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A Quick Way to Build Your Confidence Right Now

June 20, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

How to Feel More in Control Guilt, anxiety, and fear usually manifest as a creeping mindset of what’s lacking. You feel you’re not enough, and you don’t have the resources you need to achieve your goals.

Lack of confidence will probably hold you back more than you may acknowledge. Be mindful of your thoughts and address these negative thinking patterns. Notice how you speak to yourself—harping only on what isn’t enough of or what isn’t working doesn’t instill your self-assuredness.

When you spiral about what is lacking, try the Abundance Mentality—it empowers you to believe in your extant ability. You can make do with what you have and overcome any difficulties. This isn’t some naïve “can do” temperament, but it’s an earnest endeavor to muster hope and agency instead of doubt and helplessness.

Idea for Impact: The less you do, the less confident you’ll feel.

Don’t wait until you feel more confident—often, more ruminating leads to analysis paralysis. Self-confidence comes from successful experiences, and to create these successful experiences, take action.

Take a low-risk action to increase your confidence. Assume you’re the most confident self you’ve ever been and do what that self would do. Prioritize your choices and direct your resources to pressing needs, ignoring other goals.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. It’s Probably Not as Bad as You Think: The 20-40-60 Rule
  2. A Bit of Insecurity Can Help You Be Your Best Self
  3. How to Turn Your Fears into Fuel
  4. You Can’t Know Everything
  5. Accidents Can Happen When You Least Expect Them: The Overconfidence Effect

Filed Under: Mental Models, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Attitudes, Confidence, Decision-Making, Risk, Role Models, Wisdom

Look Back at This Time Last Year

May 20, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Look Back at This Time Last Year and Reflect Upon Life

Each week, review the prior year’s calendar, logbook, or journal for the same week to see what you were doing. What projects were you working on, and with whom were you interacting?

This habit not only gives you a perspective on how things turned out for you but also reminds you to reconnect with people.

What was most important in your life then? What “would I, could I, should I” decisions were you facing then? Have some of your anticipated troubles never come to pass? What were your most memorable moments? Has much of your worrying been eventually fruitless? What elements of life have you overlooked, and what could you restart or reprioritize now?

Idea for Impact: As you look back, reflect on how every experience, even a negative one, is merely a little step on the path. In the end, life turns out to be okay.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Don’t Be So Hard on Yourself
  2. Get Everything Out of Your Head
  3. Cope with Anxiety and Stop Obsessive Worrying by Creating a Worry Box
  4. Expressive Writing Can Help You Heal
  5. Sometimes You Should Stop Believing // The Case Against Hope

Filed Under: Living the Good Life, Mental Models Tagged With: Introspection, Mindfulness, Resilience, Wisdom, Worry

Having What You Want

May 16, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Finding Contentment---Wanting is Different from Having

Wanting is different from having.

Wanting is in the future. Having is here; it’s now.

Wanting is based on what could make you happy in the next minute, next week, or next year.

When you don’t let yourself have what you already have, you’re in a trap of your own making. You’re perpetually restless and disengaged. You aren’t present—you’re pursuing a happiness that’s always somewhere else.

Idea for Impact: Don’t be so occupied wanting the next thing that you don’t allow yourself to enjoy what’s in front of you now. You’ll become more content if you look harder for things to be grateful for in the here and now.

Wondering what to read next?

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Filed Under: Living the Good Life Tagged With: Balance, Happiness, Materialism, Mindfulness, Money, Simple Living, Wisdom

Learning from Bad Managers

April 28, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Learning from Bad Managers It’s always nice to have great bosses who’ll teach you many things the easy way. However, you’ll have a boss who’s bad for you at some stage in your career. Bad bosses come in all forms: tyrants, abrasive, unprincipled, insensitive, indecisive, inconsistent, unfair, uncaring, arrogant, insensitive, quick-tempered, manipulative, apathetic, and so on.

If you’re perceptive, you can learn more from these bad examples than you’ll from the great bosses you’ll work for. Remember the axiom: “No one is totally worthless; you can always serve as a bad example.”

When you have a bad boss, ask yourself, what things about this boss will you commit to never doing? Make a list and refer to it occasionally. Avoiding doing these things will help you be a better boss—and be a positive role model for others.

Idea for Impact: Bad bosses can become useful teachers precisely because they provide some of the best lessons in what not to do that you’ll ever be offered. Take it upon yourself to never be like your bad boss.

Wondering what to read next?

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  4. 20 Reasons People Don’t Change
  5. No Boss Likes a Surprise—Good or Bad

Filed Under: Managing People Tagged With: Balance, Feedback, Getting Along, Learning, Managing the Boss, Relationships, Wisdom, Workplace

It’s Not What You See; It’s How You See It

March 7, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The Power of Perspective

Try to consider the sunny side of a situation rather than focusing on what’s wrong with it.

If it’s pouring rain, don’t upset yourself over plans hampered or stress about getting drenched. Instead, relish the splendor of landscape under the grey sky, delight in the pattering noise of the rain, and savor how the flowers have their heads as if to rest. Appreciate how rain is the great facilitator of life. And use this as a perfect excuse to curl up with a good book and chill out.

It’s not what you see; it’s how you see it.

Got a demanding new boss? Bring to mind all the things you can learn from her—including what not to do as a manager.

Reframing allows you an expanded view of your reality. You can move your experience from a negative frame to a more hopeful one, filled with opportunities.

How you frame something can change everything. When you change your point of view, the facts of the situation remain the same. But the shift in your emotional tone changes the meaning that you give to the situation.

Idea for Impact: Practice cognitive control. Learn how to put things in perspective.

When something or somebody annoys you, shift your attention. Ask, “What’s right about this? What’s to be appreciated about this?” Imagine the best possible outcomes.

Reframing an event or stimulus changes your emotional response to it—and it helps keep stress in check.

Changing the way you see the world is not a denial. It doesn’t imply naive optimism. Instead, it is the purging of mental pollutants such as dislike and anger—even aggression—that poison the mind and disable you from finding refuge in presence.

In Buddhism, the opposite of pleasure is not pain but delusion.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Imagine a Better Response
  2. Cope with Anxiety and Stop Obsessive Worrying by Creating a Worry Box
  3. Expressive Writing Can Help You Heal
  4. Summary of Richard Carlson’s ‘Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff’
  5. The More You Can Manage Your Emotions, the More Effective You’ll Be

Filed Under: Health and Well-being, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Anxiety, Emotions, Introspection, Mindfulness, Thought Process, Wisdom

Change Your Perspective, Change Your Reactions

February 23, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Change Your Perspective, Change Your Reactions From the eighth-century Buddhist philosopher Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryavatara (“Entrance to the Path of Awakening,”) a translation from Stephen Batchelor’s A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life (1979:)

Where would I possibly find enough leather
With which to cover the surface of the earth?
But just leather on the soles of my shoes
Is equivalent to covering the earth with it
 
Likewise it is not possible for me
To restrain the external course of things
But should I restrain this mind of mine
What would be the need to restrain all else?

A powerful reminder that you can’t magically make the whole world and its people run smooth and easy, but you can reorient your heart and mind to change your perspective and endure the bumps that you’ll encounter.

Idea for Impact: If something isn’t to your liking, change your liking or find something else of your liking. The willingness to adjust is perhaps the single most critical human faculty.

Wondering what to read next?

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  3. Learn to Manage Your Negative Emotions and Yourself
  4. The More You Can Manage Your Emotions, the More Effective You’ll Be
  5. Anger Is Often Pointless

Filed Under: Living the Good Life, Mental Models Tagged With: Anger, Attitudes, Buddhism, Emotions, Getting Along, Mindfulness, Parables, Relationships, Suffering, Wisdom

Imagine a Better Response

February 10, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Choose a better response: Don't react without thinking

In the Discourses of Epictetus (c.108 CE,) Arrian reports, “I must die: must I, then die groaning too? I must be fettered: and wailing too. I must go into exile? Does anyone, then, keep me from going a smile and cheerful and serene?”

You may not choose the circumstance, but you can choose your response to it.

Choose your response, and you can rise above what holds you down.

But how?

Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning (1959) proposes, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

When circumstances pull for some particular reaction, choose to respond instead.

Don’t react without thinking. Don’t accept reflexive reactions. Instead, learn to become aware that there is a “space” before responding. Learn to recognize, increase, and make use of this “space.”

That awareness ushers a release from the dictates of both external and internal pressures.

Choose a better response. With that, you can find inner happiness.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. It’s Not What You See; It’s How You See It
  2. Get Everything Out of Your Head
  3. Cope with Anxiety and Stop Obsessive Worrying by Creating a Worry Box
  4. Expressive Writing Can Help You Heal
  5. Summary of Richard Carlson’s ‘Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff’

Filed Under: Mental Models, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Anxiety, Introspection, Mindfulness, Resilience, Thinking Tools, Thought Process, Wisdom

Nothing Like a Word of Encouragement to Provide a Lift

February 7, 2022 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Like many young-and-struggling writers, Stephen King and his wife Tabitha “Tabby” King toiled to make ends meet in their early 20s. They lived in a trailer with two young children. They drove an old, rusty Buick held together by baling wire and duct tape.

Tabby worked second-shift at Dunkin’ Donuts, and Stephen taught English at a private high school. He also moonlighted on odd jobs and worked summers at an industrial laundry to scrape by.

In his time off, Stephen worked hard at building a career as a writer and developed ideas for many novels. He sold short stories to men’s magazines.

Nothing Like a Word of Encouragement to Provide a Lift: Case Study of how Tabby King encouraged Stephen King to keep at writing Carrie

One night, when working as a janitor in a school locker room, King struck an idea that eventually became his blockbuster first novel Carrie. It was about an eccentric high schooler who, with newly-discovered telekinetic powers, goes on a killing spree to exact revenge on her bullies.

Carrie almost didn’t make it beyond three pages!

When King started writing Carrie, he wrestled with acute self-doubt. He didn’t yet feel confident in his work’s quality or marketability.

One evening, just three pages into the draft of Carrie, King sat hunched over his desk littered with crumpled up bits of paper and cigarette butts. In frustration, he decided to give up on his idea for the novel. He slammed his fist on the table, hurled the first three pages of his book in a trashcan, and stomped out of the room.

Later that evening, Tabby saw the wrinkled balls of paper in the bin. She pulled them out, shook off the cigarette ashes, smoothed out the wrinkles, and sat down to read them.

When she was done, Tabby told Stephen, “I think you’ve got something here. I really do. You ought to keep it going.”

Tabby’s glimmer of hope surprised Stephen.

Tabby continued, “You can’t write about women. You’re scared of women.” She pledged to support him and offered suggestions on the main character and how she’d think.

Over the next few weeks, Tabby guided her husband through the world of women. She gave him guiding principles on forming the characters and helped him write the now-famous shower scene.

Nine months later, the final draft of Carrie was finished

'Carrie' by Stephen King (ISBN 0307743667) Carrie became a 25,000-word novella. It was turned down for 30 publishers before Bill Thompson, an editor at Doubleday Publishing, offered King a $2,500 advance to publish the book.

King had gotten rid of his phone to save on expenses, so Thompson sent a telegram that read, “Congrats, kid—the future lies ahead.”

Yet, Carrie only sold 13,000 copies as a hardback. Dispirited, King grudgingly signed a new teaching contract for the 1974 school year.

Soon, Thompson was back with more significant news, “The paperback rights to Carrie went to Signet Books for $400,000 … 200K of it is yours. Congratulations, Stephen.”

As a paperback, Carrie sold over 1 million copies in its first year despite a mixed critical response. It became one of the most popular novels of all time.

Tabby encouraged Stephen King to keep going at that pivotal moment

Tabby’s simple action changed the trajectory of Stephen King’s career. Carrie launched one of the most successful careers in modern American writing. King is now one of the world’s most well-renowned and prolific authors.

King won the 2003 Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. In his acceptance speech at the National Book Awards Ceremony, King didn’t talk about his success or literary style. He spoke about how Tabby had rescued Carrie from the rubbish and inspired him to keep going:

There is a time in the lives of most writers when they are vulnerable—when the vivid dreams and ambitions of childhood seem to pale in the harsh sunlight of what we call the real world. In short, there’s a time when things can go either way. That vulnerable time for me came during 1971 to 1973. If my wife had suggested to me, even with love and kindness and gentleness, that the time had come to put my dreams away and support my family, I would have done that with no complaint. But the thought never crossed her mind. And if you open any edition of Carrie, you’ll read the same dedication: “This is for Tabby, who got me into it—and then bailed me out of it….”

A nudge of encouragement goes a long way!

As with Stephen King, a little boost of encouragement can lift somebody else’s spirits and help them move forward.

Encouragement is about believing in people, particularly when they don’t believe in themselves.

What’s one thing you can do today to boost somebody’s spirits beyond whatever is holding them back? Is there someone who needs you to believe in them today? Someone you can get unstuck today with a bit of nudge of encouragement?

  • Could you offer a sympathetic ear to a colleague in a spell of self-doubt or in a tangle and ask, “How can I help?”
  • Could you talk to a teenager who has suffered a setback, remind her of her virtues, and cheer her up by saying, “you’re a strong, confident person, and I know you’ll get through this.”

Idea for Impact: Everyone needs hope. Look for honest ways to offer even a little nudge of encouragement.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. How to Turn Your Fears into Fuel
  2. Get Everything Out of Your Head
  3. Cope with Anxiety and Stop Obsessive Worrying by Creating a Worry Box
  4. Expressive Writing Can Help You Heal
  5. This May Be the Most Potent Cure for Melancholy

Filed Under: Managing People, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Adversity, Anxiety, Attitudes, Coaching, Conversations, Fear, Feedback, Motivation, Personal Growth, Resilience, Wisdom, Worry

How Emotional Resilience Improves with Age

December 17, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Studies of social and emotional aging have consistently shown that we tend to enjoy a better sense of emotional well-being as we grow older—starting from our late 50s.

The brain slows down, and memory deteriorates with age, so we process information slower. We get better at regulating the instinct to enact annoyance and anger.

As we get older, we tend to have a positive bias. We stop sweating the small stuff, pick our battles wisely, and find it easier to let go of situations we experience as unfavorable, especially with friends and family.

The lessons these studies bear for us all: organize your life’s physical and social aspects to reduce unnecessary stressors. Happiness is indeed a result, not a cause.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Learn to Manage Your Negative Emotions and Yourself
  2. The More You Can Manage Your Emotions, the More Effective You’ll Be
  3. Anger is the Hardest of the Negative Emotions to Subdue
  4. This Trick Can Relieve Your Anxiety: “What’s the worst that can happen?”
  5. This May Be the Most Potent Cure for Melancholy

Filed Under: Living the Good Life, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Anxiety, Attitudes, Emotions, Getting Along, Happiness, Mindfulness, Stress, Wisdom

Decision-Making Isn’t Black and White

October 30, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

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.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. How to Embrace Uncertainty and Leave Room for Doubt
  2. A Bit of Insecurity Can Help You Be Your Best Self
  3. Smart Folks are Most Susceptible to Overanalyzing and Overthinking
  4. Accidents Can Happen When You Least Expect Them: The Overconfidence Effect
  5. Question Success More Than Failure

Filed Under: Mental Models Tagged With: Confidence, Decision-Making, Introspection, Mindfulness, Questioning, Risk, Wisdom

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About: Nagesh Belludi [hire] is a St. Petersburg, Florida-based freethinker, investor, and leadership coach. He specializes in helping executives and companies ensure that the overall quality of their decision-making benefits isn’t compromised by a lack of a big-picture understanding.

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Unless otherwise stated in the individual document, the works above are © Nagesh Belludi under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. You may quote, copy and share them freely, as long as you link back to RightAttitudes.com, don't make money with them, and don't modify the content. Enjoy!