the first step

nobody@vox.com(The Doug) — Thu, 01 May 2008 04:19:14 -0700

Imagine yourself in the following scenarios....what's your first step?

1. Just as you're starting to get on top of your financial situation, both your cars need repairs and your home's heater breaks, for a multi-thousand-dollar tab.

2. You build a website and you are having trouble getting traffic. Just as it is starting to get any kind of visitors at all, a hacker from Turkey takes it down.

3. Your boss tells you that your recent work is terrible and she wonders (in a staff meeting, in front of the whole team) how you ever got this job in the first place.

What's your first step?

I believe the first step is that, like it or not, your brain (or heart) assigns a meaning to the event. One of the first things we learn in this world is cause and effect, and it's natural for our brains to try to determine causes for the effects that are happening to us.

I believe you can exercise your ability to assign successful meanings to anything that happens to you. You get the option: you can choose meanings that wear you down, or choose ones that build you up. If it's not natural the first time you do it, it will become more natural with practice. And whenever you would normally feel the sting of what went wrong, you can replace it with the power of how you see it.

It's not denial--it's a matter of a valid opinion that you are successful!

So--multiple choice time. Two options for each scenario. Which meaning do you assign to the event? (Of course you will have your own, but you get the idea...)

1A: Nothing I do will ever change my situation. I'm doomed to financial disaster.
1B. I've overcome challenges to get this far. I'm going to get over this, too.

2A: Yeah, I knew it. I can't get these kinds of things to work. I shouldn't have tried.
2B: Hey, I'm in the big leagues now. I'm gonna get this thing up again, make it safer, back it up more frequently, and get more traffic.

3A: I am falling behind in this field and my career is basically over.
3B: I evaluate my own work and I am a success.

3B (alternate):

The Big Lebowski - Your opinion, man

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