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So often we follow a pattern of behaviour that we have not consciously thought through as to whether it is still having the beneficial effects it once did. A simple question of ‘why am I doing this?’ or ‘why am I doing this now?’ and often get us to consider quicker and more efficient ways to conduct our lives.

Changes in routines can often bring energy and enthusiasm back, meetings held at different times, chaired by different people, talking to somebody new can all have a surprisingly beneficial effect.

When we do the same things at the same times we can find ourselves in a comfort zone that whilst initially exactly that, comfortable, can soon become a drudge and our energy dips without us even realising.

Concentration, for most people,  comes in cycles of 40 minutes so after 40 minutes get up and move or change conversation.  A few minutes walking at unusual times of the day can spark the creativity and energy to get much more done

My point is that when I started the evening I felt tired and really not the mood to speak to lots of strangers. So in full knowledge that we often get what we expect, I got a grip of myself and decided that I was going to make the most of the event.

And, what do you know, I had a great evening. One to remember. And it called to mind that life and people are all too often just a mirror of ourselves.

Expect bad outcomes and that is what you will get Expect good and more than often you will get to experience the positive.

have a great day

Angela

So then I wonder, what make someone inspiring? For me it is not about them always being right, and having all the answers but it is about confidence. Confidence and energy, a small amount of energy can re-charge everyone’s batteries. That is what I want and from where I am sitting too few people are showing that kind of grit. Oh, I know there are those people who fake it and just appear pushy, but real confidence and real energy – now that’s what I am looking for.

I sat and watched Cat on a hot tin roof with my daughter the other day, if you are unfamiliar with the film it revolves around a day in the life of one family and what they refer to as mendacity.  The film was made in the fifties so this is rather an old fashioned term but basically translated into modern language as dishonesty or lies.

A number of crises are brought to a head on this day and all paths lead to the same place, lack of honesty about feelings and motives.  How so often we role play behaviour we think will suit our needs, usually in the short term, and then get stuck in our behaviour and almost begin to believe the lie.  So often we will excuse our own dishonesty as not wanting to upset of offend others but honestly we know it gets us out of a tricky situation and our silence make the immediate issue easier to sweep away.

In Tennessee Williams’ usual brilliant way through just six main characters he displays each of them in pretence, all for various motives and I doubt there is any viewer who would not associate with some behaviour from one of the characters.

So very often we are not even aware of our duplicity.  It can begin with a belief that to tell another a real truth it would hurt them and damage a relationship.  But how can any relationship truly deepen with anything less than the truth.

I often mull over my own motives of wanting to be more honest (or not) with others.  I think it is always wise to consider ones own part,   Is this my ego talking?  Do I just want to hit out because I am hurt?   What are the potential  repercussions of speaking our or staying silent?  Once clear that your motives are sound it is a great deal easier to be honest about how you feel.   In telling another how much their behaviour has hurt you are of course showing vulnerability but such acts are the things that deepen trust and understanding.  Often we are unaware that our behaviour has caused a problem to others, and in talking honestly we are able to put forward a view that was perhaps unseen.  And of course, it is a relief once we understand that what we thought was an offence was a misunderstanding.

This may sound as this can only relate to families and personal relationships but I would suggest that its benefits can be felt through any team or organisation.

Frequently, when working with a team,  we will hear from one person how well their behaviour is received by another only for that other person to be quite frank in their absolute dislike of the behaviour that they have struggled to tolerate but that has undoubtedly caused tension.  Imagine, if you are irritated by another person’s behaviour but felt unable to tell them and then they ask you to back a suggestion they have in mind, being all too human we might just say no to be as irritating as they are and of course the potentially good idea is lost in a personal irritation nothing to do with business.

We encourage all the teams and individuals we work with to exercise honesty at every possible level.  Yes, it can take some training to learn how to manage this in a non confrontational manner but the benefits are enormous.  There can be no trust when real feelings are suppressed.  So after checking out your own motives step out a little more honestly and feel the benefits.  People will always feel more comfortable with anyone they feel is being straight with them and if your approach any tricky situation with good intention intentions I think you will be amazed at how much easier life can be.

When the changes are unwelcome how can we manage them?  Look to a higher meaning and wonder what life is trying to teach us and look for the benefits of the situation?  Easier to do in hindsight I think.  When you are in the midst of challenging changes that are throwing your life into disarray you can just feel angry and unfairly treated.  But intellectually we know that there is little use in railing against the unfairness of it all, we know we must concentrate the mind to focus on moving on and the new future that seems to wait.

I like to reflect on the image of all living beings, from the most basic plant and beyond, if it is not growing and developing than it is dying.   There is no staying still in the world of clear nature.  When facing difficult change I can feel reassured by taking in nature.  The relentless nature of regrowth and rebirth is so reassuringly strong, it supersedes anything mere humans can come up with.   So move on and grow, even if it this is a path you did not envisage, what can be made of this new path?  And perhaps if you cannot yet understand this path in this moment than know that at point in the future you may very well be able to.  I appreciate that there is an element of the Pollyanna thinking in this kind of attitude, but why not?  A positive frame of reference can help you to find the energy to move on;  a negative one will seek out the angry part of you and cause inertia that will make it difficult to move on to the next good part of life.

And you can be absolutely sure that just as the, difficult and trying ‘bad’ times do come along, so do the joyous good times.  This is the reflection in all of our lives of the continual growth and development that, if we can just relax into it, can help us to mature and develop into the amazing people we are meant to be.

And know, or perhaps reflect on,  how even welcome change can be alarming.  The fear of not knowing can sometimes overwhelm us and stop us taking a chance and embracing good fortune through fear and suspicion.  Experiments found that the luckiest people in the world are the ones that believe themselves to be lucky, too long to explain here, suffice to say that people who consider themselves lucky are always on the lookout for opportunity and low and behold they find opportunities.

As a family we often reflect on the deeply irritating,  but obviously truthful,  quote of Nietzsche – that which does not kill us makes us  stronger.  Sometimes I am quite clear I have no desire to be any stronger but equally I know I am becoming wiser, more compassionate and more aware of a bigger picture.  Perhaps the gift is to pass on to others?

Hold tight to the knowledge that the endless movement and change in your life is just doing what it is meant to do.  Leading you to the amazing, fulfilled and unique person you are meant to be.

Here at The Way Towers we have been banging on for quite a while about it.  We work hard to get our clients to embrace authenticity and back that up with some support when needed.

Why would you need support to be authentic?  Well, the more I hear the idea discussed the more I consider that an essential part of being authentic is being missed.  What if you have lost touch with your authentic self?  Perhaps old messages to you were strong either from family or society, about who you should be can make it is all too easy to lose a clear view of self.  Also I considered, what if you actually were not too keen on what you considered your authentic self and so had absolutely no desire to show that aspect of yourself to the world?

It seems to me that to start to try on the totally authentic style of living you need to get your confidence in the right place, or at least be willing to push it up and take a chance.

What are the benefits of being authentic?  Is it worth taking a chance that, deep horror, your authentic self turns out to be fairly unappealing to the mass population.

Well, of course, I would say it but it is absolutely completely and undoubtedly worth it; you can tell I feel strongly here.

When you are just being yourself people feel more relaxed in your presence, never doubt for a moment that most people have a strong sense, conscious or otherwise, when somebody is not being straight with them; it makes people step back and become self protective.  Barriers small and large start to be erected with you on the other side.

Now the fact that you may not be being authentic because you are feeling self conscious or generally less wonderful than you should is not the issue, your unauthentic behaviour will be read that you have something to hide.

Each and every one of us has failings and talents, each of us has vulnerabilities.  So never look at others and imagine they have it all under totally control, they don’t and confidence to be oneself is merely a sliding scale.  You can improve where you are on that scale with logical and clear observation of your talents and as you become more relaxed that you are ‘good enough’ you will move up that confidence scale.  Amazingly, once you start to accept that you really are, well something special, you will find yourself in increasingly more situations where your talent is called upon and like a rolling stone you will gather the moss of confidence.  The tricky bit is the initial stepping in to try just being yourself, accepting that you are good enough.  Then you can just watch the difference it makes.

And as you become more of your authentic self, know that you will face setbacks; big ones like not getting the job you wanted and small ones like feeling that when you were being yourself someone was not so keen on you.   It is okay, we all get tired and then we revert to our more fragile self; just don’t hang about there too long.

And one of the greatest aspects of being authentic is that you will free up all that energy that you spent trying to be what you think people want.  If you tell the truth about yourself, which is I suppose what we are doing by being authentic, you can never be caught out.  And if anyone is not so keen on your new authentic self?  Well, it was not the real you they liked in the first place.  Why not find the sort of people who like you just exactly as you are.  You will love it I promise.

No, not the boundary that limits your success, but the boundaries that hold you and build resilience and enhance success.  They are the ones that help you to be more authentic and ultimately happier.

As children we are held by boundaries, the healthiest and happiest children are those who know where they stand with people.  That there are lines that, if crossed, bring a negative result.  This leaves them free to concentrate on being children and the all the learning that brings.  Children raised in too loose an environment with no experience of being held back from their own free will, rarely hearing no, can live a life of frustration and anger always pushing against the next boundary.  There is little peace as they begin to believe that their will is the most important issue.  When, in adulthood, they approach the world in the same manner it can lead to real unhappiness and frustration.  The energy that might be put to their creative development of ideas is concentrated on the anger of frustration and a feeling of unfairness and often a feeling of failure.  Eventually this feeling becomes a burden; the sorrow at not inevitably achieving what they desire as they grow into adults can make it too painful to even try.   Equally a lack of positive regard, perceived or otherwise, as we grow leaves us with this same fear of not being good enough.  The two sides of us, one overly expectant the other expecting nothing.   We know that life can be terribly unfair and of course it is normal to feel disappointed at times when things don’t work out for us but it is our resilience that paves the way for true success.  As the saying goes it is not the failing down that is the problem it is the failing to get up again.

This can seem to be a contrary argument, we need boundaries as children in order to grow resilience and confidence and yet we know as adults it is in pushing boundaries to discover what we really can achieve that we find success. Forcing ourselves to be braver than we feel.

The answer is in our self awareness.  When we check out our motives for behaving in a particular manner, or consider why we really want something than life becomes considerably easier.  If we start to understand that we have not made that phone call, put in that job application, spoken to that person because we fear rejection then we can start to come to terms with our fears and as we do they diminish.  Will the world stop turning? Will anything truly catastrophic happen?

Just like when we were children, if we can rid ourselves of our doubts about our worthiness, intelligence, beauty then we can forge ahead, striving for our goals.

All too often we feel that, just being ourselves will not be enough.  We can look around and think that everyone else is achieving great things, with their perfect families, perfect home and stunning good looks.  Now just run through that again, is everyone else really doing as well as you imagine in all the areas your imagine.  Or are they just getting through with their own demons and areas of discontent.  Once we begin to accept that the majority of us face regular challenges in dealing with the human condition of the negative voice in our head and the frankly cruel review we can give ourselves when we look in the mirror, then we can settle in and enjoy being ourselves.

A client recently moved to a newly refurbished hotel as General Manager and asked us to come and stay soon after he arrived to check it out from the guests’ point of view.

I found it so different to just staying at a hotel, one suddenly becomes hyper aware, noticing so many details. I looked at everything from a new perspective and really questioned how each experience could make a difference to each customer.

I came away with two main thoughts; you never know when someone is watching and how do we find the ‘new’ eyes to see how we provide our service for our customers?

On the first point I really understood that in business you are always, but always, on show.  So you had better enjoy the experience and be authentic or your will be sending a mixed message that will certainly be picked up, even if they do not know why, people will absolutely feel an unease around you.  It is not about being in an endless good mood, but it is about making your job all about the customer and taking pride in the service you provide.  No matter how down or disinterested you might feel thinking about someone else can lift us in a surprising way.  As a great fan of servant leadership this sits well with me, and for those of us running our own business especially, the customer, within the bounds of contract, is certainly God.

There was a young man at the hotel, who cleared a table with a courteousy that we immediately responded to; it was in no way servile, just pleasant and we responded in a like thoughtful manner.  He stood with confidence and pride, feet planted squarely on the ground with shoulders back.  When we made a particular note to our client about him we were delighted to hear that he had also noticed the young man and had already earmarked him for progression.  This was within days of our client being at the hotel, our comments confirming that the young man had more to offer.  Although he had no knowledge at all that he was being noticed, his attitude to his job will undoubtedly move him on.

Equally then,  it must be the case that doing your job with disinterest, delivering a presentation with minimal effort,  a lunch with people you believe will not interest you,  will equally have the potential to hold you back from success.

And so to my second point of how do we look at our own service with new eyes?  Well, I think it is about not resting on any previous good feedback.  As you often hear actors say, you are only as good as your last performance.  Often when an event or piece of work has been well received in the past we could be led to believe that it does not need improvement.  I think one thing this recession has taught many of us is that one must always be looking at how to get an edge and do something, anything  and everything  better than before.  And to give substance to that belief I can tell you that we both, for separate reasons, sent back our main course at dinner.  The chef was aghast apparently, he had previously won a rosette for his food.  Well, it was without doubt the worst meal I had ever had at any hotel, never mind this four star one, so I think there is a strong chance that he has been resting on his laurels and not providing the excellent service he is capable of.

It is clear, if we want to be successful, then we must never rest on past success; we should look forward with enthusiasm at the good service we are going to deliver in the future.

It is human nature to look for acceptance and validation so we can easily get sidetracked and pursue approval for all the wrong reasons.  Then before we know it we have established a habit, and as time goes by this becomes harder and harder to break.  This can cause us to lack confidence and look for reassurance when we really know our own minds; we just have forgotten how to follow through.

Often these patterns of behaviour are set up in childhood and, in times of tiredness or stress especially, we can find that we return to that behaviour.  But when you question the possible motives behind being told as a child to;  be nice, be helpful, be quiet, we can see that perhaps at times there was an  ulterior motive of an adult looking for their own peace and quite.  And yet these messages become embedded and we can lose our sense of surety about our actions.

Coupled with the very real possibility that many people have an agenda, wanting to get their own needs met.  It seems that only by some kind of telepathy would we be able to understand what our audience wants, and more importantly why.

And yet if accept that others have their own motives then by default we must look at our own.  When you start to understand your own motivation for being perhaps too agreeable it can be very much easier to take a confident stance and sit with the uncomfortable feeling that another’s disapproval can bring.

This can be so hard at first but then the more you start to understand your own motivation it becomes stunningly simple to either step out of conflict, step into acceptance and build that all important confidence.

So next time you feel you are going along with something that you do not really want to stop and consider.

Who will benefit from me going along with this course of action?  If it is for the other person and you are okay with that then carry on.  If you know this course of action will bring you discomfort ask yourself why you are agreeing.  How would be just to say no?

If being in ‘agreement’ mode has become a normal state for you, and you made need to take a moment to reflect if it is,  then starting to be less agreeable may be a little uncomfortable so try something small at first.

This is not about being difficult and uncooperative it is about letting other people actually see you.  Who you are, what you think and the valuable input you bring to those around you.

Only in accepting that we really cannot be all things all people can we learn to be a little more respectful of ourselves and conversely of others by showing them an authentic response.

It is clear that in always trying to please everyone all we ever appear to be is confused.