What Are You Worth

“Be undeniably good. No marketing effort or social media buzzword can be a substitute for that.” — Anthony Volodkin, Hype Machine founder

The grand folks at Despair.Com always provide an ironic twist to motivational posters. Such as the poster above regarding your 'worth' in a job.

It is easy to think we are irreplaceable when it comes to our job. If we believe in the idea that what we do is singularly necessary for the survival of a business, then life lays an easy trap for us to fall into.

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." - Albert Einstein

What happens is you start focusing on why you should be kept around. When you do this, the trap has been set and self importance enters in. You allow yourself to become bigger then the job itself.

This is where you should stop and reassess the way you are performing your job. Your focus should be on doing those things which rise above what is expected of you; above that which is common place.

"Sometimes something worth doing is worth overdoing." - David Letterman

In the bigger picture of your job place, you really have no absolute control over what happens unless you own the business. And sometimes even that is not enough. Many times you are simply caught up in the whirlwind of circumstances of the business world.

What you do have control of is the ability to perform your job the best you can. Go beyond what is expected. Those who out perform, those who serve to those in authority will normally be the ones who remain and advance.

Be a person of complaint and chances of job loss increase.

Be a person who goes beyond and your potential increases.

Stay inspired my friends!

New You

“How would your life be different if…You stopped allowing other people to dilute or poison your day with their words or opinions? Let today be the day…You stand strong in the truth of your beauty and journey through your day without attachment to the validation of others” ―Steve Maraboli

I do it.

You do it.

All of us do it.

Each and everyone of us self evaluate our own worth and value as humans. Researchers say this has to do with the various parts of our human make-up; self-esteem, self-image and simply knowing that we exist.

In an article by Leon Pomeroy, Ph.D., George Mason University, he asks the question, "Must we be habitual self-evaluators? Cultural conditioning makes it likely! However, we have a choice! We can choose to go through life striving to be a success for all the wrong reasons; or we can accept that we are unconditionally worthwhile, and strive for success for all the right reasons."

The hardest part for many is to simply accept we are worthwhile in and of ourselves. We struggle with a constant inner voice berating and putting us down. For each of us to overcome is to find out the reason for the voice and destroy it. Maybe it was a very poor parent, teacher or person of authority in their life that engrained it so much the voice lives on. Those with this voice feed it daily and keep it strong in their life.

One needs to learn how to choke off the life of that negative voice and find a new inner voice to feed. But just how does one do that? In several articles I have read over the years, it tends to boil down to these basic ideas to turn your world around

1. Take inventory of yourself: It is said, "You can’t fix what you don’t know." Take a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle and on one side write: “Strengths” and on the other write: “Weaknesses.” Make a list of ten items in each column. Now you know what things you have to change and those you need to work on. Just make sure you do something with the list; strengthen the strengths and weaken the weaknesses.

2. Explore Yourself: You may know about yourself due to step one above, but you must also open yourself to new opportunities, new thoughts, a new way of doing things. This could be new opinions, new friendships or new vision of where you want to be in life.

3. Set Realistic Expectations: Nothing harm your self-esteem more than setting unrealistic expectations. Setting attainable and stretch goals will help you end negative thinking about yourself that reinforces negative self-esteem.

4. Stop Comparing Yourself to Others: Nothing hurts our self-esteem more than unfair comparisons. this can be difficult to do, but stop comparing yourself to others. You are them and they are not you. Challenge yourself to be the best you can be by raising a BAR of expectation in your life.

5. Set Aside Perfection, Grab a Hold of Accomplishments: Perfection is not attainable despite all of the air-brushed models in advertisements or perfection of families on television may seem. None of us are ever going to be perfect. Take those accomplishments (large or small) and revel in each one of them as you achieve them.

6. Be Willing to Adjust: Self-esteem is useless if it’s based upon an older version of you that no longer exists. Keep adjusting your self-image and self-esteem to match your current abilities and skills, not those of your past.

For me, there is a God factor in all of this as well. Yet it is for you to find that aspect of your existence. Additionally, all of this is going to take time. There will be points of great strides forth and times of falling backwards. The point is to move in a positive direct and over time you will find yourself like yourself a lot more.

Stay inspired my friends.

Chains That Bind

"So often time it happens, we all live our life in chains, and we never even know we have the key." ~The Eagles, "Already Gone"

We have a tendency to place limitations on our own lives. We believe that many of those limitations are placed there by others. The source of all our failure is someone else. There will never be any rising above our circumstance if we do not step beyond those thoughts.

Much of our failure is due to self-defeating words we speak inside. The kind of words we tell ourselves which are negative in nature. When you look down deep, you will find the word that has been holding you back.

It may be fear, fear of failing at what you want to do. Do not forget that many successful people failed many times before success happened. Yet they kept learning from it and kept moving forward.

It may be hurt, hurt from what others have done or said to you. So much that you have accepted that pain from them. Let go the pain and leave it in the past. Move on and away from what was.

It may be dumb, feeling you are not smart enough to do anything more then you have. We each have levels of ability, but reading more and believing in experience of life will allow you to become more knowing.

It may be self worth, that others have told you so many times you would never amount to anything. Those people can not determine your value in life, those were only words that you have to release from your life.

These and any of those defeating words need to be removed from your mind and more importantly from your heart. They are the chains that bind you from achieving so much more in life. And you hold the key to remove those chains, no one else.

Replace the negative with positive words. Replace fear with courage, replace dumb with smart or replace ugly with beautiful. These words will eventually overpower and become the norm in your life. You need to speak these words when you speak of yourself, never the negative ones. You will begin to believe and draw strength from them.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about sitting in front of a mirror like that character from Saturday Night Live, Stuart Smalley. What I am talking about is believing in yourself and not letting others dictate who you are.

When you step out of the labels that others have placed upon you, your life becomes much clearer. You unlock the weight of those chains that you have allowed to become a part of your life. Only you can choose to change, only you can choose to unlock the door through which you step. Your world, your life will be greater.

Stay inspired my friends!