A peak performer is a person who excels at something and perceives he or she has control of the end result. How do you operate, when you are good at something? There is a common method to how they operate when they excel at something. Think about what you are good at, sewing, cooking, carpentry, cleaning, etc. Now lets see what your mode of operation is when you are at your best. People who are good at things have a very definite style. If they applied this style to other areas of their life they would become peak performers in less successful areas.
In class I will ask if anyone considers themselves a good cook, carpenter or car mechanic. I consistently will get the same answers from different people around the country. If a good cook volunteers, I will ask, " when you cook one of your specialties are you ever surprised when you open your oven and find that what you cooked turned out right"? People always answer they are never surprised. They know it always works out that way. I then ask them if they believe they are lucky they are a good cook. They respond it wasn't luck that allowed them to be a good cook, it was practice.
They don't say things like "oh I am lucky today" it all turned out right. They say they knew it would turn out because they had created or mastered it. Think about things you are good at and see if you believe in luck. Don't you also say you knew that it would turn out ok because you created it? If you look at any area you are good at, we don't refer to luck or accidents. People who are successful don't believe in accidents, they believe in skill and hard work. They believe in the control they have. They know if you do the same thing over again consistently you will get the same results. The next time you meet someone who is good at something ask them if they are surprised when they succeed. You'll find they don't talk about accidents or luck. What would your life be like if you did not believe in accidents? Think of the control you would have over your life. When we talk of accidents we eliminate all sense of control.
When we are good at something there is another quality all of us possess. We take responsibility for what we have created whether it is positive or negative. Whenever I ask a good cook to tell me whose fault it is if they make a mistake in the kitchen. The answer is unanimous, if the cake burns, or falls or turns out ok, it was because of something that the cook did. If you think back to the Summer Olympics, you will remember that after a person won or lost and were interviewed, they always talked about something they did, right or wrong. You very seldom hear a winner talk about blaming outside forces for good or bad results. People who are not successful at something blame outside sources for their failure. Most amateurs will blame failures on others or weather or anything that would point away from them. A poor cook will blame it on the oven, the store where they bought the food. A professional or successful person always takes responsibility for what happens to them. This is key in keeping control, if you take responsibility for what turns out you also have control over it. What would your life be like if you took responsibility for everything that has happened to you. You do it in areas where you are successful. You'll also notice that you don't feel guilty about the mistake. In areas you are confident, you don't feel guilty nor talk of guilt.
How many times have you been told to plan,plan,plan? You think about what you want to do and then you plan it out. Nothing happens, because you were not motivated. Do peak performers plan a whole lot? One thing I have noticed about areas I am good at, I don't do a lot of planing or none at all. I have also noticed this of others. When people feel confident about themselves or confident in some area, they do not do "ready, aim, shoot" but rather they do "
How often have you committed yourself to something, not knowing how to do it? I will ask a good cook, seamstress, or carpenter, if they would make something for me that they have never made before. I do not tell them what it is. The answer that I get is an overwhelming: "Yes, sure."
This seems to be a contradiction to all we have been taught. My own logic tells that I should get all the facts before I start something or before I commit to something. However I have managed many times to commit myself to project after project without knowing the facts. I was in Atlanta speaking to a large group of vocational counselors and trainers. They all agreed people should have training before they do a job. They also agreed people should know what they want to be in life. People should do research before they embark on a career. They told me people should at least have some educational background in what people are doing. There were over 400 professionals in the room from around the country. I asked the following questions of these people:
How many here have no formal training in what they are now doing?
How many had taken their job with out thinking about it or knowing much about the job? Rather took it because you needed a job or it seemed interesting?
How many were not sure what they wanted to be in life (ages 24 to 65)?
How many had just taken their job because it had been offered to them?
Over three quarters of the group answered they had done most of these things in their present jobs. I know this is not a scientific survey. However, I have done this enough times, to know the majority of people who are successful in non-scientific jobs, have very little formal training in what they are doing. They have, however, the confidence to say "yes", and then to figure out later how to do it. What I am saying goes against our training. It seems foreign because it does not seem logical. I also know many people's training and planning have made them successful. Start talking to people you meet and find out a little about how they got where they are now. You too will get the same reaction. "Well its a long story, but I am not sure." Ready, shoot aim is all about the confidence needed to say "yes" and then figure out later how to do it. People who are confident decide what they want to do. Later concern themselves about how to do it.
In our classes we have many people who are on public assistance. They tell me the reason that they are unemployed is because they have no transportation or day care. On the surface this may seem like a good reason. However, it is not how successful people operate. I ask these people where do you need to go? When do you need your child minded ? They look at me and say, "I have nowhere to go, yet. " "I don't know when the child needs minding, yet." They do not have a transportation problem because they have no where to go. They have no day care problem because they do not need to use child care services yet. We all plan where we want to go, then figure out how to get there. We all plan where to go and then figure out where to put the kids. What I find many times is that people spend so much time planning they never feel as if they are ready. If you find yourself stuck about whether you are ready to do something and it has been going on for a long time, just do it. You will figure out how
to do it.
Peak performers have one other common trait. They solicit positive feedback from others. They ask for a pat on the back. They seed They do not always plan the feedback, but it usually happens. Take successful cooks for instance. They come out of the kitchen and place the meal on the table. They then wait for someone to say how good it is or they ask how do you like the meal. In any case they will receive, for the most part, positive feed back. This is what gets them to do it again. They will say: "all the energy was worth it". Positive reinforcement is an energizer. It literally keeps our batteries charged.
Many times when I did sales, people would reject my proposals for seminars. If I started to feel down I would call up someone I had helped and ask how thing were going since the seminar. They would usually tell me how great it was and what a source of inspiration it had been for them. This news would pick me up and I would be back into business again. If you think of something you are good at, you will find it is the compliments that keep you going back and doing the things you are good at. You may not actively solicit the compliments but you get them. Many times I will compliment people on how nice an outfit is, they will light up and say "I made it." Then the compliments start even more. People who are good at something will always somehow get those "ooh's and aah's." This is what keeps them getting better. Have you ever started a diet and lost a few noticeable pounds and someone says you look thinner? Those few words are the words that move you to loose a few more pounds. If you only receive negative reviews from what you do, it will be a long time before you try the thing again.
When you do something like cleaning or making something do you ask people for compliments? Do you tell people what you did or do you wait to see if they notice ? If you wait for them to notice, you could be setting yourself up for burn out. If you have done work and no one compliments you, why not ask people what they think. If you hang around people who love to criticize everything you do, try this. The next time you do something, tell them you did it and there may even be mistakes but you will find them. Ask them how they like the overall job. If you feel like a martyr, and feel no one appreciates what you do, do what peak performers do and ask for compliments.
If you want to get better at something, start acting like a peak performer. It does not matter where you start in the cycle.
What is happiness and how can we achieve it every day of our lives? There is this strange belief that those who are happy all of the time are crazy or are not dealing with reality. I believe since our bodies function the best when we are happy, our job is to be happy as much as possible. In Doctor Siegel's Book Love, Medicine and Miracles, he states: " happy people are healthy people". Studies have shown that happy people have higher immune systems than do unhappy people. A lot of people want to know how can we be happy with all the craziness in the world? If our feelings came from what happened from around us, reading the morning paper could get anyone depressed. If we were to look at happiness in a general way, we could say happiness takes place when what we want, and what we get, come together. Or we could say happiness takes place when reality meets our expectations. Notice below the diagram of your happiness level. See chart "What is Happiness"
Lets take each one of these and look at it closely. I am calling reality or the world around us "is" or a "moment in time". The day is divided into segments of 24 hours; these are divided into minutes and seconds. If you think about it all you have to deal with is one second or one minute at a time. If something happens during this second or minute, we can not change what has happened. Let me give you an example. If I were to spill milk what would the options be? We could clean it up, give me a lecture, or shoot me. However, none of these things would ever un- spill the milk or change what took place. Outside we have moments that occur and can not be changed. I am not saying future things can not be altered but present things can not be changed. You could tell me that I may not drink milk in your house, or you could teach me ways to hold the milk so it stays in the glass but you can not change what has happened.
This seems all logical, however the mind has expectations of how the world should be. Each of us accumulated these expectations from our training. (Remember all of the things you were taught as a child?) The mind is constantly monitoring what is happening out in the world with these expectations. If we tell the mind it should be a sunny day because we are going on a picnic, then the mind has been programmed. The mind then is set in motion to monitor the day. If we wake up and see that there is rain and the mind has been programmed that it should be sunny, the result is that it computes a feeling of disappointment and unhappiness.
Where did our unhappiness come from? Was it because it rained or because we said it should be sunny? All day long our minds are checking out what we have programmed should be happening. All day long the mind monitors and creates feelings based on what we tell it. Think of your brain as a policeman who checks and sees if everyone is obeying the law. If they are not, he will arrest them or give them a ticket. Your mind operates the same way; it checks and sees if everyone and every thing is keeping up with your expectations, your laws about how life should be. When reality does follow your rules, you reward it with a smile or your own happiness. When reality doesn't meet with your expectations you become unhappy, you might give it a frown. You might also teach it a lesson by raising your blood pressure. That would fix it. If what they did was really below your expectation you could teach them a real lesson by being unhappy all day.
I recently had an experience that gave me a chance to see how good I was at this. I was flying to a seminar and when I arrived, my bags were not there. Now, I always carry a set of clothes with me, however, not this time as I was leaving early and if anything happened, I had time to get my bags on a latter plane. I was told they would be in on a later flight. I waited around and one of the bags came in. I went to the hotel and called they told me that the other bag probably would be in on the 11:00 p.m. flight. I went to meet the flight and it was not there. Most of my seminar materials were in that bag. While this was happening, my mind was not as quiet and peaceful as it is now. "They" had not met my expectations. "They" did not understand I really needed my materials. Everything was going wrong! For a while I got hooked into my old expectations. At first I was angry, then, I started to beat myself up for not planning ahead. I made myself very unhappy because the airline failed to meet my expectations. My unhappiness was not changing the situation. I had no choice, I could not change the situation. However, I did not have to be unhappy on top of it. I changed my breathing pattern and trusted I would be ok and I would be able to handle the situation. It did turn out ok I got to experience wearing a with sneakers in front of a lot of people, and I did not die. Our happiness does not depend on the world around us but rather what we tell ourselves about world and how it should work.
Most people have been trained to believe their feelings come from others. As children we were taught this indirectly. If you were told you made someone angry, happy or gave someone a pain, then you were trained you were the cause of others feelings. When a parent tells a child that s/he is making them angry, s/he is training the child s/he has control over the parents emotions. A child at three can have great control over a thirty year old parent. I often think some three-year old could say to another three year old, "I am more powerful than you, I can make an adult go crazy". The three-year old then slams the door, or whatever it is that makes the parent scream.
In class I ask: "who is responsible for our feelings?" Most of the people in the class will answer that they are responsible. However, they will all admit that they do blame others for their feelings. Our brain, our computer, is so fast at analyzing things it looks as if others are causing our feelings. In order to understand this better, lets look at emotions.
As I have said, before our expectations of how reality should, must, or has to be, comes from what we learned from our family and friends early in childhood. "People should not be late." People should always smile when they talk to others." These are rules about how people should be, things should operate. We have expectations for reality. When reality, people and things live up to our expectations, we are happy. When they don't live up to our standards, then we are unhappy.
When we are unhappy, nothing changes outside of us. However, a lot changes inside of us, we become sad, angry or at least annoyed. We may even raise our blood pressure. Suppose your car were hit. You could not change the fact it got hit, it was not desirable it got hit. However, being upset about it does not change anything. Before we only had a dented car, now we have a dented person. Where did we get the idea we had to be upset when we did not get what we wanted? As a child when we did not get what we wanted, we may have thrown a temper tantrum. We may have cried, yelled or even threatened to hold our breath. Sometimes it worked. People gave in, to shut us up. Now that we are older we have changed the program a little. Instead of yelling, we may hold it in and yell internally. Instead of holding our breath, we have become much better at raising our blood pressure. Unfortunately, none of these things will change the fact that the car got hit.
So why do we do it? I find most people do it because they do not think they have a choice. Most people believe it is natural and normal to be upset when we don't get what we want. It may appear or seem normal because most people do it. However, I do not believe it is natural nor do I believe it is the best way for us to act.
Anger, for example, manifests itself from people, places, and things not meeting our expectation. When you are angry it does not change anything on the outside. But it does change your mood and your bodily functions. Many people say when they yell and scream that they feel relief. What is being said is: "I get myself upset, angry, and raise my blood pressure and when I stop it I feel much better." If someone were sticking their arm with pins and told you that the reason that they did it was because it felt better when they stopped, you would believe they were crazy.
Where do we get feelings and what are our choices when we get them? Feelings do not just appear they are brought into existence through a series of events that take place inside of us. Negative feelings can be stopped and replaced with positive feelings. However, this is easier said then done, but with practice it can be done.
Let's look at where feelings in general come from. There is an event that takes place, we analyze it with our personal standards. (This is done with the fastest computer in the world, our brain.) We then arrive at a feeling. If the standards we have were met, then we were happy. If they were not met, we are unhappy. The formula for feeling looks like this.
A SITUATION + PERSONAL STANDARDS OR BELIEF
= A FEELING
Negative feelings come from someone or something not meeting our standards. Someone or something did not live up to our expectations. Let's look at a situation we may have experienced. We are riding in our car on a two lane highway. The person in front of us is going very slowly. Traffic is coming the other way so we are unable to pass. We become very angry and begin to raise our blood pressure. What are our choices at this point? We could pull over to the side of the road and have soda pop. We could continue feeling angry. We could learn to enjoy the ride and the scenery. Since we can not get out of the situation and we want to get somewhere it is better to get there late and happy and refreshed then it is to get there late and unhappy and frazzled. We make choices like this every day many times a day.
In the Alcoholics Anonymous, twelve step program there is a Serenity Prayer :
God grant me the serenity to accept the things that I can not change.
The courage to change the things I can, and.
the wisdom to know the difference.
Knowing the difference between things that can be changed and can not be changed is the most difficult part. What can we change in traffic? Can we change the fact that we are on a road in front of a slower person going in the same direction we are going? Answer NO. Can we change our thoughts about how fast the person in front of us should go?
Answer - YES. The reason we are feeling angry at the person in front is because they are not meeting OUR rules. One of our rules is how fast people should drive when we are behind them. To show them we do not approve of their behavior, we raise our blood pressure and teach them a lesson. We cause ourselves mental and physical anguish. All the time this is happening the people in front of us are content with their speed limits.
Let us look at our rule again. "People should go " X MILES AN HOUR when I am behind them." This person in front of us may have been driving like this for years, however we were never behind them. We have never gotten upset before about them. A day later we may not be upset. It was all right for them to drive like this before. Being upset will not change the situation. Whenever you become upset over something, ask yourself what you are telling yourself about the situation, what is your rule? You will usually find it is a rule that other people, places or things are not willing to follow. Everyday begin to remind yourself not everyone, including nature, has the same rules you have. I have found the words that create anger in my mind's computer. They are: SHOULD, MUST and HAVE TO. When I type certain words on my computer, the program gives me certain results. When I use certain words in my brain, they will give me certain results. Should, must and have to are absolutes. When people don't do what they should, must or have to do, our brain computes anger. If we did not use these words we would not get anger. Every time you use the word should or must, correct yourself and use the word desirable. This will work wonders. Change the statement "They shouldn't drive that way" to: "It would be more desirable if they would drive faster". You will find that your feelings change because your thinking changes.
There is an old tale about a wise man who sat outside
the gates of a very large town. Every morning the wise man would greet the merchants and townspeople as they entered the town. One day a new merchant went into the town and saw the wise man and asked him what kind of people he would find in the town. The wise man answered with a question (all wise people ask questions before they answer)and said: "what kind of people do you have in your town?" The man answered: "We have very friendly and honest people where I am from." The wise man said, "you will find the same kind of people in our town." The man thanked him and went on his way. Another new merchant happen to come by and asked the wise man the same question. Again the wise man answered with a question: "What kind of people do you have in your town?" The man answered: "the people from my town are cheap and dishonest". The wise man answered "you will find the same kind of people in our town." The merchant thanked him and went on his way. At the end of the day the merchants were leaving and the first merchant went over to the wise man and thanked him for telling him how honest and friendly the people were. He also found them that way. The second merchant also thanked the wise man for warning him about how cheap and dishonest the people were because he had found them that way.
How many times have you heard someone say every boss they have is nasty? Or "all of the Woman in our office are catty." If in your experience you find yourself around the same type of person all of the time, check out what your expectations are. Either they all got together at night and planned to meet you, or you are unconsciously seeking them out.
How often have you heard someone say: "Don't ask him/her, they are not in a good mood."? What is a good mood and how do you get one? I am sometimes around people I believe never felt a good mood. For me a good mood is a feeling of wholeness and control. It is the feeling that all is OK with yourself. When someone is in a good mood they are smiling, feeling good about who they are. They respond with kindness when there is a problem.
Many times our spouses or children can say something and it does not bother us. However, if we are not in a good mood and they can say the same words and we respond in a negative way or we may say, "they hurt my feelings". The real fact is they did not do anything differently then they did before. The reality was we were in a bad mood. The real issue here is not what they said but what we were feeling. When we are feeling in a negative mood the whole world looks different. Our friends look different, our family and our jobs all seem negative. We all respond differently when we are in a negative mood. We tend to say things we regret, we become unattractive to others.
During a seminar a participant gave me this quote, "I don't worry about what others think of me, but I do concern myself with what I think of others". This, for me is the key of whether I am in a good mood. If I like you, then I like me. You are only a reflection of how I feel about myself. A technique I have learned is when I say something about you I write it down and see if I can replace my name for the other persons. Example, "I am angry at you." gets changed to: "I am angry at Paul." When I do this I usually find that I am mad at myself. The "you" is only a reflection of what is going on inside of me.
What is communication? Communication takes place when the person receiving understands the message you, the sender, are giving. Unless they understand the message properly there is no communication. Successful people take the responsibility of making sure the other person understands the message. Successful people do not blame the other person for not understanding the message. They go back and redo the message. This is a statement of an un-successful person. "If you don't understand me is your fault."
Communication takes place in on two levels. Level one is verbal; these are the word that you use when you are talking. The verbal message only constitutes only about 10 to 20 percent of the whole message. Level two is the non-verbal; these are the body signals and voice tone. The non-verbal constitutes about 80 to 90 percent of the message.
Did you ever walk away from someone and they said all the right things but you did not believe them? What you were experiencing was the power of the non-verbal.
Perhaps your parents told you that actions speak louder then words. Successful people know there are no secrets. You can always tell when things are not right. Successful people learn to trust their gut. If you don't like someone and you say all the right things, people will still know you don't like them. Have you ever been in the situation where someone comes up to you with their arms folded? They act very subdued, and tell you that nothing is wrong. You know how frustrating that is. When you ask them if anything is bothering them, they say no. The non-verbal will always come through. Remember actions speak louder then words.
If you are angry at someone or if you don't like them, don't try to communicate with them until you have worked it out in your head with yourself. Remember, if you felt real good about who you were as a person, a winner, then you would be able to deal more effectively with others.
If you harbor a resentment toward another person, you need to work on yourself. Whatever the other person did, no matter how bad it was, it is useless for you to carry it around in your head. It is wasting your energy. To communicate to them at this point will worsen the situation.
If you have a resentment toward someone you need to work on yourself. One way I found that helped me overcome resentments toward others is to understand what resentments are and to forgive the people who offended me. Resentments appear when someone does not meet our expectations for how people or things SHOULD behave. We have rules about how a friend or employer or even a human being should act and sometimes people break those rules. We can not change what they did, but we don't have to carry them in our head "rent free" for years. This only hurts us. I used to have a lot of resentments. I would go to bed and give the people I resented lectures in my head. In the end all I got was no sleep and a headache. People tell me they want to hold on to their resentment because what the other person did was so painful. I tell them they can continue to hold on to the resentment, but it is only going to affect their happiness. From all of the reading I have done of experts in the bodymind field, they all say many illnesses come from resentment. Resentment effects your stress level and that effects your immune system.
To work on a resentment, let me suggest something that has helped me greatly. I close my eyes and put the person whom I resent on a stage and I tell them I forgive them for not living up to MY HIGHY STANDARDS FOR THEM and I tell them all of the things I had as standards. I let them go and have nice things happen to them. When I first put them on the stage, many times I want a truck to run over them. However, when I do it maybe the tenth or twentieth time I can start to talk to them. If you do not let them go and have nice things happen to them, you really have not forgiven them. My experience has been that until I truly forgive them I will have to repeat the same mistakes with others in my life. I use the blood pressure test. If, when I think of the person and my blood pressure goes up, then I need to do more forgiving.
When you drive on an icy road and you lose control of the car, the way you gain control is to go along with the skid and then you can regain control. I learned this in driver's education class many years ago. However, when I would be in that situation I would still want to put on the breaks and turn the car in the direction I wanted to go. The results have always been the same: I ended up in the wrong direction. In order to gain control we must give up control. This works with nature and relationships.
When we want control with others the only way to gain it is to give up control. This is easily said but difficult to do. I once had a newly married woman in my class who every night after work would come home to her husband and try to talk to him about his day. He just wanted to unwind and read the paper. She, however, wanted to share their day together. Every night the same occurrence, she would come home and sit down and ask how his day was. He would answer, still looking at the paper, that the day was -fine. She persisted in wanting to know what had happened. Almost every night they would end up in a little spat about the situation. During the class she saw she was trying to control the situation and that she needed to give up control in order to get what she wanted. She tried it. She went home that night and accepted that her husband just wanted to unwind with the newspaper when he got home. She went into the house and greeted her husband, and asked how his day was and he answered the usual "fine". She told him her's was too and went to the kitchen to prepare dinner. She was not in the kitchen more then two minutes when her husband came in and wanted to know what was wrong. She told him "nothing," she had just accepted he wanted to read the paper when he got home. She came to class the next day and said that they had the best conversation. When she stopped trying to change her husband and accept him, she began to get what she wanted. We can not change the ice on the road, we can only change how we deal with the ice. We can not change others, we can only change how we deal with them.
There are two things necessary to allow change in others. Acceptance and letting go of the situation. Until we accept that we are on the ice, we will find ourselves vulnerable to the ice and we may not get where we want to go. Until we accept people with their habits, we will not be able to carry on a good relationship with them. Acceptance does not mean approval, it means acknowledgment.
The second phase is to let go of the situation. Let me give you an example I use in class. I have people work in pairs. Each person puts his hands on the others person's shoulders and each pushes the other. The greater the force of one, the more the other person pushes. As soon as one lets up the other lets go. A person will fight our persistence with the same amount of force we give out.
When we don't fight, when we stop trying to control, the other person, we are letting go. Just like on the ice when we try to control, we lose it. Go along with what the person is doing - don't fight it. When we let go we are trusting in ourselves and the other person. We are saying that no matter what happens we will be able to handle it and so will the other person.
When I was first asked to give a workshop on motivation I was very excited and thought that I would not have to do anything to get more speaking engagements. Everyone had given me such fine compliments I knew that all I had to do was to wait and they would come to my door knocking it down for me. I waited and waited and every once in a while I would get someone calling. I would get all excited and then nothing would happen. I decided I would call a few people who had indicated they might be interested. I called and several people asked me to send them something in writing. I sent the material and then waited, waited and waited, no one called. I called them and they were not in the office and so I left a message and waited and waited. I did not want to bother them because I was afraid that they would get agitated and say NO. I was so afraid of the word NO. Every time I got a NO I would be down for at least a week. I hated rejections and I seemed to get them all of the time. I was getting no where and I asked less and less people if they were interested. I was not dealing very effectively with rejection. I asked a friend of mine who was a very successful salesperson how he handled rejection. What he told me changed my whole approach to any kind of rejection.
The first thing he did was to point to a sign in his office. The sign read "SALESMANSHIP BEGINS WHEN THE CUSTOMER SAYS 'NO'". I asked him what that meant. He told me that when people said NO I had some choices. I could walk away and feel rejected or I could stay and find out what the problem was and see if I could change it with more information. I could thank the person for their time and move on to a new customer. I told him I was aware of those choices but that was not my problem. I knew how to thank the person and leave, but how do you move on to the next person without the feeling of rejection? He asked me if I had ever received a phone call from someone selling the newspaper. I answered yes and that I usually told them: "No thank you," and hung up the phone. He showed me some statistics. In order for a person to sell one newspaper subscription on the phone, they had to make an average of 25 calls. He said that means they had to go through almost 24 people like me saying no until they got to that one YES. I asked him how they handled the 24 rejections. He said, every time these people hang up from a "no" they cheer. They say to themselves they are closer to a sale. Just a few more "no's" and they will have a sale. My friend told me that the only way to success was through " no's".
Think of your life in terms of salesmanship. Most of us want a "yes" the first time we ask for something. Every time you want something from someone else, you are in sales. Most people, when they do not get what they want, feel rejected because they think it has something to do with them. Instead, we should act like a successful salesman and verify the reason for the "NO".
My company often receives requests for proposals. These proposals can be very long documents. Sometimes up to 50 or more pages. It takes a lot of time to prepare them. Our rate of success of about 1 out of 9 to win a bid. We need about 8 no's in order to get a big contract. Every time I get a no, I know we are closer to a big one. I now cheer when they come in to the office.
There probably is not one successful person in the world who has not gone through rejection in order to get where they are today. I enjoy picking up biographies of successful people. Usually I find the first twelve chapters are full of one disaster after another, then the last chapter tells the success. The great separating point between successful people and non successful people is in how they handle rejection.
Some of our workshops have people who have been out of work for a long time. In almost all cases the problem is that they became depressed about the loss of the job. They received a few rejections from employers. They stopped looking because rejection became such a bad situation. They focus on the rejections and they expand into more rejections and depression. When you understand the only way to success is through rejection, then rejection becomes a stepping stone to be embraced. Everything you seek may not be obtained the first time or the first ten times. The truth is that it will eventually come up. Successful people are persistent and non- successful people give up. When you get a rejection simply count down; say to yourself, "Well I got that one out of the way, I am getting closer to my goal". This works with anything, a job, a date or a proposal in business.
Winston Churchill, the great English statesman, was once asked his secret to success, he answered: "NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER,NEVER GIVE UP". If you want something in life, you are going to have to go get it. The stepping stone to a goal may be a lot of rejections.
When I was a child I learned that God created us to his image and
likeness. Later on in life I learned that we returned the favor. Our concept of God is based on our own concept of ourselves. You will not find a liberal person with a conservative God. Nor will you find a very conservative, strict person with a liberal God. As our concept of who we are changes so does our concept of God. One of the ways we can tell about our own mental health is to look at the mental health of our concept of God. Almost always our concept of God begins with our concept of our parents. If your parents were loving, you probably understand God that way. You are probably attracted to a church that emphasizes God's loving aspects. However, if you came from a family that was very strict and had lots of rules, you probably are attracted to a church which emphasizes God's commandments.
Almost all religions of which I am aware, stress that God is loving and perfect. What are the qualities of a loving and perfect person? For me some of the qualities of a loving person are they support you in your growth. They do not call you negative names, like sinner. If someone were perfect I would assume that they would have good mental health. They would not hold grudges for several thousand years. What are the qualities of a mentally healthy person? Is your God insecure? What are the qualities of an insecure God?
Let me tell you about parents, who everyday tested their child to see if he loved them. Every time the child made new friends, the parents would move. The purpose of this was see if the child loved them and to have the child rely completely on the parents. It seems the child hurt them many years ago when he ate some cake they told him not to eat. They have never forgiven him for doing that. The parents also insisted that the child give up something at least once a week to prove they are loved by the child. Each week the child was given a special thing to do, not ride his bike on Tuesday. When the child does these acts, the parents feel much better about themselves knowing the child loves them. If the child does not meet the parents expectations,(which are that the child never make a mistake) they then become very angry at the child. They threaten him with no inheritance. The parents are almost always disappointed. The child does not meet with their expectation.
The parents got extremely upset when their son grew a little older and tried to go out on his own without their help. They were very powerful people and would pull any string they could just so their son would come back to them. They wanted their son to always rely on them. They insisted he spend at least an hour a week with them just so he could thank them for all they did for him. In addition the parents made him beg for everything he wanted. This kept him in his place. The child was constantly threatened with being thrown out of the family and cut out from the will if he does not follow their commands.
You may be thinking this is an extremely exaggerated story. This family is very sick. The parents have very little self-esteem and have little true love for their child. This description of
how parents behave reflects many of our societal belief.
If all we have said though out the book is true then these
parents come under the category of being mentally unhealthy. How much of a parallel is there between your concept of God and the parents? Sometimes it is difficult for us to see our concepts of who we are as persons until we look at those traits in others. Our concept of God always fits into how we feel about ourselves as persons. A good way to look at your own mental health is to look at your concept of God. Ask yourself if your God is mentally healthy. Your concept of God changes as your concept of yourself changes. As you begin to love yourself more you will find that your God becomes a loving parent who will support you with your growth. I find that people with low self-esteem have a very strict concept of God and His or Her rules. Their God has been holding a resentment for thousands of years, just because two people, they did not know eat something in a garden. Talk about poor mental health.
As you grow inside yourself and begin to love yourself you will find that not only does your concept of God change but people in your life will look different. Maybe there is someone in your life you have attracted that likes to keep you in your place. They do this effectively by always telling you what you do wrong. You will find they are not as appealing to you when you become self-confident. You do not need to resent them because you also participated in the game. Just let them go. When you don't participate in the game, people lose interest.
Just as you may have surrounded yourself with people you may also been attracted to institutions that helped keep you in your place. If you are working on loving yourself then being told on a weekly basis, that you disappointed God and are a failure, is not very helpful. Remember, there are lots of religions and churches out there from which to choose. Choose one that is supporting you as a good and loving person. All churches and religions seem to have one thing in common, and it is that they all claim to have the truth. When a person or institution has the market on the truth, they never look anymore for new experiences. There is no need to, they have already found it.
Our job in life then, is to get ourselves at top peak performance. This is only accomplished without stress when we stay in a good mood. The most efficient way anyone can deal with things effectively, without stress, is be in a good mood. Think of the people you like to be around. They are probably consistently in a good mood. Our primary responsibility then is to stay in a good mood. When we go to bed at night we start to form that good mood. What kinds of messages do you tell yourself about the morning. Do you do a: "Tomorrow is going to be a mess" before you sleep? Remember, your mind does not know the difference between real and unreal. Do you worry about how much sleep you get? We all need sleep, but every once in a while we can survive and function well with less. On those days you have less sleep then you believe you need, how do you function? Are you a person that goes to bed and announces you will not be able to get up because you are not getting your required amount of sleep? I used to go to bed and count the hours. If they did not reach my required amount, I would calculate how I was going to feel the next day. We all have menus of how we feel. In class I ask how many people believe they need 8 hours of sleep. I ask how they would feel at 2:00 p.m. the next day if they had 6 hours of sleep. Most say they would be very tired. I then ask how they would respond to me if I were to give them a million dollar check. The answer I always get is that they would be very excited. They also admit they might not be able to sleep much the next night. I ask how would they function the next day. They answer, fine. What happened to the sleep? When you focus on not having enough sleep you will be tired. When you focus on a million dollars, or anything else, you forget you did not get enough sleep and you are not tired. Before you go to bed at night tell yourself that you are going to get up the next day feeling refreshed. You are going to feel good and excited. As you are falling asleep tell yourself you love yourself and you are a good person. In the morning when you get up tell yourself it is going to be a great day. This is the day someone will discover you. This is a new day. You will find when you are in a good mood that everything goes better. You deal with people better, you deal with work better.
Everything goes better when you are in a good mood. Some people get up with their favorite music. I am not sure that the way to start the day is with an "alarm". I know a woman who wakes up to her tape recorder playing "Chariots Of Fire". She then tells herself that she just won an Olympic Gold Medal. How would you act if you won a Gold Medal? What would your day be like? Don't be tied down to just clocks to wake you up. Use whatever puts you in a happy mood. If you had problems the day before, look at it as the day you will begin to deal with theses problems. Tell yourself you are going to have a wonderful day. Take one day at a time and tell yourself that today is the day that...
Once you are in a good mood you will find everyone and everything will look differently. However, suppose you run into someone or something very negative and you get yourself caught into it. Sometimes we all meet someone or something that has such a negative force and we get caught. Our happy mood seems to have been swallowed up in this tornado. These are the steps that I recommend to get back into a good mood:
The FIRST STEP takes no thought - change your breathing pattern. When you catch yourself upset, began to stand up straight, hold your head up and begin to breath deeply. You might even want to start smiling. This will give your mind a different perspective.
REVIEW
1. Relax through your breathing.
2. "Look what I created," don't be a victim.
3. Don't condemn the situation or yourself.
4. Renew yourself to where you were before you came to the situation.
5. Deal with the situation in your new mood.