Why some people are always out to please you and others just don’t want to know?

Why sometimes you get an email out of nowhere from someone who you thought you would never hear of again who wants something from you?

Well if you understand the psychology of how people make decisions, the process that EVERYONE must go through before they make a decision, then it is possible to answer these questions.

If you understand the decision-making process and can determine exactly where the person you are speaking to is in this process then it suddenly all starts to make sense!

So what is this decision-making process?

There are various steps involved in making a decision, the first one being where we start to become mildly dissatisfied with our current situation.

There might be something you are completely content with right now in your life and no matter what anyone says to you, you will confident tell them you do not need to change anything as you are happy where you are.

Now this situation could continue for some time, then one day something happens which makes you less happy with this “something”. Therefore you become open to suggest on any opportunities that come up that will improve your level of happiness.

Gradually over time your view of your situation changes from being totally uninterested to minor irritation to real dissatisfaction, and then finally to a point where you decide you’re going to do something about it.

Now you can use this to influence people’s decision making by identifying that they are in this stage and then uncover any dissatisfaction that they may have with their current situation. Having done this you then develop that dissatisfaction until it reaches the critical point where they decide that they HAVE TO change!

This means that at this early stage you hold back from making the point you want them to agree with and instead you use questions to help the customer discover their dissatisfaction and also intensify it.

These questions are known as “Problem” questions because they are about the problems, difficulties, and dissatisfactions that the other person is experiencing with their present situation and that you can solve with your idea or suggestion.

Typical examples are:

“What problems are you experiencing in this area?”

“How satisfied are you with your current…..?”

“What don’t you like about your current…..?

Now the thing about problem questions is that often it is difficult to think of them on the spur of the moment and so it is far better to have some planned.

So what problems does your suggestion solve?

A really useful exercise is to sit down with a piece of paper and write down a list of 5 to 10 common problems that you can help your customers solve.

Pick something non major to practice with and go practise influence people to make the decision you want them to make.

Step 1: Make a decision that you want to increase your self-esteem. In making this decision, make a commitment to yourself that you will work on your self esteem and do whatever it takes to overcome low self-esteem.

Step 2: Ask yourself why you have low self-esteem. What is it about your self-esteem is lacking. What do you dislike about yourself and what are you ashamed about. Try to understand your low-self esteem and where it is based.

Step 3: Is your low self esteem based on your looks or on your lack of achievements. Were you told that you were not pretty, or that you were stupid or clumsy? It is important to know where your low self esteem came from, and how it developed. This can sometimes be painful; however, it can also give you a sense of relief when you know the origin of your low-self esteem.

Step 4: Take this list and spend 5 minutes every day reading this list. It does not matter what time of day, however, get this list out and recite these things on a daily basis. Your positive traits that your have reminded yourself about will start to take centre stage over these negative traits. This is a must when you are trying how to begin overcoming low self-esteem.

Step 5: Act “as if” you feel good about yourself. In learning how to being overcoming low-self esteem, you can act as though you already have a high level of self-esteem. Do not confuse this as being a phoney. This is far from this. You are just presenting yourself to the world in a way that you may not necessarily feel inside. This is okay, because you are not lying or hurting anyone. You are “acting as if” you feel good about yourself and this is okay.

Step 6: Understand that if you act “as if” you feel good about yourself that you will eventually start to authentically feel good about yourself. The above exercise is very powerful. Since you started to focus on on all of your positive attributes and are now behaving in a way that aligns you with that belief, you will learn how to overcome low-self esteem in no time.

Tips & Warnings: Be patient, as you learn how to overcome low-self esteem. Your self-esteem did not become low overnight, and it will take some time to improve.

If low-self esteem does not start to improve with these techniques or any other self-help methods to increase self-esteem, it is really okay to get professional counselling

I would literally look in the mirror trying to find the strong assertive person the outside world was seeing. All I could see was someone who was putting up a big front to appear cool. I was confused by my personal success when I was young because I had nothing nurturing or positive in my life to which I could relate the personal growth.

At the time, I wasn’t sure why I was getting all this money and acclaim. I didn’t think I was worthy of it, and believed that I didn’t deserve success or happiness. I achieved the level of business success because I was highly skilled, but my low self-esteem drove me to throw it all away.

The consequences of my low self-esteem and self-sabotage were many. If I can, I’d like to save you from the same fate by parting the curtain.

First, my personal life: I felt unworthy of my first husband, but you wouldn’t have known it by the way I treated him. My self-sabotaging brain decided the way to keep him was to tear him down to my level so he would feel lucky to have anyone, even me. Then he wouldn’t leave me.

I still get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach thinking about how I hurt myself, my personal development and other people with my low self-esteem. Don’t ever kid yourself into thinking your level of self-esteem isn’t influencing the quality of life for people around you.

In my business life, the self-sabotage was straightforward. I would achieve a great deal of business success until it got too uncomfortable for my self-image to handle, and then I would destroy my achievement and my work/life balance.

I’d make my job undesirable by having a conflict or a philosophical difference where I would have to leave to maintain my higher ground. Some of these were pretty elaborate, so I could feel superior when I left.

Similar circumstances happen more often than you’d think. I see them played out by friends and co-workers over and over throughout the years. They’re easy to spot for someone like me, a former self-saboteur.

Self-sabotage is a self-fulfilling prophecy that puts people back in their comfort zone of. I knew it would all go away sooner or later. Nothing good ever lasts?

See, I grew up in the land of “Who do you think you are?”.

This is still a common message kids receive today. It can be difficult reconciling personal success with that message. Without a strong positive self-image, all success is temporary.

On the positive side, another self-fulfilling prophecy is that if you act as if you are self-assured, knowledgeable and have work/life balance, you will become exactly that.

You’ve heard the saying, Fake it until you make it. This is not being phoney. To become more positive, you have to start somewhere, and this is the first step towards personal growth.

The key to building self-esteem is to know that your opinion is the only one that counts. Others just influence your opinions. You can accept or reject what they say about your personal development.

High self-esteem is a gift you can only give to yourself. It’s a very valuable gift.

People who build self-esteem are in charge of their world, have work/life balance, and refrain from blaming past or present outside circumstances. They know it is up to them to take what happens in life and give it as much or little meaning as they choose.

Raise your self-esteem by becoming a master of a particular area of your life. Master one aspect of your job or a hobby. For example, start small by taking one aspect of your job that could use improvement, or develop a skill that would get you a raise or recognition.

Just making the commitment to master something will raise your self-confidence in that area. How do you feel about yourself when you do something really well?

The more things you can learn to do well, the higher your self-esteem. Take this key to success and start to build your self-esteem now.

Challenge them or try to draw them into a debate and watch out! You will be quickly labelled as inflexible and unwilling to accept “what is best”.

In Jim Collins’ book “Good to Great” he found through surveys that humble leadership (opposite of arrogance) was one of the many leadership traits that contributed to the long-term success of organizations. Humble leaders get involved, are willing to listen to opposing viewpoints, and have high self-esteem. They have high moral values, which causes them to be centred on doing things right for the right reasons. They energize others, and believe their talents are a gift to be kept in perspective both in the work place and in their personal lives.

Note: This doesn’t always apply, but you would be surprised. Look at what the arrogant leader and the humble leader drive to work. That can tell you a lot about who they are and the image they are trying to portray.

One of the things we know is that leaders can’t effectively lead if they don’t know what is going on. A telltale sign of the arrogant leader is they don’t care about the details. That is because details are beneath them. They also believe that execution is beneath them. They are the grand strategist and don’t have time to get involved in the details. They are interested in headlines, not deadlines. Serving the greater good takes a back seat to serving their own self interests.

Another trait you might see is that arrogant leaders are threatened by the “good” leaders. They fear the good leader’s success and often view them as weak and ineffective (envy is a four letter word). In fact, many arrogant leaders see humility and attentiveness in others as a character flaw. We know by observation that the arrogant leaders are the ones with the weak character, the ones with the poor communication skills, and are the ones with the low self esteem. The arrogant leader’s weaknesses are easy to spot. They don’t fool anybody but themselves. Remember the CEOs of Enron, MCI/WorldCom? At one time they were arrogant, now they are in prison.

Emotional Outburst #1 – Arrogant leaders are organizational pariahs, and are terrible project managers.

A leader that motivates and inspires has to be visible, informed, and respected. Like any good engineer knows, you sometimes have to get your hands dirty to solve problems and gain the respect of the people doing the work.

An arrogant leader is the opposite of a servant leader. Whether they wear a skirt or a suit they are inhibitors to organizational excellence and their thirst for power destroys team synergy and employee morale.

We can sum up this type of behaviour in one word…Arrogance -

As taken from the Inner Frontier

“ARROGANCE - Those to whom much has been given sometimes suffer from arrogance; or rather the people around them suffer. Arrogance is doubly a pity, because the talents of the arrogant serve primarily themselves. The arrogant assumes his views and opinions are The Truth. In arrogance, natural confidence goes sadly awry. Rather than the self-assurance born of knowing his own strengths and limitations, arrogance admits no limits. The arrogant brooks no weakness in himself and may even secretly rejoice to find flaws in others. But imperfections are inherent in being human, so the arrogant, like everyone else, always has feet of clay, however well hidden they may be. Fearing exposure, haughtiness forms a hard shell masking inner emptiness.”

It’s Like This:

You might think you can get away with being naughty not nice — but your soul will always know when you misbehave. Your soul will always know the truth about what you are doing — or not doing — even if nobody else knows. It’s as if your soul is a constant candid camera recording the reality of your life wherever you go. If you’re naughty too often — you will become an unhappy person with low self-esteem — and thereby you will on a subconscious level feel as if you are NOT worthy of a high level true love!

Listen up! Aristotle said it well when he said:

“Dignity consists not in possessing honours, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.”

Meaning? There is no way to dupe your soul! Hence it’s highly worthwhile to consistently choose morally right actions your soul can be proud of!

Aristotle’s #1 secret for happiness both in life and in love: Be goddamn virtuous!

Unfortunately, here in America this big secret for overall happiness seems to be remaining a big secret. Too many people have sold their souls — winding up with what I jokingly refer to as “soulds”!

With these “soulds” of theirs, people pursue instantaneous indulgence gratification in the form of lying, hurting others, drugging, overeating, cheating in business, cheating in love, winning at any/all costs at the costs of others. BUT — the cost these people with “soulds” are paying is a high one: unfulfilling love lives, low self-esteem and rampant depression!

Aristotle was a big believer that every time you behaved immorally — performing actions your soul was not proud of — you tarnished your “sould.”

Aristotle went on to say that the worst shape your soul became in — the worst shape your mood and self esteem.

Basically, you cannot be a happy, confident person if you don’t nurture your soul with actions your soul can be proud of!

The larger and more frequent your unsoulful acts (i.e., being unkind, ungenerous, inconsiderate, immoral) the more tarnished your “sould” — and the deeper your sadness and lesser your self assurance.

Although you might think you can get away with being unkind, ungenerous, inconsiderate and immoral — you can never lie to your soul.

In my opinion, this bad “sould” versus good soul theory of happiness is why Prozak and Zoloft don’t truly work long-term on many people — that is people without true chemical imbalances.

It’s Like This:

If you take these happiness pills, and don’t change your life for the soul-nurturing better, you’re simply making superficial changes in your brain chemistry. Prozak and Zoloft might be able to temporarily fool your brain chemistry into believing you are a happy person.

Unfortunately, Prozak and Zoloft do not work on your soul!

Unless you start to create major soul-nurturing life changes while on these happiness pills, you will remain an unhappy person.

SO IN SUMMARY TO MY PREVIOUS SUMMARY…

Emotions are messages – they are there to guide us to keep doing more actions we are proud of — so as to keep on feeling as happy as possible on the inside. Yes – positive emotions are our reward for consciously choosing to do actions we are proud of us – and grow into our highest potential selves. And according to Aristotle, we feel our most happiness when we are in what he called “a relationship of shared virtue” – a relationship where each partner inspires the other to grow into their highest potential self — a relationship in which you will feel worthy of pursuing — and excited to pursue – if you already value becoming your highest potential self!

Capiche?

At a workshop I attended sometime back, the majority of the participants cited procrastination as the main cause of not beginning a task, a dream or a desire. They knew exactly what to do, but the problem came in the actual doing. I must admit to having this particular syndrome many times in my life. It became so detrimental to my life that I had to discover what was going on. Then came the awareness. I looked at the things I did quite easily without delay. What was the difference?

It wasn’t passion. I am passionate about writing, yet for a long time I would put off writing these blog posts.

I looked at the reasons why I had to do the thing that I procrastinated on. Was it something that I had to or should do, or something that I wanted to do? I did not have to write these blog posts; but I definitely wanted to. It took a shift in mindset, then the means to blog daily came so easily and effortlessly.

If procrastination is plaguing you, look at the reasons why you are doing the thing you keep putting off. Is it because you want to or because you think you should do it? Remember, stop “shoulding” over yourself. And if it is a task that you must do to move to another level, then reframe why you are doing it. Say to yourself, “I get to do _____, which will move me closer to ______!”

It’s all about awareness and making conscious choices. This is your life and you only get one; but if you work it right, one is all you need!

“Procrastination is not the cause of our problems with accomplishing tasks; it is an attempt to resolve a variety of underlying issues, includ¬ing low self-esteem, perfec¬tionism, fear of failure and of success, indecisiveness, an imbalance between work and play, ineffective goal-setting, and negative concepts about work and yourself.” ~ Dr. Neil Fiore, The NOW Habit