Life! By Design_ 6 Steps to an Extraordinary You - Laura Morton [31]
Addiction to Opinions of Others
1. You are concerned about what others say or think about you.
2. You have good ideas and intentions but find yourself afraid to act on them.
3. You overleveraged yourself financially with cars, clothes, homes, jewelry, and more.
4. You are constantly seeking other people’s approval or avoiding their disapproval.
5. You’re afraid to speak in public.
6. You’re afraid to speak your mind.
Addiction to Drama
1. You love to gossip.
2. You are always in the middle of a crisis.
3. You’re glued to the news, magazines, and stories about others.
4. You tend to overreact rather than behave rationally.
5. You make things a bigger deal than they actually are.
6. You’re a pot stirrer.
Addiction to the Past
1. You constantly talk about the past and the way things used to be.
2. You resist change.
3. You continually fail to plan for a better future.
4. You argue that things used to be better in the past.
5. You’ve allowed relationships to become stale, uninteresting, and without passion.
6. You behave as though you have physically and/or mentally peaked.
Addiction to Worry
1. You’re depressed, concerned, and fearful about everything.
2. You spend time with other worriers.
3. You turn to TV and movies to escape the thoughts in your head.
4. You continually wake up at night from your mind chatter.
5. You think first of the worst-case scenario.
6. You use food, alcohol, or drugs to control your moods and feelings.
External decision makers constantly seek the opinions of others, asking for their approval in ways such as, “Do you like this idea?” and “Am I right?” “Does this dress look nice on me?” “Are we in the right place?” “Am I doing the right thing?” and “Are we okay?” They’re thought of as team players because they want to get everyone involved in their process. They simply can’t move forward without validation from others.
Consider this example. Have you ever come up with an idea that you thought was brilliant?
You said to yourself, “No one else has ever thought of this” and you’re convinced you’re going to make millions of dollars on it, right?
You tell your wife, best friend, boss, whoever is important to you, and they say, “That’s a terrible idea! No one will ever buy that.”
Wham! You’ve been stopped cold before you got your idea off the ground. What happened to the dream? It died on the table. There’s no commitment, no follow-through, and no attempt to make it happen. You fall right back into your active coma and continue living a humdrum life. Someone else’s opinion meant more to you than your dream. You placed a higher value on their opinion than on your brilliant idea. Imagine if the founders of Apple, Facebook, and Google gave up the first time someone told them “no” or said, “No one will ever spend that much time connecting with friends on a computer.”
Several years ago, I ran a contest at one of my seminars offering one year of free coaching for the winner. Carol, a new realtor from San Diego, won the grand prize. From the moment we met, I knew she was destined to do something great.
Carol had just started selling real estate and wanted to improve her productivity. When we met, she had sold only three houses during the first seven months of the year, making barely enough money to support her family and cover her bills and obligations. She and I talked often even though she was working with another coach in my firm. It was important to me that she gain every possible edge during her year of free coaching. I made her success my personal goal.
Five months into Carol’s coaching work, she asked me for personal advice. As I always do, I asked her to share her story with me. I wanted her to tell me about her parents, siblings, relationships, and children. She told me about her four kids, her unsupportive ex-husband and parents, and other personal struggles that she was facing. She wanted me to help her get on track while balancing her role as mother and coping with her unsupportive parents and the possibility of a new relationship, all