"We had a plan in place to move forward with pricing. She was in the situation and just went with the idea that came to her mind. She needs to think instead of react.” My client's boss' comment about her performance. My sister in law told me about her day last week as a pre-school teacher: “I came home and snapped at the kids.”

How about you? Do you think, or do you react..some would say "over-react?"

Usually when you react it is because you perceive that something is beyond your control, and will either lead to a bad outcome (i.e., my client might have thought if she doesn’t act now, someday she’ll have to sit in her boss’s office having to explain the missed opportunity) or reminds you of a bad outcome (my sister in law’s children made her feel as powerless as she did with her preschool students). Your reaction is an effort to say or do something that will prevent an uncomfortable feeling or situation but it usually will just create another situation you will regret.

Here’s what you want to do next time:

1. Prevent yourself from getting to the point of reacting:Usually you have a build up of stress and whatever happens in the moment is the ‘straw that breaks the camel’s back’. Tune into your body, what are your particular early warning signs to know if stress is building up? When you are under stress, you are operating from the part of your brain where gut reactions come from, rather than the ‘thinking’ part of your brain. Your ‘mind follows your breath’ so you want to use breathing techniques to calm your nervous system and keep the thinking part of your brain in charge. An example of such a breathing technique can be found in one of my prior video blogs.
2. Reel yourself back from reacting:If you find yourself tempted to react, get in the habit of immediately asking clarifying questions, or attempt to understand the situation before jumping to the worst case scenario. Once your reaction is set in motion, see if you can ask for a pause from the interaction. Or even just slow down the momentum of the interaction in order to get your thinking brain back on track. For example, you can talk out loud in an effort to clarify your position, e.g., “I’m getting upset about this because…” Or you can identify something specific in the situation that you can do or ask for from the other person – this will make sure that you are engaging your brain in constructive problem-solving and getting away from emotional reactivity.

If you want techniques to help you prevent the build up of stress and overload, and techniques to use the thinking part of your brain instead of react, then listen to the recording of my teleconference call entitled Success under Stress for Women: How to Double your Effectiveness at Work and Energy at Home.

If you have ‘too much work and not enough time’, if difficult people at work or at home interfere with your performance, if you are noticing the signs of stress in your body…then learn how to get more results with less stress at work and feel more in control of your life. Here are just a few of the practical tools you will learn:

• The one rule you need to follow that will immediately turn around your stress and make sure you can be calm, clear thinking and confident in any situation
• What research says about women’s strengths under stress and what pitfalls you need to look out for
• The sentence you can say to gain the cooperation of difficult people or people that don’t give you what you need to finish your projects
• The secrets to being less reactive so you can respond with poise and act like a leader

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Sharon Melnick, Ph.D. is an executive coach and trainer who works with high potential and senior executives to rapidly remove any blocks to their leadership effectiveness. She combines ‘best practices’ executive coaching approaches with behavior change methods she developed over 10 years as a psychologist at Harvard Medical School.

This morning I was sitting in a Board meeting. Here’s the scenario: I’m a brand new member, it’s my first meeting, and I don’t have as much experience in the field as other people on the Board. You can imagine what I was tempted to think: “Should I speak up?” or “Will they think what I say is stupid?”

This topic was on my mind because several of the participants in my ‘just-ended’ Confidence at the Core* program were afraid of speaking up and taking a stand when they started the program six weeks ago. But now they say “I am confident. I speak what’s on my mind. The anxiety is gone.”

So I thought I’d put these questions to you:

• Where in your life do you want to voice your opinion more?
• Are you afraid of saying the wrong thing in a meeting with high level management?
• Are you too anxious to say what you really feel in your personal relationships?
• Do you get nervous talking about yourself in networking meetings?

Here are some strategies I used to prevent myself from being afraid of speaking up. YOU can use these to speak up in your life. (These strategies pertain to meetings but they also can be applied to discussions in your personal relationships):

1. Enjoy yourself – You are nervous about speaking up because you are worried how others will evaluate what you say. You are viewing the meeting as a performance in which your ‘respect meter’ will rise or fall (no wonder you are nervous!). You judge yourself so you think everyone else is too. Most people are judging, they are trying to keep up with the conversation and move their personal and collective agenda forward. Try switching from ‘performance anxiety’ to ‘enjoying yourself’. View meetings as an opportunity to showcase your value and to achieve the purpose of the meeting. If that feels like a stretch, then just be engaged and dig into what is really interesting about the meeting. Be present rather than distracted with a parallel conversation about what feedback you will get. Ask yourself constructive questions such as, “What will move the conversation forward,” “What would I need to hear to fulfill the purpose of the meeting?” Try enjoying the privilege of being in that meeting with a seat at the table. When you truly care about the meeting outcome (rather than just trying to get through it without any negative feedback), it will shift your energy and your contributions will come naturally.
2. Prepare for the Moment- It’s always good to prepare. Jot down points you speculate you will be called on to provide so you won’t be fully caught off-guard, or regularly take a step back and prepare points that others might want to know about your current work. Similarly, pre-rehearse what you will say in a networking meeting. In addition, in an increasingly complex world, we can’t expect to know and keep up to speed on everything. That’s why it makes good sense to develop your critical thinking skills. This way you can show your chops by asking good questions and showing people how to think through an issue rather than feel pressure to sound smart on every question asked.
3. Intravenous Confidence – Wish you could have an IV of confidence shot into your arm when you get nervous in meetings? Well, here’s the next best thing. Harness the power of your meridians to reduce your mental commotion. Just put one or both hands in this hand position (mudra). You can use this “Confidence mudra” either in the meeting, or on a regular basis to build up the effect on your energy. (If you look closely, you’ll see that President Clinton often naturally uses this hand position when he talks. We can all agree he’s pretty confident!)

Go out and use these strategies!

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Sharon Melnick, Ph.D. is an executive coach and trainer who works with high potential and senior executives to rapidly remove any blocks to their leadership effectiveness. She combines ‘best practices’ executive coaching approaches with behavior change methods she developed over 10 years as a psychologist at Harvard Medical School. 

Can you figure out which of these myths about confidence is fact and which is fiction?

1) If your ratio of positive to negative thoughts is less than 3:1 everyday, you will take two years off of your life.

(Answer:  TRUE.   According to a Mayo Clinic study, your doubting, questioning,  self critical thoughts wear and tear at your body, and can significantly affect the longevity of your life.  This is serious, folks!)

2) Confident people earn much more than self doubters over their lifetime (for lower earning jobs: on average $28,000 over a lifetime; for higher earning jobs: hundreds of thousands of dollars more).

(Answer:  TRUE, according to a University of Florida study (2007).   Self confidence, starting in early adulthood, determines how much money you will earn over the course of your life.  Every year you have low self confidence,  you earn less than your counterparts with higher self confidence.)

3) Confident people are better judges of first impressions; self doubters more often misread what others think.

(Answer:  TRUE, according to a Wake Forest University study. That’s why doubters take things personally, think people are disrespectful and then obsess about it. When confident people deal with others, their interactions are smooth and easy.)

Conclusion: The sooner you have confidence,  the faster you will build health in your body,  earn more, and influence people in relationships.

Take stock for a moment,  on a scale from 1-10, where is your confidence level now?

• When your confidence level is at a 9 or 10 everyday, name one result that will be better in each area of health, wealth, and quality of relationships?
• Do you want the tools and the shortcuts to have that confidence in 5 weeks from now?  (good news: it only took 7 days for some people, if you heard the stories I told on the recent webinar about Confidence)!

If you believe someone would enjoy and benefit from this post, please share it. Just click on the + Share button and you will see lots of options for sharing it with friends including email, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Thanks!

In the Confidence at the Core program, you will be mentored by me to build that fast and lasting confidence – and then apply it in your professional and personal life.    It starts next week,  so don’t let the train leave without you on it…

Check it out now, this is your last chance to get the tools for Confidence at the Core at 50% off.

Do people tell you they really like you, or they think you are great at what you do - but still inside you don't think you are 'enough?'

Do you criticize yourself to try and motivate yourself, but wind up stressed and no closer to 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 accept their compliments.

You work so hard to achieve progress, and once you do, you just set the bar higher and keep working harder. That doesn't bring much enjoyment or peace of mind; just more hard work.

Get over your critical inner voice so you can stop the hammering inside your own head and start being your own champion.

Try 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 just talking, not action. 

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 more successful?

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, there is no excuse to beat yourself up. If not, shift priorities so you are freed up to focus on what's most important.

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

5) Does that person have a written articulation of what 'enough' means to them? In the absence of a clear idea of what is 'good enough,' you will always perceive yourself as falling short. 

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

Don't beat yourself up and deprive yourself of 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!

Why do we still need approval from other people, even though we ‘know we shouldn’t need it’?

As a child, your brain is wired to learn about yourself through the eyes of parents, teachers, siblings, etc.

So you developed behaviors designed to get other people to think well of you. This way you could see yourself through their eyes and build positive self regard.

Your ‘approval-seeking’ behaviors are normal and they “work”, meaning they help you believe in yourself and see yourself as worthy. Just as you need to breathe in physical oxygen, you need this ‘emotional oxygen’.

You may stay reliant on these strategies precisely because they “work”. However, there are problems:

• You are beholden to other people’s opinions. You would be a lot further ahead in your life if you spent less energy worrying about what other people think and more time building your own skills and accomplishments.

• Your actions get compliments, but the effect is temporary. You work so hard to get a compliment but then you shrug it off.

• You create a vicious cycle: You feel inadequate for needing approval and then you have to seek approval to bolster yourself. (And even when others are caught up in their own ‘stuff’ and can’t see you clearly, you still give their opinion a lot of weight!)

You CAN move past approval seeking and get this “emotional oxygen” from within yourself and from satisfying accomplishments.

When you have that confidence in yourself, you agonize less over making decisions. You compare yourself less to other people. You get a lot more accomplished and contribute more.

Bottom line: You make more money, have more time, and are more happy.

If you believe someone would enjoy and benefit from this post, please share it. Just click on the + Share button and you will see lots of options for sharing it with friends including email, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Thanks!

You tell yourself that you "really need to" do something to turn your situation around, and are baffled why you don't. Each day you do the same things and sink deeper into your stressful situation and personal misery.

The first step to taking action is knowing what your block is. One way you can start to get clarity is to set aside time to do the project that you know you've been needing to do. Write it into your calendar, protect the time, and have serious intent to carry it through. When it comes time to do it, notice what images come to your mind. You will have a mental picture that will reveal your block.

Read on so you can 'listen in over my shoulder' as I give you examples from the Strategy Sessions this week on how others got unblocked and started taking action.

1) A salesperson knew he needed to make more phone calls but couldn't even though he was close to being fired. When he imagined picking up the phone to call prospects, he expected a response of no interest because he had heard that so many times before. His block was that he expected his efforts wouldn't work. So we wrote out a whole new script giving a valuable free benefit to the prospect right up front and compelling the prospect to schedule a follow up meeting. The next morning the salesman used the approach and made a hefty sale.

2) A middle manager at a big state agency needed to finish a high-visibility audit, but he couldn't get started. His blocks were self-doubt and self-centered thinking. He was worried that the final deliverable would be judged unfavorably and that the recommendations of the audit would be politically unpopular. We changed his focus so he saw the audit as an opportunity to clean up corruption in state agencies, help millions of state consumers get better rates, and protect the environment. He stopped making the project about what others would think about him and started making it about what he could contribute. He was immediately motivated to get started.

3) A woman investment banker wants work life balance but keeps staying late at the office. She knows she's not happy but didn't know what would make her happy. Her block was not knowing. We identified that her priority is a successful relationship that leads to marriage. But she didn't know what her passions were; she didn't know how to meet high caliber men, and she didn't know how to have a successful courtship. So we started with an exercise that reconnected her with her longtime passion of education, which led to a smile! Then we made a plan to start getting on Boards of organizations in the educational reform field where lots of male investment bankers serve. She was ready to rock n' roll!

Tip: The first step to taking action is to know what is getting in the way of you doing what you know you should be doing.

Schedule a good block of time to do what you know you need to do on your calendar and then see what mental picture comes to your mind. That will give you a clue what your block is. Please leave a comment about what you find out...

More next week as I give you some tips on getting over your own perfectionism..

If you believe someone would enjoy and benefit from this post, please share it. Just click on the + Share button and you will see lots of options for sharing it with friends including email, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Thanks!

Huge thanks to all of you who have written to me about your successes, asked questions in my presentations, brought me into your organization to speak, registered for my programs, and commented on my videos.

Now, a word about the goals you’ve set for this year: 92% of people don’t follow through on New Year’s Resolutions or adhere to their 2011 Goal Planning by January 10th…so this is NOT another blog about setting goals and keeping resolutions! Yes, its important to have SMART goals and to plan out your year. But writing down goals and plans is not what will make them actualize…

YOU have to make them come true. You can get so wrapped up in doing tasks that you forget the real secret to having the BEST year of your life: your success is made up of 80% mindset and 20% mechanics.

If you are directed towards your goals on the outside, but doubtful about your abilities on the inside, you are setting yourself up to not reach your goals.

It’s like riding a bicycle 70 mph into a 90 mph headwind. That’s what causes you to work really hard and not get the results you want. And worse, if you don’t reach your goals, you will stress yourself out working even harder or conclude there is something wrong with you (and doubt yourself more.)But really its just because you are barking up the wrong tree.

As you dig into working hard for your 2011 goals, here are some questions you can ask yourself to know if you are setting yourself up to struggle and possibly not reach your goals?

1) Do you feel deserving of a seat at the table? My client in a financial firm became insecure about his position after he didn’t bring in a significant deal in 2 years. On the outside, he had marketing plans to grow his business. But on the inside he was doubtful. He showed it in behaviors such as thinking key prospects would not want to take his call. He spent a lot of energy managing the politics of senior decision makers at his firm and froze in meetings with them. He waffled on making deal decisions, worried that he’d make a visible mistake. By using my “Own your Value” technique, he focused on the value that he brought to the table instead of what other people thought, and believed he deserved a seat at the table. Within 4 months he brought in the biggest deal in the firm’s history (splashed on the front page of the NY Times), and now has a secure place in the firm.

2) Are you focusing on”What if” instead of “What can I do now”? My client wanted to leave her corporate job and start her own consulting practice. She kept putting it off, worrying whether she could make enough to support herself. Using my “Worry about the Right Things” strategy, she learned to deflect her doubts away from ‘what if’ and towards ‘what do my future target clients need’? By staying focused on signs that her target market was interested in her work, in a few months she completed a book, got a speaking gig in front of 500 people in her target market, and launched a successful consulting career.

3) Do you know what you should be doing but aren’t doing? A guy in the insurance industry knew what he should be doing to earn the revenue goals he set for himself. But he wasn’t doing it, and he couldn’t figure out why. Using my “Wear your own mind” strategy”, he separated himself from negative messages he got from his father, and learned to be who he needed to be to succeed. In the next month he finally closed the contract on the “whale” prospect he’d been courting for over 2 years.

Are you busy being directed towards your goals, but still have self doubts?Let me make it easier for you to get that confidence. I am offering a free private “From Struggle to Strength” Strategy Session to the first 10 people who qualify. In this session, I will help you identify the doubts that block your direction, and then give you solutions to achieve your goals faster and easier.

Click here to access the Qualification Survey and be one of the 10 who get my personal advice and finally remove the blocks to your success in 2011.

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Have you known it all along?  Have you tried to hide it from other people,  but inside you KNOW you are a still a people pleaser (even at this age)?

Do you recognize yourself in these common signs of people pleasing?

• Spend your time doing favors for other people instead of getting your own work done

• Worry about how your comments in meetings will be judged,  so you second guess what they want to hear, give measured responses, or freeze up

• Give compliments and hope for one in return

• Say ‘yes’ when you’d like to say ‘no’ to others, or go along with what they want instead of speaking up about what YOU want

• Buy others’ affection,  give too much, or feel responsible for their life

If so, no worries, many of us have been there.

Why do you do these behaviors?  It is a confidence issue.  People pleasing is a three part strategy:

1)   You to try to make others view you positively, in the hope that

2) They will treat you favorably (validate you,  approve of you,  appreciate you,  compliment you, reassure you, love you, do business with you,  promote you), so that

3) You can be confident in yourself because you experience yourself as competent, loveable, worthy, special, etc.

What is the fastest way to stop people pleasing?

The only way to stop people pleasing is to become confident in yourself.

Because you are concerned you are not enough, you try to keep propping yourself up with other people’s input.  You must stop seeing other people as the final say in whether you are ‘enough’ or not.  Other people view you through their own lenses. If they are proud of themselves they will see your strengths and appreciate your efforts.  If they are not confident in themselves they will criticize you.  Other people’s comments towards you say more about them then they do about you.   If you have been programmed by repeated messages from people important to you in childhood,  then you have to separate what was “their stuff” from “your stuff”, and start to “wear your own mind”.

People pleasing helps you get positive feedback in the moment, but it never adds up to lasting confidence. The more you do it, the longer you put off building your capacity to be confident without anyone else’s approval.   The more you do it,  the less confident you feel.

I am on a mission to free you of people pleasing so that you can get rid of the stress that comes from being dependent on others’ approval and have the success you are capable of.   My 7-steps to Confidence at the Core has been effective in helping hundreds of people believe in themselves and experience the freedom of being their own person.

Once you have Confidence at the Core,  you won’t take things personally anymore.  You will be able to have your own positive opinion of yourself, no matter how anyone else responds to your ideas. You will  have the Confidence to Make Much More Money, finally Start Your Business, or Get Noticed for Promotion by Your Boss.

If you believe someone would enjoy and benefit from this post, please share it. Just click on the + Share button and you will see lots of options for sharing it with friends including email, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Thanks!

We all feel so overwhelmed when it comes to managing time and staying focused, so I want to offer you a new way of looking at your challenges.  Stephen Covey said it best when he said, “Time management is a misnomer, the real challenge is to manage ourselves.”

Time management tools that help you schedule your time and organize your stuff are very helpful;  however in coaching hundreds of people, I’ve found that if you still aren’t reaching your income goals and work objectives each year,  or if you’re still carrying the stress of undone work home with you, then you may be making mistakes in the way you manage yourself.

For example, you can schedule block of time into your calendar to work on an important report;  that’s a great time management technique.  However, whether you actually sit down and write that report then has little to do with what you write into your schedule. It has more to do with the ability to prevent the distraction of urgent requests; break a big task into smaller parts; get started on something even if you don’t feel like it,  or believe that what you have to say is worthwhile and not spin your wheels worrying how others will judge your work?

You will get the best bang for your buck if you focus more on building the skills to manage yourself, rather than hoping that time management strategies will help you through the overwhelm.

Here are just three of the time management mistakes you might make if you haven’t been focusing on managing yourself:

1)   You say Yes when really you want to say No

If you are doing this, you are agreeing to requests for the wrong reasons!   Wrong reasons are : you don’t want to feel guilty, don’t want the person to disapprove of you, or don’t know how to say no and still feel like a good person.  The Right reason to accept a request or invitation is because it aligns with your goals (you could learn something, meet people you’d enjoy or do business with, or support a meaningful relationship). A good way to say “no” is to try to find something to say "yes" to in the request, such as “I wouldn’t have the bandwith to write something for you, but I’d be happy to review something you write”, or “I can’t make it this year but I hope I’ll be able to join you next year”.   If you know it’s a "No", try to avoid hedging with a non-answer like, "let me think about it", otherwise you are giving yourself yet another ‘to do’ list item.

The next time someone asks you to do something that your gut tells you not do, think of making a choice between the request they are making vs. doing things that will help you advance towards the success you crave and the contribution you are here to make.  The more you manage yourself by knowing what is important to your life,  the more you can be fully available to those activities and people who are most important, and the less you will be preoccupied, resentful, or exhausted because you didn’t manage your own response well!

2)   You allow yourself to be distracted by electronic messages

We ALL face the time suck of checking and responding to electronic messages.  But YOU are in control of where you put your attention, and its a huge mistake to not take proactive measures to manage the bombardment.   Unless you are scheduling time to respond to messages,  you probably never account for the time you spend doing so. That’s why these time leaks add up to that end of day frustration of uncompleted work.  Don’t let the false sense of being needed or being involved deflect your attention from the rewards of true accomplishment or true connection.

Take charge!  Try to organize your sources of messages into one stream (e.g., some people have their voicemails transcribed and fed into emails),  or use a clearinghouse for your social media (e.g., I use Hootsuite where I can manage my posts on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn from one interface).  Manage expectations with clients, bosses, family members better up front,  to know whether an immediate response is expected or whether a thoughtful response carried out at your convenience is okay.    Carve out undistracted times and let people know by email and voice autoresponders when you will again be available for interaction.  My clients get their best ideas and vision for the next level of their business from the times they schedule to take a step back and ‘think’.

3) You don’t trust yourself enough

Self trust leads you to be very productive.  When you trust yourself,  you can make decisions about your priorities and focus on them, knowing that's the best use of your time.  When you don’t trust yourself,  you can’t settle on a well-reasoned decision about your priorities and you spread yourself thin trying to be ‘all things to all people’.

When you trust yourself you don’t have to spend time worrying about what other people will think,  and you don’t have to waste time living in fear of judgment if mistakes happen.  You don’t have to put inordinate energy into trying to control the process because you expect to ‘fail fast’, learn from the process, and let your clients and stakeholders give you input that will help you come up with the best deliverables. You don’t have to waste time on lack of clarity, you can ask questions without the fear looking stupid.

When you trust yourself,  you know that you will complete the numerous tasks that you have piling up.  When you don’t trust yourself,  you waste precious mental RAM being frenetic, worrying about how you will get it all done, and what the consequences are of not doing so.