Focusing on Your Strengths

         Learning to ALTER your perspective, your attitude, and your entire outlook on life is not like pushing a button or switching a light on or off. First, you need to make an assessment of your CURRENT perspective, attitudes, and overall outlook, and then, you can begin to re-format things a little bit at a time. Though not simple, this is totally doable. One of the first things I recommend is to determine what your personal strengths are, and focus on those things. You’re probably wondering what all this has to do with singing or piano or even, acting. Honestly, developing a POSITIVE attitude toward life has WONDERFUL consequences on, essentially EVERY aspect of your daily living. You SLEEP BETTER, you RELAX better, you FUNCTION better with other people, and you are generally and specifically happier in your own skin. If we think back to the “Button” or “Switch” you need to turn off or on, you must also recognize that like the saying “It Takes a Village”, you can only achieve a Positive Outlook by shifting a NUMBER of things in your life. Being OPEN to the possibility of change, however, is a terrific first step, and helps you take more and better choices as you move forward.

         Personally, I’m against the idea of “Breaking Bad Habits” or looking NEGATIVELY at any aspect of your life; that process starts you back down a more derogatory path. INSTEAD, I’m for BUILDING, CREATING, STRENGTHENING AFFIRMING/POSITIVE/FORWARD-THINKING habits/perspectives/approaches to yield a stronger, more confident, more aware and goal-oriented individual who will be a much more powerful and useful solo performer, as well as a more effective and dynamic team player. Two of my favorite “Sayings” are “If you don’t stand for something, you If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything,” (Alexander Hamilton) and “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” These are powerful and deeply insightful but consider adding to this situation a NEGATIVE slant, and you’ll quickly see that you’re going BACKWARDS, not forward at all. If that’s where you find yourself, it’s time to change your methods and your approach. 

         I suggest you START by looking at your STRENGTHS; begin where you are ALREADY strong, so your “work” is almost finished before you start. With this technique, you can “Wade in” to the harder work of CHANGING how you talk about yourself, LOOK at yourself, and how you THINK about yourself. I recommend getting yourself a notebook or journal to organize all your POSITIVE “homework”, so that you can refer to it, encourage yourself when you slip back occasionally, and RECOGNIZE all the progress you’re making along the way.

         Write down or type up a list of, at least, 25 things that YOU LIKE about YOURSELF! These don’t HAVE to be things that anyone else would appreciate.  I know that sounds like a LOT, but once you get started, it gets easier and easier, and the activity is encouraging and strengthening in and of itself. Once you’re done, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you LAMINATE your list. In fact, I suggest that you make COPIES of the finished list. Shrink them, enlarge them, and even change the font and/or the format of them. Laminate them all! Then, stash them in places where only you would “trip” over them, such as your underwear drawer, your briefcase or your notebook, even by your toilet. This way when you need encouragement or just a little boost, you don’t have to look far. If you USE this tool, it can be INCREDIBLY helpful to you. The key is, though, YOU HAVE TO USE IT!

         This is NOT about blowing up your ego! This is about enumerating the miraculous TRUTHS about yourself. I GUARANTEE you there are WAY more astonishingly wonderful and extraordinary things about you than YOU think there are! Maybe you have very artistic hands, you’re extremely compassionate to others, or you have a contagious smile! Those may seem minuscule and unimportant as you read them now, but try to remember back to the last time you had a REALLY bad day, got some awful news, failed a test you had studied for a LOT, or were embarrassed in front of a bunch of people. One person flashing you a sincere smile is an unimaginably great gift that can keep you from jumping off the nearest curb or whatever. No “Gift” is small when its timely and genuine. When you honestly commit a few minutes to coming up with a short list, you’ll see how easy and constructive it is to build yourself this compelling tool.

         A “Toolbox” is what you need for any job or task. Our responsibility is to locate and facilitate the individual “Tools” so that when it’s time to perform, you have EVERYTHING you need to dazzle your audience.  I’m not AT ALL saying that you are perfect, and I’m not saying that you need to IGNORE anything about yourself. We are simply working on building and strengthening a strong foundation for the YOU that your audience is going to meet. Starting with the “PLUSES” you already have going for you makes it MUCH easier to get beyond insecurities and outright negatives you might be tempted to present. Knowing your POSITIVE attributes serves to empower you, especially on days when you’re particularly discouraged, aren’t able to complete something, even have a bad hair day, or a little tiff with a friend. If you are armed with “PERSONALITY PROTEIN”, you’re much more apt to make a strong, positive impression. You need to KEEP your list close at hand UNTIL you BELIEVE what’s on it! It serves to BALANCE OUT all the negative “Voices” you’re more inclined to believe about yourself. When you remind yourself you are kind or generous or have nice hands, it doesn’t simply DELETE a negative thought, BUT it FUELS your positive nature, and gives you ammunition for the next time you think you can’t do something.

         The negative aspect of having to change something you have done for a long time, only serves to feed those negative voices that plague us, reminding us we are, indeed, bad or inept or whatever “lacking” other thing we think. Forget that! When you build a NEW habit, it’s all positive. Again, this does not mean you will never drift back into old ways, but when you set aside a short period of time each day to PRACTICE your new approach, pretty soon it becomes a new habit, and replaces anything else you used to do. If you can ignore the way you have “ALWAYS DONE SOMETHING”, and start afresh as if you had NEVER done that thing, it’s like cutting a fresh groove into wood. No matter how close you cut to the old groove, you still create a NEW PATH!

         An old friend of mine used to talk about “looking through windows” at life. Imagine yourself in a high tower with windows all around. He would remind me that as humans, we often get stuck looking out the SAME WINDOW IN LIFE, in other words, stuck in our habits. Everything always looks the same, and it seems impossible to change anything. However, just turning our heads, we see an entirely different and new view. This is true in SO many areas of our lives. Another friend taught me, “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got!” We are often so afraid of change, we avoid it at any cost, when change can be, not only invigorating, but nourishing, and exciting. We don’t need to be AFRAID of change. If we don’t like it, we can always go back to the way things were. I have, however, always held to the belief that KNOWLEDGE IS POWER, and knowing more about oneself, and the possibilities for progress, is definitely building power in your life from knowledge.

         First, DECIDE you want something NEW for your life and that you’re WILLING TO WORK FOR THAT CHANGE. Next, BELIEVE you CAN change, and make a difference in your own life. BEGIN by assessing an inventory of the STRENGTHS you already have in your life that you can BUILD ON to create even MORE STRENGTHS. There is a Broadway Musical called “Seesaw” from back in the seventies with a fabulous song, “It’s Not Where You Start, It’s Where You Finish”. THAT is a motto I want you to ENGRAVE on your brain, “It’s NOT Where You Start, It’s Where You FINISH”! TOGETHER, we will get you where you need and WANT to be with performing. All you HAVE to do is DO, which means, you have to PRACTICE A LOT!  PLEASE let me know what you think of this post and these ideas. Send me ANY and ALL of your questions and comments; I value them greatly! As always, if you have ANY questions about my lessons or me, check out my website at www.SingitForward.net.   Thank you for reading and working with me on your strengths AND weaknesses; we will get you where you need to be to be successful. I look forward to hearing from each of you! Sing it forward!