Thanksgiving and end-of-the-year holidays can mean get togethers with your family of origin or extended family. While that can include comforts and joys, it can also mean interacting with people who control, frustrate, criticize, or burden you.

There are so many other stresses you are likely facing this year, here are some tips to deal with that difficult family member and still have an enjoyable holiday experience.

Its time for you to heal from these upsetting relationships because they are keeping you from the happiness you could have and the contribution you were put here to make. You have two choices about how to deal with someone who is difficult:

1. You can try to make things better with them OR
2. You can stop trying to make things better and stop trying to get their respect.

Here’s my philosophy: Start with #1. You can “try” to make it better, BUT here’s the rule: After this many years, you have to assume the other person can’t or won’t change. You can only try if you try to improve YOUR contribution to the interaction, not change them in anyway. Examples of this are owning responsibility for what you have contributed; speaking to them respectfully; acknowledging things that are important to them (like their birthday, their kids, etc), setting better boundaries, making your requests more clearly, etc.

If #1 isn’t working, or hasn’t worked for a long time, then do #2: Stop Trying. And Use the strategies below instead.

1. Sort out “my stuff” from “their stuff”

Know that what they say tends to be about them, rather than about you. You don’t feel heard or understood because they are stuck in outdated perceptions of you. The way they see you reveals more about where they are stuck than about what is factually true about you.

However, if you are truly hurt by their negative perceptions of you, its usually because you have the same view of yourself as they have of of you (much as you hate to admit it!). Their words only serve to activate your own doubt about yourself.

If this is the case, then your real opportunity is to stop being upset with them, and to start 1) accepting who you are now or 2) taking action everyday to become a person you are proud to be. Click here if you want the shortcut to being confident and specific strategies to hold your own with that difficult person.

If you see yourself more favorably than they see you, you will be more disappointed rather than angry. It is truly sad for both of you that they are stuck or obnoxious, because its causing both of you to miss out on a much more mutually satisfying relationship. But all of your efforts to make the situation better are really just your efforts to put off the grief over not having the love and respect you deserved from that person. The best thing you can do is to create a new family of people who you can feel connected to, feel seen by, and enjoy.

2. Protect yourself from their negativity

To protect yourself, surround yourself with an imaginary shield. Use whatever metaphor works for you (e.g., surround yourself with rays of white light, place an imaginary glass cone around you). Another thing that works well is to imagine the person is speaking in that garbled tone like ‘Charlie Brown’s teacher’, so you are paying attention to them but not taking in the specifics.

3. Kill them with Kindness

If I ever start killing you with kindness, beware! I recommend Kill the person with Kindness for situations in which you’ve given up on trying to improve the situation. Use this strategy when you have to stay in the situation, and you just want to survive – not inflame – the bad behavior. Try to be genuine, at least as much as possible!

4. Be Thankful

Remember that the way that person talks to you is the way they talk to themselves all day long. So, be thankful that you only have to hear it a few hours a week/month/year, etc. rather than every minute of everyday like they have to. Think about when that person won’t be on the Earth anymore, and try to appreciate what you can about them for now.

Your takeaway: Accept the other person’s level of evolution and work on yours!

(Print this out and carry it with you to Thanksgiving dinner if you need to…)

With great appreciation to you for following my work,

Sharon

Please leave your comment about how to deal with a difficult family member at Thanksgiving?

Do you ever have the experience where you are worried what is going to happen in the future? It’s not anything specific, or maybe it’s many specific challenges that are all adding up. You might even know your anxiety is ‘irrational’ but that doesn’t help!

Here are two approaches you can use to ‘think positive’ and get back into a state where you have ease and can concentrate.

Focus on the Moment

• Focus on the specific physical feeling you are having in your body, not on your thoughts. For example, say to yourself slowly, “I feel tension in my shoulders; I have a sinking feeling in my stomach.” Don’t focus on thoughts like, “What if I lose my job” or “I have so much to do”. Before 7 seconds have passed, you will notice a shift in the feeling in your body and breathing will come easier. Keep doing this a few times until the feeling of anxiety has passed.
• Focus on what you CAN control in the moment. Your thoughts tend to run wild towards worst case scenarios and what you can’t control. Try to pinpoint something specific you are worried about, and determine specifically what worries you about the situation. Ask yourself, “What can I do right now to have more control over the outcome of this situation?” Action replaces fear.
• Train your body to get rid of fear. Do this exercise: Bring together the tips of the thumb and index finger and bring your hands up so they are in front of your chest facing away from you. You will breathe in through your nose, and out through your mouth. Each time you breathe out, forcefully push your hands away from you like you are pushing away something you don’t want and blow out through your mouth. Then breathe in through your nose and bring your hands back towards your chest, with your elbows by your side. Do this exercise for 1-3 minutes and you will train your body to get rid of fear.

Take yourself out of the moment – Sometimes overfocusing on the moment keeps you stressed. Instead:

• Project yourself into the future. Picture yourself in the distant future, when this particular moment is insignificant and you have worked out your current problems. This ‘future’ version of your self has more perspective on your overall life than you do right now – ask it what the best way is to proceed in the current situation.
• Use distraction. Make the distraction productive: connect with other people, go outside in a natural environment that is soothing for your senses, do a breathing exercise, listen to music or a motivating talk. Don’t just numb out with an unmemorable surfing session on the internet or putter around at your desk. Probably the best distraction you can do is to be grateful for the problems that you have. Though it sounds trite, there are many people in the world whose problems are much worse than yours. I immediately think of a child I support in Africa barely living with running water, or a man I often see in the subway station who has no arms. It immediately gives me renewed appreciation for all that I have and then energizes me to do something with it. This works for a lot of people and may work for you too!

Here’s a link to a recording that previews the Success under Stress for Women program. We start the actual program next week so if you want to be more efficient at accomplishing work, have good concentration and energy all day long and sleep through the night, then don’t miss getting on the train that’s about to leave the station. Click here to find out more.

Here’s to you being positive when you are anxious!

Are you too hard on yourself?

Do people tell you they really like you, or think you are great at what you do – but still inside you think you are ‘not enough’

Do you criticize yourself to try to motivate yourself, but really all it does is stress you out and get in the way of success?

Here’s the irony: You work so hard for other people to think well of you, and once they do you don’t even take in their compliment.

You work so hard to achieve progress, and once you do, you just set the bar higher and keep working harder. That’s not a lot of enjoyment or peace of mind, just hard work.

Get over your critical inner voice so you can stop the hammering inside your own head and start being your own champion (and not pass your stern voice down to your kids!)

Do this instead:

Be tougher on yourself. Tougher? Yes.

When you focus on falling short and what you did wrong, you are dwelling. Dwelling is the easy way out, it’s talking about it but not doing something about it.

You consider yourself a hard worker? Great, work hard at this: Learn from situations by asking questions and acting on the answers.

Let’s take an example: Is there someone you are comparing yourself to who is further along?

1) Is that person making good use of their unique talents? Probably.  Are you?

2) Do you have a gut feeling you should be doing something differently but haven’t acted on it? Why not?

3) Have you been too overwhelmed to pay attention to improvement? If you agree with your current priorities, no excuse to beat yourself up. If not, shift priorities to free you up.

4) Has that more successful person worked smarter or procrastinated less? What can you do to be more efficient and take action on what you should?

5) Does that person have a written articulation of what ‘enough’ means to them? In the absence of a clear idea of ‘good enough’ you will always perceive yourself to fall short.

6) What is the tone that person uses to talk to themselves (and therefore the people around them?) How can you make a soundtrack your mental iPod that energizes you?

Don’t beat yourself up and deprive yourself an opportunity to learn. The ‘easy’ way is to dwell, the ‘hard’ way is to make it better.

Let me make the ‘hard’ way EASY for you. In my online interactive Confidence at the Core training starting in early April, you will get a toolkit to get rid of that negative voice.

You CAN have the confidence to have the success you’ve imagined personally and professionally.

Think YOU can’t get rid of that negative voice in 5 weeks? Read this and see for yourself!

(Do it now because the early 50% off webinar-based registration is coming down with the last webinar on Monday)

P.S. Thanks a ton for all the friends and colleagues you’ve been sending to the webinar on 3 Steps to Own the Room, Earn What you are Worth, and Ensure your Hard Work Leads to Success. Just from attending, people have made more profitable sales calls and worked out stressful familysituations. Click here to attend yourself or forward the link to your friends.

There is one “master” resolution. Without it all your other resolutions cannot be carried out. The one ability you want to resolve to strengthen is Self Trust.

Self-trust is relying upon your inner resources (i.e. emotional, mental, physical, and  spiritual) to achieve desired success and fulfillment.   It enables you to stay steady and expand what you CAN control in this fast-changing world, rather than try in futility to change market conditions or other people.

Self trust is about believing in yourself, that your efforts are worthwhile and will help you progress towards the happiness and results you seek.

Self trust is about your ability to manage yourself, so that when it comes time to do the behavior you’ve said is healthy or constructive for you, you can get yourself to do it.

Self trust is about viewing yourself as worth treating well, that you are deserving of having the results you are pursuing. This comes from seeing yourself as others see you, not through filters of self judgment.

You judge yourself because you think you will only be loveable to others or secure in your career if you live up to an ideal of perfection. Therefore you always compare yourself to this ideal, setting yourself up to fall short and beat yourself up.

Everyone, no matter who you are, has felt crunched in the past year or so. Some of us are feeling overwhelmed by the stresses; others of us are feeling resilient, knowing we will land on our feet no matter what.  Resilient people are energized and take action everyday to create opportunities and keep their relationships strong. Self trust is a learned skill and key factor that determines how you will navigate through turbulent times.

How do you rate yourself on a 1-10 scale of Self Trust? What is your Resolution for how Self Trusting you want to be in 2010 and the upcoming decade?

1) Build self trust by spending time to review your year/your decade and making peace with it in yourself. Here are some questions you can use to guide your review:

• What are the trends?
• In what ways are you proud of how you have grown, and contributed?
• What are the behaviors and attitudes that continue to give you justification to beat yourself up?
• What pledge do you make to yourself to change these behaviors? Why will your efforts  to change this behavior be different this time? What will  happen if you don’t make these self corrections? What will  be possible for you if you do? What accountability will you  build in?
• Where can you accept yourself more and find workarounds for the things that are challenging for you?
• Where can you accept the people you are close to even more, so that you no longer are disappointed and angered by the behaviors they repeat?

2) Check out this video I made (its old, we’ll all laugh at how different I look now!) It gives you a  tool that will help you quickly build trust in yourself.