Most of us go through our daily lives not recognizing the power of focus. If we're listening to the news, and something catches us, we focus on it. If we're standing in line and there's a grumpy patron in front of us, we tend to focus on them. If traffic is bad going to work, this tends to hold our focus for the entire commute. We focus there if Facebook, Twitter, or TikTok catches our eye. If our boss is in a bad mood, we complain to our co-workers and keep focusing on it. If our children are upset, we often focus on their upsets. When our children complain in the face of a blessed world full of fantastic opportunities, we focus on it. We engage what they have chosen to focus on because we don't realize we are teaching them to filter their lives. If chronic, this becomes the habitual filter through which they interpret the world. Our children will, without intervention, be vastly compromised in managing their attention unless we begin to make changes. Th
In this series of mistakes that fail your family, I am highlighting common strategies that undermine your children's success and happiness. We have covered several behavioral strategies recently, but today's discussion focuses on a critical mental mistake: Taking things personally. The Wide, Wide World of Infinite Opinions To find happiness and offer our children the seeds of happiness, we must discover how to learn and grow in life without taking others' opinions personally. What does this mean? The world will opine, judge, snarl, and roll its eyes. It's a given. However, when this 'feedback' or 'input' flows in our direction, we tend to get hurt, feel bad, and react; we take things personally. We make their story of life emotionally crucial in our story of life. When someone says you did a lousy job, you take it personally. When your kids tell you you're a bad mom, you take it personally. When your teenager calls you stupid, you take it pe
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