"When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be." -- Patanjali.
I do not believe any further explanation is needed. Just read the above paragraph (again) and let it sink in.
-- Dan Gunter --
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Saturday, October 24, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
How to Avoid Trust Issues In Relationships
Those of you who know me personally know that I do not profess to be the "expert" in relationships, management, etc. What I am, however, is a person who has picked up a lot of lessons in life -- some the easy way, some the hard way -- and is willing to share those so that perhaps someone else's day goes a little better, or maybe a relationship can be made just a tiny bit better. We all want those things, right? To wit, sometimes what I share is brought to the surface by recent events in my own life. I simply figure that while it's on my mind I'll write it down and share it with you, my friends. Not only is it cathartic, but it helps ME to understand the ideas and lessons even better, along with my own thinking. As E.M. Forster put it, "How can I know what I think until I see what I say?"
Today, I am pondering the importance of what we often consider to be "little," trivial things. Often, what we often consider to be insignificant -- be it a promise not kept, a task around the house not taken care of, a detail not handled in our job, etc. -- while seeming trivial to us, is actually very important to someone else. Whether it affects their feelings or interferes with their ability to in turn do their job, if we aren't aware of and/or don't take into consideration how another person perceives our actions (or lack thereof), we can easily set the stage for major problems. It might be a problem with a coworker, a customer, our friends, our kids, our spouse -- any number of possibilities.
Things happen. Life deals us our fair share of critical situations that interfere sometimes with our ability to keep our word or do the things expected of us (or things we've promised... and let's face it, if you make a promise, the person you made it to SHOULD expect you to keep it.) But what about those times when we simply get caught up in other things and neglect those little things that we said we'd do? We should understand how that can affect others. It's like saying "You're not important enough for me to keep my word." The other person might not tell us that's what they're thinking, but that is EXACTLY what they perceive it to mean more often than we realize.
Over time, such seemingly minor violations of trust add up. The other person can easily start to feel that if we can't be trusted to keep our word on seemingly small, easily handled matters, what will happen when something really huge comes our way? Of course they will have problems trusting us. And we in turn easily project, saying "You have trust issues." Doggone right they do. The issue is that we've given them ample reason to doubt that they can trust us. It's really that simple.
So what do we do to avoid having giant problems occur in the arena of trust? Simple. Be trustworthy. I've often referred to Dr. Steven Covey's teachings on the "emotional bank account." If you aren't familiar with that, I urge you to read his "7 Habits of Highly Effective People." It's one of the most potentially life-changing and life-improving books I've ever come across. And trust me (!) I've read many.
If I tell a client I'll call him back at 1 p.m., I want him to expect that call. And I expect of myself nothing less than to be dialing the phone. If I do that consistently, on that one occasion out of a hundred when something major really does prevent me from keeping my word, his past experience with me will lead him to think "That's not like Dan. Something really important must have come up. I know he'll call me as soon as he's able to." If, on the other hand, I make it a habit not to call him when promised, I certainly have no right to be upset with him if he says "That's normal with Dan. He never does what he says he's going to." Nor should I be terribly surprised or offended when he drops me for another consultant who just happens to have a reputation for keeping his word.
The same principle applies in our marriages and every relationship in our lives.
Want to avoid the B-I-G problem of trust issues? Be trustworthy.
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Today, I am pondering the importance of what we often consider to be "little," trivial things. Often, what we often consider to be insignificant -- be it a promise not kept, a task around the house not taken care of, a detail not handled in our job, etc. -- while seeming trivial to us, is actually very important to someone else. Whether it affects their feelings or interferes with their ability to in turn do their job, if we aren't aware of and/or don't take into consideration how another person perceives our actions (or lack thereof), we can easily set the stage for major problems. It might be a problem with a coworker, a customer, our friends, our kids, our spouse -- any number of possibilities.
Things happen. Life deals us our fair share of critical situations that interfere sometimes with our ability to keep our word or do the things expected of us (or things we've promised... and let's face it, if you make a promise, the person you made it to SHOULD expect you to keep it.) But what about those times when we simply get caught up in other things and neglect those little things that we said we'd do? We should understand how that can affect others. It's like saying "You're not important enough for me to keep my word." The other person might not tell us that's what they're thinking, but that is EXACTLY what they perceive it to mean more often than we realize.
Over time, such seemingly minor violations of trust add up. The other person can easily start to feel that if we can't be trusted to keep our word on seemingly small, easily handled matters, what will happen when something really huge comes our way? Of course they will have problems trusting us. And we in turn easily project, saying "You have trust issues." Doggone right they do. The issue is that we've given them ample reason to doubt that they can trust us. It's really that simple.
So what do we do to avoid having giant problems occur in the arena of trust? Simple. Be trustworthy. I've often referred to Dr. Steven Covey's teachings on the "emotional bank account." If you aren't familiar with that, I urge you to read his "7 Habits of Highly Effective People." It's one of the most potentially life-changing and life-improving books I've ever come across. And trust me (!) I've read many.
If I tell a client I'll call him back at 1 p.m., I want him to expect that call. And I expect of myself nothing less than to be dialing the phone. If I do that consistently, on that one occasion out of a hundred when something major really does prevent me from keeping my word, his past experience with me will lead him to think "That's not like Dan. Something really important must have come up. I know he'll call me as soon as he's able to." If, on the other hand, I make it a habit not to call him when promised, I certainly have no right to be upset with him if he says "That's normal with Dan. He never does what he says he's going to." Nor should I be terribly surprised or offended when he drops me for another consultant who just happens to have a reputation for keeping his word.
The same principle applies in our marriages and every relationship in our lives.
Want to avoid the B-I-G problem of trust issues? Be trustworthy.
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