Generosity of spirit has to do with forgiveness, compassion, going the extra mile, the bigger picture, etc. You know that people are imperfect, as are you. So, people screw up, as do you. Therefore, what you have to do is demonstrate generosity of spirit that is the extra mile, forgiveness, caring, empathetic dimension of yourself. In order to do that means you go the extra mile, you reach out, say “Thank you.” You say “I’m sorry.” You forgive and you let it go and you move ahead. You let go of the stuff that’s irreconcilable so that you can get on with your life. Show that generosity of spirit and you will see results.
Character – Responsibility
Responsibility is all about owning whatever decisions you have made. When you are a fully functioning grown-up, you take responsibility for your behavior, your actions, your decisions and your initiatives. So, responsibility really is learning to be a fully functioning adult. If you say you are going to do something, do it! If you say you are going to follow through, follow through! If something is broken on your watch, take ownership for it! Follow through, show commitment, and avoid the blaming, the whining, and that somehow thinking that making excuses is going to get you results. Take more responsibility and others will as well.
Strength of Character
Character is everything. When you hire somebody you hire them based upon their background and skills and when you fire somebody, it almost always has to do with character. At the end of the day everything comes down to your character, your principles and your basic governing values. What is one of the ingredients of character? It is your integrity. It is what everybody wants out of a co-worker or people in their family; even if that somehow means that you are going to be unpopular by telling the truth. If you tell the truth and refuse to lie, you are generally going to get better results in the long term. So, I encourage you to commit to more integrity. Tell the truth and you will get a reputation accordingly.
Discipline
Regardless of whether I am talking to a parent or a businessperson, people really want discipline out of their children, co-workers, and subordinates. What is discipline? Discipline is the willingness to stay committed to do something even if you are disinterested in doing it. Whether it is discipline at exercise or discipline in following through with your education. If you think about discipline, and you have some way to influence yourself or someone else, simply say, “Discipline is doing it anyway.” If you are going to exercise and you are disinterested, just do it anyway. If you are going to follow through, do it anyway. When you do it that way, you are going to learn discipline and you will get a lot more done.
Constructive Criticism
People are often uncomfortable getting criticism and it makes them feel bad. Sometimes we set them up and it makes it worse. We say, “Well, gee, Bob, you are doing a good job… but… this isn’t very good and that’s pretty bad too.” If you set them up that way, it makes the situation worse because even if Bob is doing a good job he is unlikely to hear that. My recommendation is when you tell people what they are doing right; make sure you tell them the good news after the bad news. Say something like this, “Bob, I really want you to work on your customer service skills, and I am telling you this because your technical skills are absolutely brilliant and you add so much value around here.” If you tell them the bad news first and then the good news after that, you’ll get by far better sign-up and changed behavior.
Reinforcement
When you think about life, whether at work or at home, you really would like to be told more often what you are doing right. Most of the time there are three options of what you can get: criticism, you can be told what you are doing right or you get nothing (silence). Mostly we get criticism or very little of anything. We want more reinforcement. I encourage you to give more reinforcement. Tell people what they are doing right, write them a note, tell them out loud, or make a toast of them in public. Whatever it is, tell them what they are doing right and be specific. Instead of just saying, good job” say, “I want you to know that you did a wonderful job it added a lot of value and here’s specifically how well you did…” So remember, tell people what they are doing right. You are at low risk of doing it too much.
Marriage – The Marriage Functional Union
If you want to keep your marriage healthy it is important to remember this acronym: 2-first. 2-first stands for the following: Tolerance, Openness, Flexibility, Investment, Respect, Support and Trust. If you can remember these, you’ll think, “To first get my relationship healthy, I have to remember those items.” Tolerance, Openness, Flexibility, Investment, Respect, Support and Trust. When you think of it in those terms, you are more likely to keep it on your radar at which point you are going to improve your marriage’ health.
Losing Weight – Returning to the Refrigerator
Do you ever notice yourself returning to the fridge? You have just finished eating something and you go back to the fridge to see what else is in there. You looked in there for the last three minutes; on the other hand, maybe something else magically appeared. The deal is that you return to the fridge out of sheer habit, and often because you are bored or have little to do. The way to change that behavior is to do something different. Instead of saying that you are going to stop going to the fridge, you say that you are going to start doing something else; take a walk around the house, take a walk around the neighborhood, or read a magazine. When you do something other than return to the fridge, you are going to break the habit.
Losing Weight – Unconscious Eating
Do you ever notice when food is in front of you it just starts automatically getting stuffed into your face? A lot of people with weight problems unconsciously eat. The food is there and they start grazing and they are talking or watching television and they automatically shovel it in on automatic pilot. Start noticing how you eat. Start keeping a journal. This will point out what you are eating, how much, and when you are eating. Do this for two weeks and you’ll start noticing how automatic it is. When you keep a food journal you become more conscious of what you are doing and you now have control.
Losing Weight – Feeling Deprived
Do you feel deprived? If you are like most people who are on crash diets, you feel deprived and what happens, right on schedule, you sabotage your diet. The reason why diets fail, in addition to you feeling powerless to control your lifestyle, is because diets are so restrictive. You might lose weight and then you gain it right back because you felt deprived for so long. Then you want to reward yourself. So, avoid feeling deprived by eating smaller amounts of what you want as opposed to huge amounts of everything. Then when you do, you feel much less deprived and much more in control. The idea is to change your lifestyle on a permanent basis, so eat in little bits as opposed to huge amounts at which point you will avoid feeling deprived.