We all know emotions and feelings are a regular part of life… but what happens when those emotions and feelings come out at work?

Human beings are emotional creatures. In fact, our emotional expression is one of the most beautiful parts of being human. Whether it’s feeling happy, sad, fearful, angry, hurt, or something in between, the spectrum of emotions is what makes us who we are.

But there are sometimes when those emotions feel less-than-ideal. For example, when your boss just offered some direct feedback, or your coworker dropped the ball, and you’re left picking up the pieces (and feeling frustrated). Knowing how to manage your emotions at work can be crucial to your career.

So how do we express our feelings at the office—even those feelings we might not feel comfortable with? Is it wrong to express your emotions at work? How can we take responsibility for how we feel, avoid a hostile situation, or worse—a career-ending mistake?

Managing Your Emotions at Work: It’s All About the Approach

People often worry that it’s wrong to express emotions and feelings at the office. Some feelings might not fit the setting, but there’s a tendency to believe that we should be emotionless while we work. We might downplay our mood because we don’t want to rock the boat, speak up, or argue with a superior or coworker.

What happens when we try to turn off our emotions at work? We sulk home after the day is over, feeling frustrated, downtrodden, and even angry. We might feel like we hate our job. We might slack off or feel the urge to “show them.” Our performance suffers.

Or we store up our anger and frustration until we blow up at an inopportune moment. Suddenly we blurt out something that we later regret. We run out of a meeting, yell at a coworker, or do something else that we feel bad about.

The truth is many of us struggle with knowing how to manage emotions at work. It’s a challenge because we are emotional creatures, and that emotion can be an essential part of engaging in authentic connections, building trust, and leading others.

So, while we should certainly not divorce ourselves from emotional expression, we may want to explore how to express our emotions responsibly.

Years ago, prior to grad school, I ran into a situation with my boss. We were in a huge room of people, including the president of the company. Someone raised a question about an issue our company was facing, and my boss blamed the entire problem on me—in front of the room!

In this particular case, the problem wasn’t my fault at all. He was passing the buck to save face. So you can bet I was pissed off! Why? Because getting the brunt of the blame left me feeling hurt and embarrassed.

In those days, I wasn’t as adept at identifying or handling my emotions. I didn’t understand that it was perfectly okay to feel hurt. I didn’t know how I could express it responsibly. I’d been raised to believe that hurt was an emotion that women used to manipulate men. In some ways, I didn’t even know that I was capable of feeling hurt. So when my boss made the misplaced comment, I misidentified my emotion and expressed it as anger.

And I definitely expressed it! I really lost my temper at my boss. I confronted him angrily, and I told him, “If you EVER embarrass me like that again, I’ll embarrass you right back in front of everyone.” Needless to say, this wasn’t the right way to handle it.

Fortunately, my boss was older, wiser, and more mature than me. He responded to my outburst in a calm, measured manner, helping diffuse and downregulate my emotions. We discussed what had happened and why I was so upset. We talked it out, and, in the end, despite my emotionally immature reaction, my boss and I became close. He was a great friend and advocate who later helped my career grow.

People Bring on Emotions

Emotions are a critical part of human interaction. They’re linked to the way we communicate and understand each other. So, whenever we’re dealing with other people—a boss, coworkers, or clients—feelings and emotions are bound to arise.

Learning how to manage your emotions at work doesn’t mean turning them off the minute you walk in the door. Not only is that unrealistic, but it doesn’t help you make those critical human connections or build a rapport with others.

Feelings at work aren’t wrong. Even strong emotions like anger don’t need to be volatile if we learn to express what we’re feeling clearly, openly, and honestly.

Remember, conflict is a natural and vital part of engagement. It’s important we keep conflict productive and focused on outcome and goal, rather than blowing up or placing blame. Conflict is healthy and arises in all relationships. We may think conflict and emotions only apply to our romantic connections, but that couldn’t be further from the truth! Emotions are present in all areas of our lives.

At work, emotions can feel especially strong. After all, our livelihood is often linked closely to our identity. We’re deeply invested in the outcome of each situation. Many of us feel deeply connected to our careers. We see success as a pathway to the life we want to attain. We want to be respected, liked, and valued at work. We want to succeed and do well. Naturally, these common yearnings bring up many emotions surrounding our office interactions.

We Choose our Feelings

It’s a hard lesson, especially for some people to accept, but we choose our feelings. We can decide what we want to feel in each interaction. We are solely responsible for our own happiness.

When we blame our boss or our coworkers for our negative feelings, we’re shifting the responsibility of our emotions. To manage emotions at work (and avoid a tense situation or worse), we must recognize that ultimately we’re responsible for our own happiness and satisfaction. If we feel unhappy or dissatisfied, it’s also our responsibility to shift the situation and go for what we want.

This can be a tough pill to swallow, especially if we’ve gotten into the habit of blaming others for our unhappiness. We may be used to taking on a victim identity, where we believe our boss or coworkers are “out to get us” because it takes the responsibility off us. It allows us to blame others for our feelings. But it’s also a disempowering thought. How powerful is it to know that we can make our own happiness and satisfaction happen? We don’t need to wait for the perfect job, the right coworkers, or a better boss. We can decide to have it now!

Every office and each dynamic within the workplace is different. It’s natural that certain personality types may clash. We may work with people who we don’t quite “click” with. But what if we shift that mentality to find ways we can connect?

There are some office relationships where we may feel we can be 100% honest and open. We may even be friends with some people. At the same time, certain words and actions of our coworkers may bother us. This is because each persons’ history, programming, beliefs, thoughts, and feelings come into play (and come with them to work).

So, what is frustrating and annoying to one person may be no big deal to another. It can help to remember that each of us is coming from a different place and bringing along our own unfinished business, but we can try to find commonalities if we really engage and see it as a challenge to overcome. It’s all about what we’re bringing to the table. If we want to build rapport with others, we can do it, no matter how impossible it may seem at first.

Taking Your Family to Work

It sounds strange, but all our experiences, family, and history come right to the office with us each day. These pieces of our makeup comprise our matrix. We’re all shaped by each experience we encounter in life. We carry that with us when we walk into the room.

It doesn’t matter how old we are—whether we’re right out of grad school or well into our 60s, we bring our unfinished business with us everywhere we go, especially to work. If we had a father who was an authoritarian, we might see our bosses as authoritarian too and find ourselves rebelling under his demands. If our mother was highly controlling, we might balk against the control expressed by others on our team. Each day when we walk in the door to work, these pieces of our internal programming come right along with us.

Rather than throwing up our hands, assuming we’re doomed to repeat the same patterns over and over, we can learn to integrate our expressions of feelings at work so we learn and grow. We can identify the patterns and similarities in our relationships and use this information to help us better connect with others.

For example, a domineering boss presents an excellent opportunity to learn how to advocate for our needs. We may decide to tell our boss how we feel—that we’re afraid, hurt, or angered by their behavior. When we express these feelings straightforwardly, in an open manner, they become more manageable and easier to address.

In the rules of engagement, we often discuss the importance of assuming goodwill. If we assume good intention on the part of our boss or coworker (rather than thinking they’re out to get us), we’ll lower our defenses.

Most of the time, we can find common ground and even realize that maybe our boss is bringing their own baggage to the table. Rather than stewing about our feelings or exploding, we can bring them to light and work through them together.

As I learned in the situation with my own boss, it’s easy to bring our unfinished business into our interactions at work. I was lucky that my boss helped me learn from the situation rather than simply firing me on the spot for mishandling my hurt.

Not only is it essential and healthy for us to express our emotions at work, but it’s healthy for our whole office as well. We’ll enjoy work more, strengthen connections with our coworkers, and discover more success when we start sharing our feelings at work.

Looking for more ways to find success at work and home? Explore our courses at Wright Now. We have many options to help you learn more about your career, your relationships, and yourself. Get the life you want today—a life of MORE!

The Wright Foundation for the Realization of Human Potential is a leadership institute located in Chicago, Illinois. Wright Living performative learning programs are integrated into the curriculum at Wright Graduate University.

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How many parents wish they could do everything perfectly?

How many parents want their children to be perfect as well? How many realize it’s not realistic, nor does it help in building resilience?

It’s tough to do everything right, especially when it comes to parenting. Perfection is an impossible goal. Humans are imperfect beings, but building resilience comes from those mistakes and missteps along our journey. Satisfaction comes not from preventing kids (and ourselves) from making mistakes but from helping children learn from mistakes and identify them as opportunities for growth.

We all know kids model their parents’ behavior. They see how adults deal with life’s dilemmas and challenges and whether they dwell in the mistake or move forward. Because we’re all imperfect, there will definitely be mistakes and missteps on the road of parenting. Still, we can set a powerful example by learning to celebrate mistakes rather than fear them—here’s how to open your mind to mistakes.

Building Resilience Requires Celebrating Mistakes

A friend of ours told me the beautiful way her father helped her embrace her mistakes as she was growing up. Every day when the family sat down to dinner, Dad would ask what mistakes she’d made. It wasn’t a negative conversation or a way to point out shortcomings. Instead, the discussion presented a chance for learning.

The only answer that he wouldn’t accept was, “None.” As long as she had mistakes to share, he would tell her how proud he was to hear what she learned.

I just love that as a conversation starter—one we could all embrace for building resilience and grit. Our mistakes should be celebrated as a chance to gain insight. Reflecting on them isn’t meant to drag us down, shame us, or replay our embarrassment over and over. Instead, it’s a chance to see what works, what doesn’t and measure your approach. It’s an opportunity to make connections.

Mistakes are proof that we’re really going for it. It’s proof that we’re taking positive risks—something that can be pretty difficult for us as adults.

Many of us veer towards playing it safe and trying not to “rock the boat.” We don’t like risks because they’re, well…risky.

The funny thing is that kids are often great at embracing their mistakes as part of their learning process. Because childhood is so fraught with new experiences, there’s no expectation that it will always go right. It’s a series of trial and error. By learning to embrace these trials and errors, they’re building resilience and grit—the ability to bounce back even stronger after a setback.

Often, kids don’t learn to avoid mistakes until they hit adolescence. As they get older, they learn to feel shame and embarrassment about their missteps and failed attempts. As a result, they may hide them or avoid them. Whereas little children are rarely embarrassed trying something new. They don’t worry about looking “silly” or “stupid.” Instead, they approach the task with the sheer joy and exhilaration of discovery.

Of course, if you’ve ever watched kids play, you know that it can be serious business too. Observe kids on the playground, and we’ll see very important interactions. They test the waters with friendships and explore social boundaries. Kids are learning all the time with each new experience. Every moment gives them a chance to examine the approach, consider what they’ve seen in the adult world around them, and apply it to their own social circle.

Childhood is a time of rapid transformation, growth, and evolution. Kids are forming their adult selves. They’re learning how to interact with other people, how to engage and build relationships. For kids, life is a great social experiment.

Anyone who watches kids for even a short time quickly realizes that arguments, frustrations, and even tears are part of the experiment too. Play is very emotional, and children are often extremely expressive. Kids haven’t yet been weighed down by the idea that it’s not okay to cry, or we shouldn’t express upset when our feelings are hurt. Instead, they let it all out. Intuitively, they know that feelings are part of growing and learning, and their emotions are okay.

Getting hurt, losing, and failing are all part of the big game of growing up. Play entails risk, whether it’s climbing on a jungle gym or running around during kickball. There’s a chance to fall, get hurt, and feel pain. Yet, kids keep right ongoing. They have determination, grit, and resilience to try again. Imagine if babies gave up on walking the first time they fell! Kids naturally know they have to keep moving forward. The important part is to help them continue to take risks growing up.

Sometimes kids may even teach parents how to learn from mistakes.

Watching and Learning from Kids About Building Resilience

At our parent and child weekend retreat, we often have the kids fix breakfast for the parents. During this exciting process, the kids are given access to food, the stove, knives, and more. They get to handle all those items they’re typically told not to touch. While the parents learn and work on their personal development, kids get busy learning and experimenting on their own in the kitchen.

Parents often struggle a little with the idea of allowing kids so much freedom. After all, they could make mistakes—breakfast could be ruined! The kids could get cut by a knife or burned by a skillet. They could spill something on the floor. They could mess up a recipe!

The kids, on the other hand, LOVE this experience. They go into the kitchen with their creative thinking caps on, happily embracing their freedom. They’re approaching the experience as another opportunity to learn and discover—to make mistakes and experiment. For kids, cooking a big meal in a kitchen is often fresh and new. They typically approach it with bravery, interest, and enthusiasm.

It’s always fun and rather satisfying to see the parents’ amazement when their children proudly present them with the food—an entire meal they’ve prepared on their own. They’ve planned and tested. They’ve made discoveries. Yes, there are always a few mistakes along the way, but each one is part of the experience.

Kids thrive on new opportunities. They are natural transformers because transformation is synonymous with growth. Kids are in a constant state of transformation.

As adults, we can embrace this same approach and continue to thrive in a transformative state. We can choose to continue to grow, learn, and evolve. We can allow ourselves to make a mess and try new things. Yet, we often shy away from tasks we aren’t good at. We avoid making mistakes because we fear them.

Mistakes are such an essential part of the growth and transformation process. As adults, we have to rediscover our inner transformer—that curious kid inside—and this often involves being more willing to engage with others, make mistakes, and even feel hurt.

Transformers are not just willing to make mistakes and displease others; they also celebrate the learning mistakes engender. If this strikes you as counterintuitive—if it seems like these actions will distance you from what you yearn for—understand that taking risks and failing is the best way to learn. And, in order to please yourself, you may have to displease other people. Your boss may not like it if you disagree with him, but to do the work in a way that has impact, you may have no other choice. Obviously, you don’t want to turn yourself into a mistake-making, displeasing machine; this is a path toward failure and misanthropy. Fortunately, making a few key mistakes and taking a few stances that run counter to others you care about is usually sufficient to jump-start the learning process. 

Prepare for hurt. With engagement, we experience embarrassment and hurt, and out of this comes genuine humility. As you take action in ways that are true to your yearning, you say and do things at times that others don’t appreciate or approve of. Like a child who is acting authentically and follows his urge to tell the teacher what he thinks of an assignment, you too may find yourself being misunderstood, rejected, or reprimanded.

–Transformed! The Science of Spectacular Living

So, when we wonder how to help children learn from mistakes, we may want to adjust that thinking to teaching ourselves how to embrace our own mistakes. Most kids know that mistakes are part of the fun of the journey. It’s only later that they learn that they should avoid making them. Adults, on the other hand, shy away from new endeavors. We calculate our approach and measure our response. When our kids are concerned about mistakes, they may even be picking up on their parents’ fear of mistakes—modeling their parents’ behavior. If we want to learn strength, grit, and resilience, we’d be wise to observe our kids.

If we start to approach new situations as opportunities for trial (and error), our world opens up considerably. The world becomes our playground. A place where we can experiment, see what works, see what doesn’t. We can explore our interactions with others. But, best of all, we can learn to play!

To learn more about embracing new experiences and transforming your world, please explore our courses at Wright Now. We offer many courses to help you learn more about your career, relationships, and personal growth. Start living a life of MORE today!

The Wright Foundation for the Realization of Human Potential is a leadership institute located in Chicago, Illinois. Wright Foundation performative learning programs are integrated into the curriculum at Wright Graduate University.

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When we think of taking care of ourselves, what comes to mind?

Pumping up at the gym?

Ordering the grilled chicken salad at lunch over a cheeseburger?

Jogging every morning at the crack of dawn?

Bubble baths and manicures?

The importance of self-care can’t be understated. Staying healthy, hydrated, and relaxed are all critical for your wellbeing. But there are some other aspects of self-care and nourishment that are even more critical to your long-term happiness, fulfillment, and satisfaction.

Here’s how to adjust your view to prioritize self-care today!

The Importance of Self-Care for Your Mindset

Bubble baths, exercise, and even the occasional treat are essential for self-care. We should all take an active interest in our physical health. But a crucial component that’s often overlooked is keeping our minds nourished.

Self-care is not just about learning each day and keeping our minds healthy. It’s about focusing on our emotional fulfillment and wellbeing.

We need to work on our heads and hearts before we stress out about the size of our ass or the flatness of our abs.

Here’s a secret: if our head and our heart are healthy and aligned, the rest of our physical health will follow. Now that’s not to say we should hang up our running shoes and reach for the box of Oreos. But when we’re in the right emotional state within, we’ll also start to prioritize care for our external state as well.

When we’re engaged in life, growing, learning, and discovering new things about ourselves, we’re showing significant self-care and self-compassion. We’re prioritizing our needs and showing love for ourselves, caring about what we need and want. When we experience this shift, we naturally start to nurture our physical selves as well.

Nurture goes beyond eating healthy or resting. What happens when we nurture ourselves and realize the importance of self-care? Just like a mother nurtures a child, we start to think of ourselves more kindly and compassionately. We recognize that we’re a work-in-progress and that mistakes are part of the journey. We realize that we’re moving toward spiritual and emotional growth and fulfillment.

Better still, when we start to have compassion for ourselves, we look at how we’re spending our time and stop zoning out with soft addictions and time wasters. We instead find ways to fill our time with activities that help us grow and move us toward the life we want. We start to love ourselves and discover the importance of self-care and compassion.

Suddenly the hole we might be trying to fill inside ourselves is gone. We don’t reach for the extra fries. We don’t order the milkshake. We don’t view our 5 AM spin class as a way to punish ourselves into the person we wish we could be. We stop eating our feelings, drinking to escape, or burying ourselves in our work.

We can work ourselves into a sweat at the gym. We can set fitness goals and train for years, but if we aren’t working on the stuff underneath—the real stuff—we will never find true health and happiness.

Why Some People Have “It”

Sometimes we meet a person who just has “it.” We meet them and go, “Wow! They’re magnetic!” They stand out and get noticed—maybe they’re in terrific shape, and you can tell they really take care of themselves, but you aren’t noticing only their physique. Or perhaps they hold themselves with grace; they’re dynamic and fabulous. As the French say, it’s that je ne sais quoi (literally that “I don’t know what”).

What we notice in these “it people” isn’t stunning beauty. In fact, they might not even be the best-looking person in the room or even conventionally attractive. Instead, what we notice in these magnetic people is their level of engagement. People who stand apart from the crowd, light up a room and attract others do it because they’re fully engaged. They’re turned on and tuned in. People are interesting because they’re interested in their world.

Engagement isn’t about having a symmetrical face with delicate features. It’s got nothing to do with being in top physical form. It’s not even about being the best dressed, having the most expensive suits, or wearing a designer dress. It’s not even about confidence.

Here’s the deal with confidence—confidence is overrated. It’s an illusion, and in many ways, It’s bullsh*t. Most people have learned to fake it until they make it. We project confidence onto someone because they appear to have stronger self-esteem or be more competent than we are. They seem to exude a quality we don’t see in ourselves.

Confidence is a trick brought on by preparedness and ease in a situation. People who appear truly confident (not ego-centric, but self-assured) are rarely that way naturally. More often, they’re prepared. They’ve invested in themselves and understand the importance of self-care. They’re polished and together. They accept their role in the situation, and they’re ready to do their best. If you want confidence in a meeting or on a date, it’s as simple as preparing beforehand. Know what you’re doing before you walk into the room. It’s that simple.

But more than confidence, what matters is authenticity. Being genuine shows that we care about ourselves and are honest with ourselves and those we interact with. Authenticity comes from within, and it’s real.

Whether it’s a job interview, a board room, or our social lives, if we want to be engaging and interesting, we must be engaged with and interested in others. Not because we’re hoping for reciprocity or because we have an agenda, but simply because we are actually and truly interested. We must aim toward authentic, genuine interactions.

So many of us go into interactions with a false self, as Nietzsche discusses. We, we have a false consciousness and sense of morality. We are all frauds. We’re protecting our false selves because we are all self-motivated. We’re wandering around interacting with others and giving in a way that may appear unselfish. We may even honestly buy into our BS, believing that we surely are unselfish.

The self-motivation isn’t “bad.” As humans, we’re trying to get those around us to fill the gaps in our needs and yearnings. We may think that we’re acting unselfishly, benevolently, and kindly. But we also want others to like us. We want others to help us be listened to, respected, acknowledged, and loved. We think we can scratch their back, and they’ll scratch ours. If I appear to listen to you, you’ll listen back.

The problem is if I haven’t taken responsibility for my needs at some level—If I’m not genuinely present with my needs, then who the heck am I to think I can authentically engage with you in meeting both our needs?! That isn’t genuine, authentic engagement.

So How Do I Meet My Needs?

Step one in your transformation to a life of deeper fulfillment is to learn how to express your deeper wants—your yearnings. We talk a lot about needs, wants, and yearnings, but they’re certainly not interchangeable.

Yearning is deeper than wanting. It’s not a new car, a house, reservations at your favorite restaurant. Those are all wants. Needs go a bit deeper but typically speak to physical needs (food, shelter, sleep, and so on). Yearning is different. Yearning is a crucial component of working toward our self-care.

There’s something vaguely old-fashioned about the term. It has an Old Testament ring to it. Or it sounds like what a heroine in a Victorian novel might say as she stares out the window of her gothic tower, waiting for a lost love to return. As a result, you probably haven’t used “yearn” in a sentence recently. It feels awkward on your tongue, uncertain in your mind…and hardly the dynamic power and fuel of transformation.

When we talk of transformation, we are not talking about a formula but rather about something deeply personal that emerges from within—a unique, new you. Take a moment to reflect upon what you yearn for. Let your mind go blank and listen to your heart. Imagine if your soul had a voice and could articulate what it wants most in the world. Or, more simply, consider what you desire deeply, what would turn your good life into a great one.

Still nothing? That’s okay. Yearning is a natural capacity you can develop.

Or maybe you’ve come up with a list of things you yearn for that are actually wants—you “yearn” to be rich, you “yearn” to travel around the world, you “yearn” for freedom, you “yearn” to have your boyfriend or girlfriend agree to marry you, you “yearn” for a gigantic television. It’s okay, too, to mistake wants for yearnings—we all do it, but it rarely leads to transformation.

The good news is that we know what you yearn for—and it’s exactly that yearning that generates transformation. The things you yearn for are the same things that everyone in the world yearns for. Specifically, we yearn:

To matter

To love and be loved

To be seen

To contribute

To connect

To belong

To achieve mastery

To be affirmed

To connect with a higher power.

–Transformed! The Science of Spectacular Living

Our yearnings are universal—all humans have them. We can identify them within ourselves and get in touch with them. Once we recognize them and understand them, we are opening ourselves up to much greater possibilities.

When we uncover and discover our yearnings, we shift the importance of self-care to focus on getting those yearnings met. Once our yearnings are identified, we can orient ourselves towards activities that fulfill us. We can open ourselves up to deeper interactions and adventures. We start to see our interactions with others not as a step to blindly fulfill our wants and needs but as ways to share emotions to meet yearnings and discover enriching, deeper connections.

When we start to practice the kind of self-care and self-compassion that we deserve—the kind that meets these deeper yearnings, the other needs fall away. Suddenly we’re not looking for timewasters to fulfill the void. We’re not trying to buy a faster car or fit into our skinny jeans, so someone notices us. Instead, we’re nourishing and valuing our beautiful selves because we recognize that we’re worthy and important.

It’s exciting when we realize how close many of us are to starting our transformation. The desires to love ourselves, live a life with purpose, and reach our full potential are very strong for many of us. It drives us, but we allow doubts to creep in.

We tell ourselves we don’t deserve fulfillment. We believe lies about ourselves we’ve been told for years—perhaps even since we were kids. We take the familiar route, not because it’s easy, but because we’re afraid to take the emotional plunge.

It’s time to stop being afraid. Living a life with purpose will bring you the fulfillment you desire. Finding your reasons, finding love for yourself—a caring and ability to nurture yourself—is powerful, tangible, visceral. It will give you that certain “something” when you walk into a room. It will make you far more attractive, “confident,” and interesting than hours at the gym or trips to the spa could give you.

If you’re ready to learn more ways to start living a life filled with purpose and satisfaction, please explore our courses on Wright Now. We have an array of excellent classes to help you boost your career, strengthen your relationships, and get MORE of the life you want.

The Wright Foundation for the Realization of Human Potential is a leadership institute located in Chicago, Illinois. Wright Living performative learning programs are integrated into the curriculum at Wright Graduate University.

The post The Importance of Self-Care: Keeping Your Mind & Body Nourished appeared first on Wright Foundation.

Right now, there’s no way around it—we are all feeling fear. These feelings are natural, normal, healthy, and even expected.

During 2020, we were all feeling a lot of fear. We may still feel those fearful feelings even today—whether it’s about illness, the state of the world, or something in our lives that isn’t going well.

But there are many methods for letting go of fear and turning it around. Moreover, these lessons apply at any time (whether we’re in a global pandemic or facing a personal crisis). Here’s how we can lean into some of the lessons over the recent past and embrace them going forward.

Lessons from the Pandemic on Letting Go of Fear

During the early days and months of the Coronavirus pandemic, we were all feeling fear. These feelings were natural, normal, healthy, and even expected. We were all facing an unprecedented situation, where our whole world had been upended. None of us had seen a global pandemic of this proportion before.

For months, we don’t know how the Coronavirus outbreak would play out, and even still, we aren’t back to a complete state of normalcy.

Compounding these fears about the state of the world were other fears like economic insecurity, political unrest, concerns about our health and safety, and the health and safety of our loved ones. Many of us have felt helpless as we see disturbing scenes on the news and read upsetting accounts of the disease.

We were combining these fears with isolation and loneliness from practicing social distancing. And even now, as we’ve emerged, life has changed. Our social connections look different. Being “out and about” may still trigger certain fears and bring up those past traumas.

But we all face frightening situations throughout our lives. Perhaps not always on the global scale that the pandemic wrought, but many of these personal situations can feel even more frightening and upsetting.

We may feel overwhelmed by fear and worry. We may long to start letting go of fear because we feel like it’s holding us back. But it’s important to note that fear may also be protecting us.

Thinking of ways we need to “let go of fear” may be the wrong way of framing the idea. Fear in itself isn’t bad or wrong. It’s protective and healthy. Fear isn’t a bad emotion, and we don’t need to let go of fear or erase it completely. By the same token, we don’t need to let go of any of our emotions; we should allow ourselves to feel them fully. They’re an essential part of who we are.

Instead, what we may need to do when fear feels overwhelming or insurmountable is channel it toward our sense of aliveness. We can use our fear to propel us forward in a positive way.

Believe You Will Prevail

In the Battle of Britain, Winston Churchill never lost his certainty that the British would prevail. The bombing was constant. Some nights, 400 tons of bombs were dropped on London. It would have been easy to fall into doubt and complete despair. Many did, but not Sir Winston.

Although he had no idea how they would win and the situation seemed hopeless, Churchill still believed they would come out of the battle. He never wavered—he knew they would get through. In fact, he prepared the British to defend their homeland. He kept them fighting mad and ready for anything—including the devastation of many of their homes.

We can apply this Churchill mindset to our own lives when we’re feeling fearful.

One of the keys to “letting go of fear,” or rather, channeling it into something productive, is to set our intention. Tell ourselves that ‘we will make it through this challenging time, no matter what!’

This attitude will carry us through almost any difficulty. Set the intention that we will survive. Believe that even without a sign of relief, as circumstances even seem to get worse, we will make it through.

Yes, challenging experiences may change us. They may impact our entire lives—we may not make it through unscathed, but that doesn’t mean that we won’t emerge stronger, smarter, and more resilient. When we determine that we’re going to learn and grow, we might come out different, but we will prevail.

The self-belief that we can handle a given situation is called self-efficacy. We can channel and increase our self-efficacy during challenging times. Having self-efficacy doesn’t mean that we feel no fear. We may not even feel confident, but we believe we will handle it.

We might be scared, and we might not know how we’re going to get through the situation. We may shake and tremble at the thought of what we’re facing, but we can set our intention to get through it. We can decide that no matter the circumstance, we will find an opportunity to learn, grow, innovate, support each other, and partner in new ways—always knowing that we will come out on the other side.

Keeping Our Human Connections

Another lesson on resilience we can take from Churchill’s example during the Battle of Britain is that being there for people makes a huge difference. This is especially important in situations where we want to “do” something. We can’t always do; sometimes, we must simply be. Often, being in the moment and offering our presence is equally powerful to most actions we could take.

During the battle, some of the most impoverished areas of London were hit the hardest. These people had nothing left. Churchill knew there was nothing he could do to change what had happened. But he traveled immediately to these hardest-hit areas anyway, and his presence made a huge difference to those people whose entire world had been crushed.

As he walked through the rows of houses that looked as though a giant had stomped them, his eyes welled up with tears. People saw this expression of emotion and said, “He really cares about us. He loves our people.” It meant so much to the British, and witnessing his simple act of human expression carried many of them through the time.

Our sense of caring and empathy for others is a gift that we have in abundance. We may not know what to do in the situation. Maybe we don’t have a job for the friend who is losing their livelihood. Perhaps we don’t get to spend time with someone we care about, or we can’t fix their issue. But we can simply be there for each other. By expressing interest, listening, and reassuring others, we can also find our own sense of comfort.

Listening to others also helps us shift our perspective away from our own situation. Not that we shouldn’t feel upset or concerned if we’re going through a tough time, but when we empathize with loved ones, it can help us realize that we all struggle and none of us are alone.

Finding Serenity in the Fear

I am often struck by the poignancy and relevance of Niebuhr’s serenity prayer popularized by AA. When we’re going through a difficult time, these powerful words can help bring us a sense of comfort and peace: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

When we feel fear, it’s often an appropriate response, but it’s not always a productive place to let ourselves linger and dwell. When we feel fear coming on, we can ask ourselves what we’re really afraid of. What is the root of our fear?

From there, we can use the words of the serenity prayer as our guide—is there something that I can control about the situation? What pieces of this are in my control, and what pieces are beyond it? From there, we can focus on that piece that we can manage.

Our fear lets us know that we’re alive. Fear is an incredible gift as an emotion. It’s part of our survival system. Years ago, our fear told us not to go into the jungle or avoid a particular cave where predators dwelt. Fear kept us safe from harm and helped us react to and assess threatening situations. Fear was key to our very survival.

Today, fear can continue to help us assess certain conditions and situations. It can still protect us. But we need to start letting go of fear when it runs rampant or becomes outsized for the current environment.

It’s not that fear (or any emotion—sadness, hurt, anger) should be avoided. As we said before and tell our students at the Wright Foundation, there’s no such thing as “bad emotions.” All our emotions are powerful. They guide us and protect us. Some of us have developed the skills to harness these emotions and use them to the best effect. This is known as emotional intelligence. All of us are still working on building that emotional intelligence throughout our lives.

To understand how to process emotions, we can learn from watching how young children express their feelings. When they feel scared, they might tremble, cry, or yell, but they also reach out for reassurance and safety. When they’re angry, hurt, or sad, they allow themselves to feel those feelings fully. Then they move once the fear has led to safety, the hurt has led to healing, and the anger has helped us get away from pain and danger or acquire the desired outcome. Emotions are designed to complete themselves with effective action, not to be repressed or avoided.

Once we identify our emotions and feelings, they lose some of their power over us. Neuroscience research shows that when we name our feelings–when we say I am sad, or angry or afraid–it soothes our emotional center. It brings the seat of consciousness, our frontal lobe online, so we can better think and deal with the situations triggering our emotions.

It’s not just the insight or awareness of our feelings that makes the difference; it makes us more able to cope and deal with our feelings.

We can say, “I’m feeling afraid, and that’s okay,” and allow ourselves to feel the emotions fully without getting paralyzed by our fear. We then take appropriate rational, emotion-informed action.

Rather than dwelling in the fear and allowing it to hold us back, we can embrace the aliveness that accompanies our emotions. We can feel the sense of aliveness that fear invokes but not let the fear overwhelm us. This sense of aliveness can help us connect. It helps us connect with our inner selves. We can choose to be alive and engaged rather than to stay fearful and shut down. Fear can be a catalyst for growth, learning, and moving forward.

For more ways to learn and grow, don’t miss the courses available at Wright Now. We offer an array of career, relationship, and personal growth courses designed to help you get MORE from your life. So if you’re ready to live a life of more satisfaction and joy, this is your opportunity!

The Wright Foundation for the Realization of Human Potential is a leadership institute located in Chicago, Illinois. Wright Living performative learning programs are integrated into the curriculum at Wright Graduate University.

The post The Secret to Letting Go of Fear by Embracing It and Riding Aliveness appeared first on Wright Foundation.

What’s holding you back from living the life you want? We’ve all experienced negative thinking; it happens all the time.

Do you not have enough money? Time? Talent?

Do you lack social support? Is it your friends’ fault?

Does it seem too hard? Is the life you want out of your reach?

Does life seem unfair, like the universe never works out in your favor?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you might be displaying negative thinking, or what we like to call stinking thinking. Are you ready to stop getting in your own way? Here’s how to shift your negative thinking and stop sabotaging your success.

Where Does Stinking Thinking Come From?

Why the funny name for negative thinking? Because it stinks! Stinking thinking sabotages our success and creates self-imposed roadblocks. We may use denial, justification, and avoidance tactics to shift the blame and avoid responsibilities—essentially getting in our own way.

What’s more, stinking thinking is the opposite of positive thinking. Rather than intending and believing we’re moving toward a life we want, negative thinking leads to disempowerment. Stinking thinking leaves us in a place where we’re shooting ourselves right in the foot.

Stinking thinking feels good because nothing is our fault. We don’t need to move forward because we’ve come up with the perfect excuse—it’s too hard; I’m too tired; the chips didn’t fall in my favor.

The outcome is out of our hands and beyond our control. Stinking thinking gives us an out. It also holds us out of getting what we want.

So why do we do it? Why do we engage in negative thinking patterns? Like many of our thoughts and actions, stinking thinking is a big part of our personality makeup. It’s not something we can simply switch on and off. The thoughts are deeply rooted in family patterns set for us in our childhood.

As a child, were you ever told you were too emotional? Too sensitive? Too much? Not enough? Did you start to believe what you heard about yourself? These beliefs can all lead to stinking thinking.

You see, over time, the lies and warnings we’re told about ourselves stick. Imagine the little cartoon devil on your shoulder whispering in your ear and repeating these mistaken beliefs. Eventually, these thoughts even become habitual.

We may believe we’re unsafe in the world because we were unsafe as children.

We may be hyper-self-conscious because we were constantly asked, “what will the others think?”

We may have been raised to believe the world is hostile.

We might believe we don’t possess the innate talent of a sibling or friend, or to believe things come easy for others but don’t come easy for us. We weren’t “born with it.”

We may paint the world with a rosy brush because we have a deep-seated need to use over-optimism to make everything okay.

These negative thought patterns are deep within us, and they become our “normal.” Because we’ve repeated them for years, they eventually lead to limiting beliefs. These were reinforced by behaviors and actions that we took, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. People treat us like we’re “not enough” because we walk in a room without confidence, believing that we’re going to be rejected, with our shoulders down and our heads hung. We don’t speak up because we think we have nothing to share. Then when people see how we present ourselves, they believe it too. Our belief is reinforced.

These limiting beliefs hold us back and keep us from what we want and are constantly reinforced by our own stinking thinking.

Denial: Not a Just a River in Egypt

Stinking thinking and negative thinking patterns can lead us to a place where we feel unfulfilled, disengaged, and disempowered. We may feel stuck in our circumstances, but we also believe that we are helpless to change them.

For many people, this disengagement and denial cause us to seek ways to “zone out.” So, instead of grabbing life by the horns, we seek ways to fill the emptiness inside. We give ourselves an excuse to indulge in soft addictions—things that bring us a temporary boost but then leave us feeling worse than before.

Soft addictions are little habits we all undertake to self-sabotage. If you binge-watch Netflix, endlessly scroll through social media, overeat, shop more than you can afford, or constantly “lose yourself” in activities (even socializing or working), you might be looking at a soft addiction.

These addictions aren’t limited to activities either. We can become addicted to gambling, seeking danger, making deals, playing dumb, constantly being late, flirting, gum chewing, nail-biting, over-exercising…and the list goes on. We can even become addicted to moods and ways of being, such as hiding behind sarcasm, moping, being a people-pleaser, or a perfectionist. Our soft addictions take up our time and brainpower to avoid the negative thinking that we feel powerless to change.

We all use stinking thinking and denial to justify our behavior, avoid feelings, and con others as well as ourselves. Denial, defensiveness, overgeneralization, minimizing, blaming, and jumping to conclusions several examples of the stinking thinking to which we are vulnerable. When we don’t think clearly and cleanly, we are likely to minimize or even deny that our soft addictions pose problems. Stinking thinking prevents us from viewing our routines objectively and honestly.

Stinking thinking is so pervasive we often don’t realize it exists. We think our stinking thoughts are facts, not arbitrary decisions based on faulty beliefs. Our distorted thoughts normalize our soft addiction routines.

Stinking thinking becomes like a sea we live in. We’re like fish, not knowing water exists around them until they’re caught. Stinking thoughts lead us to indulge in soft addictions, defend the behavior, and deny any problem with our actions. Stinking thinking becomes a sort of soft addiction in itself—a habitual thought pattern that we return to repeatedly for diminishing returns.

Soft addictions function as a filter of our experience, screening out useful input. As we enmesh ourselves in shopping, gossiping, and daydreaming routines, we fail to feel the pain that could guide us toward the right action. Without feeling our pain, we more easily deny that anything is wrong.

The vicious cycle, of course, is that we engage in soft addictions precisely because we don’t want to feel pain. Without the ability to see our lives clearly and feel the pain completely, we can convince ourselves that our soft addictions are harmless or event that they are good for us.

That’s when we deny with comments like: What problem? What pain? What do you mean this is a problem? I can’t see it as a problem.

—The Soft Addiction Solution

Denial comes in many forms—minimizing, lying, rationalizing, and comparing (one of the sneakiest forms). See, we figure if everyone else is doing it, it’s okay we’re doing it too. We feel safe in our negative thoughts and actions because they’re ubiquitous—everyone does it. But when we step back and look at the facts, we may realize those we surround ourselves with also give way to their own stinking thinking.

It’s not a coincidence that negative thinking attracts more negative thinkers. We might see it as conspiring or coming together to commiserate, but we’re commiserating in misery. We’re surrounding ourselves with negative thinking patterns because they feel familiar and even “safe.”

These fellow stinking thinkers serve as living examples of how our own thoughts and behaviors are okay (others are doing it too!) even though, deep down inside, we know that it’s holding us back.

We may even realize that scrolling through social media for hours or retail therapy with money we don’t have is hurting us. We may also know that eating ice cream for dinner or ordering pizza isn’t the ideal way to nourish our bodies, but it makes us feel better in the moment. We’re numb to the real hunger that’s beneath the surface of our actions—we may not realize that we really long to be loved, to connect with others, to matter, to feel fulfilled.

The good news is that one of the best ways to reverse the trend in our negative thinking is to catch ourselves doing it. When we start to notice our stinking thinking, we stop ourselves from living in the land of denial. Awareness of how these thoughts are hurting, not helping us offers big motivation to change them. As they say, “awareness is half the battle,” and with stinking thinking, it’s true.

Catching Your Negative Thinking

We challenge our students at Wright Graduate University to become experts at catching stinking thinking and breaking those negative thinking patterns. Reversing our negative thinking is one of the biggest keys to shifting our direction in life—taking back power and realizing that we’re in control of our behaviors and outcomes.

Even during our weekend workshops and More Life Training, we often encourage the awareness and identification of stinking thinking by passing out tokens to participants. Each time they notice a group member (or themselves) exhibiting stinking thoughts, they hand over a token. Since this is done in good humor, it’s not unusual to see participants laugh out loud at themselves, especially when they realize how silly and stinky their denial, excuses, and rationalizations sound aloud.

When we realize that we have the power within ourselves to change our lives, regardless of our circumstances, inherent talents, job, financial status, or other external factors, it’s energizing. We are not stuck in our stinking thinking! Our stinking thoughts aren’t true, and we can break those negative thinking patterns and move forward.

Identifying our stinking thinking patterns is the best way to break them. In fact, stepping back and even laughing a little at the ridiculousness of our stinking thoughts helps us realize how unfrightening they are. Humor and compassion are anecdotes to our not-so-great thoughts. Guess what? We’re all human! Occasionally, we have to laugh at ourselves.

So often, when it comes to working on personal growth and transformation, we approach it with a seriousness and direness that counteracts the goal. If you want to live a life of more play, more joy, and more vitality, you aren’t going to get there by taking life too seriously.

Handing out tokens, laughing at ourselves, and even reading humorous books and watching movies where we can identify stinking thinking (Bridget Jones’ Diary, Austin Powers, and Monty Python’s Holy Grail are a few that come to mind), can help us realize how irrational our rationalization is!

As you work to overcome your limiting beliefs and stinking thinking, don’t forget to approach it with a sense of humor. Identify your stinky thoughts and turn them on their head. If you are worried about what others think, do something ridiculous and goofy. If you’re afraid of making a fool of yourself, get up there and do it anyway.

Balzac said our greatest fears lie in anticipation, and it’s true. What’s the worst that could occur? Could you live with it? Imagine what could be possible if you stopped believing you couldn’t and started believing you could?

For more ways to get the life you want, don’t miss our courses on Wright Now. We have an array of classes that can help you get MORE from your relationships, career, and yourself. Empower yourself to live a life that’s full of joy and satisfaction today!

The Wright Foundation for the Realization of Human Potential is a leadership institute located in Chicago, Illinois. Wright Foundation performative learning programs are integrated into the curriculum at Wright Graduate University.

The post Stuck in Stinking Thinking: What to Do When Negative Thinking Sabotages Success appeared first on Wright Foundation.

We’ve all been in jobs that weren’t satisfying—where it was hard to find happiness at work, and each day felt like drudgery. Heck, we’ve probably all faced work that was downright tedious!

But the real truth is, you can find happiness in absolutely any job, no matter what you’re doing. I’ve known trash collectors who were satisfied with their work every single day. I’ve known teachers, law enforcement, and social workers who faced difficult, even dangerous situations with a smile on their faces. There are many ways to find joy in work.

Even if you’re not in your dream job, you can find happiness at work right now. If you’re hoping for more satisfaction in the 9-5, here are six tips for finding happiness at work.

1. Let Go of the Idea of “One”

I didn’t think of a career when I was growing up. I lived in a town where everyone had jobs; they might work at the bank, as a firefighter, or in a factory. I was working my first job when someone asked me, “what do you want to do for your career?” I remember it was the first time I’d really thought about the difference between a 9-5 job and a satisfying career path I could choose. It opened up a whole new world.

Not everyone has a predetermined career path. Some people don’t know what they want to do for a job until much later in life—well past their college years. Others waffle back and forth, never feeling fulfilled because they don’t feel settled on their career path or because they think they’ve missed their chance to take on their perfect career.

In many ways, the idea there’s one perfect career out there for us is akin to believing there’s only one ideal soulmate out there for us. It’s a fairytale myth, setting us up for disappointment and unfulfilled expectations. We can’t find happiness at work when we’re constantly looking for something else.

In reality, there are many jobs and careers we could feel satisfied in, but like a relationship, it’s up to us to put in the work. It’s not about the perfect job or the ideal career path, but about the quality of the work we do. We can engage in any task and find satisfaction, meaning, and fulfillment.

For those of us lamenting the idea that we didn’t “follow our passion” or fulfill our dream career, take a pause and think about it. Maybe we would have found creative or intellectual fulfillment in our dream profession, or perhaps we wouldn’t. Maybe the same people and situations that get under our skin at our current job would exist in any setting. Perhaps we would still feel stuck, or eventually, we would get bored because we’re expecting a job to be “perfect.”

It’s not the work but our approach to the work that makes all the difference. We can find happiness at work, no matter what we’re doing—it’s about dedicating ourselves to the idea that we’re in control of our happiness (not waiting for our job to hand it over).

2. Lead from Where You Are

Many of us covet the corner office. We think if we got the promotion, we’d really show our boss our mettle. We’re waiting for a leadership position to appear so we can finally be in charge. We start to think we need to get ahead constantly if we want to feel happiness at work.

I’ve seen many entrepreneurs who quit their “day jobs” and took on their dream career, only to quickly discover they were in over their heads. This idea that we can’t answer to anyone, so we want to become our own boss, is a falsehood. Even entrepreneurs have a boss—their clients,  customers, and stakeholders. If they’re forgotten, no business will be successful.  We all answer to someone if we want to earn a paycheck.

Instead of looking at authority as control to buck against, what if we shift to view it as something to model? Instead of feeling bossed around in meetings and shutting down defiantly, what if you spoke up and shared your thoughts? What if we found our inner leader and lead from wherever we were in the company (even the last rung on the ladder).

I’ve seen many of the best ideas come from people in the lowest positions in the company. Often, these people have boots on the ground. They’re in the trenches, and they see what happens in the day-to-day action. They might be interfacing with customers or gaining a perspective that management doesn’t have. No matter what we do in a job, our voice could still turn the company around and head off major issues otherwise overlooked. If we see a problem—speak up!

It helps to look at our boss as a mentor. Cultivate a strong relationship with them and listen to their feedback, even if it’s tough. Dress for the next position. We should always take the time to put ourselves together, so we draw positive attention. Walk into meetings ready to speak up, engage, and lead. When we start to lead confidently from any position, we’ll begin to move up the ranks.

3. Find Your Purpose

The vital key to happiness at work (and in life) is purpose. Purpose and meaning should drive every interaction.

I’ve worked with plenty of professionals who earn high incomes. They may hold an MBA from an Ivy League school. They may own a big house, luxury cars, and designer clothing, but they’re scratching their heads, wondering why they still can’t find happiness at work.

To feel fulfilled and satisfied in any scenario, we must extract our sense of meaning and purpose. Whether it’s finding the purpose in our relationships, friendships, parenting, or leisure time, purpose is a vital component of happiness.

If we want to find happiness at work, we need to focus on how we’re working to be net givers to the world. How are we providing the world with more than we’re gaining? How are we giving to those around us and bringing out the best in our peers?

Purpose is like a switch. Once we discover it, we’re turned on and engaged. Suddenly our burdens become lighter. Work no longer feels like work because it’s meaningful. We know we’re working FOR something rather than going through the motions.

The truth is happy people are happy in most aspects of their life because they choose to be that way. If we want a great career, we should focus on being a great person. Be a trustworthy person. Be someone other people count on. As we become the person we want to be, our job and career path will align to our values.

4. Challenge Yourself for More Happiness at Work

We can develop ourselves in any environment. People have transformed themselves in dire circumstances. They’ve learned and grown in prison, in concentration camps, and in other unthinkable situations. Development comes from rising to the challenges.

So there are going to be days when we don’t feel happy at work. If the days add up to weeks and months, we may want to consider why our job isn’t sparking happiness. We may want to ask ourselves if our job is too easy.

It sounds strange, right? We all want an easy button. We all think that going through the same motions every day will let us stop thinking about work so much. An easy, stress-free job may sound fantastic, but if we want satisfaction, we need a challenge.

When we enter a new workplace, we feel challenged right away. We’re learning and adapting to a new environment; we’re discovering new ways to complete tasks. Each situation gives us the chance to learn and grow. We’re meeting new coworkers and adapting to the situation.

After a few years, we may find we’re not as excited about our job anymore. It feels routine. Instead of going on autopilot and zoning out, this is a sure sign we need to zone in. We need to level up and find new ways to seek that sense of novelty and adventure in our careers.

I was working with a lawyer who was going through these feelings of drudgery. He was even considering a career change because he wasn’t finding his career fulfilling anymore. He wasn’t finding happiness at work.

During our conversation, I challenged him to prepare for his next case like it was his very first. I told him to go all-in—cram in as much information and study as possible. He followed my advice and came back the next week on a high. He said it was the most significant week of work he’d had in a long time. From there, his career began to completely turn around.

Humans want challenges and stimulation. We orient to novelty. We want to be engaged and turned on to new ideas and activities. If we feel unfulfilled by a job, the solution is to take on a big challenge. If we can’t think of a challenging project to undertake, ask! Go to the boss and request a new challenge. I guarantee they will offer an idea. If we find this idea frightening or daunting, we may need to ask ourselves why we’re avoiding the challenge.

5. Give to Your Network

We often think of networking as a crucial part of growing our role at work. Our network is how we engage with new clients, new leads, and new customers. But networking over happy hour isn’t really building our essential connections, and it’s probably not bringing us more happiness at work.

Our connections with others become stronger when we become net givers instead of net takers. Do we give to our network? Do we provide leadership, mentorship, and advice? Do we invite new connections to share, not because we’re waiting to close a deal or warm up a lead, but because we’re genuinely interested in engaging with them as human beings?

It’s amazing how the dynamic shifts when we stop thinking of what people can do for us, and instead, we think of what we can do for them.

Instead of thinking of our customers and clients as people there to give us money, what if we thought of them as people who need to receive our service? How will we tell them about a product or service that will change their lives for the better? How would we view what we were doing if we knew it provided someone with a necessary service?

We don’t always need to think of giving in tangible ways, either. Offering appreciation, warmth, and encouragement is also part of giving to others. When we engage with others, we’re helping fulfill their yearning to be respected, listened to, to see, and be seen. Fulfilling a yearning is powerful stuff that fortifies our connections.

6. Learn from Mistakes

We all make mistakes. Many of us make big, huge, epic mistakes. Some errors feel like the end of the world, and we wonder how we will ever recover. This is especially true when our mistakes affect our work (and even worse when our boss, team, or customers rely on us).

Mistakes are learning opportunities. As researcher Angela Duckworth writes in her book, Grit: Passion, Perseverance, and the Science of Success:

“…Grit grows as we figure out our life philosophy, learn to dust ourselves off after rejection and disappointment, and learn to tell the difference between low-level goals that should be abandoned quickly and higher-level goals that demand more tenacity. The maturation story is that we develop the capacity for long-term passion and perseverance as we get older.”

In other words, making mistakes and getting rejected helps us determine our path and strengthen our resolve. As we test what approaches work and what approaches don’t work, we narrow our aim. We get better at our job.

It’s tough when we’ve made a blunder. We may have a hard time righting the ship and correcting our path, but we’re much more aware of the proper direction when we do. In each mistake is an opportunity to refine and hone in on our approach. When we make mistakes, we grow, and when we grow, we find more happiness at work.

If we watch kids when they learn, and even when they play, they make mistakes all the time. When a baby falls after taking a few steps, they don’t throw in the towel and give up. They get back up and keep going. Kids are resilient. As adults, we start to question our abilities to bounce back after mistakes.

Instead, keep moving forward and learning. If you want to find happiness at work, embrace mistakes as learning opportunities. Celebrate your mistakes and keep going!

For more on discovering a life of purpose and satisfaction, please visit our courses on WrightNow. We have an array of learning options to help you discover more satisfaction in your career, relationships, and personal life. Start moving toward a life of MORE today.

The Wright Foundation for the Realization of Human Potential is a leadership institute located in Chicago, Illinois. Wright Living performative learning programs are integrated into the curriculum at Wright Graduate University.

The post 6 Ways to Find Happiness at Work Right Now appeared first on Wright Foundation.

We may not even realize how much our family patterns show up in our lives today but exploring our beliefs and value systems can be a powerful exercise.

Just like you can’t choose your family, birth order, or parents, you can’t choose the beliefs and family background instilled during your upbringing. Chances are, these beliefs were passed down year after year, generation to generation. They may go back to the days of your grandparents and even before. Some familial traits are great—they make us feel like we’re a part of something.

But not all family patterns are positive or healthy. In fact, some family patterns are destructive and painful. So, how do we break out of our negative family patterns and explore our beliefs?

Figuring Out Your Belief About the World

Our beliefs and worldview are deeply ingrained from childhood. We may not even be able to pinpoint exactly how they originated. We may also believe that there’s no way we still share those familial patterns and traits.

I often hear from people who say they’re nothing like their parents or who really hate it when their spouse says, “you’re just like your mom/dad.” Why does that statement get under our skin? Because we want to believe we’re different. Many of us want to believe that we’re completely independent products of our own choosing. We want to think we’ve identified weaknesses and shortfalls in our parents, and we’ve altered our trajectory. We’ve broken away from our family background.

But it’s incredible that when we scratch away the surface and look a little deeper, almost without fail, there are similarities between people and their parents. These family patterns run deep. It’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes we may model many good behaviors, morals, and values passed down from our parents as well. Even family patterns may be positive, but it’s important that we recognize them and explore them to better understand how they tie into our lives today.

Our beliefs are set up when we’re very young. We may view the world as dangerous because our parents hovered around us in fear, warning us to be careful. We may see the world as open to us because our parents empowered us to go for what we wanted. These seemingly small moments in our childhood shape us well into later in life.

It’s not always our parent’s “fault” either. As Alfred Adler tells us, we formed limiting beliefs as children simply because the world is big and children are small. As a result, we faced restrictions and activities we couldn’t do because of our age or size, reinforcing the idea we were somehow inadequate.

Even if we had a perfect childhood (which no one experiences), the world around us reinforces our limiting beliefs when we’re young. So as adults, we must work to explore and even overcome those beliefs so we can live up to our fullest potential.

When people look at their family background and patterns, they often focus only on the surface. We put our siblings and parents into roles. Someone is the “good son” or the favorite. Another person might be the difficult parent or the challenging sister. We engage in the same interactions time and time again because we’ve set up roles that are comfortable for everyone. These family patterns come out when we interact with our family, and they show up in other areas of our life, too (like at work).

Addressing Family Drama

Stephen Karpman, MD, tells us about the drama triangle. In many relationships, we fall into a dramatic pattern of one of three roles: victim, persecutor, and rescuer.

When it comes to family, many of us look at our family members and quickly identify who falls into what role of the drama triangle. Mom, Dad, or an older sibling might act as the persecutor. There’s always a victim. Then there’s a rescuer who swoops in and fixes everything. Middle children often end up being the mediator or the rescuer. Sometimes, when the parent is the persecutor, the role of the rescuer falls on the firstborn—the one who fixes everything. But as we quickly learn about the rescuer, they will rescue others from everyone but themselves.

The drama triangle can be a sticky family pattern to break out of. It may feel deeply ingrained into our family background—so much so that we may have a tough time admitting which role or roles we play and how we’re repeating it even today.

First, the good news: we no longer need to fall into these family roles as adults. We can recognize these patterns and take responsibility for our role in the drama triangle. Instead of taking on the family background and pattern, we can choose to step out and refuse to participate. To break out of the pattern of the drama triangle, everyone needs to take responsibility for their own feelings and their own satisfaction in relationships.

Because we only control our own behavior, it’s incumbent on us to explore our beliefs and their origins.

We must each do the work to recognize our patterns and take responsibility for our role in the situations presented by our family background. But remember, we can only change ourselves. Unfortunately, we can’t force our adult siblings or aging parents to acknowledge their role or change their behavior.

We can, however, engage in honest, open discussions and share our feelings. We can express our wants and yearnings. Explain to our family members how we feel, where we’re planning to change, and our expectations for the situation.

When It Comes to Family Conflict, Don’t Avoid It

If we grew up in a conflict-avoidant household, chances are we don’t like to rock the boat. We may think it’s easier not to deal with these family patterns, avoid them, and keep moving forward. We may even deny that there’s anything there to acknowledge or work on.

Yet, the avoidance itself is still a continuation of those old family patterns and beliefs. We believe it’s easier not to express our feelings. Perhaps we think we’re bad, we’re wrong, we’re too much, or we’re not enough. We harbor these limiting beliefs and let them hold us back from expressing our truth.

These limiting beliefs and ideas continue to damage our relationships. They keep us feeling disempowered and helpless. They’re reflected in our beliefs about ourselves and our confidence. They keep us stuck in a self-fulfilling prophecy trap. Instead, imagine what would happen if we embraced honesty and expressed how we felt when we visited our family members.

Yes, there might be a family conflict. In fact, there might be several members of our family who aren’t thrilled about what we’re going to say. They might even be hurt, and it might result in the bubbling up of different feelings. But if we operate under the rules of engagement (as outlined in our book, The Heart of the Fight), we will have productive conflicts to bring us closer together.

In the book, we offer several rules of engagement. These rules are essential for any situation but are especially crucial in our most intimate, close relationships—our spouse and our family connections.

The rules of engagement are:

• Accentuate the positive.
• Minimize the negative.
• No one gets more than 50% of the blame.
• Each person is 100% responsible for their happiness.
• Express and agree with the truth, always.
• Fight FOR the relationship, not against.
• Assume goodwill.

When we follow these seven rules, our conflict becomes productive, no matter the situation. No longer are we bickering or fighting to prove the other person wrong. When we use this approach to conflicts and discussions with our family, we avoid falling into the drama triangle and going through the same damaging patterns from our family background again and again.

Now, as I said, each person in your family only has control over their own behavior. A sister or brother may drive us nuts with the way they parent their children or their interactions with our parents. Rather than swooping in to critique (as the persecutor), fix (as the rescuer), or pout (as the victim), we stop the cycle by recognizing our role and choosing a different path.

How do we bring this idea up with our family members so we all have a better time during the next get-together? We can explain to them we’ve been exploring our behavior patterns and our personal growth. We can tell them we’d like to help set a different tone for this interaction. Then follow the rules of engagement above.

It can also be helpful to focus on the real purpose of the family interaction. For example, if it’s Thanksgiving, what is the real purpose? Is it to sit around and eat turkey with people who irritate us? Or is it to recognize the aspects of our family we love and appreciate? Could expressing our appreciation for them set a different tone?

When the inevitable drama arises, what if we break the family pattern by refusing to engage and instead say, “This upsets me. I want to discuss this more in-depth when we’re in an appropriate, one-on-one setting. Since today is a holiday, let’s spend time loving and appreciating each other.” Then move forward.

At the same time, if we want to change the situation, we should also commit to setting aside time to discuss the topics we want to address. Don’t simply ignore or bury the conflict. Address it, obeying the rules of engagement.

Breaking out of patterns in our family background is a huge, lifelong job. It takes work and self-exploration. It requires us to get to know ourselves and get honest with ourselves about our thoughts and behaviors. It requires us to be honest with our family too. But when we take the time to become more mindful of these patterns, we’re on the right path.

For more ways to find empowerment, please visit WrightNow, where you can explore our array of courses to help you get ahead in your career, relationships, and personal life. These courses are an excellent resource for anyone who wants to discover ways to live a life of MORE.

The Wright Foundation for the Realization of Human Potential is a leadership institute located in Chicago, Illinois. Wright Foundation’s performative learning programs are integrated into the curriculum at Wright Graduate University.

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How many of us have heard, “fake it ‘till you make it,” when we wonder how to increase confidence?.

We live in a culture that reveres self-confidence and self-assuredness, but as it turns out, there may be a better approach to success and personal development: self-compassion. While self-confidence makes you feel better about your abilities, it can also lead you to vastly overestimate those abilities, wrote Kristin Wong in her recent piece in the New York Times.

Maybe we’ve heard that self-confidence is the key to getting that new job, landing a date, or making a new connection. Everywhere we look, we’re led to believe that if we simply pretend to project confidence, we’ll succeed—and if we’re not confident enough, we’re doomed to fail. We may look for ways to increase our self-esteem and self-assuredness because we’re hoping to “trick” others into believing we’re better than we think we actually are.

In reality, the opposite may be true about faking confidence. Projecting over-confidence can become a detriment rather than a sign of strength. We’re far better off learning not to lean too hard on our inner-blow-hard OR our inner-critic. Instead, it’s more important to listen to our inner realists, assess the situation, and then use self-compassion and self-affection to nurture and care for ourselves. We can and should identify our weaknesses, of course. But rather than beating ourselves up over challenges, we’d do better to focus on how to use them as an opportunity to grow and expand our capacity.

The Question isn’t How to Improve Self Confidence, But How to Identify Blind Spots

I recently had a conversation with a team member who also happens to be in one of our leadership training groups. He brought up concerns he’s having with a fellow member of the group.

“He’s overconfident in his leadership abilities. It’s actually holding him back. It keeps him from identifying the challenges and growth areas he needs to work on. It’s like he turns a blind eye to any sign of weakness.”

We all have blind spots.

When we meet someone, who refuses to recognize areas where they’re challenged, we should realize they are actually in a very fragile position.

Overconfidence isn’t often a genuine state, and their outer shell of confidence is just waiting to be cracked, uncovered, and disturbed.

When this reality check happens, it’s often particularly difficult for them. In fact, it may be earth-shattering when he or she has to face the truth. It isn’t that they need to learn how to increase confidence, but they need to learn how to increase self-awareness.

In studies about kids and resiliency, it’s been discovered that kids who are congratulated frequently for being inherently smart or “born with talent” tend to rest on their laurels. They learn they can rely on their wit and intelligence to get through any situation. In some ways, they become overconfident in their abilities and talents.

On the other hand, kids who are congratulated for trying hard develop resilience and grit. They keep trying and don’t give up. Rather than simply believing they’re smart, they learn they are ABLE. They learn to have self-efficacy—the belief that they can do something. This belief in their own capability and coping skills serves them well into the future. No matter what challenges they face, they realize they’re able to experiment until they find a resolution. They understand the power of trial and error. They’re not frightened by uncertainty because they recognize challenges are simply part of growing.

The idea of grit doesn’t apply to kids-only. Adults can learn to be grittier too. We learn far more from mistakes than we do from our successes. When we push ourselves to do everything “right” or believe we always know the answer, what happens when we fail? What happens when we face a situation where we really don’t know what to do? We may find that we veer toward the safe zone, and we don’t go out of our range of comfort. This limits our experiences and can hold us back from many great opportunities in life. We may be missing out on the whole picture around us.

As I counseled my leadership group member about their peer—many times, those who can’t recognize their ability to fail are setting themselves up for a major failure. We all have blind spots, and it’s foolish to believe they aren’t there simply because we can’t see them.

Over-confidence keeps us from being really present and aware of our interactions. We can’t truly engage with others—find opportunities to learn and grow from them—if we believe we already know all the answers.

When Confidence Can Set Us Up for Failure

In the late 70s, I was teaching a course at a blue-collar trade school. The students and I had enjoyed a fantastic semester together, and I was deeply honored when I was invited to deliver their graduation address. I felt overly confident in the situation. I believed we were there to celebrate what we’d done with the students. This felt like a situation where we’d toast each other and give out pats on the back.

I confidently assumed my audience would be filled with people who would want to hear us cheer ourselves on. I hadn’t reckoned with the fact that the audience would really be filled with mothers, dragging along belligerent, resentful fathers who didn’t want to sit through a long, self-congratulatory graduation ceremony about the values of higher education were touted. Many of these fathers hadn’t had the opportunity to finish high school, let alone trade school. They were just waiting for a chance to shoot at someone.

And shoot they did.

Because I went into the situation over-confidently, these fathers were ready to take me down. I set myself up for a nightmarish experience of being heckled. What followed was one of the most humbling experiences of my career up to that point.

In hindsight, I realized I walked into the situation believing I was failure-proof. I was cocky and self-assured. I didn’t consider the feelings or viewpoints of those I was hoping to inspire (or at least, hoping not to tangle with). Because of my over-confidence, I was headed for a sure fall.

When we go headlong into a situation with too much confidence, we often fail to plan for contingencies. We don’t look at how we will cope if a situation doesn’t pan out as expected because we think we know it all.

In truth, we can all fail at any time. In fact, it’s often at our most confident and self-assured, we trip up or get our world completely rocked out of the blue. We find ourselves truly blindsided.

Self-Compassion Over Self-Confidence

We have to understand that self-confidence isn’t bad or wrong, but arrogance or a failure to see our blind spots puts us in a vulnerable place. We may be wondering how we strike a balance—how do we keep our eyes open to these pitfalls while maintaining a healthy sense of self-esteem? How do we like ourselves without becoming arrogant?

Just as Ms. Wong reported in her Times piece, the goal isn’t to beat ourselves up over feeling confident or knocking ourselves down a few pegs. The goal is to practice more self-affection and self-care. When we feel powerless or like we lack control over our circumstances, we can embrace the vulnerability and find our inner grit to continue.

We may feel that a display of confidence is where we find the most power, but it’s not. As Wong writes, “Self-compassion, on the other hand, encourages you to acknowledge your flaws and limitations, allowing you to look at yourself from a more objective and realistic point of view. Both have merits, but many experts believe self-compassion includes the advantages of self-confidence without the drawbacks.”

When we treat ourselves as someone who’s learning, who’s capable of making mistakes, but sees them as opportunities for growth, we’re nurturing ourselves.

We’re realizing that we’re human—wonderful and amazing, but still on a path to growth. We’re not perfect because no one is. We’re on a journey of learning and striving to be better each day.

Many of us look at our kids, our friends, and even our spouses, and we may be able to quickly identify their flaws. In fact, those flaws or weaknesses may even cause us to feel MORE compassionately toward them. We’re forgiving of them because we recognize no one does everything perfectly all the time. We love them anyway.

Yet, when it comes to ourselves, we don’t want to admit we’re also learning as we go along. We cringe at our mistakes and beat ourselves up for missteps—replaying them over and over. But in life, our opportunities to grow and learn from each experience are limitless. It’s this growth that adds interest and excitement to life. Each new adventure and challenge helps us feel fuller and more alive.

So give up faking confidence and aim for self-affection and compassion instead! The next time you make a mistake, give yourself kudos for discovering an opportunity to learn, emerge and evolve. Be kind to yourself and keep moving forward as you discover more about how resilient you are!

For ideas on ways to get MORE out of life, don’t miss our courses on Wright Now. We have opportunities to learn more about your career, relationships, and personal growth. If you’re ready to live life to your fullest potential, start today!

The Wright Foundation for the Realization of Human Potential is a leadership institute located in Chicago, Illinois. Wright Foundation’s performative learning programs are integrated into the curriculum at Wright Graduate University.

The post How to Improve Self-Confidence (Hint: It May Be Overrated) appeared first on Wright Foundation.

Are there people you admire and want to emulate? Here’s how to embrace your heroic side!

Do you ever wonder how to be a hero? Maybe you look up to someone great and think, “I wish I could be more like her!” Perhaps you’d like to invoke some of those more heroic traits in your own life.

First, it’s important to remember each of us has unique strengths and qualities we bring to the table. We may look to someone else and wonder how to be a hero (just like we think they are), but chances are, if we looked behind the curtain, we’d find they also struggle sometimes. Their life may not be all the glamour we imagine.

Looking up to someone we admire shouldn’t be about jealousy, comparison, or FOMO. It should be about discovering the principles and values that drive our hero. When we find out those core drivers, we can use them in our own growth and development. We can start to emulate those same principles and learn to live a principled life of our own.

Emulating Our Heroes

The term hero is used to describe anyone we admire. We may think of sports heroes, superheroes, celebrities, artists, great minds, or even friends we look up to. When we think of what makes someone a hero, they usually live up to some higher standard. They’re exceptional at athletics, at leadership, at creativity, or humanitarian acts. We may think of someone great at entertaining, who is at the top of their field, or who pushes beyond their limits.

It’s important to have heroes—people you believe live according to higher principles—whom you can strive to emulate. These are the individuals who provide us with examples, who give us glimpses of what is possible.

Yet too often, we see the power of the person’s life and decide that they are beyond us, that we can’t do what they do, that they are exceptional and different from us. We become jealous or hateful toward them because we think they have what we lack. Rather than put the person on a pedestal, or conversely, try to knock them off, we can choose to see how they live and identify the principles toward which they align. Rather than just thinking, Oh, isn’t she amazing, we can ask ourselves, “How does she live, to what principles is she orienting, and how can I do that in my life? How did Jesus live and how could I do that in my life? How did Martin Luther King live and how can I do that? How did Mother Teresa live and how can I do that?” When you look at athletes, rather than just admiring their accomplishments and seeing them as entirely different from you, see their commitment to excellence and consider how you might replicate that in your own life.

Whoever these amazing people are, look beyond the person and see the principles that are at work in their lives. Your heroes didn’t come out of the womb fully developed and accomplished; they oriented to principles moment by moment and created the life that you now admire.

The One Decision

Embracing Life Principles

What are these hero principles? Do we need to understand them to know how to be a hero? When we talk about principles, we’re referring to the guidelines that we all use to live our lives—our moral compass, our conscious, personal mantra, or values that shape who we are and what we do. Each of us lives our lives oriented to certain principles, whether we realize that we’re living that way or not.

We may live by the principle of intent, or we may live by the principle of victimhood.

We may live by the principle of responsibility or the principle of blame.

Do we see ourselves as the creator of our life experience, or are we simply reacting to the experiences as they come along?

If we’ve never explored our principles and drivers, then comparing ourselves to our hero is a great incentive to dive in. Look around at your friends, loved ones, and the allies in your life. What principles do they embody? For example, I’ve always felt Bob embodies the principle of truth. He’s honest about his feelings and opinions in all situations. He holds to his personal truths and uses them to guide all his decisions.

As we discover these qualities in those around us, we may realize many heroes surround us! Heroism isn’t limited to celebrities or sports figures. Our heroes may be our teachers, our friends, our coworkers, or acquaintances. We can look at the traits we admire in others and figure out what drives them, then work toward embracing those principles within our own lives.

Not only that—but we can all learn how to be a hero in our own right, as well. Each of us possesses many heroic traits we can choose to discover, enhance, and use to drive ourselves toward a life of greater purpose and enjoyment. When we start to embrace our inner hero, we may find that we’re impacting those in our circle of influence and beyond.

Many of us may not realize that aliveness itself is a life principle. Each day we can choose to live with more “aliveness,” more connections, and more engagement. It may sound funny to think of living with more “aliveness,” but how many days do we simply go through the motions? How often do we dull our senses, find ways to zone out, or waste time using soft addictions?

Instead, when we live with aliveness, we start to tune in to the world around us. We open up our hearts and minds to new ideas. The lights go on, and we awaken to more joy and fresh experiences. In every moment, we strive to be more of who we are. We choose to engage with those around us: to connect, to listen, to learn, and to share. At each moment, we can choose to embrace our emotions—joy, fear, anger, sadness, and hurt. We can orient toward our feelings or shy away from them.

Have More Fun with Play

Hand in hand with the principle of aliveness is the principle of play. Now many of us may think of play as “kid stuff” or frivolous. But adults must spend time playing too. When we play, we learn, we grow, we discover. Better still, we have fun. We embody heroism because we’re enjoying ourselves—people want to be like us. It’s within each of us to embrace play in our day-to-day lives. When we play, we’re more alive and present. We’re nourished. We’re enlivened and open to new experiences.

If we want examples of incorporating more play in our lives, we can watch little kids at play. They take it very seriously. They take risks. They experiment. They beg grownups to push them higher on the swing set or to “do it again!” They aren’t afraid to get creative, to use their imagination, and to pretend. They aren’t self-conscious. They go all in.

We should incorporate these elements of play into our own lives. Even the staunchest CEO or most analytical computer programmer can add an element of play to every action they undertake. Challenge yourself to go further. Look for new ways to think of projects. Experiment with new ideas and embrace and learn from mistakes. Play involves plenty of trial and error, but the stakes don’t feel so high because, after all—we’re having fun!

When we talk of values and principles, we often think of a stoic, reverent, “principled” person. Yet, the principles of aliveness, play, and living in the here and now are equally as crucial as reverence and seriousness. Of course, principles like truth, responsibility, and choice are also vital to living a good life. We may see many of these qualities in the heroes we admire as well. A principled person holds to these high standards—they embody and emulate positive principles (but they also do it with joy).

Mahatma Gandhi said, “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” So when we look at figures like the Dalai Lama or Gandhi as examples of heroes, we may start to see something interesting. Yes, they often hold very high principles, but with a twinkle in their eye—a spark and a sense of humor. That’s the aliveness that we’re seeking. It’s that joy that makes a hero truly dynamic and magnetic. People are drawn to their kindness, their goodness, and their happiness. We want to be like them because we see that they enjoy who they are.

So if you want to become more like your hero, take a look at their qualities. Many heroes operate from a place of love, truth, faith, abundance, and responsibility.

They believe they’re in control of their lives, choose who they want to be, and decide what they want to do. They don’t blame others. They don’t pass the buck or shirk responsibility. Instead, they own up to mistakes and use those mistakes as opportunities for growth.

We can each become the hero of our life adventure. If we wonder how to be a hero, we can also do a little exercise to get our gears moving on the concept. If we were someone else’s hero, what would we want them to say about us? When we’re noticed, how do we want people to notice us? How would we want to be described by those who admire us?

She embraces life with joy.

He’s engaged and exuberant!

She lives life fully with no excuses.

He always accepts his responsibilities and gains strength from setbacks.

Sometimes, we gain a clearer picture of how to be a hero when we think of it from an outside perspective. How do we want others to see us? How can we move toward that concept and realize our inner hero more fully?

Discover what principles are most important to you in your life and make them part of your personal values. We can each live a heroic life!

For more ways to discover your fullest potential, explore our courses at Wright Now. We have an array of online classes and discussions that can help you make new connections in your career, relationships, and personal growth. Start living a life of MORE today!

The Wright Foundation for the Realization of Human Potential is a leadership institute located in Chicago, Illinois. Wright Foundation’s performative learning programs are integrated into the curriculum at Wright Graduate University.

The post How to Be a Hero (to Yourself and Others) appeared first on Wright Foundation.

Do you ever wonder how to feel okay? Sometimes we all have times when we feel inadequate or like we don’t measure up.

This can be an especially strong feeling if we’re recently single, going through a tough time, or have had our confidence shaken.

How do you value yourself? What if you feel like no one else values or appreciates you? Can you fake it ‘til you make it when it comes to having confidence and self-worth?

These questions speak to our deepest concerns about ourselves. Many of us believe we’re inadequate or view our relationships as a way to measure our worth. We might wonder how to feel okay without getting approval and validation from others.

The truth is, feeling okay—heck, feeling great—about yourself is a choice. It’s all up to us to decide to feel okay. Here’s how to choose to feel good about who you are every day.

Learning How to Believe that You Are Enough

Recently, I was working with a group of singles here at the Wright Foundation. We were discussing how many of them looked at being single as a deficit. They thought their single status indicated an inherent flaw or shortcoming on their part; singlehood meant they weren’t worthy of love. They wondered how to be okay with themselves when they were on their own.

As we continued the discussion, they started coming around to the idea that it’s perfectly okay to be single. Likewise, it’s okay to like and value yourself even if no one currently values you romantically.

It’s easy to talk about self-esteem and the importance of feeling confident. But it’s a whole other ball of wax to really value ourselves completely.

We can ask ourselves, “do I view myself as a blessing to the world? Do I think of myself as a gift? Do I realize that other people are fortunate to be around me, and my presence enhances their lives?”

Chances are, we might have a hard time really believing those answers to be true. Many of us feel like we’re arrogant or “full of ourselves” when we think of ourselves in such high regard. Yet, at the same time, many of us struggle to value ourselves at all.

The truth is that each of us is a gift to the world. Each human being has intrinsic value and worth, even at those times when we don’t really feel it. Even in those moments when we don’t believe it one bit! We’re worthy even when we feel crummy. We’re worthy when we make mistakes, mess up, feel we’re alone in the world, or have a terrible day. We’re valuable when we’re sick and when we’re well. We’re still worthy humans, even when we don’t know how to feel okay about ourselves and we’re struggling.

Many of us think we need to feel good to be worthy. If we want to believe we’re a blessing to those around us, we need to feel like we’re contributing something of worth. We need to know that we have value and feel our worth to know we’re worthy.

But it’s really, much simpler than that. We can be worthy—we can feel okay and even good about ourselves by deciding to be a blessing to others. We will feel it as soon as we accept the truth: Each of us is a gift to the world.

We offer something unique to those around us. We have value, and we have influence. We can impact those around us in small ways that add up to a big ripple effect out into the world. When we start to believe that we’re important and that we’re able to influence others, we will begin to see our confidence grow. We’re essentially following the adage, “Fake it ’til you make it.”

We start to see this concept from Eric Berne in his work on Transactional Analysis and his book, “I’m Okay, You’re Okay.” Berne explored how our relationship with others is viewed as a game, enforcing and reinforcing our beliefs about ourselves.

People tend to think “okay” is a feeling. We’re waiting for it to happen to us out of the blue. We’re hoping the stars will align, and we’ll feel “okay.” Or we look to our relationships with others to reassure us that we’re okay.

In truth, okay is a choice. Feeling okay is a decision we must make.

You may feel like absolute garbage and say, “this proves that I’m garbage.” Or you may feel like garbage and realize, “I’m an okay person who just feels like garbage right now.” When we accept that we’re all okay (even if we feel like crap), then we realize that we’re so much more than our circumstances.

Fighting the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

We learn how to be okay more and more as we shift our perspective and adjust our expectations of ourselves. It’s not that we’re fighting against the idea of self-improvement, but we should fight against the idea that however we feel in the moment is how we “are” inherently.

We’re really combating this idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy. When we feel bad, we believe that we ARE bad. When we believe this misconception, we start putting the idea out there in the world, and we present ourselves as unworthy. We walk into the room with our heads down. We hold back from engaging. We slump. We carry ourselves like we feel undeserving.

Because of how we carry ourselves and engage with the world, people perceive us as being less-than and treat us as such. It isn’t a conscious reaction but rather how they react to our presence. This reaction only serves to reinforce our original limiting belief.

We look back at an interaction that didn’t go well and go, “See, I was right! I knew it was going to turn to sh*t,” and the cycle of the self-fulfilling prophecy trap continues. We keep up the pattern because each interaction reinforces the idea that we hold of how we aren’t okay.

The good news is that it’s within our power to break out of our self-fulfilling prophecy trap. The pattern of the self-fulfilling prophecy can happen in reverse if we follow the idea of “fake it ‘till you make it.” When we put on an air of being okay, we may find that we start to believe that we ARE actually okay.

We can act as though we believe we are a gift. Act as though we believe we have intrinsic value. Act as though we believe we are a blessing in the world and a blessing to those around us. When we start to act like we’re a gift, the world will begin to reinforce the idea as well. Other people will start to treat us with value. When we believe we are okay, we will begin to truly feel that we’re alright.

When the world sees us as a blessing, it starts challenging those limiting beliefs that we’re not a blessing, don’t have value, or are not okay. The decision to lift from that attitude is critical.

We’ve all heard “fake it ‘till you make it,” and it’s really true. It’s an excellent way to break our limiting beliefs and stop the cycle of the self-fulfilling prophecy.

A Lesson from the King & I: How to Fake It ‘Til You Make It

In the classic musical The King & I, there’s a scene that really sticks with me. The main characters—a British schoolteacher and her son—are landing in Bangkok Harbor. They’re looking out on this foreign landscape. They see new people they don’t know, dressed in unfamiliar clothing (the story takes place in the mid-1800s). The teacher and her son are afraid. To them, the strangers appear fierce and scary.

The mother turns to her son and begins to sing:

Whenever I feel afraid
I hold my head erect
And whistle a happy tune
So no one will suspect
I’m afraid 

While shivering in my shoes
I strike a careless pose
And whistle a happy tune
And no one ever knows
I’m afraid 

The result of this deception
Is very strange to tell
For when I fool the people
I fear I fool myself as well!

I whistle a happy tune
And ev’ry single time
The happiness in the tune
Convinces me that I’m not afraid 

Make-believe you’re brave
And the trick will take you far
You may be as brave
As you make believe you are

This is quite powerful advice from a Rogers and Hammerstein classic (and a catchy tune). It’s really a matter of how we choose to hold ourselves and present ourselves to those around us.  If we’re afraid we don’t have worth, we can fake it until we fool ourselves as well.

I really think people confuse feeling bad, sad, or hurt, for being bad, sad, or hurt. It’s called emotional reasoning. It’s believing that what I feel currently is what I am. Instead, we can decide to break this self-fulfilling prophecy pattern.

Similar to how we say love is a choice—we choose to love another person—we can also choose to love ourselves. We decide to appreciate the value we have and the blessing that we are. Even if we don’t feel okay in the moment, we can act as though we believe we’re okay. We can choose to present ourselves as a person of worth. In doing so, others will see our worth and reflect it back to us.

While being single or looking for someone to value us romantically may cause us to feel undervalued and “not okay,” the more we look beyond our relationships to define our worth, the more we find worth within ourselves, and the more confidence we’ll put forth into the world. We can choose to go forward with as much confidence as we can muster.

“You may be as brave as you make believe you are!” When we pretend that we’re brave, we may find that we get some surprisingly positive results.

For more on building your confidence, don’t miss our courses available at Wright Now. We offer many great learning opportunities for personal growth, a better career, and stronger relationships. Explore the path to your next most radiant self today!

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The Wright Foundation for the Realization of Human Potential is a leadership institute located in Chicago, Illinois. Wright Living performative learning programs are integrated into the curriculum at Wright Graduate University.

The post How to Feel Okay: Making the Choice to Fake It ‘Til You Make It appeared first on Wright Foundation.