147 A L I G N W I T H WH AT Y OU S TA N D F O R You have noticed that at times you can be a bit selfish with your time and money and you have decided to raise your standards around that. Instead of saying, “I am a person who is not greedy or selfish with my time or money”, you can turn that into a positive phrase that has bigger and more expansive possibilities by saying, “I am a person who is generous”. Your standard statements are a declaration of your highest and best self working congruently with the intended action versus sounding like a person who is broken and wants to be mended. Let’s take a look at an example of where one or more standards can be raised. Everybody loved being around Sara. She was fun loving and usually the life of the party. That was if she could make it to the party. For the past six months Sara had noticed her phone had gradually stopped ringing. And now, here she sat for the second weekend in a row where there were no invitations to do anything and no one to go out with after numerous voice messages left. She was perplexed at what was going on. The following Monday she asked her good friend Paula to have lunch with her. Paula sounded tentative but agreed to meet her at noon saying, “Now, you’re sure you will be there Sara?” And Sara replied, “Of course I will. Why wouldn’t I?” Paula said nothing. Sara pressed on, “Why are you not saying anything Paula?” Paula replied, “Well, it’s just that there always seems to be something that comes up for you whenever we make plans to meet or do anything together. Frankly Sara, I am reluctant to make any plans with you because of it.” Sara defended herself saying, “Paula you know that whenever I do that there are legitimate circumstances that keep me from holding my commitments. I would never intentionally stand someone up without some sort of emergency going on.” Paula paused for a moment and said, “I know that Sara. You always have the best of intentions, but you have way too much going on in your life and you say yes to too many things. I think you overextend yourself which causes you to look undependable to many people. I know I am not the only one who feels this way. Many of us have been left sitting alone in a restaurant or trying to unload tickets at the last minute because you often just don’t show up or call at the last minute.” With the truth out on the table, Sara knew it was time to make some changes.
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