“I know you don’t want to hear this but I have to tell you anyway.”
Do you ever say (or think) that? You believe that you need to inform somebody of something unpleasant, and they’re not going to like it.
Your recipient doesn’t want to hear it. They’ll be unhappy. They may even choose to take their displeasure out on you—the messenger! All the while, you are just trying to be responsible.
Being the bearer of bad news can be tough. Continue reading
“Sally said my hair looked nice today. Can you believe that!”
Did Sally pay me a compliment? Or was that a subtle insult, implying that she noticed an improvement over those many non-nice hair days? Was Sally being sarcastic? Or was she perhaps envious, wishing she’d have hair like this someday?
When reading—without body language, expression, and tone to help us understand our communication—it’s hard to make a valid assessment. Continue reading
There’s almost always an election in season somewhere.
A survey asked whether an election has negatively affected a personal relationship with a friend or family member. It wasn’t about a Canadian election. No matter; it’s still an interesting question that leads me to ask, how does news and information affect your relationships? Continue reading
Self-evaluation is the process of examining what we are doing and determining whether we’re moving in the direction we want. It can be helpful in many situations.
Take Bruce, who works long and hard at work and in life. He’s actively involved with his children’s activities. He wants to be a good husband and does all he can in the household. He feels responsibility for his parents and in-laws. Lots of demands pull him in different directions.
On top of this already full life, Bruce chose to enhance his career by taking a course. What’s one more thing? Continue reading
By the time I’d finished reading an article promoting an approach to education that I don’t happen to agree with, I felt tired and a tad cranky. I was fine before I started reading. So, what happened?
When it comes to understanding human behaviour, one of the most practical contributions of choice theory is its “behavioural car” metaphor. It’s simple, understandable, and can help us ordinary folks get a handle on how our feelings, actions and so on interact. Even better, we can use that information to take more effective control of our lives.
Here’s the idea: Just as a car has four wheels, our behaviour has four components: acting, thinking, feeling, and physiology.
And while a car travels as a unit, it’s the front wheels that determine where it’s going; the rear wheels just follow along behind. Continue reading
A thousand miles away, my usually sunny friend—she who chooses the most positive possible interpretation of everything—had a meltdown.
It’s understandable. She’s been living with the reality of several family members diagnosed with cancers. Then, her mom took a tumble and broke a bone.
Pulled every which way and unable to do everything that needs to be done, we can feel like we’ve completely lost control. Thus, the meltdown.
And although “meltdown” is associated with women, such reactions are not confined to us sweet, delicate flowers. Reactions may be different, even when emotions are similar. What happens? Continue reading
Could anyone possibly be against something named “Safe Food for Canadians”?
The recent discussion around potentially negative impacts of new food safety regulations on small food producers is a good reminder that just because something has an appealing name doesn’t mean it’s truly appealing.
Regulations, in fact—choices of any kind—seldom come without tradeoffs. Continue reading
The other day, I was giving a presentation in an unfamiliar room using an unfamiliar computer. For some reason, my presentation wasn’t working quite right. While it looked more or less the way it should, the system wasn’t responding as I expected; my usual shortcuts weren’t working; things just weren’t right.
I fiddled and fussed a bit, but carried on.
During the break, one of my fine young participants gently took me aside and pointed out that I wasn’t using the software than I normally use.
Huh! Suddenly it made sense. With a few adjustments, everything was back to normal. Continue reading
When good things happen, when our needs and expectations are being met, it doesn’t take a lot of effort to feel satisfied and happy.
However, when bad things happen, we’re given the delightful and very useful gift of an opportunity to build our “resilience muscles.” (It may not feel delightful at the time.)
Among the bad things that happen in many lifetimes is the breakup of a serious relationship. Even if you are the initiator of the breakup, it’s still a loss—your hopes for this relationship are not going to come true.
If you are an unwilling participant in the breakup, you may be feeling more than loss. If you perceive that you had no control over this significant change in your life, you may have lost confidence that you can control anything. Continue reading
While unjustified confidence can be perceived as arrogance, justifiable confidence is a positive quality. Self-doubt, for any of us, can result in a lack of enjoyment of our lives. An athlete who loses confidence can lose their enjoyment of the game.
Francesco Bazzocchi, a teacher and coach at St. Michael’s College School in Toronto, has written an account of how he uses choice theory to work with a self-doubting athlete who performs well in practice, but performs below his potential when it matters—in games.
Choice theory looks at behaviour as “total” and comprised of four components: what we are doing, what we are thinking, what we are feeling, and what’s going on with our physiology.
When Francesco asks the athlete about these total behaviour components, he uncovers differences between his pre-practice behaviour and his pre-game behaviour. Continue reading
