What’s Stopping You?

I meant to get this out on the first, but life happened unfortunately and wasn't able to get it up in time, so I apologize and will work to keep these coming every Wednesday and Saturday. However, if you sign up for the RSS feed, you won't miss a post. Here we go.

What’s Stopping You From Becoming Assertive?

 

In order to succeed in business and in life, basically anything that is worth while, you can’t let people walk all over you. It is impossible for you to answer the door of opportunity if you are the doormat.

 

“Assertiveness is not what you do, it’s who you are!” - Shakti Gawain

 

That being said, there is a huge difference between being assertive and being aggressive. Being assertive is a way of living where you get the most out of life without other people telling you how to do it; in short, you do not need to be obnoxious, pushy, or rude to have it your own way.

 

You cannot just jump in with both feet and decide, “Hey, today I’m going to be assertive and no one will be pushing me around anymore. No more Mr. Nice Guy!”

 

Learning an assertive mindset.

 

Remember, you want to learn to be assertive, not aggressive. So ask yourself these questions:

 

1. What do I value most?

2. What are my beliefs about how life works?

3. How do I feel about myself?

4. What are my approaches to life? Do these approaches work?

 

The simple fact that you are reading this post actually says a lot about you; it says you are looking for improvements in life, a change. Well, change begins with awareness. You are aware that you need to change; the problem is, most of us just have a problem with where to start, we just don’t know how to get going in the right direction. That first step is always the hardest.

 

It is time to learn why you do what you are doing and how to turn that around. Remember, you cannot just flip a switch and instantly become assertive and successful in life.

 

Mark Twain said, “We do not deal much in facts when we are contemplating ourselves.” In order to learn how to become assertive and be in charge of your own life, you must be honest with yourself. Like Dr. Phil says all of the time on his t.v. program as well as his books, “you cannot change what you do not acknowledge.” It is time to figure out what you are hiding from yourself.

 

·        Do you consistently fail when it comes to attaining your goals in life?

·        Are you just drifting along with no plan, goals, and idea?

·        Are you stuck in a comfort zone that gives you no new challenges?

·        Are you getting too little of what you really want and way too much of what you do not want?

·        Are you living with guilt or frustration and do not know how to change things?

·        What is at stake here is the quality of your life. Do you want to live it fully and authentically? Or are you okay with someone else calling the shots and making decisions for you for the rest of your life?

·        Do you feel like you are constantly being pushed around? Do you feel like you are being taken advantage of?

·        Do other people try to run your life? Do you feel that you are ready to start living life in your own terms?

 

You don’t need to bow your head and just accept burdens like those listed above. You can assert yourself and reach for something better. You have the right and the ability to have what you want out of life. Let me warn you though, change does not come in an instant.

 

Assertiveness is something that must be learned carefully one step at a time. This is especially true if you have spent years just following others who tell you what to do, how to do it, what to think, what to feel, etc. How motivated are you to change and learn to assert yourself?

 

Think about those people who run our world. Whether it is business, politics, sports, or entertainment, there is one common denominator for all these people. These people know which buttons to push to get what they want. Some of these people are extremely intelligent and articulate, while others are merely manipulative.

 

Some are unconcerned whether you agree with them and share their views. Others are rabid in demanding that you fall in line with them. They feel that they know best and this gives them the authority to tell everyone what they should be doing and saying. It is their way or the highway.

 

Be aware that there are risks involved in learning how to be assertive. You will find that many will not agree with you. In fact, you will meet people who are skeptical and pessimistic. They will always argue and try to prove you wrong.

 

Let us continue with your assessment in life by acknowledging what is wrong in your life. Are you guilty of saying these things to yourself?

 

· I’m really trying but you know, it’s just so hard!

· I guess it could have been much worse.

· It’s not what I wanted , but what am I going to do?

· Sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

· We’re doing okay, I guess.

Are you making lots of excuses, like:

· It was harder than I expected, I just couldn’t do it.

· Maybe I was expecting too much.

· I have too much going on in my life to handle any of this right now.

· I’ll tackle that as soon as I have the time and resources.

· I guess what I wanted isn’t meant for me.

· Maybe it’s not in the cards. It’s not my destiny.

· I never seem to get the right break.

 

It is time to stop whining about bad luck, wrong timing, or how things just never seem to work out for you! Stop hosting pity parties! Realize that the deck is not stacked against you! Stop making excuses! It is time to learn to assert yourself and get what you really, really want!

 

Okay, let us get down to basics. What exactly are you afraid of? That is easy. People share a universal fear of rejection. The very thought of being rejected can turn the strongest man or woman into a quivering coward.

 

What does everyone crave for in life? This one is also easy. We all crave for acceptance. We feel lost if we are not accepted. We feel left out, excluded, and ostracized. Acceptance is everything.

 

We learn about acceptance from infancy. Children will go to any lengths; even do things they dislike just to gain the acceptance of their parents, friends, or teachers. It continues throughout our lives as we grow.

 

So accepted or not and rejected or not, you have your own destiny to create. You can make it happy or sad, good or bad, successful or not. Your life is your own and ultimately, you are responsible for how it turns out. There may be road bumps along the way and not everything will turn out according to your plan.

 

You may have to adjust your road map and come up with a Plan B or even a Plan C. In the end, learning how to be assertive will help you win and get what you want.

 

Without assertiveness, you will lose control of your life and find yourself living someone else’s idea of what life should be. If you shy away from being accountable and taking charge of your own life, someone will step forward to claim responsibility for it. This could be a parent, spouse, or in the case of an elderly person, maybe one of their own children. If you never master the ability to assert yourself, make your own decisions, and live your own life, someone will surely step forward and do it for you. Is that what you want?

 

Asserting yourself and taking full responsibility is scary and risky for anyone. “What if I assert myself and try to create my own destiny and it doesn’t work out? Then, what will I do?”

 

It is normal to be a little fearful because it is part of human nature. Keep in mind that all decisions have consequences. As you learn to be assertive, you also learn to trust your self when making decisions.

 

Your thoughts influence your world. “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so,” said William Shakespeare. To think is to create. Your thoughts create your reality. Your thoughts influence your actions and behavior.

 

A change in your thoughts leads to a change in behavior and eventually in your world. What do you tell yourself? Do these negative statements sound familiar?

 

· I’m just not smart enough.

· I’ve never succeeded before, why would now be any different?

· People refuse to listen to women like me.

· People make up their minds and there’s nothing I can do about it.

· I’m too young or too old.

 

Start by choosing to learn how to be more assertive starting today. With this, you will need a well thought out plan. There will be days when you wonder if you can sustain and follow through your plan. Wouldn’t it be easier to just throw in the towel and be done with it?

 

If you find yourself in this position, remind yourself of the benefits you will enjoy when you become assertive. Keeping the benefits in mind will help in sustaining your new and assertive behavior.

 

So again, I ask the question, what is keeping you from being more assertive? What keeps you from making your own decisions? Are you afraid you won’t be any good at it? Are you secretly afraid that you will be so good at it that your entire life will change? St. Paul said, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”

 

Assertiveness is a learned behavior. Probably, it was not taught to you as you were growing up. Unknowingly, you developed certain behavioral patterns that do not support assertiveness. You fall into a trap where you constantly wonder why your life is not what you wanted.

 

The definition of insanity is doing the same things in the same way, but expecting different outcomes. If you have never done so before, learning to assert yourself produces a change in how you handle yourself.

 

 

Unfortunately, some of the behavioral patterns that you learned in life become automatic. You do not even think about your response anymore. You do not allow yourself to evaluate the cause and effect of this behavior; you are just flying on autopilot. It may seem easier to let go and not think about the consequences. In the end, you will realize that certain behavior patterns will not continue to work for you.

 

‘If you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you’ve always gotten.” By remaining static and not changing the pattern of behavior, you repeat the old patterns repeatedly. It is important to stop, think, and re-evaluate whether a learned behavior is really working for you or has become another crutch to keep you in homeostasis.

 

There is a reason why you keep getting stuck and unable to move forward. When you continue to repeat a bad pattern repeatedly, you are doing it for a reason. You must find the reason in order to change the behavior. Change the behavior in order to change your life for the better.

 

Some people seem to be at the mercy of others and not in charge of their own lives; they let others push them around and tell them what to do. The sad part is that they have allowed this to happen for several years. Some of these folks may never find their own way, while others may just snap one day and tell everyone off. This kind of abrupt change leaves everyone puzzled and leads to destroyed relationships and damaged friendships.

 

When you decide to be assertive, you must also realize that this learned behavior must be reinforced every day. Assertiveness is not a cure-all for all your ill feelings. It is a way of managing your life.

 

Choosing to make your own decisions does not require you to damage another person. Being assertive does not give you the permission to push another aside, take over another’s life, or make decisions for them.

 

Assertiveness is about you. It is all about your decisions and the consequences. Remember, you get what you give. How you treat others relates to Karma, which simply states that everything that goes around comes around.

 

Let us correct a misconception here. Assertiveness is all about getting what you want AND building lasting relationship with people around you.

 

Assertiveness works fine when used with diplomacy. You can assert yourself without hurting others’ feelings. In fact, the real essence of assertiveness is this: As you get what you want in life, you gain the support of people who would like to see you succeed.

 

If you read the meme in the picture, that is only half of it; if you act like a sheep, the wolf will eat you, but to be successful, you can't be the wolf either or others will either run from you or try to put you beneath them (alpha syndrome), so I would suggest to work toward being the sheep dog. Be the protector of the sheep to guard against the wolves of the world; assertive, knowing your place, yet only aggressive when it is called for.

Keep an eye out for the next addition to this series on assertiveness where I will go into some tips for being assertive around the home…a good place to start.

6 Bad Habits That Can Stifle Your Success

 

Too often, our habits control us and determine whether we succeed or not. It is imperative that we change out our bad habits for good disciplines. To do this, however, we must first identify those habits that are limiting our success.

 

False Limitations

 

Ask a writer for a great idea, and you’ll get a solution that involves words. Ask a designer for a great idea, and you’ll get a solution that involves visuals. Ask a blogger for a great idea, and you’ll get a solution that involves a blog.

 

We’re all a product of our experience. But the limitations we have are self-imposed. They are false limits. Only when you force yourself to look past what you know and feel comfortable with can you come up with the breakthrough ideas you’re looking for.

 

Be open to anything. Step outside your comfort zone. Consider how those in unrelated areas do what they do. What seems impossible today may seem surprisingly doable tomorrow.

 

If you recognize some of these problems in yourself, don’t fret. In fact, rejoice! Knowing what’s holding you back is the first step toward breaking down the barriers of creativity.

 

Lack of confidence

 

A certain level of uncertainly accompanies every creative act. A small measure of self-doubt is healthy.

 

However, you must have confidence in your abilities in order to create and carry out effective solutions to problems.

 

Much of this comes from experience, but confidence also comes from familiarity with how creativity works.

 

When you understand that ideas often seem crazy at first, that failure is just a learning experience, and that nothing is impossible, you are on your way to becoming more confident and more creative.

 

Instead of dividing the world into the possible and impossible, divide it into what you’ve tried and what you haven’t tried. There are a million pathways to success.

 

Information Overwhelm

 

It’s called “analysis paralysis,” the condition of spending so much time thinking about a problem and cramming your brain with so much information that you lose the ability to act.

 

It’s been said that information is to the brain what food is to the body. True enough. But just as you can overeat, you can also over think.

 

Every successful person I’ve ever met has the ability to know when to stop collecting information and start taking action. Many subscribe to the “ready – fire – aim” philosophy of business success, knowing that acting on a good plan today is better than waiting for a perfect plan tomorrow.

 

Fear of failure

 

Most people remember baseball legend Babe Ruth as one of the great hitters of all time, with a career record of 714 home runs.

 

However, he was also a master of the strike out. That’s because he always swung for home runs, not singles or doubles. Ruth either succeeded big or failed spectacularly.

 

No one wants to make mistakes or fail. But if you try too hard to avoid failure, you’ll also avoid success.

 

It has been said that to increase your success rate, you should aim to make more mistakes. In other words, take more chances and you’ll succeed more often.

 

Those few really great ideas you come up with will more than compensate for all the dumb mistakes you make.

 

Two Lines of Thought at Once

 

Like driving a car in first gear and reverse at the same time, it just can’t be done.

Likewise, you shouldn’t try to use different types of thinking at the same time. Just like in the transmission in your car going two directions at once, you’ll strip your mental transmission as well.

 

Creating means generating new ideas, visualizing, looking ahead, considering the possibilities.

 

Evaluating means analyzing and judging, picking apart ideas and sorting them into piles of good and bad, useful and useless.

 

These two types of thinking work together, but not at the same time without causing some issues; one will lock up the other.

 

Most people evaluate too soon and too often, and therefore create less. In order to create more and better ideas, you must separate creation from evaluation, coming up with lots of ideas first, and then judging the worth of each later.

 

Keep your ideas written down somewhere and visit them often. There are times when an idea will give birth to new ideas and even if you end up evaluating an idea as not working for you at that time doesn’t mean that it won’t work later.

 

Other People

 

Even if you have a wide-open mind and the ability to see what’s possible, most people around you will not. They will tell you in various, and often, subtle ways to conform, be sensible, and not rock the boat.

 

It’s like going crabbing on an Alaskan Sea Crab boat. They dump the crabs in a small box hold area that the crabs could get out of, but they don’t because just as soon as one starts to get up, others pull it back down.

 

The same holds true for people. There are those out there who find it easier to pull others down than to work on succeeding themselves.

 

Ignore them. The path to every victory is paved with predictions of failure. And once you have a big win under your belt, all the naysayers will shut their noise and see you for what you are — a creative force to be reckoned with.

 

Success is yours to grab, you just have to want it bad enough to overcome the limiting bad habits that keep you from getting it.

 

 

Just Say NO

Answer this question honestly; is it difficult for you to say “no”?

If your answer is yes, don’t feel bad because you’re not alone.

There are many people who find themselves saying "yes" to things they don't really want to agree to but are afraid that they will appear selfish, mean or rude if they don’t say yes, or in an effort to avoid conflict or hurting another person’s feelings, they will say yes in order to defer conflict.

Saying “no” isn’t always easy, but it IS vital in business and personal life to be able to say no when the time comes.

Healthy people have healthy boundaries, and part of having healthy boundaries is to be able to say no to requests, situations or people that you can’t or don’t want to accommodate. Think of “no” as the hinge on the gate that controls who you allow in your boundary lines.

I was raised in an abusive environment where I spent many months at my grandmother’s house where I slept on a couch in the living room and my “dresser” was an old banana box next to my grandmother’s bed. If I ever had money, my grandmother, my uncle, my mother would all take it if they felt they needed it and never even asked, so I grew up with a low sense of self and had no concept of personal space or boundaries.

Though it has taken me many years to learn the art of saying no in order to stay sane, I still have issues with it at times, so don’t beat yourself up if you continue to have issues with it, just keep working on it and know that you will be a better person for it. Others will have more respect for you, you will have more respect for yourself and you won’t find yourself in as many negative situations.

Here are a few techniques/phrases that I have found work for me and hopefully they work for you as well.

#1: Unfortunately, I have a full plate right now…

If you find yourself way too busy to accommodate the person’s request, let them know you’re slammed and that you simply have no time to fit what they’re asking you to do into your schedule.

Many people have issue with this because they have a tendency to justify their time. Just because you have the time doesn’t mean that you have the time to dedicate your full attention. It is better to decline and give more attention to the items already on your plate rather than take on another workload and not be able to give any of them the attention required.

#2: I’ll have to think-about-it

If you’re not sure if you can fit the person’s request in, or if you’re dealing with someone who is super pushy, consider buying yourself a little time to think about what they’re asking of you and to get back to them at a later date on your own terms and not get bullied into something.

 #3: The ol’ boomerang no

Are you in the middle of something else? You can always ask the person to come back later when you have more time to consider their request.

 #4: Give a counter offer

If you can’t or don’t want to agree to the person’s request for whatever reason, but you’d still really like to help them out, consider making a counter offer for a lesser commitment that will work better for you.

One of my soft spots where the homeless that would beg for money. Though there are some out there that are honestly in need of assistance, there are others looking for tax-free cash to supplement their income or fund their addictions.

For those who give a line about needing money for food, I let them know that I don’t have any cash, but would not mind swinging by McDonalds and picking up something for them. If they are truly in need of food, they generally take me up on the offer, but if they immediately shoot me down, it is pretty obvious, the money isn’t going for food.

 #5: Just say No

Sometimes you must be direct and let the person know that what they’re asking of you just doesn’t work for you, and you’ll be surprised how often people will respect a firm, honest and direct no.

And remember that they are coming to you and imposing their wants on you. If you are not wanting to help them out, it is courtesy to give them a reason, but not mandatory. They do not own your time, so a simple no is fine if you do not want to give them a reason.

As you practice declining requests that don’t align with your schedule, values or needs, you’ll find that saying no becomes easier and you’ll have more time for yourself, the commitments you already have and the things that are most important to you.

Let Go of the Guilt

 

I know, you are probably looking at the title and wondering how this has anything to do with success, but trust me, we all grow up with levels of guilt when it comes to having more or being better than someone else. In today’s society, there seems to be a rule of thought that everyone should be equal and no one should be better off than someone else. That is, of course, “stinin’ thinking” as Zig Ziglar used to put it. It also plays into the scarcity mindset which so many of us grow up with that keeps us bound in the golden handcuffs of a paycheck to paycheck mentality.

 

Now you are probably saying to yourself, “Huh? What is he talking about?” I know, trust me, all too well. I didn’t think I had any guilt about success until I looked back and saw so many times that there were areas that I sabotaged my success subconsciously.

 

Guilt is among the biggest wastes of our emotional energy. It causes us to get trapped in the present by over-concentrating on the past. Guilt, at times, can be very draining. By introducing logic to help counter-balance the guilt, you are able to avoid undermining your efforts toward a successful life and stay on course.

 

Feelings of guilt may not be gotten rid of over night, but they don't have to command your life. By following the steps provided, you can work towards freeing yourself from the guilt in your life that may be holding you back.

 

Pinpoint precisely what you feel guilty about. Your guilt might be telling you that there's something you need to alter in your life. For example, if you are trying to lose weight and know that if you go to a buffet you won’t control yourself and then a friend invites you to a buffet. You may feel guilty about saying no to the invitation, and then you end up going, overeating and then feeling bad about ‘ruining’ your diet. You may find that silly, but that actually happened to me. Or maybe your child wants that latest toy/videogame/whatever, but you have set yourself up on a specific budget in order to pay down debt; the child ‘guilts’ you into foregoing the budget for their newest whatever only to not play with it once they have it. Again (with hand held high) that was something that I dealt with.

 

Guilt comes in many subtle and not-so-subtle packages. The point is to see them, and do what it takes to overcome these guilts. As in the two examples above, most of those types of situations can be handled with a few boundaries that we will get into on a later blog, but for now, lets work on some steps to help you identify and work toward eliminating guilt in your life.

 

Look intimately at your priorities. Make a list of what is all-important for the health and happiness of you, your loved ones and your business. For example, what is significant to your loved ones might not matter to other families and the other way around. It holds true in every aspect of your life. Be strong with your priorities.

 

Construct more time for your priorities. First thing is to know and acknowledge that you can't do everything, so if it is not on your success list then get in the habit of saying "No." The word No can, and will, be your biggest ally. At first you will feel guilty about saying it, but in moderation a little guilt now can save a lot of guilt later.

 

Live in the here and now; any errors in judgment made in the past because of guilt are over and done with. Sometimes, the guilt we feel now that keeps up from moving forward is guilt of the past. Forgive yourself for your errors, learn from them and leave them in the past tense.

 

Determine limits. As a parent you're responsible for the well-being of your children and you set boundaries for them, but you need to do the same for every aspect of your life if you are to be successful.

 

One final thought that is important is to adopt time for yourself. Even though it might seem inconceivable to find the time, if you're debilitated emotionally or physically then you have nothing to give to those around you. Don’t feel guilty for taking some time out for yourself because in the long run, when you have time to recharge, you have that energy to invest in those around you.

 

Guilt is usually subtle, so you have to really look for it sometimes, but when you recognize it and deal with it, you find that success is usually just on the other side of that guilt.

 

An action step for you to take is to do some internal dialog with yourself and see if there are any issues that you feel guilt over. Then analyze why you feel guilty about it. Sometimes the guilt is rational, but the initial reasons for the guilt aren’t.

 

From guilt to success, Click Here!

Power Question:

On a scale from 1 to 10, how excited are you about change?