Attend a support group

But when action bogs down because of challenges, people often shift to lower levels of action description. For example, if Rita fumbles with getting her shoe tied, her action identification shifts to lower levels so that she can make the appropriate adjustments to her shoe-tying behavior rather than be distracted by grandiose visions of a Nobel Prize. Humans Are Very Emotional Beings A key component of the motivational system is emotion. Darwin (1872) asserted that emotions signal important changes in bodily states and environmental circumstances. Consequently, both the experience and, perhaps even more frequently, the anticipation of emotions play a critical role in motivating behavior (DeWall et al. Positive emotions reinforce one's own successful actions and the actions of others that benefit the self. Positive emotions (such as happiness) and the expectation of them also provide motivation and energy directed toward improving one's efforts to learn, achieve, help others, and grow (Fredrickson, 2001). Face your fears or run away, Prepare in advance or cram for an exam, or Blame other people or take responsibility. You have the power to determine the way you react to any event that happens to you. Thus, for each aspect of your life you do have control over, it is important for you to take the appropriate action, instead of merely reacting to your environment. You often have far more power to change your situation than you believe. To reduce your worries about things within your control: Recognize you do have control over them, Identify what you can do, and Take action. Keep your mouth shut; You don't deserve it.

You're not qualified. Don't bother anyone with your needs. No matter how hard you try you'll never win. You'll look like you're smarter than the others. Someone else can do it better. Take Action! List Your Power-Hiding Thoughts Now it's your turn. Negative emotions (such as fear) and the expectation of them motivate a person to avoid actions and others that could be harmful. In addition, perceiving that the self has fallen short of an important goal or standard generates negative emotion, spurring the individual to engage in actions to alleviate that negative emotion. In these basic ways, emotions serve the important function of motivating action by kicking the person into gear when something needs to be done to reach his or her goals and, ultimately, satisfy physical and psychological needs. The internal experience of emotion is accompanied by external displays. These expressions arise automatically and help prepare the body to act appropriately. For example, scrunching the nose and mouth in disgust limits air intake, which can be important if dangerous airborne germs are afloat (Chapman et al. But in humans these displays take on the added function of communicating our feelings to others (Shariff & Tracy, 2011). In humans, emotional displays are most prominently communicated by facial expressions, but posture, vocalizations, and other cues also convey our feelings. How do we know that these nonverbal displays of emotion are partly meant to communicate feelings to others? One piece of evidence is that they are typically more prominent when they can be witnessed by others than when they cannot. What worries could you reduce if you were to take responsibility for them? There are also some things you have only partial control over.

For instance, you can't be sure that you'll win your tennis match, but you do have some control over the outcome. By practicing beforehand or working with a coach, you can improve your performance and increase your chance of winning. Similarly, you can't know for sure whether your date will like you. However, by working on yourself, reading relationship articles or hiring a dating coach, you'll become more confident and will increase the chances that your prospective partner will like you. The point is: you can influence the outcome of many situations by taking appropriate actions, such as preparing beforehand or adopting a more positive attitude in the face of adversity. Consequently, rather than worrying about the outcome of a future event, focus on what you can do right now to increase the chances of things turning out well. In short, identify what you have control over and do the best you can. Then, let go of your need to control anything else. Review your notearticle or journal and make a list of your ten most common critical thoughts: Becoming aware of how these thoughts interfere with your ability to feel confident and empowered will make a big difference. Share your list and journal entries with your partner or Life Makeover Group. You might be surprised by what you hear. When I ask audiences to write down and share the common negative messages they receive from their inner critic, they're always surprised at how similar the voices are to each other. You'd swear we all belong to the same family! WATCH WHAT YOU SAY The thoughts we think often translate into the words we speak, and the words we choose (and use) play an important role in how we increase or decrease our confidence and self-esteem. Do the words you use command respect and attention, or do they minimize your power and sense of self-worth? There are many words and phrases that we use unconsciously to diminish or minimize our power. Consider adults at a bowling alley. When they get a strike, they rarely smile while they face down the alley at the pins, but they smile frequently when they turn around to face their friends sitting behind them (Kraut & Johnston, 1979).

This finding suggests that emotions are not merely private matters; In this way, emotions support the social nature of humans, which we discussed earlier. Nonverbal displays of emotion are typically more pronounced when others are watching us than when they are not. This suggests we use such displays to communicate to others how we are feeling. The Wide-Ranging Palette of Emotions What emotions do humans experience? What triggers these emotions? Contemporary emotion researchers generally distinguish several categories of emotions. For more details, refer to the upcoming section, Right action vs. There are also many things you have no control over. Yet, chances are, you keep worrying about these things anyway. For instance, you can't control the weather, but you will likely get upset if it rains on the day you plan to have a picnic. You can't control your past, but you may spend a lot of time dwelling on it. You can't control your future, but you may waste a lot of time and energy worrying about it. Here are some examples of things you have no control over: Your future, Natural disasters, wars and other world events, The weather, and For example, I often hear people joking around about themselves by using phrases like I'm so stupid or I'm such an idiot. When I hear these phrases I cringe knowing that our words affect the way we feel about ourselves and how others perceive us.

Let's look at some examples. Courtney had a bad habit of using the phrase I think. It showed up in almost every coaching conversation. When I asked her about a project she completed at work, she responded, I think I did a good job. When I suggested that she take more of a leadership role in her community, she'd say: I think I can handle running that meeting. This phrase even showed up often in her personal life. When a friend invited her to dinner, she'd accept the invitation by saying something like I think I can make it to your house next week. When clients temper their statements with I think I challenge them by asking: Do you think, or do you know? For example, the neurologist Antonio Damasio (1999) proposed a three-part division of emotions: background emotions, primary emotions, and secondary emotions, all of which can occur at varying levels of consciousness, from complete unconsciousness to dim awareness to profound domination of our conscious experience. Background Emotions: Background emotions make up an individual's general affective tone at a given moment. As the term implies, these emotions are in the psychological background and provide what some German writers call Lebensgefuhl, or sense of life (Langer, 1982). Another way to think about background emotions is that, for an emotionally unimpaired person, there's never a waking moment in which he or she has no feelings or emotions. People always feel something, even if only vaguely, making it fairly likely that they'll experience other, more specific emotions. These background feelings are what we typically refer to when we say we are in a good or bad mood. Most people's resting state is generally with a positive mood offset--that is, a mild positive background mood even in the absence of specific emotional events (Diener et al. Primary Emotions: Whereas mood tends to be a diffuse general feeling that is often not the focus of our attention, at other times we are acutely aware of feeling a specific emotion. Research suggests that there are six primary emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust. All humans seem to be born with the capacity to experience these basic emotions. Most of the things happening around you (eg, traffic jams, people who don't arrive at a meeting on time, et cetera). In fact, if you examine all the things you worry about, you'll realize that, in most cases, there is absolutely nothing you can do about them.