Mantra for 2011: No-Self Help

If you have read any of my previous posts on new year's resolutions, you allready know I don't recommend them. This year I'm going to adopt a mantra (is that a resolution?). The mantra is no-self help.

I am going to use this mantra to stop focusing on what I don't do well, stop pushing myself to always get better at things I stink at and stop spending time trying to be something I am not.

I do alot of trainings for school people for my day job. I am typically the type of person who makes a point to glance at the evalutions for feedback. The feedback can be useful for changing or adapting something I'm doing and it can be really useful for beating up on myself. Typically, I try to make the review of the evals quick. I don't want people to think that I think too much of the feedback...that seems uncool in my world. After faking disinterest, I would read the evals and then ruminate over the ones that weren't glowing. There could be 50 outstanding evals and 1 not-so-great eval and I would put all of my focus on the one that is not-so-great.

I recently did a training for 45 people within the Quincy school district and sat down after the training to look at the evaluations. Since my new mantra is no-self help, I no longer have to believe I need to "get better" at not caring about people's feedback. So, I sat down and lingered over the information. Forty some excellents, a few goods and one fair. As mentioned above, historically, I put my focus on the yuck, or percieved yuck. ( What? good? one fair? Why not excellent? What could I have done differently, what didn't they like about me, what could I do tommorrow to......). Can you say exhausting? A person could lose alot of their life focusing on that 1%. Why on earth would a person focus on the 1% ick and not the 99% wonderful? Do we like feeling horrible?

I just started reading the book The 4 Hour Work Week ( a girl can dream). I interpreted some of what I read as a suggestion to stop spending time trying to get better at the stuff I'm not so good at and instead, focus on & grow what I am allready good at... WHAT? If I'm not spending my time trying to be better at certain parts of my job, better at organization, better at balancing out work and the rest of my life, better at writing thank you notes, better at eating a healthy diet when I am traveling for work, better at... The list could go on and on. If I stop trying to be better, won't my pants get to tight as I have milkshakes at every meal when I'm on the road and be content with the house being trashed and just give up on finding balance?

I think (please remember I just started the book) the author is suggesting if I drop all of the self-help and focus on my strengths, I will be happier and more satisfied. If I'm focusing on my strengths, experiencing that sense of contentment and peace then I believe I will naturally want to eat a healthy diet, keep my living space clean and organized and naturally find a place of balance between work and the rest of life. Instead of doing things because I believe I need to get better at them, I'm going to recognize what I am good at and let that guide me.

It could rock a person's world to think that we could drop the entire self-help movement. If this turns out to be accurate, I know a place where you can buy some self-help books at a very reduced price.

Here's to all of your wonderfulness-just as you are!


Ami