Good morning, ladies and gentlemen! And Happy Friday!
Hard to believe it, but we are already on the tail end of this month. 12 days left including today. On a daily basis, we can attribute a large part of our happiness to the internal dialogue we are having. Mary Morrisey explains that, according to scientists, “92 percent of the time we are talking to ourselves. If we pay attention, there is a lot of internal dialogue that we’re engaging in almost all the time.”
On a large scale, the “internal” dialogue of a company or organization has a tremendous effect on its general culture and work environment. The mission, and even the work, may say one thing but the conversations that contribute to the day to day demeanor of the group may reflect a completely different message. I see this a lot in the education (including coaching) world. A friend of mine used the analogy yesterday (quoting somebody else … and please pardon the expression) of turning sh*t to sugar. But it’s hard to do that, when the constant conversation is about the smell.
On a smaller and more personal scale, we can have all of the plans for accomplishment and happiness that we want, but if we are constantly telling ourselves how tough things are, how many obstacles are in the way, or how unequipped we are we will never get to where we want to be. We’re throwing boulders into our own path! And not only are we hindering our external progress, we are handcuffing our own ability to be happy moment to moment.
“Make your thoughts supportive and encouraging,” says Morrisey. “Let’s pay attention to that self-talk and shift it to a higher octave, and speak to ourselves the way we would really hope others would speak to us as well, then notice what happens.” If others sometimes spoke to us or about us, the way we sometimes speak to and about ourselves, we’d probably take offense. As 2014 approaches, let’s make sure that our internal dialogue is in alignment with the happiness that we want to experience for ourselves.
Make it a GREAT day and a GREAT weekend!
Stay blessed.