Habits that hold you back

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The following is a list of habits that hold you back from a book review by Trent Hamm on The Simple Dollar website. The book reviewed is What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith.

1. Winning too much: The need to win at all costs and in all situations - when it matters, when it doesn’t, and when it’s totally beside the point.

2. Adding too much value: The overwhelming desire to add our two cents to every discussion.

3. Passing judgment: The need to rate others and impose our standards on them

4. Making destructive comments: The needless sarcasms and cutting remarks that we think make us sound sharp and witty.

5. Starting with “No,” “But,” or “However”: The overuse of these negative qualifiers which secretly say to everyone, “I’m right. You’re wrong.”

6. Telling the world how smart we are: The need to show people we’re smarter than they think we are.

7. Speaking when angry: Using emotional volatility as a management tool.

8. Neativity, or “Let me explain why that won’t work”: The need to share our negative thoughts even when we weren’t asked.

9. Withholding information: The refusal to share information in order to maintain an advantage over others.

10. Failing to give proper recognition: The inability to praise and reward.

11. Claiming credit that we don’t deserve: The most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success.

12. Making excuses: The need to reposition our annoying behavior as a permanent fixture so people excuse us for it.

13. Clinging to the past: The need to deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from our past; a subset of blaming everyone else.

14. Playing favorites: Failing to see that we are treating someone unfairly.

15. Refusing to express regret: The inability to take responsibility for our actions, admit when we’re wrong, or recognize how our actions affect others.

16. Not listening: The most passive-aggressive form of disrespect for colleagues.

17. Failing to express gratitude: The most basic form of bad manners.

18. Punishing the messenger: The misguided need to attack the innocent who are usually trying to help us.

19. Passing the buck: The need to blame everyone but ourselves.

20. An excessive need to be “me”: Exalting our faults as virtues simply because they’re who we are.

I almost burst out laughing when I read that list. Does it sound like anyone you know? For me, there are too many to count.

I believe this list should be studied by Objectivists and anyone else interested in Objectivism. It is an excellent indicator of vanity as opposed to egoism. And for those interested in personal development, both interior and progress with other people, such attitudes should be eliminated from their behavior when perceived. I intend to take this to heart, myself.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

Michael; I thought of two replies. 1) Why are you being so hard on yourself? 2) Why do you keep put these comments about me on OL?

[PalePower]

I would add:

(21) Becoming overly pissed off and self-righteous when you encounter these traits in other people and condemn them as immediate faults instead of trying to understand where they're coming from.

Or, being "too" right.

=)

[Newberry]

I like the title the most.

[Barbara Branden]

Michael, you wrote: "I believe this list should be studied by Objectivists and anyone else interested in Objectivism." And by non-Objectivists and anyone else not interested in Objectivism.

Barbara

[sbeaulieu]

Great list!

Like many social situations, this applies a LOT to the military. I am going to NCO (Non-commissioned Officer) Academy next month. This would be an excellent cheat sheet (so to speak) to review before settling in to the group dynamic pond There will be many discussions, and I promise to be as objective (to the limit of my knowledge and experience) as possible.

I hope to not fall victim of #2. But I do so love discussions. :ahappy:

[Selene]

Group discussions have numerous persons with different tasks.

This is the same group exercise that I used when I was teaching in the late 60's - excellent for family, friends, work life.

Lost on the Moon - An Exercise in Group Problem Solving

You and four to seven other people should take this test individually, without knowing one another's answers, then take the test as a group. Share your individual solutions and reach a consensus - one ranking for each item that best satisfies all group members.

Your spaceship has just crash-landed on the moon. You were scheduled to rendezvous with the mother ship 200 miles away on the lighted surface of the moon, but the rough landing has ruined your ship and destroyed all the equipment on board, except for the fifteen items listed below.

Your crew's survival depends on reaching the mother ship, so you must choose the most critical items available for the 200-mile trip. Your task is to rank the fifteen items in terms of their importance for survival. Place a 1 by the most important item, a 2 by the second most important, and so on through 15, the least important.

1# box of matches

2# food concentrate

3# 50 feet of nylon rope

4# parachute silk

5# solar-powered portable heating unit

6# two .45-caliber pistols

7# one case of dehydrated evaporated milk

8# two 100-pound tanks of oxygen

9# stellar map (of the moon's constellation)

10# self-inflating life raft

11# magnetic compass

12# 5 gallons of water

13# signal flares

14# first-aid kit containing injection needles

15# solar-powered FM receiver-transmitter

First, each individual does there own list privately.

Then the group has to come up with a final list numbered 1-15.

And you'll never guess what happens 98% of the time!

http://lynn_meade.tripod.com/small_group_c..._lynn_meade.htm <<< this is a decent current web site on small groups

Adam

[Selene]

I would add:

(21) Becoming overly pissed off and self-righteous when you encounter these traits in other people and condemn them as immediate faults instead of trying to understand where they're coming from.

Or, being "too" right.

=)

Your piano piece was exquisite!

Adam

[BaalChatzaf]

I believe this list should be studied by Objectivists and anyone else interested in Objectivism. It is an excellent indicator of vanity as opposed to egoism. And for those interested in personal development, both interior and progress with other people, such attitudes should be eliminated from their behavior when perceived. I intend to take this to heart, myself.

Michael

Add procrastination. Only immortals can afford to procrastinate.

Ba'al Chatzaf