Category: The Top 1% Mindset: Optimism, Mental Clarity, Happiness, and Motivation

It is your responsibility to stop thinking negative thoughts about yourself before they become fixed in your mind as beliefs. Smile. Say something nice about yourself. Make a list of your blessings.

Social Anxiety: Is It Killing Your Career?

“Don’t let the world change your smile.  Let your smile change the world.”  A Work in Progress by Connor Franta

Social anxiety is common.  People who are shy are not the only people who experience social anxiety.  People who are confident about what they say or do around friends and family may feel social anxiety when they are among strangers or in front of an audience.

Social anxiety can make you avoid opportunities for work, fun, and networking.  It can cut your opportunities for leadership roles.  Your anxiety can generate signals that make it harder for people to reach out to you.

Smile

“I’ll take a person with humor much more seriously than someone without one.” Networking is a Contact Sport by Joe Sweeney

There are many things that you can do to calm your jitters.  Perhaps the most overlooked way is simply to smile.  People smile when they are happy.  And equally important is that smiling can help you feel happy.  “Fake ’till you make it” is an ambiguous term.  Some people see it as a disingenuous way of faking your skills.  Another view, is that faking confidence can help you gain confidence. A smile triggers thoughts that generate happiness.
The smiley face emoji says to other people you approve of what they have to say.  Smiling has a similar effect.  It tells people you approve of them.  It creates trust and helps people open up to you.

You are generating charisma.  People find your presence attractive.  Your smiling helps people feel more confident and comfortable being around you.  In turn, they smile and you feel confident from their signal of approval.

A frown will chase away friends.  Ah, but there is something about a smile that attracts people and draws people to you.

So, let it go.  When you see people, start with a smile.  As people approach, nod and smile.  When you are shaking hands with people, look at them and smile.

People do many ways to think clearly.

Here are five of them.

Make lists.  For me, having a list of things to do helps me clear my mind.  Working with my list, I can think of one thing at a time.  I can focus on what I am doing.

Write things out.  When I am worrying about something or angry about something, I can write down what is bothering me.  I can write something as simple as, “I am angry at John, because he took criticized me in front of the other people in the meeting.”

Take responsibility for my actions.  When I make mistakes, I can admit my mistakes.  When I have offended someone, I can clear my mind by saying to that person that I regret what I said or did and that if I had it to do over, I would hopefully handle things differently.  Strangely, when I admit that I am wrong, I stop being angry or resentful.

Take breaks.  For me, a break can take many different forms.  I can step away from my desk and take a short walk.  I can spend time organizing things around my office.  Once a day, I stop for twenty-five minutes to lie down and focus on letting my muscles relax.  I just become aware of which part of my is not relaxed and release the tension.

Reduce distractions. I cannot watch a television program and listen to a person at the same time.  I cannot type on my computer and learn anything from a podcast at the same time.  Whenever I am expecting myself to handle two mental tasks simultaneously, I am not able to think clearly.

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Workplace Relationships: Accept, Change, or End (A.C.E.)

Sometimes, working with other people becomes difficult.   Carrying the problems in my head is stressful.  Understanding that I do have options helps me stop worrying and start working on solutions.

In dealing with relationship problems, in fact, in dealing with most problems, I can ask myself three questions.

Should I accept the situation, change the situation, or end the situation?

Accept

Accepting something does not mean that I like it.  It simply means that I am not going to focus my attention on an ongoing situation or behavior.

When should I accept the situation?  For example, if a co-worker is a few minutes late for work every day, the person’s behavior may annoy me.  The behavior may inconvenience for me.

I could try to correct the person.  However, correcting people can causes stress between those people and me.

If I go to a supervisor and complain, I create in the supervisor’s mind a mental connection between the bad behavior and me.  Even with the best intentions of improving a work situation, I become involved in a negative situation involving a co-worker.  I create stress for the supervisor, who now has to deal with a problem.

Additionally, I become known a person who gets involved in other people’s business.   Therefore, I should often accept the situation and focus on my work.

Change

Can I change the person’s behavior?  Changing my own behavior is not always easy.  I have to break old habits to start new habits.  Quitting fast-food restaurants, giving up junk food, failing to exercise, and staying up too late are hard habits to break.  Some positive habits are hard to form.  Arriving at appointments on time, remembering to say thank you, and letting people have room to merge in traffic are sometimes difficult things to do.  It is good for me to remember how difficult it is for me to end bad habits and form good ones.

When people do things that annoy me, I first take a look to see whether I can change my own behavior and make the situation better.  If necessary, I can speak with people about their behavior.  I remember to focus on the behavior and not the person.

Dealing with Difficult People

End

Should I end a relationship?  People change.  Their interests change.  People learn new things about each other.  I may need to end an unhealthy or a meaningless relationship.

Some work relationships are not required for getting a job done.  Ending unhealthy meaningless relationships is often the best thing for both people.

I try not to burn bridges.  I try not to make ending the work relationship a moment of closure.  Sometimes I find that it is better for me to just drift away from a work relationship.