Do you "Pretend" to do too Much?

I have a friend, Tessa. Actually she is leaving the friend category and moving to the acquaintance category.

Let me tell you why. I have known Tessa for two years. Tessa and I met a club. Tessa volunteered for almost every position that was open at this club. I actually volunteered for one of the positions but Tessa took over. She made a statement that she had to leave early so she is volunteering for everything and then left the meeting instantly. I had no time to say anything.

I got over it. After Tessa volunteered for everything she rarely attended the club meetings. Once in a while she would pop in and say she is sorry she is busy and will get going shortly. Then we did not see her again at the meetings until she would pop in again and say the same thing.

Eventually there was a discussion of where she was and what was she doing. Did she leave the club? No one was happy with Tessa. She took on a responsibility and did not follow through.

These questions were directed at me because I was her friend. I did not want to get down on her although I had to agree with the members. She volunteered for everything and was not in attendance nor did she do what she promised. All I could say was that I would call her.

Tessa suffers from "pretending to do too much." This is true in her personal life also. If I call her to just talk she is too busy. If and when we can talk all Tessa talks about is what she has to do. Yet she rarely gets anything done. She is still attempting to do things she wanted to do two years ago. Not long range, big things. Just little every day things like cleaning a room in her house.

Once Tessa told me she has a slight (?) problem with organization and getting things done. I told her I could help her with that. She never took up the offer. Actually she was a little defensive with my offer.

When you suffer from "pretending to do too much" this is a typical reaction.

If I take apart Tessa's behavior I see a person that is disorganized, in chaos and unable to get out of that state. Thinking you are busy can allow you to run away from what is really going on in your life. I mean how can you look at much? You are too busy and you have so much to do?

This behavior is also a way to feel sorry for yourself. You set yourself up to fail and you do fail. Tessa knows she is not accomplishing anything. Every time she starts to do what she needs to a "pretend" emergency pops up and she has to take care of the "pretend" emergency. By the end of the day all she has done is deal with "pretend" emergencies.

Here is the really bizarre thing. The more Tessa "pretends" how busy she is and what she has to do the less prodcutive Tessa is. Yet Tessa does not recognize this. Likewise the less Tessa gets done the more down she is on herself. And this feeling is better to sit with than the ones she is running away from.

What a crazy way to live, but we all have been there. The problem is not that we have all been there but only if we stay there like Tessa.

So how do we get out of this whirlpool?

First off realize that volunteering to do too much will not make you important or respected. It won't. It will just piss people off if you do not follow through.

Second recognize what you really need to do and what can wait.

Third do not get distracted by "pretend" emergencies. Stick to what you decied to get done. Then do it.

Lastly stop running away from those problems that are giving you stress and sorrow. You may not be able to solve them but you must acknowledge them. If you don't you will be like Tessa. You will be running around in a circle disappointing yourself and those around you.

Next you will get angry and feel unappreciated. Next you will either get pissy or depressed. All because you "pretended" to be too busy.

Gte back into your life. You can't run away from it. It follows you wherever you go.

If you must feel important then feel important becasue you accomplished something. Not beause you volunteered for everything and then did nothing.

If you are another Tessa get help now. Here is how.

Marcia, Your Confidence Coach

Humor can Expand Your Mind

Q & A. I found this humorous and thought provoking post. It asks a question and then collects answers. The answers vary depending on who answered and their point of view.

There is no right or wrong answer. This is a question of opinion. Opinion is just someones point of view. There may be facts and reason to back up the point of view. However, there may be other points of view with other facts and reason. It is up to you to decide or not which point of view makes sense to you. Perhaps most have some value to you. Perhaps you are not seeking an answer but a way to open your mind to think in a different way. Perhaps humour and satire will help you do this.

WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD???

Plato: For the greater good.

Karl Marx: It was a historical inevitability.

Machiavelli:
The point is that the chicken crossed the road. Who cares why? The end of crossing the road justifies whatever motive there was.

Hippocrates: Because of an excess of light pink gooey stuff in its
pancreas.

Thomas de Torquemada: Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I'll find out.

Timothy Leary: Because that's the only kind of trip the Establishment
would let it take.

Nietzsche: Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road
gazes also across you.

Oliver North: National Security was at stake.

B.F. Skinner: Because the external influences which had pervaded its
sensorium from birth had caused it to develop in such a
fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while
believing these actions to be of its own free will.

Carl Jung: The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt
necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at
this historical juncture, and therefore
synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being.

Jean-Paul Sartre: In order to act in good faith and be true to itself,
the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.

Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed
the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.

Aristotle: To actualize its potential.

Buddha: If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-
nature.

Howard Cosell: It may very well have been one of the most astonishing
events to grace the annals of history. An historic,
unprecedented avian biped with the temerity to attempt
such an herculean achievement formerly relegated to
homo sapien pedestrians is truly a remarkable occurrence.

Darwin: It was the logical next step after coming down from
the trees.

Emily Dickinson: Because it could not stop for death.

Epicurus: For fun.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: It didn't cross the road; it transcended it.

Johann von Goethe: The eternal hen-principle made it do it.

Werner Heisenberg: We are not sure which side of the road the chicken
was on, but it was moving very fast.

David Hume: Out of custom and habit.

Jack Nicholson: 'Cause it (censored) wanted to. That's the (censored)
reason.

Pyrrho the Skeptic: What road?

The Sphinx: You tell me.

Henry David Thoreau: To live deliberately ... and suck all the marrow
out of life.

Mark Twain: The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.

Wordsworth: To wander lonely as a cloud.

Keats: Philosophy will clip a chicken's wings.

Blake: To see heaven in a wild fowl.

Othello: Jealousy.

Dr Johnson: Sir, had you known the Chicken for as long as I have,
you would not so readily enquire, but feel rather the
Need to resist such a public Display of your own
lamentable and incorrigible Ignorance.

Oscar Wilde: Why, indeed? One's social engagements whilst in
town ought never expose one to such barbarous
inconvenience - although, perhaps, if one must cross a
road, one may do far worse than to cross it as the
chicken in question.

Kafka: Hardly the most urgent enquiry to make of a low-grade
insurance clerk who woke up that morning as a hen.

Swift: It is, of course, inevitable that such a loathsome,
filth-ridden and degraded creature as Man should assume
to question the actions of one in all respects his
superior.

Darwin:
Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically dispositioned to cross roads


Dr. Seuss:
Did the chicken cross the road?Did he cross it with a toad?Yes the chicken crossed the road,but why it crossed, I've not been told!

FREUD: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.

BILL GATES: Our soon-to-be-released Chicken '98 will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook.

Groucho Marx:
Chicken? What's all this talk about chicken? Why, I had an uncle who thought he was a chicken. My aunt almost divorced him, but we needed the eggs.

***********************************************************************

Open up your mind. Deep thinking can do that but so can levity. Take a break today to laugh and smile.

Marcia. Your Confidence Coach

Improve your Business

I have shared with you some awesome products that can give your business the self improvement it needs.

You know you want to pump up your business. You know it needs more help.

You need to spend money to make money. You do not need to spend huge sums of money but you do need to fund your business. Spending on education and learning how to make your business successful is vital.

The products I have shown you are cost effective and fairly inexpensive. They are an investment in yourself and your business.

Businesses fail due to poor decision making. A poor decision could be to not fund your business. A poor decision could be to not educate yourself about how to operate your business.

Business logic is funny. Sometimes you think you have a genius idea and it tanks. It tanked because genius ideas and business success do not always go hand in hand.

That is why purchasing a product that has been developed and tested is the better choice than a genius idea.

So check out the products and find the one that will help your business succeed.

Marcia, Your Confidence Coach

PS If you buy any product I have shared with you I want to give you a bonus. E mail me your receipt to arnold@selfimprovementtoolshop.com to get your bonus.

TGIF

TGIF. (Thank God it is Friday).!!!!

Is this one of your slogans? Do you live for Fridays? I know the work week is hectic. I know you have stuff to do. I know you are stretched for time. I know you are sharing your time with loved ones. I know that the expression, "So much to do. So little time." is in your head.

I also know that TGIF does not mean that now you can slack off. I know that TGIF does not mean you will have a long, lazy, relaxing week end. I know that TGIF probably means you can get a little, teeny, tiny breather. I know that TGIF means you have some time to tackle what you could not do during the week.

I know TGIF means you can spend some time with your family. But it may be not the "quality" time you are desiring. It will be the "doing good things for your family" time. It will be doing

important and responsible things for your family such as shopping, cleaning, watching and chauffeuring your children to activities. It may be the same duties to help out a parent, sibling or neighbor. It is clearly "doing good time" but the enjoyment comes from getting the deed done rather than in doing the deed.

Things you want to pursue for yourself are probably put off. They are in the back of your mind but your week end is scheduled. Is there a way to find time for yourself?

YES there is but you have to make the time. I know you don't have the time. You have so much to do. Your week end is already jam packed.

Here comes the finale. If you never make the time or find a way to make the time with outside help YOU ARE STUCK. This is what each TGIF will be like of you.

I am asking you to choose right now. Do you want help? Make the choice right now to get help. Make the decision right now.

I am offering you a place where you can visit 24/7. A place where there is information and products for you to help yourself. Make the decision and make the time. Learn how to create the time you want in your life.

Marcia, Your Confidence Coach

Have to or Want to???

HAVE TO OR WANT TO?

Have to:
to be required, compelled, or under obligation

Want to:
to feel a need or a desire for; wish for
Want to:
to wish, need, crave, demand, or desire

What is the difference between wanting to do something and having to do something?
If you have to do something it is a must. That does not mean you will do it but the must part makes it imperative and important. By the definition have to is something that is outside of you. An outside force is telling you that you must do this certain thing.

If you want to do something it is related to an inside feeling. Wanting to do something seems to be a part of you. Having to do something seems to be inflicted on you by something outside of you. Despite these differences there are probably things you want to do but you may not do these things.
So what is really going on here? Why do you resist doing what you have to do and what you want to do? Are you more likely to do what you have to do or what you want to do?

How were you raised? What rules did your parents teach you? Did they tell you that there are things you must do even if you do not want to do them? Are you one of those people that does what you have to and your life is lacking joy?

Or were you raised with your parents instructing you that you can't always do what you want? Were they trying to set you on the right path by telling you to be responsible? Did you rebel and do what you wanted to do? Is your life exciting but messy because you do what you want?

Who do you admire? Do you admire the ones that do what they want or the ones that “do the right thing?”

What about balance? Does it have to be one way or the other? This is a conundrum. There is no right answer. Consider the expression, “If you do what you enjoy you will succeed.” Trite but sometimes true. If you are not responsible you will spend your time catching up to correct or deal with what you did not do. What happens if you spend you life doing what you have to waiting for the chance later on to do what you want. You put in the time hoping, waiting for it to pay off. It can pay off but sometimes it just doesn't.

I have been considering this. Perhaps there is a way to do what you want and what you have to and enjoy them both is this. What if you were in the present moment? That means if you are watching a sunset you do just that. You watch a sunset. You enjoy the sunset. You are in the present moment.

You are not thinking about what you have to do or want to do. You can do that next but for now you are enjoying yourself just watching a sunset. Would the pleasure from a sunset make the “have to tasks” a little easier and more do able? You are in a good mood from your sunset so now you can tackle the things you “have to do.” Would the pleasure from the sunset allow you to re think those things that you wanted to do? Try it. See if you can do something and just enjoy it. Just be there in the moment. See if that gives you momentum. See if that makes your life lighter. See if that gives you perspective. See if that gives you balance.

Marcia, Your Confidence Coach

Confidence and Decisions

Confidence and Your Work
When you own your own business you must have confidence. You will be making many decisions. How will you know if you are making the right decisions? One way to start the decision process is to gain knowledge. You should research the topic you are going to make a decision on. However once you have this knowledge you may be confronted with two choices. Which one should you chose? Now you are at a cross road. You have to make a decision but how do you choose between the two options. This is where confidence comes in.

You have to be confident and go forward with one of the choices. You must decide. You can not be wishy washy once you decide. You must be confident with your decision. I once heard a famous CEO explain how he makes a decision. He said he makes the decision and then he makes it be the right decision. He is expressing that once he makes a decision he has the confidence to make that be the right decision.

Do your homework and then decide what option to follow. Then work on that option to make it work for you. Once you choose follow through. Give yourself some time to see how your new plan is working. You may have to modify your plan. Have the confidence to modify your plan. Have the confidence to know that you made a decision. Have the confidence to know that you have the skills to make that decision work for you.

Let me know your thoughts and questions.

http://www.selfimprovementtoolshop.com

Marcia, Your Confidence Coach

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