Continuing this series of articles about five attitudes that will change your leadership style, business, and life, here, we will consider: Now, we shall consider:

2. There is no failure, only feedback

3. People are NOT their behaviours

There is no failure, only feedback

Remember that the attitude you portray outwardly is a result of your inner state. You might like to think of your inner state as a feeling. Most often, our state is described by a ‘feeling’ word: angry, happiness, joyful, accepted, guilty, peaceful for example.

If you genuinely believe that you are focusing on your target and you align yourself correctly, and yet you push the ball, or pull the ball away from the line of target. What do you do? Berate yourself for slicing or hooking? Bad move! Welcome the opportunity to learn what it was that you did, because there is going to come a shot where you want to hook it, or slice it around a tree? E cellent!

Learn from it – take joy in learning something.

If it’s a consistent problem for you… then you can choose, go get some instruction from a good pro to improve your technique, learn how to re-align yourself to compensate (not so good but Gary Player had a peculiar swing to compensate for his clubs), or – very rarely – get your clubs fixed.

If per chance you go to a pro who immediately tells you that you need a new set of clubs, then go elsewhere – it may be true (you can always go back later) but an expensive driver does not a golfer make.

Think back to our car driving analogy – you’ve seen someone driving a Ferrari badly and someone else driving a Toyota very well? Of course it’s always worth checking your clubs for dints and dents, even Toyota’s break down (yeah but less often than Ferraris!) Of course anyone from that esteemed motor company that would like to prove the reliability of their vehicles on a personal level – I’m very happy to accept the challenge.

People are not their behaviours

There are some fundamental needs that drive our attitudinal behaviours. Here I’d like to pick up on one aspect of motivation that can radically change behaviour. There are some real big changes in someone’s life that result in a major shift in mindset and I’ll briefly discuss them here, then move onto the more commonly experienced change that changes behaviours.

Two big needs for human beings are the need for survival and the need for security. When an individual’s survival is at stake – their behaviour will change dramatically if necessary to ensure survival. The most compelling stories of survival are of women finding themselves able to lift trucks off their run-over child. Threaten our survival and our fear kicks into play. fear – unlike anger – is an emotion and state that has a perfectly good chemical system working in our body to rely on. This does not mean irrational fear – fear that is unnecessary such as phobias – but fear that threatens survival. This we need to keep – just in case.

The second big need that can cause massive behaviour change is security. If our security is threatened (extrapolate to survival) most people will fight to defend it. War is the classic example of this – when your homeland is invaded, your prior acceptance of the invader is quickly dispelled and many people are prepared to kill if necessary to protect their security. For those of you who might like to take me to task on this, I can be absolutely certain that your own security has never been threatened.

Human beings share a need to belong. We all have a desire to feel accepted and of worth to our society (as in our social circle extending for many to society at large.) From early childhood, we have an in-built need for acceptance and connection with other humans – we are social animals. We want love and caring from our parents, our friends, our family. We crave ‘fitting-in’ at school or at work with our peer group.

Without such acceptance and connection in our group – we will seek it elsewhere. For a few, they seek that acceptance alone – might seem odd to some of you, but on your own, your mind creates its own group – and sometimes even they don’t accept you. For others, they will seek acceptance in other groups – well like joining a golf club for instance – here you meet and socialise and play with people who share something in common with you… they play golf. If you take a quick tour of your closest friends and associates you’ll find there’s even more in common. This is why people join gangs – especially those who find little or no acceptance in their families. Keeping in the gang becomes increasingly important – and gangs – especially gangs of youths earn themselves a bad reputation in greater society because they consistently cross the values of that greater society – they pitch themselves against it to form a stronger bonding between the members. It doesn’t excuse bad behaviour, but it partially explains it. So, a little aside, if you have kids or family members who’re members of a notorious gang – you can do something about it – and I don’t mean tell them! I mean show them you care and accept them for who they are and their values. I digress, but some of these snippets have changed peoples lives dramatically.

Our need to belong is profound. Our understanding of this is important in developing our maturity as a person. You have your own needs for acceptance and connection. This includes your work and your golf. Not to be taken lightly, your needs are part of the reason for playing golf at all. If you play badly, your own sense of self worth is hurt – play too badly and your friends may not want to continue playing with you, play too well and the same may be true. If your connection with your friends is important to you, you’ll play to keep in with the group.

Let me tell you about my squash group of friends. I play squash – not terribly well and not terribly either. I play it for the social reasons I’ve suggested above and for exercise. I enjoy the game, it’s very different to golf and I hate to go jogging – so it sort of fits for me. After playing regularly every Sunday morning before Church for several years, I decided that I was getting fed-up of being beaten in sets – I was worried that my friends would tire of easily beating me – that I wasn’t enough competition to maintain their interest. So I took some lessons from the club pro. Fantastic, pushed my stamina levels much higher, lengthened my stride and strengthened my wrist-play (did not, by the way help my golf swing rather dented it for a while!) We continued to play for a few weeks and then one by one, my friends couldn’t make our regular game. Just as I was beginning to win! I was upset for a while – and rapidly gaining weight (compensation?) You see, it turned out that far from my friends being insufficiently challenged by my play, they enjoyed it… I was that one person they could regularly beat. Oh well. I have new squash friends now – ones that enjoy being challenged and enjoy challenging and want to improve themselves. As for the old group? Well I too have a need to belong, to be accepted, to be connected but I’m buggered if I’m going to sink to the level of playing a crap game for someone else’s ego… maturity (?) with a little childishness for good measure?

There’s a need for us to belong, but there’s also a need for us to maintain our ’self-worth’. If the two are in conflict, one will win over the other. When you allow your self-worth to be dictated by others – you have just lost control of your destiny.

When you were younger, you succeeded at something – possibly something sports related. You did well and this helped you find a sense of ’self’. This in turn, helped you strengthen your self-image. Doubtless there were other activities that weakened your self-image. It’s quite likely that those activities that increased your self-image are things you remember fondly and continue to do. Those that harmed your sense of self-image, you recall less than fondly, and probably don’t continue. If you do, you’ve possibly just realised why you’re unhappy.

And there’s the rub. If your peer group doesn’t accept you, doesn’t connect with you – this causes distress which will manifest itself in some behaviour – usually negative behaviour. The more problematic aspect of this is that it is not whether your peer group accepts you or connects with you. It is whether you perceive that they do or do not that matters.

Your perception = your reality.

At first you tried to take their point of view and do a little self examination. You admit that you have been known to jump the gun on occasion. But you also are very good at analyzing and making the necessary course correction.

But upon review it is clear that the fault is not yours. The bottom line is your dating partner’s friends are rude towards you and at times it turns into downright nastiness.

What gives? You have always tried to be civil. You’re not a control freak. It’s not like you got among his friends and tried to dominate the conversation or the activities. You go along with what the crowd wants to do. You are also a pretty good listener.

And what you are hearing in no uncertain terms is your date’s friends do not like you. The question is why?

1. New Kid in Town

You are not one of the gang. You never said you were. Neither did they nor do they want you to be. This is a closed group and membership is by voice vote and unanimous invitation only. They tolerate you because that’s how strongly they feel about their friend who happens to be your dating partner. Other than that you don’t belong.

2. Just One of Those Things

Call it personality clash or just a bad first impression but whatever it was there is no going back to repair it. They have made their ruling and the verdict is you are unlikable. Maybe that decision will change somewhere down the line but for right now that’s the way it goes. 

3. Previous Rotten

They tried to give the benefit of the doubt to some of your date’s former partners. It didn’t work. Not only was the person nasty and combative towards them but they watched as that same person wound up breaking your date’s heart. Now it’s totally unfair but due to those past relationships they have already prejudged you.

4. The Takeaway

They don’t see you as someone there to join the group. They see you as someone there to take their friend away. You and your date do not always go out with the group (nor should you) and in their eyes that means a member of the family is leaving home. They want no parts of that so they resent whoever is the culprit.

Even if you made a public announcement stating how important you feel it is for your date to maintain his or her friendships; that won’t cut it. You are not only an interloper but a thief as well.

Sometimes the hardest part of dating relationships is not the one on one encounter of two people or even meeting each other’s families. It’s the friend circle. They can make it rough for their buddy to stay in any relationship.

Worst still is they shield your date from the scorn they heap on you with extreme pleasure. It’s very destructive behavior to the point that you have to ask yourself is the whole relationship worth it?

Hanging out after school … Kids felt they should be allowed much more freedom once they were in high school. To some extent, they have been allowed it. By 9th grade, they could get around on their own, and they had activities they wanted to do with friends, like playing basketball and skateboarding. I think socializing is as important as homework, so it is OK with me, as long as they are home by 6, but they have to tell their parents where they are going to be, or leave a message if there are last-minute plans.

“Private schools are elitist.”

“Private schools are for kids from rich families’ only.”

“There’s terrible pressure on private students to perform academically.”

Now let’s get busy debunking these widely held views. “Private schools are elitist.”

If a teen is struggling in school with their academic’s, this could be either a learning disability that has not been diagnosed or your child is having some emotions that are distracting them from school. This can evolve from many sources including problems at home, a problem with a friend, or even an issue that they have been suppressing. Mood disorders such as depression, dysthymia, and bipolar disorders are major risk factors for suicide among children and adolescents. Although many murderers of teens below age 18 are teens themselves, two-thirds are age eighteen or older.4 Gang violence has been associated with many teen murders.

Gangs in Schools: Gang culture among young people, in itself, is nothing new. Indeed, youth gangs have been a major part of the urban cultural landscape. In the late twentieth century United States, however, gangs have taken on a different character and have moved into areas unimagined by Dickens. Most significantly, they are spreading from inner cities to “edge cities”–cities at the outskirts of large urban centers–and to suburbs; indeed, while gang activity has been stabilizing in urban areas, it has increased significantly elsewhere. Gang members often display their membership through distinctive styles of dress–their “colors”–and through specific activities and patterns of behavior. Gangs almost universally show strong loyalty to their neighborhood, often marking out their territory with graffiti. All of these representations can be visible in the schools.

Finally, gangs can spread unexpectedly from school to school as students transfer from gang-impacted schools to gang-free schools, causing an unintentional spillover of gang activity in the new school.

Why Gangs Develop and Why Students Join Them?

Gangs take root in schools for many reasons, but the primary attraction of gangs is their ability to respond to student needs that are not otherwise being met; they often provide youth with a sense of family and acceptance otherwise lacking in their lives.The strange logic of the modern media’s attack on adolescents is nowhere stranger than its portrayal of “teen” sexuality. When a child is born to a father over age 20 and a teenage mother (which happened 350,000 times last year), the phenomenon is called “children having children.” When an adult pays a teenager for sex, it is “teenage prostitution.”

Looking for residential schools for out-of-control teenage daughter

You are in the process of looking for a boarding school for your out-of-control teenage daughter. You need something that addresses both emotional growth and academic growth. I don’t want a lock-down situation, but hopefully something that’s isolated enough that it accomplishes the same purpose.Residential school for teen with emotional problems If you are looking for a residential school for your teenaged son who, while very bright, has severe emotional problems. They have exhausted all local options and feel that a therapeutic/residential program may be the best option now.

Go to:-

http://www.abundantlifeacademy.com/

http://www.troubledteens4jesus.com

http://www.troubledteenministries.com

Abundantlifeacademy It is a school for troubled teens that have a great deal of academic potential and a good heart, yet they are currently off track, lost, and wandering in the desert (selfish, ungrateful, and lazy)… in need of immediate infusion of God’s precious Spirit and a restored relationship with Jesus Christ (selfless, thankful, and motivated to excel).

[Series 2A] Game 2 – GUN CRIME CULTURE GUN CULTURE is ‘Choice’ Discussion Card set No. 2 of Series 2A CRIME PREVENTION. It is one of ten discussions in this series. These discussion cards are inherent on getting teenagers to put down guns, not to carry or use guns, the consequences of doing so, why it happens and underlying causes for it to happen. The discussion cards will encourage young people to talk about this culture, challenge mindsets and attitudes and highlight support needed around ‘truths’ to emerge. This discussion card set is a good introductory tool for staff or parents to use to tackle these issues.

[Series 2A] Game 6 – GANG CRIME CULTURE GANG CULTURE is EGAR’s ‘Choice’ Discussion Cards set No. 6 of Series 2A CRIME PREVENTION and is a one of ten discussion card games produced in this series. This discussion is focused on Gang Culture and why young people join, form or belong to a gang. It is to be supervised by staff teams or parents and is an alternative ‘talking tool’ to tackle a problem with teenager’s in our society today. There are many reasons why young people form gangs and this discussion will highlight those reasons and give young people choices to answer from. Underlying issues that may be associated with teenager’s belonging to a gang could emerge and be worked on. The discussion could also prevent young people not in a gang from joining one or not to be peer pressured into joining one. The discussion will also focus on the consequences of doing so, which in turn will lead them down the right path instead of the wrong one!

EMAIL: egar@egar.co.uk    WEBSITE: www.egar.co.uk