“A difficult time can be more readily endured if we retain the conviction that our existence holds a purpose, a cause to pursue, a person to love, a goal to achieve.” ~ John Maxwell
Words of Wisdom
Reply
Monthly Archives: July 2011
Words of Wisdom
To think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral down into ever increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires effort. This is one of the things that discipline – training – is about.
— James Clavell, in his novel “Shogun”
Inspiration of the Week
Will and I could hardly wait for the morning to come to get at
something that interested us. That’s happiness.
— Orville Wright, co-inventor of the airplane
How to let go for the Need of Approval
The need for approval kills freedom.
Trust me, I know, because I spent my entire life seeking approval until I realized it was a waste of time and didn’t work anyway. The desire to get people to like me motivated the majority of my choices and actions in early life.
Queen of social chameleons, I mastered the art of telling people what they wanted to hear and being someone they would find impressive—all the while worrying incessantly about what others thought of me, fearing criticism, and holding myself back as a result.
When I first started building my coaching business, this craving for acceptance caused me to hide from opportunities where the potential for reward was high, but the possibility for criticism was equally large.
As an example, one of my first client referrals was to coach the CEO of a major corporation. It’s painful to admit that I told my client I wasn’t the right person for the job and referred the person to someone else.
My need for approval created immense anxiety about the value I provided for my clients and caused me to spend far too much time on tasks in order to perfect them.
It got to the point where I was wasting so much time and losing so many opportunities that I had to make a big decision: either let the business go or learn how to get over myself!
One Minute Meditation
Inspirational Wisdom
“When I was young, I had to choose between the life of being and the life of doing. And I leaped at the latter like a trout to a fly. But each deed you do, each act, binds you to itself and to its consequences, and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a space between act and act when you may stop and simply be.
Or wonder who, after all, you are. “
-Ursula K LeGuin