Last week, we began talking about Achievement with the Self Discipline Factor.
We could have begun anywhere. But it makes sense to start with a pillar of achievement, self discipline. A snappy recap: Self discipline is not an attitude or a feeling. It is a discipline. It is DO-UNTIL.
Self Discipline is what makes great people great. It's what makes good people good and bad people bad. It is a learned skill that is psychologically reinforced one way or the other.
That means you reward good behavior and you get good future behavior. You bail out banks and auto companies and you train the corrupt and inept to continue to fail. The science is that simple.
Secondly, we talked about Overconfidence and the need for it's eradication..
All of the research shows that under-confident people simply can't achieve. Where there is no belief in the self or it is very small, self discipline never has an opportunity to engage.
On the other side of the continuum, The Over-Confident person OFTEN achieves for a brief period, but then falls and falls hard.
Self Confidence is highly correlated with financial and relationship success.
Overconfidence and arrogance are highly correlated with success and then failure.
And today, criticism...
...I'm just like you. I don't like criticism (even "constructive criticism") and I don't like rejection (even constructive rejection....oh yeah...there is no constructive rejection).
Achievement Factor: Mastering Criticism
Could it be THE determining factor in achievement?
Maybe....Why do kids quit or fail to achieve?
They fail immediately at walking, talking, manners, riding a bike, playing a game, making decisions, adding, subtracting, running into the wall, ...everything. There is nothing a child gets right.
How the parents and the people in the environment deal with that chronic failure (learning experiences) is in large part going to shape that child's potential for success.
"If at first you don't succeed try, try again."
Thank God my Mom got that one right.
Some parents chose to say things like this:
"You will never get it right."
"You are learning disabled, don't worry about it. No one expects you to do a good job."
"You can't do anything right, can you?"
Pick a phrase. They were all destructive.
In large part these statements and the reactions they triggered in you determined whether you went to work for the government or became an entrepreneur.
None of us like to do things that we fail at. We get embarrassed and we get criticized when we do a bad...or sometimes even when we do a good... job.
What's so fascinatng about criticism and why it's so necessary to MASTER YOUR REACTIONS TO IT is that it is BEYOND YOUR CONTROL.
You do absolutely nothing wrong and....you get criticized.
It makes your head spin.
That is the real world.
And you hear enough criticism in a week that could fill a year.
So HOW do you MASTER THAT WHICH YOU CANNOT CONTROL?! ...turn the page...
Some parents chose to say things like this: