If you feel wronged or hurt or disappointed by someone’s actions in the past, you carry this with you and it affects all your actions with others. You were lied to by a car salesman and  don’t trust any salespeople anymore.

You release yourself when you forgive someone. They don’t need to know and you don’t need to forget what happened. They are not getting off the hook. They may not even know that you feel aggrieved. You don’t have to like them.

So for Christmas, think of someone who you can forgive for a past wrong. Let it go. You still learn from the experience but don’t waste emotional energy. They will have their reasons for behaving the way they did and their view will be very different from yours.

I have met people who don’t like someone because of something they did… but can’t remember exactly what they did.

Give yourself a present this Christmas. Forgive someone who has wronged you in the past and move on. You get immediate benefits. The emotional energy tied up in this situation is released to be used somewhere more constructive.

Have a Great Christmas.

Paddy Spruce

Some suggestions..

• A Christmas email to everyone in your team
• A small gift for everyone in the team
• If not a gift, then at least a card with sincere appreciation expressed for the support during 2009.
• A meal together where you tell the team how much you appreciate the work they have done for you.

We take teams for granted yet there is little we could achieve without our team. Individualism is encouraged in our society but can achieve little. A strong team can achieve much more than a gifted individual. Make your team strong in 2010 by expressing your appreciation at Christmas… and during 2010.

Regards

Paddy Spruce

Have you ever been upset by the attitude of someone serving you? They do everything expertly but their attitude negates their good work. If you speak to them, they deny. It seems that attitude can operate unconsciously which means you may not be aware of how you sabotage your own success. You do your best but are held back by an invisible cord. The attitude seems to work at blindingly fast speed and so remains out of your awareness.

A valuable first step is to pay attention to how often you sabotage yourself. Just become aware of how you do it and how often. Notice the thoughts that distract you from doing well.

‘I don’t deserve to succeed’

‘I can’t lose weight’

‘I am hopeless at…’

‘I hate public speaking’

Don’t try to change anything at this stage. Just become acutely aware of how your attitude holds you back.

Firstly, we adapt quickly to most things so the effect doesn’t last as long as expected because we forget about the adaptation. ‘This will make me happy for a long time’. It won’t. ‘If I just lose five kilos”. Usually the anticipation is more about excitement. The actual effect of achieving can be less rewarding and not last as long as we thought and we keep forgetting this.  Did you really think that a new anything would bring lasting happiness?

The most reliable way of know what will bring you happiness is to speak to someone that has done what you intend to do or owns something that you intend to buy.  Most people discount this because ‘we are all different’.  We aren’t really.  Our ego wants us to be unique and very different from everyone else.  We aren’t.

Speak to someone who has done what you intend some months after they have done it and you will get a more accurate idea of what brings happiness. Most people think that they are above average at most things. Above average at driving, above average intelligence, above average looks. This can’t be right can it?

People are fearful and shrinking at the moment. Organisations are maintaining rather than growing. Some are shedding staff, cutting costs postponing development opportunities for their staff.

The result of this is that more needs to be done with less. Fewer people, same number of customers and rising customer expectations.

The answer lies in high performing teams. Genuine teams not work groups called teams. A team of four or five can do the work of many more individuals providing they have a common purpose, shared values, competent leadership and a system that works. A crisis can push people to become stronger teams or fragment them.

The big jump is to put We before Me. It seems unnatural to put the needs of others before your own but essential for the development of a true team. Strangely, the best way of looking after yourself is to look after others. A big ego will make it hard for anyone to trust others. There is an ingrained belief that the only person who can do anything properly is ME. In truth, the best person to do anything properly is WE.

Try WE before ME after reading this blog. Identify ways that you can develop your work group into a true team that works as a strong unit. Greek mythology developed the idea of one individual saving the situation. He and it was always He, pushed incompetent groups aside and saved the world on his own. This Hero is a myth. It takes teams to achieve anything worthwhile. Any outstanding individuals are supported by teams.

We before Me.

If you want to move to the status of expert in the skill of listening, you will need to control your thinking process. If you are thinking about what someone is saying while they are speaking, you are not fully listening. You could be thinking about whether you agree or whether they are telling the truth or whether it will rain tomorrow. To listen fully you need to stop thinking and let the message wash over you. Do you ever find yourself labeling experiences? You may be looking at a beautiful cloud formation and suddenly your thinking tells you that you can see a horse’s head. In that moment you have stopped the awesome part of the experience by labeling it.

In the same way, if you think about what someone is saying, you have stopped listening fully.
The next time someone speaks to you, try to resist the urge to think. Just let the message, the words, the tone, the emotion wash over you. You will understand what is being said more fully and will not be tempted to interrupt the flow. You will also enjoy your experiences and conversations more if you label less and leave your eyes and ears wide open.

Regards,
Paddy

If you believe that the present financial situation is temporary, your best option is to prepare for the upturn so you are not caught napping.

The Australian Institute of Management has just completed a survey based on the input of over five hundred Australian business leaders.

Seventy one percent said that the downturn is a good opportunity to build market share while their competitors are in retreat. Fifty nine  percent indicated that retention of skilled employees needs to be a top priority.

So if you believe that our business leaders can predict the future, we have an opportunity to develop our people, improve our performance and be ready for the upturn in the economy. We can choose to be driven by fear or hope. History indicates that the downturn is temporary.

So…what can you do to develop and train your people? What can you do to help your clients? How can you help them to focus on an inevitable improvement in the financial situation? What can you do to get them thinking optimistically again?

Fear makes cowards of us all. Hope and optimism makes us brave. Decide not to participate in this temporary downturn.

This miraculous gift is… the present.

Give yourself the present this Christmas.

If you live in the past or the future, try visiting the present. The financial crisis evaporates because nothing is happening to threaten your financial security… at this moment. Also if you have a problem with managing fear in interpersonal situations or speaking in public, then focusing on the present will stop you from creating more fear by projecting into the future, which is not happening.

Imagine that you are in a lift and it stops between floors. You could project into the future and imagine all sorts of dreadful consequences. Or you could visit the past and recall even more dreadful situations that have come from a stalled lift in the past. If you stay in the present, you are simply in a stalled lift. You can either stay with the present internally and keep track of your breathing or go external and focus on what is happening outside.

Read the instructions for a stalled lift or just count the tiles on the floor. Just stay in the present. You will only get anxious if you think about a negative future consequence.

There are lots of wonderful emotions available in the present. There are no emotions in the past or the future. You can only feel in the present. You can only think in the present. Even if something goes wrong for you, you simply accept the present situation and plan a way out without catastrophising.

So a gift for yourself this Christmas is to consciously stay in the present as much a possible.

Listen to others, enjoy your food, feel how you are feeling, see what you are seeing and don’t wander off into other worlds from the past or future. If you do wander, come back quickly.

Try taking off your watch so you can stay in the present without a constant reminder of what time it is. A gift for others is to give them your full attention without any thoughts about what they are saying. They will take your full and undivided attention as a compliment, a Christmas present. Your friends and family will notice the difference. If they don’t, you have lost the present.

I wish you a wonderful Christmas and my present to you is the present. Enjoy it. It’s all you’ve got.

Christmas Greetings

Christmas present, future, past, present, give yourself

You would be able to listen with an open mind and would probably hear more than if you were judging the information or preparing a defence. If you leave gaps in your thinking, you make room for new information or ideas to enter. If you think without a break, your attention span will be similar to that of a goldfish and you will listen with an agenda in mind. You may ignore everything that is not related to your agenda.

The next time someone speaks to you, try listening with an open, still mind and be very slow to respond. You will be amazed at how much more you hear and understand. It is like having wax removed from your ear canal.

listening skills, silence, open mind, hearing, responding

If we spend time thinking about the future, we are missing an opportunity to do something now. If now is spent thinking about the future, we are wasting the ‘now’.

A sense of purpose comes when we do what we are doing as well as we can. Our purpose is to do what we are doing at this present moment.

Imagine you feel very well and enjoying your life. This will come from a ‘now’ focus. Also imagine that you are diagnosed with a serious illness. At the moment of diagnosis, you shift to thinking about a awful future. You suddenly don’t feel so well.

Try living in the present. You might enjoy yourself more.

time management, illusion, future thinking