It happens.

You do all the right things to have a great day and then someone else rains on your parade.

Other people – including family, friends and, yes, employers – don’t get to make you unhappy without your permission.  Eleanor Roosevelt put it best when she said something similar — “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent” and that applies to making their daily drama YOUR daily drama.

• Start with compassion —  “It’s too bad Jason has to take out his unhappiness on other people like me”.
• Add resolve – “I’m putting a stop/loss on his negative behavior before it goes any further”.
• End with a positive – “My day and my life is not on autopilot.  It is in my hands and I choose to keep enjoying every minute”.

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I often write about abusive people who push boundaries and abuse the sensibilities and feelings of others.

Then there are pushy people.

They have to get their way and they can do it by being passive, even charming – until we give in.

My rule of thumb is say yes to others as much as possible.  Most people say no so you’ll get great satisfaction from this and others will be the beneficiary of your kindness.

Where to draw the line is when a person invades your boundaries.  “Thems fightin’ words” to me. No matter how sweet or how forceful the approach, we must rise to the occasion in defense of the boundaries that define us as a person.

Example:  Someone tries to coerce you to do something that is unethical or just not right according to your sensibilities. The answer is no.

No is the magic word to repel pushy people.

You don’t have to shout it. You don’t have to get upset.  Just say the word – no. Say it as needed again and again if you have to in defense of the most persistent people.

When someone wants you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable, the answer is no.  No explanation required.  The more you explain, the more pushy people use your words against you.

They say diplomacy is the art of letting other people have your way and diplomacy is good.

But boundaries define us – who we are, what we stand for – no person gets to do that but us.

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Worry is something that is acquired over a lifetime.

My mother was a worrywart.  And her only son took after her.  She had her reasons – my father was away at war for four years straight (no leave) and he had a heart attack not many years after he returned.  Still, she paid a heavy price for fear and worry.

The best book I have ever read on the topic is still Dale Carnegie’s How to Stop Worrying and Start Living but a great way to feel the benefits of reduced worry right now is to try this.

Declare today – Tuesday – a worry-free day.

All day everything you find makes you anxious or makes you worry, tell yourself to hold that thought until tomorrow at (you choose the hour).

This way you can field as many worries as you want by rescheduling your worry but reward yourself with one-day off from obsessing.  You can deal with the problems tomorrow.  You can even jot the worries down or note them on a digital device.

The fact is, taking a day off from worry has residual effects on the other six days in the week.

Some folks find it hard to even put one day a week off-limits for worry so they can start small with a night, a weekend or a trip to the ballgame.  No worries allowed until the time and day you decide.

One thing Dale Carnegie always said was that 99% of the things we worry about never come true so doesn’t it make sense to be reassured by those numbers and start feeling what it’s like to be worry-free?

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The author and physician Amit Sood in his Handbook for Happiness poses the most intriguing question:

“Imagine you won $100 million in a lottery. Think about the people who would fulfill these two criteria”:

1. They will be truly happy for you
2. The won’t expect a dime

Dr. Sood reminds us that these are the people who are members of our inner circle. They wish the best for you with no selfish motives.

Do you know people like this?

Maybe there is one or two but these are the most important people in the world.

Seek them out.

Love them.

Hold them near.

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Go to the bank?  Call 9-11?  Tell your spouse or friend goodbye?

Those who have come close to losing their lives are changed forever when they get a second chance.

An Australian hospice nurse polled people in the last 12 weeks of their life and asked them to tell their top regrets.

Here they are:

• Wishing they hadn’t worked so hard and missed their children growing up or spending quality time with their partner.
• That they would have had the courage to express their feelings.
• Wishing they had stayed in touch with their friends.

Another key wish was “I wish I had let myself be happier”.

Why wait until the time is up to do these four critical things.

Not money.

Not power.

Not fame is more important than the best use of time in loving and enjoying the people who matter most around us.

We can do this.

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Self-doubt is that quiet little voice that pops up in our ears to make us question whether we can succeed.

I once addressed the Country Radio seminar in Nashville to speak on the topic of music radio.

But what I didn’t know is that the Governor of Tennessee was to introduce the late Dick Clark to talk about television, music and American Bandstand.

And the likeable Clark showed up with video, stories and funny lines.

I am a professional and have no shortage of confidence (usually but not always) and I would lying if I didn’t share with you that little voice of self-doubt that said, “Are you sure you should be speaking here?”.

I was backstage and walked out into the meeting room to watch the master at work and when it came close to my introduction – that, by the way, was done by Dick Clark – I said to myself – “You were asked to speak because you are knowledgeable about radio”.

Then, when I stood at the podium looking out onto about 800 happy faces who enjoyed my predecessor, I fell silent for about 15 seconds, gathered in the room and said to myself “I’ve got this”.

The two things to erase self doubt, then, is to focus on the fact that you have earned the right to be doing whatever it is you are doing and the verbal affirmation is – “I’ve got this”.

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In the sports world, this is the time of year for coaches to be fired.  You know the drill – coaches are hired to be fired.

Most of us if we’re honest with ourselves harbor a fear or at least deep concern of what will happen if we lose our jobs.  After all, most people who are happy in their work, identify themselves with their careers.  Our self-esteem is attached to our work.

Great people have been fired only to go on and return to greatness.

Those who had their careers interrupted – fairly or unfairly by employers – almost always go on to succeed in spite of that bump in the road.

Losing income is a real concern but the elephant in the room is losing self-esteem.

Not too long ago a morning radio personality who had worked on the same station waking up local audiences for 36 years was unceremoniously fired.  Imagine the hurt.  Not being able to say goodbye.  Disappearing without notice.  One day you’re on top, the next day you’re not.  And to add insult to injury, he was escorted out of the station with his personal effects in a box.

Yes, we fear not having enough money to live.

But we also worry about the loss of self-esteem that comes when we’re suddenly not needed and left without an immediate future.

There is no cure for this kind of life’s disruption.

But there is a powerful thought to get through it – everyone rises again to achieve success and fulfillment.  Ironically, it is the adversity of being fired that fuels the rebound to success.

Fearing being fired is as psychologically damaging as actually being fired so it is more productive to work hard with the confidence that even a disruption in your career path will only make you stronger.

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If you’re like most people, you don’t have to blame yourself when things go wrong.  There is no shortage of people who will be glad to do this for us.

But blame is a dangerous game.

It does not have a positive outcome.

Dale Carnegie famously started his human relations rules with “don’t criticize, condemn or complain”.  If we could do only these three things in life, we would be so much happier.

But accepting the blame of others must be stopped and we’re the only ones who can stop it.

It isn’t their right to do it and it’s not our obligation to accept blame.

The number one way to run down self-esteem is to be the target of blaming comments – often emotional — from others.

A trick that I use is to think of my ears attached to my brain as a digital recorder.

When blame is leveled, I re-record over the blaming statements as soon as I can.

Example of a blaming statement:

“If only you would have listened to me, blah-blah-blah”  (you know the drill).

My –re-recording:

“I always make an attempt to listen to others”.

The brain is the most powerful ally we have to prevent the dysfunction of others from being destructive toward us.

One more thing.

Not being willing to be the target of blame does not mean that we cannot be better, but as Dale Carnegie said criticism never, ever works.

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Stubborn people usually have the inability to hear the voices and ideas of others.

They fixate on their plan or preferences and don’t budge no matter what.

Determined people can listen to others but they have a knack for listening to themselves.

We insult others when we say they are stubborn but we praise them when we say they are determined.

A determined person knows that they are always in charge of their future actions.

A stubborn person is insecure about their ability to stay the course, which is why they will not entertain other points of view.  In a way, that’s threatening.

Stubborn = headstrong

Determined = the best route to success with input from others.

The confidence to seek out the thoughts of others is representative of the same confidence necessary to see your plans through to a successful outcome

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Can you change where you were born?

Or who your parents were?

Could you have changed the outcome of losing your job in a budget cut?

Or the fact that the doctor tells you that you have developed diabetes?

Or that your best friend moved 1,000 miles away?

Put like this, it is obvious that we waste a lot of time and emotion trying to change things that can never be changed.

That realization is the first step toward redeploying our energies to things that we can change.

Emphasizing the good things our parents gave us and letting go of the things we don’t want.

Finding a better job that brings us more fulfillment and hopefully compensation.

Taking care to be healthy and minimizing diseases we may have developed.

Finding innovative ways to keep long distance relationships alive.

We change things that cannot be changed by accepting that a better use of our energies is to change that which we can change.

How you see it makes all the difference.

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