that choice was unnecessarily self-limiting. Her fear of having to reach out to others made her panic, and for that critical moment the only future she could visualize was being alone and lonely in a strange place. If Jane could have let go of that tunnel thinking for a moment, she might have been able to say to her boss "Let me think about it for a day or so and get back to you." Then she could have done some research into what the new city had to offer and some of the things she could do to meet people and make new friends. She also could have asked her boss to tell her a little about the new group of people she would be working with, or perhaps even negotiated a trip to meet them before she gave her final decision. In the end, Jane's decision might have been the same. But it also could have been different, pointing her life in an exciting new direction filled with exciting new possibilities.
The point of the above example is that as soon as we are controlled by fear, we are no longer truly in charge of our own destiny - fear is. Fear and the tunnel vision it creates is disempowering and self-limiting because it takes away our ability to make informed choices about what is right for us.
To become truly self-empowered individuals, we need to guard against letting fear unduly influence the choices that we make for ourselves. We also need to be aware that because we are not used to consciously recognizing and challenging our fears, it will take time to develop the mindset necessary to do so.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that we all completely ignore our fears and start acting impulsively without careful consideration of the consequences. That would be extremely foolish, because there truly are consequences for every action we take - or don't take, for that matter. And to the degree that fear makes us consider those consequences so that we can evaluate our risk tolerance for them and plan for their possibility as necessary, fear is a good thing.
The point I am trying to make is that one shouldn't allow fear to limit their options and choices. When we allow fear to rule our decision making, we can miss out on some great opportunities that could potentially bring even more joy, and happiness and fulfilment to our lives.
I think many times fear unconsciously makes us think in terms of nothing ventured is nothing lost, when we should instead be reminding ourselves that nothing ventured is nothing gained. While it will not always be prudent to risk what we already have for what we want to have, I do believe that sometimes calculated risks are necessary and that a mind unobstructed by fear is a mind that can think more strategically to weigh options and evaluate risk.
So if you're going to dare to succeed, you must also be willing to fail. No one can have a perfect track record, and the only ones who don't make a lot of mistakes in life are those never accomplish much of anything. All reward comes with risk, and your challenge is to conquer self-limiting fears that prevent you from objectively analyzing and evaluating risk in order to make life choices that are best for you.
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You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great. Zig Ziglar
The reason I like memorable quotes (and also like to blog about them) is because they cut straight to the heart of complex issues and single out basic truths that help me refocus on the important stuff.
Take the above Zig Ziglar quote for example, and the whole idea of being great at something. Often when people want to do or learn something new, they put a whole lot of pressure on themselves to get it exactly right the first time around. I know I do.
And yet how reasonable is this? It's pretty hard to be a master without first being a student. Masters aren't born great, they become great through a trial and error learning process.
Think about it. We're not born great at something. In fact, we know nothing about anything at birth and therefore have to learn about everything as we go. Can you imagine what would happen if no one took their first baby steps until they were 100% certain that they could walk with perfect balance and finesse? I seriously doubt many of us would have ever dared let go of the edge of the coffee table!
As infants we are natural risk takers, so why is it that we become risk averse as we get older and thus put so much pressure on ourselves to get things right the first time around? While it's important to make informed choices, having all the answers in advance is not always realistic. At some point we need to take a leap of faith, let go of the coffee table and grant ourselves the freedom to learn as we go, because if we don't we'll never find the courage to take that first step forward. Being great at something seldom happens overnight; people become great through a learning process of trial and error.
Some might argue we become risk averse as we age because the stakes are higher in that we have more to lose should things go wrong. And in many cases that would be true. For example, it wouldn't be prudent to commit your entire life savings to a risky investment or put your health and safety at risk, no matter what the potential payoff.
But what about the flip side of that argument, which is that there might be even more to lose by missing out on what you have the potential to gain if you're not willing to at least give something a try? Even if we aren't immediately successful, often all we've lost is a bit of time and perhaps a small chunk of pride, while gaining a great deal of experience that we can draw upon moving forward.
While I would never suggest that anyone jump into a new venture without at least some degree of careful thought and planning, I do believe that too many of us overthink and overplan to the point where we're so caught up in the details we can't recognize that our need to have all the answers before we get started will prevent us from ever getting started in the first place.
The term "analysis paralysis" refers to over thinking a situation to the point where a final decision is never made, in effect paralyzing the outcome. Looking for the optimal solution can make things appear so complicated that any sort of decision seems impossible. It's a common response when people focus on finding the best possible course of action as opposed to choosing a promising direction they might have to change as they move forward and new information comes to light.
Whether we're conscious of it or not, analysis paralysis is a key reason why many of us get excited about new opportunities but then never capitalize on them. We get so caught up in the uncertain "what if's" that we're afraid to make any decision at all. And then we may pass on the opportunity all together, or perhaps discover that by the time we're ready to move forward the opportunity is no longer available to us.
So the next time you find yourself waffling back and forth about a decision, you may find it helpful to step back a bit and ask yourself if you are perhaps overanalyzing the situation. At the same time, remind yourself that the master must first be a student and that you don't have to be great to start, but you do have to start to be great.
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This month's blog is about a quote from Abraham Lincoln that I am going to frame and place on the corner of my desk, right beside my 2016 Personal Action Plan. (My Personal Action Plan lists all the key personal and professional goals I want to accomplish during 2016, and outlines the steps required to achieve these goals within the desired timeframes.)
The specific quote I'm referencing is as follows:
The best way to predict your future is to create it.
This is in essence what my Positive Impressions web site is all about. Positive Impressions is about self-empowerment, and as far as I'm concerned the ultimate objective of self-empowerment is to take charge of your life and move it forward in the direction you want it to go. This means deciding what you want from life, figuring out how to get it and then taking responsibility for making it happen.
We all know there is no crystal ball that allows anyone to accurately predict the future, and sooner or later life experience teaches everyone that nothing is ever for certain, no matter how promising things may seem at a specific point in time. However, the odds of predicting your future correctly are going to increase if you actively work towards making your prediction come true. And the harder and smarter you choose to work, the better the odds your prediction will end up being right.
That's why it's important that we identify what we want from life, set goals and then focus on proactively pursuing them until the future we seek eventually comes to pass. If we lose focus on what's important and allow ourselves to be distracted from our goals, our chances of achieving these goals are significantly less. If the goals aren't all that important, it's probably no big deal. But for those that are critical to our happiness and wellbeing, it can be dangerous to leave things to chance.
Why? Because while distractions can be exciting and entertaining, in the end they are only a temporary substitute for that which we truly want for ourselves. Sooner or later the feeling that something key is missing from one's life will return. When that feeling of unrest hits people, generally one of two things will happen. They will either look for a new distraction, or do some serious soul searching to determine how to get their life back on track.
Most people look for the new distraction, because more often than not it's the much easier option. For many people soul searching can be a scary thing, because they may have to acknowledge they've made some bad choices and will now have to make some hard choices to get themselves back on track. And if they lack self-confidence or perhaps don't have the support of those around them, those hard choices can seem like impossible ones.
Please understand it is not my intention to criticise or judge people for choosing this path. I'm not even suggesting that it's the wrong path for a person to take, as every decision we make in life has some degree of risk associated with it. Rather, it's simply a choice we all face, and my goal here is to point out there are risks associated with making this particular choice. And the biggest risk as I see it is eventually being forced to acknowledge that you've missed your window of opportunity to realize your dream and that you will then have to live with this regret for the rest of your life.
We all create our own individual futures, knowingly or not. We do so actively or passively, and the choice is always ours. The point of this month's blog is not to judge people for the choices they make, because I firmly believe that everyone has the right to make their own choices in life and no one has the right to pass judgement on someone else's choices.
As always, my objective is simply to provide some food for thought. And the thought I'd like to leave you with is this:
You are perfectly free to decide what you want for yourself in this life, but no one is going to hand you your heart's desire on a silver platter. So when you truly want something, you must therefore go out and get it yourself, and the odds of your success will dramatically increase when you work proactively to create the future you desire rather than simply leave things to chance.
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"If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise." - Robert Fritz, management consultant, author, composer, filmmaker.
I ran across this quote the other day, and I wanted to share it with you because it points out the negative aspects of compromise that people don't always consider when they are trying to "make the best of things" or "make everyone happy".
"Practical" and "realistic" are generally viewed as positive traits, and I would agree that both are indeed desirable qualities. After all, there's no point in endlessly spinning your wheels for something you can't possibly do or have. Rather than set yourself up for disappointment, it makes much more sense to direct your time and energy towards something you know is at least within the realm of possibility.
However, being too practical or pragmatic runs the risk of shutting off your imagination, the creative side of you that dares to dream about all life's many possibilities and what it is that you would truly like to explore during your lifetime. We as women are especially vulnerable to his trap, because we are conditioned since childhood to put the needs of others first - our husband's career, our children's education, our parents' health, and so on.
I'm certainly not suggesting that we should ignore the needs of others. We do need to be considerate of people's needs, and particularly of those people we care most about, but not at the complete expense of our own.
We only get one shot at life, and each one of us is responsible for the life we end up living. No one is going to hand us our dream life on a silver platter; we need to actively seek it for ourselves. That means being clear in our own minds about what is truly important to us, and knowing when it's not okay to compromise. When and where to draw the line is something you need to decide for yourself, because you are the one who has to live with the consequences.
While it's sadly true we can't always have what we want, who's to say that with some creative thought and planning we can't have more than we otherwise thought we could? In stressful, high pressure situations, people often see only all or nothing, yes or no options. But life is not solely black and white; it is suffused with endless shades of grey that represent all life's glorious (and gloomy) possibilities.
It's those shades of grey that I encourage you to explore the next time you're struggling with what you believe can only be a yes or no situation. Don't limit your options to preconceived notions of what's possible or reasonable; challenge your imagination to explore as many what-ifs as possible. It may be that what you initially thought to be unreasonable is actually quite possible once you take the time to carefully think things through.
For example, a close friend of my mother's had always wanted to travel, but the expense of owning a home and raising two children prevented her and her husband from accumulating sufficient funds in their travel account. So after her children left home, she obtained a teaching certificate at the local college and then taught English as a second language in various countries while she and her husband explored the local communities as highly respected guests of honour.
Another woman I know was injured on the job and faced the scary possibility of not being able to return to work. During her convalescence period she did some serious soul searching and then took active steps to build up a Mary Kay business to the point where she didn't need to return to work and was able to establish a work schedule that allowed her to spend more quality time with her daughter.
I believe the key to living a happy and fulfilled life starts first with understanding what is going to make you feel happy and fulfilled. Once you are clear on what is truly important to your happiness and well-being, then you will have a much better awareness of where you must draw the line when it comes to compromise. The deeper and clearer this awareness, the greater the courage of your convictions to give you the inner strength to stand firm on your beliefs and to proactively explore all options.
Please do not misinterpret refusing to compromise with being inflexible. Indeed, the very opposite is necessary when you need to somehow find a way to accomplish what initially appears impossible or unreasonable. That's when you need to be at your most flexible and creative, so that you are genuinely able to live life on your own terms, without compromise.
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In 2010, Sheryl Sandberg asked herself that very question when deciding whether to speak publicly about the issues of being a woman in business. Her friends and colleagues warned her that doing so would end her career, but despite their dire predictions she stood up and gave a ground breaking TED Talk that spawned a bestselling book and ignited a revolution.
I love this story because it illustrates what is possible for a woman to achieve when she makes a conscious decision not to let fear hold her back. I think far too many of us give in to fear and allow it to colour our decision making so that we choose a safe road over the road we secretly would prefer to take. Those of us who do this on a regular basis risk living a life fraught with disappointment and regret, never knowing if we could have realized our dreams, if only we had tried, even just one time, to pursue them.
In Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, Dr. Susan Jeffers states that all fear is based on the belief that we won't be able to handle what happens to us. She also suggests that if we can learn to have faith in our ability to handle whatever life throws at us, we'd have nothing to fear and therefore nothing to hold us back from stepping into the unknown and trying new things.
This truly is a powerful concept, and those who can embrace and internalize it will be much more comfortable with taking on new challenges and dealing with uncertainty. They will also be less likely to panic when things don't go according to plan, allowing them to keep their heads and not let fear interfere with their ability to think clearly and strategically. In addition, they will find it easier to convince other people to support them, because when people clearly believe in themselves it's much easier for others to believe in them too.
But learning to have faith that you can handle whatever life throws at you is much easier said than done. "Whatever life throws at us" covers a pretty broad spectrum of possibilities, so how on earth could one possibly be able to handle anything and everything?
Believe it or not, all of us can. And we will. We may not always like what life throws at us, but we will handle all of it since, quite frankly, we have no choice. Some things we will handle better than others, but as long as we learn from our mistakes then we'll be that much better prepared to face similar hurdles next time around.
Many of us are taught right from childhood to fear failure, as if failure were some green eyed ugly monster we needed to avoid at all costs. I've never fully understood why that is. Failure is part of life, and a necessary learning experience. Failure is not the end of the world, simply a dead end that requires a slight detour to get oneself back on track. As my mother would say, the sin is not in failing, but rather in not having the courage to try.
Despite its negative connotation, I don't believe fear is all bad. Fear makes us cautious, so that we do our homework before jumping into a new venture, thus increasing our odds of success. It makes us think carefully about how important something is to us so that we can decide whether the risk is worth the potential payoff. Our time and resources are limited, so to get the most out of life we need to make wise choices about how best to utilize them. Where fear is bad is when it prevents us from making the right life choices for ourselves.
Fear can be a very powerful emotion, and that is precisely why it has the ability to stop us in our tracks. It can create all sorts of denial and self-justification for not committing to a new relationship, not applying for a promotion, not trying a new sport or activity, and so on. The rationalizations we make seem like sound, logical reasons to us, rather than the excuses they actually are. Because we don't recognize we are making excuses, we see no reason to challenge our fears and thus fear continues to rule our lives without our knowledge or consent. I don't know how to fully resolve this problem, but the question "what would you do if you weren't afraid?" is one of the most intuitive approaches I've seen in quite some time.
So I encourage you to ask yourself "what would I do in 2014 if I weren't afraid?" and then tell your head to shut up so you can listen very carefully to your heart.
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CLOSE 2014 BLOGS
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When we don't know all the facts, we have a tendency to fill in the blanks with assumptions. We then act as if these assumptions are the facts, even though there's a good possibility they could be completely wrong. Invariably, we do others (and often ourselves) a disservice in the process.
A recent visit to the postal outlet in my local Shoppers Drug Mart really drove this point home for me. I know from past experience that this outlet is extremely busy at this time of year, with a large number of people sending packages and/or money orders overseas. When I arrived to post a package to my mother, there was only one clerk on duty and the lineup had already begun. Because I dearly love my mother and I knew she was looking forward to receiving her Mary Kay order, I took a deep breath and steeled myself for the wait.
Things were progressing at about the pace I expected (slow and tedious), when the elderly lady two places ahead of me approached service counter. She was rather confused about what she was doing, and the clerk was forced to take extra time to help her sort everything out. Then when it came time to pay, the lady took several minutes more to find her wallet, carefully count out the money and hand it over. I grit my teeth as I rocked back and forth from side to side, reminding myself to be patient as one day that little old lady could well be me.
By this time quite a line was forming behind me, and it was even longer by the time I made it to the counter. As I was saying hello to the clerk, a middle aged man approached.
"Why don't you bring another person on?" he asked the clerk.
"She doesn't start until noon," the clerk replied. (The time was now 11:15.)
"You're mean... and cheap!" the man told her, stomping off in a snit.
I rolled my eyes at the clerk, and smiled encouragingly. "As if you personally make the hiring decisions," I told her. "Don't worry, you're doing just fine."
The young lady smiled back gratefully and thanked me.
My package duly paid for, I turned around to leave. As I was passing by what was now an extremely lengthy lineup, I heard one woman say to the person ahead of her, "she's probably just a student who doesn't know what the hell she's doing." Her tone was acidic, her disapproval of the situation clearly evident.
As a regular visitor to this outlet I knew the woman was wrong. In actual fact, the clerk has worked there for quite some time, and she is a pleasant young lady who always provides efficient and courteous service.
The woman in line was frustrated and looking for a plausible explanation as to why the lengthy lineup was moving slower than she thought it should. For some reason she chose to blame the clerk as opposed to the situation. Perhaps she had recently experienced a similar wait elsewhere, and a young, inexperienced sales clerk had been the cause. Or perhaps when she herself was a young student, she hadn't much cared that she was being inefficient and causing people to wait longer than necessary. Whatever her reason for blaming the clerk for the wait today, it was based on assumption rather than fact.
Likewise, the man who accused the clerk of being mean and cheap had his own personal reasons for assuming that to be the case. Even though the large sign in front of the kiosk clearly stated that the postal outlet was operated by Canada Post as opposed to Shoppers Drug Mart, perhaps the man had assumed the clerk was able to call a Shoppers Drug Mart employee to come help if she needed assistance.
I left the post office area feeling more than a little sorry for the clerk, as it was probably going to be a long 45 minutes until her additional help arrived at noon. I sincerely hope she didn't suffer too much verbal abuse from frustrated customers who were blaming her for a situation that was unfortunately beyond her control.
The point of this story is that all too often we make assumptions about current situations based on past history that may not be applicable today. Or, like the man who called the clerk cheap and mean, we make assumptions without fully understanding proper operating procedures.
It's natural to make assumptions based on past experience. But just because it's natural doesn't mean it's good practise to do so for all situations. So be cognizant of when you are making assumptions, and be sure to ask yourself if they're fair and reasonable under the circumstances.
Just as you never want to sell yourself short, don't sell anyone else short either.
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We've all met them - those annoying people who always need to be right about everything. And we all know that trying to work with them can be a frustrating and counterproductive exercise.
I've found from personal experience that often it's not what they say, but how they say it that gets on my nerves. I instinctively react to their superior, "I know better than you" attitude, so that my natural response is "oh yeah, says who?" And if I'm not careful, I can let my emotions get the better of me and begin arguing back on principle, even when I know there is some merit to what they're saying. And then of course it's even more frustrating (and embarrassing) having to eventually eat crow and acknowledge the other person is right.
But even if it turns out the other person has to admit that I'm right, it's a hollow victory. The relationship between us is now strained and our ability to collaborate effectively on future projects has been compromised - all because of an emotional clash between two fragile egos.
I once read somewhere that while confidence comes from your core, ego comes from your fear. While an insecure person is afraid to be seen as wrong, a confident person understands that mistakes happen as a part of life and so isn't afraid to acknowledge when they've made one. Similarly, an insecure person gets defensive when they perceive someone else is challenging their knowledge or abilities, whereas a confident person doesn't worry as much about what other people are thinking about them.
There are two lessons we can take from this.
First, understand that when someone needs to be right at all costs, it's usually because they are dealing with a self confidence issue and a related fear that being wrong equates to being a failure, either in their own eyes or in the opinion of other people. So the best way to bring an insecure person around to your point of view is to make doing so as non-threatening as possible to their ego. Give them an out, if you can. For example, you can tactfully suggest that you understand where they're coming from, but that you have some additional information they may want to consider before making their final recommendation.
Second, when someone challenges your opinion in what you consider to be a disrespectful manner, don't allow your own insecurities to get your back up. Instead, listen to what's being said rather than to how it's being delivered. The other person may well be right, and if that's the case acknowledging their point up front will be much more palatable than having to admit you're wrong after a heated argument. Look at any and all feedback as an opportunity to learn, and the best way to determine whether the feedback is valid or not is to evaluate it as objectively as possible, which you can't really do when you're angry.
The bottom line is who's right and who's wrong is not nearly as important as what's right and what's wrong. If you focus on that and make it your guiding principle when dealing with people, you will find it much easier to control your emotions when someone else is being a jerk. Your calmness will diffuse what could otherwise become an explosive situation and allow you to be more effective when you need to work with and/or through other people. People will come to trust you as an intelligent and fair negotiator, and gravitate to you for guidance.
How well you are able to deal with "difficult" people will play a significant role in how far you advance in any career you choose to pursue. Very seldom does one work in total isolation, and the further you progress up the career ladder, the more you will need to work with and through others. So developing good people skills will not only make working with your co-workers a more pleasant experience, it will allow you to be more productive on the job, which in turn will be recognized and rewarded accordingly.
More importantly, I believe that focusing on what's right as opposed to being right will bring greater peace, happiness and fulfilment to your life. This is the type of integrity that will allow you to sleep soundly each night because you truly like and respect who you see in the mirror every morning. It will build your self esteem and self confidence, so that you find the courage to dream big and be all you can be.
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There is a world of difference between being offered helpful advice and being told what to do. Helpful advice that leads to better informed decision making is empowering, for it allows a person to make a decision with greater confidence and increases the odds of a successful outcome.
On the other hand, being told what do can be downright disempowering. This is particularly true when the person telling us what to do is a close family member or friend. The closer we are to someone, the greater our desire (or sense of duty) to please and/or be accommodating. So when a parent or spouse or good friend is urging us to do it "their" way, oftentimes we reluctantly agree, even though deep inside we would really prefer to do it "our" way.
Yet there can be negative consequences for compromising in order to be accommodating:
- Catering to someone else's demands can take away your sense of control and independence, which over time eats away at your confidence and causes you to question your overall competence.
- Should you change your mind partway through and decide that you are indeed going to do it your way, not only will you have wasted your time and effort to date, you may have to do some backtracking before you can move forward in the direction you want.
- You only get one shot in this world, so why waste precious time living someone else's life? For that is in essence what you are doing as soon as you do what "they say" and not what "you want".
Unfortunately, some people think that being supportive means giving advice (as opposed to giving encouragement) and then they get defensive if their advice is not taken. This places a burden of guilt on the other party, who may feel an obligation not to disappoint. So while there may not be a deliberate intention to manipulate or control, the person on the receiving end is still going to feel manipulated or controlled.
On the other hand, some people are deliberately controlling, for their own selfish reasons. Be particularly wary of anyone (like my ex-husband) who argues that their way is better because they know you better than you know yourself. What utter nonsense, and what reason could anyone possibly have to say such a thing, other than to be manipulative?
Regardless of whether the pressure to conform is unintentional or deliberate, you still face the same two choices - do it their way or do it your way.
Standing your ground and opting to do it your way can be a hard thing to do, particularly if you have a history of being accommodating. Sometimes all it takes is gently advising someone that while you appreciate their advice, what you really need is their support. Other times you may need to be more firm so that when someone claims their way is better, you respond with "It might be the better way if I were you, but I'm not you and I feel more comfortable doing it my way."
The very manipulative will likely try to play on your fears and warn you that you will have no one but yourself to blame when things go wrong. And they're absolutely right. It's true you will have no one but yourself to blame should things go wrong, regardless of whether you do it their way or your way. You are the one making the final decision to act, and so you are the one responsible for how things turn out.
That means if you follow someone else's advice and things go wrong, you have no one to blame but yourself because you were foolish enough to listen to them in the first place. Blaming anyone other than yourself is playing the victim role, and then you in turn are being manipulative if you expect the other party to feel guilty that things went wrong. While some people may prefer to feel victimized rather than accept responsibility for how things turned out, it's not productive and it doesn't change the fact that they messed up.
So here's my suggestion: when faced with more than one available option for a given situation, ask yourself which way is most likely to be best for you personally in the long run and act accordingly. There is going to be some degree of risk associated with any decision you make. You might as well make the decision that has the level of risk you are most comfortable living with, since you're the one who has to live with the eventual outcome.
And don't feel guilty about standing your ground if others don't agree with your decision. Do you expect other people to do things your way rather than their way? If not, then be fair to yourself by granting yourself the same freedom of choice.
While there are a lot of choices in life, there is only one life you can choose to live - yours. So make sure you make life choices that are right for you - those that will make you happy and allow you to be all you can be. Please don't sell yourself short.
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Today I finally gave myself a long overdue kick in the butt. It's been almost a year since I published my first fiction novel, which I considered to be phase one of my master plan to establish a secondary income that allows me to put aside a little nest egg for retirement while at the same time doing something I truly enjoy. However, since that time I've been too busy to devote enough time to project #2 to complete it within the one year timeline I had set for myself. I'm normally such a self-disciplined person with a proven track record for accomplishing her goals, so how could I have lost my focus?
Sure I've been busy, but that's no reason to lose focus. In fact, it's the very reason why I should have worked harder to maintain focus. But instead, I allowed myself to become distracted by a number of interesting but less important projects. And while they did provide a sense of accomplishment at the time, looking at it from a long term perspective I can see I made some questionable choices about where and how to focus my time and energy.
Although my master plan is important to me, somewhere along the way I lost the sense of urgency that normally motivates me to stay focused on my goals. With so much that I wanted to accomplish and so little time to get it all done, I kept putting off working on manuscript #2 until "later" when I had "more time" to devote to it, as if I had all the time in the world ahead of me.
Bottom line is that now I now am one year further away from achieving my goal. One full year of opportunity is gone and I will never get it back.
I can't change the past, but I can ensure that I get back on track for the future. Going forward, I will start making smarter choices about how I choose to spend my time, and not allow myself to become derailed from my master plan by every new perceived opportunity that may arise. That doesn't mean I need to ignore every opportunity that is not directly related to my master plan; that type of inflexibility can be detrimental over the long term as sometimes master plans need to change when new information and/or opportunities come along. It does mean, however, that I must learn to separate true opportunities from what are simply distractions in disguise.
I will start by applying a more long term approach to my decision making process and prioritize my activities according to how important they are to my overall plan. I am going to maintain this list in writing and post it in my home office to keep my priorities top of mind. (This has always been effective for me on the job, but for some reason I stopped doing it for my personal life a while ago. Could be one reason why I lost my focus...)
I will also schedule more regular time slots to work on manuscript #2, and when something else threatens interference I will carefully evaluate how important it is to my overall happiness and success long term before deciding if and when to act on it or not. Distractions will be dropped and potential opportunities will be earmarked for future evaluation. While some opportunities need to be acted upon immediately, most of the time they can wait until timing is more appropriate. (This for me is the hard part. I see an opportunity and I want to act right away, but if I don't prioritize the opportunity properly can you see how I've effectively turned that opportunity into a distraction? That's why it's so critically important to keep your master plan top of mind when you're making choices about how to spend your time.)
In addition, I will endeavor to keep my sense of urgency so that I act "today" on what is truly important to me rather than put things off until "someday". From now on, there will be no more someday - my someday is today!
If this blog resonates with you because you're feeling the same frustration about not being where you want to be in life, I challenge you to get yourself back on track just as I'm going to do over the next few months. Review and update your master plan, and if you don't have one, then I urge you to create one. Having your plan in writing will make it much easier for you to focus on it. Studies regularly show that the most successful people in life are those who regularly write down their goals. Check out my July 2008 blog for some thoughts on how to begin developing a master plan if you're not sure where to start.
It's quite likely you will need to rethink your existing time management strategy. Most people I know freely admit they could find extra time to devote to pursuing a master plan by eliminating existing time wasters in their lives such as watching TV, surfing the Internet, spending hours on Facebook, and so on. While there is nothing wrong with these activities (we all need downtime!), when done excessively they can distract people from doing the things that are necessary to get them where they want to be in life. So you will need to compare how you are currently spending your time with how you need to be spending your time if you want to achieve your master plan in order to see what, if any, changes are appropriate. It's your time, and your life, so only you can decide what changes might be appropriate for you.
I invite you to send me an email outlining what steps you'll be taking to get yourself on track with your master plan in order to live the life you want to live. Sometimes getting started can be the hardest part, so let's support and encourage each other to get going today. Don't put it off until the timing is right, because there may never be a right time.
The best time to start achieving your dreams is today, because yesterday is already gone and tomorrow has a tendency to slip away a lot faster than we expect.
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We've all had bad days where nothing goes right and every fix we try seems to make things worse. We can feel our frustration levels rise as the day progresses so that by bedtime we're thankful our day is finally done and we can start over fresh in the morning. As annoying as these days are, for most of us they are few and far between and so it's generally easy to shrug off our frustration, secure in the knowledge that tomorrow will be a better day.
But sometimes we're forced to deal with more serious issues that turn our bad days into bad weeks and even bad months, wearing us down in the process so that eventually we're approaching our wits' end and asking ourselves how we can possibly cope any longer. Depression overtakes us and we're reluctantly dragging ourselves out of bed each morning, all the while wishing we could stay buried under the covers to avoid dealing with the day ahead.
In times like this, it's hard to feel like we have anything good at all going for us, but it's also in times like this when we need to look hardest for all the good we do have. Counting our blessings is critical during times of duress, because it reminds us that life is worth living and motivates us to keep fighting.
But how does one keep fighting when there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel? By remembering that you've triumphed over rough times before and you can therefore do it again.
I am not trying to belittle anyone's problems by implying that solving them is simply a question of mind over matter and that positive thinking will magically fix everything. But a positive outlook is definitely a critical part of the equation. Without it, you're doomed from the outset.
Remaining positive can be extremely tough when you're drowning in despair. It's hard to keep going when the road ahead is fraught with peril and seemingly impossible to navigate. That's when you need to reach deep inside your soul to find the inner strength and fortitude to carry on.
Though small comfort when you're up to your proverbial ass in alligators, it's life's most difficult challenges that build our character and make us stronger. Overcoming adversity teaches us to have faith in ourselves and our ability to survive the absolute worst life can throw at us. We learn we are much stronger than we previously thought and this knowledge builds our confidence for next time. So while no struggle is ever easy, over time we develop improved coping skills which help carry us through situations in a way that other less experienced folk can only marvel at.
When the going gets tough, the tough refuse to acknowledge defeat. Even though every day may not be good, there's something good in every day. It's our challenge to find the good, appreciate it and leverage it to carry us through to tomorrow. Because tomorrow may well be a better day.
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I think it's safe to say that most of us, at least once in our lifetime, have experienced a sinking feeling in the pit of our stomach as we are forced to acknowledge we've made a serious error in judgement or direction and that resolving the problem(s) it's created is not going to be pleasant. Sometimes it's due to an honest mistake, but often it's because we've allowed someone else to talk us into saying or doing something that we knew deep down inside wasn't right for us.
So then what can we do once we realize that where we've been heading is no longer a viable option? We can turn around, that's what. Maybe we can't go back the same way we came, but that doesn't doom us to continue moving forward in a direction that's no longer working for us.
This may sound simple enough on paper, but applying it to your real life situation is not always easy. In fact, it can be incredibly difficult. The stress you're experiencing can create "tunnel vision", which prevents you from clearly recognizing and evaluating all options open to you. With tunnel vision, the only option you can see is the path you're already on, which means that getting off of it may appear hopeless.
That's why it's important to stay calm in a crisis. Remaining calm will allow you to more easily step back and take stock of the situation and your various options in a more rational and impartial manner. There is almost always more than one way out of a crisis, and rational thinking is key to identifying the best way out of yours.
It may help to realize that the hardest thing about moving through a crisis is making the commitment to do so. Once you've identified a solution and fully committed yourself to it, a sense of calm purpose will eliminate much of your stress and help you feel more centered. You may not necessarily like what you have to do, but it will be much easier to do it.
If you've ever done something wrong, I mean really wrong, don't write yourself off. Yes, what's done is done and can't be changed, but no mistake is ever so great that you can't move past it. We all have regrets, and making mistakes is (unfortunately) a necessary part of our learning process. Something good can always come from something bad, even if it's simply a resolution to never make the same mistake again. So never give up on yourself.
Sometimes we choose a direction in life because we believe it's the best (or only) one available to us. While that may have been true at a particular point in time, things change and so do our options. So if there's something in your life that hasn't been working for you, now might be a good time to critically evaluate the situation to determine whether change is appropriate.
Don't think that because you once made a decision you have to stick to it even though it's no longer working for you. Things change - circumstances, available information, personal interests, and so on. Never be afraid to change your mind or cut your losses, because in the end you have to wake up with yourself each morning and answer to your own individual conscience.
If you are going to be all that you can be, you will need to constantly fine tune your master plan, and from time to time you may be forced to do a major overhaul. Even if you've spent years doing something you now realize is wrong, it's rarely (if ever) too late to fix it. We almost always have an opportunity to go back and try to right things as best we can.
For example, if you've spent years working in a job you don't like, perhaps now is the ideal time to update your resume. If harsh words have alienated you from family or friends, perhaps now is the time to say "I'm sorry". If you've been feeling blah, perhaps now is the time to join a fitness class.
The bottom line: no matter how far wrong you've gone, you can always turn around.
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The other day, a colleague of mine offered me his take on employee/employer relationships. He told me, "I work for me, and contract my services to my employer."
On the surface, that might sound like John doesn't care all that much about the company he works for and that it's possible he may not have the best work ethic. But in actual fact, nothing could be further from the truth. For 25 years, John has played a pivotal role in our company's growth and success, and he's always been someone we can count on in a crisis.
So John's comment caught me off guard at first, until I thought a little more carefully about what he really meant. I believe that statement was a reflection of John's need to ensure he continues to look out for his own best interests and to not let the pressures of work negatively impact on other areas of his life.
Thinking of one's employee/employer relationship as a contractual arrangement can be an effective self-empowerment strategy. Contracts generally have clearly defined boundaries. Yet when the pressure is on at work, the line between business and personal can start to blur as we work late and/or worry about business issues on our personal time. While that's often necessary for many positions, once the pressure abates it's important to get your life back into balance as quickly as possible. Having a clearly defined "contract" in your head about how much time and energy is owed to your employer will help with the balancing process.
Many people find the employee/employer negotiation process an intimidating experience. Contracts provide an air of neutrality that can help diffuse emotion and make you a more effective negotiator on your own behalf. If you can see your relationship with your boss as a contract, it will help start you thinking about all the things you want (it doesn't always have to be about money) and what you can barter in exchange to get them.
This contract relationship philosophy also helps remind people they have the right to negotiate for what they want, and quite frankly owe it to themselves to do so. You are entitled to be fairly compensated for your skills and abilities. And when you feel that you are being compensated fairly, you will no doubt be happier and more productive at work. Progressive employers understand this and thus will be willing to negotiate with their employees in good faith.
So why not take some time to make a personal skills inventory to better understand your value? That way you when you start the negotiation process you have a better idea of what you can realistically ask for in exchange for your services.
And keep in mind the best negotiations are those which create a win-win situation for both parties.
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Without a doubt, one of the most significant advancements of our time is the Internet. The ultimate expression of the digital revolution, the Internet is expanding exponentially on a daily basis, making its size virtually impossible to calculate. But the latest estimates indicate about a billion people connect to it each week.
And why not? The Internet allows us to access just about anything we want - information, entertainment, goods and services, interpersonal interaction with family and friends. Of all man's great inventions and innovations, the Internet has the greatest potential to radically change how we live our lives, how we shape our culture and even how we define our very humanity.
But is that a good thing? In our increasingly connected world I'm finding that people are becoming increasingly disconnected with one of the most important things that make us human - our ability to connect with the world around us in a truly meaningful way.
Take Facebook, for example. Most of us now have Facebook accounts, where we "connect" with people we may or may not know and with the click of a button pronounce them "friends". Call me old fashioned, but where I come from, friends are people who share a special bond built on and maintained through physical connection, shared interests, mutual caring and respect. Through an unfortunate choice of terminology, Facebook is blurring the lines of what friendship truly is. We now friend people we've never met, likely never will meet and even if we did meet would have nothing in common with. Traditionally, friendships have been about connecting with someone in a meaningful way. But how is LIKE meaningful?
Facebook provides us the illusion that we're keeping in touch with family and friends. Are we, really? We skim someone's post, LIKE it and move on without further thought, because there's a whole lot more out there to pique our interest. Bring it on, we enthuse. As children of the digital era, we crave information and devour it eagerly, forever searching for the latest and greatest news about our friends and the world in general. But make no mistake. That's not connected. That's ADD (attention deficit disorder).
Collecting digital friends and relating to them on such a superficial basis is having a detrimental effect on our ability to connect meaningfully with real people. As a culture, I believe our social skills are declining. I sit in the local coffee shop and see couples texting as opposed to talking. More and more, people spend their evenings surfing instead of spending quality time with their loved ones. Instead of tuning in, we're tuning out and as a result, despite our connected culture, we're more isolated and lonely than ever.
There's no doubt the Internet is a great tool. But we interact with it through machines, and a machine is no substitute for a human being, regardless of how engaging or entertaining a machine can sometimes be. Meaningful interpersonal relationships are an important part of the human experience, for which there can be no substitute. Study after study proves the happiest and most well-adjusted people are those with a strong social network of family and friends. Instead of relying on digital connections, they reach out and physically touch someone on a regular basis.
It's a brave new digital world. Tread cautiously, my friend.
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"Life is not a dress rehearsal." I recently ran across this quote by author Rose Tremain, and it really hit home.
Life can indeed be likened to theatre, with each day a brand new Act. Much like live theatre, life goes on regardless of whether you miss your cue or mess up your lines. There are no retakes or repeats allowed, so If you're not happy with your performance, too bad. You need to get over it, because life will go on whether you're ready to face the next Act or not.
To perform well, stage actors must be well prepared. They need to know their lines forwards and backwards and inside out, as well as be flexible enough to get a scene back on track when something goes wrong. In addition, the best stage actors put their heart and soul into every performance. They don't hold back, because they're well aware that doing so will weaken their performance and disappoint their audience.
To perform well in life, you also must be well prepared. Far too many people lack clear direction and purpose, and I can't help but wonder if they're going to wake up one day and ask themselves where time went. At 40, 50 or 60 years old, they'll be wondering why they haven't yet done anything that's given them a true sense of satisfaction or accomplishment. Too late they will realize that while their nonchalant, go with the flow attitude may have been easy, it has cost them dearly over the long run.
Time goes by quickly, whether we plan for it or not, so be careful time doesn't pass you by. Don't put off doing things that are important to you because you think you have all the time in the world to get them done. You don't.
Remember also that to achieve best possible performance, you need to give it your all. Don't simply test the waters; pour your heart and soul into whatever you do, because there are no retakes. Future Acts are greatly influenced by previous scenes, so the better your initial groundwork the greater the odds of a successful outcome.
Though I've compared life to theatre, I'd like to point out one very significant difference. Every theatrical performance follows a preplanned chain of events which lead to a predetermined outcome. But unlike a theatrical play, we don't know in advance the direction our lives are going to take, or where they will end up. And if we don't like our end destination, there is no going back to rewrite the script.
So if you want something, don't hold back, and don't wait for the next Act because you don't know in advance how future scenes might unfold. You might as well take the bull by the horns and proactively pursue your heart's desire, because with or without you, the show most definitely will go on.
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This month's blog is as much a reminder to me as it is to you about the importance of identifying priorities and staying focused on them.
One of the greatest distractions I'm currently battling is my inbox. Not too long ago, I read somewhere that email was giving us all ADD (attention deficit disorder) and I can soooo relate! Every night I sit down at the computer with the intention of working on a specific project, but invariably I never get to it. That's because I instead spend my time reading emails and clicking on the various links inside them to further explore a subject that looks interesting. (I subscribe to a number of e-newsletters on a variety of topics which interest me.) But while I believe it's important to be a well rounded person with knowledge on a wide range of subjects, there comes a point where enough is enough and it's time to get on with life.
I conducted an informal poll with friends and colleagues, and many of them are in the same boat, not only with email, but also with social media (primarily Facebook) and surfing the web in general. They can easily spend their entire evening jumping from page to page and topic to topic, until all of a sudden they realize it's long past time for bed.
There's a saying my mom used to always tell me. (In fact, it still rings loud and clear in my head on a regular basis.) "Do what you have to do first, and then what you want to do." In essence, she was trying to teach me the self-discipline required if one is to do well in life. Success seldom happens by accident. So if a person wants to do or be something, their best guarantee of success is to be proactive about taking appropriate steps to make it happen.
I can't even begin to count the number of people over the years who've complained to me about how they're not getting anywhere in life. Yet they spend their lives sitting in front of the TV night after night instead of taking any sort of constructive action that would start their life moving in the right direction. To hear them complain, it's like they somehow expect their phone is going to magically ring so that some party on the other end can hand them their life's dream on a silver platter. It's too bad they never learned to shut off the TV and get started doing what they need to do in order to get to where they want to be.
Social media is rapidly replacing cable TV as the favourite evening (and weekend) pastime. TV was bad enough as a time wasting distraction, but the allure of social media is even more seductive. I think that's because we set the direction by creating our own content, and there is of course way more content to choose from. It's now even easier for people to become so caught up in the pleasurable experience of surfing that they start ignoring what they need to do in order to accomplish their personal goals, and I'm uncomfortably aware that I'm beginning to join the crowd.
Though that knowledge is making me squirm rather uncomfortably in my seat (Mother, please forgive me!), the upside is that at least I've become aware of the issue and can therefore take steps to bring my email "habit" under control.
What about you? Would you classify your internet activity as a pastime or an addiction? You may enjoy spending your evenings on Facebook, but how well is this serving you long term? If keeping in touch with friends is your number one priority and Facebook is the most practical way for you to do so, then great, go for it! But if you're allowing social media to distract you from other things you know you should be doing, it might be advisable to set a timer so you know when to turn it off. And if the timer approach doesn't work, don't sign into Facebook at all when you have an important project on the go.
In other words, decide whether Facebook is going to be your main social connection tool or a casual pastime, and act accordingly. There is nothing wrong with either option, just be clear about which is right for you.
Either way, remember to keep your internet time in perspective, because the nature of the media makes it extremely addictive and a great avoidance tactic. After all, who wouldn't rather surf the Internet or connect with friends on Facebook than wash the dishes or vacuum the house? Unfortunately, the need to wash and vacuum doesn't go away regardless of how long you choose to ignore it, and neither do any of your other responsibilities in life.
If, like me, you recognize that you're not in full control of your internet activity, you might want to try what I've just implemented for myself. Before I turn on the computer at night, I make sure I'm clear on what I want to accomplish, and get it out of the way BEFORE I check my emails or Facebook account.
In other words, I'm going to start doing what I need to do first, and then what I want to do. My mother is going to be so proud of me...
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One of the drawbacks of an economic system based upon free enterprise or consumerism is the pressure on all individuals living within the system to continuously consume. From early childhood onward we're subjected to if-you-buy-this-you-will-be-transformed-into-the-coolest-person-on-the-planet-and-your-life-will-be-awesome brainwashing through media advertising. As a result, far too many of us go through life believing that we need to have the latest and greatest of everything in order to be truly happy, and that our own personal nirvana might therefore be just one more purchase away.
But the fact of the matter is that an ongoing accumulation of things will only ever provide temporary gratification of an insatiable need. When we define our worth as a person based on how much stuff we have, we will never accumulate enough stuff to feel we are worthy individuals. That's because advertising campaigns are constantly advocating the bar be raised just a little bit higher, so that we need to keep purchasing more stuff to continue feeling okay about ourselves.
It took a lot of years (and a lot of wasted dollars!) for me to realize this truth for myself. Over time I began to recognize that many of the people in my life appeared to be a whole lot happier than me with a whole lot less. This prompted me to take a closer look at my own life and that's when I realized I had swallowed the "more is better" advertising messages hook, line and sinker. Rather than appreciating what I already had, I was focusing on that which I didn't have and dedicating my life to accumulating a lot more than I really needed.
After a great deal of soul searching I came to see that whenever I needed something new to make me happy, it was usually because I was looking for a distraction from something that wasn't right in my life. Now when I get the urge to splurge I question my motivation for wanting something and try to make sure that my reason for wanting it is justified. When it's not, I take a look at what might be bothering me and work on finding a solution rather than a distraction.
I'm sharing this story so that you have an opportunity to learn from my life experience and perhaps get a handle on any unhealthy spending habits you might have. If, like me, you feel compelled to buy things that you don't really need, you might want to ask yourself if your desire for them is based on a need to comfort yourself because some issue in your life is making you unhappy. When you find yourself wishing for something you don't have and perhaps can't afford, ask yourself how important the desired item will be in the whole scheme of things. If the answer is "not very important", then why buy it?
I'm not suggesting you cut up your credit cards and renounce all material possessions. In fact, quite the opposite is true. There is a strong visual component to making a positive impression upon those around you, particularly for people you are meeting for the first time who have no other frame of reference by which to judge you. This means that for certain situations you do need to have the best you can afford, since how you visually present yourself in terms of clothing, accessories, hairstyle, makeup and so on all tell a little something about you. You need to be sure all these things are sending an accurate message about who you are, because as the saying goes, you don't always get a second chance to correct a faulty first impression. This can have disastrous consequences for situations like job interviews, loan applications, meeting your future in-laws, moving to a new city and trying to make friends, etc.
So while you do need material possessions, consider them tools to help you communicate information about yourself to other people as opposed to rewards to make you feel good. You don't need to sport the best of everything to make a positive impression, but you do need to buy intelligently in order to make the most of what you can afford. That requires making your purchase decisions based on logical thought rather than emotional appeal, so that making a positive impression is truly a valid reason for the purchase and not just an excuse.
The true value of material possessions lies in how they allow us to communicate, as opposed to accumulate. Therefore, the next time you're yearning for something you can't afford, I respectfuly suggest you remind yourself that the happiest people don't have the best of everything, they just make the most of everything.
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The ability to dream is an extremely powerful tool. In fact, I would argue dreaming is quite possibly mankind's single most powerful tool, for without our capacity to dream we'd still be living in caves and communicating via simple grunts and hand gestures. There would be no planes, trains or automobiles, no cell phones or computers or internet, no houses or appliances or any of the other tools and amenities we take for granted and utilize on a daily basis.
Every human achievement throughout the course of history began with a dream. Our distant ancestors began using tools and learned how to manipulate fire to keep them warm and safe because someone had a flash of insight and recruited their imagination to show them the way. Later on we became farmers when nomadic groups imagined how much easier it would be if they could grow food rather than constantly have to hunt for it. We then moved to cities once people realized that communities offered greater protection and that specializing in a trade and bartering for what they needed was easier than one person trying to do everything on their own.
And so it continued throughout the course of human history. All the great advancements in science, literature, art, music and so on were achieved because someone dared to dream outside the conventional box. If the Wright brothers had never dreamed about flying, they wouldn't have invented aircraft controls which made fixed-wing powered flight possible. If Henry Ford hadn't dreamed about how to make the automobile affordable to middle class Americans, he never would have developed the assembly line technique of mass production. If Steve Jobs hadn't dreamed about pushing the envelope with computer technology, he would never have filed 342 US patents or developed the wildly successful iPod, iPhone and iPad.
The Wright Brothers, Henry Ford and Steve Jobs are examples of what we like to call visionaries. Visionaries are people who imagine a possible future and then find a way to make it come to pass, no matter how strange or impossible their ideas might appear to everyone else at the time. Visionaries ignore the negative commentary (and sometimes ridicule) of those who don't understand their thinking and therefore can't appreciate the significance of their vision.
Whatever the mind of man can conceive, and believe, it can achieve (my favourite Napoleon Hill quote). We human beings are limited only by the boundaries of our imagination, and visionaries are people who have somehow broken through those barriers which prevent the rest of us from seeing what they can see.
How? I believe it's because visionaries dare to dream big. They envision a grand possibility that is so personally compelling they're inspired to find a way to make it happen. If conventional methods don't work, they challenge themselves to try another approach. Visionaries understand that where there's a will, there's a way, and they commit themselves to finding that way.
Visionaries also dare to act. They refuse to let either their own fears or the negativity of others slow them down. They let nothing prevent them from taking that first step, or from trying another approach if the current one doesn't work. The strength of their conviction gives them the courage to continue even on those days when they feel nothing is working and they're getting nowhere.
We can all be visionaries in our own way, provided we too dare to dream and then dare to act. If there is something you would like for yourself, some dream, vision or goal you would like to attain, then by all means find the courage to reach for it! You may not know where to start, but don't let that stop you. Instead, have faith in yourself and challenge your creativity to point you in the right direction. Be prepared to try different approaches until you find one that works.
The bigger you dream, the bigger your potential payoff. However, bigger dreams can also be harder to get started on because they can be riskier and/or require a greater time commitment. But if achieving your dream will be important to your overall happiness, don't let the enormity of the task intimidate you. Always remember, visionaries like Henry Ford and Steve Jobs are fundamentally no different than you or I - they simply dream big and aren't afraid to act on their dreams.
So if you want big things for yourself, dare to dream big!
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I think everyone has at least one major regret, something that they'd love to go back and change or at least fix, if only they could. Unfortunately, all too often that's simply not possible, no matter how hard one might wish it were otherwise.
That means the only thing we can do is move on. How we choose to move on is up to us.
Some people get "stuck" and can't seem to move past their regret. It affects them so profoundly it shadows their world and darkens their thinking, making it impossible for them to let go of their feelings of guilt, shame and sorrow. It's a type of self-inflicted punishment far worse than anything anybody else could ever say or do to them, because it's constant, biting pain that never lets go and can never be forgotten.
For those people who are living with this type of pain and guilt, please understand that mistakes, even the doozies, are an inescapable part of life and a necessary part of our learning process. So in that sense regret is not all bad, because it teaches us some of our most valuable life lessons. As long as you take these lessons to heart and resolve never to make the same mistakes again, you become a better person. And knowing that, perhaps it might be time to forgive yourself and move on.
We all make mistakes. Sometimes we even make the same mistakes more than once before we finally smarten up and learn from them. Like it or not, screwing up is one of the unavoidable hazards of being human.
In reality, most mistakes are not nearly as horrible or as irreversible as they might seem at the time they occur. More often than not, they can be fixed, provided we remain calm and think clearly and carefully about how to rectify the situation. It's when panic sets in, or we try to avoid or deny any wrongdoing, that things can quickly go from bad to worse.
For the real doozies, those mistakes with the capital M, it's only natural to beat yourself up for a while about your bad decision, and we all do it. But there comes a point where you need to accept what's happened and move on. Regret can remain as a reminder of a lesson well learned, but the paralyzing guilt has to go in order to move forward with your life on a more positive note. Sometimes the best way, and the only way, to salvage a situation is to have something good come of it. It will be up to you to find that something good and make it come to pass.
Keep in mind that it's not necessarily what we've done, but rather what we do with what we learn which ultimately determines our worth as a human being. And the sooner we accept the fact that we are going to mess up from time to time and then have to face the consequences, the easier it will be for us to handle life in general and also find the courage to pursue our dreams.
Some people are so terrified of making a mistake they allow opportunities to pass them by rather than risk something not go according to plan. They are merely spectators in life, watching with envy and sadness as others around them achieve amazing things for themselves. They wonder in vain what they're doing wrong, because they have not yet learned the number one lesson about making mistakes: Those people who don't make mistakes never do much of anything.
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An interesting concept, don't you think? If you're reading this, then you most certainly are alive - you're a thinking, breathing organism that is going through all the motions required to sustain yourself on a daily basis. But there's got to be more to it than this. Otherwise, what would be the point?
OK. So you're alive, but what kind of life are you living?
Do you awaken each morning energized and refreshed and eager to embrace the day, or are you dragging yourself out of bed, exhausted and overwhelmed by life's daily demands and dreading the day ahead of you?
This is a question we all need to ask ourselves from time to time. It's easy to get caught up in the day to day and start running on automatic, forgetting that there are a limited number of hours in a day and we need to make conscious choices about how we utilize the time available to us. Many of us put off enjoying life today, thinking we'll have time to enjoy it tomorrow. But all too often, this turns into a vicious cycle and tomorrow never comes.
Once the cycle begins, it's hard to make it stop, for a couple of reasons. First, we don't always recognize what's happening. What may start out as a temporary situation (we all experience time management issues on occasion) can become habit and then we no longer realize there's a problem. (This is particularly true for high achiever personalities, people who are driven to accomplish more than the average person wants to achieve.) And when a problem isn't recognized, it's not going to be addressed.
Second, individuals who do recognize they have a problem may not know how to fix it. I think at some point many people become so overwhelmed by their responsibilities and obligations they give up on the idea of enjoying life and instead concentrate solely on trying to get through it.
I recently had to take myself to task over this very issue. Though I consider myself a high energy person, there is, unfortunately, a limit to what I can accomplish in a 24 period. My partner is constantly reminding me to slow down, set realistic time deadlines for myself and get more sleep. While I'm often guilty of ignoring his advice, that doesn't mean he isn't right.
So how do I, and others like me, get back on track? How do we break that vicious cycle and prevent ourselves from becoming caught up it in again next week, next month or next year?
I think we can start by reflecting on why we're doing what we're doing in the first place. We need to ask ourselves if the activities we're choosing to do today are propelling us towards, or detracting us from, our ultimate life goals. This means our ultimate life goals must include the right balance of spirituality, work, wealth, health, family and personal enjoyment, to ensure we do experience and accomplish everything we want to do and achieve in our lifetime. (More on goal setting in next month's blog.)
This balance will be different for everyone. It is uniquely personal and must reflect what YOU want, not what others expect of you. Otherwise, you will constantly feel torn between your personal wants for yourself and your obligations to other people. (Now I'm not suggesting we should ignore our responsibilities and obligations to others just because we don't see them as relevant to our own personal goals. We all need to do things we don't necessarily like or want to do from time to time. However, this needs to be kept in balance along with everything else.)
Next, we need to keep our goals in focus and use them to guide our choices regarding which projects and activities we are willing to undertake. Quite often our choices will throw us temporarily off balance, because many of our goals are going to conflict. For example, ambitious career goals may well conflict with healthy living goals, since working the extra hours required to get ahead could mean less time to plan healthy meals, exercise regularly and/or get a full night's sleep. But over the long term, balanced goals should lead to more balanced choices, provided we're honest and disciplined in our decision making, and work to bring our lives back into balance before they get too far out of whack.
In the end, life is a series of choices, and each one of us determines our own destiny through the choices we make. This includes choices about what projects we do and don't do, and about which opportunities we act upon and which ones we allow to pass by. Time constraints limit the number of projects and opportunities we can realistically act upon, so our ongoing challenge is to identify and prioritize the ones we believe are best for us.
Why bother? Because when you're on track and in sync with your life goals, getting up each morning will be easier and each day will be a more enjoyable experience.
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"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." (Dr. Wayne Dwyer, author and motivational speaker.)
I ran across this quote the other day, and it made me think back to the Psychology 101 course I took many years ago during my first year of college. I really enjoyed that course, and one key takeaway which has always stuck with me is the concept that "perception creates reality".
The basic argument goes something like this:
- From a philosophical standpoint, reality is an objective state of things as they actually exist.
- However, regardless of the actual facts, people interpret, evaluate and react to situations based on their subjective evaluation of what they believe is true.
- Practically speaking, when subjective drives thoughts and behaviour, objective becomes irrelevant. In other words, actual fact becomes less important than the perception of what is fact.
- So for all intents and purposes, what you subjectively perceive as the truth becomes your own personal reality, regardless of whether objectively you are right or not.
- Since we all perceive situations differently, everybody's reality is unique to them.
If you buy into this argument, it follows that if you can change your perception, then you can also change your reality. This is an interesting concept. Imagine being able to turn fear into anticipation, or change a stumbling block to an opportunity simply by looking at things a little differently.
If only it were that simple. However, people seldom step back and question the validity of what they think is real. Instead, they accept their beliefs as facts and get on with their day without stopping to consider that their beliefs may be faulty, or perhaps even downright false. In effect, they lock themselves into a specific way of thinking and behaving, without realizing how doing so limits their ability to creatively examine issues from all angles and envision greater possibilities for themselves.
This specific way of thinking tends to be reinforced as people act in ways that perpetuate it. For example, if a person believed a certain outcome was inevitable, why would they waste their time trying to change it? Instead they would do nothing, and then when the event came to pass as predicted, they would tell themselves they were right all along. So the next time they were in a similar situation, mostly likely they would again do nothing and experience a similar result, further reinforcing and perpetuating their perception that they were powerless to affect change.
On the other hand, if a person believed that nothing was cast in stone and that it was within their power to influence events, they would be more inclined to proactively take steps to change that which they didn't like. Then as they saw how their actions did indeed make a difference, it would reinforce the belief that they were capable of influencing their own destiny.
In both of these cases, someone's perception of reality became their reality. But it was only one possible reality, when in actual fact a multitude of realities is possible. And it's up to each individual to create a reality that works for them.
I'm not suggesting that a person can create any reality they want for themselves. Obviously, you can't be a brain surgeon if you don't have the intelligence or the education required for the job. Your reality has to be realistic, that is, within the realm of your capabilities. The point I am trying to make is that people in general have a lot more options open to them than most of them realize.
So how does one go about changing their reality if they don't like their current one? Just as with any other type of change, it all starts with awareness. In this particular case, it's an awareness that our individual thought patterns and belief systems play a major role in how things turn out for us in life. But awareness is not enough. Along with awareness, there needs to be desire for change, and acceptance of personal responsibility for making change happen.
If you would like to make changes in your life but you're not sure where to start, here are a few things to think about.
- While it is perfectly fine to ask others you trust for advice about how to go about doing something, beware of anyone who tries to tell you what to do. It's your life, and you're the one who has to live with the consequences of your actions. So make sure you're doing something because you think it's right for you, regardless of what anyone else thinks.
- Should you find the courage to try something new and it doesn't work, try to see it as a learning experience as opposed to a disaster. Disasters tend to make people want to give up, but all a learning experience means is that the first way didn't work, so you'll need to find another way to get what you want.
- If you're afraid to try something new, ask yourself what's the worst thing that could happen if things don't go according to plan. If you can't live with the consequences of failure, then perhaps you're right not to try. But often the consequences aren't that severe, except perhaps to one's ego. If you think you can live with the consequences, then what's there to fear?
- When you're evaluating various options for yourself, try as much as possible to remove the emotion from your decision making. We are emotional beings, so we don't do "unemotional" very well. However, be aware that negative emotions such as anger and fear trap us into a set thinking pattern, limiting our ability to think creatively and thus restricting our ability to recognize alternative solutions. So if you feel yourself becoming emotional about a situation, consider postponing your decision making (if possible) until you are feeling more centered. The phrase "sleep on it" is often good advice as things can seem clearer once you've detached yourself from the negative emotions for a period of time.
- Learn to play devil's advocate with yourself by asking "why". Why do you think option A is best way, or perhaps the only way, to get what you want? Why are you accepting something as fact without questioning it? Breaking free of your current thought patterns will help you think outside your box and see greater possibilities for yourself.
Here's the bottom line. If you think you can, it's quite possible that you can. But if you think you can't, well then you most certainly can't.
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In Flight Plan: The Real Secret of Success, professional speaker and bestselling author Brian Tracy argues that our most valuable financial asset is not our house, our car or some other tangible asset. Instead, our most valuable asset is our future earning potential.
If you think about it, this makes a lot of sense. What we earn is what allows us to accumulate all our other assets, and it has the most direct effect on our standard of living.
Just like any other valuable asset, our earnings potential must be carefully safeguarded and nurtured so that we can reap maximum benefit from it. The best way to protect and nurture your income potential, Brian argues, is to increase the value of what you are able to contribute to an organization (either your employer's or your own). You do this by building upon your education and experience. People who are continually upgrading their skills and experience levels tend to see their incomes grow because in our society people are paid based on the relative value of what they are able to contribute to an organization.
Scarcity plays a key role in determining relative value. Even if you are fantastic at what you do, if what you do is something a lot of people can do reasonably well, the free market law of supply and demand dictates you will not be paid as highly as in positions where there are fewer qualified candidates. That's the way the market works, and it's not going to change in the foreseeable future. No matter how hard you work, your earnings potential will be capped by the market demand for your position.
In this situation, the only way to increase your earnings is to contribute more value and thus increase your worth to the company. For example, you can move into a supervisory position where your skills and experience can be used to train others to be as good as you are. Because your actions have broader influence you are contributing greater value and thus your worth to the company has increased. In most cases, you will be rewarded accordingly. (If not, you can take your experience and go elsewhere.)
On the other hand, people who stay in the same job for years should not expect their incomes to grow significantly over time. Some people are perfectly willing to accept a lower income in exchange for a job that's easy and comfortable. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But there are many others who want easy, comfortable and more money. Except in rare circumstances, that's not going to happen, and so being angry and frustrated by a limited paycheque is a waste of time and energy. It would be much more productive to put that time and energy towards increasing one's net value to their employer in order to justify the higher wage they're looking for.
That's not really as difficult as it might sound. Despite the fact that most people would like to make more money, the majority will lack either the skills or the drive to make it happen, and both of these elements are required if you want to see your paycheque grow in our competitive marketplace. This makes it easier for those of us who do have that drive, since people who demonstrate this type of initiative will immediately stand out from their peers in a very positive light.
As for the skills, there are many ways to obtain them. In addition to the formal education route of college, university and now online courses, a person can also learn new skills through volunteer activities, self study (iTunes University offers a wide variety of free courses), attending day seminars which focus on specific skill development, or obtaining permission to shadow someone on your lunch hour or other off time. Offer to cover off for someone on their vacation and have them legitimately teach you something new, and get paid to learn it! Participate in group projects and learn the ropes from more experienced group members. Ask questions about other roles and duties within your company to gain a better understanding of the overall operating processes and procedures.
If you're asked to take on a new task or project by your employer and your first impulse is to argue it's too much work, consider for a moment what you will learn and how it will impact your earning capacity, both now and in the future. It may well be extra work, but think of that work as an investment that will increase the worth of your most valuable financial asset - you!
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What is your life passion? What is it that stimulates and excites you, makes you jump out of bed each morning feeling refreshed and ready to embrace a new day?
I firmly believe we all have at least one "life passion", that is, some activity or thing we gravitate towards because it calls out to us in one way or another, often without our conscious awareness. I also believe that if we ignore the calling, we'll be continually plagued by a nagging feeling of emptiness and a sense that there's something important missing from our life.
It's not always easy to recognize one's "passion" or "calling". But if your gut instinct tells you something feels "right", perhaps it's worth exploring the attraction. Better understanding what makes you feel happy and fulfilled will make it easier to make plans and set goals that align with your passion and lead to greater happiness and fulfilment in your life.
Conversely, when people don't really understand what will make them happy, one of two things generally happens. Some will feverishly explore every option available to them, abandoning each one as soon as something seemingly more attractive comes along. They flip flop all over the place, never sticking with anything long enough to see it to fruition. Others give up trying to fill their emptiness and instead seek diversions that mask their inner pain. They may constant partiers, always wanting to be with others so they don't have to face feeling alone and empty inside. They may use pills, alcohol, retail therapy (i.e. shopping sprees) or other distractions to self-medicate against their inner pain.
Either way, these people end up making choices and setting goals that distract and sometimes even conflict with what their true self is desperately searching for. Have you ever worked long and hard to achieve something that you know you should be proud of and excited about, yet find yourself wondering why you feel a little flat or deflated instead? When people set and achieve goals that aren't aligned with their life passion, achieving those goals can be anticlimactic, producing a "now what?" kind of feeling that confuses, disappoints and sometimes disillusions.
That's because goals focus mostly on end results, whereas passion is more related to process. If you're not sure what I mean, think of passion as what you like to do and goals as what you like to have. Once you understand the difference, you should be able to see how focusing on end results (what you want) more than process (what you like to do) can lead to problems. Because goal achievement happens at a fixed point in time, the pleasure and satisfaction it generates eventually fades. But when you do what you love, your feelings of pleasure and satisfaction are ongoing. Goal achievement becomes a bonus, not the ultimate prize. That's why people who do what they love tend to be much happier that those who instead choose to do what they believe is necessary to get what they want.
Although this sounds simple enough, today's reality is quite a bit more complicated. Our culture teaches us to value end results much more than process, and to measure success in life by how much stuff we accumulate relative to other people as opposed to how happy we feel. We're taught that life is a contest, and that hard work, not happy work, will get us furthest ahead. Sacrifices made now will pay off down the road when we get a little further ahead and have more time and money to enjoy life. But enjoy life how? By investing in even more stuff to distract and help us forget we spent our whole life sacrificing for tomorrow rather than living for today?
No wonder so many people are so unhappy! Instead of sustaining themselves by doing what they love, they're draining themselves by doing what they feel they must in order to accumulate a bunch of stuff!
Don't get me wrong. I am NOT trying to say that wanting things is bad. As a matter of fact, I spend a lot of money on a lot of things that bring me pleasure. And I have no regrets. Things in and of themselves are not the problem. The problem is how things are viewed and valued in our culture.
In my opinion, today's society places far too much weight on the accumulation of material possessions as a measure of a person's overall success in life, and we all tend to judge people on how successful they look on the outside. We treat people differently based on how materially successful we perceive them to be. And we also discriminate, quite cruelly at times, against people who do not willingly play the game and follow the norm, so to speak. So there is strong incentive for all to fit the mould, as consequences for not doing so can be severe.
This narrow definition of success limits people's perceived options in life about what they can and can't do in terms of family, career, personal interests, and so on. It may tempt them to suppress or deny their passions because they're afraid their peers (and/or society in general) will not approve.
But by recognizing our cultural bias towards wealth accumulation at all costs, we can all guard against allowing this mindset to unduly influence our own decisions to pursue what we would like to do as opposed to what we think we should do. Yes, you do need to fit into society, but do it on your terms. Find the happy medium that will make you happy.
In other words, choose the job you like best as opposed to the one which pays the most (within reason of course as we all have bills to pay). Seek out people who share similar interests and choose to spend time with the ones you honestly connect with. Spend your disposable income on what is truly important to you versus the things society expects you to value. Engage in leisure pastimes which excite and rejuvenate you, rather than activities which simply distract your attention from the emptiness within.
If you are like so many people I know who are going through the motions of life without truly living it, step back and think carefully about what it is you'd rather be doing. No matter your age and stage in life, it's never too late to pursue your passion.
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I recently ran across the above quote from an unknown source, and it really hit home. I, like many others I know, am often guilty of fretting about what's lacking in my life, whether that be more time, more money, a bigger house, a newer car, a better job, and so on.
And yet what does my grumbling and griping actually accomplish? At the end of the day I still won't have more time, more money, a bigger house, a newer car, a better job, or whatever else I perceive is missing. But what I will have is more stress, greater unhappiness and less appreciation for all the abundance I am currently blessed with.
Worrying about what we don't have is essentially a waste of time, because it draws energy away from our ability to recognize and use what we do possess to its full advantage. Even worse, it makes us forget we have the power to change our situation for the better, should we make a conscious effort to do so. That's because anger and resentment are paralyzing emotions and dwelling on them blocks the ability to think creatively and act productively, so that we remain "stuck" in our current mind set and therefore our current situation.
If after giving it our best shot it is still not possible to get what we want, agonizing over the disappointment will serve no useful purpose, and once again it will only stop us from appreciating all the positive things we have going for ourselves and allowing them to manifest further abundance in our lives.
Whether one chooses to see their cup as half empty or half full is the key issue here, because either approach is habit forming. If we approach life from a half empty perspective, we will spend our entire life wishing and waiting for some magical moment to occur that will transform our every "have not" into a "have". This of course will never happen - every time one "have not" is transformed, we'll simply find another to add to our wish list. That's the nature of the half empty approach.
On the other hand, a half full mentality lives in the now, recognizing that life's positives outweigh the negatives and appreciating the following opportunities are ours for the making:
- the opportunity to be happy, regardless of situation or circumstance;
- the opportunity to fully embrace the abundance in one's life;
- the opportunity to love and be loved;
- the opportunity to make a difference;
- the opportunity to better our situation, should we so choose;
- the opportunity to look back over our lives during our final hours and be grateful that we remembered to live, love and laugh each and every day, so that as we draw our final breath we pass from this world with no regrets.
Our time on this planet is limited, so be sure to spend yours wisely. Don't miss out on life's many opportunities because worrying about your "have nots" is wasting all your "haves".
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The other day my partner and I went to lunch with my parents. When we walked into the restaurant, we were greeted by a woman who spoke to us in a monotone, disinterested voice as she shuffled through some papers at the cash desk, never once looking up from her task. Though her words were welcoming, I felt extremely unwelcome, and quite frankly, rather insulted that the women may well have considered me dumb enough to believe she actually meant what she'd said.
Once we'd sat down at our table, I commented on the "greeting" we'd received and found that everyone else had experienced a similar reaction. We all felt the woman's words were so inconsistent with her body language they couldn't possibly be true. Though it was her job to greet us on behalf of an employer who no doubt wanted us to feel welcome and appreciated, the woman herself clearly didn't give a damn one way or the other.
The experience started me thinking about how often I might be guilty of sending similar mixed messages to people in my life. For example, how many times over the past month have I absently conversed with my partner without giving him the full attention he deserved because I was busy texting or responding to emails? How might that have made him feel? Did he perhaps wonder if I didn't give a damn about what he was saying or how he was feeling, even though I profess to love him on a regular basis? And how did that make him feel towards me in return?
I know with uncomfortable certainty that I'm guilty of the same inattentive behaviour at the office. On busy days I've held entire conversations with staff and colleagues without my eyes once leaving the computer screen. Even though I profess to have an open door policy, how believable am I when I don't bother looking at someone while they're speaking? So how comfortable do people feel about coming to see me when they need my support?
A big part of making a positive impression is coming across as sincere in your desire to connect and communicate with the other party. No one likes to be lied to. But when your words and body language are inconsistent, people may assume you're lying about what you're saying.
When someone is speaking to us, we pay attention to more than just their words. Consciously or not, we take note of non-verbal cues such as body posture, gestures, facial expressions and eye movements and use this information as clues about the speaker's inner thoughts and/or state of mind. In fact, it is estimated by various authorities that between 50-80% of all meaning is derived from this type of non-verbal behaviour. In other words, people often place greater weight on what they see versus what they hear.
Good communicators are therefore conscious of their body movements and strive to ensure the non-verbal messages they are sending are consistent with what they are saying. This makes their words sound more sincere and as a result they appear more trustworthy to others.
To ensure you are perceived as a sincere and trustworthy individual, you need to understand that body language is often more believable than words and be aware of how your own body language could be detracting from your credibility in certain situations.
For example, if you want the other party to believe you are truly interested in what they are saying, let them know they have your full attention by making eye contact and nodding occasionally while they are speaking. Mirroring the speaker's body language helps them understand you are on the same wavelength. For example, smiling when they smile indicates you appreciate their sense of humour and frowning when they frown shows you share their concern.
Human beings are social creatures and thus the desire to reach out and connect with others in a meaningful way is hardwired into us. It's therefore only natural that we gravitate towards and think more highly of those individuals who make us feel acknowledged, understood and appreciated.
So if you want to make a positive impression, start by putting down your pen, your mouse or your cell phone the next time someone stops by to say hi and give them the full and undivided attention they deserve.
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If you want something, you generally need to earn it. Except in rare cases, no one is going to give you something for nothing. Why should they? No one - not your family, not your employer, not the government, nor anyone else for that matter - owes you anything over and above what you legitimately earn. If you think otherwise, not only do I believe that you're sadly mistaken, but also that you're setting yourself up for disappointment.
I'm not saying there are no free rides - some people do seem to live a semi-charmed kind of life where everything they want or need appears to be handed to them on a silver platter. However, the odds are pretty good that's not going to happen to either you or me, so if we want to live a happy and fulfilled life it's up to us to take the initiative and build one. Happiness and fulfillment seldom grace us of their own accord.
I know a lot of people who are angry about how unfair their lives are compared to other people who seem to have more than they do - more money, more friends, a better job, a bigger house, and so on. And I do agree that sometimes certain individuals end up with a whole lot more for a lot less effort. Maybe they got off to a better start financially, were blessed with a more supportive family, or happened to be in the right place at the right time for lady luck to shower her good fortune down upon them. Unfair? Perhaps... but who promised life was supposed to be fair?
While the phase "get over it" has some very negative connotations associated with it, I mean this in the nicest possible way when I say that getting over anger and frustration is precisely what people must do if they wish to experience true happiness and peace of mind. Of course it can be frustrating to see others enjoy something they themselves wish they had, but getting angry about it doesn't do anything for anyone except keep them stuck in an unhappy place and in a miserable state of mind.
I think it's perfectly normal to feel envious and perhaps even a little jealous when we discover someone has something we ourselves want. If envy motivates us to step up and achieve the same thing for ourselves, well then perhaps envy isn't a bad thing. But when it overwhelms our thoughts and keeps us stuck where we're at, then it's time to let it go, difficult as it may be. Don't get me wrong - I'm not suggesting letting go is easy, only that it's necessary.
Rather than dwell on what they don't have, people will be a lot further ahead if they can instead focus their energy on working towards that which they can get. It's been my experience that as a general rule, people who work harder and smarter are more generously compensated for their efforts compared to those who don't. So once you decide what you want from life, your best chance of getting it is to work as hard and as smart as you can.
This is the self-empowered approach, taking responsibility for your life's work rather than blaming life's circumstances for your lack of happiness and success. Self-empowered individuals know that hard work and smart planning are key ingredients for success. They understand that the harder and smarter they work, the greater their chances of success.
However, being self-empowered doesn't mean you can have whatever you want as long as you want it badly enough and are willing to work hard enough for it. Sometimes it simply isn't possible to have what you want, no matter how long and hard you're willing to work. For example, if you don't possess the intellect necessary for passing the required medical exams you'll never become a doctor, regardless of how badly you might want to be one. Anyone can run for Prime Minister, but no matter how smart the various candidates are or how hard they try, only one of them is going to win the majority vote.
What self-empowerment does offer is the understanding that while there are no guarantees of success for any given venture, there's also no reason not to give it your best shot. If you want something, you have every right to seek it, and I would also argue you owe it to yourself to reach for the stars, no matter how how weak their distant glow may seem. For it's only by your own efforts will the light of your own star intensify and begin to sparkle brilliantly, allowing you to bask in the glow of your personal success.
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A very demanding colleague of mine used to call me regularly to make last minute requests that invariably threw a monkey wrench into my schedule and caused my staff and I to struggle to meet our other project deadlines. When I finally decided to give him a piece of my mind, he seemed quite surprised by my angry exasperation and told me in a calm, matter of fact voice, "If you don't ask, then you don't get." He then went on to explain, "I'm telling you what I want. It's up to you to tell me what I can and can't have."
I learned two very valuable lessons that day.
First, most of the time people have no idea what effect their request is going to have on someone else's schedule. All they know is that they need something and they're looking for a way to get it done. So unless you tell them otherwise, they're going to assume everything is fine and that you can take care of them without issue. And they will have no idea how much stress their request is causing unless and until you tell them.
Once I realized this simple truth I found it a lot easier to say no to people and quite quickly discovered that most of the time they are willing to negotiate on both what you can do for them and when it needs to be done. Of course, this doesn't apply when their own deadlines are non-negotiable - for example, when they've made a commitment to a customer or when your boss needs something for an important meeting.
In fact, I was quite surprised to discover how amenable people can be when you tell them you'd like to help, but that your schedule will not permit you to do so unless the two of you can work something out. That could mean either reducing the complexity of a project or extending its delivery date. And as long as you're not trying to negotiate every single task that ends up on your desk, your willingness to negotiate even when your plate is already full demonstrates to your colleagues (and to your boss) that you're a team player.
The second valuable lesson I learned that day was that if I don't ask then I won't get. I realized that people have no idea how their demands are going to affect my schedule because they don't know my schedule. And they don't know my wants and needs either. My boss is caught up in his own daily demands so unless I tell him I'm overworked, overstressed, under challenged or otherwise not happy, he's not going to know it. And he's not going to know what is needed to make things better unless I tell him.
Knowing this has made it much easier for me to speak my mind and ask for what I want as opposed to waiting hopefully for someone to anticipate my needs and fulfill them for me. I believe that doing so has resulted in me being treated with greater respect around the office, as well as by my family and friends.
However, as a note of caution there is a right way and a wrong way to ask for what you want. It's important to use a confident, positive tone as opposed to a whiny defensive one. It's quite natural to feel defensive when you're not comfortable asking for something or when you're not sure how your request is going to be interpreted. When you're feeling this way, take care to keep a defensive edge from your voice. It's human nature to respond to defensiveness with suspicion, and the last thing you want is for people to hone in on your emotion and as a result question the validity of your request.
Similarly, if you don't provide a good reason as to why you need something, you may be viewed as a complainer as opposed to a problem solver. For example, if you're going to tell your boss that Mary takes too long to do the daily cash receipts, your boss may not understand why there's a problem unless you also tell her that the constant delay results in you fielding time consuming calls from customers who are angry because their accounts are being put on hold when they shouldn't be, and so processing the deposits more quickly will make you more efficient and create happier customers.
When you're asking for something, the best justification for it will offer a win-win solution where both parties benefit. So that means when you're asking for something from your boss or a colleague, you need to show how it will benefit either them personally or the company in general. The same holds true when you're negotiating with family and friends. (On the flip side, if you don't see a benefit to the other party then you may want to reconsider whether your request is fair.)
If you don't ask you don't get. But even if you do ask, there's no guarantee you're going to get. When you don't get what you're asking for, don't get mad and don't take it personally. Most of the time it isn't personal, it's the reality of the situation. It could be your boss agrees you're overworked or that you need a new computer or other equipment to better do your job, but there's no money in the budget. Perhaps HR agrees that a company policy is unreasonable or unfair, but is unable to change it. Maybe your friend would like to meet you for lunch, but is too embarrassed to admit she can't afford it. Accepting the reality of the situation with grace and moving forward in a forthright manner will ensure you maintain the respect and admiration of your peers. Keep in mind you can't win all the time and that there's always next time.
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What you think motivates what you do. For example, if you believe in your ability to successfully accomplish a specific goal such as finding a more exciting and better paying job, then you will approach the task of updating your resume and sending it out to prospective employers with confidence and enthusiasm. However, if you have doubts about your ability to convince an interviewer that you are their ideal candidate, then odds are pretty good you will find all sorts of ways to procrastinate updating your resume, and maybe even find excuses to stay at your current job such as "it's a tough market out there" or "there's no guarantee that I'll like where I go any better than where I am now".
How many people do you know who feel trapped in situations they don't like because they think they lack the ability to change where they're at? Are you one of them?
Believing in yourself and your ability to accomplish a specific task once you set your mind to it is mandatory if you are going to fully explore all life's possibilities and be all you can be. That's because if you don't have a positive self-image or lack confidence in your innate ability to be great, you won't bother trying anything that might put you outside your comfort zone. Or if you do find the courage try something, you may give up in defeat at the first sign of trouble.
It's all about mindset. When you believe in your ability to do something you will approach it with an expectation of success. Setbacks are seen merely as temporary stumbling blocks that can be worked through once you put your mind to it. So you are motivated to keep on going when the going gets tough, which is precisely what is needed if you're going to successfully accomplish your goal.
The bottom line is if you think you can, your odds of success are much higher than if you think you can't. So to maximize your chances of success in any endeavour you choose to undertake, you need to think positively about yourself and your capabilities and tell the little voice of doubt inside your head to shut up and take a hike - permanently!
If there's something going on in your life you don't like, odds are pretty good it's not going to change unless you proactively take steps to change it. Quite often the hardest part of change is overcoming one's fears and self-doubts in order to find the courage to take that first step forward. The good news is that equally as often, once the decision to pursue a particular course of action has been made then the actual doing of it is relatively easy by comparison.
So if there is something you would like to change in your life or something new you would like to try, don't let fear or self-doubt get in the way. Instead of focusing on all the reasons why something might not work, concentrate on figuring out all the possible ways to make sure that it does. And if things don't go according to plan, don't give up. Instead, move to plan B. Success seldom comes first time around, so learn to see lack of success as a learning experience as opposed to failure. Failure will only occur once you stop trying.
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There are as many ways to measure success as there are individuals striving to achieve it. When evaluating how well you're doing in life, it is critically important that you define your own personal measure for success on your own terms, as in the end you are the one who will one day look back on your life and live with the knowledge of how it has unfolded.
While you should never let anyone else define what constitutes success for you, I would like to respectfully suggest that as you develop your own personal definition you keep in mind there are many facets to your life and that it would be beneficial for you to carefully consider the role each must play in order for you to achieve success as you've defined it.
I think most of us intuitively understand that in order to maximize our inner greatness potential we need an appropriate balance of good physical, emotional and mental health and a harmonious relationship between our personal and professional lives. After all, how successful will a workaholic feel in the long run if she neglects her health so that debilitating illness forces her to give up working at what she loves? Or how successful will a brain surgeon feel long term if she neglects her personal relationships and ends up spending her evenings and weekends feeling alienated from family and friends, bored and lonely without anyone to help celebrate her professional achievements?
Finding and maintaining this type of balance in one's life truly is a balancing act. Reality dictates the scales are going to tip from time to time, but I see this as being okay as long as it's temporary and equilibrium is maintained over the long term.
However, I believe where many of us go wrong is in telling ourselves it's okay for our lives to be out of sync for an extended period because we'll always have time to fix things later, when we have more time, more money, or more of whatever it is we feel we're currently lacking. But more often than not, those things we lack never come and so we continue to neglect important areas of our lives, such as physical health and/or emotional well-being. And that's when bad things start to happen, such as illness, depression or other emotional breakdown, failed relationships, and so on.
The most common area of neglect for people in general and women in particular is physical health. We eat poorly while on the run, make no time for physical exercise and don't get enough sleep on a regular basis. We as women are so busy tending to the needs of others that we forget about our own. Unfortunately, the consequences of doing so can be costly, and sometimes even deadly. So no matter what your personal or professional goals, I highly recommend you not neglect your health.
In today's modern society, one has to proactively plan for good health as it's highly unlikely it will happen on its own. It takes conscious commitment to eat right and exercise regularly, and not allow oneself to be distracted by life's many other demands.
There's no time better than today to make that commitment to good health. Stop making excuses about not having enough time and set aside an hour or so two or three times per week to do something physical. And while you're at it, set aside some additional time to plan your meals so that they provide maximum nutritional value. Rearrange your schedule to allow another hour of sleep each night. If you're not sure where to begin, the Fitness 101, Health and Nutrition 101, Healthy Recipes and Time Savings Tips sections of this site can provide you with some useful information to get you started.
Although it may sometimes seem next to impossible to find these extra hours for yourself, it truly is in your best interests to do so. Though you may certainly have commitments to your spouse, children and perhaps even aging parents, at the deepest level your first commitment must be to yourself. This is extremely hard for many women to understand and accept. But while on the surface it may sound selfish to some, think about it this way. If you're not happy and/or healthy, how can you truly give the best of yourself to others? Ongoing continuous sacrifice will eventually take its toll, and many women end up becoming a burden to those they care about instead of the pillar of support they had hoped to be.
So the takeaway this month is this: Regardless of your dreams, aspirations and goals, don't forget to include your ability to enjoy the fruits of your labours as an integral part of how you define and measure your degree of success in life.
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The thoughts you choose to think and believe right now are creating your future. These thoughts form your experiences tomorrow, next week and next year. (Louise L. Hay)
Think about it. Your thoughts shape your behaviour and your behaviour reflects the essence of who you are. Your behaviour also influences how others perceive and respond to you. So what you think dictates in large part what happens to you in life.
The good news is that this means all of us can exercise a great deal of control over our individual destinies by paying close attention to what we're thinking. So when something isn't going right for you, rather than throw in the towel you can choose to take charge of your thoughts and proactively direct your life in the direction you wish it to go. For example, if you want to travel extensively but can't afford it, you can investigate what type of job would allow you to work abroad in the locations you'd like to visit. If you don't qualify for a particular job you really want, figure out how to get the experience you need either through volunteering or proposing an intern position where you offer your services for a reduced wage in exchange for the work experience. Or alternatively, outline your existing strengths to the hiring decision-maker and explain to him or her how their company would benefit from hiring you right now and allowing you to learn on the job. Quite often there are multiple ways to get yourself where you need to go and with the right mindset you'll be able to recognize and pursue each of them until you discover one that works.
The bad news is that it's not always easy to take charge of your thoughts. Emotions are very powerful and when they're negative they can play havoc with one's mental state, preventing people from thinking logically at a time when it's most important that they keep a clear head. In addition, a person may not recognize their own faulty thought patterns. For example, an intelligent, hard working woman who's been told for years by an abusive parent, partner or boss that she's dumb or lazy may eventually internalize what she's hearing and start behaving as though it were true. (Or she may push herself relentlessly to overachieve in everything she does in an attempt to "compensate" for her laziness and stupidity.)
Though it may be difficult to recognize negative thought patterns, if there is something in your life that's not going well, I encourage you to step back and ask yourself what you might be thinking (and therefore doing) to perpetuate the problem. It may well be that the situation is completely beyond your control, but if you tell yourself that then make sure it's the truth and not simply an excuse that you're using to justify feeling sorry for yourself. For example, I know someone who hates their job but tells me they're stuck there for life because they don't have the education to do anything else. That's complete, utter nonsense, but it does give this person what they believe is a valid reason to wallow in self-pity rather than take steps to change their employment situation.
And speaking of self-pity, negative thinking tends to breed just that. Negative thoughts drain one's sense of personal power and zap their energy and motivation to do much of anything. Feeling helpless, tired and demotivated makes it difficult to set and pursue goals, even when the individual knows they need to do so in order to improve their current situation. Instead, it's much easier to acknowledge defeat and tell themselves it's hopeless.
Now back to the good news. By challenging your negative thoughts and learning to see things in a more positive light, you have a lot more control over your life than you might sometimes think. No matter what happens to you in life, YOU ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE about what to think and how to react to any situation. You can approach life from either a half full or a half empty perspective - the choice is yours. However, please keep in mind the power of positive thinking is not just a clichéd statement, it's a fact. Knowing you have a choice is empowering, and feeling empowered is a critical component of both self confidence and motivation.
Here's one way the power of positive thinking will manifest in your life. Your thoughts and behaviours are very much like a mirror in that what you project to the world tends to be reflected back at you. So if for example you think and therefore act as though you are worthy of love and respect, most people will treat you with the love and respect you deserve. (And the ones that don't aren't worth your time, so don't worry about them.)
Always remember that because you are what you think, you have the choice (within reason, of course) to be anything you'd like to be. So why not make 2014 the year you discover how to be all you can be!
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CLOSE 2012 BLOGS
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Seldom is there only one "right" way of doing something, and more often than not there are several alternatives which are all equally as good. Yet our perception about the way things are supposed to be often blinds us to this concept and closes our minds to exploring the various possibilities available for us.
This point was driven home to me again and again during my years as a martial arts (Taekwondo) instructor. As an instructor, it was my job to ensure all students correctly learned the various skills and techniques associated with the art. I began by teaching every student the exact same way, which was the way I myself liked to learn. But since every student learned differently, I soon had to adapt my teaching style to each individual's thought patterns and physical capabilities if I wanted them to be successful. I quickly learned there was more than one way to teach a specific skill, and as long as that skill was eventually mastered then however I got the student to where they needed to be was a perfectly valid teaching method for me, and a perfectly valid learning method for them.
As I taught, I encouraged open discussion to ensure my students fully understood both the how and why of what they were doing. Their questions often made me question my own understanding of the finer nuances of the art, showing me what I didn't know and prompting discussion with other club instructors and Masters. Through this process I broadened and deepened my own knowledge of Taekwondo, which in turn increased my effectiveness as an instructor and improved my own personal performance as a practitioner. So by listening to my students, I was able to learn from them, even though I was supposedly the subject "expert".
How often do you, or other people that you know, listen with an open mind to children, parents, friends, coworkers or subordinates when you consider yourself the "subject expert" on the discussion topic?
If you're like most people I know, the answer is "not often enough". All too often people will dismiss someone else's question or opinion as irrelevant to their personal situation if they perceive they are better informed or more knowledgeable than the other party.
Yet having more knowledge or skills will not always guarantee the best decisions or best problem solving approach. The more you think you know, the less inclined you'll be to get creative and step outside the box. That's because when we think we have all the answers we stop questioning what we don't know and lock ourselves into a "that's the way it's supposed to be" type of thinking. Particularly when we're busy and therefore a little distracted or on auto pilot, we may not stop to question whether our action plan is the best plan, we just know it will work and leave it at that because we're already dealing with whatever is next on our plate.
Most of the time, that works for us just fine. However, I don't doubt there are times where if we'd given the situation a bit more thought, we could have changed our approach and gotten much better results. We could have taken advantage of a previously unrecognized opportunity that would have got us where we needed to go more quickly and efficiently.
Listening to others, really listening that is, can provide a fresh perspective on a problem. This may lead us to question our own thinking patterns that are limiting our ability to recognize equally viable and perhaps even better approaches. Even though we may think the other party knows less than we do, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Different knowledge levels and different life experiences offer different insights, and if you're really listening you can add someone else's insight to your existing repertoire of knowledge and experience and suddenly have an "aha" moment.
So next time someone offers a suggestion, listen, I mean REALLY listen to it. Don't immediately dismiss it as irrelevant. Just because it doesn't fit with your existing thought pattern doesn't mean an idea won't have merit. There are many different approaches to problem solving and more than one way to get yourself to where you need to go. Someone's crazy idea might not be all that crazy once you stop to think about it. It might even point you in an unconventional yet exciting direction that propels you forward with a momentum you'd never dreamed possible.
And the next time you find yourself thinking "that's my best option", do yourself a favour and think again. Life is seldom black and white; learn to appreciate and take advantage of its varying shades of grey since that's definitely the most interesting part. And as the year draws to a close, open your mind and heart to the many possibilities 2012 holds for you. There are many ways to realize your greatness potential, so don't let any preconceived notions about the way things are "supposed" to be limit your opportunities for greatness.
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"Pain is inevitable, but misery is optional. We cannot avoid pain, but we can avoid joy." (Tim Hansel - Author)
Taking these words to heart as a valuable life lesson can make a huge difference in your life. How people deal with pain and disappointment directly impacts their overall outlook and happiness. Sure, life may suck from time to time. But even though quite often you have little control over what happens, the good news is you do have complete control over how you deal with it. Your overall attitude about pain and disappointment will either keep you stuck in a bad place or move you past it to a much better one.
Yes, pain is inevitable. That's because life is full of risk and with risk comes the possibility of pain. Whenever we reach for something, anything, there is always a risk of failure, which can bring varying degrees of pain. But if we don't risk failure, we may never achieve much of anything.
That's the paradox. If we want something, we risk getting burned. Yet if we don't take that risk and reach for what we want, we'll never get it. Bummer.
No one likes to feel pain, but many people go to excessive lengths to avoid it. Their avoidance "tactics" often make things worse, limiting their options and sometimes trapping them in situations that keep them stuck. For example, consider my friend who was emotionally devastated when her husband left her after many years of marriage. Even though she was lonely, she was so afraid of being hurt again that she couldn't bring herself to trust the men she met not to hurt her in the same way. So despite singles groups and online matchmaking services she remained in her lonely space, even though she truly didn't want to be there. (Fortunately, years later she eventually met someone who was persistent enough to break through her barrier and win her trust, and now they are happy together. But not everyone is that lucky.)
To me, it's all about taking calculated risks. Is the risk worth the potential payoff? People who have done well in life are where they're at precisely because they have not let fear of pain prevent them from taking risks. I'm not suggesting they're never afraid, they just don't let their fears stop them. Successful people understand the concept of "no pain, no gain". They are willing to take calculated risks, and they've learned how to survive pain and move past disappointment when things don't go according to plan.
On the other hand, people who seem to be "stuck" in a miserable and unhappy situation are often there because for whatever reason they are afraid to risk leaving it. When decisions are fear-based and emotionally driven, it's difficult to see all the various possibilities, logically evaluate risk versus reward and be comfortable with taking risks. So it seems less risky to stay where they're at than to try to change things. (Now if right about now you're telling yourself "yes that makes sense, but it doesn't apply to my particular situation", with all due respect I suggest you take another look. Been there, done that myself.)
Of course pain sucks, and it's only human to feel sorry for ourselves from time to time. But don't get so caught up in self-pity that it emotionally cripples you. Instead, indulge briefly as appropriate (after all, some of life's blows are much harsher than others) and then take active steps to move on to a more positive place. Don't waste excessive time mourning what might have been, but rather learn from your mistakes and move on.
Sometimes you might think how am I ever going to survive this? or if I try that and things don't go according to plan, what's going to happen to me? It's natural and perfectly normal to feel that way, but don't worry, you're much stronger than you think. We women are a tough bunch and we can take pretty much anything life throws at us, as long we remember to keep our chin up and remain focused on the big picture.
Of course pain isn't pleasant, but pain avoidance can be worse in long run, leading straight to misery. When pain avoidance is one's key motivator for decision making, a person can miss out on so much in life and end up feeling extremely miserable about their current life situation. If they want to follow their dreams and fulfill their greatness potential, they need to accept the bad that comes with the good. This applies to everything in life - relationships, personal growth, professional development, changing careers, running your first marathon, and so on.
Though you may falter from time to time, don't let it cripple you. There's always an upside if you look hard enough, even if it's simply "well, I tried it and now I know for certain it's not right for me". Work with what you've learned and use that knowledge to propel you forward straight on course, or perhaps in a slightly different direction. There are many roads to success, and seldom are they straight and clear of debris!
Life is not, nor will it ever be, perfect for anyone. But it will be happier for those who are able to cope with life's disappointments in a positive way. Understand and accept that pain, hurt and disappointment will happen, but you can and will get past it to a much better place. It's not necessarily what happens to you, but how you react and cope that will ultimately have the most impact on your life, even if it doesn't seem so at the time.
Though closely intertwined, pain and misery are two entirely different animals. Out of pain comes your opportunity for personal growth, but nothing good ever comes from misery.
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The other day I commented to my partner how amazing it was that our furry children (3 cats and a Chihuahua) have such an immense ability to give and receive unconditional love. I told him it was rather sad that the capacity for so much love and affection could fit into smaller cat and dog brains while we humans couldn't seem to get it right. His response surprised me, but it does make a lot of sense when you think about it.
In the animal kingdom, success and good health are closely inter-related because they perpetuate each other. Good health gives an animal the edge on success and success in turn brings the time and space to maintain good health. When an animal is successful and healthy, it's happy. Our "children" have their basic needs cared for, which equates to success by their standards. Thus they are healthy and have all the time in the world to be happy. The love and affection they give us is an expression of that happiness.
In people, our brains are too sophisticated for our own good, and thus we get the simple equation of success + health = happiness all messed up. Often we're in a position where we've got the potential to be happy in that we're successful enough to ensure our needs are met so that we can maintain good health. By that I mean we've got a roof over our heads, enough to eat, enough extra income to fund the activities or hobbies which bring us pleasure and enough free time in our lives to enjoy these activities and hobbies. Our physical and mental stress levels are therefore minimal and easily manageable.
But then we get greedy and want more. We stress out about not having a new car, an exotic vacation or the latest and greatest cell phone, iPad or other new toy. We're soon working extra hours or changing jobs in an effort to earn extra income to fund these additional wants. We get so focused on accumulating that which we don't have, we end up losing what we do have - the time and space to be healthy, and consequently happy.
Unfortunately, there two very important aspects of happiness people in this headspace lose sight of:
- If you don't maintain good health, you won't have the physical and/or mental energy to appreciate and enjoy what you've accumulated for yourself.
- If you measure success by how much stuff you can accumulate, there's a danger you'll never feel truly successful because there's always going to be someone else with more toys than you.
Don't misunderstand me. I'm not suggesting that we not strive to be all we can be or that we should forget about fulfilling our dreams and focus instead on minimizing mental and physical stress in order to remain in good health. "Settling" for less than what we truly want comes with its own set of stressors which I would argue are more toxic to one's health than working late or overextending oneself financially in order to purchase those things which are important to us.
What I am suggesting is that it's critically important to find that delicate balance between striving to achieve our dreams and knowing when to stop. Or to put it another way, it's about knowing when good is good enough. That's because perfection usually comes at a very high price in that too many sacrifices must be made to get there. In addition to one's health, these sacrifices often include personal relationships as well as the enjoyment of activities which help maintain balance and release negative stress.
I believe that we all have within us the potential for greatness. However, greatness is NOT perfection. To me, greatness is about finding the ideal balance between striving to fulfill our dreams and aspirations, while maintaining our interpersonal relationships, our physical and mental health, and our emotional wellbeing. It's about our overall happiness and success in life, not just in one small part of it.
I also believe that key to happiness is understanding that life is a journey, not an end result. So don't forget to live and have fun along the way. That's the ultimate reward in life, and the true key to happiness and fulfilment. If you don't believe me, ask your cat or dog. They'll tell you that life isn't all that complicated, we humans just choose to make it that way.
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One of my dad's favourite sayings while I was growing up was "The only thing constant is change." As a kid I always thought it sounded poetic and kind of cool, but it was not until I reached my adult years that I realized the full and profound import of that statement.
Change has indeed been a constant in my life, and in fact the older I get the speed at which change occurs seems to be accelerating exponentially. Quite frankly, some days it's a struggle to keep up! Just as I got Facebook figured out, LinkedIn became the latest rage. No sooner did I purchase a Blackberry than iPhones and iPads rendered Blackberry passé. Skype has replaced the telephone in my household, and OnStar has supplanted Google maps. I've gone from texting to tweeting and now communicate with most of my friends via email versus telephone. These days I plug in my electric car to recharge it daily as opposed to refueling at the gas station every few days.
I believe that key to successfully coping in a rapidly changing world is keeping one's mind open to change, whether that be learning to do new things or learning new ways of doing old things. How well one ultimately makes out in life is dependent in large part on how well they can embrace and adapt to change. Yet paradoxically, the older people get the more they tend to resist change in general.
Change can be stressful, particularly when a multitude of existing responsibilities in one's life limits the amount of time and energy available to learn new things. In many cases, it's much easier to justify a resistance to change with "it's worked for me this far, so why should I bother changing?"
Most of us are familiar with the term "generation gap", where a difference in life perspective leads to conflict, most notably between parents and their children. Many of us have likely experienced this generation gap ourselves when arguing with our own parents about how times have changed, so that their way of doing things will not serve us equally as well as it did them.
But while it's easy to understand and accept the concept of generation gap between children and their parents, have you ever considered that a similar type of generation gap may exist within yourself? Just because something worked for you in the past doesn't mean it will continue to serve you into the future. If your current perspective on an issue can be called mind set, then the internal generation gap I'm referring to is equivalent to mind lock.
Mind lock affects your mind set, in effect closing you off to new possibilities and potential opportunities available as a result of technological and cultural changes. To remain relevant, we all need to adapt to the changing times. Otherwise we risk falling behind, which can be a source of stress and a real disadvantage in practical terms. Not only will our income and related purchasing power be impacted, our personal relationships and self-esteem will be affected if we can't relate to the popular discussion topics of the day or utilize current communication tools like Facebook, Google Chat, Skype or whatever else becomes the next breakthrough killer app.
So rather than fight the inevitable, unlock your mind from its self-imposed limitations by learning to embrace and celebrate change. A positive mind set will allow you to more fairly evaluate new opportunities arising from change as well as how best to take advantage of them. Change invariably increases one's options, and understanding all available options increases your flexibility and therefore your ability to evaluate, select and implement the best possible choices for yourself.
Moving forward, an open, unlocked mindset will keep you from falling behind in your relationships with your children, grand children and other members of the younger generation. You will feel less threatened by new technology and live with lower stress levels. Embracing change will help you remain engaged and relevant well into your senior years, increasing your ability to cope on your own for much longer.
Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? It's true that some minds, both dog and human, are set in their ways and therefore stubbornly resistant to the idea of change. However, for those dogs (and humans) whose minds are open to fresh ideas and new approaches, learning new tricks can be an exhilarating walk in the park.
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There are those who might be tempted to categorize PositiveImpressions.ca as a self improvement web site, but in actuality nothing could be further from the truth. Self improvement for the sake of self improvement is actually disempowering, because it makes the statement, consciously or otherwise, that you are not okay as you are and that you need to "fix" yourself.
Self empowerment, on the other hand, states you are perfectly fine the way you are, but some minor tweaks here and there could better ensure your life is as happy, complete and fulfilling as possible.
While on the surface some of the methods and procedures for self improvement and self empowerment may appear similar, the two philosophies are completely different. Where self improvement can be likened to behaviour modification, self empowerment is really more like an attitude adjustment.
Let me illustrate the difference by way of example. I'll use weight loss as just about everyone can relate to this on some level.
Say Joan is 30 lbs overweight and decides to go on a diet to lose the weight. Joan struggles with hunger and temptation that grows stronger with each passing day, but somehow manages to stick to her diet by promising herself that once she's thin it will be worth it because then she'll be much happier and consequently her life will be much better.
Sandra is also 30 lbs overweight and so she too goes on a diet to lose the weight. But unlike Joan, Sandra first does some soul searching to figure out why she gained the thirty pounds of excess weight in the first place. She determines that she is eating too much fast food (if she isn't stopping off at Wendy's or McDonalds on the way home from work, she's popping a Stouffer's TV dinner into the microwave) and then continuing to eat out of boredom as she sits in front of the TV watching her favourite sit-coms five out of seven nights a week.
Sandra therefore does some online research to find a number of simple but healthy recipes that can either be prepared fresh very quickly or made in advance and then reheated in the microwave. She also decides to go for a long walk every night after dinner rather than sit in front of the TV so she wouldn't be tempted to nibble throughout the evening. Consequently the weight came off very easily, and with very little hardship.
Both Joan and Sandra accomplished their goal of losing 30 lbs. However, Joan struggled with her diet while Sandra didn't. That's because Joan changed her behaviour, but not her attitude about food. She's still obsessive-compulsive about food, only this time it's about what she can't eat as opposed to what she can. As soon as her will power fails (and sooner or later it will!) the pounds will pack on once again.
In order to maintain the will power required to stick to the diet, Joan promised herself that she would be happier and life would be better once she lost the weight. This is indicative of the flawed thinking behind self improvement strategies, which goes something like this: "If only I were thinner, fitter, prettier, smarter, richer, etc., I would be happier."
This type of thinking is based on the belief that the desired outcome (Joan's weight loss, in this particular example) is true change. However, it is only temporary change at best, because once focus is lost old behaviours come back into play and the change will soon be gone.
Unlike Joan, Sandra changed her attitude about food, which naturally transitioned into a change in behaviour that will be much easier to maintain over the long term. This is the more self-empowered approach, where true permanent change is accomplished by voluntarily changing one's way of thinking as opposed to forcing a behavioral change that does not necessarily reflect one's current mind-set.
So if Joan wanted a permanent weight change, why didn't she simply change her attitude so that the correct dieting behaviour was a natural consequence and losing weight became a breeze?
Unfortunately, not everyone understands or is willing to accept personal responsibility for their own life situation and the fact that not being happy has more to do with mindset than circumstance. In looking to rationalize their unhappiness, they blame it on not being thin enough, pretty enough, smart enough, rich enough, etc. What they fail to realize is that happiness is a function of attitude, and attitude is independent of any of these factors. An unhappy fat person who loses weight will most likely be an unhappy thin person if the only thing that has changed is the number on the weight scale.
When it comes to weight loss, being fit and healthy, parenting, career growth, relationships, etc. attitude is everything, because attitude governs behaviour, even though most of the time we're not consciously aware of this relationship. The self empowered person is empowered precisely because they fully appreciate the direct connection between attitude and behaviour. Self empowered people are willing to take responsibility for their actions because they understand and accept they have total control over them. And it's this recognition that they alone control their destiny regardless of circumstance that is so empowering.
In contrast, a person with a self improvement mind set gives up their personal power by relating success or failure to some specific thing or event, such as the number on the weight scale, how much weight they can lift at the gym, the score they get on their school report card or employee performance review, other people's opinions, and so on. While goal achievement certainly provides a good measure of satisfaction, once the novelty has worn off the familiar emptiness often returns because the only thing that's changed is the number on the scale, the number of plates on the barbell, the score on the report card, what family and friends have said, etc. Self improvement focused people are looking for happiness in all the wrong places, because as I've previously stated, happiness is a function of attitude, not behaviour.
It's often been said that "attitude is everything" and I firmly believe this is a fundamental truth of human nature. The self empowered person also knows this and therefore works hard to maintain a positive attitude at all times, and particularly so when times are tough. Whether one sees their cup as being half empty or half full is a matter of choice, but I know both from observation and from personal experience that those with the half full cup are generally happier, healthier and more successful in their lives overall than those holding the half empty cup.
Cheers!
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...or rather, too much to do, too little time! Sound familiar?
It seems just about everyone I speak with these days has way too much on the go for the amount of time they have available to get it all done, and trying to cram a gazillion things into the space of a 24 hour period has stress levels soaring into the stratosphere.
While intermittent episodes of heightened stress can certainly be frustrating to deal with, coping with extended periods of chronic stress and anxiety has the potential to significantly impact physical, mental and emotional health. Poor eating habits, loss of sleep and weight gain are three common by-products of chronic stress that contribute to a reduced ability to cope in a stressful environment. This in turn intensifies the degree of stress placed on an individual, which takes its toll in terms of reduced energy, physical health issues, depressive episodes, and so on. The net result is a vicious circle with a downward spiral that often spins faster as time goes on.
Since having too much to do and too little time to do it appears to be a fact of life for a great many people, what can we do to keep both our health and our sanity intact?
No one has yet figured out how to get more than 24 hours out of a 24 hour day, so of necessity we need to make realistic choices about how we are going to use the 24 hours we do have.
The key words here are "realistic" and "choices". Realistic means understanding and accepting that what we can actually do is significantly less than what we would like to do, therefore not everything is going to get done. When we can't get everything done and are forced to choose between what we are going to do and what we are going to let slide, the choices we make will either skyrocket our stress or keep it hovering at a more livable level.
So that means if we want to keep our stress levels to a minimum, we need to know what we can realistically get done in any given 24 hour period and then choose to do those things which are most important for us to complete during that time interval.
When making those types of choices for yourself, consider the following:
- Be sure to prioritize according to your own personal objectives, and not someone else's. Too often we spend our limited free time accommodating other people's priorities, which can be stressful when their priorities conflict with ours. (I'm not suggesting that we stop accommodating other people, but I do believe learning how to decide when it's okay to say no would be quite beneficial for many of us.)
- Be sure you have your priorities straight. While it's only natural to want many different things for yourself, some things are naturally more important to your overall happiness than others. So make sure you are clear on what is most important to you, and prioritize your time accordingly. Since you can't do everything you want to do, the satisfaction of knowing the really important stuff has been taken care of will help offset the frustration and disappointment of not being able to do it all.
- Recognize your priorities may change over time. As you move through the various life stages and gain additional life experience, you may discover that you no longer value certain things as much as you used to and that other things have taken on much greater importance. Be cognizant of your changing priorities and be prepared to reschedule your activities, and perhaps even your lifestyle, to accommodate this new perspective.
- Forget the shoulds and oughts... and sometimes even the maybes. These are distractions that could keep you from achieving your key goals and objectives. Focus instead on the musts, those things that are truly important to your happiness.
With relatively few exceptions, it's your choice how you spend your time and so you have ultimate control over what you do (or don't) accomplish in life. You will be tempted by both opportunities and distractions, and it will be up to you to recognize which is which. You will need to remember that what constitutes an opportunity and what characterizes a distraction depends on your individual perspective.
Therefore, there is no right or wrong way to spend your time, per se, only what is right or wrong for you. The one inescapable rule is that there are only 24 hours in a given day, regardless of how many hours you actually require to do everything that needs to be done. As a result, how well you choose to allocate your time will have a direct bearing on the level of stress you experience on an ongoing basis.
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I received a PowerPoint from my father the other day that told the story of how a man, in his desire to be helpful, unwittingly took from a butterfly its ability to fly. Believing that he was doing a good deed, the man cut open the butterfly's cocoon so that it could escape without struggle, not understanding that struggle was necessary to force fluid from body to wings in order to prepare them for flight. As a result, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around on the ground, its shrivelled wings forever incapable of realizing their full potential.
The message of the story is that we need obstacles in our lives to make us strong. I believe this is sound advice that parents and other caregivers must take very seriously. It's only natural to want to help one's children, particularly if a parent endured significant hardship as a child herself. However, the difference between mothering and smothering can sometimes be a fine line that's difficult to recognize.
Most people I know genuinely wish their children to have the best possible life, which is entirely understandable and the way it should be. But parents who give children too much run the risk of stifling a child's potential for growth. If a child has never faced hardship or wanted for anything, what motivation will she have to do something with her life? Motivation comes from wanting to improve one's present situation; if life is too easy there will be no perceived need or desire to change.
Without adversity to overcome, how does a child learn what she is made of, or what she is truly capable of accomplishing when push comes to shove? Worse yet, it's extremely difficult to cope with adversity as an adult if one has never had to face it as a child. That's why it's important to sometimes step back and allow your child to fail, hard as that may be to do as a parent. But learning to understand consequences and deal with frustration and/or disappointment is important for a child so that she is better prepared to cope in an adult world. (Obviously you will want your child to fail in as controlled an environment as possible so that risk of physical, mental or emotional injury is minimal. The challenge is in finding the right balance between allowing them to tackle what you are confident they can handle versus protecting them from what you believe is still beyond their capability.)
It's not only children who need to experience adversity in order to grow. We as adults need a healthy dose of it ourselves every once in a while to keep us on our toes and remind us what we are capable of handling should an unexpected situation arise.
It's all too easy to get so comfortable with where we are in life that we resist any change which might threaten our status quo. While it's not wrong to stay in a good space (in fact, it's quite smart to do so!), life can sometimes take an unexpected twist and so we always need to be ready to cope with nasty surprises. Our ability to deal with life's challenges and the speed at which we bounce back from a bad situation is very closely linked with how often and how successfully we've overcome adversity in the past. If we've faced sufficient challenges and successfully weathered enough storms that we've learned to trust in our ability to cope with whatever comes our way, we'll be in much better shape to triumph over an unexpected setback than someone who hasn't yet developed that same level of confidence.
I'm certainly not suggesting you deliberately go out and create problems for yourself to overcome. But I do believe that when a person is for the most part comfortable with her life situation it can be very tempting to stay where she's at, even if it means settling for less than she might truly desire for herself. Staying in the same space for too long simply because it's known and therefore "safe" can erode one's belief in her ability to handle change, so that slowly but surely she comes to fear it. The potential dangers of settling for safe as opposed to sensational include stagnation, frustration and regret.
If you truly are happy and content with your current life situation, then remaining there is a position of immense worth. However, settling for where you're at because you doubt your ability to move your life in the direction you would prefer it to go comes at a cost. Ultimately, recognizing the difference between these two situations can be priceless.
To view The Butterfly that Never Flew PowerPoint, click here.
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A lot of people are very competent at what they do yet their skills are neither recognized nor appreciated. You may know someone in this position, or perhaps you're unfortunate enough to be there yourself.
I believe this is often the case for people who lack self-confidence and are therefore unable to fully appreciate just how skilled they really are at something. When someone isn't aware of their own potential, odds are that other people are not going to recognize it either. That's because a person's self-image is reflected in their words and behaviours, which other people use to form an opinion about that person's competency and effectiveness. So if someone doesn't project an air of confidence and competence, no one is going to automatically attribute these qualities to them.
Self-confidence includes having enough faith in your own abilities that you're not afraid to stand up and be counted. I'm not talking about being arrogant or pushy (we all know how annoying that can be!), but rather about being "quietly assertive", as my mother likes to phrase it. There is no need to shout out to the world how wonderful you are; a more subtle approach is generally most effective in the long run. Allow people to see for themselves by the twinkle in your eye, the confidence in your stride, the conviction in your voice and the boldness of your attitude that you've most definitely got it together.
If you've ever wondered why some individuals seem to be given more opportunities to move ahead than other people around them, it's because they have the confidence and the desire to reach out and consciously create opportunities for themselves. They understand that nothing will be handed to them on a silver platter, and that everything worth having in life needs to be earned. They accept that if they want to move ahead, they need to be proactive in educating others around them that they are both interested in and capable of doing so.
Businesses don't give promotions to employees because they want to be "nice", they do it because it makes good business sense to do so. What doesn't make good business sense is promoting someone who appears not to believe in herself or in her ability to handle the increased responsibilities, or who is so shy management couldn't imagine her wanting the promotion to begin with. So if you don't stand up and boldly state I can do it and I want to do it, your boss may well give the promotion to someone else in the department who seems more confident and enthusiastic about the opportunity.
Although I'm using a business example to make my point, lack of self-confidence can also lead to problems in your personal life. For example, being afraid to fully speak your mind can lead to incorrect assumptions about the kind of relationship you want with someone, which could create major problems between the two of you down the road. Appearing hesitant or uncertain about important decisions may make those who love you nervous about trusting you to make wise decisions, which could lead to you feeling pressured or manipulated when your loved ones try to "protect" you by making decisions for you. If you are perceived as weak-minded by unscrupulous sales people or others of questionable character they may try to take advantage of you, which could lead to emotional trauma and/or financial loss.
The bottom line is this: Everyone wants to be on the winning team. If you want people to support you, it's up to you to convince them you're a winner. But if you don't believe in yourself enough to feel like a winner, no one else is going to believe you're one either.
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A big part of personal growth is accepting and indeed embracing change. Our world is constantly changing, and we need to change with it in order to remain current and relevant. The moment we stop moving forward with the times is the moment we start to fall behind. There is no middle ground.
Take our rapidly evolving web based and mobile technologies, for example. Falling behind in terms of these technologies will put you at a disadvantage on a number of fronts. Consider the following:
- If you don't learn new technology as it relates to your job function, you will be passed over for promotions and possibly subject to layoff.
- If your friends are all on Facebook and you aren't, you will miss out on a great deal of their social interaction and perhaps eventually be excluded from group activities.
- If you don't keep up to date with the various social media networks, you may be unable to protect your kids from cyber-predators.
- If you aren't comfortable with these technologies, you will not be able to discuss them intelligently should you need to. For example, if you're the only one in a social gathering who doesn't know what a "tweet" is, it could be embarrassing to have to ask.
- If you don't fully understand these technologies, you could unwittingly expose yourself to credit card fraud, identity theft or worse. (For example, view this video that explains how posting photos taken from your cell phone online in social media such as Facebook allows anyone to use the GPS info automatically encoded into the photo to pinpoint within 15 feet where that picture was taken. Now imagine if some technology-savvy serial rapist was browsing online and decided he liked the look of you...)
- If you don't take advantage of these technologies, you will not be as efficient as you could be, which affects the amount of time you will have available for personal downtime. As an example, while sitting in the courthouse awaiting possible selection for jury duty I was able to continue managing my staff through a key customer launch via Blackberry. That ensured none of us had to work late that evening to keep the project on track.
On the other hand, keeping up to date with the latest technology increases your value to your employer (and to other potential employers), ensures you remain socially connected and improves your ability to protect yourself and your family from potential cyber abuse.
Now let's take it one step further. Being on the forefront of a new technology may provide you the unique opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a new industry, whether that be by starting your own business or by introducing the technology to your current employer.
While I have used internet technology as my example, the need to accept and embrace change is applicable to virtually every aspect of your life. Change happens all around us - relationships start and end, children come into your life and then they eventually move out on their own, a multitude of factors affect the economy in general and your job situation in particular, technological advances necessitate re-education, and so on.
Therefore, how well you cope with change will have a huge impact on how well you do in life on all fronts. Accepting change and being open to the opportunities it offers will serve you much better than fighting the inevitable. Change is part of life, whether we like it or not.
So learn to view change as your opportunity to move ahead in terms of your own personal growth and development. Condition yourself to embrace change now because the longer you wait the harder it will be to break any negative thought patterns that are holding you back from accepting and welcoming change.
Yes, without a crystal ball change can sometimes be a scary thing. And when your life feels pretty good the way it is, it's only natural to resist change. But change brings with it the opportunity for growth, as well as the potential to turn a good life into a great life.
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"Do what you have to do first, and then what you want to do." I can still hear my mother's words echoing in my head as she tried to impress upon me the importance of following through on my responsibilities and commitments if I wanted to be successful in life. Although I didn't always agree with her at the time - it was much more fun to chat on the phone about boys with my girlfriends than to do my homework - I now see the value in cultivating such a habit.
If you have a plan to get somewhere specific in life, you need to follow it in order to accomplish your goal. If you don't stay focused on your plan, chances are good you won't achieve your goal. A big part of staying focused is doing what you have to do, without allowing anything or anyone to distract you from your purpose.
Unfortunately, there are many distractions in life which can tempt us to fritter away our time - TV, video games, surfing the net, and so on. It is therefore easy to put off doing what we need to do in exchange for what we want to do, particularly if what we need to do is hard or unpleasant. We tell ourselves we'll do what we need to do later, when we feel more like doing it.
However, once time has passed, there's no getting it back, and you could very well lose if you snooze. Someone else will get your dream job if you don't get off your butt and develop a winning resume, or your colleague will get the promotion you wanted because you didn't get around to taking the course your supervisor recommended you to take. You won't have lost the weight you wanted to lose in time for your wedding or your dream vacation because you put off going to the gym too many times. You won't write a bestselling novel if you don't pen that first line.
While we may think we have plenty of time to put off doing what needs to be done until a later date, one's life situation can change in a heartbeat. Factors beyond control, such as accident, illness or economic downturn can severely limit a person's options so that they are no longer able to pursue their goal. Similarly, relationship issues with a spouse or child may force someone to make some hard choices. Because life can be uncertain, it pays to go after what you want now since you may not have the opportunity to do so later.
Time marches on a lot faster than we realize, and the older we get the faster it seems to march. Though it seems we have all the time in the world when we're in our twenties, our window of opportunity narrows considerably as we age. Additional commitments and responsibilities such as mortgage payments and child rearing force us to re-evaluate priorities and make lifestyle changes. So if we don't already have our education, it becomes more difficult to fit classes into our schedule. If we haven't already backpacked through Europe, it becomes impractical to do so now. If we haven't found the right career, it becomes riskier to start over in a new field.
The bottom line is that if you want to accomplish something, the best time to start working towards it is now. It's important to stay focused and avoid distraction, even if you believe the task ahead of you may be difficult. Putting unpleasant tasks off will not make dealing with them any easier, and indeed procrastination can make resolving difficult situations that much worse.
Resist temptation to put off getting started until tomorrow, because you never know what tomorrow might bring. Often all it takes is one first step to start the ball rolling today. So square your shoulders, take a deep breath and get started, even if it's only baby steps. The more you push forward, the easier it will become to keep the momentum going.
Ironically enough, after all this talk about procrastination I'm late with this month's blog. Please don't tell my mother...
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Earlier this month I read an editorial in The Lancet, which talked about a new anti-obesity pill called Contrave that had received a positive recommendation from the US FDA and could be approved for use in the US as early as January 31, 2010.
However, there are serious risks associated with one of the key drugs in this pill (bupropion - an antidepressant used to help patients quite smoking), such as suicidal thoughts, seizures and serious cardiovascular side effects. Both the FDA and the drug's manufacturer, Orexigen, agreed that a large trial study was needed to more accurately assess the cardiac risks associated with this drug, but they felt that it could wait until after the drug had already been approved.
With 97 million people in the US overweight or obese, I can understand the US government's concern about the growing obesity epidemic. But Contrave was associated with only a 5% decrease in body weight, and only when coupled with lifestyle modification. So to me it begs the question of how much the drug itself had anything to do with the weight loss. It could be that the drug simply acted as a placebo and the lifestyle modification produced the weight loss independent of the drug.
I personally find it quite alarming that the FDA would consider approving such a potentially dangerous pill that could conceivably offer very little benefit in return. Would it not be better for the US government to focus on developing greater awareness of the health dangers of obesity and providing ongoing education about how to combat weight gain through regular exercise and diet/lifestyle modifications?
In my opinion, this "take a pill and make it better" mentality supports and arguably promotes irresponsible behaviour in US citizens regarding their personal health situation. On the other hand, government support for an anti-obesity drug comes as no real surprise to me, for it is representative of the ever growing attitude in today's society which reflects an expectation of maximum results for minimal effort... which brings me to the point of this month's blog.
I am a firm believer in working smarter as opposed to harder, but working lazy is not the same as working smart. Sometimes the lazy way is indeed the easy way, but it also short sighted in that if you don't pay your dues now, you'll be forced to pay them later. For example:
- Keep your weight under control now or cope with serious health problems down the road.
- Exercise regularly now or cope with osteoporosis, physical injury or other mobility issues in your more senior years.
- Take the time to get a solid education when you're young or cope with making ends meet on reduced earnings potential throughout your entire working life.
- Take the initiative to learn new functions and perhaps work late at the office from time to time or risk being stuck in your dead end job as you are continually passed over for promotion.
- Make the effort to spend time with family and friends you care about now or risk being alienated from them and living a lonely life down the road.
The choices we make in life can have far reaching implications, much like the anti-obesity pill Conclave can increase risk of suicidal thoughts, seizures and cardiovascular damage. So make sure your life choices consider more than just today... because tomorrow always comes sooner or later. Don't take the lazy way, take the smart way, even if it is sometimes the harder way.
You will get out of life exactly what you put into it, and odds are good that if you put in marginal effort, you'll end up living a marginal life. You deserve better than that. In fact, you deserve to be all you can be, and anything else is selling yourself short!
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There are no crystal balls to definitively tell us what the future will bring, but I'm fairly certain of one thing - if you don't actively pursue your dreams, you're not likely to achieve them.
As far as I'm concerned, having no crystal ball is a good thing. Knowing the future in advance would take much of the excitement and anticipation out of life, two emotions which are key to feeling alive and fully engaged with the world. Gone also would be the satisfaction of accomplishment experienced upon achieving a target goal or objective - how satisfied would you feel when you knew up front before you even started that your achievement was already a done deal?
Not knowing, on the other hand, while sometimes stressful is also invigorating. Not knowing keeps us sharp and on our toes for clues and cues that we're moving forward in the direction of success. Not knowing increases anticipation as we near completion of our goal and elevates degree of pride and exhilaration experienced upon goal achievement.
Even though we can't predict the future, we can shape its direction, whether that's through active choice or by default, through making decisions or avoiding them. In other words, what you don't do can affect your future equally as much as any activity you do choose to undertake. So rather than leave things to chance, why not take deliberate action to shape your life in the direction you want it to go? Be an active participant in your future as opposed to simply a spectator - it's your life, after all!
Since none of us know what tomorrow will bring, you've got nothing to lose and everything to gain from pursuing that which you believe will bring you the greatest happiness and fulfillment. Too many of us sacrifice what we would rather do in favour of what we're supposed to do and then wonder why we feel so unhappy and sometimes downright angry with life in general. I believe it's because we're forcing ourselves to conform to convention when what we really want to do is celebrate our individuality.
With tomorrow uncertain, the best time to begin following your dreams is today. Ask yourself if what you're doing right now is pointing you in the direction you'd like your life to take. If not, then perhaps it's time to re-evaluate your current life situation and make some changes to get yourself back on track.
Without a crystal ball, there are no guarantees of success in life, but there are opportunities and it's up to each individual to make the most of them. Knowing ourselves and being clear on our goals and priorities will allow us to recognize those opportunities which are in line with our dreams and aspirations and are therefore right for us to pursue. This is how we can actively shape our future in the direction of our dreams, as opposed to passively letting our life unfold around us of its own accord and in whatever direction the random hand of fate may take.
Although none of us can know for certain what tomorrow will bring, I daresay that finding the courage to follow your dreams will exponentially increase the odds that your future will be replete with joy and deep personal fulfillment.
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CLOSE 2011 BLOGS
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One critical component of self-empowerment is understanding very clearly who you are as a person, what makes you happy and what builds and sustains your sense of self-worth. That's because until you know who you are, you cannot possibly know who you have the potential to become.
As a starting point, those aspects which are particularly important to understand include your values, strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, interests, skills and abilities. Learning these things about yourself is a life long journey because your life experiences are constantly influencing and changing each of the above. That means who you are today may well be quite different from who you are tomorrow.
Even though it is constantly changing, understanding who you are as a person is relatively easy compared to understanding what will make you happy and what will build and sustain your sense of self-worth. One complicating factor is that a great many women spend a great deal of their lives conforming to the expectations of their parents, their boyfriends, their husbands, their children, their boss, and so on, to the point where they don't realize until it's too late that in trying to please everyone else, they no longer know what would please them. Their sense of self has become lost in the process of internalizing everyone else's definition of who they should be.
On top of that, social and cultural norms have a much greater influence on thought and behaviour than many people realize. Although we like to consider ourselves an open minded society where people are free to celebrate their individuality, in reality there are still social consequences for straying from the accepted norm. Knowing this shapes our thoughts, limits our perception of the various options available to us and most definitely influences our choices in life.
I believe that's why despite having so much, so many people are so very unhappy. They are doing everything right, but it all feels so wrong. By all rights they should be happy, since according to everyone else their life is perfect. And it may well be the perfect life - just not perfect for them.
In order to resolve this internal conflict, one must embark upon a path of self-rediscovery to determine what they truly want instead of what everyone else wants for them, and of them. This process is often referred to as "finding oneself" because people in this unfortunate situation truly have lost touch with who they are and what is important to them. Each person's journey will be as unique as their individual situation, but there are some common principles which apply regardless of circumstance. Awareness of these principles will offer anyone looking to know themselves better a starting point from which to begin their inner exploration. The Fundamentals of Finding Yourself will therefore be the next article I post on this web site.
But finding yourself is only the first step to self-empowerment. Once you have discovered who you are, you need to act on this knowledge to create the life you believe will bring you the most happiness and the greatest sense of inner peace and fulfillment. In other words, be yourself, but be all you can be!
And that's the true key to self-empowerment - not just finding yourself, but using your new found sense of self-awareness to create yourself in terms of the type of person you want to be as well as the type of life you wish to live.
Self-empowerment is the process by which you take personal responsibility for your happiness and well-being by pro-actively making decisions that are best for you, regardless of what anyone else thinks you should do. It is the understanding that you have the right to make these decisions, and that no one else has the right to fault you for making them. It is the acceptance that you and you alone will bear any and all consequences of your decisions and the knowledge that you can and will successfully deal with any problems that may arise. It is the pride and satisfaction that comes from knowing you're doing your life your way.
Self-empowerment cannot be granted to you by anyone else; self-empowerment comes from within. Self-empowerment is an attitude and a mindset which helps you develop a clear vision of what you need to do to maximize your full potential in all aspects of your life, and then motivates you to act on it.
Nothing can bring you happiness but yourself (Ralph Waldo Emerson). The self-empowered person knows this, and does not waste time or energy looking outside themselves for happiness. Instead, they look inside their hearts to see what it is they want and then actively shape their life to obtain that which they seek. In other words, self-empowered people don't just find themselves, they create themselves. And I challenge you to do the same.
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I recently attended Pitchfest 2013 in Las Vegas, a venue for self-published authors to sell their stories to the entertainment industry for potential movie, cable or television rights. What a wonderful experience! Not only did I have a lot of fun, it was a very satisfying culmination to the long process of finally becoming a published author.
But let me backtrack and start at the beginning. For as long as I can remember I've wanted to write. I loved to read as a child - I started with cereal boxes at the breakfast table and quickly progressed to shining a flashlight under the covers at night so I wouldn't get caught being up past bedtime. I began writing my own poems and short stories and dreamed of writing best-selling novels that my fans would find just as exciting and inspiring as the stories I enjoyed reading. As I grew up, the desire to write grew within me, and becoming a published author remained high on my wish list.
And I did start several novels over the years. One I actually completed and forwarded to a publisher (it was rejected), but I never did follow through and fully finish any of the others. I found it difficult to sit down and focus on my writing for any length of time, because "life" kept getting in the way. There were always 101 other things that needed doing, which I felt that as a responsible adult I "should" be giving priority to.
Until this past year, that is. Last spring I decided that 2012 was the year I would finally achieve my lifelong dream of becoming a published author. So I pulled out a partially completed manuscript, put the rest of my life on hold and did just that. My first novel, Sleeping With the Enemy, was self-published in October 2012, three months after my 50th birthday. (You can check it out here.)
I'm still a little disappointed with myself that it took me 50 years publish my first novel, but the experience did prove to me it doesn't matter how old you are, it's never too late to follow your dreams. I think too many of us allow the demands of daily living to get the better of us so that we give up dreaming all together and instead spend way too much time lamenting over what might have been.
It took far too long for me to realize this for myself. I'm sharing my experience with you because I don't want you to make the same mistake I did. So many people (myself included) start something with high hopes and then give up when the going gets tough. But if you have a dream, particularly one that really matters to you, don't let go of it without a fight as you may come to regret it later on.
I recognize that sometimes circumstances force us to postpone our plans, or perhaps modify them slightly. But we shouldn't lose sight of them altogether. Whether you're in your 40s, 50s, 60s, or even 70s, never let anyone tell you "don't be foolish, you're too old" because unless you try, you'll never know for sure whether or not they were right. And never, ever tell yourself that either.
If you really want something, go for it! Don't hold back, even if you're not sure what direction to take. Opportunities will unfold, they truly are everywhere. It's only our imagination and lack of focus that closes opportunities off to us. If you are focused on what you really want, you will recognize opportunities and find within yourself the courage to embrace and pursue them.
Quite often opportunity knocks in ways that we never in a million years would have expected. For example, shortly after my book was published I got a call from my publishing company inviting me to Pitchfest because they felt my book had movie potential. The thought of going to Vegas on my own to pitch my story to 10 industry executives was very intimidating, the event was going to cost me money to attend and there was no guarantee I would sell my book. My first inclination was to say "no", but I changed my mind after thinking about it and realizing I would likely never have a better opportunity to get my story heard by key Hollywood decision makers.
The most important thing is to start the ball rolling and remain open to the direction it's heading, even if it's not the path you originally envisioned. Sometimes you may need to branch a little sideways and perhaps circle back a time or two before moving forward. That's okay, because in doing so you increase your knowledge and experience, which in turn creates wisdom and builds confidence.
Never forget that it's never too late to follow your dreams and be all you can be.
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Most people I know set goals and make plans, at least to some degree, whether it be to enhance their careers, lose weight, get in shape, better balance their business and personal lives, achieve financial security, and so on. However, only some of them successfully follow through and achieve these goals, while others habitually fail to do so.
Two people of equal ability can have the same goal, yet one may succeed and the other may fail. Why is that?
There are of course many valid reasons why this might happen. An unexpected change in life circumstances, such as sudden illness, losing one's job, unanticipated large financial expenditures, relationship breakups and so on can significantly impact one's existing plans. But life altering events aside, what is it that drives some to follow through to completion and others to quit somewhere along the way?
I asked around my circle of family and friends to get their thoughts and the most common answer was "self-discipline". But while self-discipline is important, I think there's more to it than that. Even the most self-disciplined person can fail at something, particularly when their self-discipline is not effectively channelled.
In my opinion, it's one's approach to goal setting that has the greatest potential impact on success versus failure. Those who take time to plan the activities required to achieve their goal tend to have the better chance of success. Those who are a bit more impulsive in nature and want to just "get on with it" are quite often those who end up failing in their endeavours. Though they start off strong with the best of intentions, they don't always think things through and consider potential conflicts with their current lifestyle and/or other pre-existing commitments.
While enthusiasm is both an admirable and a desirable trait, impulsiveness is not. Enthusiasm contributes to a positive "can do" attitude which lays the groundwork for sufficient planning, commitment and follow through. Impulsiveness, on the other hand, leads to quick action without forethought, a sudden flurry of activity and then loss of interest once expected results do not instantly materialize.
It's been my experience (both personally and observationally) that getting caught up in the excitement of the moment and immediately deciding to move forward with something often leads to problems, particularly when goals and plans are big. There is certainly nothing wrong with having ambitious goals, but an ambitious goal without a rational plan can be a recipe for failure.
When it comes to goal achievement, sufficient planning and forethought offers the following advantages:
- The activities required to accomplish your goal can be coordinated to fit into your current lifestyle to minimize schedule conflicts and sacrifices in other areas of your life.
- The steps required to develop the necessary skills and qualifications to get you where you want to go can be identified and taken.
- More realistic goals and deadlines can be set so that you are not disappointed and discouraged by something being harder or taking longer than you expected.
- An overall understanding of the "big picture" will help you set priorities to stay focused and not get side tracked by life's many distractions.
- Understanding the big picture will also help you figure out the best way to deal with issues as they arise, thus avoiding knee jerk reactions that could cause problems at a later date.
But while advance planning has its advantages, it's not without pitfalls. Too much planning and forethought can slow the process down so much that enthusiasm wanes, momentum is lost and action stalls, particularly if a lot is happening in other areas of your life. Following your established plan too rigidly could cause you to miss out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of the moment.
In addition, planning to accommodate a busy lifestyle can lead to excessive time allowances for completion of specific activities. The longer it takes to accomplish your goal, the more you might need to continually adjust your plans to accommodate changing personal or economic circumstances. So sometimes you do need to take the bull by the horns, so to speak, and make sacrifices to move forward and "get on with it".
The key to successful goal achievement is finding that right balance between adequate planning versus moving forward and getting it done. Too much planning can lead to stagnation, yet not enough forethought can ultimately lead you to nowhere as well. You need to know what you want, understand how to get it, and then proceed systematically according to plan. There will of course be times where gut instinct calls for quick action and an immediate change in direction, but my bet is slow and steady ultimately wins the race... most of the time.
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As 2012 draws to a close, now just might be a good time to reflect on what you've accomplished over the past year as well as what you'd like to achieve during 2013. But before you begin your evaluation process, please think carefully about your measurement criteria.
As you've no doubt experienced firsthand, there are many people in this world who are very quick to tell others what they better and better not do, what they should and shouldn't think and what they ought and ought not to be. In fact, we're all guilty of this to some degree - it's human nature to judge others based on our own personal expectations of them.
Most of the time we can dismiss other people's expectations of who or what we should be as irrelevant and therefore not worth worrying about. But when it's someone close to us, such as a parent, spouse, child or other close relative or friend, their expectations are a little more difficult to ignore.
However, success is a very personal thing and so you need to define it for yourself, independent of how others around you might want to define it for you. This is sometimes quite hard to do, because it's only natural to want to please those people you care about the most. But while pleasing them is one thing, allowing their expectations to define your vision of success for yourself is quite another thing indeed.
In addition, there is a lot of pressure from society in general to measure success in terms of financial wealth and the accumulation of material possessions. Yet experience has taught me that accumulating money and things for the sake of accumulating money and things does not provide any real lasting sense of satisfaction. At best, the accumulation of things offers only temporary distraction from whatever else is not going well in your life. Once the thrill of the latest purchase subsides, the only way to regain that same feeling of excitement is to buy something else.
In my opinion, success is more related to how you feel inside as opposed to what you have on hand. And how you feel inside depends in large part on how good you feel about the direction your life is headed.
So here's the point of this month's Contemplation. It's important to set goals and work towards achieving them, because doing so will help ensure your life does move forward in the direction you want it to go. But it's also equally important that the goals you set be what you truly want for yourself as opposed to what other people want for you.
Successfully achieving your goals and feeling successful as a person can be two different things, particularly if the goals you set for yourself are not consistent with who you are inside and what you value. For example, becoming a doctor or nurse is a truly great accomplishment (even if it was primarily to please your parents), but if what you really wanted to do was travel the world then perhaps you would have been happier as a pilot or flight attendant. And while becoming a partner in a prestigious law firm is also a great accomplishment, if it costs you the opportunity to start the family you always wanted then it could end up feeling like a rather empty victory at the end of the day.
These examples are somewhat extreme to help illustrate my point, but it's not only the extremes I'm referring to. Any time you give up something that's important to you in order to please someone else you run the risk of jeopardizing your own happiness because you're depriving yourself of the opportunity to shine where it counts the most.
I'm not suggesting that you be completely selfish and always put your needs above everyone else's - of course we need to compromise from time to time (and sometimes quite often) in order for our relationships to remain healthy and strong. But for those things that are really important to you, be sure to compromise rather than sacrifice. Find a way to negotiate a solution that everyone can live with. Your family and friends deserve that much, and don't forget that you do, too.
As I stated earlier, success is personal. You therefore need to define it for yourself and develop your own unique criteria for measuring it. So as you move into the new year, think about what is important to you and what will provide the greatest satisfaction and personal fulfillment. Pursue your passion(s), listen to your inner voice and remain focused on both.
I wish you much personal success for 2013.
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Every so often we find ourselves in a situation where we ask: "How on earth did I get myself into this mess, anyway? And more importantly, how am I ever going to get myself out of it?"
Fortunately, the vast majority of us survive these life challenges relatively intact by gritting our teeth and soldiering on. Generally speaking, it's only those people who become so overwhelmed and paralyzed by the situation who sometimes don't make it.
Sometimes we see disaster coming, but other times we don't have a clue what's going on until we're blindsided by it. Being caught off guard can be quite emotionally unsettling, so that we don't always think clearly or act appropriately. And that's of course when we sometimes make things even worse.
The best thing you can do when you're going through hell is to keep on going... until you're through it so you can then get your life back on track again. Easy enough to say, but not always so easy to do when you're caught up in a difficult situation.
However, by keeping these six coping strategies in mind you can lessen the stress your own personal little hell is creating, which makes it much easier to cope with the problem situation. And who knows, these strategies may even help you get through your rough time a little faster.
- Try not to panic. When you panic you don't think straight, and it's when you're not thinking straight that you can make foolish decisions and make matters worse. So instead, imagine yourself as an independent third party observer who has no stake in what's going on. What do you think that third party would recommend you do, if they knew exactly what you knew about the situation? Looking at things from this perspective may help remove some of the emotion you're presently experiencing and allow you to think more clearly.
- Do try to evaluate all your options. Life is rarely black & white; it's usually tempered with shades of grey. That means there is seldom only one possible outcome for a given situation and therefore only one possible way to resolve your problem. So ask yourself what are all the possible things that could happen in your particular situation and which option(s) could you best live with. What do you then need to do to ensure events transpire the way you want them to?
- Do try to be realistic. Recognize and accept that you can't always have what you want in life. So don't stubbornly hold onto wishful thinking if it's going to cost you in the long run. Look at what you need to do (fact based) versus what you want to do (emotion based). For example, you may want the perfect job, but you may need to pay the bills. So rather than hold out until the ideal position comes along, at some point you will need to take what you can get for the time being. You can always continue to search for something better, but in the meantime you will have the means to pay your bills.
- Try not to dwell on the worst possible scenario. Constantly obsessing about the worst possible thing that could happen will create such inner turmoil that your ability to think rationally will be paralyzed. When people are overwhelmed with emotion, they tend to switch to automatic pilot and blindly follow what is familiar, even if history has shown that what's been done before hasn't been overly effective. Being in automatic pilot mode creates "tunnel vision" that prevents you from recognizing a potential opportunity to salvage the situation. Your mind needs to be free to look for alternative solutions, which it can't be if you're freaking out. So try not to worry excessively about the worst that could happen, particularly if there's a good possibility it may not even come to pass. Sometimes you need to simply wait to see how things are going to turn out, as hard as that can be at times.
- Try not to procrastinate. There is a difference between making a conscious decision to wait and see versus avoiding something because you don't want to deal with it. Avoiding a problem tends to make things worse in the long run. While you never want to act too hastily, you do need to make conscious, rational decisions as soon as you believe you have all the necessary information to do so. Don't submit to the temptation of procrastination - remember, you want to get yourself out of hell as quickly as possible.
- Try not to put the rest of your life on hold. Keeping busy will help keep your mind off your troubles and allow you to feel in control over the rest of your life. Your fears are quite often the result of a perceived lack of control, so if you feel you are still in charge of the rest of your life, you will feel more confident about tackling the issue at hand.
These strategies alone won't make anyone's problems magically go away, but they will allow people to better cope with the emotional pain, stress and fear which accompanies life's more difficult challenges.
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In order to be successful in life, you're going to make mistakes. And the greater your achievements, the more mistakes you're likely to make along the way. As my mother often reassured me during my childhood years, "The only people who don't make mistakes are those who never try anything." (Albert Einstein)
That's because making mistakes is part of the learning process - often you won't know what's going to work until after you've already learned what doesn't. Therefore, making mistakes is really a good thing - the more mistakes you make, the faster you'll learn how to achieve success.
Particularly when you're operating in unfamiliar territory, success is usually realized through a process of trial and error. For example, the ability to make small talk is a skill often developed through learning the hard way which topics are not appropriate in certain social settings and what type of body language signals it's time to change subjects.
And even when you are in familiar territory, success is never a sure thing. Self made real estate billionaire Donald Trump has declared bankruptcy on several occasions when some of his real estate investments didn't turn out as expected. But by learning from his mistakes he has turned things around and established himself as a legendary business icon who, according to Forbes.com, was worth $2 billion as of March 2010.
If you're breaking new ground and there is no established precedent to follow, odds are you're not going to stumble upon a magic formula for success the first time around. Bill Gates certainly didn't have all the answers when he dropped out of Harvard to start Microsoft. But he did have a vision he believed in and enough faith and discipline to persevere through trying different approaches until he hit upon one that worked.
Making a mistake doesn't necessarily mean having to start over from scratch. Even when things don't work out exactly as planned, the situation is often salvageable. For example, in 1943 inventor James Wright was looking for a way to make synthetic rubber. He ended up with a gooey mess that eventually was marketed as silly putty, one of the most popular toys of the 20th century. Rather than write off the "accident" as a mistake, Wright sent samples to the scientific community throughout the world in a search for an alternate application, until eventually he found one.
Mistakes can even open the door to unexpected opportunity. One famous example is Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin from a contaminated a lab dish of staph bacteria. Although the original experiment was a flop, it lead to discovery of the world's first wonder drug.
We all make mistakes, but what separates successful people from the not so successful ones is attitude. Successful people recognize mistakes for the learning opportunities they provide and therefore don't allow themselves to become overwhelmed or discouraged when something goes wrong. Instead of giving up in defeat, successful people take what they've learned and use their newfound knowledge to figure out how best to work around a problem.
Successful people therefore understand and appreciate that a mistake is not failure as much as it is simply another way of doing things that did not provide the intended results. They rightly believe the next thing they try could very well bring them one step closer to accomplishing their goal, and accept that if necessary, they will achieve their goal one baby step at a time.
And what's wrong with that? There are many alternate paths to success - some shorter, some longer - but with patience, perseverance and learning from previous actions that didn't quite work, all paths have the potential to lead to success.
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One thing I've come to appreciate is that success and happiness don't always go hand in hand.
Success can be defined in a number of ways. The Online Oxford Dictionary defines success as follows:
success noun 1 the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. 2 the attainment of fame, wealth, or social status. 3 a person or thing that achieves success.
- ORIGIN Latin succedere 'come close after'. |
Similarly, here is the online Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of success:
Main Entry: suc-cess Function: noun Etymology: Latin successus, from succedere Date: 1537
1 obsolete : OUTCOME, RESULT 2 a : degree or measure of succeeding b : favorable or desired outcome; also : the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence 3 : one that succeeds
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I think that while most people would define success as achieving some sort of measurable goal or criterion, the degree of value a person will place on the achievement of any particular goal is greatly influenced by cultural bias and values.
Here in North America we tend to both define and measure success by the size of one's pay cheque and/or the number of material objects they can accumulate. Sure, we pay lip service to the idea that success is also achieved through non-financial criteria such as raising one's children to do well in life, devoting oneself to a worthwhile cause or pursuing one's passion over the almighty dollar. But when push comes to shove, all these altruistic measurements mean nothing compared to financial wealth. We all ultimately judge ourselves and others based on bank balance as opposed to how well we realize non-monetary dreams and aspirations.
What exactly constitutes happiness has been the subject of much debate for centuries, but the current prevailing view appears to be that happiness is a state of mind which results from a combination of attitude and circumstance. (Some people go so far as to claim that attitude alone is responsible for happiness, regardless of circumstance, but I personally believe that's a little naive.)
Research supports this current train of thought. By studying identical twins, researchers have determined that how happy a person is in general is 50% hereditary. Of the remaining 50%, 10-15% is dependent upon circumstance (socioeconomic status, marital status, health, income, etc.) and the rest (up to 40%) is voluntary (i.e. what people deliberately do to make themselves happier). So, that means happiness is 85-90% based on attitude (the hereditary and voluntary factors) and only 10-15% is based on circumstance. This is actually quite good news, for it means that we do in fact have a significant amount of control over the degree of ongoing happiness we will experience in our lives.
Okay, so far so good. But now here's where things start to get a little messed up. We all like to champion the idea that what will make a person happy is unique to the individual and so in order to be happy everybody needs to make life choices that are right for them. However, the belief that after accumulating all the trappings of material success one is destined to find happiness is deeply indoctrinated into North American culture. These are two separate ideas that can create significant internal conflict within people.
That's because the belief that wealth creates happiness can lead people to pursue monetary riches with the expectation that once they have "arrived" they will be transformed into happy people, regardless of their emotional state during the wealth accumulation process. They compromise and often sacrifice many of the very things that would make them happy in order to ensure "ultimate happiness" once their financial goals have been achieved. But all too often after all that hard work and sacrifice they feel empty inside, as well as confused and frustrated as they ask themselves "I've done all the right things, why am I so unhappy?"
Equating happiness with success is like comparing apples to oranges, since happiness is an ongoing process while success is more results oriented. So while it is certainly important to be successful in life, how you get there also matters a great deal. This is the part we espouse but tend to forget about - the importance of making life choices which are right for us so that we live life to the fullest. Instead, many of us effectively place life on hold until such point that success is achieved and we can therefore allow ourselves to begin living. By then it's often too late to enjoy life, because our health, our relationships, the energy of our youth, and quite often even our integrity may have been sacrificed to the point where all that's left is a lonely, tired existence filled with bitter regret for missing out on what could have been.
I would therefore like to respectfully suggest that rather than view money as a yardstick for success, you see it as a tool to support a lifestyle that makes you happy. This will give you the perspective and also the freedom to step outside cultural constraints and define your own personal definition of success, whether that be financial or otherwise.
For the record, it is not my intention to imply that the pursuit of money and material possessions is a bad thing. In fact, I see nothing wrong with seeking money, success and power in and for itself, if that is what one truly wants to do. It's just that our cultural bias towards valuing it above other things limits people's thinking and therefore restricts their choices in life. So what I'm suggesting is that people be cognizant of how this cultural bias can unconsciously influence their decision making and not allow themselves to be persuaded that money is the quintessential, ultimate and only key to happiness.
I think writer Bertha Damon put it best: "Getting what you go after is success; but liking it while you are getting it is happiness."
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There are times when even the most positive person can feel overwhelmed by the demands of everyday living in our Western Society. When that happens, it's only human nature to say to oneself "life would be so much better if only I didn't have so many problems to deal with!"
But having problems is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I'd argue quite the opposite. Major catastrophes aside, we all need some problems in our lives because they stimulate our minds and bodies to move forward rather than sit and stagnate. When people are too comfortable, they tend to stay where they're at and thus fall behind in terms of knowledge, skills and intellectual development, both individually and collectively as a society.
Fortunately, our lives are filled with all sorts of problems and issues that keep us on our toes and provide plenty of opportunity to benefit from their resolution. Overcoming life's many challenges builds strength of character and allows us to grow as individuals in many ways.
First of all, resolving problems builds confidence as we learn to trust in our ability to take care of ourselves rather than fall to pieces at the first sign of trouble. We also develop greater focus, discipline, patience and perseverance once we realize the more intensely we employ these tools, the faster and more favourably our problems are resolved. Increased confidence provides the necessary courage to capitalize on opportunities as we recognize them, while high levels of focus, discipline, patience and perseverance exponentially increase our odds of success.
On the flip side, failure also contributes to our personal growth by teaching us that failing is not the end of the world, and that any time we do fail we need to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and get right back in the game. Failure shows us where we need to improve for next time, so that next time we don't fail. It also helps us recognize and deal with our personal limitations so that we either triumph over them or accept and work around them as creatively as possible. Ultimately, failure teaches us we are a lot stronger than we think, and that while sometimes failure may knock us down, it will never knock us out of the game.
Problem solving also provides a sense of purpose. Problems challenge us to get up in the morning and tackle the day head on. They give us goals to strive for, as well as a sense of accomplishment as we achieve them. Although living a problem-free life sounds attractive on the surface, imagine how monotonous and boring life would get without any downs to help us appreciate the ups! In fact, without the downs, by definition there can be no ups.
Our problems have the potential to make us better people through becoming more compassionate and less judgmental of others. Quite often people who live sheltered lives neither understand nor appreciate the issues others less fortunate than them might have to deal with. They have no idea how narrow minded or highly judgmental they are and it's not until a dose of reality hits them that they realize life is seldom black and white. For example, for many years two women refused to speak to their father because their mother had subsequently committed suicide after an emotionally difficult divorce. It wasn't until both women had experienced divorce first hand that they could appreciate many of the issues their father had faced and thus were able to eventually reconcile with him.
Dealing with adversity forces us to make hard choices at times, which requires some serious soul searching to ensure the choices we eventually make are the right ones. This soul searching helps us learn about who we are and what we want in life so that we can better focus our limited time and energy on what's truly important to us.
For example, a young woman with limited financial resources will have to decide whether her dream of becoming a veterinarian will be worth the huge student loans she will need to repay upon completion of her education. A successful executive with a brand new boss whose business ethics conflict with hers will need to identify which is more important - her career or her personal integrity - and act accordingly. A new mother who wants to stay home with her children must decide whether doing so is worth the financial hardship of a reduced family income, as well as the limitations it will place on her future career growth.
In each of the above three examples, there is no right or wrong choice per se, only what is right or wrong for the individual making the decision. The harder the decision, the more it forces one to clarify their personal goals and priorities before a decision is made. The clearer the goals and priorities, the more comfortable the decision maker will feel and better their chances of making the right decision, resulting in greater happiness and peace of mind.
Overcoming challenges and resolving issues are an inescapable fact of life. However, the good news is that doing so provides some of the best teaching tools available for ensuring your life is rich with happiness and fulfillment. Whether you choose to view your problems as misfortune or learning opportunies is of course your choice. But the next time you find yourself feeling overwhelmed and wishing all your problems would magically disappear, remember that the only time all your problems are going to go away is when you're no longer here either... so be careful what you wish for!
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It's hard to believe a full year has come and gone since I lost my friend Carol. Her family held a private memorial service on the anniversary of her passing, which my partner and I were privileged to attend. It was a native ceremony, in honour of Carol's ancestry, and the presiding Elder directed us to remember Carol in our own way as the aboriginal tradition unfolded.
So while we were gathered in the back yard of her family home, I looked around at one hundred plus people sitting under rented tents and thought about how much Carol's life had impacted each one of us.
I began with her still grieving husband, daughter, four sons, numerous grandchildren and great grandchild. I could see the sadness in their eyes, and my heart ached for them. Carol's daughter, Salina, stood up to recite a few special verses and as she cried, I cried too. Not only for my pain, but also for hers.
Then Carol's oldest granddaughter took the podium. Alexandra talked about what her grandmother meant to her and how she had reluctantly come to terms with saying goodbye. She spoke from the heart, with the same confidence and poise as her grandmother. I was so proud of her at that moment, as I know Carol would have been.
And that's when I finally realized the full import and immense beauty of Carol's lasting legacy. Even though she is no longer a part of this physical earth, her life's work will continue on through her children and her children's children. She has raised a wonderful family, with solid values and an immense capacity for loving reflective of her own.
Carol's family meant everything to her, and she devoted her life to ensuring her children and grandchildren received all the tools, training and support they needed to make smart choices and build successful lives of their own. Her offspring, having done just that, are a living testament to the success of her life's work.
But Carol's love of family didn't stop there. She opened her heart to so many others, welcoming them into her extended family circle without hesitation, or reservation. Each one of us sitting under the tents that evening has been forever touched by her life, and will be forever blessed with the wonderful memories she has given us.
Carol was always there for me, and through the years she had given me some very sound advice for living a successful life. But as the ceremony wound up I realized I had just received one more lesson from Carol, quite possibly the most valuable lesson of all. When and how you die is not nearly as important as how you choose to live.
We're born and then we die. What happens in between is up to us. Take some time to reflect on what a successful life means for you and consider whether you're on the right track. You only get one shot, so make it count.
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Obsession, or excessive preoccupation with a persistent idea or desire, is a double edged sword. When you constantly dwell on something positive, such as completing your university degree, saving for a special holiday, fulfilling your dream of owning your own business or achieving your goal of becoming debt free by age 40, your preoccupation with it provides you the focus, tenacity and spirit to succeed in your endeavor. But although a positive obsession can help bring your dreams to fruition, when it is fear based, obsession can make your worst nightmares come true.
Why is this? While positive thoughts inspire action, fear paralyzes your ability to act. That's because fear locks you into a specific mind set of "I can't". And when all you can think about is "I can't", then let's face it, odds are you won't be succeeding at much of anything.
This means, for example, that if you're worried about not doing well in a job interview or are concerned about your new boyfriend's parents not liking you, because you're feeling so self conscious you will likely come across as stiff or reserved, and perhaps even a little unfriendly because of that. And then how are you possibly going to stand out favourably from all the other job candidates, or allow your boyfriend's parents to see that you really are a likeable person? So in both of these examples, focusing on what you feared made it come to pass.
There's also another potentially more dangerous downside to focusing on fear-based thoughts. Being locked into an "I can't" mentality prevents you from thinking objectively, so you instead think "reactively". What I mean by reactive thinking in this context is that because your mind is so preoccupied trying to cope with "I can't", you react to situations without always thinking things through, almost like going on gut feel or instinct. And when people are driven by instinct, they instinctively reach for what's familiar.
That's why domestic violence often carries from one generation to the next. Children of abusive parents may grow up thinking "I'm never going to hit my kids", but when they themselves come under pressure as parents, they react by doing what's most familiar to them.
That's also why if someone is so excessively worried about continuing to gain weight after having children just like her mother did that she spends more time obsessing about the number on the weight scale than pro-actively planning how to keep the weight off, it's quite possible she will in fact end up just like her mother. That's because without an intelligent plan in place to guard against excessive weight gain, in her preoccupied state she may continue to eat the same familiar diet she ate while growing up - the exact same diet that made her mother fat!
Sometimes our fears are obvious to us so that we can and do recognize how they are negatively impacting our lives, but not always. Stress does strange things to the human mind and often prevents us from seeing the connection between our actions and the results we're getting from them. Sometimes we do see them but feel helpless to change what we're doing.
Take for example the woman who is so afraid of being alone she's unable to see how her excessive clinginess continues to ruin potential relationships and progressively alienate family and friends.
Or what about the woman who worries about alienating her children by over reacting when they misbehave? She is usually very careful to be reasonable and fair when disciplining her teenage son, but then he comes home late one evening reeking of alcohol as he hands her the car keys. Fear for his safety impairs her judgment and triggers her to scream at him at the top of her lungs and threaten to ground him for the rest of his life, just like her parents did to her when she broke their rules. At some level she may be aware she's doing exactly what she doesn't want to do, but is incapable of stopping herself.
So what can we do to prevent ourselves from getting caught in the trap of fear-induced reactive thinking that causes us to repeat undesirable behaviour patterns, especially when we're not always aware that it's happening to us?
This is a very complex issue and I certainly don't pretend to have all the answers. However, I would like to suggest that whenever you feel discomfort, stress or urgency about a particular decision or situation, ask yourself if your urge to speak or act a certain way is fear based (i.e. you're afraid something you don't want to happen will come to pass) or desire based (i.e. you want something to happen). Should you suspect that fear is your main motivation, then where possible and practical avoid speaking or acting until you've had a chance to think more carefully about all the different options open to you. As you analyze your situation, try to focus on what you desire as opposed to what you fear.
Don't let fear limit your options in life by allowing the "I can't" to paralyze you. If you instead learn to separate fear from fact and look at situations from a less emotional perspective, you will soon start to see that in actual fact yes, you can!
For additional information about coping more effectively with fear, please see my article Don't Let Fear Hold You Back.
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We've all met them before - people who talk a great story but that's as far as it goes. They confidently proclaim how they're going to do this and accomplish that, but somehow it never seems to happen. Though the talkers may fool us for a while, sooner or later we clue into their game. Once that happens, the only people being deluded are the talkers themselves.
That's because big talkers think they're making a big impression on their audience. However, in actual fact quite the opposite occurs. When someone bull shits me and then insults my intelligence by assuming I'm dumb enough to believe them, I'm not overly impressed! And I'm fairly certain no one else is either.
Creating a positive impression is primarily about cultivating and sustaining relationships which are built on credibility, respect and trust. But if people don't believe what they're being told, then they are not going to view the person doing the talking as credible, respectable or trustworthy. In fact, the very opposite occurs. If a work colleague has been saying for the past two years that she's going to quit smoking and get in shape, how seriously is anyone going to take her at this point? Probably about as seriously as they'd take their cousin George when he tells them he has a friend on the "inside" who will help him get rich in the stock market and they know darn well George can't hold down a job long enough to come up with the necessary funds to invest in anything, including his monthly rent payments.
But it's not just the stories people tell that ruin their credibility with others; broken promises are even more damaging. Consider the woman who stands her friend up for coffee or who commits to helping someone move but backs out at the very last minute because "something came up". Or the woman who promises to help her work colleague with a big project on a tight deadline but then doesn't show because she got "too busy".
Some people act as if they honestly believe standing someone up for coffee or casually backing out of a previous commitment is no big deal. But it most definitely is! If this is something you sometimes (or often) do, be warned that people will remember your disappointing them long after you've forgotten about doing it. And they do not remember it, or you, kindly.
The reputation of being a woman of her word is a valuable asset, regardless of whether it pertains to your personal or professional life. Family, friends, co-workers and supervisors will all better appreciate and respect someone they can trust to keep her promises. And the odds are much better you will be able to count on them to honour their commitments to you as well. (Never underestimate the value of a strong support network, not only in business where people you work with are often in a position where they can choose to make you look either good or bad, but also in your personal life. You never know when some horrific event might turn your world upside down and it's the care and support of your family and friends that get you through it.)
The value in being known as a woman of her word relates back to the idea that positive impressions are created through building relationships based on credibility, respect and trust. Keeping your word goes a long way towards establishing your credibility and trustworthiness. It also shows you are respectful of the other party, which tends to foster reciprocal respect in return.
In contrast, it's downright disrespectful to tell someone you're going to do something and then not fulfill your commitment. When you don't place a lot of importance on keeping your word to someone, you're telling them you don't really value your relationship with them all that much. So don't be surprised to discover that they most likely won't value their relationship with you very much either. Nor will they grant you a high degree of credibility or respect, because they can't trust that you won't let them down.
So in order to create and maintain a positive impression, you need to put your money where your mouth is and deliver on what you promise. Of course sometimes it truly isn't possible to keep a commitment, no matter how much you'd like to. If something unforeseen does happen to prevent you from keeping your commitment, then an immediate apology is in order. While the other party may still be disappointed, they will certainly appreciate you caring enough to let them know you regret the oversight.
Bottom line: if you're going to talk the talk, then for goodness sake walk the walk!
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The capacity for greatness lies within all of us. By recognizing and tapping into yours, you can maximize your full potential and be all you can and want to be.
"Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve." (Napolean Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich, one of the best selling books of all time.) Think about it - telephones, television, electricity, computers, airplanes, space travel and everything else that is part of modern day society happened because someone visualized the possibility and then found a way to make it happen. And just as they achieved their goal, so can you!
Your mind is an amazingly powerful tool. But depending on how it's used, your mind can be your greatest asset, or your worst liability. That's because your subconscious accepts whatever information you give it and acts accordingly, regardless of whether the information is true or not. And when your mind is working at a subconscious level, it acts without your awareness or permission.
This is why it is so important to have a healthy self image and a firm belief in your ability to accomplish your goals. Extensive studies have shown that the subconscious doesn't filter between logical or illogical, it takes everything literally. So if it hears (through your internal negative self talk) you don't think you can succeed in your chosen profession, make new friends after moving to a new city, stick to a new workout program or whatever else you are concerned about, it will believe you. And then even as you are consciously trying your best to be successful, your subconscious mind will work against you to sabotage your efforts, doing it's best to make you fail and thus corroborate the self doubt you've been experiencing.
Have you ever been on a diet and just as you're about to reach your target weight loss you suddenly have an irresistible urge to binge and then afterwards have no idea why you fell off the wagon right on the eve of success? Or have you ever been in a job interview that was going well and then unexpectedly said something really stupid that you immediately realized was going to eliminate you as a candidate for the position?
In situations like this, your subconscious mind may have had a hand in your downfall. In the dieting example, if you still considered yourself someone with a weight problem, perhaps because you lacked self control, your subconscious mind made sure that reality was consistent with your self perception by triggering the urge to binge. And in the interview example, if you had doubts about your qualifications or ability to handle the job, your subconscious mind ensured you were disqualified from the running by having you say something inappropriate.
Even if you truly believe you are capable of accomplishing a particular task, if you don't believe you deserve to be successful your subconscious mind will again work to make you fail. Therefore, if you don't believe you deserve to have a successful career, you may have trouble advancing in your current place of employment or obtaining a more senior position elsewhere. Or if you don't believe you are worthy of a healthy, nurturing relationship with a significant other, you will continue to be attracted to individuals who don't treat you with the respect you deserve.
On the other hand, when you truly believe you are both capable of accomplishing something and truly deserving of it, your subconscious mind will come on board with the plan instead of fight it. When something feels good and you know in your heart it's the right thing for you, things seem to fall into place so easily because your subconscious mind is cooperating behind the scenes to help guide you along the path to success. As you reach a stumbling block you may experience a flash of creative insight that's so ingenious you wonder how you ever thought of it. Despite the many other demands in your life, you will somehow find the time and energy to devote to your project. And as you come closer to accomplishing your goal, you become increasingly enthusiastic and focused so that none of the negative remarks from the naysayers around you have any affect whatsoever.
So here's the bottom line. If you want to be successful in any or all aspects of your life, you need to see yourself as the intelligent, deserving person that you are so your subconscious will work in partnership with your conscious mind to achieve your goals. You must learn to recognize negative self talk (i.e. I can't do that or I hate this about myself) and turn it off - permanently. You must also learn to have faith in your ability to accomplish your goals and not be persuaded by others (or yourself) that you aren't capable of doing so.
So the next time you set yourself a goal and that little negative voice in your head says "yes, but..." listen carefully to what follows, because that's what your subconscious is going to hear and manifest in your life. You will need to work through whatever doubt that negative voice is expressing in order to move your life forward in the direction you wish it to go. Doubt will be what stops you from achieving your goals and dreams, but fortunately doubts are merely thoughts and thoughts can consciously be changed.
According to Maxwell Maltz, author and developer of Psycho-Cybernetics (a system for improving self image in order to live a more successful and fulfilling life), "Self-image sets the boundaries of individual accomplishment."
Don't limit your boundaries unnecessarily. Instead, make 2012 your year to conceive, believe and achieve!
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CLOSE 2010 BLOGS
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How many times have you reluctantly agreed to do something not because you wanted to, but rather because it was "the right thing to do"?
Maybe you did it because that's what your parents or your partner expected you to do, or perhaps you succumbed to the "peer pressure" exerted by your friends or work colleagues. Or it could be you just weren't feeling brave enough to stand up to your boss and tell her that working overtime that evening was not possible because you had already made other plans.
If you're the type of person who doesn't like to rock the boat or deal with conflict situations, believe me, I understand. Women of my generation were raised to be "good" girls, which generally meant deferring to authority and doing what was expected of us without complaint, regardless of our personal feelings. This programming makes it extremely difficult for many of us to stand up and say no when we need to.
While being agreeable can at times be commendable, it isn't always in your best interest. That's because when someone asks you to do something it's usually to serve their needs, which may conflict with yours.
Even if someone is honestly trying to look out for your best interests, there could still be a problem. Quite often well meaning family and friends will encourage you to do what they would do themselves given the same circumstances, which may not necessarily be the best option for you. Your parents, in particular, may be more interested in what's the safest and most secure choice as opposed to which option will bring you the greatest happiness and fulfillment. After all, it's their job to ensure you are safe and protected.
However, life is about taking risks. This means that sometimes you need to stand up and challenge conventional wisdom. There are no hard and fast rules in life; for many situations you will need to make up our own rules as you go, based on your own personal values, needs, wants, and goals.
The degree of risk you are willing to take will of course depend both on your personality (i.e. your risk tolerance level) and your personal situation (i.e. a mother who needs to feed her children doesn't quit her job to start a new business venture without a failsafe back up plan). If you have a low risk tolerance and thus would prefer taking the safe but less exciting route, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. (However, if you decide to pursue safe but unexciting, accept that boredom may well be a part of it and don't complain since you made the conscious choice to go that direction.)
Often people who are afraid to take risks are also afraid to make decisions and so prefer to follow someone else's advice hoping this will eliminate or at least greatly reduce the risk factor. If you fall into this category then be advised that doing what someone else confidently assures you is your best bet provides only an illusion of safety. That's because should things not go according to plan, you can't blame someone else for steering you wrong and/or expect them to help you fix it, you can only blame yourself for listening to them and letting yourself be persuaded to do what wasn't right for you.
When it comes right down to it, you and you alone are ultimately responsible for what happens to you in life and therefore you need to accept responsibility for any and all decisions that you make, regardless of whatever counseling you may have received from anyone else during the decision making process.
Therefore, particularly for major decisions with far reaching implications, I suggest you listen carefully to your heart when evaluating your options. I would also encourage you to do something only if you know it's right for you, rather than because other people say you should. You are the one who will have to live with the consequences of your decisions, as well as the knowledge that you may have missed out on a wonderful opportunity because you didn't stand up for what you truly wanted for yourself.
So the next time you're feeling pressure to conform from family, friends, colleagues or perhaps the influence of cultural norms, make sure that rather than being the right thing to do, whatever you decide is the right thing for you!
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Have you ever seen someone hold the door open in an act of kindness for a stranger at the local shopping mall and then get angry when the stranger didn't acknowledge their good deed? Or has a family member or friend ever complained to you that they went out of their way to shovel a neighbour's driveway after a major snowstorm but never received a thank you?
It often surprises me how angry some people can get when they perceive their good deeds are not appreciated, or even acknowledged, for that matter. While I certainly agree it's nice to receive an external pat on the back after doing something special for someone, in reality those people who harbour an expectation for this kind of recognition risk setting themselves up to be disappointed.
That's because human nature is, well... human nature. Yes, it's common courtesy to say thank you when someone holds the door open for you, but for whatever reason some people simply don't know any better. Others do know better, but they might be wrestling with a serious personal issue (i.e. sick parent or child) and therefore not register that someone just held the door open for them. No one is being deliberately rude in either scenario, they're just being human.
Quite frankly, getting a thank you for holding the door open for a stranger is the luck of the draw, so to speak. Therefore, expecting to be recognized and then getting angry when that doesn't happen is a guaranteed way to introduce needless stress into one's life. So to those people who do get angry when their acts of kindness go unacknowledged, I respectfully suggest that since you have no control over what other people choose to say or do, do not waste your own time and energy worrying about anyone's words or actions other than your own.
Instead take pride and satisfaction in knowing you behaved in an exemplary manner by treating another human being with respect and dignity. As long as you know you did the right thing, why should it matter whether someone else acknowledges you or not? In other words, do the right thing for the right reason, which is that you know in your heart it's the right thing to do. A pat on the back for doing the right thing is always a nice bonus, but it shouldn't be a prerequisite.
Unfortunately, some people, whether through insecurity or some other reason, do require that ongoing pat on the back acknowledgement and approval from others around them, whether that be family, friends or even strangers. For them, earning someone else's approval is so important they will go to great lengths to obtain it.
However, the very real danger in allowing oneself to be overly influenced by what others say or think is that one becomes vulnerable to manipulation by those who have their number. I know, because I've learned this the hard way. Trust me, if a pat on the back is what you're truly after, there are a lot of people out there who will be only too happy to heap all kinds of praise on you if it will get you to do what they want. Some do it deliberately, while others aren't aware they're doing it. (Though this type of behaviour may sound deceitful and conniving, it's not my intention to depict it as such. It's simply human nature to be opportunistic, consciously or otherwise.)
These people will tell you they are soooo grateful for all you constantly do, that they're so lucky to have you around to take charge of everything and that they honestly don't know what they would do without you. Then once you agree to take care of things once again, they leave without a second thought and you're left scrambling to meet your latest commitment. Their talk is cheap; your time is not.
Now as long as you truly do wish to take on all these tasks, it's really not a problem. Rather, it's a win-win situation for both parties, so all is good. However, if you should start feeling resentful that it's always you who is expected to take care of everything (like the perfect wife, the perfect mother, the perfect daughter, the perfect friend, etc.) you really have no one to blame but yourself. After all, you're the one who keeps saying "yes" when sometimes you should perhaps be saying "no". You can't expect family and friends to know your true feelings unless you specifically tell them, and unless you say something to the contrary, they may honestly believe you truly want to do everything they ask of you.
So the bottom line is this: If you want a medal for doing the right thing, then you're doing the right thing for all the wrong reasons! Whether it's an act of kindness for a stranger or a favour for a friend, do it because it feels right and for the personal satisfaction it will bring you as opposed to the pat on the back you may not even receive. View recognition for your good deeds as a bonus, never the main objective.
And to those individuals who are overly concerned with being suitably recognized for your deeds, understand that if you are truly following your heart, you will not feel the need to seek anyone's approval.
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Do you ever feel there are never enough hours in your day to accomplish everything you need or want to do? That at times you're being pulled in so many different directions your head is reeling and your brain is threatening to shut down completely?
If so, I hear you. There are so many things I want to experience and to accomplish in this life that I could easily add several new projects to my Must Do list on a daily basis. As a matter of fact, I have a tendency to do just that and it most definitely creates trouble for me from time to time. Not because I'm adding too many things to my list, but because I get overly ambitious and start trying to do all of them, all at the same time.
Instead of prioritizing my projects in terms of what's truly important based on my Master Plan (see my October 2010 blog), I start to work a little bit on one project, a little bit on another, and then another, and another, and so on. Therefore, nothing truly gets finished and put to bed. As a result I can start to feel totally disorganized and frustrated as you-know-what because I'm spinning my wheels as fast as I can while seemingly getting absolutely nowhere.
Now there's certainly nothing wrong with multi-tasking - in fact, it's a survival prerequisite for today's modern woman! But there is a limit to how much we can realistically handle and we have to learn to recognize and respect that limit. If we don't, we lose our overall effectiveness and create all sorts of needless stress for ourselves in the process.
While it's easy to get excited about trying something new and different, it's important to remain focused on what's truly important in our lives so that we can more effectively prioritize our own individual Must Do lists.
So if you're feeling stressed about having too much to do and not enough time to do it, perhaps it's time to regroup, rethink and refocus on what is most important to you. Then once you've reset your priorities, you will need to develop a workable strategy to ensure you remain focused on them. Otherwise, within a very short period of time you may find yourself in exactly the same situation, with too many projects on the go and not enough time to properly devote to all of them.
Following is a suggested plan for getting yourself back on track and ensuring you continue to make the most effective use of the time you do have available.
Time Prioritization Action Plan
- Make a list of every project you have on the go right now, including hobbies, family commitments, personal or professional development, exercise programs, volunteer work/committee memberships, home repairs or redecorating projects, fall yard work, etc.
- Highlight those projects which are most relevant to your "Master Plan" (refer to my October 2010 Blog about developing a Master Plan).
- Determine which projects should be crossed off the list (for now, at least) because they either are not relevant to your Master Plan or you simply don't have enough time to realistically deal with them at the moment.
- Number the remaining projects in terms of priority and estimate how much time will realistically be required to complete each.
- Enter each project onto a calendar and post the calendar somewhere prominent where you will see it on a daily basis. Again, be realistic about scheduling the projects so that they work within the time periods you have available to devote to them.
- Follow the calendar without allowing yourself to be distracted by all the many "opportunities" you encounter on a daily basis. You can always add these opportunities to the list if they make sense, but they should never replace what's already scheduled, unless you properly reschedule the existing project.
- Make sure you finish each project (where possible or practical) before starting the next so that you can experience the satisfaction of closure and accomplishment.
While this strategy won't be foolproof - life is full of too many surprises to always run exactly according to plan - it should go a long way towards making you feel more organized and back in control of your life once again. Until next time...
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If you want to make the most of your life, and get the most out of life, you need to reach out and make it happen on your own since odds are good that your heart's desire will not be handed to you on a silver platter. However, every choice in life involves some degree of risk, and the higher your aspirations, the greater the challenges ahead of you and the more likely you're going to mess up along with way.
Unfortunately, the possibility of messing up all too often holds people back from reaching for their full potential. Although they may aspire to greatness, fear of failure prevents them from taking the action necessary to achieve it. Fear preys upon their fortitude and eventually renders them incapable of taking the leap of faith that is often necessary when treading unknown waters. Thus they join the masses of unhappy people who live life by default where "shoulda, coulda, woulda" may eventually become their internal mantra of regret.
Many of us have been raised to believe that mistakes are bad and should be avoided at all costs. However, I submit to you that mistakes in and of themselves are neither good nor bad, they just are. Rather, it's how we choose to deal with our mistakes that can be problematic.
Unless you're in a life threatening situation, messing up is not the end of the world, even though many of us act as though we believe it is. But while making a mistake doesn't signify failure, declaring defeat after making one certainly does! There's no need for anyone to throw in the towel just because something hasn't gone according to plan. One can always find more than one way to tackle a given problem and so perhaps all you will need to be successful is an alternate approach.
Quite frankly, messing up can sometimes be a good thing, because our mistakes teach us about what works and what doesn't for a given situation, what we can and can't yet handle, and where we need to improve for next time. Therefore, every mistake is a great learning opportunity, allowing us to fine tune as we reposition ourselves so that when we try again our odds of success have significantly increased.
Successful people are successful not because they never mess up, but rather because they accept the fact that messing up now and again is a necessary evil they must learn to deal with if they are going to eventually embrace success. No one is perfect and so no one can go through life mistake free... unless of course they spend their life doing perfectly nothing! The more mistakes someone makes, the more they are doing and learning and growing, and so the greater the odds that at some point they will be successful.
For successful people, the risk of failure is worth the payoff of success. And thus successful people will continue to risk failure until their success is certain. They aren't fazed (not for very long, at least) when things don't go according to plan, they simply regroup, refocus and try again.
So if the possibility of messing up is holding you back from achieving your dreams, I encourage you to reconsider your current mindset regarding failure. Most people are seldom successful the first time they try something new - think about learning to ride your first bike or parallel parking your first car. So if you try something new and fail, as long as you have given it your honest and best try you have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. The shame is in letting your fear of messing up hold you back from even trying in the first place.
Accept that making mistakes is an inevitable precursor to success, and that mistakes can be great learning opportunities which will only help you down the road. We all make mistakes... and generally survive them fully intact. Sometimes our pride is a little bruised, but hey, we eventually get over it.
So don't let fear of failure hold you back from trying to be everything you can and want to be. Take advantage of all life has to offer; follow your dreams and reach for the stars. Remember that in order to make the most of your life, and get the most out of life, you must find the courage to reach for what can rightfully be yours should you be willing to risk claiming it.
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We all know that when it comes right down to it, money can't buy happiness. So why then do so many people behave as though it does?
Don't misunderstand me. I see absolutely nothing wrong with having toys, as long as they are secondary to your life goals as opposed to being your ultimate objective. I do believe that we should reward ourselves for all our hard work and be free to enjoy those rewards without reservation or guilt. But when we look to money or material things as a barometer for how we're doing in life, our life can start to get a little messed up.
That's because once we define the accumulation of things as the definitive measure of success, we can't help but compare the things we have to what others have in order to put the measurement into perspective and thus make it meaningful. In other words, we need to know where we stand against everyone else in order to figure out whether we're doing okay or not. And since there's always going to be other people who have more than we do, based on this type of definition for success we will see ourselves as less successful than they are.
However, should you in fact be one of the few to die with more toys than most people around you, you still lose. That's because odds are you'll have spent the majority of your life chasing material objects to the point where you've missed out on all the other wonderful things life has to offer. Special moments such as your baby's first smile, a shared sunset or a stolen kiss all need to be appreciated in the moment or the opportunity is lost forever. Loving relationships need to be nurtured on an ongoing basis in order for that special magic to last. We humans are social creatures, so while material things can bring temporary pleasure from the sense of accomplishment they represent, the only sure path to lasting happiness and personal fulfillment lies in making meaningful connections with those around us.
But while you shouldn't make collecting toys the main focus of your life, neither should you renounce them completely. Instead, strive for a healthy balance somewhere in between by recognizing toys as rewards for your success as opposed to prerequisites for it. Always remember that success is subjective and should therefore be based on how you feel about your accomplishments and have nothing to do with how much stuff you can accumulate. This way you'll be able to appreciate and enjoy your toys rather than simply collect them.
Many women, myself included, have a tendency to buy things in order to make ourselves feel better when we're down in the dumps. But although this may provide a temporary distraction from what's bothering us, no amount of things can ever completely fill the emptiness inside. This has been one of the most valuable "life lessons" I've learned to date. Now whenever I feel the urge to splurge, instead of pulling out my credit card I do a little self-introspection to determine exactly what's bothering me so I can take steps to fix it. And after I've got things sorted out, though I didn't end up with that stylin' new purse or the flashy pair of earrings (I'll admit it - jewelry is my downfall), the purse I'm holding and the earrings I'm wearing again seem just as lovely as when I first purchased them some time ago.
I guess what I'm really trying to say here is that while she who dies with the most toys loses, she who most values and celebrates what she does have wins.
Let's all be winners!
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The untimely death of Michael Jackson shocked and devastated much of the world. I personally was deeply saddened by the loss of our King of Pop, who was one of my idols growing up and who to this day continues to captivate and inspire me with his amazing talent. I know I will never tire of either his music or his moves, or cease to be moved myself by the explosive passion and fire he delivered with every performance.
No matter how messed up his personal life came to be, no one can argue that MJ made his indelible mark on the world, crossing borders and smashing barriers with the universal message of his music and the sincerity of his commitment to make the world a better place for everyone in it, regardless of colour or circumstance. So how sad indeed that someone who had given so much of himself to everyone else was left to fight his personal demons alone and in face of such cold indifference.
The MJ story is a very public, and poignant, example of how important it is to make peace with your past so that it doesn't destroy your future.
Clearly, MJ's messed up childhood scarred him deeply, arguably to the point where he felt compelled to seek what in reality he could never find by giving disadvantaged children all the things he felt he missed out on in his own childhood. While his intentions may have been altruistic and his actions above board (we'll never know for certain), they were unacceptable by other people's standards and so child abuse charges eventually ensued. It appears the public shame and humiliation may have destroyed him to the point where he could no longer cope without prescription drugs, and eventually these drugs contributed to his death.
Regardless of whether one believes MJ was victim or villain, surely this wasn't the way the world's greatest entertainer was meant to pass from this life. If he had only been able to move past his childhood hurts, his path would have unfolded much differently so that he could have lived a rich and rewarding life as opposed to the living hell he must have endured for a good part of his later years.
Please don't let MJ's unfortunate death be in vain. Learn from his example that if you have past hurts you must heal them if you want any chance of finding true peace and happiness down the road. If you can't do it on your own, then get help from a professional. Let someone who knows how show you the way to the light. Don't give in to the darkness of drugs, no matter how tempting that might be in your weakest hour.
Despite the indignity of MJ's death, for the most part his life was a shining example of someone trying his best to do right, despite the enormous personal cost. Yes, MJ was eccentric in many ways, but that doesn't take away from the fact that he had the courage to hold his head up while others ridiculed him, because he honestly believed he was doing the right thing and the right thing was worth doing. How many of us can say that about ourselves?
While we can't undo what's already been done, we can turn this terrible tragedy into something positive by keeping MJ's dream alive. The best way I can think of to honour the memory of one of the greatest entertainers and humanitarians of our time is to continue on where he left off by heeding the message of his music:
Heal the world, make it a better place,
For you, for me, and the entire human race.
There are people dying, if you care enough for the living
Make a better place for you and for me.
There is no need for you or I to try to change the world as MJ did; all we need to do is make a positive difference in our small part of it. While the impact from someone as large and influential as MJ seems far beyond what you or I could possibly accomplish, never forget that collectively we can all make just as great a difference.
Goodbye Michael. Thank you for all the wonderful music you gave us, and thank you also for caring enough to try to make the world a better place. May your legacy live on forever as your soul finally finds the salvation it so rightfully deserves.
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I always look forward to the month of May and my parents' annual visit. Since retiring, they've learned to slow down and live for the moment, so that when they want to relax, they relax, without letting thoughts of when to go grocery shopping or what to cook for dinner distract them from their chosen activity. When my mom does cook dinner she focuses on the task at hand, instead of absently stirring the pot while busily planning ahead when the laundry can be done. And when my parents dine, they enjoy the experience, eating slowly to fully appreciate each mouthful.
But most importantly, they appreciate each other and through the years have learned not to take life too seriously. As a result, my house is constantly filled with laughter during that two week period, and even the dog has a little extra spring in her step. After 50 years of marriage, my parents still walk down the street holding hands. My partner and I should be so lucky...
At the end of their visit I'm always sorry to see them go - they're such a breath of fresh air in my chaotic everyday world where most days I'm operating on a "just-in-time" basis. But despite my sorrow, I feel a little more centered and at peace when they leave and each year I promise myself I will hold onto that feeling as long as possible. Then way too soon I get caught up in my busy lifestyle and all centered thoughts and peaceful intentions go out the window.
But this year in particular, taking time off from work to spend with Mom and Dad and allowing myself to match their more relaxed pace helped me to better understand and appreciate the value of downtime. It was wonderful to tune out and turn off the world for a few days as I rested and recharged my energy reserves. And when it was time to turn reality back on again I felt so much more capable of handling it.
In today's modern world it's all too easy to get so caught up in day to day demands that we often forget to stop and smell the flowers along the way. Yes, it goes without saying that if we want to get ahead in life we often need to go that extra mile and make a few sacrifices in terms of time and energy along the way. But how necessary is it really for you or me to wait until we retire before we allow ourselves to take time out and appreciate the fruits of our labour?
The bottom line is that unless we learn to schedule downtime for ourselves and are disciplined enough to take it, we risk becoming increasingly less efficient with our time and energy as we move closer and closer to burn out stage. And the irony of it is that oftentimes the closer we come to burnout the less we feel able to schedule a break. Instead of feeling empowered, we feel powerless to get off the runaway roller coaster we call life.
So learn to take time out for you on a regular basis to relax and tune out life's daily challenges and demands, even if it's only for a short while. Have coffee with a girlfriend, spend an evening with your partner, share a picnic in the park or dinner and a movie with friends, spend a weekend in Niagara Falls or some other favourite getaway, or take a week's vacation in the Caribbean and do nothing all day long except soak up the sun and sip strawberry margueritas.
Don't forget that precisely because you are so busy, you need to schedule downtime into your life just like everything else. And don't get caught up in the trap of postponing your downtime until you have more time for it; enough time for downtime will never exist unless you consciously and deliberately create it.
I've said it before and I'm going to say it again: Live responsibly, but don't be so responsible you forget to live. Part of being responsible is making sure you're healthy, whether that be physically or emotionally, in order to better appreciate and care for those you love, including yourself.
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I recently lost someone very close to me. Carol was one in a million, someone who I admired, respected and was proud to call my friend.
Spending time with Carol was inspirational, as I always felt good in her presence. Perhaps it was her native heritage which helped keep her centered, and what helped put life into perspective for me whenever we spent time together. Her family was her priority, plain and simple, and I was extremely fortunate that she so warmly welcomed me into it.
Carol instinctively knew when to listen and when to give advice, and no matter what she was in my corner as both champion and cheerleader. Carol was always there for family and friends with her smile and words of encouragement, no matter how tired or weak she herself was feeling at the time. She also supported a variety of charitable causes and the strong women behind them who, like her, wanted to make a difference. That she touched the lives of so many in a warm and wonderful way was evidenced by the hundreds of people who came to pay their final respects and offer comfort to her grieving family.
Selfishly I wasn't ready to say goodbye to my friend, even though her failing health dictated it was time for her to go. But working through my sadness at her passing has helped me better appreciate two very important life lessons:
- Appreciate all the good you have in your life, while you have it.
- Since you can't take it with you, it's what you leave behind that truly counts.
Carol embraced life with a twinkle in her eye and laughter in her heart. She laughed often, deep belly chuckles that were as contagious as they were outrageous. Carol's life wasn't necessarily perfect, but it was pretty darn good as far as she was concerned.
Her family and friends thought so, too. All of us will treasure fond memories of the good times we spent with Carol and hold close to our hearts the special way she made us feel when we were with her. The way she lived her life is an inspirational model for how we should perhaps continue to live ours.
How each of us does move on with our life now that Carol is no longer with us is our individual choice. Personally, I am making a conscious commitment to respect her memory by ensuring I appreciate the good in my life on a daily basis, and that the people close to me know how much they truly are appreciated. And after I've passed on, I want people to remember me as someone who was warm and caring and generous to a fault, just like my dear friend Carol.
The loss of my friend has made me realize that life is a lot shorter than we think. Many of us put off appreciating today what we believe we'll have more time to better appreciate tomorrow. But all too often tomorrow comes and goes and we're completely oblivious to its passing.
Are you fully appreciating all the good in your life? If not, why not? It would be a shame for tomorrow to have come and gone before you realize the value of what you once had.
By the same token, are there things in your life that you don't appreciate, and if so are you actively working to change them? If not, why not? Again, it would be a shame for tomorrow to come and go, taking with it your window of opportunity for positive change.
If you were to unexpectedly pass today, is what you would leave behind a fitting legacy, one that you would be proud of? Or are you perhaps, like so many of us, not quite there yet? There are no crystal balls, and thus you never know what changes tomorrow might bring into your life. So if you feel strongly about accomplishing specific goals during your lifetime, be sure not to unnecessarily delay putting your plans in motion.
It's unfortunate, but far too many people take their lives, and the people in them, for granted. We think we have all the time in the world to do what we want to do, and to see what we want to see. But time waits for no one. There are no exceptions to this rule, so make sure you appreciate and use what time you do have to your best advantage.
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How many times have you gotten excited about making some positive changes in your life and perhaps even started implementing a few of them, but despite the best of intentions you didn't follow through with your plans? Either the excitement just kind of fizzled out or maybe something else (such as life!) got in the way.
Conflicting demands and priorities are common place these days and so it's not surprising that other issues or events would interfere with your moving forward in the direction you originally intended. However, more often than not these issues and events are excuses as opposed to valid reasons for not following through on what you promised yourself you would do.
Except for those extraordinary circumstances where something is really beyond your control (i.e. like a death or serious illness in the family), breaking promises to yourself is not acceptable. Why not? Because in doing so you are sending yourself a double negative message:
- You perceive you have such little value as a person that not keeping promises to yourself is no big deal.
- You learn to believe you're not capable of following through on what you say you're going to do, which leads to you not bothering to try as hard the next time and even less the time after that, until finally you're not bothering to try at all.
But neither of the above two statements are true, nor will they ever be. You are a wonderful, deserving person with unlimited greatness potential. For this reason, you owe it to yourself to keep those promises and commitments you make to yourself so that your greatness potential can in fact be realized.
There are two lessons you can take from this.
First, because life is filled with conflicting priorities and demands, you need to think carefully about what is most important to you and only make commitments to yourself which reflect what you value. In other words, don't have a sudden inspiration and decide it will be your new passion without first carefully considering how this sudden new direction will impact other areas of your life which you also value. Your time is always going to be limited, so you need to choose how you wish to spend it wisely. This means making commitments and setting goals that work together rather than conflict with each other. (Of course you're entitled to change your mind from time to time, but doing it too often will only result in you spinning your wheels madly yet going nowhere fast.)
The second lesson is a bit harder to swallow, but ignore it at your peril. Life is not going to move over and give you room to manoeuvre. Nor is it going to give you anything for free. So if you want something you need to make it happen for yourself because nothing or no one else is going to do it for you.
There will always be challenges and other distractions that work to keep you from realizing your dreams, but despite that your dreams can be achieved if you're 100% committed to making them happen. It often works that the bigger the dream the greater the road block, and thus the harder it is to remain 100% committed to achieving your goal. When this is the case, the best way to sustain commitment over the long term is through developing and maintaining focus, determination and passion.
Focus is developed by taking the time to carefully consider what you want from life and how best to achieve it. Years ago I read a study that followed university students through life and found that those who took the time to prepare a written action plan were generally more successful in their chosen endeavours than those who didn't. So write down your plan to help you get into the right mindset to accomplish change. If there are things you or others in your life are doing that will interfere with your ability to succeed, take steps to change this.
Maintaining focus despite life's ongoing distractions comes from keeping your goals and your action plan top of mind. Post sticky notes around your home to continually remind yourself what you're trying to accomplish so that focusing on it becomes second nature. Maintaining focus requires discipline, in that you need to concentrate on those activities that will help you achieve your goal and avoid those that won't.
Determination means when the going gets tough... you keep going... and going.... and going... just like the Energizer Bunny. Neither backing down nor backing off is an option. And you start now. Today. This very instant. With no looking back. Live it... breathe it... be it! Get it?
Passion is what lights the fire and is key to keeping focus and determination sustainable over the long term. When you're excited about what you're doing you can't help but be focused and determined because it's so much fun to be that way. What might otherwise be perceived as insurmountable obstacles are merely minor inconveniences when you feel truly passionate about something.
It doesn't matter whether you want to lose weight, broaden your circle of friends, change jobs, learn a new language or purchase a new home, the above principles will apply. Whatever your master plan, pursue it with a commitment based on focus, determination and passion, and success will most certainly be yours.
Just as importantly, you'll have fun along the way. You do need to enjoy life's journey, otherwise it could be a long and painful trip!
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2009 has started out a little rough for many people in my life. Some are starting to experience financial difficulties as a result of our present economy. Several of my friends and colleagues are dealing with serious illness involving either themselves or their partners. My 93 year old grandmother was injured in an elevator accident. Two people I know are struggling with the heart wrenching pain and guilt of estranging themselves from their children. And funeral attendance seems to be up within my circle of acquaintances.
I myself recently faced my own personal tragedy when I lost one of my precious cats to cancer. We shared a unique and special bond quite unlike anything I've ever experienced, which made his passing all the more devastating. Fortunately, his struggle was mercifully brief as it broke my heart to watch my wonderful little friend slowly fade into a shadow of his former noble self.
Pain and sorrow aside, the toughest thing about my cat's illness was accepting the fact there was nothing I could do to change the situation, or its inevitable outcome. As an animal parent, my sense of duty towards my children is no different than that experienced by parents of human children; the instinct to shelter and protect from harm is just as strong. I was therefore consumed by overwhelming frustration for not being able to do anything to "fix it" and make him better, and overcome by massive guilt that I was somehow failing him as his Mother. But in the end all I could do was set my feelings of helplessness aside and be there for him with a happy face and upbeat attitude even though my heart was breaking inside.
One of the most painful experiences in life is saying our final goodbye to someone we love and then moving on. But it's what we do... because it's all we can do.
How we move on is our choice. We can either struggle in darkness with a heavy heart weighed down by the pain and sorrow of loss or step forward into the light with a warm heart forever enriched by happy memories and gratefulness for time spent together.
I myself have chosen the latter. I now have a new kitten in my life, and even though I still cry in the car to and from work, I'm starting to smile through my tears as I recall the way my Bao's nose used to crinkle when he looked up at me lovingly, his unique way of meowing that sounded like Mama and the comforting reassurance of his purr as he curled up on my pillow and sometimes even rested his chin on my cheek at night. However, my time to grieve ends the moment I walk through my front door and switch back to "Mommy mode" because my other animal children need my love and attention and it's not their fault Bao is gone from my life.
While my new kitten will never replace my wonderful Bao, my relationship with her could be just as good if I'm brave enough to give it a chance. Often the incredible pain of loss makes us afraid to love again because we don't want to risk the potential hurt that can go along with it. I know several people who have vowed never to get another pet because they don't want to ever have to re-experience the eventual pain of losing it. Although this pain-avoidance tactic may be acceptable for them, it could never work for me.
For me, the capacity to give and receive love is the best part of being human, and the ultimate expression of my humanity. Over the years I have slowly come to realize that love is what has provided meaning and purpose to my life and it's only after finally understanding, accepting and embracing the awesome and awe inspiring power of love have I discovered my true inner strength of character, clarity of vision and peace of mind. I now realize that my capacity to love has made me everything I am today, and that without it I would be nothing, or more accurately stated, nothing worth being.
So for the sake of love I would willingly experience the pain of loss 100 times over if that's the price which must be paid. Yes, losing someone I love hurts like hell, but without ever knowing them in the first place my life would not have been nearly so rich and rewarding. Therefore as far as I'm concerned it's a fair trade off, since I couldn't imagine living a life pain-free but devoid of meaning. What would be the point?
So what are the lessons both you and I can take from the tragic loss of my precious Bao?
First, when someone you love is terminally ill, the greatest gift you can give them is your ongoing love and support. Be there for them and be strong, even when your heart is breaking inside. There will be ample time for you to do your grieving later, once they've passed. But while they are still with you, say all the things you want to say and do all the things you want to do so that you will have no regrets later.
In some ways it can be more difficult to watch those we love gradually fade from our lives through cancer or other wasting illness as opposed to having them pass immediately from an unexpected incident such as a car accident or heart attack. But on the other hand, it does allow you to clear up any unfinished business you may have with your loved one. Often those we love are snatched from us without warning and we therefore don't have an opportunity to properly say goodbye.
So take another lesson from this. There is no such thing as a crystal ball and thus you never know when someone you love might suddenly be taken from this earth. Therefore, never take relationships with your loved ones for granted and always ensure that conflicts and issues are resolved as quickly as possible. Never compromise on your principles, but don't let stubbornness and false pride prevent you from reaching out to correct what might be a simple misunderstanding. Should something happen unexpectedly, it's much easier to go on with a clear conscience as opposed to a one tarnished by guilt and regret.
And now I'll leave you with a final parting thought. There is no crystal ball for your own life, so don't take yourself for granted either. Take time to enjoy the simple pleasures in life and make sure you experience all that you want to in your lifetime so that when your time comes you will pass from this world with no regrets. Don't live irresponsibly, but don't be so responsible you forget to live.
Author William W. Purkey offers some sound advice we would all do well to heed:
Dance like there's nobody watching Love like you'll never get hurt Sing like there's nobody listening Live like it's heaven on earth And speak from the heart to be heard.
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For the past several New Year's Eves, my partner and I have curled up in front of the television with a hefty supply of junk food to fortify us for the long night ahead as we watch the extended version of The Lord of the Rings in its entirety - all 9 hours! I was enchanted with this Tolkien masterpiece when first I read it as a child and now the motion picture, with its stunning graphics and superb cast morphing this rich fantasy to life on the screen in front of me, is even more spectacular. (My partner isn't nearly as keen as I am but he's a good sport.)
The Lord of the Rings is a powerful tale with an inspiring message of faith in humanity. It is a celebration of our human spirit, that indomitable will within each of us lying dormant yet forever at the ready to sustain us against all odds and when all else fails provided we have the courage and resolve to draw upon its strength. The characters in The Lord of the Rings had all the odds stacked against them as they started on their impossible quest, yet through the power of their conviction and commitment they were able to persevere and succeed where less committed men (or hobbits) would most certainly have failed.
Within the real world there are many documented feats of physical and mental accomplishments of herculean proportions and so proof that we humans can go beyond what is considered humanly possible exists all around us. People have been known to perform extraordinary feats to save their loved ones, such as lifting cars by themselves or pulling people from burning buildings. They have survived extended exposure to the elements, sometimes with serious injuries, through sheer determination and will power.
Physical prowess aside, what about those people who believe in themselves despite ridicule and rejection from others, and are so committed to achieving their goals they are willing to do whatever it takes until they realize their dreams? For example, recording artist Jewel and J.D. Fortune of INXS both lived in their cars for a time, and Madonna arrived in New York with virtually nothing save for the courage of her convictions and look where she is today. When Barak Obama decided he wanted to be President, how many people do you think told him to go for it since his success was assured?
The news is filled with stories of people who go on to accomplish great things despite personal hardships simply because they will themselves to do so. Terry Fox ran 3,339 miles in 143 days, from St John's, Newfoundland to Thunder Bay, Ontario, with a prosthetic leg. Bethany Hamilton turned professional as a surfer after losing an arm in a shark attack. Professor Stephen Hawking, despite having motor neuron disease for most of his adult life, became a world renowned physicist/mathematician/author while being confined to a wheelchair and requiring a computer to speak.
Imagine what you could accomplish in your lifetime if you were to invoke the same level of commitment and determination Frodo and his companions demonstrated in The Lord of the Rings or the sheer grit and courage of any of the real life individuals listed above. Of course commitment and courage alone will not guarantee success, but I'm sure you would agree they will significantly increase the odds of it.
We all have within us the potential to do great things with our lives. The key to doing so lies in focusing on whatever it is we value and then committing the full force of our being towards it. The reward doesn't have to be financial success or celebrity status for our goals and aspirations to have value; personal satisfaction and fulfillment are the most gratifying rewards of them all. Neither is there a need for us to change the world; all we need to do is make a positive difference in our own little part of it.
At one point within The Lord of the Rings when Frodo becomes overwhelmed by the enormity of his task and laments about being given the burden of the ring, Gandalf the Wizard provides counsel: "So do all who see such times, but that is not for them to decide - all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
Life is a precious gift not to be taken for granted, for all too soon it will be over. None of us knows how much time we have on this planet, but we do get to choose how we spend the time we are given. Choose wisely - you only get one shot at it.
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I recently had the privilege of attending a weekend body building seminar presented by my strength and conditioning coach, Scott Abel (www.scottabel.com). During the first evening he talked about what it takes to be successful not only in bodybuilding, but also life in general. He told the group the main reason for his own success as a competitive bodybuilder and as a highly regarded coach for other competitive bodybuilders was that from the start he identified his intentions and then paid attention to them. He remained focused on his goals at all times and his life decisions were based on which choices would bring him closer to achieving those goals.
What a simple yet powerful concept. However, most people I know, myself included, don't seem to understand and appreciate the power of concentrated focus. We all set goals and start working towards them with the best of intentions, but then allow ourselves to get sidetracked as time goes on. Sometimes we get so sidetracked we even forget what our goals were.
In some cases we change our goals based on new information and experiences which open our minds to different and perhaps greater possibilities. Well, there's certainly nothing wrong with that as we should always be flexible enough to capitalize on new and better opportunities as they arise.
However, often we don't necessarily exchange existing goals for new or more exciting ones. Often our motivation and desire to achieve just sort of fizzles out, if you know what I mean. Now why is that?
There are obviously many reasons, but I do believe fear is major contributing factor for many of them. Fear of success: What do I do now that I've "made it" and can I hang onto "it"? Fear of failure: If I try hard and fail will others think I'm a fool and will I hate myself for feeling like one? Fear of the unknown: I've never tried this before, so what's going to happen if I do try it? Regardless of whether your fear is tied to success, failure or the unknown, it's much less stressful to allow something to distract you from having to take that next scary step forward, isn't it!
Ladies (and I'm including myself here), it's time to wake up and recognize how fear is holding us back. As I wrote in my May blog, fear is false evidence appearing real. If we want to achieve our goals in life we need to recognize fear as an emotion which exists only in our imagination and that we have the ability to control how we think and feel and therefore how we cope with fear. Often the only difference between success and failure at something is the conscious choice not to let fear stop us from trying. Let's therefore consciously choose to conquer and vanquish fear so we are free to focus on becoming the successful and empowered women we were meant to be.
Here are some caveats to consider when identifying your intentions (i.e. setting goals) and paying attention to them.
- Make sure the goals you set hold meaning, relevance and interest for you. In other words, they need to be your goals and not somebody else's. It would be very difficult to constantly focus on something that was only of passing interest to you without feeling extremely bored after a while. Life's too short to be bored - feeling passionate about your goals will make life so much more exciting and fun, wouldn't you agree?
- Accept the fact that if you truly want something you are going to have to work for it. So many people I know are not willing to invest the time and effort required to earn what it is they want and instead look for a "quick fix". Bodybuilders take steroids, overweight women take diet pills, rich people try to buy love and loyalty, lazy students cheat on exams, and so on. These people may appear to enjoy instant success but in most cases it's only fleeting at best and not likely to be maintained. Why? Because deep down they know they haven't earned their rewards honestly and so don't feel they deserve them. Eventually they will sabotage their gains in order to purge themselves of the guilt associated with feeling like a fraud.
The other problem with steroids, diet pills and other quick fixes is that there is no such thing as no side effects. Whether the side effects are physical (as in the case of steroids or diet pills) or emotional (as in the case of cheating), they can be equally as destructive to your overall well being.
- Once you've identified your goals, don't allow yourself to be sidetracked by the endless choices in life. Instead of asking yourself "what do I feel like doing?", change your thoughts to "which choice will best help me achieve my goals in the long run?". Train yourself to automatically think in these terms so that over time good decision making will become second nature to you.
- Don't let fear hold you back, and learn to open yourself to all possibilities. It's amazing how creative we can be when our minds are not paralyzed by fear or limited by other preconceived notions about cause and effect and how things are supposed to be. Think about how small children use their imagination to create all kinds of wonderful stories and scenarios. That's because they have not yet been exposed to our adult way of thinking which is governed in large part by fear and rigidly defined ideas about the way life has to be. When your mind automatically says "no", learn to challenge it with "why not?"
The above is by no means an exhaustive list but it should provide you with some food for thought, which is exactly my intention.
Now it's your turn to think about your own intentions... and once you've done so don't forget to pay attention to them!
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CLOSE 2009 BLOGS
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With the end of 2008 fast approaching and the promise of a new year looming bright on our horizon, it somehow seems fitting to write my last blog of the year about closure and renewal.
Our past can either strengthen or destroy us, depending on how we allow past events to impact our lives. I'm sure all of us know someone who has been totally messed up by some traumatic event in their life that they haven't been able to successfully deal with and move on. But what we might not recognize (or want to admit) is that we ourselves are allowing negative incidents in our own past to control our ongoing thoughts and actions in some way, shape or form.
For example, it took me a long time to recognize that after living with an overly controlling partner for many years I developed a very defensive response to anyone who I perceived was trying to tell me what to do. As a result I was not open at all to advice, especially in the form of constructive criticism, and so missed many opportunities for growth in both my personal and professional lives. To this day I still get defensive and have to consciously control my instinctive desire to tell anyone trying to help me to mind their own business. But at least I've learned to recognize the problem and am working to overcome it.
Central to my unwillingness to accept criticism at any level, no matter how well intentioned, was a lot of subconscious anger and resentment about the way my ex controlled me through constant criticism and verbal manipulation. Recognizing the source of the anger and letting it go was very empowering because I was then free to choose whether or not to accept constructive criticism based on my perceived value of the criticism itself as opposed to my emotional response to it.
Over the years I've learned a few things about letting go of anger that I would like to present here as food for thought.
- It's very liberating to be able to say "it doesn't matter", and truly mean it. Many times I've heard my current partner state he doesn't care about something but I can tell from the tone of his voice that he certainly does! It's not enough to say it, you have to mean it. The best way I can think of to describe how you'll feel when you're there is a sense of indifference.
- Quite often the desire for revenge persists long after the person or event is gone from your life and this need for payback is what prevents us from being able to let the past go. But revenge is a double edged sword and it turns on those who wield it. The thirst for revenge consumes our thoughts and therefore prevents us from moving on with our lives. And the actual act, should we go through with it, brings us down to the level of the person who originally hurt us and makes us just as despicable, which we then have to live with.
- It takes a lot of energy to remain angry, which is a constant drain on your energy reserves. So along with indifference there is also a combined sense of relief and release as the anger dissipates, followed by a tranquility of spirit as you recognize that the person or event from your past no longer has power over you.
- There is a lot of talk out there about needing to forgive others in order to move on with your life. In some situations that might be true (who am I to argue with the experts?), but when someone has done something unforgivable, why on earth should you forgive them? Understanding and accepting that someone said or did something because they didn't know any better or weren't capable of doing anything different is not the same as forgiving, but it is a necessary part of coming to terms with an event so that you can let go of your anger and replace it with indifference.
- Instead of forgiving others, in many situations you need to forgive yourself for allowing someone to do something to you in the first place. Upon careful reflection, I've found that quite often my anger is more related to my own perceived weakness rather than towards the person who did me wrong. This is often the case whether it's reasonable to blame myself or not. After all, how can a child have the capacity to defend against an adult in a position of unilateral power, yet for years I was mad at myself for allowing my teacher to unfairly accuse me of not working to my full capability in gym class and threatening to fail me. But once I was able to forgive myself for bowing my head and enduring the constant harassment of nasty putdowns and threats without even trying to stand up for myself, a lot of emotional baggage fell away. Now when someone unfairly accuses me of something I can call them on it without letting pent up emotions from this past issue overwhelm me so that I am unable to think and speak objectively and therefore properly defend myself. (Prior to this "forgiving" moment, I would get extremely emotional if someone accused me of something that was untrue, and I'm sure the overreaction only served to confirm guilt in the eyes of my accuser. After all, why else would I get so upset and be so defensive if it wasn't true? My ex certainly used this particular weakness of mine to his advantage.)
- The greater the impact of an event on my life the harder it is to let go of the anger tied to it, but the greater the corresponding sense of release and freedom once I finally work through it. The deeper the scar, the deeper I need to look inside myself to find the hidden defenses I've put there as a coping mechanism and consequently the harder it is to admit I have an unresolved issue that needs to be dealt with regardless of how vulnerable it makes me feel. I've learned to recognize the instinctive denial that immediately follows an "ah-ha" moment of realization that there might be a problem is a key indicator there is indeed something there I need to deal with. I've also learned that all the many justifications I usually come up with to avoid the issue are really excuses for not moving on so that I can continue to wallow in self pity, regardless of whether the wallowing is on a conscious level or not.
- The bottom line is this: Shit happens to us and we need to get over it. How we let the shit affect us is our choice, even though it may not seem like it at the time. We can either choose to let past events cripple us emotionally or learn from these events and then let them go.
My first mid-life crisis referred to in my July blog was a major catalyst for the soul searching which eventually forced me to deal with my anger issues. As the saying goes, if you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got, and expecting anything different is ridiculous. My life was not heading in the direction I wanted and I needed to find out why. Learning to understand how anger related to unresolved past issues was making me a slave to my emotions and therefore limiting my options in life was key to getting my life back on track.
So as the current year draws to a close, I encourage you to reflect on your life to date and ask yourself what emotional baggage might be limiting your options in life and thus holding you back from being all you can be. I admit this is very hard to do because the behaviours we've developed to cope with our emotional baggage are deeply ingrained in our subconscious and therefore difficult to recognize. Our subconscious is always trying to protect us and the reason why we feel so unreasonably scared about dealing with our baggage is because our subconscious is doing its best to stop us from tearing down its careful defenses.
But even though it's hard to step out of your comfort zone, I encourage you to try. Understand you can't change the past, but you can choose to put it behind you. Maybe you can't forgive someone (you don't need to), but you need to stop letting their past actions affect you. Let go of anger or disappointment and free yourself from the emotional hold this person still has over you. Why continue to give them that kind of power over your life? They certainly don't deserve it.
Why not make 2009 your year of renewal through closure of unresolved past issues that are still negatively impacting your life? Renew your energy, enthusiasm and zest for life by letting go of anger and instead empowering yourself with more positive emotions and passion by celebrating all you are today and all that is possible for tomorrow.
I wish you peace, tranquility and happiness this holiday season and nothing but the very best life has to offer for 2009 and beyond.
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A dog thinks, "Wow, this is pretty good! I'm lucky these people like me and that they think I deserve to be treated like this. I sure hope I can continue to do things right so that they don't stop being nice to me."
A cat thinks, "Wow, this is pretty good! But then, why wouldn't these people like me? And I'm obviously doing things right, because they're treating me the way I want them to treat me, which is of course the way I deserve to be treated."
Our dog and our cat are obviously seeing things from two very different perspectives.
The dog, who believes she's lucky to be treated well and hopes her luck will continue, perceives she has limited control over her own destiny and through that belief effectively surrenders her control to other people. As a result, she will constantly look outside herself for validation so that any real sense of self worth she feels will largely depend on how much other people approve of how she looks, what she says or what she does.
The cat, who believes she's being treated exactly as she deserves to be treated, perceives she has much greater control over her own destiny so that her life circumstances will depend primarily on her own actions as opposed to either the benevolence or ill will of those around her. As a result, she will look inside herself for validation so that her sense of self worth is dependent primarily on how much she likes herself instead of how much other people like her.
I think all of us have been both a dog and a cat in various situations throughout our lives, dependent on our confidence and comfort level at the time. That's only natural and indeed sometimes when we'd like to be a cat we need to act like a dog in order to get what we want or need from someone.
But the problem with being a dog too often is that when your self worth is tied up in other people's opinions, you become caught in the trap of trying to constantly make everybody happy. We all know that while you can please some people some of the time, it's impossible to please all people all of the time. It can be quite stressful being caught in this no-win situation, particularly if you feel pressured to compromise your own principles to accommodate those of others.
When you surrender control of your life over to others, you no longer believe you control your own destiny. This can be a scary thing since you will then perceive that your success or failure in life is dependent on the goodwill of others. In trying to earn and maintain that goodwill, you are effectively serving the best interests of someone other than yourself who may not exactly have your best interests at heart. And the odds are you will never achieve your full potential as a person because you will be too busy helping everyone else achieve theirs.
So the bottom line is this:
- Learn to look inside yourself for validation. You're the one who has to live with yourself and so it's critically important you be the person you want to be as opposed to the person someone else wants you to be. That's because when you are the person you want to be, you will be truly happy to be you and then it won't matter what others think.
- Never surrender control of your situation to another person. Remember, you are ultimately responsible for your own actions, or lack thereof, so if you do what someone tells you to do and things don't turn out the way you want you have no one to blame but yourself. You know yourself best and therefore you are your own best judge of what's right for you. Trust your instincts.
- Believe in yourself and make sure others know it. Behaviour typically reflects one's level of self esteem and what you put out is generally reflected back at you. In other words, people tend to rise (or fall) to your expectations and so will treat you the way you feel you deserve to be treated.
On the flip side, there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to please other people. I'm certainly not suggesting that we all be selfish bitches and go through life pleasing only ourselves at the expense of those around us. What I am saying, though, is to be conscious of our motivation for pleasing others. Please others because you want to, not because you feel you need to in order to be an okay person.
There's a huge difference between wanting to please someone and needing to please someone which is not always easy to see. I think this is because particularly for women who have been socialized to be the nurturing, supportive sex, feeling the need to please can become habit without us even realizing it. And when we're not consciously aware of something, we are quite often not able to see how it is negatively affecting our lives.
Don't get me wrong. I absolutely adore my little Chihuahua, but when it comes to self esteem, cats rule and dogs drool!
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I have shared my home with multiple cats for many years and through observing them as they interact with me, their environment and each other, I've learned some valuable life lessons. While humans are definitely superior in terms of their ability to plan, reason, think in the abstract and understand complex ideas, when it comes to getting one's priorities straight and dealing effectively with life's daily challenges I would argue that cats are way smarter than we are.
Here's why.
Life Lesson #1: Remember to Live in the Now
My cats are very much focused on the present. Once they've finished their breakfast they saunter upstairs to take a nap rather than sit and stare at their empty food dish thinking about dinner. When they're in the mood to play, they play, when they're in the mood to sleep, they sleep, when they're in the mood to be cuddled they let me know in no uncertain terms, and when they're done cuddling, they're done.
So many of us, on the other hand, live for the tomorrow that often never comes - I'll feel better when I lose some weight, I'll take a vacation when I have more time, I'll spend time with my kids when work slows down a bit... In other words, we tend put off until tomorrow what we could and perhaps should be enjoying today.
I think most of us have a false sense of security about the passage of time and the constancy of our circumstances. Many of us therefore assume we have all the time in the world to enjoy ourselves later, after we've accomplished some predetermined goal that will supposedly make us happier and more fulfilled than we are right now. But time moves along much quicker than we realize when we're not paying attention to it and our life circumstances can change overnight. How many stories have you heard about this or that couple who worked hard, sacrificed and saved all their lives for a grand retirement, but then one or both were struck down by cancer, MS or some other disease?
Of course it goes without saying we all must consider our future and put some careful thought into planning for it. I'm certainly not advocating irresponsibility, but I am suggesting we need to find the right balance between living for today and planning for tomorrow. Life is full of uncertainty, so learn to appreciate what you have today because it could well be gone tomorrow.
There is a wonderful saying which I believe is taken from the final section of a passage written by Eleanor Roosevelt: Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery and today is a gift. That's why they call it the present.
Think about it and appreciate your "present" accordingly.
Life Lesson #2: Focus On What You Have Versus What You Don't Have
When my cats get into mischief (and they often do!) and I need to reclaim their latest "treasure", once they realize they're not getting it back they don't stamp their little paws and meow in frustration, they simply move on to something else. If they can't convince me that it's dinner time an hour earlier than usual they don't sit and pine away by their food bowl, instead they find something else to keep them occupied until Mommy says it's dinner time.
Many people I know spend far too much time and energy wanting more as opposed to appreciating what they have and the result is they are constantly tired, stressed, depressed and in poor health. Now as you should know by now, I always encourage people to want more for themselves and to actively pursue that which they want. However, the right mindset during pursuit is crucial to long term success, health and happiness.
Unhappy people tend to focus more on what they don't have (a negative, defeatist attitude) rather than on what they need to do in order to obtain what they want (a positive, proactive attitude). While we all tend to feel sorry for ourselves every once in a while, the "have" people will shrug off their temporary feelings of hopelessness and move forward, whereas the "have not" people tend to be overwhelmed and paralyzed by their sorrow. When two people are confronted by the same problem, their individual mindset ("have" versus "have not") will determine how well they cope with the situation.
Let me illustrate my point using an example I'm sure many people can relate to at some level.
Let's say you hate your job. I mean, you really hate it. You hate it so much that you dread going to bed on Sunday night because you know that when you wake up it will be Monday morning and the start of another work week. You're so miserable on the job you can barely be civil to your coworkers who then start to avoid you, which makes you feel isolated and more depressed than ever. You struggle to cope throughout the day and arrive home exhausted, barely able to feed yourself before collapsing in front of the television in a feeble attempt to distract yourself from the fact you have to do it all again tomorrow. Every once in a while you tell yourself you've got to get your act together and find another job, but the effort of putting together a resume and responding to the job postings is just too much for you to handle at the moment.
Constant negative stress is exhausting, and eventually it weakens and overwhelms both mind and body. When I was in a similar situation I should have found another job long before my family doctor suggested medication and perhaps some counseling to go with it. But all I could think of at the time was how horrible my situation was, which took away my ability to focus on changing it. (Fortunately hearing from my doctor that in his opinion I should be medicated shocked me into action and I was able to move on to a much happier situation.)
The above is a rather extreme example of negative, "have not" thinking, but I gave it to better illustrate my point, which is this. My "have not" attitude (I don't have a job I like) prevented me from appreciating what I had at the time, which was the ability to change my situation.
Maybe you don't have one big huge issue like that to deal with right now, but think for a moment about all the little things that you don't like about yourself or your life situation. How do you feel inside when you think about them? Tired, resigned and perhaps a little sad, or energetic, optimistic and looking forward to making positive changes?
Be aware that many small issues can add up to create just as much stress as one big issue and in some ways are more dangerous to health and happiness. It's easy to dismiss the smaller issues without realizing how much coping with all of them is adding to your stress levels and thus negatively impacting on your physical health and emotional well being.
There's a lot of talk by the "experts" these days about not sweating the small stuff, but I can't say I completely agree in all cases. While we shouldn't obsess about the small stuff (or the big stuff either!), I think we need to take a look at the small stuff and make the effort to change what we can, whether that be the situation itself or perhaps our attitude towards it. The peace of mind gained from fixing all the small stuff will make it easier to cope with the bigger stuff.
And when you catch yourself falling victim to a "have not" moment, start appreciating what you do have, which is the ability to change your situation.
Life Lesson #3: Don't Stress, Remove The Stressors
When the sun spot my cats are sleeping on begins to move across the living room, the cats move with it. And when my cats decide they've had enough cuddling for the moment, they get up and move out of arm's reach. My cats waste neither time nor energy trying to cope with stress unnecessarily; instead they simply remove the stressors.
And I suggest we humans learn to do the same.
For example, if the lunchroom discussion topics generally focus on this person's lousy attitude or that person's personal problems and you're tired of listening to the constant negativity, eat your lunch someplace else (or during a different time slot). If the crowded supermarket has you tired of bumping and banging grocery carts and constantly having to wait for people to move before you can add something to your cart, then rearrange your schedule to shop during a less busy time slot.
Before you accuse me of insulting your intelligence by stating the obvious, keep in mind that it's only obvious if you're aware of what's stressing you. I have to admit that more than once I've been guilty of coming home feeling somewhat "testy" and when my partner asked me what my problem was I've had to admit to myself that I really didn't know. This in turn was a little embarrassing which only fueled my irritation level so that I snapped back "Never mind. Just go away and leave me alone!"
Honestly, I think we can become so accustomed to being annoyed by one thing after another that after a while we stop recognizing life's little irritants and are no longer aware of what's really bothering us. All we know is that something or someone is getting on our nerves. If we aren't able to recognize the problem we aren't able to fix it, so that after a while feeling out of sorts can become such a habit that it starts to feel, well... normal.
My suggestion to you, then, is to first learn to recognize exactly what is bothering you and then for those situations you can control, remove the stressors. You obviously can't do too much about the jerk who cuts you off on the highway (unless you decide to get radical and take the bus) or the annoying gas station attendant who talks nonchalantly to his co-worker despite the long line up at the register when you're already running late for work. However, you can replace the battery in the cordless phone that never stays charged or oil the squeaky bathroom door that wakes you up in the night when your kids get up to use the washroom.
The advantages of removing those stressors you can do something about are twofold. First, you will certainly alleviate a portion of your current stress level, which is always a good thing. But more importantly, by doing so you will also feel you have a greater sense of control over your life, which will improve your self esteem and help make dealing with those stressors you can't control a little easier.
Life Lesson #4: Learn To Think Outside the Box
Because my cats live for the here and now and focus on what they have versus dwelling on what they don't, they have an insatiable, childlike curiosity for everything and how it could possibly be used for their own personal benefit. Cardboard boxes make great forts, stove tops make wonderfully cozy beds in the dead of winter when the oven is on, little Chihuahuas are fun to trap on the main staircase...
We humans, on the other hand, are so focused on planning for tomorrow how to get what we don't have today that we generally don't slow down long enough to objectively evaluate our circumstances and see how we can leverage them to our greatest benefit. Instead, much of the time we're on automatic and therefore recognize one course of action only, either because it's habit or because it's expected or because it's what your friends (or your parents) have always done.
The problem with that is when we have preset ideas of how things are, it closes us to the possibilities of how things could be and consequently potential opportunities are missed. A "no" is seen only as a "no" and not a potential "yes" down the road. A great investment is passed on because someone is so focused on having a certain sized home they don't recognize that location will provide an opportunity to flip within two years at a major profit. What could have been the love of one's life never materialized because an initial first impression did not fit a preconceived notion of what an ideal partner should be.
So slow down enough to start thinking outside the box. Get rid of the restrictive veil trapping your creativity and closing your mind to the exciting possibilities of what could be. A "no" can be a "yes"... later on down the road if you change your approach slightly and exercise a little patience. Your dream house can be bought and paid for sooner than you think... if you're able to envision a more creative means of paying for it. The love of your life could be right under your nose... if you stop looking in all the familiar places.
Valuable life lessons can be learned from anyone, anywhere - even your cats! - if you train your mind to look below the surface and see beyond the obvious. You don't necessarily need to look too deep or see too far; most times simplicity is right in plain sight once we train ourselves to recognize it.
Don't think that just because pampered house cats have less complicated issues to deal with that their lives are so much easier than ours. Yes, our duties and responsibilities are more complex, but so is our capacity to deal with them. My forty six years of living, with some parts of it more rocky than others, has taught me perhaps the most valuable life lesson of all: Life isn't all that complicated, we just make it that way.
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Whenever I've had a really bad day at the office I come home, hug my puppy and magically life is good again. One look into the adoring eyes of my little Chihuaua as we run through our usual "thank-goodness-mommy-is-home-joyful-reunion" routine is usually enough to put life back into perspective once again.
Anyone who has been fortunate enough to know the love of a cherished pet understands how good it feels to be loved unconditionally. For those who haven't, trust me, it truly is a wonderful feeling. But precisely because it is such heady stuff, the concept of unconditional love has been romanticized and idealized so much within our society that I believe its true meaning has become lost in the shallow rhetoric of Hollywood. The result is a somewhat vague and superficial "universal" definition we all accept without question and it goes something like this: "Unconditional love means accepting someone for who they are with all their faults and flaws, and loving them anyway."
But does it, really? Not according to my dog.
Acceptance is part of unconditional love, to be sure, but to me acceptance in this context is a somewhat passive exercise which also implies a certain flavour of resignation. If Chiquita (my Chihuahua) could speak, I'm sure she would say that unconditional love is not passive acceptance, it's active celebration. My dog spins in circles, wiggles her body and wags her tail madly as she whines and yips happily to let me know in no uncertain terms she loves me actively, without reservation, and her spontaneous dances of joy are a celebration of that love. I myself get such a kick out of responding with my own little dance and silly love-words I'm not sure whether it's more pleasurable to be on the giving or the receiving end of unconditional love.
But to be on the giving end, I truly believe we first need to love ourselves unconditionally before we can give unconditional love to others. This is because we can only give what we have inside us to give, and what we have inside us is influenced by how we feel about ourselves.
If my feeling good about myself is conditional on me looking or behaving a certain way, I constantly have to do certain things I may not really feel like doing to avoid feelings of depression or guilt. This is a no win situation - if I don't do what I'm supposed to do I'll feel guilty, but if I do it when I don't want to I'll feel resentful. The inner turmoil this kind of conflict produces can be very stressful and draining so that eventually I hardly have any energy left to care for myself, let alone other people. Over the long term my health will start to suffer so that I become even more drained and it becomes harder and harder to do the things I have to do in order to feel good about myself. So then I feel worse, get even more stressed, my health further suffers... and my life really sucks whichever way I look at it.
While the preceding might sound rather extreme, the key point I'm trying to make is that conditional love will produce negative emotions and stress to varying degrees, depending on each person's personality type and personal situation. The stress will be there, but some people are just better at coping with it than others.
Have you ever had to deal with someone, either a family member or a work colleague, who always seems to find fault with what you do so that you instinctively know you'll never be able to please them? Have you ever felt so frustrated by their unreasonableness you just wanted to shake some sense into them? Well ladies, let's give ourselves a shake, because that's what we do to ourselves when we place conditions on whether or not we can love ourselves. The nature of conditional love is that while there will be occasional successes, over the long run no one will ever measure up. No wonder so many of us are stressed out!
Unconditional love, on the other hand, creates inner peace and tranquility of spirit. Think back to a moment when you felt really good about yourself, perhaps after a major accomplishment. Remember how the positive energy flowed through you so that you were fully charged up and ready to take on the world? Wouldn't it be great to feel like that all the time? Well, by learning to love yourself unconditionally, you can!
To start, let's look at what loving yourself unconditionally means. I believe it's an active celebration, without reservation, of all that you are balanced along side a personal commitment to be all you can be.
While the concept of "unconditional" implies "acceptance", unconditional love is not about "accepting yourself with all your faults and weaknesses". That type of acceptance is a defeatist attitude that flies in the face of being all you can be. It's because you love yourself that you owe it to yourself to not accept anything less from you than your best, so that you can feel happy and fulfilled as you enjoy life's blessings to the fullest, each and every day. In other words, if there's something about yourself you don't like, you owe it to yourself to at least try to change it.
Though many of us might agree to this concept in principle, it's very hard to put into practice because of our "conditional" way of thinking: "Because I'm not this, I don't deserve to be happy." And yet if we loved ourselves unconditionally, our approach would be more like: "Because I deserve to be happy, I will work towards being this." Can you see the difference in attitude and overall level of happiness these two mindsets would create?
With unconditional love, we still acknowledge our weaknesses but instead of living with them (in varying degrees of shame or disappointment) we actively work to overcome them. Doing so develops self respect so that we do feel we deserve all the good things in life. And this, ladies, is what empowering ourselves is all about!
While we can't suddenly snap our fingers and say "okay, now I'm going to love myself unconditionally", we can all work to get there by learning to recognize our negative "conditional" thought patterns and consciously working to change them into positive "unconditional" ones. It's been my experience that this is a hit and miss process, where one day I'm "on" and one day I'm not. But looking back over the past months, I do believe the number of "on" days are increasing at a reasonably steady rate. So while I'm not there yet, I have tasted the sweetness of success and I'm determined to dine on it exclusively at some point very soon.
My occasional flashes of insight as I grow closer to attaining the state of unconditional love, or "the zone" as I affectionately like to think of it, have shown me the true magic of this type of love is because it's there no matter what, it's also limitless with unlimited potential. The more I experience it the greater it grows. I now have so much more inside of me to give, not only to myself but also to those around me.
This leads me to the concept of unconditional love for another person, which I would define as follows: An active celebration, without reservation, of all that they are balanced along side a personal commitment to help them be all they can be. The actual degree of commitment depends on how close the person is to you. For your partner or your children, it's going to be a very high level commitment. For an acquaintance, your commitment will obviously be a lot less.
Active celebration involves making sure the other person feels appreciated for who they are each and every day. It also includes taking the time to tell someone you care, whether they're your life partner or simply a friend. Those who you love unconditionally should never have to question for even a minute your degree of caring and loyal support.
Many of us are afraid to share these types of feelings with other people because we're afraid of being hurt. Yes, rejection is always a risk but hey, life is full of risks and without risk there can be no reward. It's been my experience that people who are incapable of expressing affection to those closest to them are generally very lonely individuals. Personally, I'd rather risk rejection than being lonely.
Besides, if you think about it, you will see that those who fear rejection do so because they give their love conditionally - i.e. they have an expectation they will be loved in return. But unconditional love places no expectations on another person. Yes, it would be a nice bonus to be loved in return, but whether that happens or not will not affect how you feel about someone when you truly do love them unconditionally.
Helping someone to be all they can be means supporting their hopes, dreams and desires actively and unconditionally, just as we would our own, regardless of whether you see value in them or not. What's important is that they hold value for your loved one; it's not about you and what you value, it's about respecting and supporting another person's values.
For example, say your husband announces he wants to learn to play the guitar. You have no interest in music and therefore from your perspective it's a frivolous waste of time, particularly since you'd much rather see him doing some long overdue repair work around the house. Besides, the awful sounds coming from the guitar as he struggles to learn the proper chording is quite frankly driving you nuts.
Although you might be tempted to tell your husband to put down the guitar and pick up the paint brush, if playing guitar truly is important to him should you not respect and support his desire to learn? Allow him his practice time; go meet a friend for coffee if you can't stand the noise. (Or buy him guitar lessons as a birthday gift so he starts sounding better sooner rather than later.)
Or, say your husband hates his job and wants to change professions. It will require some retraining and there's no guarantee he'll make as much money right away, but he's quite certain he'll be much happier following this alternate career path. You make enough money to compensate for the short term, which means now is a good time to make the change. So actively support your loved one by allowing him the time he needs to study even if it means temporarily giving up some of the activities you normally enjoy with him, encourage him when he experiences self doubt and make sure he knows that whatever happens, he has your full support.
That being said, unconditional love is not about supporting someone blindly. If you have a valid concern, you do need to point it out, but in a supportive way. Let's say you and your husband-who-hates-his-job-and-wants-to-change-professions have a baby on the way and financial security is (understandably) on your mind. Rather than tell him to forget about changing jobs because of his current financial obligations, you might try sitting down with him to work out a budget and retraining/job search timeline you can both live with.
Once you evaluate the minimum income needed to adequately run your household and properly care for a new baby, you may be surprised to learn that it's doable if certain small sacrifices are made. Or it may be that once your husband sees on paper that what he wants to do is not financially possible at the present time, he decides to postpone his plans. Wouldn't he feel much better about putting his dreams on hold temporarily if he felt the choice had been his to make and knowing that either way you were in his corner?
I'm sure you can see how all this active celebration of another's individuality and an ongoing commitment to helping them achieve their full potential would be very draining if you weren't able to draw upon the unlimited energy of unconditional love. That's why it's so important to learn to love yourself first; when you do so you will be better able to give those you care about the ongoing love and support they deserve to receive from you.
Maybe you don't love yourself unconditionally today, but the good news is the capability to do so tomorrow exists within each and every one of us and we owe it to ourselves to find it. Doing so will empower us to recognize our unlimited greatness potential and then strive to be all we can be, because we'll intuitively recognize that anything else would be selling ourselves short.
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Frankly, I've lost count of the number of times I've been told "Why on earth would you want to pump heavy weights? It's so unfeminine for a woman to have muscles!"
Yeah, whatever. There's a lot more to being a woman than worrying about my femininity, or so I was raised to believe.
Like exploring the many possibilities life has to offer with an open mind and a keen enthusiasm. Like pursuing what interests you in the hopes of developing a passion. Like finding out what you're made of and then challenging yourself to push the envelope that much further. Like learning to believe in yourself when others don't and discovering your true potential is so much greater than what you had previously thought. Like learning to embrace and accept your true self with all your faults and weaknesses. Like taking responsibility for all that you are and all that you could be. Like finding the courage to do what you want rather than what everyone else expects you to do.
For it is only then that you can truly proclaim: "I am woman, hear me roar!"
Bodybuilding may be an untraditional sport for women but fortunately times are changing, because the sport of bodybuilding can help anyone, man or woman, accomplish all of the above.
First of all, weightlifting is a true test of mind over matter, because let's face it, exercise of any type is uncomfortable and the mind will come up with all sorts of excuses for the body to stop. The key to success, for both bodybuilding and life in general, is to develop enough focus and discipline to ignore these excuses and keep on going. If you can stick to it long enough, then you will develop enough strength and conditioning so that your current workout pace is no longer all that uncomfortable.
However, to make serious gains in bodybuilding, as with any other significant goal, as soon as you reach your comfort zone you need to increase your intensity so that the workout again becomes an uncomfortable experience. Once you accomplish this a number of times, you start to realize that focus and discipline will provide the necessary tools to achieve just about anything you want in life, as long as you remain disciplined and focused on your target.
But sooner or later in bodybuilding, as in life, you will encounter personal limitations that slow or halt your progress. This could be due to injury, lack of flexibility, inadequate knowledge or a missing skill. At some point you will be forced to accept your limitations with the realization you have two options; you can either give up your dream or learn to work around the limitations. The decision not to quit despite your frustration and disappointment reaffirms your belief you can do anything you want to do, which further builds your self confidence and self respect.
This in turn gives you the courage to ignore the pooh-poohs from others who tell you you'll never get muscles because you're not genetically gifted that way or that you'll never accomplish "this" goal because of "that" limitation. And because you've learned so much about yourself and what you are capable of doing, you now start to realize that what these people are telling you is simply the excuse they use to justify their own lack of accomplishment.
The experience of working out at a more serious level has shown me what I am really made of. Learning to push beyond the envelope and past the limiting constraints of fear and self doubt has taught me I am capable of so much more than I previously thought. This realization has been a real confidence builder... and a significant source of self satisfaction, self respect, self confidence and a much improved sense of self worth.
The lesson you can take from this is to find a passion and pursue it wholeheartedly and without reservation. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it challenges you to continually strive for improvement and pushes you to attain that next level of competency. Eventually you will face a limitation, overcome it and grow exponentially as a result.
This is the process through which we discover our true potential.
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When was the last time you sat down to formally re-assess what it is you want out of life and rework your Master Plan to get it? How often do you evaluate your recent accomplishments and current situation to ensure you're still on track with your current Master Plan?
Do you even have a Master Plan? If not, you're not alone. Most people I know don't have a Master Plan, other than to perhaps find a better paying job, or maybe pay their bills at the end of the month and still have something left over for their vacation fund (or home renovations, or their child's education, or car repairs, or... you get the point.) Their Master Plan, if you can call it that, tends to change as often as the weather, because it's influenced by their current situation which is constantly changing. That's because they allow the situation to control them rather than work to control the situation.
I think most of us start out with an idea of what we want to achieve in life, but at some point along the way life just happens and we get sidetracked from our original purpose. Sometimes that turns out to be a good thing. But many times it doesn't, and sooner or later we start feeling like we're out of control and missing something, but we're not sure what. It's called "mid-life crisis" (although it can happen at any point in life and generally more than once) and it can make us do stupid things we come to regret later on. (You know, like purchasing too many too expensive outfits because doing so makes us temporarily feel better, or springing for the totally-beyond-budget facelift because we believe if we look younger our lives will somehow be better, or ending a solid relationship because we're convinced it's someone else's fault we're not happy and then jumping into the big mistake one-night-stand that seemed a great idea at the time ... you get my point.)
Having a Master Plan isn't crucial to happiness and fulfillment, but consider this: if you don't think about what is that that will make you truly happy and then put a specific plan in place to achieve your happiness, odds are life's daily demands and distractions will lead you to a place you'd rather not be. You'll plod through your same daily routine, going through the motions without giving it much thought because "that's what you do". You'll make decisions based on short term gratification rather than long term gain. On the surface everything will seem fine until one day you wake up and realize that because you've been on automatic pilot for so long you no longer know who you are or what you want and poof: instant mid-life crisis!
My first (and by far the worst!) mid-life crisis happened the year I turned 29. On the surface everything was going well in my life - I had a challenging job I enjoyed and which paid quite well, I owned my own home and I was in what appeared to be a good, solid relationship with a supportive partner. We got along wonderfully and did everything together - went out for dinner several times a week, enjoyed all inclusive winter holidays in the south and took in movies, concerts and live plays on a regular basis. Overall my financial future seemed secure, my career path appeared solid and in general life was pretty rosy. Until my 29th birthday rolled around...
The key trigger for my first mid-life crisis was the concept of being "almost thirty" because at some deep subconscious level thirty signaled both the end of my youthful era and the start of a new and as yet unknown stage in my life. It also forced me to acknowledge the concept of aging and confront the reality of my own mortality. So while I was mourning the loss of my youth a nagging voice inside my head was telling me "Your twenties are almost over and what have you truly accomplished over the past 10 years? You don't have unlimited amounts of time left to make your mark, you know".
It was a fair question, and one I couldn't honestly answer. Sure, I had material possessions I could line up and assign dollar values to, but doing so didn't provide any sense of personal satisfaction or accomplishment. In fact, trivializing the worth of my life and me as a person into a simple dollar value only made me feel worse.
I felt I was drifting aimlessly in an empty and therefore useless existence. I refused to believe that this was all there was to life and I most definitely wanted more, but in brutal honesty I had absolutely no idea what it was that I wanted. As time rolled by I sank into a deepening depression fueled in large part by the sad realization I was unable to define exactly what was making me so unhappy. It was six long months before I finally sank low enough that there was no place left to go but up. So one morning I decided enough was enough, got up off my sorry butt, made some positive changes in my life and moved on.
In working through my own personal "issues", I learned a number of valuable lessons I'd like to share with you:
1. You need to live the life that's right for you, not the one you think you're supposed to live.
Often in life we choose to do things because it makes someone else happy and there's certainly nothing wrong with that... on occasion. But many women (and men) live their entire lives this way, often without realizing it. They start out in life wanting to please parents and perhaps teachers, and then partners and even society in general (i.e. woman are supposed to do this or think that). After a while making decisions based on other people's expectations becomes a totally unconscious behavior, and they're not even aware their choices are not their own. Instead, their choices are based on what they think others want them to do as opposed to what would truly make them happy.
Imagine yourself near the end of your life (perhaps cuddled up in a rocking chair with your favourite cat) telling your grandchildren "I lead a fulfilled life because...". If you can't fill in the blank with any sense of conviction or satisfaction then perhaps it's time to rethink your current life situation and figure out what it is that will truly make you happy (as opposed to other people telling you what's supposed to make you happy).
2. No one will understand how you're feeling unless they've been there themselves, so don't expect any sympathy from others.
I think one of the harder parts of any "mid-life crisis" is understanding and accepting the fact that others don't understand what you're going through and they therefore resent what they perceive as selfish behavior. After all, your ongoing unhappiness is affecting your relationship with them. Particularly if your relationship has been one of subservience (i.e. you are always quick to do whatever is requested or expected of you as the "good daughter", the "good wife" or the "good employee"), others are going to object that you're not your usual accommodating self.
Odds are if you try to speak to those who are closest to you, you'll be met with surprise and perhaps righteous indignation or outright hostility. The partner whom I thought was so supportive turned on me for being so selfish, telling me he didn't understand what I thought my problem was. I was shocked by the depth of his hostility and felt deeply betrayed by it, which further compounded my confusion and intensified my inner turmoil. Even though I eventually worked things out my partner never fully forgave me and we eventually split. In my situation that was a good thing, but for others it may not be.
I believe the key reason for lack of understanding and support is the inability to clearly define the problem. In a true mid-life crisis one knows she is desperately unhappy but is unable to clearly define what is required to change the way she feels. Quite often when trying to explain what she's feeling to those closest to her, they become defensive because they believe she's somehow blaming them for her unhappiness.
Instead of receiving understanding and support while she works through her situation, she's told to stop being so childish and selfish. She may be pressured to be "realistic" and accept her situation like the mature adult she's supposed to be. The last thing anyone needs during a time of intense emotional crisis is a guilt trip, which will make an emotionally turbulent inner crisis feel even worse.
So if you should find yourself going through your own mid-life crisis, pick your confidants carefully. I highly recommend you choose someone who is somewhat removed from the situation so they can provide a more objective perspective.
3. NEVER lose touch with your own sense of identity.
You are an individual, not just someone's partner, or someone's mother, or someone's whatever. You have hopes, dreams and needs that are different from your partner's or your child's or your whatever's and these need to be acknowledged and validated as YOURS.
I've found both through personal experience and by sharing confidences with others that denying the above can eventually lead to problems. We can deny our own wants and needs for only so long before underlying resentment starts affecting our relationships with those closest to us. Many times this resentment is completely unconscious and so we are not aware of subtle changes in our feelings or actions until something significant occurs to draw our attention to it. By that time we may have said or done things that can not easily be undone and relationships are irreparably damaged.
Discovering and maintaining our own separate identity helps us feel more in control of our lives and more confident and happy about ourselves. It helps provide a sense of purpose, direction and overall centeredness. This in turn allows us to be better partners or mothers or whatevers. And don't those we care about deserve the very best we can give them?
4. Things have a way of working out - so don't do anything rash!
If while reading this essay you say to yourself "that's me to a T and I need to make some major changes in my life", don't make any hasty decisions you may later regret. Instead, take the time to carefully think things through.
All decisions and behaviours have consequences, so you need to carefully evaluate all possible outcomes of a decision to make sure you can live with whatever happens. It's only natural that when you've been unhappy for any length of time and you see potential light at the end of a tunnel you want to race towards it no holds barred. But trust me, sometimes the light at the end of that particular tunnel is an illusion, so having the patience to properly evaluate illusion from reality pays off in the end.
So now back to your Master Plan. There are many ways to develop a Master Plan, but here is one suggested approach:
- Summarize where you want to be five years from now in as much detail as possible. List what you want to be doing in terms of both your personal and professional life, where you want to be living, the type of people you want to be around, how you wish to spend your leisure time, the type of person you would like to be, how you would want others to describe you. Identify your ideal lifestyle - your dream home, your dream car, your dream relationship, etc.
- Ask yourself why you want the things you do. Think carefully about your answers and be as honest as you can with yourself. Sometimes our motivations are not as straightforward as they appear. For example, some women might say they want a large home for financial security, but if they did some soul searching they might discover their true motivation is their own personal insecurity (i.e. others will think more of them if they can display the trappings of material success). Or it could be their reason for wanting a larger home is because that's what society tells them they're supposed to want. Once they become aware of this they are then able to make decisions more appropriate for them - perhaps they'll choose to purchase a smaller home that's easier to clean and take extended annual vacations instead.
- Once your soul searching is complete, repeat step 1.
- List in as much detail as possible what steps you need to take to get to where you want to be. Include a detailed timeline that's realistic for your circumstances.
- Determine who you need to negotiate with (i.e. your partner, your children, your employer) to get to where you want to be. We don't live in a vacuum and any decisions we make will therefore affect those around us. Anticipate any resistance you might encounter and think carefully about how to negotiate buy-in. For example, if you need to go back to school to get the better paying job you want but your family doesn't want to sacrifice their time with you, they might be more supportive if you promised them an annual trip to Disneyland to be funded through your increased salary.
- Carefully evaluate the importance of each item listed in your Master Plan and ask yourself how much you're willing to sacrifice to obtain each of your goals. In some cases negotiation may not produce a successful compromise and you'll be forced to make some hard choices. You need to decide in advance just how far you're willing to push and whether you're prepared to accept the consequences. For example, suppose your partner gets his back up and tells you "it's my way or the highway". Do you pack up and leave, do you back off completely, or do you back down temporarily and give further thought to how you can achieve your goal through an alternate route, even if it means putting your plans temporarily on hold? Anticipating these things in advance allows you to negotiate from a position of greater strength since you're not caught off guard by an unexpected twist in the negotiation process.
Once your Master Plan is complete, don't just set it aside and forget about it. Review your Plan regularly to ensure you remain on track. Record your accomplishments as you progress towards your main goals to help keep you focused and motivated.
Your Master Plan should be completely re-evaluated every few years, because as we grow and change our Plan should reflect this. Let's face it, none of us are (or will be) the same person at 40 that we were at 20. Additional life experience changes our perspective on life, which influences our values and therefore what we expect and want for ourselves.
Developing a Master Plan does not guarantee success in achieving one's goals in life, but it's a great start. The rest, for better or for worse, is up to us. Many years ago as a teenager I read a line in a motivational text attributed to Napolean Hill which had a profound effect and so I've never forgotten it. I'd like to share it with you now, as I think it's a particularly appropriate parting thought.
"Whatever the mind of man (or in this case, woman) can conceive and believe, it can achieve."
So ladies: conceive, believe and then go for it!
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For better or for worse, none of us live in a vacuum so every interaction with someone else affects us in some form or another. Keep in mind it also affects them as well.
This means we need to think carefully about how we represent ourselves to the rest of the world. Rightly or wrongly, it's human nature to be extremely judgmental, because people tend to categorize and compartmentalize in order to provide a semblance of logic and order in their lives to better cope with the world around them. So within a few seconds, sometimes even before we get the opportunity to open our mouths to say hello, a person has judged and labeled us and already determined not only whether they are going to like us or not but also how they are going to treat us. And once someone has made up their mind about us, it's extremely difficult to change it.
While this might not sound very fair, it is reality and we do need to deal with it. We can understand, accept and work with it or we can ignore it completely. Choose whichever alternative you believe is right for you, but understand both have consequences.
If you believe that people should accept you for who you are and so you're not about to change the way you are for anyone, that's your right and I'm certainly not going to think badly of you for feeling that way. However, should I meet you on the street I will make judgments about you based on our initial interaction. I can't help it. Whether I want to or not, I have to evaluate you at some level in order to figure out how best to relate to you. And I have to do that quickly. And I'm going to do it based on my own personal life experience which might be radically different from yours. And that means I may see you completely different from how you see you.
And that's exactly the point I'm trying to make here. People don't deliberately judge other people because they're nasty or snobby, they're simply trying to make logical assumptions from their perspective in order to better cope with life, and with you.
I'm not suggesting that we should all be working to somehow manipulate people into liking us. Remember, in last month's blog I stated that greatness is all about being yourself while being true to yourself and making no apologies to anyone for it. You can't please everyone in this world, so don't waste your energy trying. Instead, focus on making a genuine connection with everyone you meet so that they can decide for themselves whether or not they like you. Odds are that once people sense your honesty and genuineness, more will like you than not.
I'm not talking about being pretentious or putting on airs. We've all met people like this and know that they're not pleasant to be around. I'm talking about communicating to others in a language they can relate to and therefore interpret correctly. In fairness to both parties, someone should be deciding whether they like you or not and how they want to treat you based on factual information about who you truly are.
This means you need to think carefully about how you present yourself to the world. If you want others to respect and admire what you stand for, it's your responsibility to make them understand who you are. Most of the time others won't bother to look past their initial impressions about you because they're busy people and it's just not that important to them. That can cost us.
I'd like to share a story with you to better make my point. A few years ago I met and hired Scott Abel, a highly reputed and extremely successful strength and conditioning coach, to help me out in the gym. (I do some amateur bodybuilding to stay fit and healthy but do not compete.) I felt extremely fortunate that such a successful man, who has coached hundreds of professional bodybuilders to first place finishes on the bodybuilding circuit and helped many of them turn pro, would take the time to work with me and so naturally I wanted to make a good impression on him.
But when I went to his home office for my first assessment, I received a rude awakening. Scott came right out and told me that I obviously lacked self confidence and that I should take better care of myself, i.e. dress a little better and wear some makeup so that I didn't look so "mousy". I was shocked and I left there devastated that someone I had put on a pedestal thought I was such a loser.
I certainly didn't see myself as mousy, then or now, but when I stopped to think about it in all honesty I could see where Scott was coming from. I don't wear make up to the gym and I do dress pretty sloppily - baggy pants and a loose fitting T-shirt. So from the perspective of someone who has spent their entire professional life in an industry where appearance means everything, I guess I would appear to be someone who lacked self esteem and self respect. Scott had never seen me leave the gym in my business suit with hair and makeup just so, so how would he know that my sloppy appearance was limited to the gym and a few stops I might make on the way home from the gym on a Saturday or Sunday morning.
What Scott maybe didn't stop to think about before forming his opinion about me was that first, I arrive at the gym during the week at 4:30 in the morning (I start work at 8:00 am and have an hour's commute prior to that) which often is a struggle and I simply can't afford the lost sleep to get up half an hour earlier to primp before coming to the gym. Second, I'm there to work out and I don't want to bother worrying about hair and make up being out of place or adjusting clothes that don't fit right. I wear loose fitting clothes because I hate the sticky feeling I get when wet clothes are glued to my body. It's distracting and then all I want to do is have a shower to get rid of that gross feeling. Loose clothing helps remove the sweat from my body and keep it off my skin.
But what if Scott had been a prospective employer who happened to work out at the same gym at the same time, or if I were single, some hot guy that I really wanted to meet? Obviously I'd never get the job, or the date, and therefore miss out on a fantastic opportunity. So Scott taught me a valuable lesson - people will assume something they see in one aspect of your life applies to your entire life; therefore you need to be sure you are presenting a consistent message about who you are all of the time.
If any of you are wondering how I resolved the inconsistent message I was sending about myself, after careful consideration I decided not to change the way I dressed for the gym. As part of my own personal greatness definition, I see myself as someone who trains seriously at the gym, and for me personally (others may not see it this way and that's totally fine) this means prioritizing comfort over appearance so that I can better focus on the business at hand.
However, now when I stop off at the grocery store or anywhere else on the way home from the gym I make it a point to look the cashier directly in the eye, smile warmly and tell him or her "Good morning. Please excuse my appearance, but I've just come from the gym and wanted to stop off quickly to pick this up on my way home to save time." The immediate change in attitude is quite apparent. Their smile instantly grows warmer and their stance becomes much more relaxed.
I hope this personal example has helped clarify my point, which is this: you have every right to be who you want to be and to communicate who you are to others in whatever manner you choose, but you have to understand and accept there are consequences for whatever choices you make. If you don't think carefully about the type of message you wish to send to others and modify your words or actions accordingly, you may not get treated the way you want to be treated.
If you know who you are and you're clear on how you want others to see you, sending the right message is not that difficult. Just be conscious about how the message you're sending might be interpreted by the receiver based on who they are and focus on how to send the message in a language they will understand and interpret in the way you mean it.
This might sound complicated at first, but it's really not. The simple rule to remember is that when it comes to communicating effectively, it stops being all about you and becomes being all about the other person. This is not dishonest or manipulative, it's simply reaching out to someone using a language they can relate to. It's about being considerate of them, rather that being a lazy communicator who forces the other person to fill in the blanks.
It's your responsibility to get your correct message across and if it doesn't come across in the manner you intended it's no one's fault but your own. It's certainly not the other person's fault. Understanding and accepting this is the necessary first step to honing your communication skills, which are critical if you want to do well in life. (Because strong communication skills are such an important component of self-empowerment, how to communicate effectively will be further addressed in future blogs and also elsewhere on the site.)
Learning from your mistakes is also important. So next time someone surprises you by saying they believe something about you that just isn't true, rather than get angry and defensive ask them why they think that way. Sometimes it's beyond your control, but if it's something you've said or done then take the time to clarify the misunderstanding and make sure you don't repeat the same mistake with someone else down the road.
Bottom line: You have a lot more control than you might think over how others perceive you and (therefore) over how they are going to treat you. Whether you find this intimidating or empowering is your choice.
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I believe that within every woman lies the innate ability to be great. To me, being great means being yourself... to the power of 10. It means understanding and being totally comfortable with who you are. It means knowing what you want from life and having the courage and the confidence to go out and get it. It means allowing the true you to shine forth with pride and dignity for all the world to appreciate.
In other words, being great means being yourself, but more importantly, being all you can be. It means tapping into your full potential in all aspects of your life, so that you are a well rounded, well adjusted, happy and complete person who wakes up every morning eagerly anticipating what the day will bring.
So how does one tap into their "greatness" potential? First, you need to define exactly what greatness means to you and then, equally as important, communicate this effectively to others. There will be more about communicating your greatness in next month's blog, but for now I would like to focus on defining greatness.
To me, the quintessential definition of greatness is waking up each morning, looking into the mirror and truly liking and respecting who you see. As far as I'm concerned, you really can't get much greater than that.
Who you see (or aspire to see) will be different for each individual, which is as it should be. We're all unique, and that uniqueness is a big part of what makes us so great. So our individuality needs to be respected, nurtured and celebrated.
And how does one do that? I think it all starts with first identifying and acknowledging all our good points so that we can see for ourselves that we truly are worthy individuals. The next step is to identify those things about ourselves that we don't like and commit to changing them. Not a half-hearted, pretend commitment, but a 100% true and all-the-way commitment. These two tasks are both essential for developing self respect.
Next we need to identify the type of person we want to be and develop our Master Plan to become that person. (Refer to my July blog for more on developing your Master Plan.) Actually putting our plan in motion is the nurturing process. This is where we will take time out for us in order to develop the knowledge and skills required to achieve all the things listed on our Master Plan.
For example, say you want to be the type of person who can walk into a room full of strangers and engage anyone in small talk without effort. If you're totally tongue tied around strangers right now, you've obviously got some work to do. That may include developing a list of conversation starters you're comfortable with, learning to keep yourself up to date on current events (so you can talk intelligently and therefore with confidence about them if someone else brings them up), and practicing your conversational skills in non-threatening environments to build your confidence.
The nurturing process requires patience, perseverance, and is not easy. Fear and self doubt, if you let them, will chip away at your resolve until you give up and revert back to your old (i.e. comfortable and therefore safe) ways.
But if you are determined enough, you can face your fears and your self doubts and evolve past them. Everyone experiences fear at some point or another, and often the only difference between those who succeed and those who fail at their endeavors is the successful person feels the fear and does it anyway while the person who fails allows fear to stop them from trying.
I recently came across a great acronym for FEAR: False Evidence Appearing Real. (Unfortunately I can't remember my source so I'm unable to give proper credit to the author.) Obviously this doesn't apply to a true physical danger - if someone is waving a gun in your face you've every right to pee your pants. But if you're letting your imagination convince you that all kinds of horrible things will happen if you step outside your comfort zone, then it's time to get your imagination under control and start using it to work for you, rather than against you.
Whenever I start to get that panicky feeling in a new situation, I use my imagination to visualize a successful outcome and how good I'm going to feel once I accomplish my goal. This makes my fear disappear because human beings can't experience both positive and negative emotions simultaneously. Try it and you'll see what I mean. (Of course we can always flicker back and forth between the two emotions, so the trick is to hold onto your positive thoughts and not give negative thoughts any opportunity to pop into your head.)
The good news about fear is that once you get used to moving past it, the process of dealing with fear grows easier over time because the intensity of the emotion lessens when we learn through experience that our fears can't either hurt us or stop us unless we choose to let them.
If you truly want to accomplish something but the thought of even trying really does terrify you, my advice is to break your ultimate goal into smaller, less threatening "sub-goals" and tackle each smaller goal one at a time. As you accomplish each goal your confidence will increase so that one success will lead to another and as your confidence grows the entire process will start to snowball.
To use our small talk example, don't start by attending some important event where you have a lot to lose if you don't perform as expected; that puts way too much pressure on you and who needs that? Instead, go down to mall and start chatting with sales clerks - they're paid to be polite so there's only a very small risk of rejection. Once you're comfortable with that, try starting a conversation with the person behind you in a grocery store line up. That's a bit more challenging because they don't have to be polite and in many cases are not interested in chatting with strangers. If you turn it into a game of "I'm going to get this person to smile no matter how miserable they are" it can be quite fun, and when you're having fun the situation is much less threatening. (I know - I've tried it.)
As another example, say you want to lose 30 lbs. To set a goal of 30 lbs may not be wise since it will take a while to get there and many people could become frustrated and give up long before then. Instead, it's better to set an initial weight loss goal of 5 lbs and then once you succeed give yourself a pat on the back and plan to lose another 5 lbs. The smaller increments will result in greater likelihood of success which will inspire you to keep on going because you know you can do it.
As you start making positive changes in your life and are feeling better about yourself, it becomes increasingly important to remain focused. Often we get too "comfortable" with where we are and this slows or can even stop our journey of self exploration and self development. Some people would argue that's not a problem since they now feel good where they are. I would never pass judgment on these people because only they have the right to decide how to live their lives, but I would ask them to think about why they're content to settle for "good" when they were already well on their way to "great".
I see the nurturing part of self development as a long term, lifetime commitment, since as we mature what we want for ourselves will change and we need to change along with that. Some might complain that sounds like a whole lot of work, but I think this is one of the best things about aspiring for greatness - whenever we feel like we're getting stuck in a rut we get to rework our definition of greatness and then redefine ourselves in the process. How cool is that?
Equally important to respecting and nurturing yourself is celebrating who you are each and every day. You've identified the type of person you want to be and are taking positive steps to become that person, which is marvelous thing. So many others out there don't have the strength, the courage or the determination to do what you're doing. You are therefore very special and you need to appreciate that about yourself.
Celebrating your greatness means enjoying who you are each and every day and feeling good about yourself in each and every situation. It's pride without arrogance. It's self respect without self adulation. It's being yourself while being true to yourself and making no apologies to anyone for it. Ultimately, it's a conscious choice in both attitude and state of mind. People and events can only affect how we feel if we let them. Never forget that you always have a choice about what you think and how you feel. No one can ever take that from you unless you let them. Don't let them.
Instead, when you get up each morning, look into the mirror, smile and say "Self, you're great and this is going to be a great day!". If you do this and mean it, I promise you: you are and it will be!
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