Dec 05 2015

Your Reaction? Your Response?

Published by under "Here & Now" Focus,Anger/Conflict,Attitude,Best Practices,Business Growth,Business Life,Change,Choosing Behavior,Communication,Decision Making,Entrepreneurship,Experience,Family,Gestalt Therapy,Goals,Good Health,Happiness,Lifestyle,Mental Health,Motivation,Overcoming Objections,People Management,Personal Growth,Problems=Opportunities,Productivity,Reality,Relationships,Self-Confidence,Self-Esteem,Small Business,Special People/Special Occasions,Strategies,Stress Management,Tactics

Are You Reacting

 

. . . or Responding?

 

reactions

When you make it a habit to choose to respond to problem people and problem situations instead of choosing to react, guess what happens?

  • You eliminate all possibility of ever over-reacting, and that’s a good thing if you own, operate, or manage a business of any kind.
  • It’s also a good thing if you are working your way up the career ladder or committed to creating an aura of professionalism, of peace and calm around your personal and work relationships, your friendships, your family.
  • It even increases your odds of preventing accidents, in addition to enhancing your personal performance, and overall health.

Unless you’re in an emergency situation, a calm and thoughtful response solves more problems more effectively than a frazzled or angry reaction. And you already know that choosing calm and thoughtful over frazzled and angry also helps ensure better and longer-lasting health.

Stop reading this right now, and close your eyes while you take a deep breath or two, and pay particular attention to the fact that it slows your heartbeat, helps you collect your thoughts, and increase your sense of self-control.

Go ahead. Treat yourself for ten or fifteen or thirty seconds. You might surprise yourself. Go on; I’ll wait.

breath cartoon

So now that you’ve jetted your self down a notch, do you feel or think any differently than you did ten sentences ago? Three or four breaths ago? And what does this post make you think about for yourself that you’ve either not been aware of before, or that you have gotten lazy about?

As today’s world swirls, it’s easy to simply forget how important the distinction is between reacting and responding and how rewarding it can be for you to take more deep breaths more often.

The bottom line? Your behavior –your words and actions– is always your choice. Your choice may not always be a conscious one and it could be one that’s the result of a choice you made long ago that’s come full circle to stir up your anxieties. But recognize it for what it is . . . you can choose to make things easy on yourself, or you can choose to make them hard on yourself. Why would you want to choose unproductive upset over productive calm? And, yes, you can choose courage!

More conscious choices come from more conscious awareness. There are many mental and physical tools available to trigger responsive choices. Deep breathing is one of these. Yoga is another. Regular exercise, visualization (imagining/projecting/”seeing yourself” achieve a task or solve a problem before actually responding), are two others. Having goals that are specific, realistic, flexible, due-dated, and in writing can also help you steer yourself in high productivity directions.

Don’t just think about all this. Try it!

Keep your head cool and your feet warm

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hal@businessworks.US

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Go for your goals, thanks for your visit, God Bless You!

OPEN  MINDS  OPEN  DOORS

Make Today A Great Day For Someone!

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Dec 18 2011

Christmas Carol Business Message

Published by under "Here & Now" Focus,Attitude,Best Practices,BRANDING,Business Growth,Business Life,Change,Choosing Behavior,Creative Thinking,Decision Making,Entrepreneurship,Experience,Family Business,Goals,Leadership,Lifestyle,Management,Motivation,Observations,Personal Growth,Problems=Opportunities,Professional Practices,Reality,Self-Confidence,Self-Esteem,Small Business

What’s YOUR nomination for a best business Christmas message? 

“…To face unafraid

                                     

the plans that we made…”

(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!

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Nov 16 2011

BIZ ALPHABET SERIES…”W”

Published by under "Here & Now" Focus,Attitude,Best Practices,BRANDING,Business Growth,Business Life,Choosing Behavior,Contacts/Networking,Decision Making,Goals,Innovation,Leadership,Life Plans,Lifestyle,Management,Motivation,Objectives,Objectives/Strategies/Tactics,Observations,Personal Growth,Productivity,Professional Practices,Reality,Sales,Sales Process,Self-Confidence,Self-Esteem,Small Business,Strategic Planning,Tactics,Writing

Welcome to the world’s first SMALL BIZ Alphabet Series of blog posts!

“W”…WISHING

 

WISHING may make it so in Peter Pan or The Wizard of Oz, but it’s a death knell in small business. Like hoping and dreaming, wishing accomplishes nothing. As entrepreneurs, the sooner we face reality and anchor ourselves in the present here-and-now moment for as many passing moments of every day as we possibly can, the sooner we will achieve success.

                             

~~~~~~~

No need to take my word for this sweeping rhetoric. It’s been proven endlessly over the ages by every successful, big-name entrepreneur who ever lived — from Thomas Edison, Henry Ford,  and Dale Carnegie, to Bill Gates, Steven Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, and Mary Kay Ashe.

So if this is such common knowledge, why doesn’t every entrepreneur succeed? Part of the answer is in the title of this blog post. We are taught from childhood to wish upon a star, that if we find a container on the beach and rub it, a genie will appear and grant three wishes, and so on.

Why do I bring this to our attention now, as we reach the end of the alphabet? Because besides that tonight, we landed on “W,” we are also on the cusp of the greatest annual “wishfest” in American history.

The whole thing starts the day after Thanksgiving and typically continues until Christmas when the dried out and “wishable” Thanksgiving turkey wishbone is ready to be or has already been snapped, and is likely to be replaced by a fresh new Christmas turkey wishbone.

Besides every greeting card filled with best holiday wishes, the season itself brings with it even more wishing as we see lottery ticket sales zoom and letters to Santa abound with children’s wishlists. And then, there’s New Year’s resolutions and wishes… success, success, success!

We certainly have ample opportunities for legitimatized, formal, and official wishing, but… alas!… WE are entrepreneurs, and we know far better than any corporate counterparts or government flunkies that wishing is a colossal waste of time and energy… not praying, mind you, but wishes! We all need all the prayer we can muster.

But that doesn’t mean that we can’t have goals. In fact, if we are truly to succeed, goal-setting needs to be an essential and ongoing activity. And real goals –as opposed to fantasized missions– must adhere to four essential criteria, or they are not real goals, and not likely even achievable.

Ongoing? Yes, since –as you may have just discovered by clicking on the last word link above– one of the four essential goal-setting criteria is flexibility, the idea of ongoing goal-setting should be apparent. They need to be adjusted, re-adjusted, and upgraded to reflect the following truism:

Time and events cause changes in

  purpose, passion, and resources.

(Aspiring political candidates should also take note!)

                                                                                    

Do you write down your goals and write down your revised and upgraded goals and carry a copy of the latest version on your person every day? Do you go to sleep and wake up with them in your face every day? Do you keep them private except from others who:

  • You trust
  • You know have their own goals
  • You know will provide you with positive, reinforcing, encouragement on your pursuits

Stop wishing and start taking positive steps to make things happen. Begin in reality with written goals.

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Hal@Businessworks.US 

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

 Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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