Challenge your Stuckness and Fears–Tips for Personal Change

“Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.”–Ralph Waldo Emerson

 ”Effective leadership begins with presence and self-awareness.  Knowing your impact on others, what motivates you (purpose), understanding and playing to your natural strengths and accepting weaknesses are critical keys for successfully communicating and connecting with others.   Brain researchers and psychologists tell us that self-awareness is not an inborn trait but a complex capacity people develop through life experiences.   It requires reflection, intuition and an ability to accept and process feedback from others.  It requires openness, an ability to deal with ambiguity and acceptance of  and caring for others.” MWH

Alignment Principle

It is natural to feel apprehension when speaking in front of a group, particularly a group of peers.  A certain level of anxiety is actually necessary for you to perform your best. The key is to use this anxiety to your advantage, harnessing it to make you dynamic and animated. The physical symptoms of anxiety are very similar to that of excitement. If you can train yourself to interpret your symptoms as excitement, instead of nerves, you are well on your way to using the anxiety to your advantage. So, how do you do this?

To find Meaning in Life–Try Constructive Living Principles

“In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.”
Eric Hoffer

Let’s start with, Dr. David K. Reynolds, past Director of the To Do Institute for Constructive Living, in Los Angeles.  Dr. Reynolds has written many books such as, Playing Ball on Running Water, where he explores Morita ideas on living with attention and awareness to what is controllable and what is not in living a constructive, productive and fulfilling life.  The CL  process and principles are a blending and adaption of Eastern lifeways in Japan of Shoma Morita (Morita Therapy) and Ishin Yoshimoto ( Naikin) to Western culture. The principles of Constructive living provide the opportunity to bring control and meaning to your life through a practical and realistic life of service.  The CL method is a step-by-step process for changing thinking, understanding attitudes, beliefs, feelings and behavior, that is, how a person thinks and feels about, understands, acts and relates with themselves and others.  Every day all of us have problems and opportunities to deal with and try to resolve. The CL model is a way of understanding and approaching your problems and feelings in an enlightened and organized way so you can cope and handle them with more effectiveness and efficiency. Here are the essential components of the model:

1. Be clear on your purpose.

2. Accept and understand your feelings and emotion.

3. Do what you need to do!!!!  (sounds a bit like the Nike ads)

The process of CL highlights ways to approach and handle problems and feelings in life.  CL provides the opportunity to find methods for making better decisions and choices. CL teaches you new skills and provides powerful tools to show you how to clarify your thinking and how to act when what you are doing is not satisfying or effective for you and is causing functional life issues and negatively impacting your energy, sense of meaning and relationships with others.

In CL the individual is responsible for their choices and own behavior. Excuses, projection, denial, and blaming are confronted in a caring, yet forceful way. We do this by telling and accepting the truth in the “here and now”. Remember there are things we can control in life and things that are beyond our control. Figuring out the differences is one of the challanages of CL. The environment around us, peer pressure or situations at school, work, or home are only part of the reasons we act the way we do. Yet each person creates their own unique life by how they think and choose to behave. 

If you are a committed and a determined “seeker”,  the quality of your life has nothing to do with excuses, unresolved conflicts,  or distant negative experiences. It has everything to do with  the HERE AND NOW–YOU. YOUR ESSENCE AND PASSION FOR LIVING A MEANINGFUL, CONTROLLABLE  and CONSTRUCTIVE LIFE. It has to do with your thinking, choices, behavior, and impact–The pressing question: What is controllable and uncontrollable in your life?

 Reflection Activity: Pick one action that needs doing on a regular basis: (running or walking, eating healthy foods, self-improvement through meditation, doing the monthly bills, calling three potential clients, writing a blog, walking the dog,etc.) Chose a set time of the day and do the activity at the same time each day for one week. Record the day, time, activity and your reflections in your daily journal.

Reflection quote: “Focus on living well regardless of how you are feeling at the moment.”  Dr. David K. Reynolds

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How to Stop Irrational Ideas and Attitude: Develop Bullshit Support Team

 ”It all starts in your head…(Success) begins by trying to make each day count…If you sincerely try to make each day a masterpiece, angles can do no better.”  John Wooden, Hall of Fame Basketball Coach, UCLA 

 Irrational Ideas that Block Your Growth and Development  

1. Need to be loved or approved by everyone–Give credit away and recognition will come  
2. Differences make people bad, evil or stupid–Not stupid just different. Differences wwiden your perspective and help update your mental maps.
3. Life is awful when things are not like we want them to be. Not awful just inconvenient.

Improving Connections: Reduce Self-Centerness

The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we are not aware of and do not understand.” George Herbert Mead

 The other day I was talking to an elderly, accomplished, and well-educated man, who is a legend in his own mind.  He came unglued about the “socialist” country Obama was creating with all the bailouts.  His anger was irrational and visceral.   Of course, he was carrying Rush Limbaugh’s water and talking points.  This is a guy who rarely questions his beliefs.  I have noticed time and time again his inability to give credit to other people’s ideas and his focus on the peripheral.  Now some people might call this narcissism or self-centered. I call it irrational thinking and unconscious incompetence (you don’t know what you don’t know). 

 

 What does research in psychology tell us about self-defeating and irrational thinking of this kind?

Finding Meaning in Life: A Different Point of View–Victor Frankl’s Self Transcendance

 

“Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”  Victor Frankl

According to  the American Journal of Psychiatry, Dr. Victor Frankl’s work is “perhaps the most significant thinking since Freud and Adler.” Beyond Freud and Adler, Dr. Frankl spells out a very powerful approach to finding meaning in life where happiness is a by product of living a life that does not focus on yourself, money or materialism.

TO find MEANING–IGNITE PASSIONS, KNOW YOUR STRENGTHS AND CHALLENGE YOUR MENTAL MAPS

” There’s such a thing as trying to hard. You’ve got to sing like you don’t need the money–Love like you’ll never get hurt–you got to dance like nobody’s watching–It’s got to come from the heart if you want it to work.”  Song  “Come from the Heart ” by Kathy Mattea

How do you go about living a more passionate life? Start with identifying what you love to do. Then identify your strengths for being able to do these things you love. 

Create Meaning in Life: Don’t settle for things as they are now.

“Men will always be making mistakes as long as they are striving after something.” Goethe

There is in the world today a thirst for meaning. People are seeking a purpose. They are looking for ways to provide service and fulfill themselves. In reversal of the trends toward incivility, violence, consumerism and prejudice toward differences. We are discovering that what one does must be a means of self-fulfillment, making a difference and service.

Reflection and renewal is so necessary both for society and for the individual that when society fails to provide sufficient change and up dating of mental maps to be responsive to changing conditions and needs for the persons who compose it, people rebel and seek false solutions of the past, like racism and hate crimes.  

Thomas Merton once illuminated this need for meaning in life–

Dynamic Leadership: Passion+Self-Renewal+Constructive Action

” Self-Renewal is possible if we don’t lose our capacity to learn and grow. But renewal…depends in some measure on motivation, commitment, conviction, the values men live by, the things that give meaning to their lives”. John W. Gardner, author Self-Renewal

Positive change results when we become aware of, observe and accept a new way to think and behave. We feel a new way is better when we experience more balance, peacefulness, or joy, than by continuing with our old habits and rountines. Breakout of old routines and habits and do something different. Be willing to experiment and test your boundaries.

Small Things Big Impact: SMILE

“People with high levels of personal mastery cannot afford to choose between reason and intuition, or head and heart, any more than they would choose to walk on one leg or see with one eye.”  Peter Senge, MIT Sloan School of Management

I was reviewing Tom Peters, The Heart of Business Strategies :  56 * Things that Matter and was struck by a few that I think can guide your daily checklist for success. I am capturing them  under the word SMILE. If you like it put it on a post it note over your computer to keep you grounded and motivated.

Purpose-Centered Performance Leadership Exercise #3: Values the bedrock of “Walk the Talk”

“Example is not the MAIN THING in influencing others. It is the only the only THING.”  

 Dr. Albert Schweitzer

Many leadership guru’s talk about the need for leaders and followers to have shared values and meaning about the vision and mission of the organization.  And yet the overwhelming view is that many espoused values are not carried out in “walking the talk of action”. Values only come alive on daily interaction and decisions. It does no good to hang mission and vision statements in the elevator or lunch room and behave differently in interacting with employees and customers.  Leaders must be congruent in what they say and do to build trust. It especially important to honor your values not just in good times but in times when you are when under pressure or stress. Values are the heart and head of an individuals identity. Values are life long concepts that drive what we think is important in life to do. Values ground our personal visions and judgments .  So the question for a would be leader: What are the values that make up your personal vision? 

Getting Unstuck: Trust Your Gut

“To grow, we must travel in the direction of our fears.”                                                        

John Berryman   

Unless you are suffering from clinical depression feeling “stuck” in life is not unusual. We have all been there. Sometimes we grit our teeth and just do what we have to do. Other times we fake it till we make it through. Other times we convince ourselves that this to shall pass.

I think that we all, sometime or another, wind up feeling stuck in our life. Feeling stuck is when you are not quite sure of your purpose or where you are going. You are caught in doing and efforting. It can be when you have been disappointed; you know you are confused and don’t know where to turn. There is a sense you need to make a change but you are fearful. Fearful of risk? Fearful of failure? Fearful of leaving the status and traps of the present job?  You have no idea what you need to do. Or it can be that place where you know what you want to do and are afraid that your ideas might offend or upset others. Sometimes you know the changes you want to make, you know what you need to do and who you want to be, but you get stuck because you are overwhelmed by the prospect of change or are afraid of the risks or just can’t let go of your old patterns and security.

Trust yourself be confident and face your fears–by asking If I mess this thing up-What is the worst thing that can happen? Sometimes it is hard to know if the source of our fear is a false belief, lack of confidence, a pattern of negative thinking, or common sense. Listen to your gut and then you will know which it is.

Sometimes fear holds us back from doing something we need to try and sometimes it is our inner voice cautioning us against making a mistake.

It is always advisable to do the research and get your facts so that you can make an informed decision. However, ultimately, the only way to know for sure if this is a good choice for you is based on what your gut tells you.  One thing I find helpful is to sleep on the decision as if it is already made. Say to yourself before falling asleep I am taking this job. Then measure the quality of your sleep do you toss and turn or sleep comfortably through the night. And when you wake up how do you feel–rest and relaxed or or anxious and tired? If pursuing this goal or action feels right, if there is a sense of excitement with your decision and you sleep through the night and arise rested and calm then it is probably okay to go ahead with your decision. If this new direction allows you to express your creativity and who you really are, if it respects and validates your values and your vision, and if it allows you to live in integrity then it is probably a good bet to trust your inner guidance and take the action and pursue your goal. Instead of asking why just go ahead and say to yourself an affirming statement like–Why not and Why not right now. Good Luck and sleep tight.

Unique Flashes and Passionate Attitude the Spark for Growth?

 ”That which is unique and worthwhile in us makes itself felt only in flashes. If we do not know how to catch and savor these flashes, we are without growth and without exhilaration,”  Eric Hoffer, writer and longshoreman.

After presenting and leading ( 5,000) or more corporate retreats, workshops, and consulting engagements on everything from stress, change management, effective leadership, personal/team development and positive interpersonal communications I believe one thing is the key to change and commitment –freedom to choose your attitude and passion for life. I think we all know at some level passionate purpose is the cornerstone for unhooking the difficult and so humane self-centeredness and selfishness which destroies lives, teams, companies and relationships. Passion is the spice of life. Your passionate attitude provides the internal foundation for the external challenges and aligns people in shared goals and sacrifice. 

Victor Frankl, a noted psychiatrist, in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning,  highlights an important theme–we are all free to choose our actions and in choosing we create meaning in life. I guess most of us are not being tested in our present jobs or lives like the Jewish people were challenged. They were tricked or dragged from their homes, stripped of their clothes and jewelry, and subject to horrible situations of confinement, abuse and little food. Within hours their identities were ripped away and their humanity tested. Most of the prisoners choose to go along with the Nazi guards and began to turn on their fellow citzens through abuse and ratting. I wonder living in a concentration camp what kind of attitude would you choose? Would you choose your own way or go along with the majority. The choice to display integrity and moral steadfastness is yours in any situation. Here is how Frankl states the point of moral choice–”We who lived in the concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number,but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms–to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way”.

Personal Dreams–Make them happen !!

“Everything is possible but nothing is certain.” Vaclav Havel  

 

When starting to build a developmental plan or to re-do a broken dream remember the power of reframing. When talking with yourself build confidence by acceptancing the cornerstone for change–start where you are by assessing reality and not where you think you should be. Don’t be afraid to fail. Instead, worry about the opportunities you miss when you don’t step and try. Positive keys to overcoming barriers–trust yourself, eliminate negative thinking, check your ideas and thoughts with others, build confidence by taking one step at a time. Be careful to align your values, gifts and vision.

Unique Connect #4: Leadership Presence Key to Positive First Impressions

“You never get a second chance to make a good first impression.” 

 John Molloy

I have been talking about the effective of “first impressions” for the last couple of blogs. I hope the evidence has been through enough for you to now realize how it impacts your interpersonal relationships and opportunities.  Oviously, the effect is more than most of us think. Some of you may dismiss this concept as others being superficial but the truth is ”first impressions” communicate to others how you feel about yourself and what you stand for. Also, be aware that others will very seldom level or tell you what they think or feel because this is a very personal and sensitive issue.  You can help findout more by openingly asking what they think and how you came across when they first met you. When receiving the feedback don’t become defensive or blow people off; this can be valuable information for self-development.  Now let’s talk more  about how “first impressions” lead to a feeling and concept called–Leadership Presence.    

 Let’s begin by defining Leadership Presence–It is the way a person carries and presents himself  to others. In leadership parlance, it is a person who is at ease and comfortable in their own skin and with diverse people in many situations; be it at a bowling alley or at a Congressional budget hearing.  Those who have “it” are relaxed and composed under pressure and  can connect quickly, communicate in a clear and compelling manner, skillfully handle difficult situations and look, sound and act in ways that inspire others to follow them. And without followers their is no leader.  Beyond that, Presence is the ability to inspire people one to one, in small groups or large audiences, build strong relationships, impress and influence others and be accepted by diverse followers.Sounds like you need to walk on water. 

For some people, extroverts , executive presence is a natural extension of who they are  but for others developing executive presence will require some developmental work.

You might ask where and how do I start to develop these critical leadership skill? 

 Here is my Smart-Step Prescription for you:

1. Assess what you do well now and keep doing those things. 
2. Next gather feedback on what you need to improve. 
3. Focus on changing your likeability.  For example, practice using your natural warm smile  or making steady eye contact with others (3-5 seconds).
4. Just like changing you golf swing get a video of yourself presenting, conducting a staff meeting or interviewing someone.
5. Get feedback on how you come across and impact others. This feedback analysis will help identify blind spots and strengths.
6. Remember Practice makes Permanent and Perfect Practice makes Perfect. 

These reflective and feedback actions will help you fine tune your natural strengths and improve your ability to connect and make positive first impressions.

Unique Connect #3 –How to Impact “first impression bias”

“In times of change it is the learners who inherit the future. Those who have finished learning find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.” Eric Hoffer, Social Commentator and author  

How to impact “First Impressions” 

We have all had the experience of feeling immediately connected to someone and the opposite experience of disliking someone on first meeting. 

Researchers vary on their conclusions whether this takes 2-3 seconds or 15 seconds. The exact timing is unimportant lets just say we make very quick snap judgments about others. So how to make the most of these encounters becomes important for all of us. Of course, the most important thing whether it be a social meeting or a business contact is –how to make these interpersonal connections work for and not against you. As I discussed in the last posting most of the judgments made are immediate and instinctive, so the challenge is to see if we can influence or impact the way  other people perceive us.