What if you’re only telling yourself the negative side of the story?
Every waking moment we talk to ourselves about the things we experience. Our self-talk, the thoughts we communicate to ourselves, in turn controls the way we feel and act.
— John Lembo
When I saw the photo that tops this post I thought: I want to feel like that! Powerful, exuberant, graceful, flexible, free. But I don’t. I’m beginning to realize that there’s something more I need to say to myself… there are some missing messages in my self-talk.
And while I was wishing I felt like the woman in the photo, I also remembered when, not too very long ago, PattiAnn gave me feedback about my post, I Want to Choose Easy – she said Continue reading » What’s NOT Being Said
Answer: a bite at a time
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
— Mahatma Gandhi
Sometimes we think too much. Admittedly we often hear stories that make us wonder if some people ever think, but our predisposition to plan leaves us walking a fine line between thinking, planning and worrying.
In his book, Every Day Deserves a Chance, Max Lucado explains the secret to success in any long-term endeavor.
You last the long race by running short ones. Don’t swim 2.4 miles; just swim to the buoy. Rather than bike 112 miles, ride 10, take a break, and bike 10 more. Never tackle more than the challenge ahead. [emphasis mine]
When we face challenges, we often talk ourselves out of even trying because we project into the future. We don’t take it buoy-by-buoy or block-by-block or even day-by-day. We look at the expanse of time in front of us and think, Continue reading » How Do You Eat An Elephant?
How about it, will you do your ABC’s for 48 hours?
PattiAnn and I used to be (well I guess we still are) experts on sales and service performance improvement. That was our niche. What caused us to shift our focus to resilience?
Going From Hero to Zero
Well, if you are lucky enough to know and love sales or service people, you’re familiar with the daunting tasks they face: they search for and secure elusive new business, soothe the inevitable irate customers, satisfy the demands of anxious managers, overcome all the quirks and foibles of their company’s operational systems and, despite all their dedication and perseverance, they go from hero to zero on the first day of every month! That’s pretty darn discouraging. So, to serve our customers better, PattiAnn and I hunted for and found better bounceback solutions to help them with their daily heapings of adversities.
On Saturday, I saw a story in the Washington Post about a couple who met on eHarmony, dated and after a year, married last month. The groom is a paraplegic and my first thought was, “Wow, I could never do that.” My second thought was “but I SHOULD be open to it.”
This story had nothing to do with me and upon reflection it occurs to me that I could never do that now because my plate is overflowing with today’s challenges. Another one would feel like just a bit too much. But none of that precludes the fact that I went from an initial gut reaction to a judgment. I believe that for some of us, this is the core of our struggle with resiliency and it all starts with our judging ourselves.
Continue reading » You Deserve a Break Today
What looms large in your mind’s eye? Is it really as big and threatening as it seems? Or has something in your life magnified your negative perception of the situation?
Have you ever been cruising through your day when suddenly you morph into Eeyore, Disney’s affectionately animated and sad-eyed, flop-eared donkey who mopes: “A mostly sunny day, to some, can look a lot like partly gray.”
I have. And, when that happens, IF I notice the shift, I feel angry, helpless, not in control, puzzled, and, frankly, hijacked by circumstances. How did I get here? What knocked me so low so suddenly???
Continue reading » Ellie Just Morphed Into Eeyore – Now What’s That About???
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