INSIGHTS (on leadership/self-leadership)
Here’s a visual metaphor for what fear of failure does to you – it thrusts you into a funnel.
Before fear of failure shows up (at the top of the funnel), you engage in big, expansive thinking, focused on possibilities and positivity. When the unwanted guest shows up, your thinking starts shrinking, the scope of possibilities you see begins to decrease. Down the fear of failure funnel you spiral, your thinking getting smaller and smaller, your optimism ever-dwindling. By the time you reach the bottom of the funnel, your worldview has shrunk considerably – you now see the world through a much smaller circumference than before fear of failure took hold of you.
The key is to appreciate the metaphor for what it is, a reminder that fear of failure limits the way you see the world. To reverse the flow and open up the scope of your worldview once again, it’s essential to change the way you view failure itself. Try these reframes:
• There are only three ways to fail: when you quit too soon, don’t improve, or never try.
• Failure is an event, never a person.
• Failure doesn’t happen to you, it happens for you.
• You don’t suffer when you fail, your ego does (and your ego and you aren’t the same thing).
• Your fear of failure shouldn’t scare you. It’s there to tell you that something must be worth it – or you’d be feeling nothing.
IMPERFECTIONS (a mistake many make)
There are some things you should hold on to, like your online banking password, a rookie Babe Ruth baseball card, or Amazon stock (which I sold 25 years ago at a whopping $19/share – savvy move, Buffett). But grievances and grudges aren’t in this group.
Practicing daily forgiveness will set you free from so much unnecessary weight you carry around, and so much more. Research shows that practicing forgiveness has incredible physical, mental, and spiritual benefits, all of which increase with age.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean you have to completely forget or pardon an offense. But you do have to change your response to an offense. Here are five powerful ways to practice forgiveness each day and lighten your load.
1. Forgive yourself.
Enough with the disempowering inner-monologue. “Why did I blow that meeting?”, “Why am I such a loser?”, “My co-worker is so much better than I am”. We beat ourselves up with punitive and limiting thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes. We often don’t realize we’re doing it or if we do, we can’t help ourselves. It’s like we can’t give away our power fast enough.
When you’re in self-unforgiving mode, switch gears and talk to yourself like a friend in need. And when you do, use your name, not “I.” For example, if I was feeling bad that people didn’t like my last issue of LEAD ON! (impossible, I know!), I wouldn’t say to myself, “I really blew that issue, I’m going to have to do better the next issue.” I’d say, “OK, Scott, people didn’t seem to like that last issue, so see what went wrong and do better on the next one.” Psychology shows that by using your name in talking to yourself, you actually trick your brain into thinking it’s talking to someone else, which matters because then you’re more likely to show/feel compassion!
2. Forgive the follies.
By follies, I mean the myriad annoyances that surface when you have co-workers. Speaking of which, when it comes to annoying co-workers and their foibles, stop wishing they were different. It’s important to give all co-workers, difficult or not, room to be themselves and to stop the futility of wishing otherwise. Much of improving relationships with difficult co-workers is about trying to change the interchange, not them. So, focus on the predicament, not the personality.
3. Forgive the past.
Too often I’ve seen leaders disrespect the way things were before they showed up. They forget their audience probably was a key part of that chapter. Similarly, I’ve seen too many individuals cling to something that was done to them or that they did to themselves. It’s the quickest path to misery. When you get good at forgiving the past, you move forward. Forward is good.
4. Forgive the present.
Admittedly, I find myself at times getting so frustrated with social injustices, the political environment, and how awful we human beings can be to one another. I’ve said “What’s wrong with people?” more often than I’d care to admit of late. Entire fields of psychology are dedicated to helping people through such here-and-now helplessness.
I’ve begun a practice of trying to forgive the circumstances I find myself in. I’m not talking about the unforgivable acts. I’m talking about the fact that since the dawn of time, our environment gets filled with unsettling irritants. Learning to see that for what it is and keeping it in perspective helps keep the peace.
5. Forgive the future.
The future can be brutal. It forces us to worry, imagine worst-case scenarios and in general weigh ourselves down with anxiety. But the future does this to us because it is simply the unknown. When we don’t know something, our brain seeks to fill in the gaps, often with imagined and inaccurate information and scenarios.
But the future isn’t there for you to be afraid of it. Nor should you be frustrated by what you don’t yet know. Cut the future some slack by not catastrophizing what may never come. Instead, live in the present moment with a forgiving heart.
Net, I never liked the saying, “forgive and forget.” I prefer, “don’t forget to forgive.”
IMPLEMENTATION (one research-backed strategy, tip, or tool)
Research shows starting your day off in a positive mood makes it an astonishing 80% more likely you’ll be in a positive mood the rest of the day.
You fuel such positivity by following the GAS method each morning: focusing on Goals, Affirmations, and Sparks. I’ll illuminate.
Goals. It’s important to prioritize your day so you’re not thrown off schedule. Too often I’d start the day attacking my To Do list without direction, jumping to anything urgent (even if it wasn’t important), doing things I felt like doing versus what I needed to do. Before I knew it, the day was over and I felt I hadn’t accomplished anything—not a good feeling.
I learned to start my day by setting simple, interconnected, macro and micro goals.
Your macro goals are the one or two most important things you must accomplish that day—a classic goal setting technique. The power comes in setting micro-goals, the list of steps you must take that will help you accomplish your macro-goals. If it doesn’t help you accomplish your macro-goals, it doesn’t make the list.
For example, say a macro goal for the day is to finish writing an important report. Your related micro goals might include, one: finishing the research you need to do, and two: talking to someone who has key information you need.
Affirmations. These are positive quotes, thoughts, or pictures you look at each morning to trigger positive thinking. It might seem hokey, but research shows it works. Each morning I recite what I call my Attitude Anthem, a quote from author Charles Swindoll: “Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.”
The key is to make sure your affirmation isn’t just generic optimism like “Anything’s possible!” and instead helps you with a specific struggle you have in staying positive. I still occasionally overreact to a bad event, so I chose the Attitude Anthem as a helpful reminder.
Sparks. Sparks of positivity can come from morning exercise, meditation, reading something interesting, journaling, some me-time, or taking a walk in nature. All of these have been proven to foster happy, positive-mindsets for the day. For example, research shows a stroll in nature can boost your feelings of happiness and increase memory and attention by more than 20%!
So, with GAS each morning, you’ll fill your day’s tank with positivity.–
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