Leadership International

A Situations as What it Is

Maria Berdusco — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 10:52:22 +0000

Like other essential skills and habits, optimism can be practiced and even learned, as shown in rigorous studies cited by Seligman in Learned Optimism. This is true, even in situations in which you seem to have no control. For example, you have absolutely no control over the weather. You do, however, have a choice regarding your response to the weather. Today’s beautiful sunny conditions and the torrential downpour of tomorrow are brief and temporary, fleeting in the scheme of things, and will change. Weather is never stable or enduring, and no weather condition lasts. This means that you might as well accept the weather, at the very least, or even be happy about it. Weather is exactly what it is and not more. Why would you allow yourself to become unhappy or remorseful about something that you honestly cannot change?

Recognize each situation for what it is, whether a stable reality, an opportunity or simply an experience. Like most people you probably have false beliefs about specific conditions that reflect previous events and are incorrect. You have responses that you have repeatedly reinforced over time. Be prepared to better and more wisely interpret situations as they arise, whether they are new or experienced previously. Regard them more positively, and they will become more positive experiences for you.

Recognize Situations

Maria Berdusco — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 01:49:32 +0000

To experience optimism in a given situation, first step aside and recognize your immediate thoughts or reaction toward the situation. This is whether the circumstance has been personally created by you, or whether you have found yourself in a situation over which you have no control. Your view of the situation, as a matter of choice, can metaphorically be viewed as the commonly stated ‘glass half-full or glass half-empty’ interpretation. As you encounter new scenarios, ask yourself: Am I seeing the best or the worst as my starting point?

According to Martin Seligman, who has studied optimists for several decades, an optimist’s view of the world is one where defeat is just a temporary setback for the individual, and not his or her fault. A pessimist imagines the worst and is prone to depression, which is a different habit of thinking.1 In general terms, if you recognize a situation as temporary, then you are an optimist, and if you perceive it as permanent, then you are a pessimist.

Seligman conducted a thirty five year study that showed that pessimism in early adulthood results in poor health during middle and late adulthood. Similarly, Seligman’s colleague, Chris Peterson demonstrated that pessimism perpetuates helplessness, and showed that pessimistic individuals are likely to become ill more frequently, and remain unhealthy for a longer period of time. This is because their negative thinking perpetuates a helpless attitude. This also prevents individuals from taking the progressive steps necessary to fight illness.

Expecting the Best

Maria Berdusco — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 11:45:47 +0000

Do you expect the best, do you count on good things to happen, and take a broad view in your response to events? If so, then you are an optimist. Optimists tend to be the ones called on when opportunities arise, thereby further supporting an optimistic approach. What do you expect will happen? Since the probability is higher that your expectations are realized, why not expect the best? Negative thinking is self-perpetuating and creates an outlook of discouragement. Therefore, train your thoughts to be optimistic and with a positive orientation. Expect that an outcome will be favorable, and it is more likely to be favorable.

Practice optimism through hopeful and positive reactions to minimize your negative thinking. Recognize both uplifting and inspirational thought, as opposed to diminishing or de-motivating thought patterns as they occur, and you will start to choose more favorable responses to situations.

Optimistic Thinking

Maria Berdusco — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:01:59 +0000

Have you considered optimism as a way of thinking? It is when you position yourself positively, resulting in the course that you take moving forward. Practicing optimism means that you believe and expect things will turn out well, and have the expectation of positive results.

Optimism is a skill that everyone can learn and practice at a high level, and yet it is often overlooked as absolutely essential to effective leadership and successful outcomes. There are a specific set of thought patterns associated with optimism. If you focus on positives, you will get more positives. If you focus on negatives, you will get more negatives. The data that supports this is now comprised of many thousands of research papers. These conclude that optimists are not only healthier and live longer, but also are more productive, successful, and more likely to achieve their goals. They are hefty promises, but worth pondering, and might lead you to making a shift towards greater optimism because the rewards are so great. Who can possibly argue against health, longevity and productivity?

Create Results

Maria Berdusco — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 01:03:34 +0000

To tag an objective with a thought, phrase, and statement, or even an affirmation, a picture, and a mantra, and then to tag it with a specific feeling will give you a richer, more expressive and very meaningful way to approach a goal. It undoubtedly casts the objective in a more significant light in your mind’s storage and retrieval system. How you view your goals and that of your organization, and communicate them, is also a personal choice. You can see them as dark, looming, and unreachable, or as completely within your reach and achievable within a specific time frame.

If you make a goal your own and really, truly want it, and then apply appropriate techniques to realize it, the goal will constantly be on your mind. This is similar to applying additional keywords and categories in a cataloging system. For example, a book tagged with an author, date, title, and numerous descriptive words is more likely to be retrieved than if it is catalogued only by the year of publication.

Your thoughts trigger an emotional state that gives rise to feelings. Elevation of these enable more optimal outcomes. With an orientation to outcomes you choose a more directed approach to your thinking. This thinking is also more aligned, purposeful and strategic. Simple thoughts and observations become more directive to the specific outcomes that you seek. Think it, see it, feel it, and experience it.

Impacts of External Influences

Maria Berdusco — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 12:56:17 +0000

You might expect that an outside influence can make you feel better, and this is the basis of much of what we do discretionarily. Outside stimulants can make you feel better, but the more logical and obvious solution might be to closely examine how you feel. Once you have taken stock of and recognize exactly how you feel, then take a step to elevate that feeling. Since every feeling is somewhere on a continuum, work to move it up a notch. Take your feeling up a level, leading to progressively better thoughts, or higher thinking. You have an opportunity to optimize your feelings about past, present and future events. When you create feelings that are higher along a range of options, you build better memories, moments and expectations. You can elevate your feelings to achieve better thought, and thereby not be harnessed by negative experiences in your past, or by fears associated with the future.

When a feeling is attached to a thought or event, it has an entirely new reference point for retrieval, and you apply a label, by tagging it as important. This means you have the ability to not only change your thinking, but you can also change your feelings. If you are wondering whether you can elevate feelings as a choice, the answer is yes. On the continuum of feelings, to elevate from fear to joy might be a stretch, but if you are feeling doubt, you might take it up somewhat, to mere disappointment. If you feel anger, intentionally change it to a feeling of concern and empathy. If you feel hopeful, which is a positive emotion, this feeling can be upgraded to optimism. By continually striving to reach higher feelings you can attach stronger and more positive tags to your experiences.

How does this relate to outcomes? If you attach an emotional feel good tag to an objective, then it is more likely to occur, because as humans we usually seek pleasure and avoid pain, in a basic innate life over death choice of existence. Attach a positive feeling to your objective, and it is more likely to occur because you have emotionally tagged the outcome. You will go after it, unconsciously and consciously, towards realization.

Tuning In

Maria Berdusco — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 10:52:52 +0000

Clearly tuning into our feelings has been more challenging for all of us recently, because of what might be referred to as the age of bombardment. This is a time of technological advancement when your attentions can easily become overwhelmed by information, and an absorption and analysis dilemma. You might be experiencing an incessant barrage of input, and a feeling of being inundated. People often experience an unstoppable stream of thought that can be like a torrent and one that does not shut down even when you sleep. This can lead to over arousal and sleeplessness, and a never ending cycle of feeling overwhelmed.

Think of yourself standing near a park bench trying to drink from a fire hose, when it is a water fountain that you need, or consider an overreaction from a colleague, when a yes or no was all you required. A one hundred page report can be redundant when the information could easily be summarized in a single page. Some things seem impossible to turn off, or even to lessen, and your resulting feelings are often less than optimal.

When we are overwhelmed or experiencing conflicting feelings, we might reach for a headache tablet or a sleeping pill. We might sip a drink, or a have a bite to eat, all just in order to feel better. Each of these simple actions to improve feelings can lead to addiction, to drug use, to alcohol abuse, or overeating. This is why it is important to learn how to switch off the constant stream that may be continually flowing in your mind. Not only are you receiving and absorbing continual input, you are also attempting to process it. Just as it is difficult to drink from a fire hose, it is not easy to think clearly when you are being confronted by multiple stimuli. In order to develop the ability to keep your orientation on what is important, and to maintain your thoughts on what matters, a dedicated effort and continual practice is required.

A Complex Continuum

Maria Berdusco — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 00:50:36 +0000

Feelings have been categorized across a complex continuum, from pain to pleasure. Feelings are now also understood to be completely subjective. A rose may be prickly in one experience but admirable in another, and within each of these experiences you might also choose just the opposite perception and related feeling. If you see a lush apple tree laden with fruit, some individuals might simply pass by, perceiving that the tree is too large, the apples too ripe, or the branches too heavy. Others might stop in admiration. Your perceptions are unique to you, and are relative to your past experiences, how you interpret them, your belief systems, your knowledge base and numerous other factors.

Acknowledge Feelings Consiously

Maria Berdusco — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 00:40:43 +0000

The ‘feeling’ component of orientation to outcomes follows in the process of understanding how your thoughts influence what actually happens for you. Your ‘state of being’ ultimately comes down to how you feel, and by paying attention to your feelings, you can better understand and manage them. There is significant data to support this, including work by Richard Davidson at the University of Madison, who used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine Buddhist monks in meditation. He demonstrated that when images of emotion and feeling, such as compassion were focused on, left prefrontal brain activity, where feeling occurs, exceeded that of the right side for these practitioners. What this means is that a positive state can be trained. Moods are trainable mental states. This experiment elegantly emphasizes the power of your thoughts and your ability to manage them. You can rearrange your neural circuits through the power of your mind.

Visual Methods for Goal Setting

Maria Berdusco — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 14:38:30 +0000

It is likely that for you, as for most individuals, visual images are so meaningful they comprise your dominant learning style. You probably are aware of how you learn best, and that people learn in different ways. The three major types of learning are based on the visual, auditory and feeling areas. Great teachers attempt to incorporate each into effective learning systems. Seeing a picture is truly worth a thousand words because it represents what you are most likely to remember and recreate in your mind.

Visual methodologies have been used for centuries by athletic coaches of competitive sport, and are used by personal and professional coaches for broader goal setting and achievement. They are also utilized by behavioral psychologists in therapy and issue resolution, and by artists to create concepts long before applying brush to palette. These are examples of how your mind interprets what it sees, and what your mind can create to pursue an idea.

This is also how a leader can best motivate and inspire, by painting a vision, and it is how you and your team can most readily accomplish your goals. It is the simplest shortcut imaginable, precisely because it involves imagination, which by its very definition is what you create in your mind’s eye.