Set Priorities

Maggie Jackson has a good advice in her column in today's Sunday Globe BostonWorks section. (Free registration required) She says: (Bold is mine for emphasis)

... the complementary strengths of confidence and resilience promote prioritizing and perspective-making -- essential qualities in the digital age. Consider them our ''lasers and razors," the tools that can help us slice through the often-overwhelming fog of work and life today.

Confidence is the expectation of a positive outcome. That's how Kanter defines this intangible trait. Put simply, if you believe that your efforts will pay off, success will likely follow, says Kanter, an avid sports fan who studied the winning and losing streaks of sports teams, businesses, schools, and other groups to dissect the anatomy of confidence.

The Kanter referenced is Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanterwhose

recent book, ''Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin & End," explores this crucial ingredient of success.

Maggie goes on to quote Kanter:

... nurture your confidence in the long term by making sure you routinely reap small, short-term wins.

''That's what makes you feel really successful," says Kanter, who sometimes comforts herself with one of her own adages: anything can look like a failure when you're in the middle of it.

She goes on to pair this confidence theme with that of resilience. University of Pennsylvania researcher Karen Reivich studies how resilience buoys us during everyday stress and extreme traumas.

You improve your chances of achieving those reassuring wins and an optimistic outlook on life if you focus on what you can control, not what you can't, says Reivich, whose research on resilience grew out of her early work with University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin Seligman, father of the field of positive psychology.

''A clear-cut antidote to anxiety is purposeful action," says Reivich

 

Great advice!

 

We have a plan. Let's execute it.

Small wins. Focus on what we can control.

Purposeful action. Nothing wasted. Building confidence.

 

Even if it looks like a failure when we are in the middle of it, we will succeed because we expect a positive outcome.

The "Power of We", honk, honking each other along the way, we will succeed!

 

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