Be a good listener.

And don’t worry, there are few really innate good listeners around.

I know only a few but they are really good.  Some have the natural ability and others acquired their skills.

In the broadcasting business where I have resided, we talk a lot and could listen more.

That’s a good first step.

Then, be able to recap conversations after you hear them to see if you can recall what the other person said.

And finally, be able to do that recap to the person you were listening to and when they confirm you got it right, you have become a great listener.

A lot of what ails us in this world is our collective inability to let the other person speak while we take mental notes.

In a self-absorbed world, the individual who can master this skill will achieve both career success and personal happiness.

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1. Pick from multiple choices.  Choosing the thing, person or job you like the best based on feeling alone should be a red flag.
2. All good decisions in time.  There is often a correlation between how fast decisions are made and how good the decisions are.
3. Avoid outsourcing your decisions to someone else (a person who is pressuring you or one you feel would make a better choice).  People who fear decision making often allow others to decide for them.
4. Remember the Ted Williams rule.  Arguably the greatest hitter in baseball who once batted over .400 in a season still failed to reach base 60% of the time.  Making good decisions is a process not a guarantee that every decision will be perfect.  If one of the best hitters in baseball succeeded only 40% of the time and most players not even that, set more realistic goals.
5. Learn from the bad decisions because unfortunately too many of us repeat the same mistakes.

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There are a lot of tips on how to stop mortgaging your happiness because of undue obsessing.

What works instantly is not to try to alter your behavior but to seek an alternate route to reducing obsessing.

Postpone the thoughts.

Train the brain to put off having to think obsessive thoughts to a certain time in the day – or night and do not exceed your obsessing time.

Tonight at 8pm until 8:30 I will obsess away.

Then, every obsessive thought gets pushed into the next day.  Same time.

Eventually you may be able to skip obsessing sessions every day and do them less frequently.

This same approach is also magic with fear and worry.

Train the brain to pick up the fear thought at a specific time later and then devote no more than 30 minutes to thinking about the fear.

This approach gives you back your life and eventually introduces a protocol for putting obsessions and worry in their place.

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The first and only thing is – know how to make a life, not a living.

We keep pouring all our heart and soul into making a living and shortchanging what matters most.

Money doesn’t buy happiness and we already know “money can’t buy you love”.

Do you know how much money annually earned by two members of the family is the sweet spot?

You’re not going to believe this study of 2,000 people who were questioned about their lives and then asked their income.

$70,000 a year for a working couple.

That’s an average in the U.S.  It’s higher in Hawaii and lower in other states where the cost of living is lower.

What happened when couples earned $80,000 on average?

Their happiness (self-reported in the survey) did NOT go up.

What about a lot more money, did that make a difference?

Actually, they became unhappier the more money they made.

This can’t be, but it is.

Maybe that explains why a person fighting a disease just to stay alive is often happier in that unsettling situation than healthy people who think more is better.

The way to make a better life is to not fear living.

If you do, you risk losing life and happiness.

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Trying to please others is a losing game.

We know this and still do it.

So, is it possible to please others and ourselves at the same time?

More often than not, it is.

When you feel you’re being asked to do something that someone else wants and maybe you’re not that wild about doing, look for a win-win way forward.

The boss wants you to base the presentation on things you think are not that powerful.

The boss is still the boss but by trying to find if she/he is open to allowing you to infuse some new data that you have discovered, you are potentially satisfying her/him and you at the same time.

It isn’t always possible but asking for that which you need to make you happy and fulfilled too is legal, positive and has tremendous upside.

And not just at work.

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Most people don’t try to be depressed or unhappy.

The don’t wake up and say “I hope something happens to bum me out”.

Things start going wrong when the first thing occurs that causes unhappiness.  And if a second thing happens then the pattern is established.   Often it only takes one thing to ruin a day.

It’s going to be hard to turn your mood around.

How we survive from something going wrong or things that are said that hurts or angers us, sets the tone for the rest of the day.

Plainly put, we throw in the towel too quickly.

Sometimes all it takes is to try to be more resilient.

I’m bugged, but I’m not going to let this ruin my day.

I worked for weeks on that project and it hasn’t been appreciated, but I’m sure not going to dump on myself.  I did my part.

That fender bender is just what I didn’t need today BUT, I’m thankful that it’s the fender that is hurt and not me. 

This is more than just happy talk.

There is more and more science that proves how we think is how we train our brains to think.

Give in to negativity, and you will most assuredly get it.

Fight off as many aspects of it as you can and your brain gets retrained to make you stronger.

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Air traffic controllers through the use of technology can track many airplanes at one time for eventual landing.

Not too long ago, with just the help of radar, these overworked and stressed controllers would have nervous breakdowns trying to keep the planes separated and landing without incident.

You can only land one plane at a time on a runway.

Managing the multiple problems we face every day is similar.

In spite of multitasking and other techniques, humans can deal with only one problem or challenge at a time.

Try more than that and stress levels skyrocket.

One approach is to see in your mind’s eye, all the problems you are facing the way you might envision airplanes in line or circling to land.

You check back, work on it, update it, make decisions about it and bring it in finished.

Seeing multiple problems in your periphery is doable, trying to solve them all at once is useless when the price you pay is an increase in stress and anxiety.

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If a baseball team feared losing, they would never take the field.

If a tennis player couldn’t bear the thought of going down in defeat to another competitor, they would put their racquet down before the match started.

The same with life, if we allow fear thoughts there is no reason to expect happiness and accomplishment.

Fear thought is the enemy, it must be banned from our minds.

Failure is inevitable and ironically it is the dress rehearsal for future success, but worrying about failing is the main reason for failure.

It robs us of our confidence.

Gets us off our game plan.

Makes us anxious so that we become tense and nervous.

Study successful people and you will see every one of them has the ability to give themselves a chance to win – maybe even a lot of chances – fearing not failure itself but the inability to focus on trying harder.

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Often we are our own worst enemy when it comes to confidence.

Quick – name something you did extremely well today.

Then – name something you could have done better.

Most people can name their faults before the positives and some can’t name a positive unless you pull it out of them.

This changes today.

From now on, for every criticism (justifiable or not) make sure to think of something positive that you have done well.

No criticism without compliments.

Our brains get trained to obsess with how we could be better, how others want us to be, how we are wrong and not right so balancing out that tendency with some honest praise is the most important step in confidence building.

In other words, we can learn to have more confidence when we teach our brains that there is a lot of good upon which to build a positive view of ourselves.

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Anger is scary.

When we’re on the receiving end of it, anger may be scarier still.

“Calm down” doesn’t work.

“It’s not important, it’s not a big deal” seems to make people more enraged.

What we want when we are angry is for someone to listen to us – to hear us out without judging or – and this is important – without giving advice.

Advice just seems to inflame things even more.

But there is also good anger.

This is when we have a right to express our displeasure and to make every attempt to be heard.

Good anger is constructive.

Bad anger is destructive to us and to everyone who comes in contact with it.

The tool for dealing with anger is to become a good, non-judgmental listener.

The means for expressing concerns you have a right to air is to not destroy yourself or your relationship with others in doing so.

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