E. Perry Good's Blog

What Am I Doing To Get What I Want?

To answer this question, you must “name that behavior.” We often use ineffective behaviors without even realiziing that we have chosen them. In fact, most of us do not even think of them as

BEHAVIORS

we think of them as

CONDITIONS

such as depressed, anxious, worried, mad, insulted, or sick.

A “condition” is something that just happens to us, something we have no control over. A “behavior” is something that we can choose to do (or choose not to  do.) If we learn to identify these behaviors, we can then evaluate whether they are helping us get what we want. In the long run, being depressed, mad, anxious, or worried rarely gets us the results for which we are looking.

Part II: Specific Wants

What do I want specifically? If I were successful or doing my best, what would it look like?

Although we are often not aware of it, we all have very specific pictures of how we want our lives to be.

When we begin by focusing on the overall direction, it is so much easier to then get the specific picture. When people are asked what they want, the answer is often, “Nothing.”

or

“I don’t know.”

But when asked, “Do you want to be happy or successful?” the answer is always, “Yes.”  They may go on to say, “But I don’t know how.”

Then ask these quesitons:

“What would it be like if you were successful?”

“What exactly would be going on in your life?”

The specific picture can be difficult to put into focus. Sometimes it is painful to admit, even to ourselves what we want that we don’t have.

What Do I Want? Part 1 Overall Direction

I have found that this question has more flexibility if it is divided into overall direction and specific wants for two reasons.

First, it may make it easier to answer sometimes difficult questions. Second, this question can be tied directly to the QUALITY WORLD PICTURES at the values level of perception, which is where meaningful self-evaluation must start.

What do I want overall? What is the overall direction in which I want to move my life?

Possible answers to this are: “I want to move in the direction of happiness, success, strength, responsibility, doing my best, or being in a quality relationship.”

It is imperative that we ask ourselves this question becomes it forms the basis of self-evaluation. If you don’t keep the overall goal in mind then the answer is often superficial and is not based on higher levels of perception.

From A New Attitude by E. Perry Good

It is hard to give up evaluating others and start looking at ourselves. Yet, it is by far the most enlightening and effective type of assessment.

from A New Attitude by E. Perry Good

We received a wonderful letter from Reid Ross Classical School principal Tom Hatch that we want to share with you — feedback like his is invaluable, real-world results that show how quickly positive change CAN HAPPEN! Tom reports significant improvement after implementing Take Charge! in his year-round North Carolina middle school:

Hello Perry,

I want to tell you how much Take Charge! has helped us change the landscape of our middle school. We have seen a decrease in the number of disciplinary issues during the first 65 days compared to last year without Take Charge!

We have also seen a 5% to 10% increase in the number of students making A’s, B’s and C’s and a decrease in the number of students making D’s and F’s. Our teachers have enjoyed getting to know their students better and have been able to guide students to revisit various questions for self evaluation to help them continue to realize that they can only control how they react to another student or teacher. Teachers have found this extremely helpful for them as well because they are improving on how they react to their student’s behavior.  Thanks so much for helping our students and teachers Take Charge!!!

Tom Hatch,  Principal, Reid Ross Classical School Fayetteville, NC 28301

Get more information about our upcoming Take Charge! Intensive Workshops 

Most of us have some aspirations to have an orderly – if not clean – house. Last year during the holiday season I came to a conclusion that helped me get through the season with considerably more joy than usual. I said to myself one day, ” the holidays are messy!” The house is messy, the car is messy (at this moment the back of my car is covered in pine needles) and actually, I look pretty messy myself!

You might be asking yourself-how can it help to have the thought- “the holidays are messy?”

Here’s how: your brain is constantly trying to get a “match” between the picture in your head and what you are perceiving in the outside world- i.e.- your house, car. even yourself! If you can just say to yourself, this is what the holidays are- somewhat messy -you won’t be experiencing a mismatch all day and night between the picture in you head and the outside world. When you get the signal that tells you there is a mismatch, I call them “negative” signals, your brain tells you to DO SOMETHING to correct the mismatch.

The problem with this is you then spend all of the holiday season cleaning up instead of enjoying it! It’s only eight o’clock this morning and I have already said “the holidays are messy” about 20 times- wonder what the count will be by eight tonight?

For the last 30 years our family (and assorted friends) have come to our house for Thanksgiving. My husband, a great cook, does the turkey, stuffing, rice, gravy and they bring the rest EXCEPT the cranberry sauce and the mashed potatoes. I MAKE THOSE THINGS- and have made them every one of the thirty years we have hosted Thanksgiving. . Of course, I am also getting the table ready, house ready, flowers ready! ETC. Now- you might say what is the big deal- it is only cranberry sauce. That is true but I always make at least three kinds of cranberry sauce and always have LOTS left over -killing lots of little cranberries in the process. It is a messy job (puree of cranberry anyone?) But no one makes it the way I do! (Have you had thoughts like this?)

So this year I said to myself- does it really matter if I make the cranberry sauce? When one of our relatives said “what else can I bring,” I said “How about cranberry sauce?” She is a great cook and although she said she had never made it, she would be happy to do so! I did mutter that I might make puree of cranberry- just to hedge my bets- I was thinking-will it really be Thanksgiving without MY puree cranberry sauce ?

Actually, I think SO.

DOES IT REALLY MATTER?? This year I am going to say, Does it really matter all Thanksgiving Day- what matters is that we are together, and healthy and blessed. For all those things I am truly thankful- does anything else really matter?

Happy people are constantly evaluating themselves, unhappy people are constantly evaluating others.

This is a quote from Dr. William Glasser, the well known psychiatrist with whom I worked for many years. Look around yourself, at the people you know, and I bet you will find this quote to be true. It’s really easy to evaluate others, much more difficult to evaluate yourself. Ever wonder why? I think it’s because we aren’t asked to self evaluate early in our lives- as children. We reward and punish children- and in the short run this sometimes “works” but we are not thinking about the long term.

Will our children, our grandchildren know how to evaluate themselves? How do we, as adults teach this very important skill? By asking questions! ASK, DON’T TELL. Try it out and see just how hard it is!

It’s getting to be the holiday season- sort of crept up on us this year, didn’t it? What occurs to me is that we get so busy and so stressed out that we forget to give ourselves a hand for what we DO.

I was reminded of that Saturday morning (at 6:45AM!) when my 17 month old grandson was applauding himself for putting guitar picks in the hole in his father’s guitar. As soon as his dad would shake them out he would put them in again- applauding himself vigorously each time. As adults we forget the value of stoping and taking a few minutes each day to applaud ourselves. It’s easy to remember what we haven’t had time to do yet- it’s harder to remember what we have accomplished.

It’s November 14- start today giving yourself a hand for all you have accomplished at least once a day until January 1st. Then see if you can make it a habit throughout the year.

Whether you like it or not, your happiness and success ultimately depends  on whether or not you can make the relationships in your life work. AND- this is an important AND- you can be the kind of person you want to be while getting these relationships to work. If you are a parent, what you want more than anything is to raise happy, independent and self disciplined kids. If you are a teacher, you want students who do the right thing when no one is looking. If you are a manager in any business, you want your employees to care, to get along, to go the extra mile. But these things are not as easy to do as it sounds.

I have been doing workshops and seminars and keynote speeches for the past thirty years on the books that I have written. I have worked both with helping professionals and in the corporate world. After almost every one of these events someone in the audience comes up and tells me privately that they wish they had known the ideas that I am teaching when they were raising their kids, or before their divorce, or before they were laid off or quit their last job.

So what did they learn about themselves? They answered the key question when it comes to making your relationships better, starting today. Here is the question- WHO CAN YOU CONTROL?

Everyone knows the answer is ONLY MYSELF- and some days even that is hard to do! (Remember that chocolate you ate yesterday?!) And yet, we spend most of our lives trying to control others. Many parents and teachers and managers tell me they spend 24/7 trying to get other people to do what they want them to do.

So- this blog will be about how to be the person you want to be no matter what is going on around you- with the people at home, and the people at work.