To stop being addicted to people who are not good for us, stop romanticizing them.

A friend who broke up with a longtime companion is distraught but there were problems all along that led to the eventual split.  To forget the problems and romanticize what is missed is a sure ticket to lots of enduring misery.

I once heard a motivational speaker say to break from an addiction to someone, see them as ugly not beautiful.

Their behavior – how it is ugly.

Their temperament – why it was problematic.

Their commitment to you – how was it lacking.

Another powerful way to overcome a relationship we get stuck on – and it happens to everyone – is to say the following.

There is someone waiting to meet me, appreciate me and have a life together.

Positive predictive self-talk like that precedes the arrival of such a person in your life.

It happened to me when my wife walked in because after reminding myself such a person was coming into my life; I was actually expecting her.

Become addicted to self-respect and positive dreams of that which you deserve.

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1.  Also emphasize the gain. The years you spent with your loved one before they passed. Things you have learned from them. Magic moments. The good times with a friend before you broke up.
2. Keep great memories alive. Pictures, routines, special moments. I remember my mother every time I touch garlic – after all, an Italian mom cooks everything with garlic and this branch didn’t fall far from the tree.
3. Find a quality in the person you lost and make it live on through you. If she was the type who never complained, adopt her good quality and try to make it live through your daily actions. That’s a powerful way for the departed to live on.
4. Recognize that there are powerful losses other than death. Divorce is one. Being separated from your children. Another broken relationship that you had high hopes for. The career that hit a bump in the road – after all, many of us identify ourselves by the work we do instead of the things we stand for.

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Things usually get ugly when we react rather than respond.

Reacting, which happens quickly and without much thought, usually leads to hurt feelings and things being said that we will regret later.

Responding is what people do when they want to think first and speak second.

Reacting:

“How dare you say I am selfish, YOU’RE the one who is selfish”. 

It doesn’t really matter at this point if there is any truth to the claim because the damage is done and we’re off to the races.

But responding is the better move.

“I’ve never seen myself as selfish”. 

Not accusing the other of the same thing of which they are accusing you.

The difference between responding and reacting is about 30 seconds.

Let comments – even and especially inflammatory remarks – slosh around in your brain for a half a minute.  You may be surprised to see how superior your brain works when given a few precious seconds.

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Nice people can be complainers, but nothing is more of a turnoff than to be in the company of someone who can find unhappiness in everything.

Many don’t even know they are doing it.

A friend recently told me how unhappy she was at work and when I suggested looking for another job, more complaints followed.

Complainers like to complain.

Life is too important to have it buzz-killed by complainers.

Let them vent for a while but when you realize you can’t get them to stop the negative talk, interrupt with a positive question.

Are you on LinkedIn?  That’s a good start and a positive move toward a better job.

But if the conversation drifts back to the negative – and it will – move on.  Stop the conversation.  Walk away.  Hang up.  End it.

Just as we have MRI evidence that our brain reacts a certain way when we’re happy, the brain can be trained to be negative and you are neither doing yourself or your friend a favor by continuing that negative behavior.

Complaints are good, they allow us to vent.

Fixation on what’s wrong changes our brain and makes it very difficult to have healthy relationships.

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Saying “if I offended you, I am sorry” is not an adequate apology.

Saying “I’m sorry” right away as soon as you’ve offended or hurt someone and repeating it emphatically is.

Actually SAY the thing you are sorry for.

It was insensitive of me to write that on social media.  I regret it and apologize. I hope you can forgive me.

I should never have referred to your weight.  You are a beautiful person as is.  Please forgive me for forgetting that. 

These are authentic apologies because they actually say what you’re sorry for and emphasize that you are indeed sorry.

I should have consulted you before making that decision.  I was wrong.  I will try to be aware of it in the future.  I can do better.

That kind of apology actually elicits love and respect in return.

Because if you haven’t apologized a couple of times today, you aren’t human.

Humans make mistakes and apologizing is not shameful, it’s prideful.

Apologizing in a sincere and authentic way says I will be better and that’s something to always be proud of.

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1.  The next time you walk into a room where there are seats, go to the front and take yours. Simply acting like you have confidence to be down in front, makes you more confident.  Often, the least confident people arrogate in the back.

2. When you get an opportunity to volunteer, be the first to say “I will”.  Words mean a lot to others and even more to our inner self.

3. Let someone else have their way.  The act of deferring to another person shows inner strength and we are rewarded not only with a boost of self-confidence but by gratitude from others.

4. Go one full day without saying the word “can’t”. When we stop running ourselves down, we automatically start building ourselves up.

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John Glenn was the first American to circle the earth in orbit in the early 1960’s when America was losing the space race to the Russians.

Much later at 77 years old, Glenn was the oldest man to ever enter space aboard the space shuttle. In between, he served almost two decades as a senator from Ohio and died recently at the age of 95 – a full life indeed.

Two things.

America needs goals and we as individuals need dreams. Too often we fantasize about our futures without realizing that we have one life and one chance to do all we can to live those dreams.

And, the lesser known story of John Glenn’s wife, Annie, who had a serious stuttering problem for almost 50 years until she came upon a program that purported to help stutterers overcome their disability.

It is said when Annie Glenn called her husband after completing the protocol, he was moved to tears. Annie Glenn then spent the rest of her life helping others deal with stuttering.

Whether our goals are in outer space or deep within ourselves, John and Annie Glenn show us that pursuing your dreams is not just rocket science.

It is the life we deserve.

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Repeat after me …

I’ve done it before. I can do it again.

If I’ve never done it before, I will use an IOU from the many things I have done well in the past.

I am not afraid of failure – I will learn from it.

Assume a virtue if you have it not.

If I don’t believe in me, I don’t have the right to ask anyone else to believe in me.

Now, repeat again and again during the day.

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The best way to deal with difficult people is to make it difficult for them to be difficult.

As much as you may despise their behavior, do not try to change the difficult person. They love that.

Deliver the message that you don’t take them seriously.  They hate that.

Use humor to avoid giving their trouble legitimacy. 

Fog the issue if pressed.  In other words, blow them off.

Difficult people are looking for attention and control.

When they realize that they can neither get your attention nor gain control of your decisions, they may try, but they will fail.

The most difficult person to deal with is one who has earned your trust, one that you are related to or who controls your pay check.

In all case, shift from reactive to proactive to put them in their place.

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Research, metrics, focus groups and other tools exist to help us make better decisions.

But Proctor & Gamble (P&G), General Foods and others have big budgets to test and market new products and yet still don’t bat 1.000.

Before the iPod, MP3 players were a cult product.

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPad, people said who needs a tablet when you have a phone and a laptop.

This is the stuff that humility is made of.

When we make major decisions, we can stick to the facts or we could get the facts and factor in our intuition.

Doubting our gut is always a bad bet if for no other reason than our inner feeling wants to tell us something.

Learn to listen to your intuition, your gut feeling and along with facts better life decisions can be made.

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A recent study in the publication Nature suggests mind wandering is more helpful than hunkering down and becoming obsessed with that which causes anxiety.

Mind wandering?

Let your mind wander away from perceived threats.  As Harvard Medical School points out getting a grip on threats may not be as effective as allowing the mind to wander.

We obsess by focusing in on anxiety not letting go of it and that makes the anxiety even more unbearable.

“So when you’re next feeling anxious or wired, try allowing your mind to do what it naturally does — wander!”

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If you do this one thing, everything else will fall into place.

Manage others exactly as you would like to be managed.

Talk to them the way you best respond to others.

Ask them to help you, don’t tell them – the way you like to hear it.

Show the compassion and understanding that managers often lack but everyone craves.

Build others up, do not tear them down because all of us hate that and yet it is so pervasive in today’s work culture.

Harvard promotes working in teams, but not without the human relations skills to deal with divergent points of view.

In other words, if there is one way to become more effective at managing people, you need only one thought all day.

Manage others exactly as you would like to be managed.

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Thanksgiving weekend marked the revival of the hit television series Gilmore Girls.

A generation or two curled up to watch the new episodes on Netflix but also to go back and watch complete previous seasons.

Binge-watching has been made possible by Netflix and it is a useful tool to consume TV content on your schedule.

What if we binged on friends putting aside extra time to catch up with people who are important to us?

Or binge on family and relatives.  The author Dr. Amit Sood always says each Christmas he counts the number of Christmases he has left with his mother and father based on actuarial tables, not to get depressed, but to get inspired to share these valuable moments.

There are people in our lives right now that need to hear our voices, see our faces and spend time 100% focused on them.

What a wonderful way to extend the gift of binge-watching to enhance meaningful relationships.

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No one is going to surprise us what is causing anxiety and stress in our lives because chances are we already know. 

We already know what is eating us alive but we don’t seem to have the will to stop it.

The smartphone is not making us happier, but we know that and continue to hold it in our hand and focus more attention on that than people who really matter.

Social media, email, texting and an endless path to connectivity has actually made us less connected to people we used to experience in person, but that’s not a revelation either.

Multitasking is inefficient and more stressful than setting priorities yet a day doesn’t go by that someone with a phone in hand says, “keep talking, I’m listening” while they sit there distracted.  And that person sitting there is also us.

Taking on too much work that we cannot complete is a recipe for burnout only because one of the most important words is not being used – no.  Saying yes and killing yourself is not a good outcome but it is the one chosen time after time at work.

Hating on people at work is what other people do, right?  It is a total waste of time because eventually what you dislike in another changes the good things about you.

Not enough exercise and healthy diet makes us tired, disagreeable and sick.  Still, look where most of us go to eat lunch.

And having a career and raising a family is stressful beyond description.  We do it, but we often don’t do it well if we’re winding up burned out.   It’s not the total amount of time you spend with family members, it’s the total time you spend 100% present.

Burnout is often self-inflicted because in almost every instance, there is a better choice.

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There are almost too many ways to coax us into being more productive.

But here’s the one I love, use and would like to share with you this morning.

It’s called the 3 P’s.

Purposeful positive progression.

Every time you touch a project or task, try to advance it in some positive way that makes sense for your end goal.  It is not necessary to complete it all at once.

The fastest way to be unproductive is to take on or assign big projects or tasks to people who understandably will be overwhelmed so where to begin?

Want a new job?

That’s a big process.  Divide it into small steps that positively take you toward your goal.  Working draft of a resume.  Find out what your services are worth elsewhere to establish a fair base.  Isolate the companies you want to approach, etc.

Need to do a major presentation on top of everything else you do? 

Divide it into a handful of smaller steps that will take you to completion.

There is a great saying.

Want to get something done?

Give it to a busy person to do.

Because by necessity everything busy people touch moves their work in a purposeful positive progression toward success.

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Who succeeds all the time?

I want to meet that person.

But those who succeed more often than others have a positive pattern they follow whether they can articulate it or not.

Learn from every failure – As painful and disappointing as failure is to experience, it is that powerful a motivator and teacher to help us to our next success.

Assess your failures to see if there is any pattern that keeps repeating itself, then make adjustments.

When tempted to focus on your failures, spend time more constructively finding people in your generation who overcame theirs.

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Florence Henderson, mom on the hit series The Brady Bunch died late last week at the age of 82.

I heard her “oldest son” Greg Brady (Barry Williams) sum up the quality Mrs. Brady had that made her so beloved.

According to Williams on an NPR interview, Henderson tried to portray the mom she always wanted to have – the mom she always wanted to be.

We can be the person we want to be, not someone else, as long as we can visualize in our mind’s eye the qualities it will take.

Living someone else’s life is not an option.

Seeing the person you want to be is at least half the work in getting there.

I always like to say be the person your pet thinks you are.

And Florence Henderson is saying know the qualities you want to have and then pursue them.

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Thanksgiving can be a train wreck for some people.

This “family time” is also dysfunctional family time and that includes all of us.

Relatives and close friends are pushed together to eat, drink, watch football and shop often for more than one day over the weekend.

The real purpose of Thanksgiving is not eating but gratitude and the closer we get to gratitude, the better the holiday goes.

• Rule 1 through 99 – if you really want to have a miserable time, try to change someone especially a relative.  Let it go, let it flow.

• Warning:  stay off of politics.

• Be the one who raises a glass to the person who prepared the feast if you are having a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.  They may be moved to tears or show joy of appreciation, but it sets the right tone.

• Remember those who are departed.  I remember my parents every year by trying to do something that they would do to keep their spirit alive.  A recipe (broccoli sautéed in garlic and olive oil) to feel their presence.

• Remember the less fortunate or those who are troubled.

Food is filling.

Food for thought is satisfying.

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Commit to kindness.

Choose the person you want to be and stick to it even in the face of people who choose to be unkind to you.

In the long range, we win when we stick to the plan to be the person we want to be.

The author Dr. Amit Sood at a seminar gives this memorable example that sums it up.

There are always a few people in our lives who won’t change just as there are always a few kernels left unpopped in an overflowing bag of popcorn.

Commit to kindness even when others do not.

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This is not about Donald Trump the politician but about his seemingly endless confidence to win one way or the other.

Trump believed he could be president when others laughed. He was looking like a sure loser on the eve of the election when all politicians put on a brave face but Trump somehow, some way believes he will prevail when others allow themselves to think they might fail.

We can’t ask others to believe in us, if we don’t first believe in ourselves.

The enemy is that little voice that tries to grow louder in our head that says maybe things won’t work out right.

When sports teams play a game, it’s over if they allow this thought in their head.

For the rest of us, when we allow the game to be over while it is still on, failure is what follows.

See it through.

Believe in you.

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