At a certain point our lives don’t change much. We’re moving around on automatic pilot and don’t notice the sameness that has taken over sometimes for many years. We’ve gotten used to very little occurring in our lives beyond our daily routine, and many people become comfortable with that, or just accept it. Somewhere along the way our lives got stale. We’re stuck in a rut. But don’t despair; being in control of your own life is being in control of your wellness!

More and more people are regaining control of their lives and changing their futures. They’re setting goals and reaching them, they’re feeling better, being happier, getting healthier and spending more time and energy on what matters to them. Their outlook on life has improved dramatically.

As you know, the concept of wellness covers a broad range with different definitions depending on where you look. But for starters, let’s use the following wellness is the belief that improvement is possible throughout our lives. We’re continuously seeking information on how we can improve. We’re choosing options and making decisions that support our best interests. Everything we think, feel and believe impacts our whole being. You are in command of all aspects of your life physical, career, relationships, finances, spiritual, environment, and emotional well-being, and so on. You can break free and take charge of your life. Try these simple ways to discover how you can start moving towards taking control of your life and wellness.

1. Turn lack of time into more time.
“I don’t have the time,” that’s what John, a corporate attorney, constantly told himself and others. He knew he wasn’t alone. Lack of time was a concern for nearly every person he knew. John really wanted to be happier and healthier, but he just didn’t have free time to date, visit family, exercise, or any of the other things that made him happy. When John decided he had to take control of his wellness, the first thing he did was regain ownership of his time. He examined how he spent his time on an average day. By jotting down his daily activities and realigning his priorities, John found opportunities to include the things he really cared about in his daily life.

2. Reclaim your energy.
Megan, a wife, mom and marketing executive, was always tired. She had no energy to meet the demands of her job, do housework, run errands, cook, take care of her children, or the other priorities that made up her day. Megan desperately needed to reclaim her energy but instead, she let people drain it, steal it and suck it away. To begin, Megan examined the areas of her life that needed more attention and focus. She also drew new boundaries to protect herself, by declaring what she would and wouldn’t allow. Instead of working 12 hours, Megan cut her workday to no more than nine hours. She stuck to her plan, reclaimed her energy, and is there for her family and job with a new, revitalized energy.

3. Make lasting changes.
“Our resistance to making lasting changes is innate,” says Jeff, a mortgage loan officer. “It’s such a big challenge for everybody.” He constantly told himself that his inner resistance to making changes would stay with him forever. Jeff’s first step was to recognize that resistance is always the initial barrier to making changes. For example, losing the 70 pounds his doctor recommended would offset having to take daily medication for his Type II diabetes. Jeff started by being open to seeing the positive side of change i.e., first making a decision to change, and then enlisting help in doing so. He joined the YMCA, and now participates in Tai Chi and walks five days a week. He’s also met with a nutritionist who has helped him gain a better understanding of what to eat in order to maintain his overall health and well-being. Jeff has lost 30 pounds and continues to maintain a healthy, balanced diet.

4. Set boundaries around your life.
What’s one of the shortest words yet so difficult for many people to utter? If you guessed “No,” you’re right on the money. Sidney, a customer service supervisor was so afraid of saying no that when someone asked her to do something, she felt queasy inside because she wanted to say no, but felt uncomfortable actually doing it. The first thing she needed to do was learn her limits. She realized that learning to say no to the things that she didn’t want to do would help her reduce the stress of excessive demands on her time and energy. Sidney could say no in a way that was comfortable to her, yet respectful to the other person. Many people believe when someone makes a request of you, you must say yes, but saying no isn’t that horrible! When Sidney began saying no, it changed her whole life; she found her “to do” list shrinking. She recognized that it was her choice to either overload her schedule or only accept requests to do something when she wanted to.

5. Take excellent care of yourself.
Eden, an emergency room specialist, wanted to improve her quality of life. She was bored with her daily routine, and her social life was nonexistent. Eden began making changes for the better by putting her needs first. She focused on what she wanted, instead of others’ desires. She began scheduling two social activities on her calendar each month, in order to create a social life. Eden never really enjoyed living in the suburbs, but she was close to her job. She put together an action plan for re-inventing her life. The first thing she did was sell her house in the suburbs and move to a more urban environment in which she always dreamed. She could walk to quaint caf

I’ve had many ‘aha’ and self-congratulatory moments through coaching myself using self development workbooks. I refer to this as ‘Self-Coaching’.

Self-Coaching yourself in this way is great if you’re:

1. Shy;

2. Too busy for one-on-one coaching;

3. Someone who doesn’t like to go out much;

4. Trying to keep limiting beliefs to yourself;

5. Not ready to be coached by anyone else; and

6. Working on your own personal development without anyone else knowing that way no-one will be disappointed if you give it up or mess it up.

However to get the most out of this form of coaching you’ll need to be:

1. Committed to creating the change you want;

2. Disciplined;

3. Willing to do whatever it takes to develop yourself, eg spiritual development courses, up-skilling, coaching etc;

4. Aware of when you need outside help.

Please Note: From experience, self-coaching will not be enough if there are deeper issues needing to be resolved; and

5. The driver behind the wheel of change it’s your life; you’re in charge of your destiny.

Self-coaching can help (depending on the severity of the issue) find strategies to apply to:

1. A relationship break-up or make-up;

2. Work related issues;

3. Indecision – something you’ve always dreamed of doing is forever being pushed aside and you need to make a decision;

4. House move do I stay or do I leave?

5. Itchy feet and wanting to explore and experience a new lifestyle; and

6. Money problems.

A powerful step towards changing what you no longer want into something you really want is by remembering and experiencing what you’d like to change. Then, as you close the door of the past behind you, aim for and take action to making it happen.

Start by goal-setting the what, why, how of transformation, and when you want it to happen by.

A few more tips if you’re coaching yourself are:

1. Keep a diary or journal and write in it every day of how you worked towards achieving inner change. You’ll be able to look back and reflect upon your journey, how you did it, the frustrations, obstacles, and triumphs. It will also give you a sense of achievement, after all you did it.

2. Become aware of how you do things and ask yourself “if you could do this in a better way, how would you do it?”

3. As you coach yourself, at the end of every week summarise what you’ve written and determine what changes you can make easily for the following week.

4. Learn to meditate to give you inner peace as well as clarity not only whilst working with your situation but also to give yourself another self-help tool for your ‘life skill toolkit’.

5. Take up a spiritual development course and increase your intuition. People use their intuition practically every day without realising it, increasing your intuition can help in all areas of your life.

6. Inform everyone who needs to know that you’ll be offline for however long your self coaching sessions will be. Once you’ve organised your time, be ruthless and stick to your timetable. Failing to do this will result in a nasty thing called procrastination to hold you captive!

7. Make a special note of any limiting beliefs you discover about yourself. For example, maybe you have a hang up around earning an income, or maybe you’re not as confident as you like to believe you are. In this case if you are unable to find solutions to these beliefs it’s time to call upon the services of a transformational coach or other professional (this applies to anything you’re unable to effectively work through).

The success of any ‘Self-Coaching’ program is dependent on two things:

1. Your level of commitment; and

2. The quality and content of the workbook itself. It must be designed and developed by someone with coaching experience, an understanding of adult learning principles and the ability to encapsulate it all in ‘simple speak’.

Self-coaching has been an excellent ‘self-help’ tool for me over the years and may help you in some way too.

Michaela Scherr Transformational Coach

THAT LITTLE BIT EXTRA…

The “little bit extra” is a very powerful concept to put into practice today in every aspect of your life. The difference between being ordinary and being extraordinary is that little bit EXTRA. The little bit extra is what separates average performers from CHAMPIONS!

In a sales process, the little bit extra is that one extra follow-up call, that extra sincere thank-you or the extra little bit of energy that you put into the presentation of your business. This will separate you from your competition. You can either go through the motions of your business or you can give that little bit extra in order to cement yourself in the mind of your potential customer. We all can relate to purchasing a product/service from someone who just gave you a little bit extra attention than their competitor did and THAT is the reason we bought from THEM!

When I personally coach someone, one of my key strategies is to move them to become champions in their field. One of the easiest ways is to show them the value of what a little extra eye contact with their prospects or customers brings. You need to look your prospect or customer directly in their eyes when you are presenting your business! This drives into them your confidence and conviction about what you and your product/service have to offer them. When I coach people, I tell them that the eye contact strategy alone will take them two steps ahead of their competition.

Remember, people will feed off your confidence from the look in your eyes. As you progress in your journey towards fulfilling your WHY, you need to constantly give that little extra! The true sign of a champion-to-be is just when it seems impossible for him/her to give that extra push; they dig deep down and give that little bit extra to fulfill their WHY! When I speak to groups, I train them to have the mindset of always giving a little bit more than their competitor. Over the long run, it will pay off big! A small improvement over a long period of time will produce outstanding results.

Now that you know the benefit of giving that little bit of extra effort, you need to ask yourself a question…”What can I do today and every day with a little more effort to move me to the champion level in my field?” You need to realize someone will be the champion in your chosen endeavor. Let me ask you a question, “Why not you?”

See you at the top!

Find your WHY and Fly!

John Di Lemme
www.FindYourWhy.com

All of us would love to have personal power the power to manifest our dreams, the power to remain calm and loving in the face of fear, the power to stay centered in ourselves in the face of attack.

Our society often confuses personal power – “power within” – with “power over,” which is about controlling others. There is a vast difference between personal power and control.

Personal power comes from an inner sense of security, from knowing who you are in your soul, from having defined your own intrinsic worth. It is the power that flows through you when you are connected to and feel your oneness with a spiritual source of guidance. It is the power that is the eventual result of doing deep inner emotional and spiritual work to heal the fears and false beliefs acquired in childhood.

Without this inner work to heal the beliefs that create our limitations, we are stuck in our egos, our wounded selves. The very basis of the ego is the desire for control, for power over others and outcomes.

Our ego is the self we created to attempt to have control over getting love, avoiding pain, and feeling safe. We created our ego self in our attempt to protect ourselves from the losses we fear loss of self, loss of other, loss of security, loss of face. As children, when we didn’t get the love we needed, we decided that our true Self must be unlovable. In our attempt to feel safe, we buried our true Self and created the false self the ego, our wounded self. The ego self then went about learning how to feel safe through trying to control others and outcomes. The ego believes that having control over how people see us and feel about us, as well as over the outcome of things, will give us the safety we seek.

Even if you do manage to have some control through anger, criticism, judgment, or money, this will never give you personal power. This will never fill you with peace and joy and an inner sense of safety. Control may give you a momentary sense of safety, but it will never give you the deep sense of safety that comes from knowing your intrinsic worth, the worth of your soul. As long as your safety and worth are being defined by externals which can be temporary your money, your looks, your performance, your power over others you will feel anxious. We feel anxious when we attach our worth and happiness to temporal things rather than to eternal qualities, such as caring, compassion, and kindness.

For example, Walter is a man who has tremendous power over others but no personal power. Walter has made millions as the president of a large investment company. He has a lovely wife, three grown children, and two beautiful homes. Yet Walter is often anxious. He worries about losing his money. He is easily triggered into anger when things don’t go his way and people don’t behave in the way he wants. Because his heart is not open, he is a lonely man.

Walter operates totally out of his ego self, believing that having control through anger and money will bring him the happiness and safety he seeks. Yet he has achieved everything he believed would bring him happiness and safety and what he feels most of the time is anxious and lonely. Walter is empty inside. He has no sense of his true Self, no sense of the beauty within him, no sense of his lovability and intrinsic worth. His life is based on externals rather then on the spiritual values of love, compassion, honesty and kindness.

Personal power comes from embracing spiritual values rather than just earthly values. It comes from making love, kindness and compassion toward oneself and others more important than power over others. It comes from doing the inner work necessary to allow the soul to have dominion over the body, rather than allowing the animal instincts of fight or flight the instincts of the body to have dominion over our choices. When the soul has dominion over the body, you have the power to manifest your dreams, to stay centered in the face of attack, to remain loving in the face of fear. When the soul has dominion over the body, you have tremendous personal power.

Why get a coach? The answer was obvious to me after my eight years as a self employed creator of wearable art. I learned in those years that it was nearly impossible to simultaneously hold a vision, map out a path, walk that path and measure my own progress. I was so often distracted by the apparently conflicting demands of the marketplace and of my heart. Even my body seemed to throw obstacles in my path as tendonitis or other ills appeared to contradict my vision of right livelihood.

As I thought about the kinds of problems I faced I came to understand and accept that it would always be difficult to have both an overarching view of my long term goals, a cogent undersanding of my near term strategies, and a confident and simple approach to walking my daily path. Once I thought about it the reason was obvious: each of these activities requires that I adopt a different perspective. And guess what, it’s hard to be in more than one place at a time, so often I would be conducting one activity from the perspective of another. No wonder I felt confused and overwhelmed.

Coaching offers a solution by providing objective recognition, validation and reinforcement. A coach helps you to clarify your goals, test your plans against your resources and your intentions, and measure your progress. A coach asks you to live up to standards you set together while reminding you to enjoy the grace of being a human being and not a ‘droid. Coaching deals with the human condition: it’s not about being or even becoming perfect.

I think of the kind of business coaching and personal growth coaching which I practice as motivating, instructing, focusing, correcting and encouraging my clients to find solutions to their problems and to achieve a fundamental way of being in the world that flows organically and authentically from who they really are.

It’s easy to see that successful coaching requires a good match between coach and client. If you are interested in getting a coach, start by asking yourself these questions:

– What are my goals and expectations around hiring a coach?
– What’s my time frame for achieving them?
– What’s my learning style? What kind of person is likely to support that style?
– How much can I afford to invest in coaching?

Find at least three coaches to interview. The International Coach Federation has extensive listings of its members coaches. Another resource is The Coaches Training Institute. Ask around among your professional colleagues, inquire at the local Chamber of Commerce, Small Business Administration or business schools.

Select two or three coaches to interview. In addition to the following sample questions, ask any that reflect your personal priorities and concerns. It’s a good idea to write out your questions in advance.

1. Ask about their experience coaching people who have goals and challenges similar to your own.
2. Do they work by phone, in person, by email? How long are the sessions? How frequent?
3. What do they charge? When is payment due?
4. What support do they offer between sessions?
5. Are you required to buy any support materials (books, workbooks, etc.)?
6. What kind of commitment do they require? Many coaches ask that you commit to a preliminary two or three month period after which you decide whether or not to continue working together.
7. Ask for a couple of references and follow up by calling them.

Coaching can introduce you to the self you were meant to be. The time you invest in choosing your coach will be amply repaid by his or her greater ability to recognize, nurture and evoke that self.

This article is about learning from the mistakes we make. It goes without saying that we all make errors in life however the most successful people do not let it get them down and try to treat these mistakes as a learning curve. I hope you find the article interesting and beneficial.

My parents taught me a lot of things about life and I clearly remember my father sitting me down when I was around fourteen years of age and speaking to me about this subject. He stated that he thought I was a decent person who knew right from wrong, he was however aware that I would make some mistakes.

He continued that he would not ask me to come home by a certain point at night and that he would let me make my own choices. If at any point he heard or learnt that I had done something that he thought was wrong or stupid, he would not tell me off but instead he would ask me if I agreed that I had been stupid etc. If I agreed, that would be the end of the matter, the problem would only occur if I then made the same mistake again as that would mean I had not learnt from the experience. He would then in his words, come down on me like a ton of bricks.

I agreed that this seemed fair and carried on living my life. I wondered what he had meant by the ton of bricks statement. I did make many mistakes and we had to have our chat on many occasions, I am happy to say that I did learn from my errors and never had to find out what he had meant.

I myself now have two children, both of which are fairly young at five and twelve years of age. I have tried to install a similar approach, however have changed it slightly. I have said to them that in life all I expect of them is to try their best. It does not really matter what grades they obtain as long as they put in one hundred percent of effort. They are also aware that I accept that they will be naughty at times and as long as they except what ever punishment is given, then there will be no problem. I am not a harsh parent, a bit of a wimp really and this punishment will normally be them having to tidy their room.

I am somebody who loves playing sport. I am very competitive and do not like losing. I have had to accept that at times I will lose, however when I do I always ask myself a question, what could I have done differently today? What could I do differently next time I play to ensure the result is a positive one?

I am very grateful to this lesson my parents taught me and hope that in the future my children will be thankful at the way I and their mother have raised them.

How fine life would be if we all felt like a million dollars 24 hours a day,7 days a week! We would never, ever feeling like we have woken up in a pit, full of self confidence lows, having the energy to just jump out of bed and meet the day with loads of enthusiasm and knowing that we are going to get through the day without worries of any kind. The sun will shine all day, with just enough breeze to keep our bodies cool. Life is good, oh so good.

NOT if you are a person imprisoned by low self confidence, it so is not. Low self confidence is a very nasty characteristic to have inside us. It makes us feel weak. It makes us lose faith in our actions and dreams. It can even stop us from going forward in our lives with relationships. It allows so many ugly negative thoughts to take hold of our minds. Some will even try to escape this gripping emotion through the comfort they feel in their eating patterns. Some begin to trust the emotion that creates mistrust, in order to derail their thinking, only setting them up for a history of jealous explosions.

We begin to act selfish, constantly thinking that every action made is directed at us in some negative way or that we are the butt end of the joke when we see people laughing and happen to be looking our way. We feel that we are being compared with others. We feel we cannot ever do anything right. We see negative in every word that is said about us. We want to share our pain and loneliness, so that everyone around us can feel equally sad. We become habitual riders on the roller coaster of self-pity. We want to be the only person in the world with any good qualities. We want our partners to see only us and desire only us. We want our partners to only have fun when we are around them. We do not allow ourselves to have fun because we are allowing our selfish habit of low confidence to stand in our way. Notice all the WE’s in this paragraph.

Our negative trap is working well, isn’t it? The trap of low self confidence is what will trigger all the lows in our emotions such as: low self-esteem, low energy levels, low sexual desires, low positive thinking, low care in personal hygiene, low desires in life period.

Imagine watching a movie, and in this movie there is a person trying to get through life struggling with all the WE’s that I have just described to you. Would you not be thinking, or if you are like me yelling, at them to STOP? Would you not be thinking of ways to help them? Weird isn’t it? The person in that movie is you, all you have to do is step outside of yourself, and your ability to fix all of those WE’s is so simple. We always think that we look funny in pictures, but when we look at other people in pictures, we do not criticize them or pick them apart. Well neither does anyone do that to our picture. We are our worst enemy when we allow low self confidence to take priority in our minds.

How does one fight this horrible war against ones self? Habits are a very, very good way. I have done blogs on habits many times. Hmm. Wonder why? Probably because it is through creating positive thinking habits that we can drowned out the negative stuff that controls are world of peace and happiness. I am not saying it will happen over night. I am not saying that it will happen after one time of defeating the negative. What I am saying is that the more we feel that we are just as special as anyone else in the world, or ask ourselves, will this issue that is causing me so much pain and agony mean anything tomorrow? If this is my last day on earth, do I want to spend it like this? Try to feel like you are all new every morning. Nothing that happened yesterday will defeat our day today. What may seem so devastating in that second, really is only because we are allowing it to feel that way. Changing your track is a very important thing. I don’t care what you have to think about in order to do that, just do it. Think about anything to get your mind to change. Eventually the your mind will do that on its own. Yes, it’s all habits and only you can do this. This is something you must do for you. Your self respect will guide you and give you strength. The higher you build your self confidence, the stronger all of you becomes. Then you will be able to defeat all of the negative emotions that fight to control your thinking. Do this for you. It’s no different than quiting smoking, exercising, taking care of yourself, even cosmetic surgery. All of these changes can and should only be done with your best interest as your goal. No one else really cares in the end. How you live your life and find happiness is totally up to you, so kick low self confidence in the BUTT!

I know that if you really want something, you can and will get it. That’s a fact my sweet people! Make the WE syndrome turn into a non selfish WE. Think of everything and everyone around you as a positive element that you need to create your positive habits. As I have said so many times: If only we lived in a perfect world!

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“You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”

-Buddha

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“Every day I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence that will risk nothing and which, shirking pain, misses happiness as well.”

-Anonymous

Dorothy Lafrinere
Owner/Operator
Website- http://www.womensselfesteem.com
Weblog- http://www.justblogme.com/Dorothy
Forum- http://womenselfesteem.proboards29.com
email- [email protected]

People we meet and have to see on a regular basis can have a negative affect on your life and self-confidence, but only if you let them. I am a person who would get dragged down by any negative comment made from a friend or by my boss for example. This article is about how to deal with these situations and how to not let these people and their comments make you feel like a second class citizen.

A few years ago I met a client(Ian) who described a similar scenario to me. He had been very successful in business and had reached the level of director in the company where he worked. We were discussing this very subject and he admitted that he had an over-aggressive boss who I think was the chairman of the company. I can not remember the chairmans name, however for the purpose of this article I will call him John.

Ian thought that John played a kind of business game, where he wanted to be seen as the boss and where he wanted everyone to be scared of him.

This was the situation Ian described to me. John would e-mail him in the morning with a question asking why the north-west of the country had not been as profitable in the last quarter compared to its usual levels. He would ask Ian to meet him in the afternoon to discuss his findings. Ian would then contact his line managers and would then write a report before attending the meeting with the chairman.

Ian was a person who had a slight speech impediment, a stutter. He would be able to talk fluently most of the time, however if he felt nervous or if he felt under pressure, he would then start having problems getting his words out and would stutter. Ian also had words he thought of as difficult and would often avoid these type of words. He was very careful when writing his report only to include words he felt confident he would be able to say.

In the afternoon who would go and meet John and present his report to him. He stated that he would have no problem with his speech at this stage and that the presentation would be delivered smoothly and fluently.

On hearing the report, John would not make any comment and would instead basically just stare at Ian, slowly nodding his head up and down at the same time. Ian described this as making him feel very uncomfortable and was just praying for the silence to end and for his chairman to say something. The words from the chairman would not come and so to break the silence Ian would then continue speaking giving more reasons which were probably not correct and that were certainly not planned. These words were also not spoken fluently but with Ian struggling and stuttering.

I had a little think about what Ian had told me and felt angry at John.

I eventually came up with a suggestion. I advised Ian to end his presentation with a question, for example, this is what I believe are the reasons, however I would value your opinion as chairman of the company.

He can then nod and stare for as long as he likes, it is his turn to talk next and Ian can sit there comfortably and just be patient.

It is very important that we do not let people like John drag us down. It is time to be strong and to stand up to these people.

Using the skills, strategies, and smarts of lawyers, you’ll be able to more effectively coach your employees to optimal performance. Here are 4 great tips to help you give constructive feedback in such a way that you motivate positive and productive performance…

1. Give evidence of performance to employee. In litigation, prosecutors are required to turn all of their evidence over to the defense. In order to be fair to employees, supervisors need to do the same thing. Tony frequently received disturbing memos from his district manager about his poor performance on sales calls. “You failed to cover the Five Points for Sales Excellence with a customer last month. This is unacceptable.” Tony never received a monitoring sheet spelling out the discrepancies, never heard a tape of a recorded call, and he didn’t even have the opportunity to defend himself because the cowardly manager simply shot her message off in a cold blunt memo.

Giving feedback the way Tony’s district manager does is dangerous. It certainly isn’t motivating Tony to improve.

Moreover, because the manager has provided no proof of the calls – no score sheet, no recording of the call, no date or time, and not even one specific statement about Tony’s alleged ineffectiveness – Tony can’t even defend his performance.

When monitoring and coaching employees, ALWAYS turn over the evidence of the call to them. This evidence may include a recorded call, Mystery Shopper score sheet, detailed notes from customer’s account, etc.

2. Prepare for employee performance meetings in advance. No attorney would conduct a direct examination or cross examination without thoroughly and carefully pre planning their questions. I always prepare a loose script prior to meeting with employees about problem performance, even though I don’t actually read from my script. Writing the discussion out reinforces it in my mind and allows me to be less concerned with covering all the basis and more concerned with my employee.

3. Ask open-ended questions. Asking a juror if they are for the death penalty yields a yes or no answer, but asking her how she feels about the death penalty gives the attorney the opportunity to learn more. Just the same, asking your employee if she thought the phone call in question was good will yield a yes or no answer, but asking her how she thought the call went gives her the opportunity to expound. My favorite open-ended coaching questions include: “If you could do this call over again, would you?” “Tell me about that caller.” “Is there anything else about this call/customer that I haven’t asked, but need to know?”

4. Don’t allow the “Twinkie Defense.” In court, defendants may stand behind a theory of the case called the “Twinkie Defense.” This theory tries to throw the jury off the trail by blaming the client’s bad actions on something else – he ate too many Twinkies, for instance, and was on a sugar high when he killed/robbed/raped/molested and therefore is not responsible for his actions. You may have encountered the Twinkie Defense with your employees: “I was late because traffic was unusually heavy and then when I got here the elevator was broken, therefore my tardiness is not my fault.” Decide that employees will be held accountable for their actions and don’t allow them to hide behind the Twinkie Defense. In response to the Twinkie Defense, you respond with, “This is about individual responsibility – not trying to hide behind excuses.”

Deploy these field-tested and proven strategies and you’ll be coaching employees like a pro!

From the time Jennifer was a little child, she was demanding of attention, especially from her mother, Sarah. With two older brothers, Jennifer had a “special” place in the family as the baby and the only girl. She made sure to establish a “special” relationship with her mother, who relished the connection since she didn’t have much of a relationship with her emotionally distant husband.

It was easy for Jennifer to control her mother’s attention. Because her mother was needy for emotional connection and afraid of not being liked, all Jennifer had to do was get angry at her mother and Sarah would capitulate, giving Jennifer the attention she craved. Jennifer learned early to control her mother by becoming angry, critical and withholding love when her mother didn’t do what she wanted. Unwittingly, Sarah contributed to Jennifer’s neediness, entitlement issues, and the belief that happiness was dependent on approval and attention from others.

Jennifer, now in her late 30’s, finds herself continuing the pattern she started with her mother – attaching to others in needy and demanding ways. The result is she has not been able to have a successful relationship with any of the men she has dated.

We all have a need to feel special. It is not the need that is dysfunctional, it is how we go about getting the need met that can be either dysfunctional or healthy. It is dysfunctional when we make others responsible for making us feel special. When others have to give us attention, compliment us, seek us out, and attend to our wants and needs in order for us to feel special, our behavior is dysfunctional.

HEALTHY SPECIAL-NESS

You will stop pulling on others to make you special only when you accept the full responsibility of making yourself feel special. This means learning to give yourself all that you may be trying to get from others treating yourself in the loving ways you desire from others. There are many ways of making ourselves feel special. Instead of trying to get others to give you what you want, you can:

* TAKE EMOTIONAL RESPONSIBILITY:

o Attend to your feelings throughout the day and explore what you may be doing that is causing painful feelings, rather than making others responsible for your feelings.

o Attend to your own needs rather than expecting others to meet your needs.

o Accept yourself rather than judge yourself. Validate yourself, approve of yourself tell yourself the things you want to hear from others. Value your talents and gifts.

o Value your intrinsic worth rather than just your looks or performance your kindness, compassion, creativity, caring.

o Behave in ways that you value being loving, kind, integreous, compassionate, understanding, caring.

o Pursue work you love, work that fulfills you, if possible.

* TAKE PHYSICAL RESPONSIBILITY:

o Feed yourself well to maintain health and appropriate weight.

o Get enough rest and exercise.

o Create balance between work and play and creative time.

o Make sure you are physically safe such as when riding a motorcycle.

* TAKE FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITY:

o Make sure you are financially independent rather than dependent upon another, if physically able to do so.

o Spend within your means to avoid the fear and stress of debt.

* TAKE RELATIONSHIP RESPONSIBILITY:

o Stand up for yourself and speak your truth rather than complying, defending or resisting in the face of others’ demands or criticism. Don’t be a victim.

o Refrain from blaming others, with anger and criticism, for your feelings and behavior. Don’t be a victim.

* TAKE ORGANIZATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY:

o Do what you say you are going to do regarding time and chores.

o Make sure your living space and work environment are clean and tidy, and esthetically pleasing.

* TAKE SPIRITUAL RESPONSIBILITY:

o Take the time to connect with the love and truth of God/Higher Power.

o Take time throughout the day to bring the love down to the level of your feeling self your Inner Child.

Treating yourself in these loving ways will eventually result in feeling internally special rather than needing others to make you feel special.

As Jennifer practiced making herself special, she discovered that her relationships with others were becoming stronger and more fulfilling. People were no longer pulling away from her, resisting her, or defending themselves against her demands for attention. Her behavior naturally and gradually changed with others when she was treat herself as a special person.