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The Power of Acceptance

The Power of Acceptance

In our coaching sessions, clients often discuss struggles or frustrations they’re experiencing. Struggling is characterized by that feeling of trying to place a round peg in a square hole. It’s a stressful place to be. It’s also energy draining, time consuming, and it distracts you from the goals you’re working on.

From Struggle to Acceptance
Struggle is your response to whatever is occurring. You want so badly for things to be different you’re unwilling to surrender to what is. Whatever your situation be it difficulties with your kids or spouse or a job where no one listens to your ideas, there’s something you’re not accepting and you’re pushing up against it, willing it to be the way you think it should be that’s causing your distress.

Stop. Be still. And breathe. Take some time to simply be with yourself and ask yourself how things would be different if you were to just accept that this is the way it is. You don’t have to like it; it just is. Stop fighting reality. Once you accept the event, person, or situation as being exactly the way it is – like it or not – you can make better decisions as to how to respond and where you want to go from here.

The Choice is Yours
Often people think that they have no choices; that’s not true – there’s always a choice. You may not like your choices but that’s something else entirely.

Whether you like something or not, whether you think something is good or bad, is judgment. Judgment can interfere with your ability to accept reality. Judgment isn’t necessarily bad. It can be very helpful. You judge whether someone will be a good friend, boss, employee, patient, or client. You judge whether you want to shop at a particular store, eat at a particular restaurant, or share a story with someone you just met.

It’s when you lead with judgment that you get into trouble. When you judge before accepting, you label it before truly understanding it. Judgment keeps you from learning and from moving forward. Most things that happen aren’t inherently bad. You think of them as being so because that’s what society has taught you. Things aren’t bad; they just are. They’re considered ‘bad’ when you don’t like it, when you don’t agree with it and when you don’t wish it to be the way it is or you want it to be another way. When this is the case, you’re not in acceptance; you’re living a falsehood. And when you refuse to accept, you don’t see the choices that are available to you.

You accept the situation when you realize that it’s exactly the way it’s meant to be. Mary is a client who’s spent twenty years wanting and willing her husband to be different. She’s tried everything to change him. Now, she simply avoids him. Her home is not her sanctuary. It’s just this place where she sleeps. Now that she realizes that her husband will never change, he is who he is and he’s happy with the person he is, she can make decisions about her future with him. She doesn’t have to like those choices but that doesn’t make the situation go away or be different. It is what it is.

Joan, a nurse manager, is unhappy with the performance of one of her staff members. She hass confronted him, counseled him, trained him, and disciplined him and his performance has not improved. What if, instead of hoping for him to be different, she just accepted that this is the way he is? Then she can decide whether his performance meets the standards of the department. And even though she’s not happy with the idea of having to replace him (a fear that contributed to her unwillingness to accept this staff member’s abysmal performance), she’s empowered to do something about it.

Recognizing when you’re not happy with the way things are is liberating; it frees you from putting up with stress and clears the way for you to eliminate what doesn’t work for you so you can add what you want. It allows you to learn something new and to grow in ways that perhaps you would not have done.

Life choices aren’t always easy but who said that life was meant to be easy? We’re spiritual beings here to have a rich human experience. That means that we take it all in and learn to make the best of whatever is presented to us. We learn from all of our experiences – ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Ask a millionaire who’s experienced bankruptcy and they’ll tell you they learned the most from that experience. Or the cancer survivor who’ll tell you that cancer was a life-altering and enriching experience. The ‘bad’ things are often our greatest teachers. Joan will learn what’s most important to her when hiring employees. She’ll also learn that when an employee doesn’t meet her standards, she can act sooner to prevent problems and negativity from getting out of control. It doesn’t do anyone any good to keep an employee when clearly he’s not working out.

Mary will also learn from the acceptance of her husband. She’ll find a way to love him as he is and let go of her desire to change him, or she’ll decide that she’d rather start a new life on her own. The choice is hers. But whatever her choice, just having the choice is very powerful.

What are you not accepting as it is? What are you wishing were different in your life, your career, your relationships, or finances? I’d love to hear from you at Julie@NurturingYourSuccess.com.





The Power of Acceptance - To learn more about this author, visit Julie Fuimano's Website.

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John Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website

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Dave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website

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George Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website

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Linda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website


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Julie Fuimano
(Visit Julie's Website) Julie Fuimano, RN, MBA, CSAC was named one of the TOP 100 THOUGHT LEADERS in her field. Your happiness and success is her business! If you are tired of listening to the tapes playing in your head and want to learn some new thoughts for success, then visit her website www.NurturingYourSuccess.com to take the assessment and learn how your inner dialogue is supporting and sabotaging your efforts. It’s time to be the master of your thoughts. If you are involved in recruitment, retention, staff development or performance, visit www.NurturingYourStaff.com to learn how you can unlock up to 40% more productivity and cooperation from your employees and yourself! The Assessment is the diagnosis; our coaching is the prescription.

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