Maximizing Performance Through Applied Common Sense*

Do you ever notice how often you discount yourself?  You will say, “I’m just lucky to be here.”   “I’m not really educated on this.”  “This is probably beyond my pay grade.”   “I don’t know much about this.”  “This may be a stupid question.”  When you discount yourself upfront, you are teaching people how to treat you.  If you are discounting yourself, you are encouraging them to discount you too. If you say, “This may be a stupid question…” And then you ask the question, I may say, “You know, you are really smart, that is a stupid question.” The problem is, is that you are leading me to discount you.  So instead of discounts, just ask the question or make the remark and you’ll be taken more seriously. 

Do you ever notice that you will say, “I wanted to ask you…” “What I was going to ask you was…”  “I just wanted to thank you.” When you put your present intentions in the past tense, it waters down your horsepower.  It actually invalidates the message you want to say.  So instead of saying, “I wanted to ask you…” change it to “I want to ask you…” “I want to thank you.”  Put it in the present tense and now you have a lot more horsepower and you are avoiding invalidating your strength.  So, give it a try.  I want you to know that. 

Think about how often you opt for security.  You will stick with the same job you dislike because you’ve got seniority or because you’re vested, you stick with the same mate you dislike because you think, “well, who else will have me?” You stick with a job or some direction where you think you are secure and yet, you are continually reminded of your own dependency. The problem is that when you opt for security and you’re unhappy, then you’re dependent.  If you’re dependent then you are weak and angry.  So instead, consider happiness.  Happiness is when you are in control of your life rather than dependent.  So, jump in the pool, take that risk, off-load that security and you will feel better. 

If you think about your relationship with your mate and one or both of you is full of contempt for the other, that absolutely will kill the relationship. It is the most toxic thing you can do.  If you think about contempt, think about disgust.  If one or both of you, while the other is talking, rolls your eyes, or immediately discounts any initiative at all, and all you are thinking about is contempt, your relationship is doomed. My recommendation is to stop this nonsense right now and end the relationship or go get some professional help.  The likelihood that you are going to fix this without help is remote.  So take this seriously, fix it!

If you think about your relationship with your mate, you might notice that you and/or your mate is really good at criticizing. And, if you are good at criticizing the prognosis for your relationship really stinks.  You are going to kill the relationship because criticism is continually toxic; it actually robs the relationship of its foundation. If you want to pretend that you are helping instead of actually criticizing you might want to adjust your perspective on things.  A relationship with continual criticism in it will actually die.  So replace the criticism with all that reinforcement that you did during courtship.  When you do that, you are building a foundation and you can repair things. 

You’ll notice that when you are stonewalling your need to avoid talking about it is more important than your need to resolve anything.  Often one or both of you have these off limit subjects in your relationship that now are so incendiary it is impossible to talk about them.  So therefore you avoid talking about it.  You say, “I don’t want to deal with it.” You’ll say, “There is no problem.” You simply stonewall. So, does it really make any sense to keep avoiding dealing with it, whatever it is simply because it is so difficult to do so?  Therefore, stop stonewalling.  Start talking about it.  Start resolving it.  And you’ll get some results. 

Do you get defensive?  Do you defend yourself all the time? If you do, then you’ll notice that very often you have to be right or make sure you avoid being wrong. When you defend yourself, your need to be in the contest is more important than your need to resolve an issue with your mate.  Therefore, if you or your partner continues to be defensive, that creates a death-nail for your relationship. So ask yourself, do you need to be right or would you like to resolve the issue? If you think about resolving it then the need to defend yourself goes down and now you actually resolve issues and make progress, so consider that.