Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Introspection

Don’t Suppress Your Emotions

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Buddhism Lessons: Don't Suppress Your Emotions The Buddha taught that emotions are part of being human. Redemption comes solely from knowledge, the root of which lies in the awareness of the reasons for suffering.

Buddhism discourages you from ignoring unpleasant emotions so that you don’t have to experience them.

Acknowledging the way things are—and that they can’t change—may be the most challenging step toward happiness. It’s worth trying because you really can be happy, even when your life looks nothing like you thought it would.

Don’t try to quash your emotions; let yourself feel them. Yes, even the unpleasant ones. This attitude enables you to process them and challenge the dread that you won’t handle them.

Idea for Impact: Acceptance helps you work with the life you have. You can feel contentment in life without berating yourself for not feeling what you think you’re supposed to feel.

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Decision-Making Isn’t Black and White

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Decision-Making Isn't Black and White Most decisions aren’t “good” or “bad;” most fall somewhere in the middle.

Coming to terms with this reality is a big part of allowing yourself to trust your decisions, especially when dealing with uncertainty. Besides, more thinking can’t always be better thinking.

Let go of decisions you made in the past that you weren’t entirely satisfied with. Don’t let them haunt you in the present. Don’t let them second-guess yourself after a decision has been made.

Idea for Impact: When decisions don’t work out as expected, give yourself a break. Not all bad outcomes result from bad decisions. There are positive and negative implications to everything. And that’s OK.

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Get Everything Out of Your Head

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When there’s so much going on in your head, you’re constantly playing mental ping-pong. All those unfinished tasks can indeed affect your ability to be present with anything that you’re doing.

Sitting down to write out all the things that are weighing on your mind can boot out the clutter. Per the Zeigarnik Effect, interrupted tasks and unfinished thoughts tend to inundate you with a constant stream of reminders. Just the simple act of capturing a task can achieve a sense of completion for the moment.

Get It All Out Of Your Head - Reduce Stress Clear off your cluttered desk, pour some tea, put on some relaxing music, light a candle, mute the phone, and write down all the things you need to pay attention to. Work stuff, home stuff, kids stuff, paperwork, school stuff, friends stuff—all the stuff! Get it all out of your head.

Writing down everything that’s occupying your mind right now won’t solve your problems, but it makes them evident. This exercise makes it a lot easier to make good intuitive choices about where you should focus now and where it’s okay that you don’t focus now.

Idea for Impact: Stop what you’re doing right now and write down everything you have in your head. Not only will this exercise put in perspective all those things you need to keep track of, but also it’s a great way to reset your day.

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Mindfulness Can Disengage You from Others

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This BBC article warns that mindfulness has a way of stirring people to think of themselves in more independent—not interdependent—terms:

A recent study suggests that, in some contexts, practicing mindfulness really can exaggerate some people’s selfish tendencies. With their increased inward focus, they seem to forget about others and are less willing to help those in need.

To counteract these effects, experts suggest other mindfulness techniques such as “loving-kindness meditation” (deliberately thinking about our sense of connection with others) and “mindful listening” (paying particular attention to another’s descriptions of emotional situations.)

Mindfulness Can Disengage You from Others Mindfulness is an expansive nonjudgmental awareness of one’s experiences. While mindfulness may help you get a deeper understanding of yourself and comprehend “you” and “your mind stuff” deeper, it takes deep listening, sensitivity, and empathy to learn about “others” and “you and others.” As you tune more into yourself, you should become more able to tune into others.

The original practice and philosophy of mindfulness meditation actually consist of many of these other features mentioned in the BBC article. Somehow, those notions have gotten lost in the monetization and industrialization of mindfulness in the West.

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How to Stop a Worry Spiral

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If you tend to worry a lot—about your weight or money, what others think of you, going to a job you dislike, your life path,—you can use a simple trick proposed by the self-help author Shannon Kaiser.

'Joy Seeker' by Shannon Kaiser (ISBN 0806540257) In Joy Seeker (2019,) Kaiser suggests turning “what if” statements into “I wonder” statements. This reframing exercise helps quiet down your anxiety-filled thoughts and refocuses your mind on the best possible scenario rather than the worst:

Worry: What if I fail and it doesn’t work out?
Wonder: What if things go better than planned, and I am happier than I ever thought I could be?

Worry: What if people don’t understand or approve of what I do?
Wonder: What if people love it and my idea is well received?

Worry: What if I am rejected?
Wonder: What if I am accepted? My life will change for the better.

When you are too consumed with fear, your vision narrows, and your mind homes in on the threats you’re facing at the moment. You can’t focus on what you want. You can’t see the truth of the situation. Choosing wonder over worry helps you tap into the possibilities instead of getting sucked in by the limitations.

Idea for Impact: Approaching uncertainty with curiosity can help you fight hopelessness. Rather than admitting a terrible outcome as a foregone conclusion, you become open to possibility. You avoid sliding down into a pit of dread and despair. You’re far more likely to come up with effective ways for coping with the situation in question.

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Why Corporate Culture is the Unlikely Barrier to True Diversity

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Corporate Culture - Barrier to True Diversity

As much as companies like to tout diversity, the definitive rule of getting ahead at work is to be likable—to follow the unwritten set of norms and adhere to your company’s culture. That is, you must fit and mix well with the rest of the “gang.”

As I’ve written before, likeability is a significant predictor of success. Well-liked people, especially those who work well with others, will advance. Those who aren’t very likable don’t usually get as far. If your company is conservative, you should be conservative. If the leadership is aggressive, snappy, and rule-bending, be the same. It’s better to be “one of them” to progress your career and endear yourself to your colleagues and higher-ups.

Every grouping of people, whatever the institution, community, or population, has an unwritten set of norms. It’s true for nations, in social groups, sports teams, and businesses. Wherever people form a group, they organically form rules. They institutionalize ways of doing things, traditions, and unquestioned assumptions. Such norms give the group a sense of identity. It’s natural. It’s tribe mentality. We, humans, are social creatures, and this is how we foster a sense of belonging.

Affinity Bias

Per affinity bias, human nature is such that people instinctively associate other people with labels, relate, and play favorites. Groups establish the norms and embrace and propagate them. The resulting categorization not only resists differences but also initiates prejudice and favoritism.

In professional settings, most workplaces tend to hire similar people and encourage them to think and work in the same way. I’ve previously written,

Even if nearly all corporate mission statements extol the virtues of “valuing differences,” managers stifle individuality down in the trenches. They are less willing to be receptive to different viewpoints. They seek to mold their employees to conform to the existing culture of the workplace and to comply with the existing ways of doing things. Compliant, acquiescent employees who look the part are promoted in preference to exceptional, questioning employees who bring truly different perspectives to the table. The nail that sticks its head up indeed gets hammered down.

Defining, fostering, and defending a corporate culture often becomes an exercise in clarifying ‘this is who we are’ and ‘this is who we are not.’ It engenders a strong norm, which builds an even more significant incentive to get people to think alike, get on, and tolerate or repel incompatible people.

Idea for Impact: Culture is a barriers to diversity and inclusion

Culture is the unlikely—if unintentional—barrier to true diversity. Culture has a pernicious effect on hiring. It gives people ample reason to favor and engage who they believe to be “the right people.”

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Think Your Way Out of a Negative Thought

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Think Your Way Out of a Negative Thought

The human mind can become more blinkered in times of emotional turmoil.

The reasons for negative thoughts aren’t always logical, but challenging the stimuli with the following probing questions can help you reappraise the situation and distance yourself from the negative thoughts.

  • What am I concerned about?
  • Is this thought mine or someone else’s that I’ve picked up on?
  • Do I believe this thought?
  • Is this thought accurate?
  • Is this thought realistic?
  • Are the barriers and threats really insurmountable?
  • What’s the worst that can happen?
  • Am I too harsh on myself?
  • What can I learn about this thought?
  • What belief is attached to this thought?
  • How can I reframe this thought to be more realistic and pragmatic?
  • How can I cheer myself up as I would a friend?
  • What’s an affirming baby step that I can take now to pick myself up and rectify this situation?

Idea for Impact: How you think about a condition influences how you feel about it. Often a thought-out, levelheaded analysis of the situation can unshackle the mind’s echo chamber and nudge you to think your way out of a problem and look beyond it.

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Don’t Hide from Your Feelings, Accept Them

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Emotional Acceptance---Don't Hide from Your Feelings, Accept Them When you’re feeling upset, angry, stressed, or sad, don’t deny, withhold, or hide from your feelings. Think about what it is that’s making you feel this way.

Emotional Acceptance refers to the willingness and ability to accept and experience negative emotions—to acknowledge and absorb them. Jan Chozen Bays, a pediatrician-turned Zen teacher, writes in Mindfulness on the Go: Simple Meditation Practices You Can Do Anywhere (2014,) a practical guide for engaging the mind,

A very important way to work with discomfort is to stop avoiding it. You will walk right into it and feel from within the body what is true. You investigate the discomfort—its size, shape, surface texture and even its color and sound. Is it constant or intermittent? When you are this attentive, when your meditative absorption is deep, what we call discomfort or pain begins to shift and even disappear. It becomes a series of sensations just appearing and disappearing in empty space, twinkling on and off. It is most interesting.

Mindfulness practice needn’t be just for negative emotions, either. Are you feeling happy and joyful? Calm and content? Apprehensive or remorseful? No matter the case, taking stock of how you’re feeling can help you realize that your emotions do not represent you. They don’t have to define your thoughts.

Practicing this self-reflective process regularly will help you better understand yourself, break negative patterns in your life, and react to emotional situations in a wholesome, more productive way.

Idea for Impact: Practice Emotional Acceptance—Feeling Bad Can Be Good

Emotional avoidance appears to be a reasonable thing to do. Yes, it provides momentary relief in the here and now. But emotional avoidance often involves denying the truth—and that isn’t a good foundation for a healthy life.

Over time, it only makes things worse to avoid the thing that scares you. Create the awareness to feel your feelings, label them, accept them, and then let them fade.

Wondering what to read next?

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  2. Heaven and Hell: A Zen Parable on Self-Awareness
  3. The More You Can Manage Your Emotions, the More Effective You’ll Be
  4. Expressive Writing Can Help You Heal
  5. Learn to Manage Your Negative Emotions and Yourself

Five Ways … You Could Be More Optimistic

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  • Five Ways Manage negative emotions and yourself. People who lack the capacity to withstand psychological distress such as anger, fear, frustration, and sadness are at a marked disadvantage in life.
  • Let go of sunk costs. Don’t become stuck with poor decisions hoping that they will eventually work out in your favor. Cut your losses when something’s not working for you. Too much persistence can often be bad.
  • Stop thinking in absolutes. Shun blind optimism. Discard the myth of perfection. Even the most optimistic outlook may do little good without realism and flexibility. Learn to accept and forgive—there’s good and bad in all individuals and things.
  • Do without the word ‘should.’ Instead of telling yourself, “I should have finished that task last week,” substitute the word ‘could.’ Realize you have the option of exercising your own choice.
  • Practice gratitude. Make a list of all the people and things in your life for which you are grateful. Reflect on the richness of the events and relationships that have enhanced your life. Recognizing that you are deserving of all these good things will make you feel good about who you are and what you’ve done.

Bonus: Give yourself time to feel good. When you reach a goal, allow for a period of celebration before taking on the next goal. Treat yourself occasionally, but avoid escapism.

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“What Am I Sad About?”

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When you’re struggling with sadness, part of your feelings may involve experiencing a lot of distress and shame about how sad you feel.

You probably won’t even realize it’s happening, but you’ll feel like “I shouldn’t be this sad” and that “my sadness is a weakness.”

Befriending your feelings and feeling your emotions

It shouldn’t always feel like it’s just you.

When you acknowledge your sadness, you can actually perceive how you’re tunneling yourself into more gloom. Then you could do a much better job of accepting your sadness as it is, as the Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke reminds in the masterpiece Letters to a Young Poet (1929):

How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races – the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses. Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are only princesses waiting for us to act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.

So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises before you larger than any you’ve ever seen, if an anxiety like light and cloud shadows moves over your hands and everything that you do. You must realize that something has happened to you; that life has not forgotten you; it holds you in its hands and will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions? For after all, you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you.

Thinking through “What am I sad about?” can help you get happier

Try to redirect the blame from yourself and recognize that sadness is a natural and reasonable response to the miseries of the world—some of them personal, some collective.

Yes, believing in yourself in the face of self-doubt can be challenging. But the extent of sadness isn’t immutable.

Thinking through Sadness with Self-Compassion You can trigger a vast shift in how you feel by dropping self-criticism and embracing a more kind, non-judgmental relationship with yourself. Sadness isn’t a state of sin.

  • Change “I can’t do this” to “this will be a challenge for me; it’s normal to feel anxious.
  • Accept “I hate this” with “this is a tough situation to handle, and I’m doing my best.”
  • Persuade yourself to substitute “I hate myself” with “I’m overwhelmed with low self-esteem at the moment, and I need to cheer myself as I would a friend.”
  • Instead of repenting, “I can’t believe it slipped my mind again,” let yourself off by acknowledging, “it’s difficult to balance so many things. Perhaps I need to let go of some of them.”

Idea for Impact: Befriending your feelings and not identifying with these feelings as your self can affirm not only who you are but also what you believe you can be. Even when you feel disturbed because you’re falling back into past patterns, bear in mind that simply being aware that you’ve retreated into going over the past is a precursor of growth. Self-awareness can pave the way to a great leap forward in your personal transformation.

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  2. Heaven and Hell: A Zen Parable on Self-Awareness
  3. Don’t Hide from Your Feelings, Accept Them
  4. Expressive Writing Can Help You Heal
  5. Lessons on Adversity from Charlie Munger: Be a Survivor, Not a Victim