Grattiude 2017

This has been a tough year for everyone. Emotionally, politically, economically and - well - just super stressful. Is there anything to be grateful about?  Yes. In fact, it’s times like this when we need to be grateful the most.

I say this a lot about compassion but it’s also true of gratitude. Gratitude isn’t something you do for someone else. It’s something you do for you.  It may also help the other person, but even if it doesn’t, it will definitely help you.

We humans spend a LOT of time in our own heads. We worry. We fret. We have angst and insecurities and doubts and fears.  When we take to the time to take stock of our lives, specifically focusing on the things that are good, a wonderful thing happens. We fret just a little less.  We remind ourselves that yes – life is worth living. That there is still some good in the world. And that fighting to protect what is good is worthwhile.  Not just for ourselves, but for others as well.

Motivating myself can be difficult at times. Reminding myself that there are other people and those other people are often really wonderful, helps me feel connected.  Yes, there is still hurt and suffering. But there are also people who give of themselves to make the hurt just a little less.

When I think back to the times in my life that were the most difficult, I also think of the people who cared for me enough to do little things that showed me they cared. This knowledge, that people care – even for total strangers. Is what love is about. It is the best of what humans are capable of.  It is inspiring and humbling and amazing and wonderful.

You all know I am not a big fan of the positive thinking movement. Positive thoughts don’t have magic powers. But consciously thinking about who and what you are grateful for, isn’t magic. It won’t magically make your problems go away. But it may just help you find the courage to keep going when the going gets tough.

My hope for you and all of humanity this holiday season is that we all remember that we are all in this thing called life together and the only thing that makes it bearable is the love we show to each other.

Facing Your Fears … in Business

Businesses are by definition public. For some people, that causes a lot of anxiety.

 Being professional isn’t always easy. I don’t know a single person who doesn’t occasionally suffer from self-doubt. For some people, this doubt – holds them back.  They don’t advocate for themselves or their ideas as they should. They accept working conditions that they shouldn’t and/or they allow customers or managers to treat them badly when they shouldn’t.

I don’t care who you are, at some point, you are going to struggle in business and in your professional life. There is no easy solution to the problems. Sometimes when you are going through hell, all you can do is keep going.

What I find helps me though, is my commitment to morality. Grounding my decisions in morality helps me find courage to face the whatever it is I need to face.  Because whatever is going on – isn’t just about me. It’s about others too.  While I might be quite willing to put up with quite a lot of BS, I’m less likely to allow others to be treated poorly.

The other thing grounding my thinking in morality does is it helps me to “fight the good fight” on behalf of what I know to be right.  Obviously – self righteous indignation can also be used for evil, but most of us won’t get anywhere close to falling off that ledge. Our problem is that we aren’t righteous enough.

If you find yourself struggling, go ahead and consider the moral ramifications of what is going on.  You may just find the motivation to do what is right and to insist on what is right despite all the pressure to stop. 

Learn more about how to integrate your morals into your decision making with – Planning for Personal Success – online course - https://humanistlearning.com/planforpersonalsuccess/

And finally, on the subject of fear. Allowing your fears to hold you back isn’t an option when you are advocating for what you know to be morally right.  When things matter, we will do what is necessary to make it happen. Mattering is a matter of morality. Don’t neglect your moral reasoning. It really will help.

Calculated Risk & Conditioning

The blog The Dolphin Divide has some really thought provoking articles.

In an article Seth posted last January, he talks about the intersection of risk taking and conditioning.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-dolphin-divide/201601/risky-business-the-psychology-facing-danger

Risk taking, to a certain extent, is adaptive. Some individuals are more risk adverse than others, but taking risks is a survival trait – within reason.  However, our evolutionary instinct to risk isn’t all that is happening.  We are also being conditioned to take risks or not take risks.

Whenever we do something, things happen. Sometimes those things are good, sometimes bad, sometimes totally irrelevant to us. These responses to our actions make us more or less inclined to do whatever it was we did again.

However, even if we are averse to something, we can be conditioned to do it anyway and to be less averse to it.  This is done all the time in animal training and it’s used with humans to help them overcome their phobias. It’s a technique called successive approximation.  This is where you don’t ask for the behavior you want; you just keep making small incremental adjustments until the animal is doing what you want.

In the context of helping an animal/human overcome fears, you slowly and incrementally expose them to whatever it is so they are desensitized to it.  For instance, if someone is afraid of spiders, you might show them a small photo of a spider on the other side of the room and encourage them to tolerate it. Then you would make the picture ever so slightly bigger and bigger and help them acclimate to it, then you would start moving the picture closer to them – ever so slightly.


The question is – how much risk can you encourage a human or animal to take? Lots. Lethally so.

My conclusion? Fear, if it is overwhelming and irrational is counterproductive.  Being fearless is also counterproductive.  This is why the 2 following truths are both contradictory and true at the same time.

“Courage is often lack of insight, whereas cowardice in many cases is based on good information.” - Peter Ustinov
&
“Courage is not the lack of fear. It is acting in spite of it.” - Mark Twain

Wisdom is not being at one extreme or the other, but in finding the right balance between the 2.

“We do not display greatness by going to one extreme, but in touching both at once, and filling all the intervening space.” – Blaise Pascal

Overcoming cynicism.

I have a friend who is cynical. He’s a wonderful person and I like him a lot, but he’s scared of a LOT of things.  He hides his fear behind cynicism.

Cynicism allows him to hide. He assumes that the world is full of bad things and bad people and uses that as an excuse to not engage with the world.  He stays off the internet. He doesn’t walk around his neighborhood to meet the neighbors.

Sure, there are bad things on the internet, but there are also wonderful things. There may be bad people in his neighborhood, but there are also a lot of wonderful people.

His cynicism is not based on experience. It’s based on assumption. Assumptions based on the things he has read that scare him. He gets his information and his fears from the media he is consuming, a media that is filled with fear mongering.

The irony is that if he chose to consume media that wasn’t feeding his fears, he would realize how much fear mongered non-sense he has actually been consuming and how much real harm this fear mongering is doing to him.

Critical Thinking Can Help

One of the reasons I teach critical thinking as a leadership skills is because a cynical person makes for a lousy leader. Cynical leaders don’t lead anyone anywhere except into a hiding hole. That’s not leadership. That’s more like the dad in the movie The Croods!

Cynicism is faulty reasoning.  It leads you to make decisions, not on reality, but on your fears that you are too fearful to question.  It’s a mental short cut that tells your brain, you don’t have to look too deeply into whatever is frightening you. Everything is awful and whatever the fear-monger is selling just confirms it. Heck the fact fear mongers exist confirms the  everything and everyone is awful bias that is cynicism. This is confirmation bias in action.

In order to make things better. In order to solve problems, you can’t just hide from them. You have to take constructive action to solve them.  All a cynic will do is complain and that isn’t leadership.

A leader learns how to put their fear away so that they can think clearly about the problem they face. They question their assumptions. Perhaps everything is awful. But that doesn’t mean we should hide. Maybe they can find a solution to the problem and make what was awful awesome!

And if that doesn’t convince you to challenge your own cynicism, consider this: what if you are wrong and things aren’t awful, they are awesome and you’ve been missing out on all that awesomeness. You won’t know until your change your thinking and take a chance.

Cynicism doesn’t make you smart. It makes you an idiot. 

And I mean that in the nicest possible way. (Note: my idiot comment does not apply to people who have PTSD and avoid things because they’ve actually had bad personal experiences with them. It only applies to people who assume things will be bad without actually having firsthand experience with it. Not everything is awesome and some things really are quite awful. Just don’t assume you know which is which until you’ve tried it.)

PS – if you want to learn how to more effectively evaluate the pros and cons of any given situation – consider taking Planning for Personal Success which is about how to more effectively make reality based decisions. And yes, you can self certify this course.

Overcoming Hurdles

I never ran track, but I still know enough to know that hurdles, when approached correctly, should not slow you down.

I have a confession to make. I am lazy. I don’t like to run. Never have. When I played soccer – I played center lurker. Get me the ball, I can get it in. But don’t ask me to play midfield – that requires too much running.

I never went out for track. I had friends that did and supported them, but it wasn’t for me. The race I like the most is the hurdles. Seeing people run and jump over hurdles while not slowing down is a beautiful thing. I like the human steeplechase the most.

Hurdles are a part of life. Not the racing hurdles, obviously, but the idea that there is something in your way you have to go over or around to keep going on your way. Hurdle is defined as an obstacle or difficulty. Unless you are insanely lucky, you are going to encounter hurdles in your life.  It’s best to prepare for them.

The way to prepare is to know and accept that they are there.  Imagine a hurdler runner just pretending that there are no hurdles on the track. Well, don’t imagine it – this is what it looks like.

It isn’t pretty. Sure – he makes headway for a bit and keeps going, but eventually the hurdles knock him down.

If you want to be successful at clearing hurdles, you need to plan your approach. And you can only plan your approach if you plan in advance for what you are going to do WHEN you encounter a hurdle.

In real life, the same principle applies. I realize that positive thinking is all the rage, but any time you fail to plan for hurdles, you are planning for failure.  My rule is to think of all the various ways things can go wrong and then plan for what I will do if the worst happens.  This way I am prepared and am able to clear the hurdles I encounter instead of going – hey – what’s this and why is it happening? Maybe I can ignore it – uhhh, nope.

To learn more about how to plan for success– take my online course: Planning for Personal Success: A Humanist Approach.

Dealing with Negative Emotions and Fear

We all experience fear at some point in our lives. Some of us more than others. How we deal with it and IF we deal with it impact our success in life.

Tiffany asks: 

How do I learn to deal with negative emotions without expecting a positive outcome if I choose to be courageous and take action in spite of my fears? What other motivation is there?

Answer: 

If you are going to take courageous action in spite of your fears - it's because you feel there is something positive to be gained from doing so.  That you might not succeed is part of that equation. If you feel it is important to try anyway - do it.

The way to deal with the fear and the negative emotions is to accept them as legitimate but decide to act anyway.  There is no rule that says - you have to be happy to do positive things.  If something is scary - it's scary.  It might not work out.  But if it is important to try - do it anyway.

The only time I have 2nd thoughts about things like this is if I might get injured or killed by doing so. Otherwise, I just accept the fear and the negative emotions - and do what needs to be done anyway.

The idea that you have to have positive emotions all the time - is unrealistic and unhelpful.  Accept the negative for what it is in the moment.  What happens is that AFTER you have acted in accordance with your moral values despite the pressure not to - THAT is when you feel good about yourself.  In the moment, it's nothing but anxiety and fear.   To get to the happy - you have to get to the other side. And to get there – requires action.

My favorite quote about this is from Winston Churchill.  If you are going through hell. Keep going.

The journey may not be pleasant, but the destination is sure to be better than your present.  Don't try to erase your negative emotions. Accept them and do what is right despite them.

Originally posted at: http://www.quora.com/How-do-I-learn-to-deal-with-negative-emotions-without-expecting-a-positive-outcome-if-I-choose-to-be-courageous-and-take-action-in-spite-of-my-fears

Don’t let fear hold you back

Fear has its place in our emotional toolkit, but it can immobilize us too. Learn how to have a healthier relationship with fear.

I have a theory about life.  To me, life is an exercise in learning to overcome fear.  It seems that every major lesson I learn has to do with overcoming fear.

Fear that I am inadequate. Fear that I will be hurt. Fear of change and fear of success. Fear of failure. Fear of other people. Fear of love. Fear that nobody likes me so I may as well eat some worms. You get the idea.

Some of this fear is rational. Some isn’t. Having been a victim of a stalking, I think some fear is quite rational. I read the book The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker and it really changed my life. I came to understand what fear does well for me and how it can get out of whack and what to do about that.

It turns out that, as hard as it seem, you can actually choose to override your fear instincts. It takes a combination of thinking and physical activity to do – but it can be done. Through therapy I learned how to interrupt a panic attack in process. Having experienced daily panic attacks for a couple of years, that was nothing short of amazing.

To me, the technique I was taught is very much akin to the practice of freethought and skepticism. When I feel fear and panic rising, I have to consciously acknowledge it. And, Only then can I do the breathing exercises that help calm me down. Once I am calmed, I can then question myself about why I was feeling the fear and panic. I can’t always identify it, but it always seems that once I do I lose the fear almost immediately. Granted, figuring out what makes me afraid requires me to be totally honest with myself and that can take some time, which is why talking to a therapist is so helpful.

Once I figure out what is making me afraid – I can then decide what to do about it. I have several options. I can confront it. I can avoid it. I can ignore it.  What I decide to do depends on whether I think the thing I am afraid of poses an existential threat or not. In other words, if I think whatever it is might kill me – I avoid it. If I think it won’t – I often decide to do the very thing I am afraid of just to get over my fear.

I’ve come across very few real threats to my life and limb when considering fear. Most often, it’s just social fear. Confronting those social fears has made me rather fearless.

If you find you suffer from fear that is immobilizing you, do something about it. Figure out if the fear is rational or irrational. If it is rational – avoid whatever it is. If it is irrational, confront it.  If you can’t tell or if you are really suffering and really immobilized by your fear – seek professional help! You will be glad you did.

What does it mean to think compassionately?

4 ways compassion helps us to think better.

1) Compassion works to calm our minds so we can think more clearly. I don’t do my best thinking when I am angry or upset.  I find I think better when I am calm and actively choosing to consider my problem or adversary compassionately helps me to reduce my anger and calm my mind so that I can think clearly.

2) Compassion helps us frame our interpersonal problems in a way that helps us better solve them.  Most of our difficulties are interpersonal. Either someone is annoying us or making our lives more difficult, or we are waiting on someone to do something for us so we can move forward with whatever it is we need to do. People are problematic. I find that when I stop focusing on what I need and start remembering that this other person, as much as I find them annoying, are doing what they do because they have their own problems and issues they are attending to, helps me to not only be less frustrated, but it helps me to figure out whether I can help them and thus help myself, or whether I need to work around them entirely. Regardless, compassion for even the most annoying people helps me to solve my problems with them more effectively.

3) Compassion helps us to exercise self-control when we should. When I am facing a problem, often, the best thing for me to do is nothing. But that’s really hard to do when I’m upset or frustrated. I find that compassion helps me calm myself down and calm my fears and frustrations and this in turns helps me not act rashly so that I am less likely to do something stupid that would make my problem worse.

4) Compassion helps us to find the courage to act when we must. Robert Ingersoll talked about wielding compassion like a sword. Compassion is an interesting emotion.  It is both fierce and unyielding and calming at the same time.  It is my compassion that makes me furious about public policy that causes the death of children through institutionalized violence against poor communities. And yet, it is also my compassion that helps me to calm the anger my compassion evoked so that I can actually solve the problem effectively. Anger is a great motivator, but I always find when I remind myself of the compassion that caused my anger, it is easier to invoke my compassion to reap the benefits of self-control and a calmed mind that only compassion can provide.

What does it mean to think compassionately?  It means to actively choose to be compassionate when you are most agitated and upset. Is it easy to do? No. It takes practice. But the more you practice, the easier it gets and the improvements in your thinking and outlook are immediate. Your  assignment for this week is to spend some time thinking about how you think about compassion.

Enjoy.

Facing Your Fears

3 tips on how to keep your fears from running your life.

Note: This post assumes run of the mill irrational fears and not phobia level fears.  If you have a phobia, seek the assistance of a professional. You will be glad you did.

When I was a child I used to have nightmares about a giant bunny that wanted to steal my hands. As long as my hands were under the covers, I was safe.  Whenever I woke up in the middle of the night I would make sure my hands were under the blankets and that was enough for me to calm my fears so I could go back to sleep.

I was reminded of this the other day because my son has bad dreams on occasion and he likes to hide under the covers to protect himself. I think we’ve all done this at some point. It’s irrational; after all, if there were a ghost or a monster, a bed sheet isn’t going to stop them. But, out of sight, out of mind.

Some of our fears are valid, others are irrational. All fears can be paralyzing so having a strategy to calm your irrational fears is essential. What can you do to help calm your fears short of hiding underneath the covers?

1. Face your fears. My mother taught me about lucid dreaming. She said, if you are running away from a monster in a dream, stop, turn around and confront them. As silly as this sounds, it actually works, most of the time anyway. It also works in real life. If you have an irrational fear, like the fear of public speaking, do it anyway. Just do it. You may find that you faint, or you may find that you survive. And the more you survive, the less afraid you will be in the future.
2. Ignore it. If you are worried about a future problem but you are also pretty sure that it is an irrational fear, decide to ignore it. Have a plan of what you will do IF it happens. It can be a very simple plan, then, give yourself permission to not worry about it anymore. You can deal with it IF it happens because now you have a plan. In the meantime, focus on something else. This technique does take practice but the more you do it the easier it is to do.
3. Think of Happy Thoughts. When my son has a nightmare, we discuss it for a little bit but then I direct the conversation to happier things until he is ready to go back to sleep. This is a lot like Professor Lupin teaching the Hogwarts kids how to deal with a boggart. Take what you fear, transform it into something silly and then stop being afraid of it. Again, learning how to transform your thoughts from fearful to happy is difficult to do when you first start, but with practice, it becomes easier, so don’t give up, keep practicing. Eventually you will find it easier and easier to do.

Hope this helps.  What is your favorite way to eliminate irrational fears?

Ethics requires courage

As a Humanist parent, like all parents, I want my son to succeed. More importantly, my hope is that he will become ethically courageous. I know that he will be well served if he can become confident in himself. 

Whether it is dealing with bullies or doing the right thing in a difficult situation, the problem seems to be one of confidence. If they are confident in themselves, they will have the courage they need to stand up and be ethical.

The problem with this is that teaching kids to be confident doesn’t help them. That is because confidence isn’t something you can teach. It has to be earned. The real question we should be asking is how to encourage kids, and adults for that matter, to learn the skills they need so that they can overcome the challenges they face so that they can become confident as individuals. The answer is in the root of encourage. And that is courage.

With my son, our biggest challenge is to get him to try. He has fears and in order to teach him new skills, we have to help him overcome those fears. Even learning to ride a bicycle required him to overcome the fear of falling. Our job is to help him find the courage to try and try again until he succeeds. As he succeeds, he gains confidence.

The same holds true to being an ethical person. The will to be good is there. The challenge is to be courageous enough to stand up for what is right. There are no shortcuts that work.

Part of being a Humanist is to choose to live life courageously. We don’t expect things to be easy. We expect to have to work to overcome the challenges we all face in life. So don’t focus on helping your child to be confident. Help them to be courageous instead. Having courage will serve them better throughout the course of their lives than being overly confident will.

How do you find courage? How do you help your child overcome his or her fears to become courageous?