Originally published in “1 Habit of the World’s Greatest Leaders†book…
As a leader, when we celebrate others’ success by recognizing their wins frequently, expressing our appreciation, and acknowledging all the things someone does, the person feels valued. The few words showing authentic praise can then sustain their enthusiasm and contribution.
As a leader, when we celebrate success, we reactivate our success patterns. It helps us express self-appreciation, and clarify and highlight our value and relevance. It keeps us passionate about continuous growth and exceeding our previous accomplishments.
Celebrate successes every day – for ourselves as a leader and for the people around us, including our work teams.
In psychology, negative bias overestimates threats and underestimates our ability to manage them, causing precursor and companion of burnout.
Research has shown it takes at least five positive reinforcements for every negative one. Positive reinforcements build up our inner reservoir to counter setbacks as well as strengthen our relationship muscles.
As we deepen the grooves in our brain that store positive experiences, our automatic reaction to stimuli becomes more life-affirming than inadequacy or survival-based stimuli. These experiences help produce feel-good hormones like norepinephrine, dopamine, and oxytocin. These neurotransmitters contribute to our mental health and resilience and; therefore increase our productivity and motivation. So it is essential to give clear and authentic feedback to ourselves and others that highlight our strengths, talents, skills, willingness, and work ethics.
A positive foundation of self-awareness and awareness of others builds all of our sense of well-being. For example, people are more motivated and excited about work if they feel good about what they are doing and positive. Conversely, as high as 79% of people quit their jobs due to lack of appreciation, according to O.C. Tanner.
The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more in life to celebrate.
Oprah Winfrey
NEW HABIT: CALM THE JUDGMENTAL VOICE
Most of us have an inner judgmental voice that is oppressive, degrading, burdensome, and taxes our emotional and mental energy. Working each day with a barrage of negativity brought by the judgmental voice causes internal stress, ultimately costing us our creativity and productivity. It also limits our hope and stops us from successfully pursuing our dreams.
Critical inner voices often copy childhood trauma dialogue. The brain continues working, but its growth rate slows right down, creating a vulnerability to anxiety, and depression, and less resilience to stress.
We understand that the judgmental voice is a habit. It’s a habit that is detrimental to our health, including our physical health. It hijacks our logical and positive thought processes, thereby suffocating our emotional well-being. This habit is no different than any other unhealthy habit. As habits are, they can be broken!
Once we can stop the judgmental voice – and break the habit – we have the potential to see, focus on, and grow what’s positive inside of us and in our lives. If we are doing something wrong, it allows us to observe the error and move on. Instead of having the negative/judgmental voice continue to punish us. At this point, we are free to successfully!
As a leader, we must have tools to help people break through their inner judgment and focus on building positive will that ensures that the negative voice will not weigh them down destroy their morale, and derail their productivity. Instead, they can replace their negative self-image with a clean canvas to paint their new aspirations, and hopes and follow positive guidance for their projects and life.
Once they are on the track to focus on the positive, their life will change for the better because they will be able to choose to follow different inner guidance and adjust their negative behaviors.