Change Your Life: Seek the Win-Win

In his book The 7 Habits, Stephen R. Covey puts #4: Think Win-Win

“There’s plenty out there and enough to spare for everybody. An Abundance Mentality involves sharing prestige, recognition, profits, and decision making. It opens possibilities, options, alternatives, and creativity”

(Stephen R. Covey).

In most dispute – whether a minor argument or a major relational conflict – it is possible to find a solution that benefits both sides. When I set out to fight and defeat my opponent, I end up expending a great deal of energy and resources on destroying rather than on creating maximum value. Moreover, entering a dispute with a win-lose approach often leads to a similar approach being adopted by the other party. As a result, both of us may end up losing.

When I show goodwill and a desire to help, I invite similar behaviour from the other. When we put our joint resources, our mind and heart, to the task of increasing the benefits to the individual and the group, we stand a better chance of success – for all who are involved. The pleasure of winning when the other side loses is short-lived; the joy of a win-win outcome lasts a great deal longer, and often creates the basis for yet another round of positive experiences.

The next time you (and I have to remind myself very strongly because I’m naturally a very competitive person) interact with someone, whether the context is a cooperative or a ministerial or a competitive one, think about how you can both benefit, how you can both win.

Don’t focus on defeating the other

Seek the win-win

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

 References:

1. Choose the Life You Want: 101 Ways to Create You Own Road to Happiness by Tal Ben-Shahar, PhD (New York: The Experiment, 2012) Buy this book!

2. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey (New York: Free Press, 2004)

Change Your Life: Express and Reveal (Stop Pretending)

“Vulnerability is the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness,

but it appears that it’s also the birthplace of joy, of creativity, or belonging, or love”

(Brene Brown)

To express myself – to openly share my thoughts and feelings – is to risk being rejected and hurt by others. But choosing not to express myself and to hide behind a façade, no matter how impressive that façade is, is a form of self-rejection that leads to unhappiness and discontent. While it is the case that if I am true to myself others may not like what they see, it is certain that if I constantly put on a show, eventually I will not like myself.

Putting on a façade is often an indicator of low self-esteem. But far from being a fix for the problem, pretending to be someone I am not has the effect, over time, of lowering my self-esteem. Moreover, even if others like what they see when I put on a show, it is not me that they like, but the person I am pretending to be. When I choose the real over the unreal, the authentic over the inauthentic – when I express rather than impress – I no longer apologize for who I am. I allow my inner light in Christ to shine.

Rather than constantly being concerned about whether my love would be appreciated, I give love first. Rather than concerning myself about how I would be perceived, I was authentic – willing to let go of who I thought (or who people thought) I should be in order to be who I am, who God made me to be. Rather than hide my vulnerabilities and imperfections, I’m willing to express and reveal them.

Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, to let go of the mask of perfection, is very hard. Vulnerability comes at a price – it can hurt a lot! But this cost is negligible compared to the cost we pay when we suppress part of our humanity. When we do not allow ourselves to be vulnerable, we are also supressing our joy and happiness and the potential to cultivate deep and meaningful connections in our life. Can you open up a little more, reveal part of your true self? Go on, be vulnerable, and be real!

Don’t always impress and conceal
Express and reveal. Stop pretending!

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

 References:

1. Choose the Life You Want: 101 Ways to Create You Own Road to Happiness by Tal Ben-Shahar, PhD (New York: The Experiment, 2012) Buy this book!

2. The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, 10^th Anniversary Edition by P.J. Palmer (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007).

Change Your Life: Actively Learn the Lessons of Hardship

“Never let a good crisis go to waste”

(Anne Harbison)

Although I do not wish hardship on myself, hardship often finds me, and when it does, I have a choice. I can treat it as a purely negative experience – one that I should put behind me as soon as possible and never think of again – or I can actively seek to identify and understand the lesson that every hardship contains within it.

For example, through hardship I can learn about humbleness (gaining a better understanding of my limitations), empathy (learning to connect to the pain of others), patience (absorbing the lesson that things do not always turn out as we planned), and resilience (gaining confidence from my ability to bounce back after the hardship is overcome). I most certainly do not have to be happy about everything negative happens to me, I can use it as a tool for development and growth. Things do not necessarily happen for the best, but I can choose to make the best things that happen.

Find the lessons in difficulties that you are facing right now. Look back and learn from hardships that you’ve experienced in the past; you will not only derive important lessons from reflecting on these challenges, you will also realize how much you have grown as a result. And how God works in and through you all this while.

Don’t avoid learning from hardship,

Actively learn the lessons of hardship.

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

 References:

1. Choose the Life You Want: 101 Ways to Create You Own Road to Happiness by Tal Ben-Shahar, PhD (New York: The Experiment, 2012) Buy this book!

2. The Handbook of Posttraumatic Growth: Research and Practice by L.G. Calhoun and R.G. Tedeschi (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2006)

Change Your Life: Appreciate and Learn from Those Around You

“Appreciation is to humans what the sun is for plants”

(Frank Iversen)

There are certain people – ones we know intimately and others we meet for the first time – who, for one reason or another, irritate us. It could be the way they act or talk, the way they look or walk. And while there is no need to always change our perspective about those people – leaving the scene or minimizing the time we spend with them could be the right thing to do – we lose many opportunities when we mindlessly succumb to the dictates of our unpleasant reactions.

Reflecting on the source of our dislike toward another person can reveal something about ourselves, because we often get annoyed by precisely those things we dislike in ourselves. Learning to appreciate things about the person who vexes us can help us cultivate the benefit-finder within, as well as develop deeper compassion – both of which will contribute to our relationships with others and with ourselves. What can you learn from others now?

Don’t allow others to upset you,

Appreciate and learn from those around you.

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

 References:

1. Choose the Life You Want: 101 Ways to Create You Own Road to Happiness by Tal Ben-Shahar, PhD (New York: The Experiment, 2012) Buy this book!

2. An Open Heart: Practicing Compassion in Everyday Life by Dalai Lama (New York: Back Bay Books, 2002).

Change Your Life: Experience Your Work as a Calling

Don't like your job?
1) Find work that is meaningful, or
2) Find something meaningful in your work

“This is the true joy in life –
being used for a purpose, recognized by yourself as a mighty one”

(George Bernard Shaw)

We spend a good part of our working hours at work, and yet many people derive little meaning from what occupies them for several thousand hours each year. If we do not experience a sense of purpose in our work, we can choose to do one of two things (aside from resigning ourselves to being unhappy): find work that is meaningful or find something meaningful in our work.

We don’t all have the luxury of having the perfect job – the one that reflects our values, where we work only with people we like, and whose atmosphere precisely suits our temperament. But even if we do not find ourselves in that ideal setting, we have a great deal of choice as to how we experience our daily work. Whether as a CEO or a salesman, an investment banker or a community organizer, a minister or a manager, a janitor or a cleaner – not complete control, perhaps, but some – over what elements of our work we focus on, and consequently, on how we experience our working life.

We can, for example, remind ourselves how our work is making a difference in other people’s lives; we can focus on the elements that we find exciting and interesting, the meaningful interactions that we have with colleagues and customers; or we can appreciate the opportunity our work gives us to develop or expand our professional skills. If we can find no inherent value in our current occupation, we can tell ourselves that our work is our current occupation, we can tell ourselves that our work provides for us and for those we care about, or that it enables us to engage in meaningful activities after hours.

Researchers have found that those who made the choice, conscious or not, to see their work as merely a job, were less happy, were less satisfied with their life, than were their colleagues who viewed what they did a calling. “Even in the most restricted and routine jobs,” the study concluded, “employees can exert some influence on what is the essence of their work.”

Don’t treat the work you do as a job,

Experience your work as a calling.

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

 References:

1. Choose the Life You Want: 101 Ways to Create You Own Road to Happiness by Tal Ben-Shahar, PhD (New York: The Experiment, 2012) Buy this book!

2. The Path to Purpose: How Young People Find Their Calling in Life by D. William (New York: Free Press, 2009).