Just like rejecting bad things for attaining your goals, you have to make sure you accept all the good things to be successful. I have to tell you that it's hard to accept enough good things while you're holding onto the bad ones. Got it? If your hands are full, how could I give you anything else?
There is a certain amount of time you have, there is a certain amount of relationships you can maintain, there is a certain amount of everything you can have, handle or pay attention to. It is depending on your goal and understanding of what success means to you, to determine what to accept and what to reject. There is one thing though that you have to be really strict about when it comes to accepting things. That is selecting a small group of close people who you rely on for good advice. This is the bottom line. Many times I've seen leaders who wanted to reach higher results, influence, success but at the same time they were not able to reject things that were obstacles, and were not able to accept good things that could help them.
Sometimes the good things don't seem to be so good in the beginning. Do you think that getting up early in the morning and going training causing painful arms and legs is a good thing? Well definitely I did think it was a good thing to have this experience since it supported my goal to be a champion with my team. Some of my classmates said what a fool I was to do this and for what - you know all these comments were there - 'you are not good enough, you won't be able to win' etc. Naysayers are always around. Well, you should have see their faces when we won the championship year after year. They did not say anything after that, but they were not able to set goals for themselves or if some of them did so, then they did not have the strength to reject the bad things and to accept the good things. They did not win any tournaments, not even in their own personal life.
So you have to be sure that what you do accept as good for your goals is something that you should really accept, and for that you need a close group of people who you can trust, and who don't have their own agenda by praising and accepting everything you say. These people can challenge you, put you under pressure and do the pressure test with whatever ideas or activities that you happen to do. They could be anyone who is honest, knows you and it's for sure that they will be able to tell you the truth. Could be your friends, your spouse, your employees, your business partners, your children etc. You can choose. It's good to have a group of people from different categories so that some are more sensitive to your behaviour, ethics, values, some will be more sensitive to your professional activities, others will help you in your professional development and in personal development.
These people will help you grow!
Exercises to strengthen accepting good things:
1. Be among those people who are achieving the good things that help you to be successful. Thus you can strengthen your inspiration to stick to those good things even if they are sometimes hard to follow.
2. Spend regular time on reflecting what you were doing and write down what good things you accepted. Write down the reason why you accepted that and how it helped you on your journey. This could be done daily, weekly but at least monthly. Put aside one full day in a year when you read all of the reflections during that time and be conscious about them.
3. Categorize your reflections. Make a filing system that helps you find your reflections when you need them. Write down the circumstances or the situation when that good thing happened. Now, take your agenda, and prepare yourself for your first session with yourself.
Guest Author
Zoltan Hosszu has extensive leadership experiences in non-profit, corporate, religious and governmental institutions. He is a mentor, trainer and speaker
