Ways to distinguish yourself #190 – Stop punishing yourself un-necessarily
By Rajesh Setty on Tue 12 Aug 2008, 8:56 AM – 7 Comments
My teacher told me that moods are the most under-rated characteristics. I agree.
Typically people set themselves a big hurdle to be in a great mood. They need only one small thing to go wrong to get into a rotten mood.
Recently I was talking to a close friend who told me that he was in a bad mood because one of his employees slipped on something. The fact that this happened sometime during the day and he was discussing this late in the evening, I know for sure that he must have played this song over and over and over in his mind and suffered a bit.
After a few minutes of discussion, of course, he realized that being in a bad mood has ZERO positive effect on anyone. It is basically squandering your precious resources – time and energy. Those that could have been easily deployed on other productive tasks.
I am not saying that all of us should become saints and be immune to any mood swings. Even those that think logically will see that alternative to being in a good mood is always costly.
Fine, something got messed up. Agreed. It’s a bad thing. But how will it really help to get into a rotten mood and punish yourself for that? You are already at a loss because something bad happened. Why do you want to get into a deeper loss by losing your cool?
I know what you must be thinking – “It’s easy to say. But hard to put into practice”. And, I will say – “You bet!” 
Have a great Tuesday!
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Note 1: For links to the other 189 entries in the “Distinguish yourself” series, please visit my Squidoo lens on the same topic:
Squidoo Lens: Distinguish yourself
Note 2: The first 25 entries in the series have been packaged in a ChangeThis manifesto that was published on September 07, 2005. You can download that manifesto here:
ChangeThis Manifesto: 25 Ways to Distinguish Yourself
Note 3: My latest manifesto on ChangeThis was published on August 6, 2008. Here is the link:
ChangeThis Manifesto: Mini Sagas – Bite Sized Wisdom for Life and Business
Related Articles:- Ways to distinguish yourself – #62 Stop comparing to the ideal scenario
- Ways to distinguish yourself #186 – Stop Pushworking
- Stopping unsolicited credit card offers
- Ways to distinguish yourself #195 – Stop sending “MeMails”
Posted in the Distinguish yourself, Main Page category.
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7 Comments so far, Add Yours
Kare Anderson on August 13th, 2008
My favorite book for learning how to become naturally more optimistic – in a better mood and thus more resilient, is Marty Seligman’s classic, Learned Optimism.
When something goes wrong, those inclined to be most negative or pessimistic think the situation is
Permanent
Personal
Pervasive
Namrata on August 20th, 2008
Hi
I really like your write-ups. You really spek from your heart. keep up the good work!
CHEERS!
Regards,
Namrata
Stephen Hopson on August 22nd, 2008
Good point here because some of us like to punish ourselves, wasting time and energy, not to mention how it can affect others.
I’m long over that phase but I can be hard on myself sometimes because I only want what’s best. But this is a great reminder to just go with the flow when “bad” things happen.
After all, it’s not what happens that really matters but what you do about them that determines the outcome. Interesting, isn’t it?
We’re in more control of our emotions and thoughts then we’ve been led to believe. How’s that for a wakeup call?
Deepu on August 26th, 2008
Life is short ! Wonder why it takes one man to reguide another man to work on the so called man-made problems. But I guess thats the way it is and your doing a great job. Nice write up !
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Venkk Sastry on August 12th, 2008
The key here is “Purpose”. If one is acting on purpose he will find quiteness in chaos. Also, it is important to practice non-judgement.
As you rightly said, its hard. Its is hard to find the purpose and align to it.
regards
venkk