Obstacles. Challenges. Road blocks. They seemingly appear out of nowhere to make us stronger in achieving our goals.
Being a pessimist will cause you to think that the whole world is against you, like Jolene. Her negativity made her lose a lot of friends, and things along the way. Even family kept their distance from her.
While attending a workshop on assertiveness and self-confidence Jolene suddenly came to the realization that the problem was her and her pessimism. The workshop helped her see things from a completely different perspective, and that she could turn her negatives into positives and her pessimism into optimism.
Additionally, setting and reaching her goals improved over time. Pleased with her change she began to tell others what to do. Her top-most take away from the workshop was that she was ultimately responsible for her attitudes, actions and results in her life.
Making successful changes in your life, or getting a raise in pay or a promotion at work – there are certain keys that are designed to help us become overcomers.
Obstacles to Our Goals:
Life is a choice, and the reality of how to deal with obstacles on a daily basis is also a choice that you decide that will make you stronger or weaker. While we have little or no say in the obstacles that come our way, it is how we choose to react to the obstacles in life that will determine the level of our success, and the events that challenge us. Over-reaction to minor obstacles can make a mountain out of a mole hill. Small annoyances should never be allowed to become major interruptions of our thoughts and actions. All our reactions should be monitored and kept in check as we determine the appropriate action. The obstacle always determines the appropriate response.
Types of Negative Thinking:
Negative thinking is the process of thinking negative rather than positive thoughts. Seemingly, positive thinking requires effort while negative thinking is uninvited and happens easily.
A person who has been brought up in a happy and positive atmosphere, where people value success and self-improvement will have a much easier time thinking positively. One who was brought up in a poor or difficult situation will probably continue to expect difficulties and failure.
Negative thoughts center on the individual, others, and the future. Negative thinking causes problems such as depression, pessimism, and anxiety.
Here are some typical types of negative thinking:
Over-generalization will cause you to make a universal rule as a result of just one incident.
Global labelling will cause you to automatically use degrading and disparaging labels to describe yourself and others.
Filtering is when you selectively zero in on the negative, while completely disregarding the positive.
Polarized thinking will cause you to group things into ‘absolutes’; assuming that you or someone else must be ‘perfect’ or that you are worthless. It’s either “black” or “white” – there is no gray area.
Self-blame is when you insist on blaming yourself even though it may not be your fault.
Personalization is when you develop the tendency that everything has something to do with you, and you negatively compare yourself to others.
Mind reading is when you feel that people, for no reason whatsoever, don’t like you, with no evidence at all.
Control fallacies is whereby you feel that you have full responsibility for everybody and everything, or alternatively, you have no control and that you area a helpless victim.
Emotional reasoning causes you to believe that things are the way they are because that’s the way you think about them.
Personal Application
We all have situations in our personal lives where the ability to be assertive and to develop our self-confidence and help us achieve our goals.
We are surrounded everyday with the need to practice these skills when the opportunity presents itself for us to develop positive, optimistic and assertive responses.
Standing up for yourself will translate into success throughout your personal and professional lives. It will help you grow your personal self-confidence, and make the challenges that we encounter everyday much more easily to overcome.
Next week, in Part Three: ‘Communication Skills’; ‘Listening Vs. Hearing – they are not the same’.
Again, thank you, and much success!
For more information on quality, affordable, world-class workshops offered, please email: [email protected].
