Happy New Year! I hope this newsletter finds you and family well and still basking in the festive mood of the holidays.
During the holidays I had heightened awareness of how television was suddenly much more positive. Did you notice? With the writers’ strike television was either reality shows or reruns. Reality shows, like Biggest Loser and Survivor, came to conclusion. Although one winner emerged from each show it seemed that everyone that participated in the show had won.
Most startling was watching the news. One time during the year news shows have a larger percentage of positive stories. My guess is that they increased by 200% to 300%. For example, a church in a lower income neighborhood had collected Christmas presents for children in the neighborhood and the presents were stolen. Miraculously people in Chicago came to the church’s rescue and supplied the church with toys – double the amount the church had originally collected. Stories ranged from helping the homeless, to helping families in need, to random acts of kindness.
Alas
as we move into 2008 we will see the positive stories take a back seat
to presidential candidates launching stinging insults, political unrest
abroad, weather disasters, crime, oil price surges, and celebrity
foibles (“Rosie selected as most annoying celebrity”). Looking at the
positive side of life seems to be the exception, not the rule. The
Metheny’s have a magnetic white board on their refrigerator. It is the
space we use to write daily gratitude thoughts. Interestingly it is
harder to generate appreciative thoughts than I originally perceived.
Perhaps I am out of practice. My guess is that if we had a “what I did
not like about the day” white board we would need a bigger one – ahhh,
how cathartic though. How simple it is to see the things that are
wrong, or how we are wronged, or the miscues, or things out-of-place.
At
work we have expectations to continuously improve our teams and
ourselves. We must deliver more than last year, more than last quarter.
When working with my clients to review assessment feedback their first
impulse is to dive into their “weaknesses.” It seems that we have
created deficit-oriented work cultures resulting in employees and teams
that rarely hear good news. Appreciative comments are few and far
between. And to no surprise we have a large percentage of workers that
come to work disengaged or not fully engaged.
What
if we paused daily to look at our respective worlds through a more
positive lens? What if we learned to be more appreciative in our lives?
What if……
THE POWER OF APPRECIATION IN YOUR LIFE
What if we stopped this negative obsession and started paying attention to what and whom we appreciate, right now? (We may have to turn off the news – LOL)
Imagine how this simple but profound shift could transform our lives, our families, our relationships, our results, our work, our teams, our communities, and more. Our experience is a function of what we focus on. Each and every moment we have a choice about where we place our attention.
I am not advocating that we deny, avoid, or run from the challenges, issues, or even the pain in our lives or around us. It’s important that we’re able to confront, face, and deal with these difficulties. However, we don’t have to obsess or ruminate about the bad stuff and let it run us. The word "ruminate" derives from the Latin for chewing cud, a less than gentle process in which cattle grind up, swallow, then regurgitate and rechew their feed. Similarly, human ruminators mull an issue at length.
But while the approach might ease cows' digestion, it doesn't do the same for people's mental health: Ruminating about the darker side of life can fuel depression, said Yale University psychologist Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, PhD, in a Board of Scientific Affairs invited address at APA's 2005 Annual Convention.
What's more, rumination can impair thinking and problem solving, and drive away critical social support, she said. Okay, I agree most of us do not ruminate at this neurotic level but we can spend more of our time reviewing or focusing on the negative things in our lives. We each can consciously choose to focus on the good stuff in our lives, with others, and most importantly towards ourselves.
There are great things happening in your life and around you all the time - if you choose to look for them. Although it may take a little effort to shift our thinking, for we may be out of practice, we should take the advice of Mike Robinson and Richard Carlson in their book, focus on the good stuff: The Power Of Appreciation and follow these principles:
1. Be Grateful – Focus on the many blessings in your life and all that you have to be thankful for.
2. Choose Positive Thoughts and Feelings – Make a conscious decision to transform your negative thoughts and feelings into ones that empower you.
3. Use Positive Words – Pay attention to the words you use with others, about things, and in speaking about yourself. Speak with the most positive words possible. Our words have the power to create, not just describe.
4. Acknowledge Others – Focus on what you appreciate about the people around you and let them know. Be genuine and let others know the positive impact they have on you and your life.
5. Appreciate Yourself – Celebrate who you are, what you do, and the many gifts and talents you have. Self-appreciation is not arrogance; it’s an awareness of your own power and the key to self-confidence, success, and fulfillment.
When we truly focus on this good stuff, our world transforms and we are able to see and experience the great fullness of our lives. We don’t have to wait until everything is handled. We don’t have to wait until we get it all perfect. And, we don’t have to wait for people to do things exactly as we want them to. We can start appreciating life, others, and ourselves exactly as we are, right now.
Chew on this for a while.
RESOLUTIONS
New Years resolutions are notoriously broken promises to ourselves. Who came up with all of this? Who came up with this idea that would advise people to make an attempt to "start over" at the beginning of every new year in some way or another? Where did this come from?
Well, the tradition goes all the way back to 46 B.C. when the Romans put a mythical king of early Rome, Janus, at the head of the new year, naming the impending month January. The Romans believed that Janus had two heads, so he therefore could look both forward and back on the old and new years. To celebrate this, and him, the Romans used to give away gifts at the beginning of each new year with him imprinted on them.
Janus became the symbol for all New Year's resolutions, thus provoking the Romans to seek forgiveness with their enemies before each new year began. This, they figured, would bring them good luck throughout the year, essentially beginning the notion of a New Year's resolution.
Throughout the hundreds and thousands of years that these resolutions have been intact, it is not uncommon for one to disobey their infamous New Year's promises. I read that out of the 40 percent to 50 percent of Americans who make New Year's resolutions each year, only 20 percent keep them, while 80 percent break them.
Dr. John M. Grohol, founder of Mental Help Net, one of the top ten mental health websites in the world, said, "When the new year comes, people seem to think that making resolutions can be the start of something new. They view it as a way to refresh their lives. But when they don't put a lot of thought into it, they always fail. The more serious a person takes his or her resolution, the more successful he or she will be in keeping it."
I believe every time you break a self-promise, your self-trust is weakened. Every time you give up on your commitments your self-confidence takes a hit. And every time you look back on broken resolutions, your self-assessment hurts, not helps, your performance future. Think about your language, “I never keep my New Year’s resolutions” or “I make New year’s resolutions every year but ….”
By contrast, I am a huge fan of goals or dreams or aspirations or targeted focus. Call it what you like. Mine come in a variety of forms, anything from a life-to-do-list to aspirational dreams. But their achievement hinges on the same element – serious intent and incremental action. I learned in twenty-plus years of management the power behind small steps.
One baby step, then another and another eventually leads to achievement. Most of us are unlikely to hit home-run equivalents with our work or life goals. But by incrementally nibbling at them, we can accomplish most anything, actualizing life dreams and winning at working. Like the Chinese proverb reminds us, "The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones."
So, instead of New Years resolutions, I suggest you try an alternative this year. First, assess your progress. Second, align your direction.
Start by writing down your accomplishments for the last twelve months, asking yourself, what's different today from a year ago. These don't have to be big or work-only achievements, but note incremental progress in any part of your life. If you can do more sit-ups this year than last, that goes on your list. If you've read thirty books, you put that down. If you have a better relationship with a client, it's there.
Now, take a few minutes to savor your list, breathing in the powerful feeling of personal progress. It's amazing how good it feels to see what you're accomplished. Whenever I observe a tangible list of what I've achieved in just twelve months, it fuels my energy for what I can do in the next twelve. And that leads me to the second part of the experience: seeing where I'm headed. Like a compass, the list helps me align my focus and build incremental goals in the direction I want to be traveling.
So don’t dive into your weaknesses to begin the year. Dive into your accomplishments, your strengths and leverage the positive energy to begin 2008. You see, people who are winning leverage the power of incremental progress to build their performance, reach their goals, actualize their dreams and impact their results. In the process they build their self-esteem, self-trust and self-confidence. They know accomplishment fuels accomplishment; success produces success; and progress multiplies progress. Start fueling your progress with incremental action.
