Turn Your Head

It is easy to focus on issues that are negative. They sometimes seem like they loom, when they may really be a brief part of our lives. 

Take for instance, losing sleep when you have a newborn. A mom (and sometimes a father) can become exhausted when there are several nights that a child doesn’t sleep well or maybe the child has a condition in which the parents “cannot sleep” due to anxiousness.

That is just one of millions of possibilities in which a person may have a difficult time seeing the bright side or blessed side of life because they are focused on the dark side of life. That brings us to this week’s quote…

Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.  ~ Maori proverb

A couple of weekends ago, I was mentally struggling with something and I was concerned it would affect my delivery. I was fortunate to not only give this to God in a prayer, but I didn’t hold on to it secretively – like we all have probably done before with our problems.

It was such a relief! It caused me to concentrate on what I needed to concentrate on and enjoy it, rather than be a bit miserable by thinking about something I really couldn’t control.
This situation was a recent example in which I enjoyed turning my face toward the sun and letting the shadow(s) remain behind me!

Being Nice to Your N—uh—Me

You have to be phonetical with the last word…it is “enemy.” I just needed it to start with “n.”

A few days ago I had a friend who was having a difficult time due to some “negative nellys” where he works. It isn’t the most fun to be in a leadership position. It seems that some times people are only in your life to torment you. They may not even realize that they are doing that. It may just be in their nature. 

Things have since calmed down, for now. However, there is always a possibility that things may flare up again…something leadership never looks forward to!

One of the things he did, which they didn’t like, was to be kind to them. This brings us to this week’s quote, dedicated to one of my best friends…

Love your enemies, they hate it.  ~ Unknown quote, reference is from Matthew 5:44

I have been the one who did this. It is almost fun to do. People do not like you in one area or another, or you’ve just made them upset for something. Either way, your kindness just aggravates them to the point that they just hate your “love” and “kindness.

As one similar philosophy that I’ve lived by for years says, “Kill ‘em with kindness.” When someone is doing things to you which is causing friction, just be overly nice to them and set them go down with good news!
May we all be nice to our enemies! If they’re going to go down, make sure it is with good news, not with put downs!

Mind Space "For Rent"

We all know that our minds' capacity is not hardly used.  Even the smartest of individuals use only a small percentage of the available capacity in the mind.  The mind makes decisions all the time.  Many of those decisions are based on reason or past experiences. 

We may decide to eat a food item based on prior experiences.  We decide when to pull out into traffic based on reason - is it safe.  These are easy decisions to make that may stem from a perception, but there are some more difficult ones in life.

Being someone's friend may take on a whole new set of decision making rationale.  That brings us to this week's quote...

Negatives and positives are most always based on perception and tend to rent space in our minds and largely dictate our reaction to situations.  ~ M. Raymond Sheppard

If you decide to become a friend to someone, it may seem easy in some situations.  However, what about a more difficult situation?  Say when a new person comes into your life - through moving, job, school, church, etc.?  How do you determine if you are going to be their friend?

Are you going to look at their outer covering - how they dress, hairstyle, tattoos, piercings?  Are you going to look at how they walk - somber, confident, cocky?  Are you going to look at how they talk - "Dude", "Yes, Ma'am/Sir", "I ain't got one"?  Are you going to look at the car or house they own?  Are you going to look at their occupation?

All these questions, and probably many more, will be answered in the first few interactions you have with an individual or group.  You are going to base a perception on the positives and negatives you see from these interactions.  Also, the past will have something to do with your decision making - whether you've had a positive or negative view of this situation in the past.

Yes, we will make decisions based on the perceptions we have from the past, but be wary of how you may "jump" to conclusions based on those perceptions. You may want to give some things a try, regardless of past perceptions. 

Motivating With Positive Direction

When I was in college I was a student trainer. I think I worked every home football game during my time in college. Several coaches had the wit to come up with one-liners. I remember one instance where a defensive player blew his coverage, thus allowing the opposing team to score. He came off the field, feeling bad about what he'd done, and the coach was talking to him. I don't remember his name, so we'll call him "Ryan". The coach something like this, "Ryan, we both know you blew that play. That doesn't make you a bad person, it makes you a horrible player." The tone of the coach was very calm and conversational. He wasn't up in his face. He just told him like it was. I know I laughed, inside at first, and outside when I told someone else. I wasn't laughing at the player, but at the line.

That really is no way to motivate. Putting someone down may make them mad and fired up, but it doesn't make them better. That brings us to this week's quote...

When you want to encourage a greater sense of responsibility in others (and yourself), emphasize the anticipation of accomplishment, not the penalties for failure. ~ Roger Crawford

Parents, spouses, coaches, supervisors, and employers can all learn from this concept. If you want someone to do something better, showing the positive outcomes more so than the negative.

As you go into the future, think about how you will try to encourage someone to do more with themselves. Whether that "more" is a single situation or an ongoing task. Make them feel good about what they can accomplish rather than feel bad for what will happen if they do not accomplish the task.

Having an environment that has a positive direction will probably affect the morale, too! What a concept to consider!

Make it positive, not negative...then see what results...

E-mail Encouragement: Give Someone a Compliment!

It is easy for you to give gratitude? Some people find it difficult and others find it easier. Each side could probably come up with various reasons of why. However, it is a shame that the "bad" things are usually brought out more often than the good things. In other words, if you've ever filled out a "comment card", the bad comments will typically get the attention first because that place of business will want to fix those problem areas. Whereas, the positive comments are probably just presumed because that is they way they SHOULD run their business. Compliments and statements of gratitude should be more important than negative comments. If you have a comment of gratitude, tell that person, don't keep it to yourself. Which brings us to this week's quote of encouragement...

Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone. ~ G.B. Stern

I like to live by this for personal reasons. Too often we don't mention good things people do, but focus on the bad. Usually the ones making the bad comments are few, but make it out to seem like they are the majority. We tend to remember the complaints we heard longer than the compliments. However, if the compliments outnumbered the complaints, it may change...so - give a compliment or two or three or four or more!!!

Have a great rest of your week! May God reward you richly!

Serving Him ~