Maximizing Performance Through Applied Common Sense*

Life is messy and navigating through it is difficult. So here is your "How-to Guide to Life!"


Dr. Mitchell Perry  

If you routinely take things personally, you may often believe whatever just happened must be involving you somehow... so ask yourself a question, 'Am I that big a deal?  Is it really about me again?' 
      
Dr. Mitchell Perry


TAKING THINGS TOO PERSONALLY

"I take things too personally" is a remark I hear frequently from clients, colleagues, and friends.

If your spouse comes home crabby, do you feel responsible, guilty, irritated, and finally, crabby yourself?

If you fail to get an invitation to lunch, or to a party or wedding, do you take it personally and then doubt yourself and your popularity?

If someone else gets the contract, do you believe you have failed to deliver?

If your boss forgets to say good morning, do you automatically think that he/she is mad at you?

If your guests want to go home early, does that immediately suggest they dislike your company?

Frequently, we have our whole day ruined because someone else's behavior rubs off on us, and we feel responsible. We often find that whenever someone else is upset, we feel a great pressure that somehow we are to blame. As a result, we take their behavior personally, which makes us defensive, anxious, miserable and insecure.  We catastrophize, awfulize and become crisis junkies.  

It is important to gain some understanding as to the roots of this problem, and look at some possible reasons why we become hypersensitive and take things too personally. With this understanding, you'll gain some valuable perspectives on how to handle the problem.

1. Setting up a crisis to look for approval.

Most of us have a great need for approval and validation from others. We want to get strokes and reinforcement on a regular basis from just about everybody. Sometimes, we will deliberately set up situations in order to receive reinforcement. When we take things personally, we are invariably upset by feeling responsible for another person's mood or behavior. Often this creates a crisis whereby other people now have to reinforce us and give us the approval that we're okay.

2. Obtain insurance for belonging to others and against having to be alone.

Many of us have a great problem with the thought of being alone. Moreover, many of us have spent our entire lives without ever having been alone, so the prospect of being alone creates great panic and anxiety. We'll strive consciously and unconsciously to connect and belong with other people. Taking things too personally is a device to ensure "belonging" with others. When you feel responsible for another person's behavior, you get to belong to that person's situation and therefore can avoid feeling alone. You may find that if you have a great need to take care of other people and belong to them, you will also tend to take personally many of the moods and situations that they own. In this way, hypersensitivity becomes a device which allows us to avoid being alone and promotes the feeling that we have a place of great significance - we get to be responsible (for someone else's behavior!)

3. Obtain insurance against maturing, growing up, and being an adult.

When taking things very personally, many people exhibit childish and infantile behavior. Sometimes they pout, behave in a socially inappropriate way, become very silent and cold, or become dramatic and explosive. Much of the time, this kind of behavior is both childish and counterproductive to progress in relationships. In addition, when people take things too personally, they fail to distinguish themselves from the behavior of others; they are unable to differentiate between what is inside or outside of them. They tend to lose track of whose behavior is whose! This condition, referred to as over-generalizing, occurs when an individual thinks that he/she is always, in some way, connected to the behavior of others (much the way children think). By taking something too personally, you have ensured that you can behave childishly because you think you must have something to do with another person's mood or behavior. Consequently, the process of maturing, growing, and being adult is retarded.

4. We get to enhance our narcissism.

Narcissism is the tendency to be wrapped up in ourselves - thinking the world revolves around us. Most adolescents feel this way. They are obsessed with their clothes, activities, social groups, fads, language, and their impact on others. They delude themselves into thinking they are necessary and central to the progress of everything. Narcissism is the need to be significant and important to everyone about everything.

Taking things too personally enhances narcissism because if we think we must be responsible for external events, then we've just reinforced the delusional need to be important and significant to everything and everyone around us. Certainly the tendency to take things too personally is quite common and extremely counterproductive. Hypersensitive people are always ready to react to others around them and are rarely, if ever, in a proactive control position. In addition, the thinking focus is geared toward outcome rather than process. For these types learning is absent and is unfortunately replaced by observing, agonizing, and obsessing about themselves.

What can you do? When you observe distressing behavior in someone else and find you're taking it too personally, it will help to consistently consider the following three questions to recover faster:

1. "Am I responsible for what has just occurred?"
When a loved one, friend, or business associate is in a bad mood, seems irritable, pouty, depressed, impatient, defiant, etc., ask yourself the question "Am I really responsible for this person's behavior?" Often you will realize that you are seldom if ever responsible, and the other person has chosen to behave that way for a myriad of reasons unconnected to you. Further, if the person refuses to tell you what is wrong, avoid fretting over the problem and feeling anxious about it yourself. Just let the person be miserable and give him/her permission to explain whenever he/she is ready.

2. Is this my problem?
This question is critical. There are times when "yes" appears to be the only answer. Even when the other person's behavior has absolutely zero to do with you, it still appears to become your problem. However, it is important to remember that the problem only becomes yours when you choose to make it yours. It is much more likely, after some serious evaluation, you will conclude that the problem is in fact owned by someone else. So the answer to this question often typically will be a very reassuring "no".

3. Do I have to get upset?
Certainly you can get upset if you want. You can become anxious, worried, and lean toward crisis junkie catastrophizing, yet do you really have to? Is it a necessary obligation that you must be upset? Remind yourself that being upset is a choice, and that you can choose to remain calm and unaffected by the other person's behavior. Further, it is important to renounce the thinking that becoming upset is a way of showing you care about another person. There are other numerous and appropriate ways of showing high regard. Caring is typically unrelated to self-thrashing.

These three questions are immensely helpful in controlling the natural knee-jerk reflex of becoming hypersensitive and taking things too personally. Whenever you start to automatically feel responsible for situations happening around you and begin doubting your own adequacy, these questions can help control that temptation.

So again, remember to ask yourself:
1. Am I responsible for this person's actions?
2. Is this my problem?
3. Do I have to get upset?
When one or more of the answers is "no"; you will begin to notice rapid growth and recovery in yourself, and waste less time on unnecessary conflict, anxiety, or hypersensitivity.

In conclusion, ask yourself the following:
1. What am I noticing about my tendency to take things too personally?
2. What are my options?
3. What am I learning about these options?
4. What will I now do differently?
You will see rapid growth in yourself and spend far less time consumed with unnecessary conflict or anxiety.

Check out my three-minute video on this subject:
JMPerrywebsitevideos




Today's Tickle

Will Rogers, who died in a 1935 plane crash in Alaska with bush pilot Wiley Post, was one of the greatest political country/cowboy sages . Some of his sayings:

1. Never slap a man who's chewing tobacco.

2. Never kick a cow chip on a hot day.

3. There are two theories to arguing with a woman. Neither works.

4. Never miss a good chance to shut up.

5. Always drink upstream from the herd.

6. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

7. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it and put it back into your pocket.

8. There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves.

9. Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

10. If you're riding' ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there.

11. Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier'n puttin' it back.

12. After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him.
The moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.   

Hello All:  

Consider these names in the news: 
     Alex Rodriguez, Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds,
     Anthony Weiner, Mark Sanford, Elliot Spitzer,
     Rod Blagojevich, Martha Stewart and Bob Filner.

What thoughts come to mind?  Admiration or disappointment?  Respect or cynicism?  Awe or let-down? Impressed or depressed?

Which is more likely, respect follows like or like follows respect?  You are popular and likely therefore to be respected?  Or are you respected and likely therefore to be liked?  Which has a longer shelf-life, being liked or being respected? 

If you really think about it... RESPECT HAS A LONGER SHELF-LIFE, and you are more likely to be liked and popular after you are respected. 

Like most always follows respect.  And, people will respect you MORE when you improve your own self-respect. 

So strengthen your character and start with your own SELF-RESPECT.  You either dilute it or build it up.  It is up to you.

You either snatch a rationalization from the jaws of logic, or you go on the road less traveled and stick with your strong character.

At the end of the day, everything comes down to your character.  

It's Common Sense and remember, Common Sense is very Uncommon.     

Dr. Mitchell Perry


Share Your Strength of Character

Every morning when you wake up and look at yourself in the mirror, what do you see?  Are you pleased or embarrassed?  Proud or ashamed?  Impressed or depressed?  Excited or bored?  Energetic or listless?  Engaged or isolated?  Powerful or weak?  How is your self-respect? 

Every morning, whether you like it or not, you wake up inside your own skin.  You always wake up you, which means you are always there attending that party... so does it make any sense to you to dislike the person in the mirror?  You are unable to get away from that person,  which means you always have to live with yourself, your feelings, your choices, and your behavior.  And, just like compounded interest in a bank account, there are long-term effects to those choices and behaviors. 

At the end of the day, the measure of your life
 is inevitably determined by your CHARACTER and all its strengths and weaknesses.  So, what is the condition of your Character?  What are your basic governing values?  What are the basic governing principles by which you want to live?

The essential qualities for Strength of Character include:
INTEGRITY: Honesty, legitimacy, the straight stuff, the full disclosure; the willingness to be unpopular at times, by telling the truth; the absence of lying, tap-dancing, pretending, rationalizing, spinning, distracting and avoiding.
RESPONSIBILITY: Your life is completely your responsibility.  If life is going well for you, you probably made it happen.  If life is going poorly, you did that too.  And if life is a whole new level of underwhelming... you did that too.  The cards dealt to you are yours to play -- good or bad.  So take your lumps and get on with it.  The energy you spend on whining, complaining, catastrophizing, awfulizing, and admiring the problems will be so much better spent on problem solving.
GENEROSITY OF SPIRIT: This part of your Strength of Character is about giving more than taking, contributing more than consuming, caring more than expecting, investing more than expensing, and forgiving more than condemning.  This part of you is faith, living in the light, deriving meaning, and hearing the quiet.  You get more than you give when you give more than you get.  (Hmmm... random acts of kindness.)
So, establish a higher standard for yourself and your life.  Commit to INTEGRITY, RESPONSIBILITY, and GENEROSITY OF SPIRIT... and then share your values and spread them around.  You are quite a role model!  

Raise your bar!


Today's Tickle

One of the Greats

Lawrence Peter Berra played major league baseball for 19 years for the New York Yankees. He played on 10 World Series Championship teams, is a MLB Hall of Famer and has some awe-inspiring stats. His name is consistently brought up as one of the best catchers in baseball history, and he was voted to the Team of the Century in 1999.

Amazing accomplishments aside, they probably aren't how you know Lawrence . You know him as Yogi, a nickname given to him by a friend who likened his cross-legged sitting to a yogi. Yogi is famous for his fractured English, malapropisms and sometimes nonsensical quotes. He's closing in on 88, and there seems to be no end to his fans' love for him.

Here are 25 Yogi Berra quotes that will make you shake your head and smile.

1. "It's like deja vu all over again."
2. "We made too many wrong mistakes."
3. "You can observe a lot just by watching."
4. "A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore."
5. "He hits from both sides of the plate. He's amphibious."
6. "If the world was perfect, it wouldn't be."
7. "If you don't know where you're going, you might end up some place else."
8. Responding to a question about remarks attributed to him that he did not think were his: "I really didn't say everything I said."
9. "The future ain't what it used to be."
10. "I think Little League is wonderful. It keeps the kids out of the house."
11. On why he no longer went to Ruggeri's, a St. Louis restaurant: "Nobody goes there anymore because it's too crowded."
12. "I always thought that record would stand until it was broken."
13. "We have deep depth."
14. "All pitchers are liars or crybabies."
15. When giving directions to Joe Garagiola to his New Jersey home, which is accessible by two routes: "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."
16. "Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours."
17. "Never answer anonymous letters."
18. On being the guest of honor at an awards banquet: "Thank you for making this day necessary."
19. "The towels were so thick there I could hardly close my suitcase."
20. "Half the lies they tell about me aren't true."
21. As a general comment on baseball: "90% of the game is half mental."
22. "I don't know (if they were men or women running naked across the field), they had bags over their heads."
23. "It gets late early out there."
24. Carmen Berra, Yogi's wife asked: "Yogi, you are from St. Louis , we live in New Jersey , and you played ball in New York . If you go before I do, where would you like me to have you buried?"  Yogi's answer: "Surprise me."
25. "It ain't over till it's over....."
 

When you get married, you marry the "courtship behavior."  It's insane to stop the very behavior you marry!

So, restore the courtship behavior and you strengthen your union together.

Dr. Mitchell Perry


    Love and Marriage

Regardless of how happy and fulfilling your marriage or relationship is, inevitably you will encounter difficulties and disappointments along the way.  Often times it is either because you have become emotionally malnourished, your relationship needs a tune-up, or perhaps the magic has faded.  To rebuild a relationship that has gotten lost over the years, you need a clear, compelling picture of the relationship you want.  Then you both must commit to creating and maintaining that partnership. 

A relationship lives in words and action, much like a play.  If your relationship has become its own version of a bad play, then to make a better play (relationship), you need to write and practice good scripts. 

One way that you can create good marriage scripts is by figuring out what you and your partner want out of the relationship.  In essence, it is time to "rewrite the screenplay." 

Start by having the following dialogue with your partner:

1. What do you want me to know about you? What do you want/need from me?  (Attention, time, listening, etc.)
2. Here's what I want you to know about me.  Here's what I need from you.   
3. How would you say our normal conversations work?
4. What is our predictable screenplay?  
5. What are the road blocks to improving our marriage?  (Self pity, score keeping, name calling, guilt trips, etc.)
6. What are we going to do differently going forward?

Be sure to find out what your partner wants, and then give your partner what your partner wants.  YOU MAKE THE FIRST MOVE!

Remember what your woman wants, and give it to her, because you did during courtship!  Here is most likely what she wants:

1. Listen to me and then listen some more (and look interested).
2. Pay attention to me and BE with me... because "I am who I'm with."
3. Empathize and quit giving me advice (unless I ask for it). 
4. Hold me, cherish me, show me I'm the one!  I must be the dominant source of your happiness.

Remember what your man wants, and give it to him, because you did during courtship!  Here is most likely what he wants:

1. Look good, lose the weight, and dress up, because how you look is critical to me.
2. Pay attention to me and DO with me... because "I am what I do."
3. Sexual gymnastics (complete with howling at the moon!)
4. Treat me like a king!  I must be a big deal in your eyes.

Take these steps with your partner and see what happens.  Re-scripting your relationship can only lead to a better understanding of yourself... and your partner.

Then pay the freight, take initiative, practice new habits and restore the courtship.

And, remember reinforce more than you criticize... 5 times more!