Success Connections

Make Optimism A Habit

God knows there’s enough pessimism in the news to make you want to slit your wrists.  And I’ve noticed that many people seem to have fallen into the dark pit of doom and gloom.  I’ve even caught myself peering over the edge of the pit on occasion; so if you think you could be headed down the same slippery slope, join me on this mission to make optimism a habit.

Let’s look at the differences between and optimists and a pessimists:

Optimists                                                             

Expect the best                                                    
Believe the future will be brighter                         
Focus on possibilities                                            
Give people the benefit of the doubt                      
Are problem solvers                                               
Look for the good in bad situations                        
Want what they have                                            
Know they can handle whatever comes their way     
Act like owners of circumstance

Pessimists

Expect the worst
Believe the worst is yet to come
Focus on all that is wrong
Are quick to judge and alienate people
Are problem identifiers
Can’t see beyond their problems
Want what they don’t have
Believe they wouldn’t be able to handle it
Act like victims of circumstance                            

With all the craziness and adversity in our world today, it’s not uncommon for any of us to be caught off guard, and slump into a state of doom and gloom, from time to time.  But when an optimist starts to feel her self slip, she’ll grab onto something solid and start clawing her way out.  A pessimist will usually just let go and free-fall her way to the bottom.

Do you realize that “how” we respond to situations starts with one simple thought?  It’s true.  We think before we speak or act.  And it’s typically an impulsive internal reaction (to that first thought) that determines what we say or what we do. 

Let’s say you’re stuck in traffic.  Chances are, you’re first thought will be either “Oh no” or “Oh well”  If your first thought is “Oh no”, you’ll likely tense up and even act out to relieve your frustration.  If your first thought is “ Oh well”, you’ll likely re-direct your thoughts to make the best of the situation.

So the secret to making optimism a habit, is learning to be aware of, and manage the first thought that pops into your mind.  Here’s a process you can practice to get you started:

• Choose a recent situation, that you wish would have gone betterNow, rewind that situation back to the very beginning
• Write down what you were thinking before you said or did anything
• Ask yourself:
  • Was this just a thought or was it a fact?
  • How did I react when I believed that thought?
  • What if I had believed that the thought was just temporary?
  • How could I have changed the thought to make it more optimistic?
• Try it on:
  • Now, change the thought around until it feels more optimistic (make several tries)
  • What would be different if I believed this new thought?
  • How could this new thought be useful and even a blessing?
• And finally, create an action plan to learn how to stop and think deeper before I speak or act.

Once you get good at this, you can learn to stop and manage your first thoughts on the fly.

Did you know studies show that optimists are happier, healthier, and have stronger relationships, than pessimists?  I guess it stands to reason that we get back what we put out into the world.

Please don’t get the impression that I’m endorsing “blind optimism” here.  If we’re going to survive these turbulent times, we need see things for what they are and take appropriate action.  But even the worst of catastrophes are a little easier to handle with positive thinking.

Just experiment with it for the next week.  Let me know what happens by posting your comments here.

Be Your Best Self

As we approach the close of another year, many of us make time to take stock of our accomplishments and set goals for the new year.  In case you haven’t checked lately, there is an excellent tool for helping you set your goals right on my website.  It’s a simple, yet thorough system to help you Achieve Your Goals.  Don’t miss this great download.

Achieve Your Goals

Clarifying your goals is great for defining the “what” of your intentions for the upcoming year.  But this year I’m challenging you to think bigger.  My challenge is to be your best self.  Define the “who” you want to be, and “how” you want to show up in this world.  Then, do it.

Here’s an example so beautifully penned by the wise Christian Larson.  It’s called, “I Promise Myself”.I promise myself…

• I promise myself to be so strong that nothing can disturb my peace of mind

• I promise myself to talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person I meet

• I promise myself to make all my friends feel that there is something worthwhile in them

• I promise myself to look at the sunny side of everything and make my optimism come true

• I promise myself to think only the best, to work only for the best and to expect only the best

• I promise myself to be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as I am about my own

• I promise myself to forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future

• I promise myself to wear a cheerful expression at all times and give a smile to every living creature I meet

• I promise myself to give so much time to improving myself that I have no time to criticize others

• I promise myself to be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble

• I promise myself to think well of myself and to proclaim this fact to the world, not in loud words, bun in great deeds

• I promise myself to live in the faith that the whole world is on my side, so long as I am true to the best that is in me

If you need a little more inspiration to get started, my good friend Phil Gerbyshak is sharing complimentary downloads of his book, “10 Ways To Make It Great”.  Just click the link in his blog post right here:

10 Ways To Make It Great

Promise yourself that you’ll spend some time reflecting on how you can be your best self in the upcoming year.  Then, make it be so.  And as always, if you need help, I’m only a phone call or email away.

If you have additional resources you’d like to share with others, please post them below. 

Thank you so much for choosing to read Relating At Work and Success Connections.  Your comments and connections mean more than you know.

Many blessings to you and yours during this season of miracles.

Lora

October Resources

Hello Everyone,

I just thought I'd take a quick minute to share some resources you might find enlightening.  Feel free
to share with your colleagues.

Zen and art of dealing with insults - Tammy Lenski is one of my all time favorite mediators who blogs.  If you could use an excellent strategy for dealing with insults, check out Tammy's article.

A Perspective On Difficult People - Barbara Ashley Phillips shares her wisdom by showing us better ways to deal with difficult people.  If you could use a little support, check out her article.

Courageous Communication - "Conflict happens when things don't go our way."  Trime Persinger shares her insightful thoughts on courageous communication.

That's it for this time!  Send me your favorite resources and I'll share them!

Let People Know You Care

I lost contact with my mom early Sunday afternoon.  Eyes glued to the news broadcasts, over the next 30 hours, I hoped and prayed for the best.  You can imagine how helpless I felt from my home in Michigan, as Hurricane Gustav zeroed in on my mom’s town in Southern Louisiana.  Believe me, the pressure was intense, but I’m happy to report that mom weathered the storm like a military hero.

After it was over, my first priority was to thank the friend who took the time to show she cared.  Interestingly enough, I shared my concern with 3 different friends by email that day.  Even though all three responded right away, only one acknowledged my distress and took the time to offer support. 

That made me wonder how I would have reacted if I knew that one of my friends was worried sick about her mom being in harms way.  I like to believe that I would have offered a few words of comfort, but there’s no way to know for sure. 

Most us are so absorbed in the pressures of our own lives that it’s far easier and faster to ignore the perils of our friends and colleagues.  It’s not because we don’t care.  But simply because we don’t make the time to think outside ourselves - about what other people are facing.  We let our busyness distract us.

My point in sharing this with you is to show you how easy it is to miss opportunities to let other people know you care.

How about you?  Think back over the last week, just for a moment, and ask yourself these questions: 

• How many times did you find yourself in situations where you could have used a few words of encouragement, or even a hug?
• How many people recognized your need and made the time to reach out to you, just to show they care?   
• How many times did you notice someone in need and reach out, just to show you care?

What do your answers tell you?  Are you satisfied with the results?  If not, what are you going to differently?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.  Email me or post a comment below.

As you can see, this was a wake-up-call for me.  I want to be that person who takes the time to show she cares.  And I’m sure it’s worth the investment of a few minutes each day. 

Here’s what I’m doing if you’d like to join me:

1.    Be Aware - For a few minutes every day, stop, look, and listen for things that may be touching the lives of people you know.  Ask yourself, “Who might need a little encouragement today?”  Here are some signals that might tip you off:

• News broadcasts (war, natural disasters etc.)
• You overhear other people offering words of encouragement
• You notice certain kinds of greeting cards on a desk
• Someone seems especially quiet, withdrawn or tired
• Someone comes out of a meeting looking like they've been through a war
• Someone has been absent from work
• You sense that someone is worried

2.    Once you discover an opportunity, reach out, express how much you care - Some things you might express and/or do:

• Speak from your heart - Your heart says things like: “I’m so sorry…, I’ve been thinking of you…, You’ve been on my mind…, How can I help…, I can’t imagine what you’re feeling…, You’re in my thoughts and prayers”
• Ask about support needed instead of prying for details - Focus your questions on offering to support the well being of the people involved.  Words like:  “How can I help…  What can I do…, What do you most need right now…”
• Resist the urge to talk about yourself or someone else you know - Taboo phrases like: “I know how you feel, My aunt Betty went through that, I can relate”.
• Avoid giving advice - If you catch yourself thinking anything like: “If I were you…, When that happened to me…” just zip it.

And finally, if possible, let your actions speak louder than your words.  What you do, or don’t do, matters more than what you say.  Remember, people don’t always remember what you say, but they always remember how you make them feel. 

I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions!  Let’s continue this discussion here. 

Be A Person Of Your Word

Betty is one of my favorite people.  She’s loyal to the core and she has a heart of gold.  A couple of months ago we were wrapping up a conversation and she ended it by saying, “I’ll be back in town on the 11th.  I’ll call you and we’ll go out for dinner.”

After I hung up the phone, my imagination took me to one of our favorite Mexican restaurants.  I could smell the Mexican food in the air, and my lips could almost taste the sweet sangria.  Hmm…what a delightful evening it would be.

And then something snapped me back to reality.  “What the heck am I thinking,”  I thought to myself.  I know better than to get my hopes up.  Chances are, it’s not going to happen.  I can’t count the number of times this has happened before.  And in reality, it has been about a year since we’ve gone out to dinner together.  So, to protect myself from one more disappointment, I simply let the empty promise go in one ear and out the other.

It’s not that Betty doesn’t have good intentions in the moment, it’s that she has a flaky habit of not doing what she says she’s going to do.  It can be an annoying, but generally, I just manage my expectations of her accordingly.  I can’t help but wonder though…how might this habit be eating away at her other personal and professional relationships?  Not everyone is quick to forgive so easily.

Sometimes it seems like we’ve all joined the vogue, Hollywood “Let’s do lunch” club.  We’ve become so conditioned to casual, meaningless, commitments that we’re pleasantly surprised when someone actually follows through. 

You know, I think we forget the power of our own words.  When we use our words mindlessly, we sabotage our own credibility and relationships.  But when we are mindful about following through with what we say, people think of us as dependable and trustworthy. 

Incidentally, did you realize that our brains are wired to automatically create new habits?  For example, when our brain hears “commitment” it starts looking for the response we use most often.  If we typically don’t keep our commitments, then the default response for our brain becomes “let yourself off the hook”.  And without even consciously thinking about it, we have a new habit…and a flaky one at that.

Did you know you could you be a flaky promise keeper and not even know it? Scary isn’t it?  Once your brain connects your habit patterns, (think connect the dots), it automatically triggers your first reaction.  In this case, “let yourself off the hook” becomes your first reaction to “commitment”.  Eventually, the habit gets so ingrained that you become less aware of the importance of doing what you say you’ll do.  It’s a viscous cycle. 

Remember, we don’t see ourselves how other people see us.  And if by chance you’ve picked up this flaky little habit, it’s likely that empty promises have left at least a few people disappointed and resentful.  Perhaps you’ve even disappointed yourself.

Do you know for sure if your relationships are suffering because of broken promises?  Or do you just assume that no news is good news?

Do you care enough to muster the courage to ask?  If you do, here’s a simple little email process you can use:

   1.    Begin your email with a short paragraph that explains what you’re doing.       

• Example:  Our relationship matters to me and I’d like to get your honest feedback on how I’m       doing.  In this case, I’d like to know how reliable I am in keeping my word to you.

    2.    Ask for what you want, and be as specific as possible.       

• Example: Will you please take a few minutes to think about promises and commitments I’ve made to you?  If so, just complete the sentences below and return your answers to me by the end of the week.  Feel free to complete each sentence multiple times, based on different scenarios.  I’d like to get a clear understanding of what you’re thinking.

    3.   Create a list of 3 – 5 open-ended (incomplete) sentences.       

• Examples:

        I know that you’ll keep your word to me when…
        I know that you might keep your word to me when…
        I want you to keep your word to me more often when…

    4.    Close the email with an advance thank you and send individually (not a distribution list) to     the important people (personal and professional) in your life.

    5.    Plan some sort of extra special “thank you” for those who respond. 

Keep in mind that most people aren’t comfortable giving feedback, and typically, only a few will respond.  Even so, a few responses are usually enough to get a feel for how you’re doing.  And regardless of what you discover, at least you’ll know for sure.

Give it a try and let me know how you do!