“You’ll see it when you believe it.” - Wayne Dyer

Every now and then I receive a dose of encouragement…

The family my fiancee’ had lived with was always supportive. The husband had suffered a head injury years before.

“You’ve done so well, Al. Your parents must be awfully proud of you,” Betty the wife would say. She was always saying positive things to me.

I shrugged. “Yeah. They’re proud. Who can blame ‘em?” I laughed.

Making jokes whenever people complimented me was easier than acknowledging the compliment. Since I didn’t believe the positive things people said about me, it was hard for me to accept compliments. I didn’t feel good about myself, so I didn’t really believe anyone else did either.

I thought people said nice things to me because they felt sorry for me.

During the initial years after my accident, people complimented me and frequently told me they admired all the hard work I was doing. This would have boosted my self-esteem, if only I had believed them.

How Could I Believe Them?

I saw myself as pathetic, someone to be pitied, not someone who deserved respect or admiration. As I mentioned, during this time if I received a positive compliment, I’d laugh and shrug it off.

What was unfortunate about this time is that when someone said something negative or derogatory about me, I latched onto it and made it part of my self-belief. This was something I could identify with because it was what I already believed about myself.

In other words, all my accomplishments, all the goals I reached, and limits I overcame did not fill my self-esteem bucket because of the negative way I thought and spoke about myself.

Speaking positively, to myself and others, is the most important thing I can do to raise my self-esteem.

8 Powerful Steps I Use to Fill My Self-Esteem Bucket:

1. Appreciate Myself - I appreciate myself for the goals I’ve achieved. And if I can’t achieve an entire goal, I celebrate the part I did achieve.
   1. For example, one of my goals was to run again. Am I running? No. But at least I no longer have to use a wheelchair or a walker.
   2. Another goal was to sing. Am I singing? No, at least not well enough for people to enjoy it. But do I have to point out letters on an alphabet board? No I don’t.
   3. It was also my goal to be a good driver. Am I a good driver? Not as good as I could be, but at least I have a license saying I’m legal. And at least I don’t have to take the bus or rely on others to shuttle me around.

The point is that the harder I try to reach a goal, the more my self-esteem bucket is filled, even if I don’t reach the goal completely. If I reach every goal the first time I try, my goals are too easy. I add the most to my self-esteem bucket by trying and failing and trying again, until I either succeed or prove a particular goal is either out of reach or not worth pursuing.

When I succeed, I take a little time to celebrate my victories.

This is the first in a 2 part article…in our next article we’ll discuss the other 7 of my 8 steps.

Keynote and Motivational Speaker Al Foxx provides thoughtful and inspiring messages that include plenty of humor.

Contact him the next time you need a speaker

The easiest to notice disabilities are physical. But psychological or emotional disabilities are more likely to be harmful to others, especially if the person with the disability has a goal to harm others.

One person’s goal may seem so trivial, or so out of the box, that someone else would consider it a sickness or a twisted hobby rather than a goal.  Nonetheless, when you think of the billions of people on this planet, only some of whom are either self absorbed or socially disabled in some other way, it is important to remember these people compose a small percentage of the potentially millions of goal makers.

Billions of potential goal makers making billions of goals makes it seem like an oversimplification to say that all those goals can be boiled down and fit neatly into one or more of four categories.  But such is the case.

Goal Categories

The three goals on the first level, the main level, are self serving. Many people never go beyond this point. However, some people do. These people are known for their compassion and generosity. Mother Theresa is an example. Before we talk about the fourth goal, let’s list and discuss the first three:

#1 – To Be: These type of goals are usually long range in nature and may require the ability to delay gratification and stay focused on a particular desired end. They may result in benefiting someone else, but they may not.

#2 – To Do: These goals can be long range, but they’re usually concerning that day or hour. And they could possibly involve benefiting others, but the condition of our society proves that they usually benefit the person who has them.

#3 – To Get: These goals involve everything from getting a cup of coffee to getting a college degree, and like the previous two can benefit others or just the one with the goal.

Goals to Bless Others

#4 – To Give: Happiness comes when you give more than you get.

It’s easy to forget, or to not be aware of, the discomfort caused by visible and invisible disabilities. So remember what Aristotle said: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”

When we spend our time concerned about giving the 3 As, Attention, Affection and Appreciation, to others, we develop the habit of feeling good because we’re thinking of others. This is why the Golden Rule is Golden.

“We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”
– Winston Churchill

Keynote and Motivational Speaker Al Foxx provides thoughtful and inspiring messages that include plenty of humor.

Contact him the next time you need a speaker

Do you blame others for your limitations, or do you take responsibility for the way things are in your life?

If you’re blaming others, instead of taking responsibility, you are locking yourself in a prison and giving the person you’re blaming the key.

Another word for blaming others is resentment. Resenting others is one of the least productive and most injuring thing you can do to yourself. Blaming, or resenting, others is like drinking a glass of poison and hoping someone else dies.

Taking Back the Key

Taking back the key is a simple process, but it involves a degree of humility and can be very difficult. Taking back the key, thereby freeing yourself from your prison, is done by accepting responsibility for where you are in life.

While accepting responsibility for conditions in your life will free you from the prison created by blaming others, accepting responsibility created a prison of regret that left me feeling miserable for many of the choices I’ve made.

Neither resentment nor regret are emotions we want, nor have to live with. The power of acceptance, which is a willingness to be satisfied, can set us free from living in a prison of negative feelings toward ourselves or others.

Overpowering Cheerleaders

A cheerleaders job is to get the positive energy higher by putting positive energy out there. Life reflects back to us the emotions we exude. Whether we give off positive or negative energy, that is the type of energy that will come back to us. You get back what you give. What goes around comes around.

If they’re trusted, one way a friend or manager helps their friend or the person they’re managing succeed is by increasing their humility. Humble people are not locked in prisons of resentment, they don’t harbor negative feelings toward themselves or others and they experience and accept their cheerleaders’ encouragement.

Keynote and Motivational Speaker Al Foxx provides thoughtful and inspiring messages that include plenty of humor.

Contact him the next time you need a speaker

Addiction Attitudes can have holds of supernatural power; their grip feels strong as death. This post is about the solution many people have discovered to be the only LASTING SOLUTION.

Addiction Attitudes can involve anything from drugs and alcohol to food, resentment, self pity, hyper sensitivity or any other selfish, self serving behavior.

The person in the grip of addiction may give up on living. They can feel dead, like they should be buried. Living a happy or productive life may seem like the impossible dream.

Family and friends may give up on the addicted and their “insane” Attitudes. They may distance themselves, saying the addicted ones are a waste of their time. Whether the “insanity” is self induced or of a more sinister origin, there is a solution. There is a way to have sanity restored.

Where does the addiction begin?

The addicted may have gone so far into their addiction that they have broken all restraints. They mistakenly struggle to be free from the control of society and loved ones, only to discover that their bondage doesn’t come from outside sources, but from their own self-serving Attitudes.

Things can get so bad, all hope seems lost. But where there is still life, there is still hope.

Twelve step programs…

which had their beginnings in the original 12 step program developed by Dr. Bob Smith and Bill Wilson back in 1935 provide a map leading us out of the jungle of obstinacy, sensitivities and unreasoning prejudices to a place where addicts see themselves in right relation to other people, places and things.

Realizing that over indulging in sex, food, alcohol, needs for attention or anything else is a symptom of a deeper problem happens in the early stages of recovery. Another occasion that occurs early in recovery is realizing and admitting that certain Attitudes have also been source of problems.

Twelve step groups that provide places for people to give and receive experience, strength and hope are time tested places where people learn to have a Spiritual experience that results in them having new Attitudes of love, peace and patience. Speaking to participants reveals the incredible value of maintaining a Teamwork type Attitude.

The ongoing result of this spiritual awakening is a new Attitude that is more peaceful than any Attitude the spiritually awakened say they have previously known.

And it’s for sure more peaceful than any of the previous Attitudes I’ve held onto.

Keynote and Motivational Speaker Al Foxx provides thoughtful and inspiring messages that include plenty of humor.

Contact him the next time you need a speaker

When life gets rough, sometimes gratitude is the only antidote. Caring about others is a sure source of gratitude.

It won’t quit raining. The storm keeps coming. Getting our Attitude vaccinated with gratitude helps us to dance in the rain. Sounds hokey. How does gratitude vaccinate our Attitudes?

By having an Attitude of acceptance toward the things we cannot change.  How can I accept the unacceptable?

By helping someone else accept their unacceptable. Everyone has problems. Find someone to help.

Challenging the Challenger

When I am visiting my friend Wayne (he lives in a long term care nursing facility), I’m dealing with my challenges. I’m helping me. It is impossible for me to feel sorry for myself when I’m helping someone else deal  with their challenges.

Sure, I am a hemiplegic with the left half of my body paralyzed so I am unable to do many of the things I used to take for granted, but when I visit a fellow former motorcycle rider who is in much worse condition than I’m in, I’m super thankful I came through my crash as well as I did.

It is absolutely impossible for me to have a bad attitude when I visit Wayne. Visiting him makes me feel thankful I’m in good enough shape to be a visitor in the hospital who can come and go at will. I’m also thankful I can make Wayne smile, again and again.

Blessings in Challenges

I can’t help but feel grateful when I visit Wayne. Visiting him helps me to focus on what I have instead of what I don’t have. We all have more than we don’t have.

The best thing I can think to say to someone who is facing their own type of “motorcycle crash” is this:

“Find yourself a Wayne.” It’ll give you a shot of gratitude.

My thoughts and prayers are with you.

Book Al to share his humor and his inspiration and find hope in your own possibilities.