Life Archives

The Hazards of Advice

08/30/202408/16/2024 by Gregg Vanourek

Article Summary:

Advice is common, and we tend to assume it’s helpful, but there are many hazards of advice that we fail to account for. 18 risks and flaws that come with advice.

++++++

Advice. It’s all around you. You may be drowning in it.

“You should do XYZ.”
“You need to get started on ABC, pronto.”

It comes from everywhere. From family, friends, colleagues, managers.

In most cases, their intent is good. They’re trying to help.

But many people don’t pay nearly enough attention to the negative unintended consequences of doling out advice. Sometimes advice does more harm than good.

Do you give unsolicited advice?
Are you, like so many of us, great at dishing out advice but terrible at taking it in?*
Have you ever shared a frustration with someone, really just wanting to vent about it, only to be on the receiving end of a tirade of advice from them?

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

The Problem with Advice: 18 Risks and Flaws

Most people think of advice as helpful, and in some cases it is. But in many cases it misses the mark or even causes unexpected problems.

Yet, the advice train keeps rolling, in part because people haven’t taken the time to consider its downsides.

Here are 18 risks and flaws that come with advice:

1. While giving advice can feel great to the giver, receiving it can feel awful. Have you ever felt smothered by advice? Does it sometimes feel intrusive? It can put you on the defensive and make you feel put down or judged.

2. Giving advice can signal to the other person that you lack faith in their abilities. It can send the subtle message—even if unintended—that they need you or can’t get by on their own.

“It’s so counterproductive to think you can solve anyone else’s issues, because what it says is that they are not capable. It’s about the worst thing you can do for another human being.”
–Karin Weber, author and life coach

3. Giving advice can undermine the other person’s confidence. Over time, that can impair their ability to address their own issues going forward.

4. Giving advice can create a cycle of dependency. It may feel good to have all the answers and be needed when people seek your advice. But you may be creating dependency on your expertise. They may start coming to you more and more. Meanwhile, you’re inadvertently preventing them from learning how to address things on their own.

5. Giving advice can be more about our own need to be helpful or to be seen as an expert or hero than about the other person’s needs. For many, giving advice can feel gratifying. It can make you feel smarter. Important and accomplished. Ask this: How much of it is really about you and your ego or control?

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

6. Advice often comes at the wrong time. In many cases, people go out looking for advice at precisely the times they’re least able to receive it—the times when they’re down, confused, or frustrated. Similarly, when you see someone struggling, you may jump in with advice without even considering their receptivity to it.

“To rush in with success formulas when someone is emotionally low or fatigued or under a lot of pressure
is comparable to trying to teach a drowning man to swim.”
-Stephen R. Covey, Primary Greatness

7. The actual value of advice is rarely put to the test. Giving advice is easy not only because it’s quick and cost-free but also because you don’t have to stick around and implement it—and suffer the consequences if things don’t go as planned. Most people have no clue about the success or failure rate of their advice. (How could they?) And they probably overestimate their success rate by wide margins. (More on that in a coming article.) Many times, you never find out what happened after you gave your advice. What’s more, you don’t know if things worked out because of or in spite of your advice (versus other possible factors). In truth, there are many variables at play, so it’s overly simplistic to think it’s the advice that made all the difference.

8. Your advice may work for you but that doesn’t mean it will work for them. When you’re giving advice, you’re doing so from your current perspective, from your levels of consciousness and awareness. You’re doing so from a certain level of understanding and experience. You come with your own history, outlook, strengths, weaknesses, personality, passions, and predispositions. Maybe your advice would work brilliantly for you, but it’s unrealistic for them, with their personality, skills, and background.

9. Context is essential, and often it’s incomplete or flawed. Sometimes, the person seeking or getting advice hasn’t done a good job of explaining the context and the core problem, setting the stage for incomplete or faulty advice. Or you jump in without a deep dive on the situation and all the players and factors.

“There are reasons why your ideas are often not that great. To start with, you don’t have the full picture. You’ve got a few facts, a delightful collection of baggage, a robust serving of opinion, and an ocean of assumption. You think you understand what’s happening. Your brain is designed to find patterns and make connections that reassure you that you know what’s going on. Trust me, you don’t. What you’ve got is one part truth and about six parts conjecture.”
-Michael Bungay Stanier, The Advice Trap

10. People asking you for advice may not have a good sense of what you really know well and what you don’t. They may have unrealistic expectations about the things you can speak about with authority. Many young entrepreneurs, for example, are hungry for advice as they build their new venture. Makes sense. When they approach a seasoned entrepreneur, they can have questions about a hundred things. Hiring. Onboarding. Tech platforms. Stock options. Cap tables. Seed rounds. Product launches. Sales. Pricing. Strategy. Business models. Customer development. Leadership. Culture-building. A.I. Can most entrepreneurs, even if successful, address all these issues with authority and conviction, tailored to all the markets and industries of the advice-seeking young founders?

11. Nobody wants to tell someone their baby is ugly. If someone comes to you seeking advice about their new idea (e.g., for a startup or a new approach), they’re unknowingly making it exceedingly awkward for you to give forthright input. Why? Because we humans are wired to avoid conflict and have difficult conversations. You might be tempted to place negative feedback in a “sandwich” of positives (as is commonly recommended), but that risks having the recipient miss the “meat” of what they really need to hear.

12. Most advice is woefully incomplete. Think about common advice you’ve heard a hundred times: Follow your passion. Find your purpose. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Go the extra mile. Drink a lot of water. Network. Meditate. Be grateful. Don’t go to bed angry. Etc. Etc. True, in many cases. Even helpful. But wretchedly oversimplified and missing essential elements. For example, how do you discover your passion? Do you have just one? What is purpose, and how do you find it? What to do after diversifying? And so on.

13. Advice can easily become overwhelming. All the aspects and steps may be clear to you, because you’ve been in a similar situation before. But it may all be new, daunting, and even confounding to them.

Personal Values Exercise

Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.

14. Giving advice can put distance in relationships. People may stop sharing concerns or problems with you because they know you’ll be too quick to jump in with your thoughts on what they need to do.

15. Advice can lead to resentment, which can poison relationships. Have you ever given advice and then felt frustrated that the person didn’t do what you said? In your mind, it may be perfectly clear and settled that they’ll go out and dutifully do exactly what you said. But maybe they had reservations about your advice based on their own experiences? Maybe they weren’t comfortable handling things your way, given their personality or values? Perhaps they got vastly different advice from someone else they trust? Maybe they didn’t know how to follow through on what you said or lost their motivation? Or something changed in the interim? When people don’t follow your advice, do you take it personally and get agitated? That can damage the relationship, and it’s often a sign that it’s become more about you than them.

16. Recall that “I was only trying to help” is often a cop-out (even when your intentions are in fact pure). True help often requires a smarter and more nuanced approach than dishing out advice. It may be easy to hide behind the “only trying to help” rationalization, but that doesn’t wash away your sins or address all the risks and flaws of giving advice.

“’I was only trying to help’ sounds like a positive statement born of caring,
but how often does it mask unwelcome intrusion?”
-Deepak Chopra, The Shadow Effect

17. Advice can shut them down. Sometimes, while the advice giver gets on a roll with ideas and solutions, it can cause the person receiving advice to become passive. The exchange becomes one-sided. Worse, it can silence their inner voice and take them away from their deeper wisdom by engaging their self-consciousness and ego, with status games suddenly afoot. According to Professor Richard Boyatzis of Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, when people hear critical feedback, they tend to experience strong negative emotion, inhibiting their access to certain neural circuits in their brain and invoking “cognitive, emotional, and perceptual impairment.”

18. Advice is often a poor substitute for what’s really needed. Do they need to be told what to do? Fixed? Or do they need to be seen and heard, to be witnessed? Often, what people really need is connection, solidarity, and support—and to tap into their own brilliance and power.

Conclusion

Of course, advice isn’t all bad. Sometimes it really helps. In many cases, you might be missing something important that another person can bring to the table with advice.

Yes, it’s folly to try to go it alone. And yes, we sometimes need help and input from others. But often, the last thing people need is the kind of advice we’re all awash in.

When it comes to advice, we can and must do better.

(This article is first in a three-part series on advice. Check out the other articles: “Don’t Give Advice. Do This Instead” and “How Advice Gets Ruined by Cognitive Biases.”)

Reflection Questions

Are you giving this kind of unsolicited or one-sided advice too often?
Have you stopped to notice that it may not be as helpful as you think and that it may come with more risks and flaws than you’re accounting for?
What other kinds of exchanges might be more helpful?

Tools for You

Traps Test (Common Traps of Living) to help you identify what’s getting in the way of your happiness and quality of life
Quality of Life Assessment to help you discover your strongest areas and the areas that need work and then act accordingly
Strengths Search to help you identify your core strengths and determine how to use them more in your life and work

Strengths Search

We all have core strengths–the things in which we most excel. Take this self-assessment to determine your core strengths so you can integrate them more into your life and work.

“Don’t Give Advice. Do This Instead”
“How Advice Gets Ruined by Cognitive Biases”
“How to Give Effective Feedback—A Communication Superpower”
“Why We Need More Coaching Leaders”
“The Hidden Trap Catching Many High-Achievers”
“The Three Most Important Things Leaders Can Say to Their Teams”
“Escaping the Trap of Our Ego”
“Great Questions Leaders Should Be Asking”
“The Power of Reframing to Change Our Outlook”
Parker J. Palmer, “The Gift of Presence, the Perils of Advice,” On Being, April 27, 2016

Postscript: Quotations on Advice

“A good example has twice the value of good advice.” -Albert Schweitzer, physician, philosopher, and humanitarian
“…some people walk around giving unsolicited advice. The assumption is that they’re right, others are wrong, others need correcting, and the act of doling out advice is like a gift from above. More often, though, it trounces on people’s feelings and makes things worse. People don’t want to be fixed. They want to feel supported and valued as they go through their own journey, including wins, losses, and learnings. We all want to be the heroes of our own story.” -Gregg Vanourek, “How to Give Feedback—A Communication Superpower”
“…all advice can only be a product of the man who gives it. What is truth to one may be disaster to another. I do not see life through your eyes, nor you through mine.” -Hunter S. Thompson (Thompson was 22 years old when he wrote this letter to his friend Hume Logan in response to a request for life advice)
“One of the hardest things we must do sometimes is to be present to another person’s pain without trying to ‘fix’ it, to simply stand respectfully at the edge of that person’s mystery and misery. Standing there, we feel useless and powerless…. In an effort to avoid those feelings, I give advice, which sets me, not you, free.” -Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak
“Anyone who tries to force-feed you advice isn’t likely to be a competent soul guide.” -Martha Beck, The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to True Self
“The human soul doesn’t want to be advised or fixed or saved. It simply wants to be witnessed—to be seen, heard, and companioned exactly as it is. When we make that kind of deep bow to the soul of a suffering person, our respect reinforces the soul’s healing resources, the only resources that can help the sufferer make it through.” -Parker Palmer, “The Gift of Presence, the Perils of Advice”

* Admittedly, part of the problem is that some people are promiscuous about soliciting advice. Sometimes, they have an ulterior motive. What they really want is for you to do something for them (go to bat for them at work or introduce them to an important person), and they’re using your vanity as a way in (e.g., making you feel smart and important by nodding breathlessly as you dispense your brilliant advice).

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our rapidly growing community. Sign up now and get monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

+++++++++++++++++

Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, and TEDx speaker on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for living with purpose and passion) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

How to Stop Caring Too Much about What Others Think

10/29/202407/31/2024 by Gregg Vanourek

As a human, you’re naturally social. You’re wired to consider how others perceive you. This makes sense, since relationships are key to your well-being.

But this can be a big trap for you. When you’re overly worried about others’ opinions, you might make choices that harm you in the long run. You might avoid the short-term pain of disapproval in exchange for the long-term loss of missing out on better things.

This focus can lead you away from your true self, from your deepest desires, pushing you toward what others want or expect. In the process, you might lose yourself while seeking approval or trying to please others.

These are common traps—and with painful consequences.

When you let outside expectations drive you, it can lead to several problems. For example, you may struggle to communicate openly during disagreements. Setting boundaries becomes a challenge. You may start to work too much and become overwhelmed. Or you might begin to shy away from pursuits that genuinely interest you. You might miss potential opportunities as you focus more on meeting others’ expectations and less on following your own path.

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

How to Stop Caring Too Much about What Others Think: 10 Practices

So, what can you do to break this cycle? Here are ten practices for avoiding this common trap:

1. Increase Self-Awareness: Pay attention to your instincts and inner voice.

2. Define Your Personal Fundamentals: Clarify your personal purpose, core values, and vision of the good life to understand what truly matters to you.

3. Embrace Self-Acceptance: Value your strengths and achievements, while silencing your inner critic.

4. Set High Standards for What You’ll Spend Time On: Take time to evaluate new tasks and requests, ensuring they align with your standards.

5. Gain Perspective: Consider how much others’ opinions will matter in the short and long term versus your own convictions.

6. Experiment with Disapproval: See what it feels like to experience disapproval and assess its true significance (that is, whether it’s really as bad as you originally feared).

7. Boost Your Confidence: You might view confidence as an innate trait, but in truth it’s something you can build systematically by improving and developing mastery.

8. Earn Respect: Understand that setting boundaries and staying true to your goals can earn you respect.

9. Surround Yourself with People Who Accept You As You Are: Avoid people who are constantly trying to change you to fit their preferences. And be sure to return the favor by accepting your family, friends, and colleagues as they are.

10. Enjoy the Freedom of Being Your True Self: Anticipate the power of getting over this common stumbling block and basking in the release from worrying about what others think. Enjoy the peace that comes from trusting yourself.

Tools for You

Traps Test (Common Traps of Living) to help you identify what’s getting in the way of your happiness and quality of life
Quality of Life Assessment to help you discover your strongest areas and the areas that need work and then act accordingly
Strengths Search to help you identify your core strengths and determine how to use them more in your life and work

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

“The Trap of Caring Too Much about What Other People Think”
“The Comparison Trap”
“The Perils of ‘Climbing Mode’ in Our Career”
“The Conformity Trap”
“Feeling Behind? It May Be a Trap”
“The Hidden Trap Catching Many High-Achievers”
“Are You Pretending to Be Something You’re Not?”
“The Trap of Losing Yourself”
“People-Pleasing: Why We Do It and How to Stop It”
“The Trap of Living Someone Else’s Life”
“The Trap of Workaholism—And What to Do About It”
“The Power of Authentic Alignment in Your Life”

Postscript: Inspirations to Help You Stop Caring Too Much about What Others Think

“The unhappiest people in this world are those who care the most about what other people think.” -C. JoyBell C., writer
“The most freeing experience of my life thus far has been to… be unapologetically myself, and to stand in my own light.” -Hannah Rose, therapist and writer
“Being dependent on approval—so dependent that we barter away all our time, energy, and personal preferences to get it—ruins lives.” -Dr. Martha Beck, Harvard-trained sociologist, coach, and author
“I was dying inside. I was so possessed by trying to make you love me for my achievements that I was actually creating this identity that was disconnected from myself. I wanted people to love me for the hologram I created of myself.” -Chip Conley, entrepreneur and author
“So long as you’re still worried about what others think of you, you are owned by them. Only when you require no approval from outside yourself can you own yourself.” -Neale Donald Walsch, author
“Most people are controlled by fear of what other people think. And fear of what, usually, their parents or their relatives are going to say about what they’re doing. A lot of people go through life like this, and they’re miserable. You want to be able to do what you want to do in life.” -Janet Wojcicki, professor, Univ. of California at San Francisco
“The problem comes when people are so eager to win the approval of others that they try to cover their shortcomings and sacrifice their authenticity to gain the respect and admiration of their associates.” -Bill George, CEO and leadership author
“Listen to your heart above all other voices.” -Martha Kagan

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our rapidly growing community. Sign up now and get monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

+++++++++++++++++

How to Stop Blaming Others: 10 Tips

09/25/202407/24/2024 by Gregg Vanourek

Blaming.

It’s a common trap—and more damaging than you think.

Focusing on what your parents did wrong instead of owning up to your own issues.
Chiding your spouse for XYZ while you yourself have been dropping the ball on ABC.
Blaming another department in your organization for product, service, or hiring delays.
Attacking the other side for their faults instead of working together to solve the problem.

It’s tempting to shift blame onto others. Blaming might bring temporary satisfaction, but it ultimately stalls progress and even moves you backwards.

The Problem with Blaming

Blaming, despite feeling oddly good in the moment, comes with many pitfalls. It leaves things unresolved. Often, it backfires, exacerbating problems by damaging relationships.

Also, blaming undermines your own sense of agency and triggers defensiveness in those on the receiving end of your condemnation. (Who doesn’t resent being blamed?) Furthermore, blaming tends to escalate minor issues into larger conflicts. And it can be contagious, perpetuating a cycle of negativity in your family or work team. In the end, it diminishes your effectiveness.

Meanwhile, blaming often involves a degree of deception—distorting facts to evade responsibility while magnifying others’ faults—which erodes your credibility. Ultimately, you bear the brunt of these consequences, not those you blame.

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

How to Stop Blaming: 10 Tips

The downsides of blaming are clear, but it’s hard to stop because it can feel so darn satisfying. Here are 10 tips for how to stop blaming others:

#1. Stop ruminating on your problems. Fix your attention instead on something more positive and productive.

#2. Shift your attention to what you’re grateful for. You’re much more likely to thrive when practicing gratitude than when you’re casting blame.

#3. Consider why you’re blaming. With a little self-reflection, including focused attention on the situation, you may discover that you’re trying to avoid shame or pain by externalizing the situation, at least in part. Look for a richer and truer picture of the situation than what comes with the simplistic focus on a guilty or offending party. This, of course, requires character and self-awareness.

Are you honest and strong enough to see your own hand in this?

#4. Consider whether you’ve become subconsciously attached to the problem and its associated drama. It may be feeding you with energy—albeit negative and unproductive energy—that makes you feel vindicated or superior.

#5. Practice empathy and try to understand the context, motivations, and feelings of the person you’re blaming. Put yourself in their shoes. Ask questions and explore their perspective and rationale. Which will serve you better: understanding or blaming?

#6. Look for a lesson that you might learn if you focus on understanding instead of blaming. Instead of using it as an opportunity to stroke your ego and attack someone else, why not reframe it as an opportunity for you to learn, grow, and avoid similar problems in the future?

#7. Focus on finding a solution, not a scapegoat. In the end, what you really want is resolution and progress.

#8. Instead of allocating all the blame to somebody else, try assuming joint responsibility. In the end, the assignment of blame matters much less than resolving the issues well. Take note: You want to avoid too much externalization of the problem but also too much internalization of it. In most cases, both sides played a part in letting things slide.

#9. Focus on collaboration instead of blame. Explore ways in which joining forces to address the issues may benefit you both and sidestep potholes.

#10. Take full responsibility for your life, including your choices, behaviors, and outcomes. Sure, there are always outside factors present. But assuming responsibility restores your agency.

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

How to Make This Happen in Conversation

When in conversation with someone you’re tempted to blame, take a deep breath, regain your composure, and try to remain nonjudgmental, curious, and open-hearted. Focus on jointly exploring the situation and finding solutions instead of attacking each other.

In an article, podcaster and former lawyer Jordan Harbinger recommends avoiding statements like “It’s all your fault” and “I can’t believe you did that.” Instead, ask questions like the following:

“Help me understand why you made that decision.”
“Did I do anything to make you react that way?”
“Is there something I’m missing about my role here?”
“Here’s how I see things. How do you see things?”
“What should each of us have done to make this situation as productive as possible?”

Final Thoughts

Sometimes you may unconsciously resort to blaming. It can be automatic (and thus difficult to stop).

It’s important to recognize blaming as a trap that tends to make things much worse. Why not rise above it and in the process find solutions while building trust?

Tools for You

Traps Test (Common Traps of Living) to help you identify what’s getting in the way of your happiness and quality of life
Quality of Life Assessment to help you discover your strongest areas and the areas that need work and then act accordingly
Strengths Search to help you identify your core strengths and determine how to use them more in your life and work
Passion Probe to help you identify your top passions and start integrating them more into your life and work

Passion Probe

Our passions are the things that consume us with palpable emotion over time. We love doing them and talk about them often. Take this self-assessment to find the ones that resonate most with you.

Postscript: Inspirations on How to Stop Blaming Others

“The blame game is a waste of time. Any time you’re busy fixing blame, you’re wasting energy and not fixing the problem.” -Rick Warren, Baptist evangelical Christian pastor and author
“Blame… can be poisonous, hurtful, or devastating for its victims. It can tear apart marriages and fracture work relationships; it can disable major social programs; it can inflict damage on powerful corporations; it can bring down governments; it can start wars and justify genocides.” -Stephen Fineman, The Blame Business
“It’s always easy to blame others. You can spend your entire life blaming the world, but your successes or failures are entirely your own responsibility.” -Paolo Coelho, Brazilian novelist
“Wherever you find a problem, you will usually find the finger-pointing of blame.” -Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
“You become a victim when you blame yourself or others for some problem or error.” -Jay Fiset, Reframe Your Blame, How to Be Personally Accountable
“Blame is the demonstrated lack of self-respect choosing to deposit one’s negative actions onto others to reinforce one’s view of being of good, fair, and approved.” -Byron R. Pulsifer, author
“To grow up is to stop putting blame on parents.” -Maya Angelou, poet and civil-rights activist

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our rapidly growing community. Sign up now and get monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

+++++++++++++++++

The Importance of Perspective in Life and Leadership

12/17/202407/10/2024 by Gregg Vanourek

Do things feel heavy and dense in your life right now?

Maybe you’re stressed out about a challenge at work, or a problem at home that’s got you off balance. Perhaps you lost your job, or lost a big account at the office. Maybe you’re struggling financially, or have health concerns in your family. Perhaps your team is struggling with performance and motivation.

It may feel like the world is closing in. In those moments, it’s hard to maintain perspective.

The Problem with Lacking Perspective

Feeling that way is understandable, but losing perspective can be a big problem—and even make things worse. How?

When you’re stressed, you tend to view things through negative filter, causing angst, resentment, and pessimism. And when you lack perspective you have a hard time determining the relative importance of things. (See my article, “How to Stop Catastrophizing—Managing Our Minds.”) That can cause you to let things get out of whack, leading to new problems down the road.

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

20 Benefits of Having Perspective

When you can put things in perspective, it means you can think about them in a reasonable and sensible way without making them better or worse than they are. Doing so has many benefits. For example, keeping things in perspective helps you:

assess the importance of things in their broader context
focus on what matters most
understand situations and other people’s viewpoints
keep anxiety and worries in check
understand things more clearly and accurately, thereby reducing mistakes
view things from different angles
see both positives and negatives
react intentionally and constructively instead of impulsively
maintain your objectivity
develop empathy and compassion for people instead of judging them
avoid unnecessary conflicts
improve your relationships
forgive people instead of holding onto counterproductive grudges
learn from experience
discover new ways to view your problems
develop your resilience
grow as a person and leader, in part by seeing how you can transcend your current limitations
appreciate what you have
live intentionally and according to your core values and vision of the good life
maintain your happiness and wellbeing

The Importance of Perspective for Leaders

Maintaining perspective is also important for leaders, in part because they face so many challenges.

Part of the job of a leader is finding problems in and discovering ways to get them solved. Encountering problems can feel overwhelming if you don’t have the ability to rise above them and see the big picture.

“One of the things leaders have to be good at is perspective. Leaders don’t necessarily have to invent ideas,
but they have to be able to put them in context and add perspective.”
-John Sculley, businessman, entrepreneur, and investor

Adaptive leadership is a modern leadership framework focused on how leaders can prepare and encourage people to deal with changing environments that are beyond the technical capacity of people to solve with straightforward solutions or the normal way of doing things.

Instead of trying to be the hero and solve everything, adaptive leaders motivate the people in the organization to face their difficult situations and adapt to the challenges they face together. They recognize, as Harvard leadership scholar Ronald Heifetz says, that “The work is through the people.”

One of the keys for leaders, according to Heifetz, is for them to “get on the balcony.” He explains:

“To diagnose a system or yourself while in the midst of action requires the ability to achieve some distance from those on-the-ground events. We use the metaphor of ‘getting on the balcony’ above the ‘dance floor’ to depict what it means to gain the distanced perspective you need to see what is really happening.”
-Ron Heifetz, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership

The idea is for leaders to maintain both sharp focus and broad comprehension at the same time. This will help them understand the situation, the challenges, and the people. Meanwhile, leaders must reframe their view of conflict, seeing it not as a problem to be avoided but rather as an opportunity for learning, growth, and advancement. Doing so requires perspective.

Strengths Search

We all have core strengths–the things in which we most excel. Take this self-assessment to determine your core strengths so you can integrate them more into your life and work.

How to Maintain Perspective

How can you maintain perspective when it feels like things are spinning out of control? Here are 12 ways to do so:

1. Read. One of the best ways to develop and maintain perspective is to read a lot, including classics of philosophy and literature as well as religious or spiritual texts.

2. Project forward. Think ahead five or ten years and imagine looking back on your current situation. That can help you see it in the larger sweep of your life so you don’t blow it out of proportion.

3. Talk things through. Lean on family, trusted friends, colleagues, a mentor, or a small group. That way, you can connect with others about what’s going on and hear their views on things. You’re also wise to talk to people from different vantage points (e.g., age, gender, culture, circumstances, history).

4. Distance yourself from the situation. You can do that conceptually, by looking at it from another person’s perspective (e.g., if you’re struggling financially, consider your challenges from the vantage point of someone with far fewer resources than you). Or you can do it physically, by changing your scenery. Often, removing yourself from the situation helps in ways big and small.

5. Do a reality check. Keep in mind that bad things happen to all of us, and that’s okay. It’s the nature of life. Be clear about what you can and can’t control.

6. Recall your capabilities. Think of times when you’ve overcome challenges in the past. Why shouldn’t this time be any different?

Passion Probe

Our passions are the things that consume us with palpable emotion over time. We love doing them and talk about them often. Take this self-assessment to find the ones that resonate most with you.

7. Start working on solutions instead of worrying so much about problems. With small but steady steps, you’ll start to see that your problems are probably more manageable than you thought initially.

8. Get out into nature. Go on a hike. Get out on a lake or into a forest. Feel the sun on your face and breathe in the air while taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of our bustling world. Contemplate the vastness of the cosmos and observe the intricate mesh of nature and life with reverence and awe.

“They will forget the rush and strain of all the other weeks of the year, and for a short time at least, the days will be good for their bodies and good for their souls. Once more they will lay hold of the perspective that comes to those who every morning and every night can lift their eyes up to Mother Nature.”
-Theodore Roosevelt, conservationist, naturalist, and former U.S. president

9. Be grateful for what you have. Pausing to think of all the blessings in your life can help you avoid excess negativity and keep the positive things in your life front and center in your thoughts.

10. Meditate. With a meditation practice, you can train your mind to be more present, focused, and still, with a calm and clear awareness of the present moment. That can help you avoid anxious reactions to life’s vicissitudes.

11. Pray and attend religious services. Prayer can help you tune into a divine perspective. Attending religious services can connect you with ancient scriptures and teachings—and the importance of viewing life from a sacred perspective.

12. Contemplate your death. Engage in the ancient practice of memento mori, which is Latin for remembering that you will die. In many ways, death can be the ultimate purveyor of perspective. It can help you see trivial things for what they are. And it can help you face up to the fact that much of what you worry about isn’t so important after all.

Conclusion

Ultimately, when you maintain perspective you’re able to weather storms better and keep your focus on what’s most important. Getting good at having and keeping perspective will serve you very well in life and leadership.

Tools for You

Traps Test (Common Traps of Living) to help you identify what’s getting in the way of your happiness and quality of life
Strengths Search to help you identify your core strengths and determine how to use them more in your life and work
Passion Probe to help you identify your top passions and start integrating them more into your life and work

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

Related Books & Resources

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Clayton Christensen, How Will You Measure Your Life?
Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie
Bronnie Ware, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying
Song: “The Long Run” by The Eagles

Postscript: Inspirations on Perspective

“Plan with your whole life in mind.” -Aristotle, ancient Greek philosopher
“Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone—those that are now, and those to come. Existence flows past us like a river…. Nothing is stable, not even what’s right here…. You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” -Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet, novelist, and scientist
“It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.” -George Eliot, Middlemarch
”Some things are just plain more important than others; in fact, some things are so important—your life, your health, your family—that others are trivial by comparison.” -Stephen R. Covey, Primary Greatness: The 12 Levers of Success
“As you look back on your life, you may realize that the things that mattered most were too often at the mercy of things that mattered least… that you were terrorized by the tyranny of urgency, and that you enjoyed very little creative freedom…. How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and, keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most.” -Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.”
-Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our rapidly growing community. Sign up now and get monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

+++++++++++++++++

This Is How to Develop Self-Awareness: 7 Approaches

06/07/202404/22/2024 by Gregg Vanourek

Are you self-aware? It’s common for people to overestimate their self-awareness.

Being self-aware means having a clear and accurate understanding of yourself, including your feelings, motives, desires, core values, strengths, and weaknesses.

Do you have a realistic view of yourself,
including a good and true sense of how others perceive you?*

Based on multiple investigations with nearly 5,000 participants, organizational psychologist Dr. Tasha Eurich and her colleagues found the following:

“…even though most people believe they are self-aware, self-awareness is a truly rare quality:
We estimate that only 10-15% of the people we studied actually fit the criteria.”
-Dr. Tasha Eurich

Psychologist Daniel Goleman considers self-awareness one of the four domains of emotional intelligence (along with self-management, social awareness, and relationship management). What’s more, self-awareness is the foundation for the other three.

If you lack self-awareness, you’ll have blind spots that cause problems. For example, if you don’t know the reasons for your actions, you’re likely to keep making the same mistakes. Also, you’ll be less likely to take responsibility for them, damaging your credibility.

There are many benefits to having high self-awareness. For example, it can help you communicate more effectively, improve your relationships, and increase your happiness and fulfillment. It can help enhance your sense of personal control, improve your decision-making, increase your confidence, and augment your influence.

“…self-awareness is a predictor of success in leadership.”
-James Kouzes and Barry Posner, A Leader’s Legacy

Also, how can you expect to find good work that’s a good fit for you—and know what work you should avoid—if you don’t know your strengths, passions, and preferences, and if you don’t know what energizes you and what drains you? How can you avoid conforming to the desires of others if you don’t know your own heart?

“When you start thinking that you don’t know what to do with your life,
what you really mean is that you don’t yet know who you are.”
-Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

How to Develop Self-Awareness: 7 Powerful Approaches

Here are seven things you can do to elevate your self-awareness:

1. Engage in frequent self-reflection.

Reflect on meetings or other encounters and their emotional wake. Pay attention to what you love, what you long for, and what makes you come alive. This means sometimes getting out of “climbing mode” (striving to move up the ladder of success, focusing on achievement and advancement) and getting into what I call “discover mode” (learning about who we are, including our values, strengths, passions, and dreams, and what we can do in the world). Listen to your inner voice.

2. Take assessments.

They can facilitate not only your self-awareness but also your personal development. For example:

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

3. Ask for input from family, friends, mentors, and coaches.

Solicit honest feedback, not only about your behaviors and strengths but also about your weaknesses and blind spots. At work, this can include “360-degree reviews.”

4. Consider not only what you know about yourself but also what others know about you.

For this, check out the Johari Window, a framework that can help you identify what’s known to yourself (or not) and what’s known to others about you (or not). See below.

How many people get to see your true self? Do you have blind spots—things that are known by others about you that you’re not aware of? Consider writing down ten words that describe yourself—your main characteristics. Then have people who know you well do the same for you. Compare the lists to see how much overlap there is (or isn’t).

5. Journal.

As you journal, reflect on your experiences and feelings. Seek insights and look for patterns.

6. Join or start a small group.

When run well, small groups can facilitate deep conversations about meaningful things. Make sure the conversation includes not only self-reflection but also input from the group. That way, participants will have a chance to consider new insights in a safe environment.

7. Make time for renewal and sanctuary.

Engage in daily restorative activities (e.g., meditation, yoga, or gardening). Find places or practices of peace that help you guard and recenter your heart. Without renewal and sanctuary, you’re likely to be too scattered and frazzled to maintain high self-awareness.

Developing your self-awareness will have powerful effects on your life, work, relationships, and leadership. It’s an investment that pays big dividends.

“’Know thyself’… is still the most difficult task any of us faces. But until you truly know yourself, strengths and weaknesses, know what you want to do and why you want to do it, you cannot succeed in any but the most superficial sense of the word.” -Warren Bennis, On Becoming a Leader

Reflection Questions

How well do you know yourself?
Might you be overestimating your self-awareness, like so many others?
Are you asking for feedback regularly, and are you truly open and receptive to it?

Tools for You

Strengths Search Tool to help you identify your core strengths and integrate them more into your life and work
Traps Test (Common Traps of Living) to help you identify what’s getting in the way of your happiness and quality of life
Quality of Life Assessment to help you discover your strongest areas and the areas that need work and then act accordingly

Strengths Search

We all have core strengths–the things in which we most excel. Take this self-assessment to determine your core strengths so you can integrate them more into your life and work.

“What Happens When Leaders Lack Self-Awareness”
“Self-Deception: Why We Do It and How to Stop It”
“The Trap of Losing Yourself”
“The Trap of Living Someone Else’s Life”
“Journaling: Benefits and Best Practices“
“How to Discover Your Purpose“
“How to Discover Your Core Values“
“What Are Your Strengths–And How Can You Use Them More?“
Tasha Eurich, “What Self-Awareness Really Is (And How to Cultivate It),” Harvard Business Review, January 4, 2018

Postscript: Inspirations on Self-Awareness

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.” -Lao Tzu, ancient Chinese philosopher
“Know thyself.” -inscribed on the temple wall at Delphi, 6^th century BCE
“If a man does not know himself, how should he know his functions and his powers?” -Michel de Montaigne, 16^th century French Renaissance philosopher and writer
“Self-knowledge is best learned, not by contemplation, but by action. Strive to do your duty and you will soon discover of what stuff you are made.” -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer, poet, and scientist
“Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.” -Witold Gombrowicz, Polish writer
“When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.” -Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
“The deepest vocational question is not ‘What ought I to do with my life?’ It is the more elemental and demanding ‘Who am I? What is my nature?’… Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening…. Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.” -Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation
“To be aware of a single shortcoming within oneself is more useful than to be aware of a thousand in somebody else.” -Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

“Self-awareness is the foundation of authenticity. You develop it by exploring your life story and your crucible, and by understanding how these experiences shape you as a person and leader. You enhance it as you seek honest feedback from others. You refine it by adopting practices that help you remain mindful and aware, even amidst life’s chaos.”
-Bill George and Zach Clayton, True North: Emerging Leader Edition

* There are two types of self-awareness, according to researchers. The first type, internal (or private) self-awareness, is about how clearly you see yourself and whether you notice and reflect on your own internal state. The second type, external (or public) self-awareness, is about how aware you are of how you appear to others.

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our rapidly growing community. Sign up now and get monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

+++++++++++++++++

Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, and TEDx speaker on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

This Is How to Avoid Complacency

04/21/202504/11/2024 by Gregg Vanourek

Have you become complacent? Have you been lulled into a state of easy contentment? Or are you at risk of not paying enough attention to potential problems? Is complacency preventing you from trying harder and making needed improvements?

It’s a common trap. Perhaps you’ve been complacent about your health—or the health of those you love? Have you been complacent about your work, team, leadership, or organization? Or complacent about your relationships? About democracy or the planet?

You may be struggling with complacency if you’re taking things for granted or if you have too much routine. Do things feel monotonous?

Are you sticking to what you know? Staying in your comfort zone and avoiding risk? Are you “phoning it in”? Have you stopped learning and growing? Is your ambition waning?

Perhaps you’re wondering,

Is this it?
Where did all my time go?
Isn’t there something more I should be doing with my life?

There’s nothing wrong with comfort per se, or with feeling satisfied. You probably want them in your life. The problem is when you have too much of them and lose your inner fire to fight for your dreams or your zest for life.

Complacency becomes a problem when it’s sapping your motivation, when it’s leading to inaction when action is warranted, when it’s detracting from your sense of hope, when it’s leading to mediocrity. Is it robbing you of future opportunities and benefits, or derailing your career?

14 Complacency-Busting Actions

Fortunately, there’s much you can do to avoid complacency (or to break through it when you’re in it). Here are 14 complacency-busting actions you can take:

1. Start acting with urgency. Like your time counts. Because it does—and probably more than you’re realizing now.

2. Invoke deliberate agitation. Try using what Tyler Hakes calls “deliberate agitation.” Think of it as shaking a snow globe. He writes:

“You let things settle into place just long enough and then shake them up. Watch to see if they fall into the same patterns or if something new and better emerges…. You deliberately and intentionally question things and change them before they become a problem. You remain vigilant in trying to improve so that way you don’t fall into the trap of complacency that leads to eventual failure.” -Tyler Hakes

3. Dream big. Think expansively about all you want to do in your lifetime in different areas, from family, relationships, and work to education, service, travel, and more. When you do that, you start to feel the powerful pull of your deepest aspirations.

4. Step out of your comfort zone. Has fear held you back from venturing forth and risking yourself? When you push yourself, take risks, and dare to have adventures, your blood races. You start to feel awake and alive again.

5. Strive for a BHAG—a “big, hairy audacious goal.” It can be a life goal or a work goal, but a true BHAG should take your breath away with how bold it is and how amazing it would be if you could make it happen.

“…there is a difference between merely having a goal and becoming committed to a huge, daunting challenge—like a big mountain to climb…. Like the moon mission, a true BHAG is clear and compelling and serves as a unifying focal point of effort…. people like to shoot for finish lines. A BHAG engages people—it reaches out and grabs them in the gut.”
-Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in Built to Last

6. Build your top priorities and most important activities into your calendar. Doing so will ensure you make progress on your top goals. That way, you can not only develop good and productive habits but also become the sort of person who consistently gets big stuff done.

7. Enlist support. Consider recruiting an “accountability partner”—someone who can help keep you on track (such as a training buddy or someone you can send regular progress reports to).

8. Identify and remove barriers to change. When you’re stuck, it’s easy to become complacent and acclimatize yourself to the new situation. Why not get to work instead on identifying the major obstacles to progress and how to overcome them?

9. Notch short-term wins on meaningful work to build momentum. Draw on what researchers call the “progress principle”:

“…of all the positive events that influence inner work life, the single most powerful is progress in meaningful work; of all the negative events, the single most powerful is the opposite of progress—setbacks in the work. We consider this to be a fundamental management principle: facilitating progress is the most effective way for managers to influence inner work life. Even when progress happens in small steps, a person’s sense of steady forward movement toward an important goal can make all the difference between a great day and a terrible one.”
-Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer in The Progress Principle

10. Take full responsibility for everything in your life. Be what my co-author, Christopher Gergen, and I call a “LIFE entrepreneur.” You’re much more likely to thrive when you take ownership of your life and recognize your agency—when you take your life back. LIFE entrepreneurs go out and create opportunities for themselves. They intentionally craft a good life with good work, and they bring their dreams to life.

#11. Get clear on your personal purpose, values, and vision:

Your purpose is why you’re here. It’s what gives you a sense of meaning and significance—often by connecting with and serving others.
Your values are what’s most important to you—your core beliefs and principles that guide your decisions and behavior.
And your vision is what you aspire to achieve in the future—and what success looks and feels like for you.

12. Cultivate vitality. You’ll feel better and perform at a higher level when you develop physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health and wellness. Being intentional about productive and energizing habits will pay big dividends.

13. Let go of limiting beliefs. Ever been your own worst enemy? Have you locked yourself in a mental prison of judgment, negativity, and rumination? Never forget that you always retain the power to upgrade your thoughts, and it can help you avoid the trap of complacency.

14. Set and maintain high standards. You tend to rise or fall to the standards you set. Why not leverage deadlines, accountability, and high standards to propel you forward?

Related Traps & Articles

Complacency is common, and it can be deeply damaging. It also tends to come with several associated traps:

drifting through life
avoiding hard situations, people, or truths
settling for “good enough” and accepting significantly less than what we want or deserve
postponing happiness and deferring dreams
inertia and not making needed changes
“The Complacency Trap“
“Are You Getting Complacent? 17 Signs“
“The Problem with Complacency“

Final Thoughts

Are you letting the complacency trap rob you of quality time and experiences? Of achievement and passion?

It’s tricky because you probably want satisfaction and serenity, and not a life of frenetic striving or perpetual busyness.

Somewhere in between the extremes, there’s a healthy place of urgency to live intentionally, achieve important things, serve others, and cherish your days, not squandering your time in a cloud of complacency.

Wishing you well with it—and let me know if I can help.

Reflection Questions

To what extent has complacency crept into some aspects of your life and work (or your family or organization)?
What will you do to regain the motivation and urgency to escape this trap?

Tools for You

Traps Test (Common Traps of Living) to help you identify what’s getting in the way of your happiness and quality of life
Quality of Life Assessment to help you discover your strongest areas and the areas that need work and then act accordingly
Goal-Setting Template to help you set goals you can achieve based on best practices

Postscript: Inspirations on Complacency

“The life you have left is a gift. Cherish it. Enjoy it now, to the fullest. Do what matters, now.” -Leo Babauta, author
“Complacency keeps you living a comfortable life… not the life you desire. Challenge yourself to do something different. Then, notice the new charged quality of your life.” -Nina Amir, author and coach
“The tragedy of life is often not in our failure, but rather in our complacency; not in our doing too much, but rather in our doing too little; not in our living above our ability, but rather in our living below our capacities.” -Benjamin E. Mays, minister
“I really try to put myself in uncomfortable situations. Complacency is my enemy.” -Trent Reznor, musician and singer-songwriter
“History and experience tell us that moral progress comes not in comfortable and complacent times, but out of trial and confusion.” -Gerald R. Ford, former U.S. president
“By far the biggest mistake people make when trying to change organizations is to plunge ahead without establishing a high enough sense of urgency in fellow managers and employees.” -John Kotter, founder of Kotter International and Harvard Business School Professor
“Without a sense of urgency, desire loses its value.” -Jim Rohn, author and entrepreneur

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” -Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

+++++++++++++++++

Why You Should Build Your Passions into Your Life and Work

06/27/202404/01/2024 by Gregg Vanourek

What are the things that consume you with palpable emotion over time? What are the things you love so much that you’re willing to suffer for them? Those are your passions.

You probably have passions in different domains of your life. Are you passionate about your work—or at least parts of it? Do you talk often about what you like about your work, or find yourself working extra hours even when you don’t have to? Are you building your passions into your days and weeks?

14 Benefits of Building Your Passions into Your Life and Work

There are many powerful benefits to building passions into your life and work. For example, doing so will:

boost your motivation
enhance your engagement
increase your productivity
sharpen your focus
augment your creativity
help you achieve your goals
motivate you to keep learning, growing, and developing in your areas of interest
boost your persistence
help you be more resilient in the face of challenges
lead to more happiness and fulfillment
inspire others to find and work in areas of their passions when they see you loving life and thriving
help you avoid burnout
lead to much higher job satisfaction, according to a meta-analysis that reviewed data from nearly a hundred different studies (1)
result in better work performance, according to a meta-analysis of sixty studies conducted over the past six decades

Passion Probe

Our passions are the things that consume us with palpable emotion over time. We love doing them and talk about them often. Take this self-assessment to find the ones that resonate most with you.

Of course, there’s also a flip side to this: there’s much lost when you don’t have passion for what you’re doing. In that case, you’re much more likely to lack enthusiasm and “phone it in.” Over time, this can put you on a downward trajectory.

To what extent are you building your passions into your life and work?
What more could you do?

Tools for You

Passion Probe Tool to help you find the things that consume you with palpable emotion over time
Strengths Search Tool to help you identify your core strengths and integrate them more into your life and work
Traps Test (Common Traps of Living) to help you identify what’s getting in the way of your happiness and quality of life
Quality of Life Assessment to help you discover your strongest areas and the areas that need work and then act accordingly

Passion Probe

Our passions are the things that consume us with palpable emotion over time. We love doing them and talk about them often. Take this self-assessment to find the ones that resonate most with you.

“How to Discover Your Passions–A Passion Probe Tool”
“Why Self-Awareness Is So Important—And How to Develop It”
“How to Discover Your Purpose”
“How to Discover Your Core Values”
“The Power of Knowing and Using Our Strengths”
“What Are Your Strengths–And How Can You Use Them More?“
“Tired of Settling? How to Set Your Life and Work on Fire”

Postscript: Inspirations on Passions

“If there is any difference between you and me, it may simply be that I get up every day and have a chance to do what I love to do, every day. If you want to learn anything from me, this is the best advice I can give you.” -Warren Buffett, legendary investor
“Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.” -Oprah Winfrey, media entrepreneur, author, and philanthropist
“Paul and I, we never thought that we would make much money out of the thing. We just loved writing software.” -Bill Gates, co-founder, Microsoft
“I did it for the buzz. I did it for the pure joy of the thing. And if you can do it for the joy, you can do it forever.” -Stephen King, writer

(1) Mark Allen Morris, “A Meta-Analytic Investigation of Vocational Interest-Based Job Fit, and Its Relationship to Job Satisfaction, Performance, and Turnover,” PhD dissertation, University of Houston, 2003.

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our rapidly growing community. Sign up now and get monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

+++++++++++++++++

Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, and TEDx speaker on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

This Is How to Develop Focus: 20 Approaches

03/26/2024 by Gregg Vanourek

It feels like the world is dead-set against our focus these days. Are you bombarded with digital distractions? Are there near-constant requests for your attention?

Do you feel overloaded? Does your concentration feel fragmented? Find yourself checking your phone constantly?

These aren’t just annoyances. They can become a disaster for your productivity and quality of life.

Focus and Leadership

According to a survey of more than 35,000 leaders in more than 100 countries, 73% reported feeling distracted from their current task some or most of the time, and 67% described their minds as cluttered.

Nearly all the leaders surveyed (a whopping 96%) reported that enhanced focus would be valuable or extremely valuable to them. The researchers concluded:

“The ability to apply a calm, clear focus to the right tasks… is the key to exceptional results….
we have observed a direct correlation between a person’s focus level and their career advancement.”
-Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter*

Struggling with Focus?

Here are some signs that you may be struggling to focus: You’re reading something but not absorbing it. Maybe you’re listening to people but you’re not taking their words in. You zone out in meetings. You’re jumping from task to task, and not making considerable progress on your priorities.

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

The Benefits of Focus

There are many benefits when you cultivate the ability to focus. When you’re focusing properly, you: make better decisions, manage your time more effectively, feel less stress, remain calm under pressure, and have better work quality. What’s more, you’re more creative and productive.

How to Develop Focus: 20 Approaches

How can you develop your focus? Here are 24 actionable approaches:

1. Observe your daily rhythms. Notice your best and worst times for focused work. Track your energy levels at different times and on different tasks. Then design your work and schedule to capture your greatest attention and energy.

2. Take regular breaks. Your brain can’t focus all the time. You need to toggle between focus and rest. (When you do so, you’re able to focus much better when you return from rest, according to the research.)

3. Practice self-care. Develop good sleep habits (regular bedtimes, caffeine and device curfews, etc.), eating and hydration habits, and exercise habits.

4. Minimize interruptions and eliminate distractions. For example, turn off smartphone notifications and place your phone outside the room when working.

5. Develop simple rules to maximize time in deep work. For example, don’t check email before noon (or another time that works for you).

6. Focus on one task at a time and avoid frequent task-switching. When you switch tasks, you waste time regrouping and trying to recover your focus. Be more disciplined in doing one thing at a time.

7. Design your work for “flow.” According to researchers, flow is a state of deep concentration and absorption—a state of almost effortless attention and peak performance. (See my article, “Designing Your Work for Flow.”)

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

8. Practice doing things that require concentration. For example, read books or play games that require focus.

9. Engage in deep breathing and practice meditation. With meditation, you can train your mind to become more present, focused, and still, and you can enhance your concentration. It can help you train your attention and awareness, helping you feel calm and clear in the process. It’s a means of quieting and focusing—and refocusing—your mind. (See my article, “Why We Need Meditation and Mindfulness Now More than Ever.”)

10. Reduce anxiety, stress, and negative self-talk.

11. Get very clear on what’s most important so you can direct your efforts toward that.

12. Determine which tasks will contribute the most toward your most important aims.

13. Clear the decks so you can focus on your most essential task for extended periods.

14. Reduce or eliminate non-essential tasks. Consider using a “stop doing list” or a “drop list.”

15. Schedule your most important tasks and give them deadlines. (Tip: Be generous in the amount of time allotted for completion. We tend to underestimate the time it will take, generating stress in the process.)

16. Learn to say “no” more often and more easily, especially to things that don’t fit with your top priorities.**

17. Systematically measure your progress on your most important tasks. Tracking progress helps you maintain attention.

18. Stop focusing so much on results and focus more on deep engagement with the process of doing things that matter. For example, focus more on the strategies you can adopt for healthy living and focus less on your target weight.

19. Experiment with different schedules that help you focus better. For example, try themed days, such as a Monday planning day, Tuesday prospecting day, Wednesday writing day, etc. (or half-days).

20. Make a “Done for the Day” list each morning—a list of what would constitute essential progress and that’s reasonable for a single day.***

Personal Values Exercise

Tools that Help with Focus

Beyond the approaches noted above, here are three tools and frameworks that can help with focus:

1. Eisenhower Decision Matrix (a.k.a., Urgent-Important Matrix): distinguish between tasks that are urgent (time-sensitive, demanding immediate attention) and important (contributing to your long-term purpose and vision), using a simple matrix.

2. Ivy Lee Method: give yourself no more than six important tasks per day, listed from most important to least important. Then address them in order of priority, and without moving to the next task until you’ve completed the current one.

3. Brian Tracy’s “Eat the Frog” method: identify one challenging and important task (the metaphorical frog) and complete it first thing in the morning. The logic:

“The hardest part of any important task is getting started on it in the first place. Once you actually begin work on a valuable task, you seem to be naturally motivated to continue…. The most valuable tasks you can do each day are often the hardest and most complex. But the payoff and rewards for completing these tasks efficiently can be tremendous.”
-Brian Tracy, Canadian-American author and speaker

Reflection Questions

Are you struggling with focus?
How is it affecting you?
Which approaches work best for you?
Which new ones will you try, starting today?

Tools for You

Traps Test (Common Traps of Living) to help you identify what’s getting in the way of your happiness and quality of life
Quality of Life Assessment to help you discover your strongest areas and the areas that need work and then act accordingly
Personal Values Exercise to help you clarify what’s most important to you

Goal-Setting Template

Goals are the desired results we hope to achieve—the object of our effort and ambition. Goals are common in our life and work, but that doesn’t mean we’re good at setting and achieving them. Use this Goal-Setting Template to set your goals properly, based on the research and best practice.

Recommended Books

“The ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. The few who cultivate this skill and make it the core of their working life will thrive…. Efforts to deepen your focus will struggle if you don’t simultaneously wean your mind from a dependence on distraction.”
-Cal Newport, Deep Work

Postscript: Inspirations on Focus

“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” -Alexander Graham Bell, scientist, engineer, and inventor
“If there is any one secret of effectiveness, it is concentration. Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time.” -Peter Drucker, consultant, author, and expert on management and innovation
“Learn to master your attention, and you will be in command of where you, and your organization, focus.” -Daniel Goleman, psychologist and expert on emotional intelligence
“Most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately command when we focus all of our resources on mastering a single area of our lives.” -Tony Robbins, author, entrepreneur, and philanthropist

References

* Source: Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter, “Are You Having Trouble Focusing? These Simple Strategies Will Help,” Harvard Business Blogs, December 26, 2017.

** Author Gregory McKeown suggests saying “yes” only to the top 10% of opportunities you encounter, in part by using rigorous criteria for giving assent, such as whether the opportunity is exactly what you’re looking for. If it’s not a clear “yes,” then it should be a clear “no.”

*** Source: Gregory McKeown, Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most (Crown Currency, 2021).

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our rapidly growing community. Sign up now and get monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

+++++++++++++++++

Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, and TEDx speaker on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

How to Get More Exercise: 17 Tips

03/13/202403/13/2024 by Gregg Vanourek

Do you struggle with getting enough exercise? Sit too much? If so, you’re not alone. Adults between age 20 and 75 reported spending an average of 9.5 hours of sedentary time each day, not including sleep.

As they say, “sitting is the new smoking.” Your body was made to move, and it pays a price when it doesn’t. When you’re sedentary, there’s a dramatic drop in the production of enzymes that burn fat, and your metabolism slows.

You know that exercise comes with an array of benefits. For example, it has positive effects on energy, happiness, blood pressure, brain health, cognitive capacity, disease prevention, immune system function, mood, motivation, confidence, sexual function, sleep, stress management, longevity, and overall physical and mental health and wellness.

According to researchers, exercise can help you be more productive at work, have better interactions with colleagues, and feel more satisfied at the end of the day. (1) What’s more, when you don’t exercise, you get tired more easily and lose energy and stamina. You get stressed, irritable, and more forgetful and impulsive. Not good.

How to Get More Exercise: 17 Tips

So how should you go about it? Here are 17 tips for getting more exercise:

1. Start small and keep it simple. Take the stairs. Park at the back of lot. Avoid making it overly ambitious or complicated at the start.

2. Walk more. Why not go for a brisk walk daily? You’re built to move, and walking is simple and accessible. It allows your mind to wander and also gets you outside into the daylight.

3. Try walking meetings. They replace sitting with moving, and they can make the meeting more collaborative and enjoyable. You’ll also enjoy fresh air and sunshine.

4. Make exercise and regular movement as easy as possible. Keep those running or walking shoes by your bed. Have that gym bag packed and ready to go. Eliminate barriers and excuses.

5. Find out what works for you and do more of that. Start with one or two simple approaches that seem promising and see what works and what doesn’t. Don’t expect perfection and risk getting frustrated.

6. Build movement into regular microbreaks. How often do you get up from your desk? Not enough, in most cases. Can you stretch or do some simple movements (e.g., jumping jacks, knee-bends, squats, pushups, burpees)?

7. Choose activities you enjoy. You tend to feel more confident and perform better when you enjoy what you’re doing. Incorporate play or a challenge into exercise, with novelty and change. Engage in fun or relaxing hobbies that require some movement (e.g., gardening).

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

8. Calendarize exercise to help instill regularity and accountability. If you don’t, it’ll be too easy to skip as the busyness of the day overtakes your good intentions.

9. Use a step counter or other technology to track your progress. As they say, you don’t get what you don’t measure. Turn it into a streak and see your motivation and commitment increase dramatically.

10. Find powerful motivation to drive your exercise. Connect exercise to a deeper why and your higher aspirations and life goals—ones that have emotional resonance for you. Example: “I stay healthy so I can be alive and energetic with my kids (or grandkids).” For many people, continuing with exercise depends largely on anticipated rewards. Do you exercise because you like the way you feel afterward? Or does it give you a sense of accomplishment? Do you like seeing people at the gym or out on your walk?

11. Create habit loops for exercise. When you do this, you’ll stop thinking about it and just do it automatically. In his book, The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg notes that you can create more effective and lasting habits via a three-step loop: cue, routine, and reward. For example, he writes, a cue can be seeing your workout clothes laid out and ready to go next to your nightstand when you wake up, the routine can be going to the gym at a set time, and a reward can be a delicious post-workout smoothie. You’ll begin to anticipate the reward (not only the smoothie but also how good you feel after a tough workout), and that craving will make it easier to get going each day, he writes.

12. Set challenging but realistic goals. Good goals can help you with focus, motivation, and commitment—especially when you keep them visible and top of mind. Write them down, display them, and talk about them.

13. Set milestones to shoot for and celebrate on the way to achieving goals. This will help you avoid the problem of insufficient or fading motivation from goals that are distant. Examples: 500 more steps walked per day on average vs. last month.

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

14. Use implementation intentions. These are concrete plans to follow through on your goals. They come in a specific form: “I will (BEHAVIOR) at (TIME) in (PLACE).” Example: “I will exercise for 40 minutes at noon on weekdays at my local gym.” According to research from the British Journal of Health Psychology on 248 people and their exercise habits, a much higher percentage of people who devised a plan for when and where they’d exercise did so at least once a week.

15. Replace bad habits with good ones. For example, go without devices for an evening and focus on walking, moving, or stretching instead.

16. Build in social and group components to exercise. Join a team or enlist a workout buddy, trainer, accountability partner, or hiking hive. By building in mutual dependence, you get both accountability and routine.

17. Change your mindset about exercise and movement. First, view it as part of your job—or at least a prerequisite to it. Or view yourself as a corporate athlete who needs to be at your best physically and mentally. Keep in mind that not everyone has the gift of health and movement. It’s too easy to take it for granted. Better to view exercise as a privilege, not a chore—and something you can invest in so you have the ability to do all the other important things that give your life meaning and joy.

“Instead of viewing exercise as something we do for ourselves—a personal indulgence that takes us away from our work—it’s time we started considering physical activity as part of the work itself.”
-Ron Friedman, “Regular Exercise Is Part of Your Job,” Harvard Business Review

Meanwhile, as you’re exercising, be sure to be smart about it. Build in enough recovery time to avoid injury. Drink enough water. Don’t exercise too close to bedtime, as it may make it harder to fall asleep. And give yourself grace and avoid harmful self-judgment.

You got this!
–Gregg

Tools for You

Traps Test (Common Traps of Living) to help you identify what’s getting in the way of your happiness and quality of life
Quality of Life Assessment to help you discover your strongest areas and the areas that need work and then act accordingly
Personal Values Exercise to help you clarify what’s most important to you

Personal Values Exercise

“Good Nutrition for Health and Wellness”
“Self-Care and Personal Resilience in Hard Times”
“The Trap of Bad Habits—And How to Break Them”
“Do You Have Margin in Your Life?”
“Burnout”
Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, “The Making of a Corporate Athlete,” Harvard Business Review, January 2001
Bonnie Hayden Cheng and Yolanda Na Li, “To Improve Your Work Performance, Get Some Exercise,” Harvard Business Review, May 30, 2023
Ron Friedman, “Regular Exercise Is Part of Your Job,” Harvard Business Review, October 3, 2014

Postscript: Inspirations on Exercise and Movement

“Physical fitness is the first requisite of happiness.” -Joseph Pilates, German-born physical trainer, writer, and inventor
“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.” -Jim Rohn, entrepreneur and author
“A fit, healthy body—that is the best fashion statement.” -Jess C. Scott, writer
“When it comes to health and well-being, regular exercise is about as close to a magic potion as you can get.” -Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddhist monk, peace activist, author, and teacher
“If you don’t make time for exercise, you’ll probably have to make time for illness.” -Robin Sharma, writer
“Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.” -John F. Kennedy, former U.S. president
“Exercise is amazing, from the inside out. I feel so alive and have more energy.” -Vanessa Hudgens, actress and singer
“Physical activity can be an effective treatment for mental health problems.” -Ben Singh, lead author of a large new meta-analysis with 97 reviews and more than 128,000 participants, research fellow, University of South Australia
“Sustained high achievement demands physical and emotional strength as well as a sharp intellect…. When people feel strong and resilient—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—they perform better, with more passion, for longer. They win, their families win, and the corporations that employ them win.” -Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, “The Making of a Corporate Athlete,” Harvard Business Review, January 2001

(1) Coulson, J.C. & McKenna, Jim & Field, M. (2008). Exercising at work and self-reported work performance. International Journal of Workplace Health Management.

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our rapidly growing community. Sign up now and get monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

+++++++++++++++++

Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, and TEDx speaker on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

How to Set Boundaries: 14 Proven Practices

02/11/202502/21/2024 by Gregg Vanourek

Many people struggle with setting and enforcing boundaries. It requires knowing their preferences and breaking points. It means being willing to assert their desires and needs. This is hard for many people, either due to their upbringing or personality—or both.

There are many advantages that come with getting good at this. For example, it can help us protect our emotional wellbeing, grow as a person, develop greater self-respect and confidence, protect our time and energy, avoid burnout, earn respect from others, and prevent unnecessary relationship conflicts.

When we set boundaries, we’re helping others interact more effectively with us. Sometimes we’re setting lines for ourselves that we resolve not to cross. We’re getting clear on what we’ll accept or tolerate.

Boundaries help us function effectively. They allow us to enjoy our life and work while also giving us a sense of control over our lives.

When we don’t set and enforce boundaries properly and consistently, we’re more prone to anxiety, frustration, and resentment. We get overcommitted, perhaps falling into overwork, workaholism, exhaustion, or burnout.

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

How to Get Better at Setting Boundaries: 14 Proven Practices

Thankfully, there are many things we can do to get better at this. Here are 14 proven practices for setting and enforcing boundaries:

1. Recognize that setting and maintaining boundaries can benefit our lives greatly, including our work and our leadership. Given all the benefits, it’s well worth the effort. Also, it gets easier over time.

2. Realize that setting and enforcing boundaries is not just good for us but for everyone involved. Why? Because it creates clarity and generates mutual respect.

3. Avoid falling into the trap of overestimating the resistance that will come from setting boundaries. Our brains are good at generating fear and anticipating worst-case scenarios. Often, the reality is not nearly as bad as we fear when we get into worrying mode.

4. Stay focused on the higher purpose of setting boundaries instead of the down-side of the temporary awkwardness. When we set boundaries, it’s usually for a good and important reason such as protecting our wellbeing or reserving our time for our top priorities. In this light, it’s well worth a little temporary pain or awkwardness.

5. Evaluate our current boundaries to identify areas that need improvement. In particular, look for situations that often result in discomfort or resentment.

6. Take an inventory of boundary crossings that have happened. Thinking about these instances, focus especially on the people, the situations, and how they make us feel.

7. Determine new boundaries that we want to set and recommit to or update old boundaries. Our core values and current goals and priorities should inform these decisions. If we’re new to setting boundaries or have struggled with it in the past, we’re wise to start small and build out from there.

8. Communicate boundaries clearly. Sometimes, the problem is that we’re expecting people to read our minds and just know our boundaries. It’s a recipe for frustration and failure. Sometimes, we may want to explain our rationale so the person has context (e.g., “I’m fully booked now so I can’t help with that”). In other cases, we can leave it with a declaratory statement (“I can’t take that on”) or even just a simple “No.”

“No is a complete sentence.”
-Anne Lamott, writer

9. Be consistent in communicating and enforcing boundaries. This is key. It’s where the rubber meets the road. Without consistency, others are likely to get confused or forget, and that may take us back to square one. Better to do the hard work upfront and in the early stages until things start to take on a life of their own.

10. Develop our assertiveness, including getting better at saying “no” and saying it more often. We can focus on saying no to requests and opportunities that don’t align with our values or advance our priorities. We can avoid spending time with negative people who drag us down with their criticism, complaints, neediness, or narcissism. And we can decline opportunities or requests, so we don’t end up doing all the work ourselves (versus delegating things to others).

“The difference between successful people and really successful people
is that really successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.”
-Warren Buffett, chair and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway

11. Be kind but firm. Ideally, we come across as thoughtful and considerate while still assertive and clear. Sometimes, a little humor helps.

12. Get clear about who we are, what we value, and how we work best. When we’ve done this inner work, it allows us to set and enforce boundaries.

13. Set boundaries on our work time. For example, we can set a maximum number of hours we’ll work each week. We can limit email to certain hours, with rare exceptions only as needed. It helps to plan ahead—and be sure to identify and focus on our most important tasks.

14. Place boundaries around our emotional commitment to others. Boundaries aren’t just about our time. They’re also about the focus of our attention and emotions. It’s a trap to feel responsible for other people’s choices or their happiness or outcomes.

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

Conclusion

Of course, setting and enforcing boundaries isn’t a one-and-done deal. It’s an ongoing process that requires reflection and course corrections. As we proceed with it, we must keep making judgments about when to be strict and when to make exceptions based on new information.

As we choose our boundaries, we should bear in mind that other people will make different choices about their boundaries. What works for us may not work for others. So, we should respect other people’s boundaries even as we fight for our own.

Also, it’s a mistake to think about boundaries only in the negative—only as things that we and others can’t do. Why? Because when we get good at setting and enforcing boundaries, it sets us up for all the positive things we actually want to do and experience. By setting limits, we gain freedom. We free up our time and energy to live life on our terms.

“Love yourself enough to set boundaries. Your time and energy are precious. You get to choose how you use it.
You teach people how to treat you by deciding what you will and won’t accept.”
-Anna Taylor, author

Tools for You

Traps Test (Common Traps of Living) to help you identify what’s getting in the way of your happiness and quality of life
Quality of Life Assessment to help you discover your strongest areas and the areas that need work and then act accordingly
Leadership Derailers Assessment to help you identify what’s inhibiting your leadership effectiveness

Goal-Setting Template

Related & Articles Traps

Postscript: Inspirations on Boundaries

“Half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough.” -Josh Billings, American humorist
“Givers need to set limits because takers rarely do.” -Rachel Wolchin, author

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our rapidly growing community. Sign up now and get monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

+++++++++++++++++

Article Summary:

“You should do XYZ.” “You need to get started on ABC, pronto.”

Do you give unsolicited advice? Are you, like so many of us, great at dishing out advice but terrible at taking it in?* Have you ever shared a frustration with someone, really just wanting to vent about it, only to be on the receiving end of a tirade of advice from them?

Take the Traps Test

The Problem with Advice: 18 Risks and Flaws

“It’s so counterproductive to think you can solve anyone else’s issues, because what it says is that they are not capable. It’s about the worst thing you can do for another human being.” –Karin Weber, author and life coach

Quality of Life Assessment

“To rush in with success formulas when someone is emotionally low or fatigued or under a lot of pressure is comparable to trying to teach a drowning man to swim.” -Stephen R. Covey, Primary Greatness

Personal Values Exercise

“’I was only trying to help’ sounds like a positive statement born of caring, but how often does it mask unwelcome intrusion?” -Deepak Chopra, The Shadow Effect

Conclusion

Reflection Questions

Tools for You

Strengths Search

Related Articles

Postscript: Quotations on Advice

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Take the Traps Test

How to Stop Caring Too Much about What Others Think: 10 Practices

Tools for You

Quality of Life Assessment

Related Articles

Postscript: Inspirations to Help You Stop Caring Too Much about What Others Think

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

The Problem with Blaming

Take the Traps Test

How to Stop Blaming: 10 Tips

Are you honest and strong enough to see your own hand in this?

Quality of Life Assessment

How to Make This Happen in Conversation

Final Thoughts

Tools for You

Passion Probe

Related Articles

Postscript: Inspirations on How to Stop Blaming Others

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

The Problem with Lacking Perspective

Take the Traps Test

20 Benefits of Having Perspective

The Importance of Perspective for Leaders

“One of the things leaders have to be good at is perspective. Leaders don’t necessarily have to invent ideas, but they have to be able to put them in context and add perspective.” -John Sculley, businessman, entrepreneur, and investor

Strengths Search

How to Maintain Perspective

Passion Probe

Conclusion

Tools for You

Quality of Life Assessment

Related Articles

Related Books & Resources

Postscript: Inspirations on Perspective

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Do you have a realistic view of yourself, including a good and true sense of how others perceive you?*

“…even though most people believe they are self-aware, self-awareness is a truly rare quality: We estimate that only 10-15% of the people we studied actually fit the criteria.” -Dr. Tasha Eurich

“…self-awareness is a predictor of success in leadership.” -James Kouzes and Barry Posner, A Leader’s Legacy

“When you start thinking that you don’t know what to do with your life, what you really mean is that you don’t yet know who you are.” -Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You

Take the Traps Test

How to Develop Self-Awareness: 7 Powerful Approaches

1. Engage in frequent self-reflection.

2. Take assessments.

Quality of Life Assessment

3. Ask for input from family, friends, mentors, and coaches.

4. Consider not only what you know about yourself but also what others know about you.

5. Journal.

6. Join or start a small group.

7. Make time for renewal and sanctuary.

“’Know thyself’… is still the most difficult task any of us faces. But until you truly know yourself, strengths and weaknesses, know what you want to do and why you want to do it, you cannot succeed in any but the most superficial sense of the word.” -Warren Bennis, On Becoming a Leader

Reflection Questions

Tools for You

Strengths Search

Related Articles

Related Books and Videos

Postscript: Inspirations on Self-Awareness

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Is this it? Where did all my time go? Isn’t there something more I should be doing with my life?

14 Complacency-Busting Actions

Related Traps & Articles

Final Thoughts

Reflection Questions

Tools for You

Postscript: Inspirations on Complacency

“You should do XYZ.”
“You need to get started on ABC, pronto.”

Do you give unsolicited advice?
Are you, like so many of us, great at dishing out advice but terrible at taking it in?*
Have you ever shared a frustration with someone, really just wanting to vent about it, only to be on the receiving end of a tirade of advice from them?

“It’s so counterproductive to think you can solve anyone else’s issues, because what it says is that they are not capable. It’s about the worst thing you can do for another human being.”
–Karin Weber, author and life coach

“To rush in with success formulas when someone is emotionally low or fatigued or under a lot of pressure
is comparable to trying to teach a drowning man to swim.”
-Stephen R. Covey, Primary Greatness

“’I was only trying to help’ sounds like a positive statement born of caring,
but how often does it mask unwelcome intrusion?”
-Deepak Chopra, The Shadow Effect

“One of the things leaders have to be good at is perspective. Leaders don’t necessarily have to invent ideas,
but they have to be able to put them in context and add perspective.”
-John Sculley, businessman, entrepreneur, and investor

Do you have a realistic view of yourself,
including a good and true sense of how others perceive you?*

“…even though most people believe they are self-aware, self-awareness is a truly rare quality:
We estimate that only 10-15% of the people we studied actually fit the criteria.”
-Dr. Tasha Eurich

“…self-awareness is a predictor of success in leadership.”
-James Kouzes and Barry Posner, A Leader’s Legacy

“When you start thinking that you don’t know what to do with your life,
what you really mean is that you don’t yet know who you are.”
-Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You

Is this it?
Where did all my time go?
Isn’t there something more I should be doing with my life?

To what extent are you building your passions into your life and work?
What more could you do?

“The ability to apply a calm, clear focus to the right tasks… is the key to exceptional results….
we have observed a direct correlation between a person’s focus level and their career advancement.”
-Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter*

“Instead of viewing exercise as something we do for ourselves—a personal indulgence that takes us away from our work—it’s time we started considering physical activity as part of the work itself.”
-Ron Friedman, “Regular Exercise Is Part of Your Job,” Harvard Business Review

“No is a complete sentence.”
-Anne Lamott, writer

“The difference between successful people and really successful people
is that really successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.”
-Warren Buffett, chair and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway

“Love yourself enough to set boundaries. Your time and energy are precious. You get to choose how you use it.
You teach people how to treat you by deciding what you will and won’t accept.”
-Anna Taylor, author