Most of the time, luger Chris Mazdzer can't wipe the Cheshire-cat grin off his face. He's simply a happy guy. Turns out that his positive attitude could be a performance-enhancing drug that, thankfully, is 100% legal.
"I'm pretty jolly," says Mazdzer, who has been a national and junior national champion. "I have that type of personality. I never really get down on anything. When I do, there's something seriously wrong."
According to Trent Petrie, a sports psychologist and the director of the Center for Sport Psychology at the University of North Texas, a positive attitude goes hand-in-hand with confidence.
Let go of those doubts.
Alexandra Levit writes:
Self doubt has been something I’ve struggled with all my life, from debating whether I could get into a top tier university to believing I could succeed as a writer. It’s a very human emotion, and it’s made worse for some people because of life experiences or temperament. Self doubt also makes you feel alone. Sometimes you think you’re the only person in the universe who suffers from a crisis of confidence, and you wish that you could be more like your successful, self-assured neighbor. Well, I guarantee that your neighbor doubts himself every now and then too.
You won’t ever be able to rid yourself of doubt entirely – believe me, I’ve tried. But I hope that these suggestions will lessen your pain when dark thoughts are all around you.
And you can read the suggestions in the Pivotal Magazine.
"A great attitude does much more than turn on the lights in our worlds; it seems to magically connect us to all sorts of serendipitous opportunities that were somehow absent before we changed."
Earl Nightingale
In this overview from the book by Harold W. Becker, Internal Power, Seven Doorways to Self Discovery, we find ourselves in a Grand Hallway with seven doorways representing our potential. Each doorway leads us into greater insight, understanding and personal awareness. The hallway represents our inner selves while the doorways help us recognize our journey to inner peace and freedom.
The first doorway, Choice, is the foundation of our journey of self discovery. Here we also realize the power of intent and responsibility in relationship to our choices. In doorway two, we encounter the various ways we Communicate, both within and externally. Auditory, visual or kinesthetic along with our internal and external dialogue all point to the types of thoughts we entertain. Positive Thinking is doorway three and here we find the road to happiness and joy in acknowledging the positive aspects of our lives.
Doorway four opens us up to the world of our Creativity. By accepting our creative nature through our thoughts, we restore the fullness of our ability to consciously create in everything we do. Doorway five brings us to the important understanding of our innate Masculine and Feminine energies. Perhaps one of the most potent of our attributes is to embrace and balance the imagination, the feminine energy, with that of our masculine energy of willpower. This goes beyond our gender identification and when in balance, we become more whole and complete.
Doorway six leads us to the most incredible and fulfilling relationship of our Child Within. We can learn to bring this vibrant and dynamic energy back into our present moment as a spontaneous and joyful expression. This brings us to the final doorway of Unconditional Love. The culmination of our life journey, here we release our attachments to fear and doubt and accept the natural flow of love that is always present. Our Internal Power is greatest when we realize unconditional love for ourselves and all life.
A video about forgiveness with Mary Karen Read's last words in her journal entry before her death at the Virginia tech shooting.
Rajesh Setty certainly believes so.
I observed time and again that nice people win BIG TIME in the long run. So this was part of my mini-research
He goes on to explain how being nice can create exponential growth.
by Jim Rohn
Remember the master teacher once said 2000 years ago, "Unless you can become like little children, your chances are zero; you haven't got a prayer." A major consideration for adults. Be like children and remember there are four ways to be more like a child no matter how old you get…
"If you look at what you have in life, you'll always have more. If you look at what you don't have in life, you'll never have enough."
Oprah Winfrey
From Rober Schwartz
We all have an inner critic living inside us who speaks up at times, in varying degrees, negatively evaluating our own actions and those of others. As facilitators and coaches we have many opportunities to deal with our inner critic. We might doubt or judge ourselves harshly about how we dealt with a client or facilitated a group. Our critical voice often results from early shaming or humiliating, and fear-based experiences. We internalize these negative critical messages about ourselves and replay them in our minds. The inner critic evolves as a coping strategy in response to these early experiences.
The bottom line is when our inner critic rears its head, our experience is painful and distracting. However, by addressing our inner critic, we can develop our compassion for others and ourselves.
Compassion is the antidote to the inner critic. Though it may seem counter-intuitive, the critical part of us is actually our ally. When the inner critic arises, we can listen and make a choice about how much power and attention we will give that part of ourselves. We can also identify any useful, valid information our inner critic may have for us. Gradually, by paying attention to our inner critic in this way, its strength diminishes because we can more quickly move through the cycle of acknowledging, choosing and then releasing that part of ourselves. Each time we hear our inner critic’s voice, we can acknowledge it and make a choice for compassion. By doing this we can:
- recognize that many of our judgments are high-level inferences and assumptions
- choose to shift our behavior from fear-based unilateral control to mutual learning
- Develop our compassion and take responsibility for our actions, laying less blame on others
- Deepen our compassion for others
As we begin befriending our inner critic, we can use our interventions with others to help them enter the same process.
One approach that I practice and share with my clients is to address the inner critic by giving it a form. One of our Facilitative Coaching workshop participants found that she could address her inner critic by creating it out of clay and making it an armchair. She said, “If I give my inner critic a comfortable place to sit than it won’t want to bother me.” Her creation was in response to an exercise about dealing with the inner critic. By doing this she offered compassion to herself and her inner critic. As a result she felt freer to express herself during the workshop and be present to learn.
Written and edited by Dale Schwartz, copyright Roger Schwartz and Associates
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(amongst some other equally beautiful and inspiring ones) - go to the website
