Search Results for: negativity

Posted on

Personal Growth Means Tough Decisions | Choosing Friends Wisely

When you choose to grow, what becomes of the relationships of the “old you?”

If I know one thing about you, it’s that you are growing. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading this. And when you choose personal growth, it will mean making tough decisions like:

Who do I hang out with?

Who do I talk to at the water cooler?

What do I talk about at the family reunion?

And the process can be very painful at times. But you will get through it. Let me tell you how.

Tough Decision

I received an email from a friend recently that sparked this post. In fact, it initially sparked my own internal debate that raged inside of me.

Posted on

Overcoming the Negative Voices in Your Head | How I Did It

And the winner of the Murphy’s Law Award goes to…

Negative tapes positive psychology
Those words began twenty-one years of negativity, self-doubt, and a victim mentality. And they came from my eighth grade social studies teacher.

It seemed funny at the time, but she awarded me the Murphy’s Law Award.

Other kids got “Hardest Worker,” “Most Creative,” or “Most Helpful to Others.” I got “Most Likely to Have Things Go Wrong.” Gee, thanks Mrs. So-and-So.

Posted on

If You Can’t Say Something Nice | Overcome Negative Self-Talk

Listen to this post

Do yourself a favor…the next time you start to say something bad about yourself,

SHUT UP!

Seriously, shut up. Don’t say it.

Shut up negative self-talk

You can think it, but don’t say it. Don’t mumble it under your breathe. Don’t say it to someone else. Don’t write it down.

Your negative thoughts don’t have to become reality. In fact they can’t be, because you are too valuable to the rest of us to live that way.

So shut up.

Posted on

Leadership Lessons from the 12 Steps

There is a way to recover from bad leadership behaviors. It is found in the 12 steps.

Yesterday I wrote about the three leadership lessons I learned attending a recovery group. Today I want to share the seven lessons for leaders and aspiring leaders that the 12 Steps give us.

What are the 12 Steps exactly? I list them below along with the lessons. Essentially, they are a systematic pathway to recovery or improvement. And they work. If you work them.

12-steps-leadership-lessons

Here are the steps along with the lessons:

Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviors, that our lives had become unmanageable.

This step is applicable to every area of life.

This is, by far, the hardest step for leaders to admit. You got this far on your own. You are strong and in control. People look up, and often fear, you.

But you have a compulsive habit of snapping at people with bad ideas, or reacting harshly to criticism, or over-working. If you have dealt with anything like this for more than five years, it is out of control. It is unmanageable. The first step is to admit that.

Posted on

Change Your Mind

Everything starts in your mind. Every action starts with a thought. Every invention starts with an idea. Every outcome starts with a picture. Everything starts in your mind. So, like Sister Hazel says, if you want to be somebody else, change your mind. If you want to make more money, change your mind. Stop playing the […]

Posted on

The Happiness-Success Paradox

I’ll be happy when _________. Go ahead, fill in the blank. That blank is your definition of “success.” But here is the paradox: To achieve authentic success, you must be happy first. Happiness leads to success, which leads to more happiness, which leads to…and thus the cycle is born. Round and round you go on […]