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In the spirit of a year of giving, I'd like to direct your attention to an article written by a friend of mine on the subject. He says it well, so I won't bother to duplicate it in my blog, but instead I'll direct you to his words.
Just click on the link in the previous sentence. Next, I'd like to hear from you. you can email or simply comment here. What do you think a year of giving will look like?
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Welcome to a new year! Here's an interesting thought: self-control is linked to success (numerous research studies support this), but willpower may not be the way to go and, in fact, may actually be detrimental to our health. (A study by Greg Miller, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University, showed that forcing yourself to "power through" increases stress that negativity impacts you both physically and psychologically.) As 2017 came to an end, I decided that rather than making new year's resolutions, instead I'd watch others make them and I watched person after person fall victim to a pattern that I knew very well: high hopes of change and then crashing into pile of failure. I stopped making resolutions because in the end, they typically made me feel bad about myself.
So, how exactly are we supposed to develop self-control and succeed? There are people doing it, so what's the deal here? Well, after doing some research I have come to the conclusion that those who succeed have more than sheer willpower. As sappy as it may sound, what they ultimately have is love. People who succeed at making their lives, both personal and professional, into something amazing have connections with the world around them. They have an appreciation for life and they don't just feel they need to "power through" anything, because they understand that they need to invest in themselves and in those around them. They get joy from this present moment because they choose to see it. This allows them to be okay with putting off the gratitude of a brownie that would break their diet or an expensive outfit that would impact their savings. So, what does this mean in terms of becoming the best version of ourselves possible? Well, it means we should consider the following:
I do quite a bit of writing on the topic of success. In addition to coaching people, I also do ghost writing for influencers. Recently, I had an interesting conversation with one influencer who told me that before he began his current career of motivational speaking, he felt like a complete fraud because he read all of the books, attended seminars, and talked the talk, but was still always dead broke.
I have a friend who focuses quite a bit on his income. To him it's a great challenge seeing how much he can increase his income from month to month and year to year. I was unaware, however, that he actually struggled financially and that for all of his apparent success, he still hadn't reached the carrot he was after. This weekend he shared an interesting insight with me regarding his pursuits. He said that he's been doing this for so long, that he'd lost track of himself, so he spent some time asking himself a few really hard questions like, Have I actually been working against myself? I asked what he meant by this and he noted that he's always fallen short of is financial goals and despite his efforts he's been typically financially strapped. Then it occurred to him that by making money his only focus, he'd set up a situation where his sense of purpose revolved around him needing to struggle. This need for financial struggle defined him...and the first sentence of this blog post testifies to that because that is how I've begun to define him. He also realized that he has let self-doubt keep him from being challenged in other ways professionally. Money seemed to be the one thing he could pursue without worrying he wasn't good enough.
The more I have worked with individuals striving for personal and professional success, the more I have realized that we all need to start with a very fundamental question: WHO ARE YOU? As children we adopt the mindset of the adults around us. This is brings both positives and negatives into our lives. For many of us, it means that in addition to getting a grasp of the world, it also means inheriting our parents doubts and fears.
How you feel about yourself plays a huge role in how you communicate. When you don't like yourself or see the world as an unfriendly place, you perceive and respond differently to others. A recent research study that was exploring whether shy people tend to be victims of bullying found a surprising result: shy people often become bullies! What the researchers found was that people who feel uncomfortable with others become disconnected and some of them become angry as a result. This anger turns into bullying in the workplace. Workplace bullies impact the whole environment and greatly disrupt the flow of communication. The funny thing is that most workplace bullies aren't even aware that THEY are the workplace bully. Many think that they are just doing what they need to do in order to get through the day. They are hurt and disconnected from others and they don't realize what they're doing.
So the solution? Always start inside of your own head first. How do you feel about yourself? Have you taken positive steps to feel good about yourself and connect with your workplace? After you've looked at yourself, start reaching out those who are a negative force in your workplace. You'd be surprised at how much you can change with just a few small steps. What is effective communication? Take a moment and think about your last disagreement in the workplace. What caused it? Was it so much that you had different views or simply that you THOUGHT you had different views?
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AuthorLynne M. Smelser, Ph.D. is an expert in communication. Her speciality is helping people to look internally to find barriers. Over the years she has helped companies create dynamic content and open communication channels. She also has assisted many individuals in overcoming communication anxiety and developing projects such as novels, memoirs, and ebooks. Archives
January 2018
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