Successful Behaviors

11102012

To be successful, behave as such, and steer clear of the baddies.

You can bang your head against the wall for decades and  possibly arrive at some level of accomplishment, or not, all beat up, depleted, demoralized, and mostly feeling quite joyless, OR, how about behaving successfully now.  This particular installment of tips concentrates on people. Who should you have on your personal board?

1. SURROUND yourself with positive, confident, creative, active, initiators.  You will spot them because they are happy, productive and healthy. They look for the best in others, they walk the talk, and they are genuinely generous when it comes to your success.

2. Follow up with these folks OFTEN, and find out which one or two will MENTOR you.  More than one is great — they have different areas of expertise. It might not be any sort of official relationship, as the types mentioned above mentor people naturally all the time. It is part of who they are. You just have to make sure you get your tuchas in front of them regularly (do not expect them to check up on you).

3. Once you start surrounding yourself with these people who are great for you, then what?  Do what they do, and do what they suggest. If it does not work for you, great, then modify it so it does. But utilize the ideas and suggestions and the MODELING that these successful, fulfilled, productive folks provide.  School cost what, $60K to  $150K?  Therapy or coaching costs $175 to $300 an hour. This is FREE. Use this opportunity, stay connected to them, and keep adding people to your personal board.

4. Then, OBSERVE their deeper characteristics. What you will find:  they are not only successful, and behave as such, but they are grateful, generous problem-solvers, who have an appreciative perspective, and conduct themselves in their relationships with clean boundaries, showing up with integrity, consistently supportive, demonstrating a passion both for what they do and in what others are doing.  These are not the by-products of success. These are the ingredients.

5. Limit your exposure to inauthentic, kvetchy folks, who blame others, act victimized, manipulate, and make excuses. They are TOXIC and will hold you back. Spot them as help-refusing complainers, bonding through gossip, attempting to draw pity, widely broadcasting their problems, pouring gas on fires, rejoicing in others’ misery, and they have messy, sticky boundaries. They leave you feeling de-skilled, slimed, confused, threatened, tired, or disoriented. I’m getting tired just writing about them. BEWARE: some toxic folks already hold positions of power.

6. You thought this was going to be a neat set of “5″?  HAVE FUN! You will know when you have surrounded yourself with the goodies and decreased the baddies when you are having more fun. You will feel energized, inspired, hopeful, and very soon more confident, fulfilled and deeply satisfied. Good stuff is yours for the taking, and then later, when you are walking the talk, you will start to notice folks approaching you to be on their personal boards.  Enjoy!

TAKE A RISK

A client of mine was absolutely petrified to go abroad on vacation with a group of strangers for a 10 day European tour. She just got back, had the time of her life, even went off and did things on her own. She is beaming and so happy.

Sometimes you have to go outside your comfort zone to reap the rewards life has to offer.

Being Present

Today I am reminded of one of the most frequent questions I am asked by my clients: HOW to be present. How not to get twisted up in thought. In answer: We return again and again to the energetic awareness of the body.  How to return to the body?  By attending to the breath. Once our awareness is back in our own skin, mindful of our own energy, we may then more harmoniously return to looking at our desires and intentions.

Talk is fine, but experience and embodiment is really the name of the game. An example: Today a client and I joyously laughed with abandon at the mutual recognition and embodiment of the simplicity of the universal truth around the topic of presence. She has been working on this for some time now.  We were laughing so hard that we were trying to catch our breath (notice that the next time you have a really good laugh). She came out of this hearty laughter, and wanting more of the good feeling said in a very serious voice: "I have to work harder on that, I have to think about that more".  And then of course we roared with laughter again as she realized that her thoughts about her desire to have more good feeling more of the time pulled her down and out of the joyous state that she was aiming for and had already attained.  In joyful laughter we are in pure presence, and only focused on trying to BREATHE. Nothing else. We cannot work on that. We can only let go and let it happen.

Progress

Thrilled for my therapy and coaching clients -- they are making such amazing progress.  Realizing what they want and going for it.  They are speaking more directly in their environment about who they are, their strengths, and what they offer, and this is getting them the new business that they have wanted.  Well done!  Others are spotting toxicity around them and learning to navigate away from it.  Several have gained by leaps and bounds in their compassion for themselves and this also shows up in how they are treating others with more compassion.  One client this week deepened and broadened their discovery that there is an endless amount of love to be experienced and shared in their life -- that it is not portioned nor does it get used up.  So inspired by all this progress born of good old fashioned commitment to the work.


www.adambarrett-lcsw.com

Alignment

Working with a seasoned PR executive with several decades of senior directorship experience. She is revamping her  own marketing for private consulting gigs. Something was not gelling for her and she felt awful about how she was presenting herself.  In one session with me we took a good hard look at the wording of her bio and how it did not align who she really was with her actual professional experience with what type of projects she is passionate about.  After that one session she went from having a huge gap in purpose, which undermined the message in her bio, to precisely aligning her self description with her strengths, goals and passions. After only one session she did a complete rewrite and now it sounds direct, solid, and powerful.  What a joy to collaborate with her and have such a wonderful immediate improvement in alignment. And to top it off she gave me an incredibly heartfelt endorsement. I love it!

Success

Don't linger on bad matches in business or personal life. Invest in matches that flow forward organically. With precise focus comes success.

I Dare You!

Write a list as long as you can of all your successes, large and small and even smaller.  See what happens.