Worry happens when we focus too much on outcomes instead of process when it comes to doing or accomplishing something. It can emanate from general pessimism, a lack of confidence, past failures that were never resolved or concern with things outside of our control. To clear your deck of worry, do the following: Get a stack of post-it notes. Grab a note and write this: “I am absolutely exaggerating the number of monsters under my bed and the extent to [...]
Remember those home movies or photos of you learning how to walk ? You’d probably just turned age 1 or so, and you had no patience for just sitting around waiting to come of age -- having fully figured out how to go about strutting your stuff across the room. Instead, there you were on the floor trying it out, getting up with the help of a chair or sofa, stumbling your way to your first fall… then another… and [...]
We’re generally pretty good at finding people, things or circumstances to point to as demons when something isn’t working out so well. In the end though, the one who usually lets us down is the image staring back at us in the mirror. Whether it our reticence to commit, our inability to trust our true abilities, or an unwillingness to take the next important but challenging step; it’s the internal storyline we’re feeding ourselves that we ought to be calling [...]
I’ve been doing psychotherapy for quite some time, and I have 3 principles to guide me: I’m acutely aware that people come to me for all sorts of reasons, but not all of them are associated with getting better. As such, they may not really want to be helped. Yes, change of any sort is often greeted with resistance, but when my efforts are stonewalled or the client consistently doesn’t follow through, it’s time to talk. Sometimes it comes down [...]
Fear of failure is one of the most key reasons – if not the most key reason – for why we procrastinate, sell ourselves false promises, quit a project or just simply don’t show up for duty. Continuing to push through the fear can be quite the challenge. Fear of success though is at least as big a challenge as fear of failure, because vanquishing the fear may mean that our efforts start working – generating tangible results which will [...]
If you’re intent on creating something from scratch, launching some new effort, or for that matter, making something better than it already is, there’s going to be disappointment at first. This is because the challenges associated with getting started or up to speed are bound to be dissatisfying – when compared to what the project will eventually look like. The dissatisfaction is hard or all but impossible to ignore, so use it as a catalyst to keep forging ahead to [...]
I write often about decision-making in my blogs and articles; how it’s wise, I believe, not to dawdle when making them because rarely is a decision something from which we can’t someway recover. But might there be exceptions? I got to thinking about bad decisions and what influences our doing so. Two reasons: We’re in a big hurry and don’t take an adequate amount of time to process all the nuts and bolts of the incoming information. More often the [...]
It’s true, we reap what we sow. Time and effort we invest is returned to us, with interest – although rates vary. If we practice a difficult piano piece 5 minutes a day, we’ll get better. If we spend the same amount of time per day dramatizing our life, feeling unhappy, entangled in fear and anxiety, we’ll get better at doing so. The habits, activities and behaviors we cultivate define who we are. Something repeated and repeated grows –for better [...]
By nature, I tend to reflect a lot about my life - what’s working, what’s not, how much energy and focus I’m going to devote to A,B or C. I especially like to know what’s influencing my success. Two factors came to mind, which I’ll share here: The first is the need for a support system. I believe this about support: You can survive without it, but it will be difficult to thrive. I say this because it is very [...]
I ran into a friend last week that I had first met at a Church function. We exchanged pleasantries, caught up a bit on one another’s lives and then came to “let’s get together sometime.” I haven’t called since the encounter and neither has he. A few years back at my most recent high school reunion, I reconnected with many classmates whom I haven’t seen since our last reunion, and met up with others I hadn’t seen since high school [...]
