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February 1, 2014

Dysfuntional to Dynamic!

 

My newsletters are often a reflection of what I observe when working with dental teams.  The phrase “we are just like one big family” is used by many dental teams to describe their office environment.  One would assume it be a positive statement.  However, I have found in many cases the opposite is true.  They were indeed like one big family…one big dysfunctional family! This month’s newsletter is dedicated to changing your team’s relationships from dysfunctional to dynamic!  

 

The dictionary defines dysfunction as a behavior pattern that undermines team stability.  Some examples of dysfunctional behaviors are being tardy, unreliable, dishonest, unsupportive, disrespectful or unkind. When I was in grade school we received progress reports or as we called them report cards.  There was an entire section on conduct.  Conduct was broken down into 5 areas. 

  • Observes regulations
  • Works and plays well with others
  • Respect for property
  • Respect for authority
  • Is courteous in speech and manner 

You either received and S for satisfactory or a U for unsatisfactory to rate your behavior.  Thankfully I received all S’s!  I know I am really dating myself here. Many of us seem to have forgotten or maybe have never been taught that we are responsible for our conduct at work. It is not the doctor(s) and manager’s responsibility to make us play well with others!  It is OURS!   Here are three behaviors to shift dysfunctional patterns into dynamic patterns and start playing well together.

Filtering – For some reason we feel once we say we are a family we don’t need to filter what we say to each other.  We justify it by saying we are just being honest or we have to be authentic to our feelings.  After all we can’t help how we feel!  (Oh really…read my December 2013 newsletter) We lose our politeness and kindness towards each other.  Our words are often direct and hurtful.  We believe because we are like family it is okay to behave in this manner.  That our co-workers should just be able to handle whatever we say.  The reality is words cut deep and can destroy even real families.  Don’t we all know someone who no longer speaks to certain family members…maybe even you?  It is important to think before you speak to avoid jeopardizing the relationship.  Be respectful of how the other person might feel.  Treat each other with the same kindness and politeness that you would if you were on your best behavior with a stranger.  After all why share the best of you only with strangers…why not give your best to those you work with and care about most.  

Apologizing – If you make a mistake, be sincere and apologize as soon as possible. Don’t try to hide it, ignore it or pretend it doesn’t matter.  When we don’t apologize for our mistakes or wrongdoings as they happen we leave unresolved issues.  It is human nature to store unresolved issues.  Some of us our so good at storing our issues that we have an entire storage unit full.  Until finally one day a blow up happens…and the storage unit gates fly open and every unresolved issue comes hurling out.  Try to apologize the same day if at all possible to resolve issues and keep them from being stored.

Forgiving – In order to move forward and work together in a functional relationship we need to forgive each other.  I can’t tell you how many times I observe two team members who don’t work well together anymore because of something that happened years ago.  I would like you to consider forgiveness in this light.  Imagine the worst thing you have ever done in your life.  What if it was written on your forehead in permanent marker for all the world to see?   That was your reputation and what you were held accountable to forever.  In essence that is what we are doing when we are unwilling to forgive others.  We are holding others accountable for the worst behavior they ever did to us.  The best way to forgive is to stop trying to agree on who was at fault in the past.  Instead focus on the future and what you can change or do differently to make the relationship work.  

Implementing these three positive behaviors will help you change your dental family from dysfunctional to a dynamic!

Contact Judy Kay today if you would like to learn more about how she can help you change dysfunctional team relationships into dynamic team relationships!

January 13, 2014

Dealing With Conflict at Work

I invite you to listen in on my interview with Shirley Gutkowski on Cross Link Radio about Dealing With Conflict at Work! Thank you Shirley!    Dealing With Conflict at Work!

 

January 1, 2014

Performance Standards

I thought writing about performance standards was a great way to get started in 2014!  Performance standards are really to provide the team with specific performance expectations. They are the observable behaviors and actions which explain how the job is to be done and the results that are expected.  The main purpose of performance standards is to communicate clear expectations.

 The higher the standard the higher the performance!

It is just that simple…right?  Wrong!  Just because you set high standards does not mean you will get better performance.  Doctors and managers often struggle with getting the team to support the practice standards.  Yet they continue to set new and higher standards in hope that they can raise the level of performance in their practice.  Raising the level of performance is really dependent on the following principles.   Here are four principles that will help you nurture a culture of top performers!

The first principle is Leadership. 

Model the waddle you want to see.  In other words walk the walk! If leaders don’t “lead by example,” it is next to impossible to raise the level of performance. How can anyone trust a leader who says one thing, but does another?  We don’t support people we don’t trust.  People will do as you do not as you say.  Everything really does come from the top down. Set standards, don’t allow double standards; live and maintain those standards. If you want your team’s focus to be what’s in the best interests of the patients and the practice, yours must be as well. Actions always speak louder than words. If you say one thing and do another they will start to doubt and be suspicious of everything you tell them. They may lose trust that you’re doing the right thing, or that you even know what you’re doing. They will stop following your lead.  The vision you’re trying to make happen will falter when your team doesn’t trust or respect you anymore resulting in plummeting performance.

The second principle is Precise and Consistent Expectations.

A team meeting setting works best to get everyone on board. Don’t generalize be specific.  Define clearly what you want.  Go deep enough for everyone to understand the who, what, when, where, why and how behind each standard.  What does it mean in words, attitude, actions, body language, and tone of voice?  Discuss any potential obstacles and a plan of action to overcome.  Allow input from the entire team to create immediate ownership.  Once the team has agreed on a standard, title it and print it out as your Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).  A simple 3 ring binder with clear sheet protectors works awesome as an SOP Manual.

The third principle is Accountability Monitoring and Feedback.

Monitor results on a daily basis.  Your daily huddles are what I refer to as accountability meetings.  They allow the team to discuss and get feedback on what is not working or not being done in a real time basis. Utilize a white board to list any reminders that need to be addressed instead of waiting for the team meeting.  The team is responsible to review the white board prior to the huddle.  A white board will help you to communicate effectively even if you have different shifts.  If it is specific to only one or two team members list their name and who to check in with to discuss further.  Otherwise, just list it on the board for everyone.  Monthly team meetings are great to review benchmarks in terms of quality, quantity, or timeliness and give feedback of how the team and practice is doing.

The fourth principle is Commitment.

It is necessary for every team member to commit to supporting the practice standards in attitude, words and actions.  Whenever you are implementing something new or changing an existing standard, system or protocol ask each team member to verbally commit their support in front of the entire team.  (A team meeting setting works great for this as well.)  Sometimes even when you utilize the first three principles; you can’t get that one team member on board.  The reality is they have their own agenda and therefore are unwilling to commit to supporting yours.  Performance standards are based on best practices for the greater good of the patients and the practice and not any individual. If they are only willing to do what they choose and are only concerned about WIIFT it is time to have a line in the sand conversation.  If they want to be a part of the team it is necessary to support the team standards.  Otherwise, wish them well and let them join another team that may be a better fit for their standards.  Yes I know, they may be extremely good at what they do when they want to be.  In most cases they are and will use it as leverage to hold the doctor hostage.  However, if you allow one team member to not support the practice standards you sacrifice the entire teams performance!  The bottom line is that if they are not supporting they are sabotaging the practice.

Embracing these 4 principles will help you raise the level of performance in your practice!

 Contact Judy Kay today if you would like to learn more about how she can help you raise the level of performance in your practice!

 

December 1, 2013

Change Your Feelings Change Your Results!

This month’s newsletter is dedicated to the touchy feeling stuff! And it’s big stuff!  Our feelings are what drive our actions and our actions generate our outcome!  

 Something happens, we assign meaning to it, the meaning creates a feeling, the feeling drives a reaction!

 We can change our results when we recognize how our feelings affect our outcome and learn how to control versus be controlled by them! 

Haven’t we all at one time or another reacted to something negatively because of how we felt at the moment and regretted it later.  It can happen to even the best of us.  However, when we continue to allow our feelings to control our reactions we become what I refer to as an emotional reactor.  Emotional reactors allow their feelings instead of their mind to be in the driver seat of their actions!  They often lose control and lash out in volatile explosions of anger, judgment, criticism etc!  They are extremely dangerous and difficult to be around because you never know when they will erupt.  Often times they hurt the ones they love the most.  Their path is strewn with the fallout of damaged and broken relationships.  The good news is we can end the emotional reaction cycle by understanding it and putting our mind back in the driver seat!

The Emotional Reaction Cycle starts when we assign meaning to an experience.  Our reality is based on what we believe to be true about an experience at the time it happens and how we label it.  Our mind filters the world we live in.  Our reality is really just our perception.  A group of people could share an experience and have a different reality based on how they filter the experience.  The two filters that affect our reality most often are Generalization and Distortion. 

Generalization is when something is similar or familiar to a past experience and we assign the same meaning.  It can greatly contribute to limiting beliefs.  For example, all people with blonde hair are not smart.  (Just thought I would throw that in as I am blonde…or at least that is my current color of choice).   Another example is when someone reminds us of someone we know and we either instantly like or dislike them based on the other relationship.  Or we are unwilling to try something because it is similar to something we failed at before.

Distortion is changing an experience from what it actually was to some modified form of what it is.  Distortion happens when you remember a moment of an event as representing the entire thing. Usually it is something negative that over shadows everything else.  For example you receive 10 positive comments and one negative comment from your patients and you focus only on what you are doing wrong.  Or you define your day by the one thing that was difficult versus the 100 things that went well.  Or we define other people only by their mistakes or by one characteristic we dislike. 

Once we realize that our reality is really only our perception of the experience based on our filters we open ourselves up to other possibilities and can change how we feel.   

 The awesome part is it takes less than 60 seconds to change your feelings to change your results!

 Here are 5 steps to help you change how you feel and stop the emotional reaction cycle.   

 The first step is recognizing how you are feeling.  Actually ask yourself; how do I feel right at this moment.  Identify the feeling or emotion by saying I am feeling…frustrated or tired or angry or helpless or afraid or jealous etc. 

The seconds step is to visualize the negative feeling as a little monster sitting on your right shoulder dictating how you should feel.  (My monster looks a lot like the little green mucus guy from the Mucinex commercial.)  Then address your monster and send it packing. I say to my monster “I see you and you have no control over me” and then I physically flick it off my shoulder!  You may have to flick the monster off several times…they are pretty persistent little devils.  Let’s be honest sometimes it feels good to let off steam.  However, a moment of release is never worth hurting someone and even possibly destroying the relationship.  Words do hurt and are very powerful.  Words can destroy relationships even with the people we love the most. 

 The third step is to re-hardwire how you are feeling by not taking things so personal.  Life doesn’t happen to us personally; it just happens.  People behave towards us based on their limiting beliefs of reality.  Yet we often take it as personal.  Have you ever said, “Why does this always have to happen to me?”  It didn’t happen to you…you chose to own it.  It isn’t like the game Dodge Ball where some universal force picks you out of all the people on the rest of the planet and decides to throw something at you!  It may sometimes feel like it but stuff happens and it’s not personal.  There are just a lot of flying balls out there and we occasionally run into one. 

The fourth step is to re-program how we feel.  A physical emotion only lasts 30 seconds.   We extend the emotion when we continue to rehash our feelings over and over.  To change how you feel choose words to describe how you want to feel.  Now it’s time for the physical reset.  Slow down your thinking in order to stop spinning.  Start by taking three deep breaths in and out to become present.  Say out loud the feeling(s) you want to feel.  “I feel happy or I feel at peace!” Now imagine a time when you felt that emotion and immerse yourself in that experience.  Give yourself at least 30 seconds to really enjoy that memory. 

The fifth step and final step is to choose how you want to react.   Ask yourself, “How would I react if I were being my best me or the person I want to become?”  Aristotle said it best when he said “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act but a habit.”   How would the person you want to become or the people you admire and respect most behave in this situation! 

Ta-dah!  You have just changed how you feel, how you reacted and your results in less than 60 seconds!

My hope for you moving forward is that whatever may come your way you will come from a place of curiosity instead of judgment and criticism.  Please be careful about what you label things. What we label it is what our reality becomes.  Label the experience or event interesting instead of good, bad, right, wrong, negative or positive.  We really don’t know until we have reached the end of our journey.   It is only than that we can look back and see the outcome and whether it brought us success or failure.  Often times it may feel grueling and difficult short term.  However, it may be just what we needed to shape, change and help us grow and empower us to live our dreams.  Happy feelings to you!

November 1, 2013

Delivering W.O.W. Service!

This month’s is all about delivering W.O.W. Service!  I might as well confess right here right now…I am an acronym addict!  I absolutely love them! W.O.W is an acronym for Weed Out the Weeds!  

Here is why!  I work with General Dentists as well as Specialty Practices (Oral Surgery, Periodontal, Orthodontic, Endodontic, Prosthodontic and Pain Clinics) to help them create an exceptional service culture.  What I have found is once we eliminated the weeds in their practice they were able to deliver WOW Service!  A weed is anything that can make a patient feel uncomfortable or unwelcome or could possibly destroy a relationship.

 Your patients will forget everything except how you made them feel! 

 
In order to create a W.O.W. Service Culture it is important to focus on the patient’s experience. This means one-sided practice focused rules and procedures have to be eliminated. It is necessary for the entire team to be trained on how to deliver W.O.W. Service.  It only takes one untrained person to create a weed experience and lose a patient.  I teach a 3 step process to help my clients Weed Out the Weeds and create a W.O.W. Service Culture.  A team meeting setting works awesome.

  • The first step is for the team to define their ideal service culture! 
  • The next step is to list all the obstacles that may get in the way! 
  • The final step is to discuss service strategies and implement SOPs to overcome the obstacles. 

It is important to remember the reality behind exceptional service.  Service is a triangle.  If you want to deliver exceptional service it usually requires additional time, money or people or all three!  If you are unwilling to invest in the 3 the level of service you deliver will be limited.  

Here are the TOP 10 Service Standards for Delivering W.O.W. Service!

1.  Smile – Seriously…this is the simplest, and the only standard that does not require extra time, money or people and gives the biggest ROI!  Yet I can’t tell you how many people struggle with smiling.  For some it’s like pulling teeth! 

 2.  Slow Down – Yes I know you are trying to be efficient and effective and raise the highest PPH (Production Per Hour) to pay overhead.   When it comes to service…if you don’t take time for your patients…they will go to an office where someone does!  This is one of the biggest complaints patients have regarding service.  How effective and efficient are you if you are losing patients.  Do you know what your monthly net patient count is?  Research shows it costs 6 to7 times more to attain a new patient than it does to retain an existing patient.

 3.  WIIFTP – Always ask yourself when you are interacting with a patient…what’s in it for the patient…how I can serve them best at this moment.

 4.  Own It – Four magic words in service…I CAN HELP YOU!  Even if that means that you reach out for assistance from someone else.  Don’t refer them to someone else.  Because it is YOUR JOB!  Your job is whatever legal, ethical and is within your licensure that will help to create a W.O.W. Patient Experience and help the practice thrive!

 5.  Help Each Other – In other words team work!  It means you ask for help when it could enhance the patient’s experience.  You say yes when someone asks you for help unless you are already with another patient…even if you don’t like that person!  Part of team work means we play well together and work for the greater good.  How ironic that playing well together was expected starting in first grade…even a part of the report card.  Now it often ceases to exist even in the most professional of environments!

 6.  Be Professional – Professional can mean many things to different people.  Leave nothing up to assumptions…Establish guidelines and standards for appearance, communication, attitude, and behavior.   I suggest a team meeting and have the team define the standards.  When the team establishes the guidelines and standards they are much more likely to embrace and own them!

 7.  Protect the Privacy of Patients, Employees and the Company – We are all familiar with HIPAA.  Privacy also means no gossip!  You can stop gossip in your practice if you don’t allow it!  NO…women do not have to gossip!!!  That’s a whole other newsletter! J 

8.  Maintain a Sparkling Clean Environment – You may have a janitorial service to assist at night.  During the day it is everyone’s responsibility to maintain the office.  If your patient sees dirty gauze on the floor they will assume that the office is not clean/sterile.  If they see a messy and coffee stained reception area they will assume the office is not clean/sterile.  If you see it, clean it or pick it up!

9.  Be On Time – I know that you can’t predict everything to be able to schedule every appointment appropriately.  Nor can you just stop working on the patient once their time is up.  Although there are times we may wish we could!  However, if you consistently run behind it is time to evaluate where you run behind and the time you are allowing for those appointments.  If your patient always has to wait it becomes a very big weed that could eventually destroy your relationship.  They will believe that you don’t respect them or their time.   I know of practices where their brand is just being on time and they are thriving because of it!

 10.  Practice – Your patients aren’t test sites, guinea pigs or experiments.    Please practice before you ever take anything out on the floor to try on your patients.  Practice verbal skills, role playing and even the physical walk through.  I can already feel the push back on role playing.  Ick we hate that!!!  If you can’t say it to each other how in the world can you say it to a patient?  You will avoid fields of weeds if you just practice!  In Real Estate the 3 magic words are location, location, location well in delivering W.O.W. Service its practice, practice, practice!

 I ask you to think about what steps you are willing to take to make a difference for your patients.  Implementing Service Standards will help you nurture a W.O.W. Patient Environment!  Bottom line is that no matter how great of a dentist you are…your patients will forget everything except how you made them feel!  The secret is delivering W.O.W. Service!

 Research shows that dentists who build their office environment around the patient’s experience own and dominate the market.

 If you would like help creating your ideal W.O.W. Service Culture please contact me to learn more about my 2 day onsite training “Delivering W.O.W. Service”! 

October 1, 2013

The Cost of Trust

One of the biggest signs of low trust is when the leadership team has difficulty getting the team on board and excited to follow their lead.

Imagine a culture of trust where:

•             Leadership was by example

•             Everyone could rely on each other to work together for the greater good

•             Co-worker’s didn’t question each other’s intent

•             Open communication was the standard

•             Gossip ceased to exist

•             Accountability was self-maintained

•             Honesty was the only policy

Trust is the foundation of a happy, healthy, and high producing culture.   There is a cost to low trust! 

How much more productive would your practice be if your team truly trusted each other?

The dictionary defines trust as instinctive unquestioning belief in and reliance upon something.  The culture of trust I am suggesting is not one of blind faith but instead one of confidence!  Confident trust is based on good reasons, definite evidence or past experience.

 Think about the people in your life that you trust the most.  Why do you trust them?  Confident trust does not just happen overnight.  It takes time to nurture and grow.  However, breaking one’s trust can happen in a heartbeat.  The great news is that building trust is a skill set that can be learned.  Once we can learn how to build trust we can prevent trust breakdowns!

I would start by having a team meeting to talk about the level of trust in your practice.  Discuss the benefits of having a culture of trust.  It is also important for the entire team to understand how much a low level of trust affects the practice and the bottom line.  Such as having to add steps to compensate, extra staff to cover for lack of accountability, and redundant systems and processes.

 Let me give you an example of low trust with patients.  You may have some patients that no show or cancel last minute.  Therefore, you decide to implement the following protocol:  All patients must sign a form that states they will owe $ if they don’t show or cancel last minute unless it is an illness (with a doctor note) or death in the family.   The cost is that now all patients are subjected to a protocol that shows you no longer trust them and makes them feel unwelcome…which could ultimately destroy the relationship resulting in them leaving the practice.  It is an insult to your patients who are responsible and accountable and the ones who are not will just ignore it!  The same holds true with your team.  When you add extra steps for everyone to compensate for the inadequacies of the team members you can’t trust…you may end up losing your good team members.

The next step is to ask the team to share what they feel they need from each other to build trust.  Use a large easel pad and write down all the answers being shared by the team.  Cross out any duplicates.  

Some examples might be:

•             If you have an issue with me talk to me first

•             Help me when you see I need help

•             Finish what you say you are going to do

•             Focus on the greater good instead of WIIFY

•             Tell me the truth but be compassionate

•             Don’t be late or absent for trivial reasons

 Put your list together and label it Trust Culture Guidelines.  Next print it, frame it and put on display for future reference.  It will be important to review whenever you hire someone new or…because old habit die hard; whenever someone’s behavior deems it necessary!

Ta-dah…your team has just established their guidelines on how to build the level of trust in the practice!  The awesome part is that when people create it they own it!

The bottom line is that trust is not just a social virtue it greatly affects your bottom line!

September 1, 2013

The Sunny Side of Life III

I teach my audiences and clients 5 Rays to help them rise above their circumstances and live life on the sunny side!

• Entitlement Expectations
• SPF
• Labeling
• Mindful Talk
• Celebration

Hopefully your July and August were a little happier after reading the past two news letters on Entitlement Expectations, SPF, Labeling and Mindful Talk!
This month we are going to wrap up the Sunny Side series with Celebration!

Ray 5 – Celebration

It’s time to celebrate life, even the little things in life…we take things so seriously…we get so busy…we don’t allow time to celebrate. If we don’t make time to celebrate we will lose our joy for life.

Being present is the first step in celebration! It is important to filter out all the noise from worry and fear and focus on what is actually happening in the present moment. It is only when we are present in the moment that we become aware of all the little things in life worth celebrating.

The next step is to lighten up and have a little fun! Seriously…it’s time we stop taking our self so serious and acting so important. We are but a spec on this planet. Yes I know we are all sooo sooo busy doing whatever it is we are doing that is sooo important for the rest of the world to continue to exist. I think the planet will survive if we take a moment now and again to act silly and have a little fun!

When we are stressed and don’t feel like celebrating; if we change our physiology (body patterns) we can change our psychology. Body patterns are the repeated actions our body reflects when we feel certain emotions. They are how our body speaks to us and therefore have a direct connection to our mood. Some examples of negative body patterns that make us feel stressed are rubbing temples, wringing our hands or a hunched over closed position. Whereas smiling, laughing, or a victory pose (Ta-dah) are positive body patterns that help us feel happier. So if we want to change our mood to be happier all we have to do is change our body pattern and we will feel like celebrating!

Harvard research supports that if we just get happy we will be more:
Successful
Intelligent
Creative
Productive
Healthier

Celebrate by saying a Ta-dah a day and be more successful, intelligent, creative, and productive while keeping the doctor away!

August 1, 2013

the Sunny Side of Life, Part II

I teach my audiences and clients 5 Rays to help them rise above their circumstances and live life on the sunny side!

  • Entitlement Expectations
  • SPF
  • Labeling
  • Mindful Talk
  • Celebration

Hopefully your July was happier after reading last month’s news letter on Entitlement Expectations and SPF!  This month we are going to continue on with Labeling and Mindful Talk!

Ray 3 – Labeling

Words that label have tremendous impact on our attitude and how we feel. We have to be careful about how we label the relationships, events and outcomes we have in life. If we label something as bad it becomes our belief and we manifest feelings and emotions that support the label of bad. I find using the word interesting instead of bad takes away the negative power.

Our beliefs of positive and negative are based on our past experiences. If we do something and we have what we believe to be a negative outcome we will label it as negative. Yet we may have an entirely different outcome if we attempted to do it again. For example, I went on a hot air balloon ride over Napa Valley for my 50th birthday (just a few short years ago). It was serene and wonderful. I am even afraid of heights and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I would label it as a very positive experience. However the following day the winds came up unexpectedly and the balloons had a difficult time landing. I may have labeled it as negative had I gone on that day…and most likely would never consider going again. The great news is we can change our belief from negative to positive when we add new experiences that our positive.

Truthfully, how can we label something as good or bad if we don’t know the end? None of us have a crystal ball. So how do we really know if something is good or bad? There have been many things in my life that at the time seemed interesting that actually turned out generating a very positive outcome. Haven’t we all thought or said this is going to be bad at one time or another and yet it turned out to be one the best things to happen to us. 


 

Ray 4 – Mindful Talk

It is imperative that we are mindful of our self talk if we want to live life on the sunny side!  The majority of self talk takes place so quickly and automatically that we don’t even notice we are doing it. Even if you don’t really listen to your chatter, your subconscious mind is listening.  The subconscious mind just accepts everything you tell it, and responds accordingly. 

 Some examples of negative self-talk are:

  • Worry – Fear of what if ???
  • Perfectionism – Not good enough or should haves!
  • Self-Criticism – Compares you to others, with you being the loser.
  • Self-Doubt – Lack of confidence that you can do or achieve your dreams.
  • Being a Victim – You have no control over your circumstances, and you and your life are bad luck!

The awesome news is we can hard wire our brain to start thinking more positively!  When we have mindful talk and actively choose where to focus our thoughts and repeatedly apply it to a wholesome and constructive thought we eliminate the negative deceptive self talk!

July 1, 2013

The Sunny Side of Life

Have you ever thought, “I was in great mood until blank happened?”  When we allow blank (whatever blank is at the moment) to affect how we feel we are in essence relinquishing our power and allowing circumstances to control our emotions.  If we allow our circumstances to control our emotions we become a victim of our circumstances.  The truth is; circumstances don’t dictate how we feel we do!  It is always our choice!

Here are 5 Rays to help you rise above your circumstances and live life on the sunny side!

Entitlement Expectations
SPF
Labeling
Mindful Talk
Celebration

This month we will cover Entitlement Expectations and SPF!

Ray 1 – Entitlement Expectations
Here is where we often lose our positive…we judge our circumstances based on our expectations. I call this judgment “Entitlement Expectations”. What I mean by “Entitlement Expectations” is that we expect a certain relationship, event, thing, or outcome. When our expectations aren’t met we judge our life as less than and get frustrated, angry or disappointed. Haven’t we all felt; this should have happened, or I deserved this or I expected that. These are examples of “Entitlement Expectations”. To avoid “Entitlement Expectations” it is necessary to embrace the following concepts:

Life is uncertain!

Life is unexpected!

Everything is temporary!

No one owes us anything!

There is humor even in difficult situations!

Life can change in a moment!

When we embrace these concepts we learn to stop judging our circumstances as less than regardless of what they are!

Ray 2 – SPF
SPF is an acronym for “Super Positive Focus”! Yes I will confess I am an acronym addict! Regardless of what the circumstances are there is always positive somewhere even in the most negative of situations! You just need to look for it. Developing a “Super Positive Focus” means you look for and focus on the positive even in the darkest of situations. Think about all the tragedies from the storms. One huge positive was all the people helping each other to overcome and survive. You can develop your SPF by forming a habit of identifying what’s positive in every situation. Even if the only thing positive was the lesson you learned to never do it again! You grew from the experience and that is a positive!

Tune in next month to learn more ways to live a life on the sunny side!

April 1, 2013

Conversation or Conflict?

The real problem is that many of us go through life trying to avoid dealing with conflict out of fear! We hope it will just go away! But the more we try to avoid it the more it builds until eventually it escalates to a point to where there is serious damage to the relationship.  Our success and joy in life depends greatly on our relationships! Life would be so much easier if conflict did not exist. But that isn’t real life!  I invite you to listen to and read this month’s newsletter to learn the 5 easy steps to turn conflict into just a conversation! 

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