Breaking Bad Habits: The Power of Acceptance & Purposeful Action

You. I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation on radical acceptance and purposeful action for habit change. I am Dr. Donnelly Snipes. Today we're going to review the seven habits of highly effective people and how they incorporate radical acceptance and purposeful action so we can help people use those in order to affect changing their habits. The first step is to encourage people to be proactive. We want them to be response able. That means we want them to make a proactive response for things. Encourage people to look at their life. Before they can take purposeful action, they have to know what the purpose is. The first thing they're going to do is identify what people and things and activities are important in their life. What is their destination, if you will? If they were going on a trip, what is their destination in recovery? Sometimes we talk about this as good, orderly direction. What thoughts, attitudes and self talk will help you move toward that destination? We really want people to start thinking about choosing thoughts and self talk that are empowering, accepting and compassionate and not notice the word accepting is in there. There's a lot of stuff in life that we have no control over and we have to accept that it is what it is. That is a mantra that we say around my office, my house. And I encourage my clients to embrace that mantra a lot because it keeps them from getting unnecessarily entwined with their distress. Doesn't mean they're not going to feel distress. It's going to happen. You know, you get a shot, it hurts, it is what it is. You get your electric bill and especially during this drought and heat wave, you know, it hurts, it is what it is. There is no point in me getting and staying upset about it. Encourage them to reflect on what actions will help them move toward their destination, whatever that looks like. If they want to have better relationships, if they want to have better health, that they want to have more energy, what actions are going to help them move toward that? When they get upset, maybe, you know, they're stuck in traffic and it just, it takes them an extra 45 minutes to get home. That's a long time to be stuck in traffic. You could get upset about that and you could burn through a whole lot of energy and upset your neurotransmitters and all that kind of stuff and be really frustrated. But if, is that behavior ruminating those, ruminating on those thoughts, is that helping you move towards your destination of having more energy and better health, lower blood pressure so you can spend time with your family and those people that are Important to you? No, it's not. Getting upset while you're stuck in traffic ain't going to move the traffic any faster. Encouraging people to be logical when they're thinking about what is the next logical step that I can do in response to this distress. You know, I'm not denying that the distress exists. I'm just accepting that it does. And that's that radical acceptance. I'm not happy right now. I'm angry, I'm stressed, I'm fearful. Whatever the feeling is, I accept it. Now, what am I going to do about it? And finally encourage them to identify what challenges or adversities that they can plan for and mitigate. When we go through our day, if we are sleep deprived, if we are sick, if we are in pain, it's going to be harder to get through the day and accomplish the goals we want and continue to move forward towards our goals, such as they are. How can you mitigate or plan for some of these things? Well, illness, you can wash your hands and try to practice good hygiene. Recognize, however, that some days, sometimes you're going to get a cold and it's just going to happen. Buffer in or build in buffer time into your life. So when you do get sick or when you need a mental health day, that's okay. You've got that buffer in there that you can take that day and be good to yourself. Trying to push through when you've got 103 fever probably is not going to help you in the long run. When there are financial stresses. Your car breaks down. My daughter's boyfriend was driving to school yesterday and a deer came out of nowhere and just smacked into the side of his car, dented up the door like nobody's business. It's going to be an expensive repair. That is a financial stress that he really wasn't planning on. If you plan ahead for things that are going to come up, unexpected bills as best as you can, then it will mitigate the stress and the anxiety associated with those stresses when they happen to prevent it from negatively impacting your energy and, you know, keeping you from continuing to move forward toward your goals. Now, not everybody can save, you know, thousands of dollars. I understand this. If they can't save, they're living paycheck to paycheck. Well, let's talk to a financial counselor. And a lot of times there are free financial counselors that are available periodically throughout the year. Just calling local United Information, United Way Information and referral can help people link to those things, know what resources, other resources are out there. There are churches and other organizations that can. Usually it's only once a year, but they're willing to help people if they can't pay their electric bill. What other ways, what other resources, services, programs are there to help people plan for situations or get through situations that could be financially stressful? Plan for bad days we're all all going to have bad days. Occasionally you're going to get up on the wrong side of the bed and you're just going to be like, oh, it's going to be a long day at work. Okie dokie. It is what it is. Maybe it is going to be a long day of work. Maybe you didn't sleep really well. You slept the whole time. You didn't sleep really well, or you're dreading the stuff you've got to do at work that day. Whatever it is, not every day is an exciting day. Plan for those. Know how you can mitigate those bad days? For me, I take the stuff that I don't like to do and we all have that at our job and at our house and I break it up. So I do on one day I'll do one thing that I don't like to do, and then the next day I'll do something else that I don't like to do. But then the other six or seven hours are filled with things that I really enjoy. It makes it more doable for me so I'm not just sitting there through an entire day waiting and watching the clock tick down. Plan for other things like deaths and holidays and things that are going to interrupt your schedule or may add extra stress. Know how you can plan for those during the holidays? For example, some people don't like. Well, like me, I hate shopping. I definitely hate shopping. When it's crowded, I shop online. I try to shop early. I try to get all my Christmas shopping done before October 1st. That's one thing that I do for me when we start coming up on the holidays. I make sure that I get extra rest because I know there are going to be more time demands. All of those things are responsible because they are encouraging people to be proactive instead of reactive. When you're reactive, you wait until you're sick and then you're like, oh crap, now how am I going to get all my work done? When you're proactive, you figure out, well, if I get sick, these are things that I could do to make sure that I'm still getting my work done or doing what I need to do. Be responsible in your recovery. Encourage people to think about what people thinks and activities are important to their recover. This can be from depression, from anxiety, from addiction. And what do you need to do to maintain your happiness? Purposeful action. You need to think about who is it that I need in my life or what types of people do I need in my life and what do I need to do to continue to live a recovery lifestyle? How is your recovery important to your overall life goal or destination? If you're recovering from clinical depression, for example, and your life goals include having more energy and time to spend with your kids and going on vacations with your family and getting a promotion at work and reducing your blood pressure and being healthy so you can live to be 80. I don't know. All of those things are great goals. So how does making sure that you maintain your recovery from depression? Why is that important? In what ways would getting clinically depressed keep you from achieving those goals? And what challenges or adversities can you plan for and mitigate with major depressive disorder? It can be episodic. What things do you know trigger your depression in addiction? There are always going to be triggers in the environment here and there. What things can you do to mitigate those triggers so you can continue moving forward in your recovery? Encourage people to focus on what's within their control. The serenity prayer is great. Grant me the courage to accept the things I the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. There are some things we can't change. It is blazing hot outside. I was supposed to plant my fall garden September 1, according to the Farmer's Almanac. If I would have done that, my crops would have bolted so fast. It's October 1st, and I still haven't even worked the ground for my fall garden yet. I can't control that. I can't control the fact that I may not have a fall garden this year because Mother Nature is just not playing with me. And that's okay, you know, there's nothing I can do about it. No sense getting all uptight about it. It is what it is. What is within my control is paying attention to the weather and knowing when to plant my plants. Because I would have been really frustrated if I had put in, you know, dozens of hours of work getting everything planted and watered and everything, and then it would have soured, for lack of a better word, really quickly. Imagine a blizzard or hurricane is coming. Encourage people to think about this. We've had a bunch of hurricanes this year, and it looks like we're gonna have a bunch of blizzards over the, over the winter. What is not within your control? Well, people do have the ability to control their thoughts, feelings, reactions, and how they care for themselves. It doesn't mean that they're not going to feel angry or sad or frustrated here and there. You know, those are normal reactions. But what you do with those feelings, you have a choice over. You don't have a choice over other people's thoughts, reactions, behaviors, mistakes, the weather, traffic, you know, the list goes on. So with a blizzard or a hurricane, what is within your control? Well, I can get myself all freaked out, or I can look logically at the situation. I can just assume that the weather, the weather channel is wrong and not prepare, or I can go to the grocery and buy bread and milk and anything else I might need in case the power goes out and I'm stranded at the house for four or five days. How can you minimize the distress? Looking at The Weather Channel 247 is probably just going to intensify your distress because you don't know, is it coming this way? Is it not coming this way? I lived in Florida for decades, and this is the scenario we would go through every hurricane season. You see the hurricane coming and you're checking the spaghetti models every 15 minutes. That does nothing but keep you focused on something you have no control over. Is that purposeful action? Is that helping you use your energy to move toward your ultimate goals? Not really, no. If you find out a hurricane's coming, plan for it. Prepare. So if it comes, you're prepared. If it doesn't, you don't have to go shopping for two weeks. There's really no losing in that one. And how can you maximize the happy and build your reserves? We want to make sure ahead of time that we are regularly, proactively adding in the happy. It's not just about eliminating distress. You want to make sure you add in things that make you smile, that make you laugh, that bring you joy, that fills up your happy reserves. So when you look back over last week, you can go, that was a pretty good week. Instead of, eh, you know, nothing bad happened. I could got up, went to work, came home, went to sleep, got up again, did the same thing. Over. That's not real happy. That's, that's monotonous, that's autopilot. Add in the happy. Encourage people to make a list of things, including positive things that are within their control. Their environment is within their control for the most part. You know, in their house, they can keep it as clean or as messy as they want. They can address the colors, they can add in aromatherapy, they can make it smell good. They. There are a lot of things that they can do. They can also more or less affect who is in that environment. There was a meme that was on the Internet when the last hurricane went through, went through Florida. Something about, spend quality time with your relatives now because after two days of no power, you're not going to want to see them anymore. There are people that you want to have in your Life, maybe not 24, 7. And when people are under stress, especially if it's, you know, hot and there's no power and heaven forbid now there shouldn't be Internet, people start to go a little stir crazy. Make a list of things that are within your control in that situation. When there is no power, how can you make the best of it? You know, we have games like checkers and chess and, you know, we have animals that we play with. We have crossword puzzles that we do and lots of different things that we can do that actually don't rely on the Internet or power at all. Imagine that we also had a lot of a variety of foods that we could eat when and if the power went out. That again, didn't require cooking. Develop skills to help you regulate your emotions, urges and actions and choose those that help you move toward happiness. I said it multiple times already. Feeling angry or feeling afraid is just your body perceiving a threat and kicking off that HPA axis or your fight flight response. That's a normal reaction that your body wanting to survive. No problem. When you notice those feelings, acknowledge them, accept them. Go, all right, I'm angry right now. Wonder what that's about. Explore it with curiosity. Figure out what you're feeling threatened or angry about and then decide what's the best course of action. If somebody gets angry, they go on social media and they get angry about something somebody else said. Okay, so let's look at that, because that is a really common thing. Or they turn on the news and they get really upset about something they hear on the news. Okay, that feeling of upsetness is, you know, logical. For some reason, whatever you saw or heard made you feel like there was a threat to your power or control. Okay, no problem. What are you going to do about it? That makes sense. In what way can you use your energy now, if at all, to affect the situation online, on social media? Sometimes people will start getting into flaming wars. Is that a good use of your energy? Does that help you move towards your goals of health, happiness, lower blood pressure? Probably not. Is it probably going to change that person, other person's mind or get them to apologize or be nice? Probably not. Is. So back to the initial question. Is getting into a flaming war a good use of your energy? No. Okay. Admit and learn from your mistakes. That's being proactive and reactive. The admitting is reactive. It's like, oops, I screwed up on that one. But learning is proactive. If I learn from my mistakes, I'm not going to make them again. And practice the three finger rule. When you point at somebody, you have two fingers pointing out and three fingers pointing back at you. So what part of this situation are you responsible for and what part of this situation are they responsible for? Their thoughts, their actions, their beliefs. Your thoughts, your actions, your beliefs. Make sure you begin with the end in mind. Most failures result from failure to envision or plan within reason. You can't anticipate every possible hiccup or outcome. But you can generally have a good idea about, if I do this, it's going to have a positive result or if I don't, you know, in recovery, we want to plan for maintaining our recovery, which means we need to think ahead of time. What are barriers or obstacles or triggers that could trip us up and what do we need to do? Going to the gym. A lot of people make a New Year's resolution to start going to the gym and getting in shape. Well, that's great. The end goal is to be healthier. Going to the gym is something they want to do. What are some obstacles that might get in their way? Taking their kids to soccer practice or not having the energy after work, or making sure that we think about what is it that we want to do and why and what could get in our way and how can we clear those, clear those obstacles in the road. If you go to the grocery store without a list, you know that is generally a failure. I can tell you with almost 100% certainty if I go to the grocery store without a list, I'm going to forget something, something that I quote needed, and I'll either be making another trip or grumbling about it, which is not a good use of my energy, by the way. I didn't begin with the end in mind. I didn't leave the house to go grocery shopping thinking about what is it that I need to make sure that my pantry is full. You wouldn't go on a vacation without a destination. You wouldn't just pack up the car. Most people and say, I'll be back in 14 days. Where are you going? I don't know. I'm just going to get in the car and drive. Don't think most of us would do that. There are a few adventurous people that will, but most of us wouldn't. And you wouldn't start a project without a plan. This bridge is a perfect example. Envision in your mind what you cannot at present see. So if you were happy, what would be different? This helps people set those goals. What is your personal mission statement? What do you do? How do you do it? Why do you do it? What do you really want out of life? What are you uniquely put on this earth to achieve? And what do you believe your purpose or mission is in life? And all of these are questions people that can ponder that can really help them figure out what how they want to spend their day. Why am I here today? I got to the office today and there were some things that my administrative person hadn't gotten done. And I started doing those to get them done. And then I thought to myself, no, that's not my job. What I'm here to do today, you know, I have a whole list of stuff that I need to get done. The stuff that he didn't get done can wait. But it was important to me to recognize that for me to get the stuff done that I'm envisioning, you know, I needed to have all this done. I wanted to see my list all marked off. I had to focus my attention on my activities and let the other things go. If you were happy, what would be the same and different? This is another way to ask that question of what do you want out of life? Encourage people to plan ahead and set goals. Goals need to be specific, measurable, achievable, time, limited, relevant and realistic and rewarding. Specific. You don't want to say I want to be happy. Well, how are we going to know when we're happy? You know, what does that look like? Specifically, what does that look like? You don't want to say I want to lose weight or I want to get in shape. Ok, how much weight do you want to lose? That's a specific goal. If you want to get in shape, how do you define that? Lower blood pressure, Lower resting heart rate, the ability to bench press your body weight? How do you define it? That goes with measurable, achievable. I will probably, at least in the very middle to short term, never be able to bench press my body weight. That's not achievable for me. Got a bad shoulder, probably Never will be able to do that. So that's not a goal. I'm going to set. Lifting weights three times a week, that's achievable. Lifting 10% of my body weight, that's definitely achievable. Time limited in what period of time? When we set goals, we want to set short ish goals. The longest you should really set a goal is about three months with the, with few exceptions like graduating from college or something. But even when you have that goal, graduating from college, that's a four year goal. But every semester you have shorter goals. Let me pass these classes. Even shorter than that. Let me pass this first assignment. Let me pass the midterm, Let me pass the final. Those specific measurable goals are time limited. So there are regular rewards. Realistic and relevant and rewarding. Too many people get in the habit of doing things that are not helping them achieve their goals. And if they start to get into that, into that groove, then they're not going to be using their energy in a purposeful way. When people get stressed and they want to smoke or they want to drink or they want to do anything but address the stressor, that's a bad habit that we need to alter. Encourage people to envision reaching their destination daily. If you're trying to break a habit, whether it's, you know, anything from biting your fingernails to stress eating to drinking to getting angry unnecessarily, whatever the habit is, if you envision reaching your destination, you're probably not going to see that behavior in there. Encourage people to envision that destination and in that envisioning, they're seeing themselves as a stronger person who doesn't need to use that habit. And encourage people to keep track of their progress towards their destination. The next step is to put first things first. Recognize that not doing everything is okay. We can only do so much. There's only so many hours in the day, so people need to prioritize by practicing mindful discipline. And these habits that we get into can really drain our time and draw us away from the things on our list that we want to do or that we need to do in order to achieve our goal. Encourage people to remind themselves why they do the things they do and why they need to do X instead of Y. When new opportunities come up and I have a bad habit of saying yes and volunteering a lot and my husband gets on me all the time, he's like, really? You added something else? Well, yeah, I did, but that's a bad habit of mine because I don't stop and think, do I have the time to do this and still give full attention to the other projects and goals and important things in my life. Make sure to stay organized. This reduces stress and energy expenditure and it can help people see ahead of time. So when they stop, they look and they say, is this something I want to do? Habit is autopilot. Purposeful action is mindfulness and how you feel is right in the middle. We want people to disengage that autopilot and think before they act. If they are thinking, then they are looking at their options, which is where organization can help. Encourage people to remember it's okay to say no or ask for help when necessary to focus on their highest priorities. Sometimes that's important and it takes practice. A lot of people are in the habit of saying, I'm the only one who can do it or I've got it and not asking for help. And that's one of those habits that we need to break. Encourage people to practice time management. List the have to do's for an entire week. Cross off anything that doesn't get you closer to your goals. So you're going through your list. Paying bills is on there. Well, keeping a roof over your head and electricity on, that probably helps you get towards your goals. So we want to leave that one on there. Spending four hours on social media, that might not. You might be able to make an argument for 30 minutes. But spending four hours, especially four hours a day on social media probably not. Encourage people to go through and really look at how they're spending their time. And cross off the things that are autopilot. They're things they just do because you know, they've got their phone so they might as well log into Facebook or Instagram. Once they've done that, prioritize what's left. What is the most important thing that I need to get done this week and then the next most important on that list. Figure out anything that can be delegated. You know, this thing that's most important. Hey, you know what? I don't even have to do it. I can delegate it to my husband if it's paying bills, make him do it. Simplify when possible. Yes, I need, I feel I need to make dinner for my family every night. That's when we have our sit down and that's important to me. Does it mean I have to make a three to five course meal every single night? No. Thank goodness. They've gotten used to the fact that mama cooks casseroles and if they don't like it, that's just tough diddly winks. I simplify one dish all the food groups right on the table. Less to clean up and easier to store the leftovers. Make a plan to balance the tasks with the goals. You have a lot of tasks to do. Finishing a project may be important. Your kid's baseball game also important. Which one's more important? You know, which one are you could you do at midnight? And which one do you have only a certain amount of time to do? Encourage people to address procrastination. That in and of itself is a habit. A lot of people procrastinate partly because they fear success. If I do this and do it well, people are going to expect a lot from me. So maybe, you know, I may not want to do it. Fear of failure. Sometimes people procrastinate because they're afraid if they try they won't know how to do it. So you know, and then sometimes it's just lack of motivation. What can you do? I find for me and my committee chair when I was in graduate school taught me this. Do 15 if you have the habit of procrastinating like I did on writing my dissertation every day, sit down, work on it for 15 minutes. If after 15 minutes you're still miserable, stop and do something else. 99% of the time after I got it was getting started was the hardest part. I do the same thing with my gardening. Sometimes I get home from work and the thought of going out into the field is just, you know, I've got a half acre garden so I've got a lot to weed and do and it's hot and I'm tired and blah blah blah and I dread it. But once I get out there I'm like, okay, I'm going to go out and do 15. What can I do in 15 minutes? And I usually end up out there for two or three hours which is good because that's where I de stress. Encourage people to think win win. There are four vital character traits to think win win in order to accept be radically accepting of life as it is in the moment and break those nasty habits of avoidance, manipulation and procrastination. You need to create a win win situation. People need to have self respect, sticking with their true feelings, values and commitments so being authentic. They need to have respect and compassion for others ideas and feelings. They need to have an abundance mentality believing that there's plenty for everyone. Any situation you can generally create a win win somehow and bringing that radical acceptance back in. People who create the best win wins have wisdom and the ability to walk the middle path and see the both. And see that you can have frustration and happiness at the same time. Maybe frustrated in part of your life, but you can be happy in part of your life. You can not want to do something but get it done at the same time. Three steps to win Win. See the issue from the other person's point of view and identify the key issues involved. Obviously this is when you're working with a group or you're living cohabitating with people. Sometimes you need to see it from the other person's perspective. Instead of getting in the habit of stuffing your feelings and not saying anything and then all of a sudden getting upset and unleashing a Vesuvius of done me wrongs, we want to break that habit. Determine what a successful resolution would look like and identify and effectively communicate options to achieve those resolutions, including compromise. What are we going to do? I have teenagers at home and gosh, you know, I really don't like how they keep their room all the time. But that's their room. Our compromise is the common areas have to stay clean to mother's standards. Your rooms have to stay reasonably clean, but not to mother's standards necessarily. And that works. And they just keep their doors closed. The only time I go in is if I have to deliver their laundry or what have you. Your success doesn't necessarily have to mean someone else's failure. And you know, my kids rooms are perfect examples of that. It doesn't mean I don't have to tell them their failures. They're, you know, doing wrong because they're not keeping their rooms as I would want to have my room kept, you know, that is on them and that's their choice. My success is that the places that I visit most frequently adhere to the level of cleanliness that I prefer. Cooperation is less stressful than competition. So surround yourself with people smarter than you instead of always having to have the right answer. Ask people, you know, this is the problem or the situation that we're facing, what do you think we should do? Look for ways you can cooperate to achieve mutual goals and examine common areas of competition for purposefulness and cooperation. If you and your colleague are both going up for the same job promotion, one of you may get it and the other one may not. So how can you create a win win out of that? Obviously one way is to, you know, genuinely support one another. Because when, if one of you gets promoted and the other one doesn't, I'd rather have somebody promoted above me who is not my Enemy. In relationships, there's also areas for competition. Okay, you know, whoever you end up with focusing on the win, win in those relationships. What do I have that makes me happy? What do you have that makes you happy? And recognizing that there's always opportunities to create a win situation. Maybe you lose a job, you know, you get fired. Well, that can be seen as a loss or it can be seen as a win because now you have an opportunity to find a better fit. There are multiple problem solving paradigms. You could create a lose lose. And an example of this would be someone who doesn't try and doesn't think anything can work out for anyone. It's just they're pessimistic all the time. It could be a lose win, where the martyr thinks that the world is a competition and doesn't want anyone else to lose or doesn't want to lose to anyone else. You can have the classic competitor, from a football player to a salesman, they always want to win. And you can have the entrepreneur who succeeds by delighting customers and cooperating and saying, you know what, there's plenty to go around. You know, we have fast food places popping up all over the place. There's plenty of people to patronize every single one of those. We have recovery centers popping up all over this place. There are plenty of people, unfortunately, to keep all of them in business too. And the nice thing is each restaurant, just like each treatment center, offers something a little bit different that may be more conducive to certain people seek first to understand, then to be understood. Actually listen. Oh my gosh, how hard is it to stop? And it's actually pretty hard to stop and actually listen. As Americans, we have a horrible habit of hearing the first half of a sentence that somebody says and then starting to formulate our response before we even hear them out. Actually listen. Break that habit. Actually listen to yourself. Shutting out those should voices and those critics in your head. Listen to yourself, your heart. That tells you that you're good enough and focuses on your strengths. Listen to others without trying to form a response before they're finished talking. There are a lot of different types of listening. There's the pretending where you're just kind of humming along while you're not really following. You're just. You're listening and doing something else on your phone while somebody else is talking. There's selective listening where you hear what you want to hear. There's attentive listening where you're actually paying attention to the words, you're hearing what the person says. And Then there's empathic listening, where you're intending to understand what the other person's trying to communicate, which goes deeper than just the surface words. When you're trying to understand other people, look at the bigger picture. Maybe they are reacting to something that you don't understand, why they're reacting so strongly to it that you're looking at the present moment and what's going on. Let's look at the bigger picture. What experiences have they had that may be leading them to have that kind of reaction? If you are in the grocery store and the cashier is just, oh my gosh, so grumpy, you could take it personally and think, wow, that person really doesn't care about their job. They're being nasty to everybody. Or you could look at the bigger picture and think, I wonder what happened today that put that person in such a horrible mood. Maybe you'll find out that they had a death in the family or their car broke down, or, you know, there's lots of stuff, stuff that could be going on in their lives. It's not just about being happy and cheerful to the customer. We want to avoid only focusing on certain aspects of situations. Keep your mind open and your attention open and continually ask yourself, how does this behavior or this person's reaction or this feeling I'm having make sense? And try to use factual, not emotional reasoning. Emotional reasoning is when you think something must be because you have a feeling. So if I get nervous because I'm getting ready to go on a roller coaster, then my mind in emotional reasoning says roller coasters are dangerous. Well, most roller coasters really aren't that dangerous. They are very well monitored. Factual reasoning. If you look at how many people actually get hurt on roller coasters every year compared to how many ride very, very small number. Factual reasoning versus emotional reasoning. Encourage people to synergize. Encourage them to have one common vision, one common goal. Figuring out what this vision of a rich and meaningful life looks like to them. Encourage them to have a sense of self and value differences and new ideas, but still stay authentic. You know, maybe they want to become a therapist. You know, that's, that's one that's easy for me to relate to. But there are a lot of people in counseling who have very different ideas about what it means to be a good therapist or about the best approach to use. That's okay. I can value differences and new ideas. I can learn about them and go, yeah, that makes sense. Or, you know, you have the right to your opinion. I disagree. You want to Embrace trust and elicit support when you synergize. Synergizing means bringing your social supports in to help you out in recovery. Your sponsor, your family, your significant others. Synergize with them. Have them use their strengths in the best way they can, and you use your strengths in the best way you can. Accept that sometimes when you're solving a problem, the better way will likely not be your way or their way. 100% of the time. It's something in between. Be respectful to everyone and everything. When you synergize, you're kind of putting out that positive energy with the expectation of getting positive energy back. So if you're respectful, generally respect comes back. Be able and willing to apologize and forgive. Practice mindful listening. Maintain an open desire to understand. Work to control negative automatic judgments. Stay with the win win. Sometimes just because of who somebody is or where they went to school or what department they work in or whatever, you may automatically have a negative judgment that you know they don't have anything useful to offer. Check that baggage before you start talking to them. Everybody has the ability to have something very constructive offer I learn from people every day, and that's a goal of mine, is to learn from people every day. Not just PhDs, not just MDs, not just, you know, whomever. But my kids, my neighbors, the people that I run into at the grocery store. What can I learn from them? Sharpen the saw and in dialectical behavior therapy, one of the things we talk about is preventing vulnerabilities. In order for people to be happy, they have to have rest and renewal. They have to have balance in order to break habits and have the energy to turn off that autopilot and use their thoughts and everything to figure out what is the next best step to do. And sometimes do the thing that's harder in the short term but more rewarding in the long term. You have to be rested. Covey often asks which takes more time? Sawing a tree with a completely dull blade or taking time to sharpen the saw before trying to saw the tree? We want to help people focus on using their energy productively. Encourage them to get good nutrition, sleep, practice relaxation and get exercise. And we have lots of videos on our YouTube channel, also EU's education or episodes on Counselor Toolbox about why good nutrition, sleep and exercise are important to maintaining positive neurotransmitter balances. You know, you can listen to those later, social and emotionally make meaningful connections with others and maintain a compassionate awareness of yourself. The word to focus on here is compassionate. Many people Are in the habit of judging themselves way harder than they judge anybody else. They should themselves right into a depression. I should be able to handle this. I should be able to get this done. Be compassionate. Some days you're just not going to have an a game day and that's okay. Be compassionate. Don't be harder on yourself than you would be on your friends or your children or your family. Mentally sharpen the saw. With regular learning, practicing hobbies, reading, writing and mindfulness. Use all those different areas of the brain, the left brain, the right brain, the emotional brain. Use them. The more you use them, the stronger they're going to become. And spiritually explore your interconnectedness with others and everything. It doesn't mean you have to believe in a higher power. It's more about understanding the reciprocal relationship between you and everything else. If you're negative, if you're unhappy, if you're miserable, if you're exhausted, how does that affect the people around you? How does that affect your work product? How does that affect your recovery? How does that affect your health? And likewise, if you're around people who are negative and pessimistic and angry and yada yada, how does that affect you versus, you know, if you're both happy, how does that affect you? You want to look at the interconnectedness. It's amazing how much little things can make a difference. Just holding a door for somebody or smiling and saying good morning. It doesn't seem like a lot, but imagine the ripple effects of that if you see somebody. I try whenever I'm in the store to say hi to the people that are stocking the shelves because they usually just get ignored by everybody. Saying hi to them and actually genuinely inquiring about how their day is going usually makes so much difference to people. And you see their faces light up like, oh my gosh, somebody noticed that I'm here. How awesome is that? I have to wonder how their attitude, how that change in their attitude affects them throughout the rest of the day. Obviously I haven't stalked anybody to find out, but the assumption is that that improves their mood and then they will pass that along. Proactivity helps people stay healthy and energized, effectively plan for known stresses and prepare for the unknown. Reducing the fear of the unknown and last minute chaos. It's too easy to get in the habit of burying our head in the sand. We need to be awake, we need to be mindful and prepare for what may happen so that we have the resources and the skills and everything we need to help us keep moving toward our goals. If you know the power went out today, I could. As long as I had paper and a pencil, I could jot out all of my notes for what I would want to put into next week's classes. Instead of going, well, I can't prepare for class. What am I going to do? Well, I just have to drop back and punt and go with my B plan. Beginning with the end and putting first things first helps people identify what areas and tax tasks to use their limited energy, encouraging them to think, win win, seeking to understand and synergizing all help reduce stress associated with competition and misunderstandings, which helps people move toward happiness. And finally, sharpening the saw helps people focus on preventing and mitigating their vulnerabilities. So when they're having a down day, when they're having a slow day or they're sick, they don't get frustrated. They can just accept it is what it is and know that they've buffered in time, into their life, into their schedule, so to speak. In order to deal with the fact that we're not 100% every day.