What can make the difference between whether you like where you live or whether you don’t?  A huge part of it is whether you have people you are close or friends with in your area.  The people we connect with change how we view our local environment, and potentially, the world.  We want to feel like we are part of a group or unit.

Those Who Don’t Feel Alone

First I want to talk about those people who are not alone.  You are doing a great thing for yourself by having one or more people close to to you.  It is great for your health, and you feel less out of place in most instances.  You also have higher confidence because you feel like someone out there has your back, or will go places with you, or might have information to help you solve a problem.  The power of a feeling of community or partnership is enough to change a person from timid to sociable.

Everyone indirectly mentions the power of a support group when they talk about how they became a success.  Puff Daddy once mentioned how hard it was for him to rise up in his business because there was no support structure or blueprint in place for what he was doing.  This is what entails difficulty.  A support structure makes such a difference.  I know I was talking about having a close friend, and am now talking about a support structure, but they go together.  Having a close network of solid people makes hard work manageable.

I talked to someone online yesterday who said she has had a solid friend  for 15 years that she shares all her close thoughts and issues with.  I told her this is very healthy.  When you have someone you can be confident in telling your internal thoughts, you get feedback about them, feel more trusting in the world, and have better self-esteem.

Those Who Are Alone At Times

Now that I have talked about the people who have someone close to them, I will talk about the people who mostly don’t, and who are feeling alone at times.  That is a tough thing.  When you are feeling alone, the world seems like it is out of your hands, and it seems like you don’t fit in as you should.  For generation after generation, those in groups have felt the most comfortable.  It is in our nature to want to connect with others and share our ideas.  Even for those who are not so fond of talking to others, they recognize the high value of getting feedback about what we are doing or thinking.

The person who is alone at times also has the worry that those times will continue to show up.  It takes a change in social structure before those times of solitude go from being the norm to becoming rare.  It can be difficult to make this change.  Maybe most of you reading this don’t have times of loneliness, but I recognize that there are people that do.

The internet doesn’t help so much in this regard, because taking part in internet communication doesn’t provide as much of a social support network as is likely in face-to-face contact.  Internet folks can log off and log on, but friends in your local community are there.  I have been part of various internet communities, and they can be wonderful, but at the same time, they lack a lot of what you would get by being part of a local runner’s group or dancing club or group of friends that hang out.  That feeling of loneliness is not countered by having an online community to talk to, but by having people you can visit or spend time with in person when you need or desire a social presence.

People In Crowds Can Still Be Alone In Their Minds

On a related note, I have noticed an interesting item about big cities.  It seems as though, the bigger a city is in population, the more it looks like there are all these people mingling and sharing experiences, but at the same time, it could be that more of them are alone and separate in their actions.  You can see a crowd of people for an activity, but each person or pair in the crowd is almost separated from each other person.  Then, as an opposing example, in some small town, it might seem like there are so few people to interact with each other, but they can know each other more closely and see each other on a daily basis.  We can’t let ourselves get fooled by what something appears to be, but what it most likely is, in this case regarding social relationships.

I hope you got something out of this discussion.  If you are one of those people who is alone at times, joining a dance club or running group or Toastmasters or karate class is a great way to meet people who are there, ready and waiting for you if you bring a positive attitude.

As I’ve said before, looks are very important in this society that is full of people wanting to reproduce successfully.  We look for people who we think would make good children.  Our brains respond positively to people who are more attractive.

We buy more when we see attractive people selling a product.  You won’t see an ugly person on an advertisement.  What do we see as ugly?  An asymmetrical face falls under the category of ugly.  Why is this?  Our genes code for half of our body, and the other half is a copy.  Therefore, if we did not have any issues during our growth, we would be perfectly symmetrical.  The more issues that take away from symmetry on our face, the more likely our genes were not good at coping with the difficulties of growth and our environment.

Height Is Often Mentioned

One funny thing about looks is that some of the most important characteristics of our looks are not in our control.  For example, women generally seek taller men.  “Tall, dark, and handsome(symmetrical)” is the commonly known phrase.  Let’s say tall is equal to 6 foot 2 inches and above.  This may only be 10% of men.

Don’t Fall For The Bias

On a side note from this story, if you get your idea of average height from responses people make on the internet, you will think average height for men is something like 6 foot 4 inches, because men only tend to mention their height online when they are 6 foot 2 or 6 foot 5 or whatever.  Shorter people don’t mention it and taller people wish for a chance to mention it for a temporary ego boost.

On that note, much of society is about temporary ego boosts.  A woman might dress a certain way to get short ego boosts in the form of attention for a period of an hour or two, and we consider this normal.

Height Comes Without Effort

Back to the height issue, let’s say 10% of men are in that group of 6 foot 2 and taller, so they are the specific height most women are seeking.  This small group may get 5 times the attention, reproductive success, and business success that the other 90% gets.  The entertaining part of this is that height is basically completely genetic.  Sure, there are many examples of shorter people making up for their height in some other way, but we would do well to see how much of the way we treat people is based on qualities that were mostly provided to them.  It is quite comical.

We Aim To Seem Genetically Superior

As another follow-up to the part about symmetry representing genetic success, make-up that women use represents the goal to present onesself as having good genes.  Using it is a form of competitiveness with other women.  At the same time, it is often advertised as very minimal, and women like to say they are only using a little, so as to preserve self-esteem, because telling anyone you are using a lot of make-up makes you feel like you must have very bad genes that need a lot of hiding.

I jumped here and there, but the general discussion here was about the entertainment present in relation to people’s appearance.

This guest post was written by Eduard Ezeanu, who writes for People Skills Decoded.

How to Build a Connection with People

There is a wide range of skills you can develop as a human being in order to enrich your life. As a coach, I like to study the people who have the most fulfilling lives and identify the skills they posses that made this possible. One skill that stands out is the skill of building a connection with other people.

Life Is Largely About Connecting

We human beings are social animals. We live in groups, we interact with each other and we have a deep, unrelenting need to bond with other people.

The individuals who have good relationships with others, defined by a strong connection tend to also be the happiest, the healthiest and the most successful in the long run. Some of us know this intuitively and we are now also supported by rigorous scientific research in the area of positive psychology.

It’s funny how many people will get lost chasing fame, money, power or notoriety when what they truly want is a strong connection with meaningful people and all those things they chase are really covert attempts at social bonding.

When a Connection Happens

In order for a connection to develop between two individuals, certain conditions need to exist. It doesn’t popup just like that. It’s like a delicate flower that needs the right soil and nutrients to blossom.

In the relation between two human beings, a connection develops when two key things happen:

1. Both persons are authentic and they show themselves as they are to each other;
2. The two persons discover meaningful things they have in common.

It is these meaningful commonalities that connect people, but in order for them to be discovered, the first step of being authentic with the other person has to be made. I often find that if this step takes place, the second one often happens more or less on its own and thus, two people bond.

The Challenge of Being Authentic

In my experience, people are seldom authentic when they interact with each other. Even with friends and relatives, we often put on a mask and hide a big part of our real selves: certain dreams, thoughts, emotions, desires, experiences, flaws and so on.

In order to bond with another person, a high level of authenticity is a must. Even if the other person might trust us and bond with the fake image we project, since we know that it’s fake, we can’t bond with the other person.

One of the best exercises I encourage my communication coaching clients to do is to gradually take more risks with other people by showing them sides of themselves that they usually hide. As they do so, they are able to connect with others better and they become more comfortable in their own skin.

Help Others Be Authentic

If you can be truly authentic, the biggest part of the job is done. The other part, which shouldn’t be ignored either, is helping the other person be authentic as well. You want to be the kind of person that makes others feel comfortable in their own skin and thus, reveal themselves as they are.

I know one way of doing this that works impressively well. That way is to not be judgmental. Most people are afraid to be themselves because they think other people will judge them. Show them you are the kind of person that doesn’t judge them, even if they have a different perspective than yours, and you put their fear to rest.

Ultimately, connecting with people is about accepting yourself as you are and accepting others as they are. When you can do this and you can apply it in your social interactions, you find that people are naturally drawn to you and your relationships get richer and more fulfilling.

Eduard Ezeanu is a communication coach with an attitude-based approach. If you enjoyed this article, also discover how to start a conversation and learn how to overcome shyness from two top articles on his People Skills Decoded blog.

One of the cruelest things you can do to someone is to negate their potential value before you even give them a chance to show their presence and value. When you step on someone else, you are stepping on a piece of yourself, since we are all cut from the same cloth. Here I discuss why giving others a chance to present themselves to you, before you write them off or label them in some fashion, is a part of social decency. Anything less is uncivilized.

When Talking Politics

This is true regarding many categories. One example is political discussion. Online or offline, political dialogue very often devolves into lowest-common-denominator discussion before each side is able to make a compelling case. Especially on the internet, you will find a lot of quick retorts that would look ridiculous face-to-face. This contributes to why politics is one of the supposed “forbidden” topics to discuss when maintaining light conversation with others, because a general lack of critical thinking leads to a lack of allowing others the opportunity to support their case.

Another part of why political discussion gets so heated is because the level of education of each person involved is showcased, and our human nature gets very defensive about looking stupid to other people, because it makes us feel inferior.

When Playing Sports

It is easy to label random people and write them off as being one way or another, or jumping to conclusions based on one thing you see from them. First impressions are always described as very important, but wise folks keep a look-out for a second and third impression. Let’s say you are playing basketball with some people you haven’t played with before, and one of the players get angry over a foul. You can either then think that person will always get angry for no reason, and think that they have some sort of anger issue, or you can think that it was a not-so-common occurrence, or that the person is just very passionate about the game and doesn’t mean any harm.

The Online World Could Use Some Of This

When you see someone’s comment on a site, or a piece in the New York Times, or some other form of dialogue on the internet, you have to realize that the words you see represent a very small piece of the pie that makes up the whole person who said them. While it is easy to be very harsh to people who seem like they will be harsh back, the wise thing to do is to give each person you meet a chance to present themselves in a professional or cordial fashion. When you give someone a chance to not have to resort to internet anonymity or some other defensive mechanism, they might prove to be someone you can relate to.

In Relationships

Society has seen a decrease in intimate and trusting relationships because most don’t provide much of a chance for their partner or confidant to clear up any issues. Low-level TV shows and popular songs make it look like people who don’t instantly cut off relationships with people that make an error are weak people. We see that some of the loudest voices out there are the ones who get the most attention, so we get the sense that being loud or stubborn with those we deal with is the correct path to take. Being stubborn in relationships and cutting people off after one error seems like it is efficiency-based, but it doesn’t work well with human nature. When you “flow like water” in your relationships as well, you give them room to breathe, and they function smoothly.

Sometimes Enough Chances Have Been Provided

Don’t get me wrong though. If you have given a person many chances to show their reliability or concern or warmth or so on, and they have let you down many times, it might be time to stop giving them so much room to err. If someone breaks your trust multiple times, trusting them again is not such a healthy investment. The same is true if you are showing much more concern for another person than they are showing for you. The best way to show the world you respect yourself is by not maintaining unbalanced relationships that work against you.

The few that give people a real chance to show their worth, while not letting themselves get stepped on multiple times, are the ones who we call “social butterflies” or successful.

You don’t want to step on someone’s foot when you are dancing with them. This shows that you were off in some respect. It is often joked about as a big deal that someone stepped on their partner’s foot. The joke has relevance because we have high regard for that social dance that accompanies the physical one. This dance occurs during dancing, as well as in conversations and dealings. The people who are the best “dancers” are also the ones who get the most from the social domain.

I have previously written about establishing rapport with someone before trying to help them. Working through the moves of the social dance is the way to establish this rapport. The social dance illuminates a lot about how well a person will be able to work with you. The folks who have the social dance understood are some of our favorite individuals. It has nothing to do with being manipulative, and has everything to do with fitting smoothly into the realities of others.

Energy Levels Should Be Similar

Matching the energy level that another person presents is a part of this dance. If someone contacts you in an excited state, and you respond with a low-energy response, it is like you have stepped on their toes. This doesn’t mean you have to go crazy if they are very excited, but that the closer you get to their level of excitement, the more likely they won’t feel out-of-place. People quickly sense when their energy level is either significantly lower or higher than that of those around them.

We might as well make people feel welcome. It is easy to make people feel like they are outcasts, or out of touch with others, but that doesn’t help us, and it doesn’t help them. The only benefit is a very short-term feeling of superiority.

Pay A Matching Amount Of Attention

Another part of the social interaction dance is that involving the attention we pay. If we are paying significantly more or less attention than the person we are dealing with, the person who is paying more attention can start to build up resentment, and the person paying less attention can start to feel either cocky or bothered. You want to match the attention level of the other person so as to prevent both of these. People usually don’t point out that they are feeling these feelings based on small changes in attention, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

The sooner you adjust an item like the attention you are providing, the better the rest of your dealing or conversation can go. It doesn’t help much to figure it out and adjust at the end of a conversation, as you then would need another chance to showcase your social prowess.

People Want To Be Heard And Felt

One last aspect of the dance to bring up is that of emotional empathy. You have to be able to empathize with the person you are communicating with. The second someone feels like you don’t really value how they felt about something, they quickly back away from you or change their tone. It hurts to point out something relevant to us and not get some sort of feedback or understanding response about it. It is like indirectly saying “you should be able to figure it out on your own” or “you should be strong enough to deal with that”, both of which aren’t helpful.

As a summary of the many items that are part of this dance, two people who are doing it fall into “rhythmic harmony, synchronizing their movements and postures, their vocal pitch, rate of speaking, and even the lengths of pauses between one person’s speaking and the other’s response.”(Daniel Goleman, Working With Emotional Intelligence, Page 137) Just as on a dance floor, the best dancer in social interactions dances with the best partners, so it is in your best interests to master the dance.

How do you feel about your ability to dance the social interaction dance?  Do you have any thoughts in relation to this topic?  Let us know in the comments.

photo credit: zabara_tango

photo credit: James Jordan

Great ideas alter the power balance in relationships.  That’s why great ideas are initially resisted.

This was on one of the comics shown in Hugh MacLeod’s book Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity, which is also shown on his site Gapingvoid.  Do you have a great idea you are trying to implement?  Do you see something that you think others might not see?  When you go to implement an idea, those close to you may provide resistance because the implementation would change how they relate to you.  No one usually wants the person who they see as their supporting unit to then become a leader of their own.

What happens is this type of situation is:

• a big idea is presented
• the other person worries that your idea could make you bigger than them
• your idea is attacked in a direct or indirect way
• you either give up on it or pursue implementation of it

Business Example

Let’s say a businessman named Joseph, who is part of a business group, gets an idea for how to expand the business in a completely new direction.  When he presents the idea to his group-mate Jeff, Jeff realizes that implementation of this idea is enough to make Joseph more valuable to the business than him, and so he presents reasons why it will fail or cost the company in a time of worry.

Remember That Others Have Their Interests In Mind

Although we sometimes forget this point, others have their own plans, just as we do.  No one wants to move down in rank or position or some similar category.  When we  have something we  want to pursue, we usually spend most of our time thinking about how we will pursue it, and not so much time regarding how it will affect others.  In the same way, others are thinking of their own upgrading, and your upgrading doesn’t really help their cause.  There are some who are okay with this, but most will not want you to rise above them.  This is not a bad thing, as it is healthy for each of us, but it is valuable to remember that others have their own selves to work on.

Assess Your Idea Based On Knowledge And Gut Feeling

Since you can’t reliably base the validity of a great idea of yours on one other person, you want to check on it based on your own knowledge and experience, and also information you have seen in the public.  Remember that information that has been released may also not include support for your idea, potentially because the goal is to keep ideas like yours hidden, and possibly because your idea has not been implemented before(in the way you have in mind).

Some of the most important details of any effort are usually left out, so as to keep the business/idea/concept going.  If a businessman gets some advantage, he will likely point out every great feature about his business except for the advantage he received.  This is done to make the business seem like it is very special.  This is also done to maintain the business.

No One Will Tell You This Directly

People aren’t going to point out that they don’t want you to surpass them in some form of power, because they get no benefit from it.  Based on the desire for doing less work, others would want you to not try to alter any power balances that are in their favor, because it means more effort on their part, as well as a chance of losing some potency.

Great ideas or thoughts are the big thing.  A great idea is a source of power that is unable to be taken, unless someone gets a better idea, or implements a similar one first, or so on.  Implementing one great idea puts you ahead of a few, and then another great idea puts you ahead of some more, and soon enough, you are very hard to catch up to.

What are your thoughts?  How do you feel about your positions of power?  Have you had good ideas of yours resisted by folks who wouldn’t want to see you follow through on implementing them?  Let us know in the comments.

If there is a person you know who cares for you, and they are putting in effort to make you a better person, you don’t want to take them for granted.  It’s not good to do.  This message is about folks outside of your family.  You can build up a sense in your mind that you are worth so much that the individual and their caring is not a big deal to you, or that you are entitled to their concern, but this is not true in either sense.  In that case, you are taking them for granted.

Are You Taking Someone For Granted?

Think about if there is someone or multiple people like this for you.  Is there someone who is giving you energy on a regular basis, who you are getting the sense will always be there?  Is there someone who is giving you honest feedback, to help you out directly, when others are too afraid or unconcerned to do the same?  Do you know someone who you might be hurting, who is letting you get away with more than you deserve?

Accept Any Errors You Have Made

You have to accept the effects of what you may have done, or how you may have treated or viewed this person.  One good way to understand this is to put yourself in their place.  If I was trying my best to provide value and care for a person, and they did things that showed that they didn’t completely recognize this, it would leave me wondering about what they were thinking.  “Why are they not recognizing the good intent I had in mind?” would be the thought taking place.

Recognize What You Can

Once you have put yourself in their shoes, you can go back into your own mind, and see what you have.  Right now, you may have a person that fits this concept, and the opportunity is still there to tell them and show them that you appreciate their concern by reciprocating it.  This could range from someone who you are very close with to an acquaintance who helps you in minor ways.  Regardless of who the person is, they are a person just like you, and not recognizing and appreciating their selves and efforts speaks poorly about who you are.

Imagine Only You And The Person

One way to see this concept in a new light is to imagine that you are alone in a room with the person, and you are the only two people around.  How are things different now?  Do you now see them as the person they are, who  is caring and helpful, when you are not distracted by others?  Here are two pictures to help with this imagining:

Imagine what it is like seeing that person as the only person around

Then imagine what it would be like if that person left the room

There might be 20 other people in the “room” with you, but sometimes there is only one person in the “room” who is giving you a big benefit of the doubt, and who you are not showing appreciation for through your behavior.  Remember that the room will feel empty without this person, even with the other 19 in it.  It is up to you to take note of your current relational situations, because being left alone in the “room” is not something you want to experience.

Give others a bigger benefit of the doubt than they give you, and you should be fine.

photo credit: mikebaird

If are you out on the street by yourself, you will probably get the feeling that people driving by in cars think you are somewhat weird. On the other hand, if you are walking down the street with someone else, you suddenly don’t have those thoughts. The power of partnering up with others to do almost anything is something that you want to keep in mind.

Exercise With Someone

There is no shortage of ways to make use of this concept. One involves exercise. If you are a person who will feel socially out of place running on some trail, or at a local basketball court, or at an ice skating rink alone, you will be much more comfortable going with someone. It’s worth it to team up with someone. You don’t even have to be prepared. You could go to the beginning of the hiking trail and find someone else who is going up alone and join them. You could also search online to find others who are hiking in the area, or take a friend. It can make a huge difference if you are not up for doing activities alone.

On the other hand, you could go on your own and risk getting bitten by some person’s dog that wasn’t kept on a leash, even though dogs are supposed to be kept on leashes, and all is well and good until the dog bites someone and then they say “oh my dog was a nice dog”,  but it is too late because the bite already happened, and any excuses about the dog aren’t as relevant as dealing with the injury.  I like to include more entertaining bits like this in articles.

Partner For Your Efforts

Another example is in your efforts. It is great to have an accountabilibuddy who you can put effort in with together. However it is created, it will motivate you to do more than you normally would, and you will both have effort to discuss with each other after it occurs. It is quite easy to find a person for this, but the hard part is setting some real goals beforehand, and then working through them with your partner. Self-discipline of this type pays off more than normal, because you get the results, and also get to watch the results of your partner, and are able to talk about both.

There is much I have read in relation to partnering up in some way.  Bud wrote  an article about forming a mastermind group with others.  The members of a group of that type will help each other bigtime.  Then, I found this article about exercising with a partner to keep the motivation to exercise in place.  Here is an article I have found from Entrepreneur.com about teaming up for success.  It points out that teamwork equals success, and that the person who goes it alone is no longer as viable.  That article is from 2007, and is more about building businesses, but it still relates to the concept.

One other article on this topic is by Paul at Diary4Life about Creating a Mastermind team.  It contains a lot about the details of how to select a partner or team, based on criteria that are important to you.  This is an important aspect to take into account.  Picking the first person that you see might work, but any thinking you put in to who you choose will also be rewarded.

There Is Much Opportunity

Somebody is ready to team up with you right now for business, sports, yoga, studying, networking, motivation, goal-setting, going to events, and so on.  You probably thought of a person or two you might want to team up with now that you have read this article.  That is how good my writing and message is – it leads straight to action.  There hasn’t been a time where I teamed up with someone and regretted it afterward.  You might be surprised with how the person you want to team up with also wants to team up with you.  You might also be rejected and mocked for even trying, leading to a short bit of depression.  It isn’t likely, though.

You Won’t Be The Only One

Another thing you get out of partnering up with someone is a sense that you’re not alone in your quest.  Although it is good to feel as though you are leading the way through new frontiers, it is also good to get in touch with reality and connect with others who see a similar frontier.  I’ve found that there is always someone having a similar thought process to me in some aspect.

Partnering Makes Your Goals More Real

Teaming up with someone for something adds seriousness to it too.  Teaming up is saying that you are looking to fulfill your part of the collaboration.  If you have nothing to bring to the table, teaming up is not appealing.  It motivates you to bring something to the table.  If the table were a dinner table, you could bring some bread sticks to it.  Since it is most likely not, you must replace those bread sticks with your skill or effort of choice.

Collaboration and teamwork have such positive connotations because the people making use of them are getting leaps and bounds ahead of folks who are trying to stay as single entities.  There is a time and place for doing things alone, but there should also be a time and place for the opposite.

Random Example Story

How can I add more value here?  I could create a story.  Here is an example I am creating on the spot for you to relate to your own efforts:

There is a person named John, who is interested in learning C++ programming through tutorials.  He knows that he has tried it before, and did not go past tutorial 5 of a 31-day set.  This time, he finds someone else who is learning C++, like through the FreeNode C++ IRC Channel, and sets up a plan with them to go through the tutorial together.  He finds that their levels are somewhat different, so he resolves to do the first 4 sets of the tutorial on his own, followed by teaming up with the partner for the other 27 days.  John has put in effort and acquired an accountabilibuddy.

In Closing

If this article has made you think you want to partner up with me in some aspect(as most do), let me know through the contact page.  Other than that, feel free to leave a comment in relation to this topic.  Let me know if you thought of someone to team up with in some respect also, although you don’t have to mention who they are.

photo credit: dotbenjamin

Are you thinking “if only person A did this, and person B did this, and person C helped me with this, I would be able to really succeed”?  If so, you have to toss away that thinking.  Things don’t work out that way.  First off, people don’t know what you desire until you tell them, and second, even if you tell them, that doesn’t mean they are up for taking part as you have envisioned.

Your Focus Is To Be On You

This is an empowering thing to keep in mind.  Next time you get a thought like “if only this person did this”, realize it is not valuable.  You can’t let yourself be in the hands of someone else, as that is the opposite of self-control.  You have to run your own show.  Other people have their own show in place.

Bigshots Did What They Could Early On

Also, as you notice with successful folks, they didn’t need the perfect circumstances.  They needed their hunger and patience.  Later on, biographers describe their circumstances as having been great, or so on, but they took whatever they had and labeled that “the right circumstances”.  You can do the same.

The day when everyone is on the same page as you in bringing your initiative to fruition is not going to come.  That isn’t a real day.  It is an idealized day, and you shouldn’t need it anyway.  Maybe a couple are on your support team and a couple are either not helpful, or possibly against you in some way.  That is the normal way of things, and so you need to see it as normal and not bad.

That Ideal Day Is As Uncommon As Winning The Lottery

The perfect day doesn’t come, and even if it did, it wouldn’t impact you as you would imagine.  Instead, remember that today is a day that has come, and that is good enough.  You certainly have some potential in this instance, and ignoring that potential in search of some greater potential is like not eating bread, even though you are hungry, because there is a chance you may later have bread and cheese.  While bread and cheese can certainly be great, you don’t need that combination to be effective.  Also, if you can do fine with just bread, if bread and cheese arrives as a package for you later, you will have your self-discipline maintained, along with a reward on top of it.

Others Have Their Own Items To Focus On

People do generally have a sense of your desires, but they either might not be available, or don’t have the interest in helping, or don’t feel that they have the ability to help or support you.  Blaming others for any lack of support takes power away from you.  It is like saying you need their support to proceed, which is a very limited state of effectiveness.

Create Your Plan Around Your Own Abilities

You have to take a potential lack of support into account when you plan your efforts.  Know that not everyone will come to your side, and that you might have very little in the form of assistance.  This has to be in your game plan.  If you formulate a game plan that expects too much of others, you’ll get part of the way there and start to break down, because one of your “fuel sources” is depleted.  You can think of support like a fuel source, because support and help from others does lead you to take more action than you normally would.

Taking that into account means planning for having less fuel than what you think of as being at a full tank.  You have to be able to replenish your own fuel at times, through directed thinking, or exercise of some sort, or so on.  As I pointed out in a recent article, you might need some “foolish pride” to get through the difficult part of your venture.  That is somewhat like creating fuel out of thin air, at least temporarily.

When It Is Based On You, It Gets Done

There are quite a few folks waiting for a certain event or state of events to arise before they do something important they have been thinking of.  There are risks associated with this.  One is that you miss out on opportunities that would have been available had the action just been taken on a regular day, during regular circumstances.  Another risk is that the special day or period of time doesn’t come, and then the whole process is not started.  There is little we regret more than something we did not do.

So, when is the special day or time to act?  Many say you should treat today as that special day of sorts.  This is reasonable.  Also, you could leave tomorrow as your big action day, as long as it is tomorrow from today and not a vague “tomorrow”.

Do you have any examples that come to mind, where you have left control in the hands of others, in hopes of great results?  Let us know in the comments.

photo credit: JasonRogersFotographie

This post connects to Hulbert’s post over at From Bottom Up about no longer using his pen name of ‘Tristan’.  To give some background on the article, he was using the name ‘Tristan’ on his site and various sites, instead of his real name ‘Hulbert’, partly due to being self-conscious.

A Shortcoming To You May Not Even Be Noticed By Others

I don’t know about you, but I see Hulbert as just as good of a name as Tristan.  While Hulbert is now using his real name, and the issue has been cleared up, there is something very valid to take from this.  We do very similar things to this in other ways when we hold back pieces of ourselves from others, thinking it will make us look better, or that we won’t look as ‘bad’ as we think we are in some aspect.

Regarding Hulbert’s name, I see no benefit from using Tristan over Hulbert.  I would say this was the same for many of his readers.  While he was thinking that he was making a good decision to look more normal or good, many of us probably didn’t take much notice.

Don’t Hide Yourself From Others

We have to use this example to look at where we are holding back in some way.  If you are hiding a part of yourself from someone else, you will want to now think of if hiding that part is actually benefiting you or the relationship in some way.  It has been said that 95% of fears never materialize in the bad way we have imagined them, and this is also true in these cases.  Not telling a friend of yours about your interest in one day doing research on magnets, or of one of your health issues that you deal with every few days, or some other piece of information you may be self-conscious about, is not usually worth much for you.

Check If Your Priorities Are In Line With What Others Think They Are

Sometimes the things that are huge to us are not even noticed by others.  The person who fears others, or can’t get their schedule in order, or so on, usually tries to cover up these things, when covering them up is almost worth $0.  It’s not really enjoyable to talk about how you were spending all this effort covering up something in the past, and then to have the person listening tell you that they didn’t notice, and would have been just fine with things the other way around.  It makes you feel like your effort was tossed away.

If anything came up in your mind during this article, you might want to “reveal your pen name”, filling the ‘pen name’ in that phrase with your own issue.  People don’t want you throwing away energy for nothing.  Back to the original story, I am glad to now know the host of From Bottom Up as Hulbert Lee.