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Who Have You Complimented or Appreciated Today?

Featured Author:

Theresa-Maria Napa

Theresa-Maria “TM” Napa, owner of Right Track Coaching, is dedicated to helping professionals and executives increase their winning percentage while taking fewer steps and producing better results. Her varied career has included positions as executive assistant, vice president of operations, director of marketing & administration, and business owner. In these positions, TM gained substantial experience in leadership, marketing, client development, and executive coaching to high achievers. She writes for the Career Changers, Going Back to Work, and Going Back to School sections of WomenCo.

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It is not unheard of to hear tales of unpleasant comments and attitudes in the work environment. When seeking new employment or a new career, add to your list of wants a pleasant environment, which nurtures growth and development, plus co-workers who are a pleasure to work with. When working in a disagreeable environment, the urge to get away and find something different is a reactive response to what isn’t working.

Unless you stop running away from what you don’t want by being responsibly proactive in stating what you do want, you will keep experiencing the same pattern. Taking responsibility is not blaming anyone else. It is being courageously responsible in awakening your potential power to the changes wanting to be expressed. Often what happens is that we don’t realize how complaining and making others wrong is adding fuel to the fire of dissatisfaction. If your career has a trail of working with unappreciative people, look back briefly to listen to yourself complain. How often did you repeat your frustration and anger to other staff members, family and friends? That is a whole lot of negative energy being accumulated.

I sure have done my share of spewing negativity and feeling like the victim. I didn’t get it then that I was reinforcing what wasn’t working through my thoughts and words. I would anchor in and continue to complain until change interrupted, as it will always do, to signal transform or keep getting what I was getting. I took responsibility for what I was attracting and took the necessary steps to process and move forward in my personal and profession life.

It is amazing how many signs one gets before saying enough is enough. Change doesn’t have to be done all at once. Small steps can take you to the top of your mountain. Create the space to make room for growth to something better – something more. If something isn’t working, I believe there is another way.

Make room for getting the job and career you want. It starts with you, right now, with deliberate intention, taking full responsibility in building a working environment by being more positive. WomenCo. has a great tool to build an optimistic reservoir of positive feelings, making friends, and networking: Tagging.

Tagging another person, even though you may have never met, is magical. It is sending a special “hello.” “Hello, you are a go-getter.” “Hello, you are a fabulous.” “Hello, you are intelligent.” How does it make you feel when someone – a stranger no less, thought enough of you to tag you?

Maybe the tag is received by someone who had a bad day and the tag you sent gave them comfort. Maybe the tag you sent brought a smile and brightened their day. Maybe the tag you sent made you feel good, kind and generous.

You are generous when you pay attention to a quality or feature of someone by acknowledging them for it. Often there is hesitancy to say something kind to another. Perhaps you feel vulnerable. Vulnerable because maybe you are shy and the receiver may not be a good receiver of compliments, which has to do more with the self perception of the receiver. The receiver may even be suspicious thinking you want something and trying to butter them up…and if you are, then that is manipulation not sincerity. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Sincerity is the highest compliment you can pay.”