I am a huge believer in taking a proactive approach to life, everywhere! I remember listening to Jimmy Johnson, the former super-bowl winning coach of the Dallas Cowboys in the 90’s, talk about another team running up the score on the loser. His perspective, which may seem a little harsh, was that the loosing team had no business complaining, instead they should get better so that running up the score never happens to them again. The essence of this perspective is to never ever blame another but to take total responsibility for your life and the outcomes in it. From a Spiritual perspective, everything in our reality is created by each of us, though not necessarily consciously.
I recently read an article in the Westport News by Mark Mathias on the years of hard work, dedication, decisions, and obstacles involved in the successful landing of the Mars rover, Curiosity. “While we all learn from our mistakes,” he said, “it’s fair to say that the successes are a whole lot more fun.”
In the world of insurance and financial planning the basic game-plan to build a successful business is to meet at least ten new prospective clients each week by scheduling at least fifteen appointments every week. The idea is that two of these meetings will turn into sales and another three may continue to be prospects. Notice that on average only two out of ten actual appointments become sales. In order to schedule all those meetings, it may take hundreds of phone calls and emails as well. In other words, there is a lot of potential and actual rejection involved.
A client in his late forties came to see me because he was having marital difficulties. On the surface it appeared that his wife is a demanding person who rarely appreciated him. His chief complaint was that she didn’t want to have consistent sex with him and that she wanted him to make more money. As we got to the heart of the matter over time, he began to share how truly unsafe he felt in their marriage. In his perception, reaching out to her and expressing himself invited criticism in return. He often felt punished and attacked. Instead of communicating, he gradually began to ignore her and avoid intimacy. Does this sound familiar?
A client of mine asked me to work with her thirteen year-old daughter who is a competitive ballerina in south Florida. I said sure, relishing the challenge of helping an adolescent in a sport that I have never experienced first hand. The cool part about working with athletes as a Sports Psychologist is that no matter what the sport, the underlying issues are similar. And so are the techniques that we can apply to address them!