by Brian Tracy
Similarly, the stress of being in the middle of an incomplete action can be extremely distracting to you and can make you incapable of concentrating on anything for very long. You think about the task or situation continually.
Procrastination is the most common example of the incomplete action. Whenever you procrastinate, especially on important tasks, you experience stress. And the more important the task or responsibility, the greater the stress, the greater the disruption of your peace of mind. This stress eventually appears physically in such reactions as insomnia, negativity and irritation.
The solution to any incomplete action is to begin the task and stay with it until it is complete, which requires tremendous self-discipline. The payoff for completing a task is an immediate increase of energy, enthusiasm and self-esteem. Task completion makes you feel better and more positive. It immediately relieves the stress you experience when the incomplete task is hanging over your head.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
A variation of the incomplete action is “unfinished business.” Unfinished business refers to a relationship, personal or business, that is still hanging on. It is something you have not let go of or ended. It is not yet complete or finished. Unfinished business is often caused when you hold on to a relationship long after it is over, rather than going on to something else.
Unfinished business sometimes lingers because of an unwillingness to forgive and forget. It can be caused by a desire to get even. Often it is accompanied by bitterness and anger. Money can be involved, or a desire to get what you feel you are entitled to. Unfinished business lingers if you still want another person’s love or respect. You are still emotionally attached and you feel your own self-worth is tied up in his or her estimate of you. Unfinished business ties you to the past and negatively affects your business and personal relationships.
A woman who had been summarily fired from her executive position after several years was furious. She told me she had seen her lawyer and was going to sue for wrongful termination. She was both bitter and determined to get what she felt was the justice she was entitled to.
I asked her how long the process would take. She replied that it could take up to two years to get to court.
What were her chances of winning her suit? According to her lawyer, they were better than 50 percent.
What would she do in the interim? She told me that, in all honesty, if she took another position, it would weaken her case, her claim for remuneration.
We concluded that, if she pursued legal action, she could be tied up professionally and emotionally for as long as two years, and at the end of that time, she might lose her case in court and end up having gained nothing. But she would have lost two years of her life preoccupied with her lawsuit, not to mention the expenses involved.
What advice would you give her? What advice would you give yourself in this situation? What would you do in your own life if you felt you had been treated unfairly by someone?
I suggested to her that she drop the whole matter and get on with her career and her life. Her happiness and peace of mind were far too important to be held to ransom for up to two years. She would be living in a state of “suspended animation” emotionally, and there was no payoff or settlement worth trading all that time for.
She was both smart and perceptive. She told me she would think about it. Later, I heard that she had dropped the legal action. Shortly afterward, I read in the paper that she had been appointed to a senior position with another company. When I saw her briefly some weeks later, she was radiant and happy.
At Christmas, I received a card from her with a handwritten note saying, “Thank you for the best advice I’ve ever received.”
No one can have any control over your emotions unless there is still something that you want from that person. No one can make you feel unhappy or angry unless there is something that you still want, whether it is love, respect or money, or even custody of the children. The minute that you decide that you no longer want anything from the other person, you complete the “business.” You are free again.
FEAR OF FAILURE
The fourth major cause of stress and negativity is the fear of failure. This fear is usually manifested in indecisiveness, anxiety and worry. It accompanies the feeling of “I can’t,” which settles in the solar plexus, ruining your digestion, making you feel afraid and insecure. It can destroy your ambition and undermine your resolve. Instead of striving toward the fulfillment of your potential, you become preoccupied with not failing. You think only about playing it safe.
Fear of failure is a conditioned response learned in childhood. Everyone has a certain amount of this fear. It causes you to be prudent, which in moderation is a good thing. But when fear of failure is carried too far, it can be a major obstacle to your success and happiness.
Everyone experiences fear of some kind. The brave person is not the person without fear, but the person who acts in spite of his or her fear. When you face your fears and move toward them, they diminish and grow smaller. But when you back away from the person or situation you fear, it grows until it can actually dominate your whole life.
Here is a simple but effective way of dealing with fear: First, affirm to yourself with energy and conviction, “I can do it! I can do it! I can do it!” This affirmation short-circuits and cancels out the feeling of “I can’t! I can’t! I can’t!” It is a powerful and fast-acting application of the Law of Substitution.
Then, do the thing you fear. Confront your fear. Move toward your fear. Use your specific fear as a challenge and instead of backing away from it or avoiding it, confront it and face it head on.
In her wonderful book Wake Up and Live, Dorothea Brande wrote about the technique that turned her life around. She spent the rest of her career speaking and sharing this secret with thousands of others, many of whose lives also turned around as a result. And her secret was simply this: “Decide exactly what you want to do, and then, act as if it were impossible to fail.”
Act as if the fear did not exist. Pretend. Ask yourself, “If I were totally unafraid in this situation, if I had no fears at all, how would I behave?”
And then behave that way. You can act your way into feeling courageous and unafraid. If you pretend that you are brave and courageous, you will begin to feel brave and courageous. You take control of your emotions by taking control of your actions.
Always ask yourself, “What’s the worst possible thing that can happen if I go ahead?” Then ask, “What is the best possible thing that can happen if I am successful?” You will often find that the worst possible thing that can happen is quite small, and the best possible thing that can happen is quite significant. This exercise alone can often motivate you to take the all-important first step that leads onward to success.
FAILURE IS A GREAT TEACHER
Thomas J. Watson, Sr., the founder of IBM, put it this way: “Do you want to succeed? Then, double your rate of failure. Success lies on the far side of failure.”
Remember, failure is never final. Failure is simply a way of learning the lessons you need to succeed. The only thing of which the fear of failure can assure you is ultimate failure in life. All great men and women developed the habit of confronting their fear of failure, and acting in spite of their fear, until the habit of courage became a part of their characters.
You overcome the fear of failure by moving confidently in the direction of your dreams and acting as if it were impossible to fail. As Henry Ford said, “Failure is just another opportunity to more intelligently begin again.”
THE FEAR OF REJECTION
The fifth major cause of stress and negativity is the fear of rejection. The fear of rejection manifests itself in an overconcern for the approval of others. The fear of rejection is typically learned in early childhood as a result of a parent giving the child “conditional love.”
Many parents make the mistake of giving love and approval to their children only when their children do something that they want them to
do. A child who has grown up with this kind of “conditional love” tends to seek for unconditional approval from others all his or her life. When the child becomes an adult, this need for approval is often transferred to the workplace and onto the boss. The boss becomes, in effect, a surrogate father. The adult employee then becomes preoccupied with the opinion of the boss.
TYPE A BEHAVIOR
Drs. Rosenman and Friedman, two San Francisco heart specialists, have defined this obsession for performance as “Type A behavior.” They estimate that probably 60 percent of men and 10 percent (and growing) of women are Type A’s. This behavior can vary from mild to extreme cases. People who are what they call “true Type A’s” put so much pressure on themselves to perform that they burn themselves out and often die of heart attacks before age fifty-five. This is perhaps the most serious stress-related phenomenon in the American workplace.
The true Type A has several attitudes and behaviors in common with other Type A’s. Compare your behavior with these symptoms and see if any of them apply to you.
The most obvious sign of the true Type A is a “harrying sense of time urgency.” The Type A feels that he is in a “rat race.” He feels he is on a treadmill and can’t get off. He feels that he has to do more and more in less and less time. He always feels in a hurry and under pressure. This “time urgency” usually occurs because he is always volunteering for more and more work in order to win the approval from the boss that he never got from his father.
It’s not uncommon for companies to deliberately hire people with the Type A profile. They know that these people will work with tremendous intensity and produce far more than the average—at least until they burn out. Then, the companies fire or demote them and hire new Type A’s for their jobs.
Type A personalities have an obsession with performance, with achievement, to some undetermined high standard. No matter how much they accomplish, it’s never enough. Because they have never set themselves a measurable standard at which they can relax and enjoy their accomplishments, they keep on pushing themselves harder and harder.
No matter how successful Type A’s become, they feel a tremendous insecurity of status. They never feel they’ve done enough. If they win awards for the best salesman or best manager of the year on December 31, they feel they have to start all over again on January 1. They can never relax or rest on their laurels.
Type A’s are more concerned with things than people. They work harder and harder to rack up numbers of accomplishments—higher incomes, greater numbers of sales, more and bigger possessions, greater numbers of papers published. They believe that “the one who dies with the most toys wins!”
True Type A’s measure how well they are doing by what they can count. Type A’s talk about their possessions, number of achievements, or level of income all the time. They continually compare themselves with others, especially those who appear to be doing better than they are, and are determined to surpass them.
Type A’s bring work home. They are always talking about the boss. They are preoccupied with what the boss said, what the boss did, or what the boss meant. They have an obsession with the opinions and views of their employer. Nothing makes Type A’s happier than to get approval from the boss. Nothing makes Type A’s more upset than to be out of favor with the boss, for any reason.
Perhaps the most important distinguishing characteristic of the Type A is a feeling of aggression and hostility, especially toward coworkers with whom the Type A feels in constant competition.
Type A’s are typically angry, impatient and irritated. They work harder and harder but get little satisfaction from their work or accomplishments. They feel a sense of hopelessness, that there is nothing they can do. They feel out of control. They constantly say, “I have to do this” or “I have to do that.” They feel there’s no point where they can relax and take it easy. They finally send a message to their subconscious mind: “Get me out of here!” And the first signs of heart disease or other illnesses appear not long afterward.
TAKING CONTROL
If you recognize Type A behavior in yourself, especially the attitude of hostility and a harrying sense of time urgency, or time pressure, there are specific things that you can do to get over it.
The first step is simple. Admit it! Admit that you are a Type A personality. Many Type A’s are reluctant to admit that their work controls them completely, rather than their controlling their work. If you accuse them of demonstrating Type A behavior they will turn their hostility and aggression on you and vigorously deny it. They will lash out when their wives or husbands try to get them to slow down. They become defensive and angry when their behavior is brought to their attention.
To get over Type A behavior (which is usually fatal) you must realize that you can never find peace or happiness in your accomplishments. You can only find peace within yourself. If your father never gave you the unconditional approval you needed, you must accept that he did the best he could with what he had.
There is no point in your striving incessantly to earn the approval of your boss in order to make up for the love and approval your father never had to give you in the first place. It can only shorten your life.
The second step you must take to get over Type A behavior is for you to make the decision to change. Make the decision that you do not want to live like this any more. Make the decision that you want to become a more relaxed, more productive and more enjoyable person, parent or spouse.
Many people will admit that they are Type A’s, but then they go on to say that they are proud of it. Don’t fall into this trap. Killing yourself twenty years early with hard work is nothing to be proud of. In fact, it’s just plain stupid.
The third step to overcoming Type A behavior is to learn to relax. And the very best way to relax is to just stop. Practice complete relaxation or meditation, even solitude, for twenty minutes, twice each day.
Going for a walk in the park at lunchtime is a wonderful antidote to stress. And it’s when you are convinced that you have no time at all to take a break that it is most necessary for you to discipline yourself to do it. It is when you feel you have the least amount of time to take care of yourself that you are closest to the breaking point.
DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN TYPE A AND THE WORKAHOLIC
There is a basic difference between the Type A personality and the “workaholic.” The two are distinctly different. True Type A’s cannot take time off without thinking or talking about work. True Type A’s brag that they have not taken a vacation for years. True Type A’s take a briefcase full of work home on the weekends, and even if they go away on family vacations, they take a load of work with them and are on the telephone back to the office all the time. One of the hallmarks of the true Type A is this inability to take time off.
Another hallmark of Type A’s is that they have an external locus of control. You will hear them use the words repeatedly, “I have to, I have to, I have to.” They don’t feel that they have any control over what they do. They are always doing something because someone else wants it or someone expects it.
Workaholics are quite different. They have an internal locus of control. Workaholics are working toward self-determined goals and objectives. They get a tremendous feeling of satisfaction and pleasure from their work. Workaholics can work hard for ten, twelve or fourteen hours a day, five, six or seven days a week, but unlike Type A’s, workaholics can take a day or a week off, or go away on vacation and not think or worry about work at all.
Workaholics tend to be positive personalities, fulfilling their potential by doing something that is important to them. Workaholics have no hostility, anger or resentment. They are full of enthusiasm and excitement about their work. Workaholics are usually doing what they love to do, what they really enjoy.
This is the key difference between the workaholic and the Type A personality: the amount of enjoyment each gets from his or her work. Now, honestly, which one are you? Type A or the workaholic? Your life may depend upon how a
ccurately you answer this question.
FACING THE FACTS
The sixth major cause of stress, negativity and lost inner peace is “denial.” Denial lies at the core of most stress, unhappiness and psychosomatic illness.
Denial is the behavior of a person who refuses to face an unpleasant reality. It occurs with all its unpleasantness when you do not want to admit that there is some part of your life that is not going well. You slip into denial and pretend there’s nothing wrong. However, what the mind harbors, the body expresses. When you engage in denial for any period of time, it begins to manifest itself physically. Denial triggers insomnia, headaches, digestive problems, depression, angry outbursts and often frantic activity.
Denial takes place when some part of your life is not working and you don’t want to admit it. Denial is always accompanied by a fear of embarrassment or loss of face. Denial occurs when you refuse to admit to yourself or someone else that you are not the person you appear to be. You engage in denial when you don’t want to admit that you have changed your mind. You slip into denial when you no longer feel the way you did in the past. You use denial to cover up when you know you’ve made a mistake.
CONFRONTERS AND EVADERS
There are two personality profiles, healthy and unhealthy, that illustrate different responses to stress and denial. The first is the “Confronter” and the second is the “Evader.” At a leading university, students were tested for these distinctly different personality profiles and then divided into two groups, based on whether they were predominantly Evaders or predominantly Confronters.