What do workaholics,

delusionists, and grieving

friends and relatives

all have in common?

 Why is it that the people who are most in need of breaking out of their workaholic patterns are the ones most resistant to the suggestion? They’re afraid to let go. Well, logically, it makes sense. Fear is the single most destructive emotion (and sometimes, paradoxically, greatest motivator) in existence.

Letting go is life’s single hardest task.

Workaholics share this infamous platform with those who live in delusion as well as those who grieve the loss of loved ones. Letting go means giving up an important part of yourself in favor of moving on, or back into, reality. Many egotistically, and sadly, are convinced that the world and their business could not survive without them.

“Sadly,” because these same people will almost inevitably drive themselves into cardiac care units… or the grave… using the excuse as a rationale that they “never gave up the ship!” It’s a lot like being mentally retarded (and having a daughter who is, I can say this with some authority). The single difference is the awareness of having a choice!

Never-say-die workaholics

 simply choose not to choose.

They know they have a choice, but feel threatened by the idea of changing horses in mid-stream. So they instead invest themselves in maintaining the status quo at all costs. Or, as world renown family therapist Virginia Satir used to say, “they get dried up and shrivel up.”

And, Satir goes on to ask: “Don’t you think this affects the growth of their families and that of those who work with them?” See for yourself. Status quo seekers are everywhere, harboring pain and misery, and transferring their own inadequacies and choices not to choose to change.

How dim the lights that light these lives. How stagnant the businesses they run. How rebellious the children they raise. Choosing situations and leaders who make the choices for them . . . how unfulfilled the lives they live.

This picture is bleak indeed, and it permeates many corners of the corporate and union worlds and government universe but, thankfully, has rarely become the payoff of hard work and self-sacrifice that many entrepreneurs practice. How is that? Because most entrepreneurs play and sleep as hard as they work.

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Hal@Businessworks.US  

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

(From Winter Wonderland) 

Endless studies show people are more afraid of public speaking than of death, so it would seem to follow that most people refuse to set goals for themselves and their businesses because they are afraid of failure to achieve what they decide to pursue. I mean that makes sense, doesn’t it? Fear of failure is part of life, right?

Well, there are all kinds of answers to that hypothesis. Fear is a behavior and all behavior is a choice, so fear is a choice . . . why choose to be afraid? Having no goals (especially if you own or run a business) is like being captain of a ship that has no rudder — another example of what seems to me to be a curious choice.

Did you know that when you decide to tell someone else (who doesn’t set goals) about your goals that you open yourself to such criticism and undermining that you stand to actually end up taking steps backward instead of forward?

Did you remember that effective goal-setting requires strict adherence to a simple set of criteria? A goal that’s realistic (to separate it from frivilous pursuit of wishes, hopes, and fantasyland) must be, in fact, realistic. It must also be specific, and due-dated. be clearly written down and carried with you, and –aha!– be flexible!

If you set a goal that looks like it’s not going to happen as you get to the the due date, be flexible: change the due date. Or change the expected payoff, or the dimensions or parameters of the goal. Flexibility means it’s okay to change the goal and the direction or the planned result. Y0u will not be a failure unless you choose to be. 

Writing your goals down and carrying them with you forces your brain to buy intro them. It’s not unlike checking your wallet before you go someplace special to make sure you can cover anticipated expenses, or at least to simply take inventory. It’s a self-discipline behavior that keeps you focused on what you will achieve.

By keeping yourself focused on your specific, realistic, flexible, due-dated pursuits, you increase the odds for success dramatically, and the avenues you take will be more compatible with what you seek to achieve. In addition, your focus will attract endless resources to help you get where you’re going — people, events, information, money.  

Face unafraid the plans that you made . . .

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Hal@Businessworks.US   302.933.0116

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

YOUR EVERY ACTION,

AND EVERY THOUGHT

IS YOUR CHOICE!

“Nah!  That’s not possible,” you say?  Hey, it’s not only possible, it’s true. And it’s true  100% of the time! 

We CHOOSE our behavior. 

No one makes you mad.  You choose to feel mad about something someone says or does or thinks.

No one embarrasses you.  You choose to feel embarrassed about something you or someone else chooses to do or not do or say or not say or think or not think. 

And it IS your choice. 

Anger. Depression. Embarrassment. Humiliation. Envy. 

Jealousy. Guilt. Hatred. Fear. Loneliness. 

These feelings don’t just fall down from the sky and land on your shoulder.  You, we, all of us, choose these emotions and we also choose the time-wasting behaviors that come along with them. 

So, maybe you don’t like hearing that, or thinking about it because you don’t want to have to admit that you’re that wimpy, wussy, weak-willed, fragile, malleable, and stupid. So you conjure up all kinds of defensive excuses and scenarios to discount the validity of it. But you can’t. There’s no discounting the truth.

Maybe you didn’t choose to get in that car accident, but you did choose to get in that car. You knew there was a risk associated and you knew that other drivers were not always as careful as you, and you chose to drive or ride anyway. But you had to BE someplace else. Wasn’t that a choice also?

It’s not that we make bad choices. Everyone on Earth does that. It’s that we convince ourselves that bad stuff is not the result of making a bad choice. We didn’t make a bad choice; circumstances were bad. Ah, but we chose to put ourselves in those circumstances by either direct or indirect choice. We did! At some point in time, it was a choice. 

I mean why would anybody CHOOSE to feel angry?  It’s much easier to blame others for the upset negative feelings we have and the accompanying nonproductive behaviors.  Isn’t it? 

That moron cut me off in traffic!  He’s a jerk!  He makes me so angry I think I’ll race up alongside him, give him the finger, and then cut HIM off!  I’ll show him!  Hey, that’s great . . . the stuff road rage heroes are made of, right? 

Why not instead choose to STOP for just a minute and take a deep breath, collect your self-control and mentally step back from the nutcase driver who just prompted you to choose to feel angry, and, instead, think to yourself that:

     A)  He’s in some kind of emergency situation or under great duress, or

     B)  I am not going to choose for that nut-job to cause me to choose to feel upset.  He’s not worth it!  

Since many choices are in the unconscious mind, when you find yourself choosing negative and upsetting behavior, pinch yourself, take that deep breath, remind yourself that you are in fact making a choice.  Change the channel in your brain from “Bad News” to “Mellow, Happy Music.” 

Remember that you always control your own brain.

(Ask any POW survivor or cancer survivor about that).

No one reaches inside your brain and causes you to think or act or react in a negative or unsettling or upsetting way.

You do that to you.

You can just as easily choose for something hard to be easy, something risky to be safe, something maddening to be calming, something impossible to be possible, a problem to be an opportunity, the glass to be half full . . ..

Go ahead and run the risk!

Choose to overcome the negatives by bringing in the (There’s a really old song my parents used to sing: “E-limi-nate the neg-ative, ax-cen-tuate the positive…”) awareness that you need only blink and then choose –instead of creating or adding to an uproar– a positive, productive behavior, thought, action, response.

Go for it! The more you do, the easier and happier it gets. Hey, it’s your choice.