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| English: Entrance of Tomorrowland at Disneyland (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
5 Things that will no longer exist in the future.
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Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Predicting the Future
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Monday, April 13, 2015
Friday, October 17, 2014
5 Steps to Accepting Compliments Graciously
Many creative artists are uncomfortable with praise and compliments. We
can be so busy judging ourselves harshly that we don't quite know what
to do with positive feedback.
We almost wish people would just "come out and say it," "it" being the negative thing that they're REALLY thinking, just to prove our negative self-perception.
Instead, when we can learn how to embrace positive feedback and accept compliments graciously, we open up the door for more positive thoughts and interactions, and we actually start to BELIEVE them.
Then, when our inner critic starts up again, we can intentionally choose to believe the POSITIVE messages we've been receiving.
Here are five steps towards accepting compliments graciously.
1. Notice. Begin by noticing what you tend to say when someone gives you a compliment. Do you minimize it by saying, "Oh, it was nothing", do you argue with it by saying, "No, I don't look good, I look awful!" or do you find yourself so uncomfortable that you're at a complete loss for words?
2. Practice. You can learn to accept compliments more graciously. After noticing what you tend to do now, decide how you'd like to respond the next time you receive a compliment. Then, practice saying your new response (in front of a mirror is best) until saying it feels natural and sincere.
What to say? A warm and heartfelt, "thank you", coupled with a smile, is always appropriate and is usually enough. Be cautious of feeling the need to explain, justify, or return a compliment automatically.
3. Pause. When someone pays you a compliment, stop before you respond. This is where change happens – when we step out of autopilot and try something different. Take a deep breath and remember your wish to accept compliments more graciously.
4. Turn your attention outwards. Focus on the person who's giving you the compliment. Think about their intentions. Sometimes our inner critic tells us stories about the person being sarcastic, having some kind of ulterior motive or not truly meaning what they say. Instead, expect the best and act on the assumption that the person is sincere.
Focus on being kind and courteous to that person. If you make them feel good by accepting their compliment with genuine appreciation, they'll remember that and speak up the next time they have something positive to share with you.
Consequently, if you belittle their words by arguing, minimizing or looking as if they've just insulted you, they'll remember that as well.
5. Try it from the other side. Another way to get better at accepting compliments is to GIVE more compliments. Notice how other people receive them. This can improve your relationships greatly, because now you'll be focused more on the other person. As you're looking for positive things to compliment them on, you'll also be keeping your thoughts more positive overall, and you'll have less time for worrying and negative thinking.
© Linda Dessau, 2006.
We almost wish people would just "come out and say it," "it" being the negative thing that they're REALLY thinking, just to prove our negative self-perception.
Instead, when we can learn how to embrace positive feedback and accept compliments graciously, we open up the door for more positive thoughts and interactions, and we actually start to BELIEVE them.
Then, when our inner critic starts up again, we can intentionally choose to believe the POSITIVE messages we've been receiving.
Here are five steps towards accepting compliments graciously.
1. Notice. Begin by noticing what you tend to say when someone gives you a compliment. Do you minimize it by saying, "Oh, it was nothing", do you argue with it by saying, "No, I don't look good, I look awful!" or do you find yourself so uncomfortable that you're at a complete loss for words?
2. Practice. You can learn to accept compliments more graciously. After noticing what you tend to do now, decide how you'd like to respond the next time you receive a compliment. Then, practice saying your new response (in front of a mirror is best) until saying it feels natural and sincere.
What to say? A warm and heartfelt, "thank you", coupled with a smile, is always appropriate and is usually enough. Be cautious of feeling the need to explain, justify, or return a compliment automatically.
3. Pause. When someone pays you a compliment, stop before you respond. This is where change happens – when we step out of autopilot and try something different. Take a deep breath and remember your wish to accept compliments more graciously.
4. Turn your attention outwards. Focus on the person who's giving you the compliment. Think about their intentions. Sometimes our inner critic tells us stories about the person being sarcastic, having some kind of ulterior motive or not truly meaning what they say. Instead, expect the best and act on the assumption that the person is sincere.
Focus on being kind and courteous to that person. If you make them feel good by accepting their compliment with genuine appreciation, they'll remember that and speak up the next time they have something positive to share with you.
Consequently, if you belittle their words by arguing, minimizing or looking as if they've just insulted you, they'll remember that as well.
5. Try it from the other side. Another way to get better at accepting compliments is to GIVE more compliments. Notice how other people receive them. This can improve your relationships greatly, because now you'll be focused more on the other person. As you're looking for positive things to compliment them on, you'll also be keeping your thoughts more positive overall, and you'll have less time for worrying and negative thinking.
© Linda Dessau, 2006.
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Author's Bio:
Linda Dessau, the Self-Care Coach, helps artists enhance their creativity by addressing their unique self-care issues. Feel like your creativity is blocked? Sign-up for your complimentary copy of the popular e-course, "Roadblocks to Creativity" by visiting http://www.genuinecoaching.com
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Ponderings of a Self-Published Nobody
By Jai Murugan
Geez, I'm not sure if I want to do this or not. It might backfire, or I might look like an idiot. Hmmmm. Oh, what the heck! Here goes. Nothing to lose. |
| English: Book and apparatus for writing. Engraving (prints). (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Two different writers are invited on consecutive weeks, to sit outside a local bookstore in a mall, to flog the freshly printed book, by reading, and signing.
The books are of different genres, but each in its own way has appeal. Certainly
beforehand, by viewing the books alone, without the author, there is no significant difference, as to marketability. Neither author is well known, and each is here on her initial foray into the market. The first writer sells well over 100 books on the Saturday afternoon. The second writer sells a grand total of three books. Why?
The first author smiles a lot, shakes hands, nods at little kids, drinks coffee sloppily, and generally appears, outwardly at least, to be having a grand ol' time. The table is covered by bright gawky blowups of media stories on the book, or her.
The second author sits quietly, reading another book, quietly sipping her coffee, and appears openly only mildly interested in the flog. On the inside, she is terribly interested, as all writers are, but cannot overcome the shyness, and fear that someone might think her book is crap.
The difference between the two scenarios, of course, is reflected in the title of this column: confidence.
Confidence is a learned trait, whether inadvertently, or consciously. Your personal degree of writing confidence, today, is a sum total of your personal experiences regarding feedback on writing. The grade one teacher who proudly read your story aloud, or wrote, "You have such wonderful ideas!" had a powerful impact.
So did the high school or university professor who labeled your paper with a 'C' for crappy. Most, if not all, of the feedback you received, you feel at least, was outside your control. For it came from the mouths of others.
Once lost, confidence is hard to regain. But surely if we as writers have none at all, we'll never be writers, at best our only audience will be ourselves. There are probably many manuscripts (not to mention paintings) lying around somewhere on the planet just waiting to be viewed by adoring masses.
Unfortunately these never will, simply because the creators of said works of art have never shown them to anyone, or only just perhaps to a few close friends, due to their lack of confidence. That's sad.
Here are a few simple tips to hopefully improve confidence. There are many more if you do a little hunting.
- Take all destructive criticism with a grain of salt, however hard that seems. Remember that there are another 5 billion people on the planet. Someone will love your writing.
- Write daily. (Laugh daily. Even if you laugh at how pathetic your own work is.)
- Do something towards self-promotion regularly even if is a simple as posting a message on a news-group, or submitting a poem to the few readers on a chat-line.
- If you need to show your work to someone, show it first to someone you trust as a person. If they give you a negative critique, you'll know it's not a direct attack on you
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Friday, June 20, 2014
JournalSpark: If your computer could talk, what would it say to you?
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| Computer Setup April 2010 (Photo credit: Paul Mayne) |
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Thursday, June 19, 2014
BlogSpark: Top Ten Reasons to Quit Blogging
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| X (Photo credit: hidden side) |
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Wednesday, June 18, 2014
3Spark: cap, match, bed
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| English: A stopwatch is a hand-held timepiece designed to measure the amount of time elapsed from a particular time when activated to when the piece is deactivated. http://weelookang.blogspot.com/2011/08/ejs-open-source-stop-watch-model.html (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Today's words are:
- cap
- match
- bed
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