Behaviors are the way in which we act and conduct ourselves. It is a response to a particular situation or something that triggers us. How we behave affects how things unfold that determines the outcome. The better we behave, the better chance we have at handling things well. It is not so much that things go our way but how we choose to respond to what we experience.
Mike Tyson’s says, “everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”, that’s where you find out how you will handle things, where it just rocks your world when the things you did not anticipate go wrong. We don’t generally plan on experiencing setbacks unless all confidence has just been crushed but they will occur. We can either behave in a manner that chooses to rise up to the challenges that are presented in front of us or we can surrender. Life can be seen as how we respond, which comes from how we behave.
Some of the behaviors that we display are because they are instinctive so they're already kind of ingrained into us such as the fight or flight response. The want to survive and we'll do what's necessary to keep on surviving. And some other behaviors that we display we have adopted them and learned them through most likely is what we see others doing it. Our ability to learn is what can improve our lives because it can mean better handling certain situations like responding calmly in a time of crisis instead of panicking. Or we can learn bad behaviors many times from what we see others doing.
Learned helplessness
Whatever person or people that we gravitate towards, look up to, admire or even a level of authority figure is what we tend to emulate. The company that we keep is what really drives home many behaviors, whether good or bad. The little things are what sneak into our lives that change us without us really seeing the difference. If the people that we most associate with complain much of the time, then so will we because it is a common thing that is shared amongst the group.
This can lead to what is called learned helplessness where negativity and uncontrollable things makes one stop trying to change their circumstances even when they can do something about it. The focus on the uncontrollable things and on what is too hard gives off the feeling of why bother trying, that the hole is too deep to get out of. This creates a sense of suppression of emotions and a loss of power that can lead into an all or nothing approach. The sense of belief or lack of what is possible is ready to give up at a moment’s notice, that when things get difficult, or any resistance is felt it means it is not possible.
Learned helplessness can be picked in many ways but what is common in people picking it is when things are not easy, that uncomfortableness has not been worked through to try to get better, to find a way to make progress. Sometimes people might talk down to a person that cripples their confidence that leads to negative self-talk, that they are unworthy. This can make it feel like they are the victim, and the more time goes on the greater that feeling becomes. This can lead to others giving them their attention and sympathy, which is not helping them out. Being the victim can make that attention feel validating because it provides a level of comfort.
Learned optimism
Just like helplessness can be learned the opposite of it can be learned which is optimism that is rooted in positive thinking. Where instead of seeing things as an all or nothing approach, it is more about making progress. That adversity, challenges, and setbacks are opportunities to be better. That for one to get stronger, it involves experiencing stress. At times we might think about how rosy things can be, but the reality is the road we all travel will be bumpy, and that optimism can help us stay focused on the things within our control.
It is not being worried about the things outside of your control because it does not contribute to giving your best and it damages confidence. It is knowing that things will be difficult to handle at times but that optimism that is learned keeps you composed enough to stick with things. It is still natural to have that sense of I lost again, or I came up short again and that optimism fuels that self-talk to empower you to rebound to tell yourself, I figured out what I need to do better next time or saying I will find a way to overcome this setback. This helps you harness that power that you have and once you choose to use it, you’ll realize how much more is possible by focusing on the progress you can make.
Overcoming helplessness
The great thing about our behaviors is that we can change them for the better. If learned helplessness is something that you may be struggling with, surrounding yourself with others who are uplifting and focused on what can be done instead of what can’t, is a great starting point. Their energy and behaviors can eventually rub off onto others. Where instead of complaining about a situation the focus is about what are the solutions to it. If we have time to worry about things, then we better make time to do something about it. If not, it must not be that important and it creates a greater sense of feeling helpless.
Reducing the amount of negativity that is said out loud is also a great way to leave behind feeling helpless, almost like there is no way to get negativity going. You will still experience negative thoughts but not saying it out loud takes away its power. Instead, when things turn out poorly challenge yourself and say what am I going to do about it. Complaining and excuses will not help you get through this.
Evaluate what other behaviors contribute to feeling helpless and work on them one at a time. It might help to write down what behaviors you want to incorporate and practice them. This ingrains into your memory and has a better chance of sticking. This gives you a general map of the direction you will take your life. Without knowing what you are striving for, there is a greater chance of feeling lost because you are not sure if you are headed in the right direction. Without any direction there is a tendency to fall into negativity because it is human nature to self-doubt.
Cognitive and habitual learning
The behaviors that we pick up are done through cognitive learning or through habitual learning. Cognitive learning involves assessing the situation and the environment to determine which behaviors are needed to help. If you think about shooting a basketball for the first time the tendency to pause helps evaluate how to do it. So paying close attention to having steady hands, determining how far the ball needs to be thrown, how high to throw it and how much force to use are important points to help make it in the hoop. This learning is flexible and helps remember certain things for future actions.
Habitual learning is also known as conditioning when an action repeatedly forms a certain outcome. Certain behaviors are controllable where we have the power to say yes or no to a certain set of actions. Sometimes it can feel that many of our behaviors are uncontrollable but that is because maybe we have not given it enough thought to see how it can be managed. So, while getting angry at someone stealing something from you, it might cause the urge to want to knock them out, but you can choose to not give into that behavior. It will be difficult to resist but it can be done. Other behaviors are uncontrollable where anxiety arises in certain situations that can cause excessive worrying, restlessness, difficulty concentrating or other similar things.
Knowing this helps us realize that we can develop ourselves. The debate of whether leaders are born or made is not solely you are as is. Some people do inherit some traits that great leaders show but that does not mean they will, and some people may not be gifted with certain traits, but they can certainly develop them. Watching how others lead are great examples of what one wants to incorporate and what to avoid. Many things can be learned from great leaders on how to manage difficult times and learning from their errors. But also learning from bad leaders is also a huge advantage, having the ability to recognize how not to lead points out what things you should avoid.
There are some great leaders who developed themselves and things were not just given to them. Some examples include Andrew Carnegie who came from a poor upbringing and led the steel expansion in the late 19th century to become the richest man at the time. His work ethic and curiosity led him to figure things out, looking for specific things to make one move after another that just build on each other. Or if you look at Dave Thomas who founded the hamburger chain restaurant Wendy’s, he never knew his birth mother, was adopted, and worked at a very young age. He went on to serve in to serve in the army and then took over running a KFC which he bought and sold which allowed him to start up Wendy’s.
Both Dale and Dave's story shows us that we can work ourselves into what we're striving for with enough commitment. That we don't need all these different resources to be afforded certain opportunities. That their experience along the way has developed them and we can look to them as examples that we all can do the same. This goes beyond leadership, so we can develop our intelligence, our creativity, our ability to handle difficult moments.
Incorporating behaviors of those that excel
Sometimes we look to compare ourselves and when others might be making more progress or are just advanced in certain areas than we are, there can be a tendency to feel bad about ourselves. Where we wonder how come I'm not at the level of what others are at and this can lead into certain behaviors that hold us back. Unaware of these limiting behaviors is what causes us to remain stuck. Instead of comparing ourselves to those that might be a little bit more advanced than what we are, leverage that and say what are they doing that I need to do. There's nothing wrong with following a particular game plan to help you out.
When you start to learn about the behaviors of those people that are good at what they do, you're probably going to find out that they just have an incredible focused attitude that is built on a strong work ethic. That they're constantly looking to challenge and improve themselves. Look to see how they prepare for what they do, looking at how they respond to adversity and failure but also how they handle their success as well. There is a tendency for these individuals to be more accountable for themselves and they probably have a self-starter attitude.
During the Chicago Bulls incredible run in the 90’s, practice would start by head coach Phil Jackson meeting with the players of what they're going to focus on that day and right after that everybody gets into they're warming up routine but Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen would go directly to the locker room for treatment to recover from their workout. They were already in the facility training 3 hours prior to practice. By being able to look at those that produce great results, we can see the foundation that they laid that might help us out. We can emulate those strong behaviors.
The term that is used in sports where they talk about a player with a high level of composure, they might reference them as having ice water in their veins where the moment does not become too big for them. In some cases, some of these players are a bit more inclined to be able to stay composed and others not so much but what we can learn from how we come to incorporate certain behaviors is that we can develop that level of composure where the moment is not too overwhelming.
Behaving your way into existence
An incredible performance where it seems like a particular player is showing no pulse, that they're not in the least bit nervous, we're only seeing kind of the final product. What we don't see is the months and years of preparation to get to that point. That the practice times, the training sessions, and the games that they fell short in are not seen or maybe they're forgotten about so we might automatically think and they're just naturally able to handle all that pressure. But they've developed themselves through all that preparation for that moment that they flourished in.
Just modifying our behaviors a little bit can make such a big difference. The University of Alabama brought in an incredible consultant, Trevor Moward, who helped the players and coaches understand that stop saying negative things out loud because it perpetuates things. That saying it out loud makes your mind more focused on it happening.
When a bad play happens or somebody just makes a mistake instead of saying, we're going to lose or here we go again, that is a time to just not say anything negative. That you don't have to say so much anything positive but just not saying those self-defeating thoughts out loud helps you limit your mind from focusing on the bad things that could happen. It's about resetting and focusing on the next play. It's knowing that what happened in the past you can't change it so you might as well focus on your behaviors and actions that are what's going to make the difference going forward.
Our behaviors are a predictor of our future. They signal where our focus and energy are going to go to so we might as well focus ourselves on improving our behaviors and maintaining those good ones. Setbacks and failures that we all experience tells more about a person and how they're willing to respond in those adverse moments a lot more than those moments of success. It's so easy to talk about all the good things that we've done, where in a sense we kind of only look at the good things about ourselves and that makes it much harder to confront those weak areas that we have.
This makes coming up short a lot harder to deal with because we haven't accustomed ourselves to both ends of the spectrum. Where if you can take the good along with the bad, you are a lot more balanced, that keeps you even keeled. When those good moments do happen, you are able to stay grounded and say, it could have gone the other way but when those bad moments happen you still take that same approach saying well a few things were the difference and I just need to behave better or do something better to where it tips the scale in the other direction.
Final thoughts
Our behaviors are not set in stone, we can always learn new ones to kick those bad ones out. We can figure out things to make them comprehendible to work for us and consistently conditioning ourselves to have default response. While certain behaviors are going to be difficult to incorporate just be patient with yourself and know that it just takes time. Get in the habit of catching yourself when you do fall into certain pitfalls and move past them.
Reset and refocus so you can come to understand that what happened in the past you can't do anything about it, but you always can do something about right now. Sometimes it hurts if you realize that those that have influenced you are not helping you. Where its almost like the trust had been broken but find a way to motivate you to be better. That we can teach ourselves how to be our own role models. We don’t need to rely on someone else to be that for us. Our behaviors decide our future so let’s ensure we behave in a manner that solidifies that.
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