Stop Coping, Start Growing and Thriving
Find yourself catastrophizing and coping when you are faced with an upset or problem? Find yourself looking at all the ways things can go wrong? Jump to the worst possible outcomes, regardless of how likely or unlikely they might be? How This Shows Up Screw up at work and immediately focus on being fired? Get … Read more
How people talk about problems reinforces coping, not solving and growing. Consider: “My car broke down, so now I have to deal with that.” That’s pretty common language. And it’s not “wrong” or “bad.” It encourages reacting to that situation – All of these are you “at effect.” Something happens to you, and you’re the … Read more
There’s always an opportunity, a chance to “change your life,” a hot new thing. Many of those are exploiting your desire to have pain stop, or have a simple solution to all your problems. Focusing on “making things stop” is a coping strategy. Your brain and energy get anchored to thinking about the thing you … Read more
“Deciding that someone else’s face should be saved is an act of mistrust of the other person’s capacities.”
– Chris Argyris
If you could stop carrying one thing with you by January 1, what would it be? What burden, obligation, limiting belief, or anchor to the past would you put down? Many people feel stuck when asked this question. They jump to feeling a need to choose the “right” answer and spiral into discomfort and stress. … Read more
You carry a dangerous belief with you. One that impacts everything you do. You learned it growing up, at school, at home, around peers. With it, you take feel more anxious, risk less, and speak less. What is it? Wrong “Wrong” gets used too often. It’s a shorthand for “incorrect,” “mistake,” “moral failure.” Your brain … Read more
You experience everything filtered through interpretation. Your brain compares inputs like words, tone, body language, and context to past experience. You also filter through your beliefs, assumptions, and values. That all leaves you with a firm conclusion that’s not based on reality. Walk through a few examples – Choose your path Every one of these … Read more
In the Agile community, many people have heard of the Prime Directive promulgated by Norm Kerth in his book Project Retrospectives: “Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the … Read more
The part of you that didn’t like that feeling learned a lesson. You now look for anything that might be about to get you like that again, and unconsciously work to escape.
The truth is that hook you swallowed back then is harming you again and again now.
And there’s no truth behind the hook in the first place.
Do you resist committing to change? Instead of making specific goals, do you promise yourself you’ll “get better about going to the gym”? Or “speak up more in planning meetings”? Vague intentions are safe. They leave up to question what actually meets the standard, and that standard is negotiable. You can “meet” the standard when … Read more