Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change and Thrive in Work and Life by Susan David

Author:Susan David [David, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Emotional Intelligence, Emotions, General, Happiness, Non-Fiction, Personal Growth, Psychology, Self-Help, Self-Management, Stress Management, Success
ISBN: 9780241976579
Google: 0uvlCgAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 29744413
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 2016-04-06T23:00:00+00:00

WAGGING FINGER OR WILLING HEART: TWEAKING OUR MOTIVATIONS

My mother is a tough cookie and when I was growing up she eschewed the typical womanly wisdom so often dispensed from one generation to the next. She never told me to ‘play hard to get’ or to ‘always match your shoes and your handbag’. Instead, she used to tell me, ‘Susan, you should always, always have “Screw You” money!’

After my father passed away, my mother was left to raise three children and spent years simply trying to get by. She did this by selling stationery to businesses – self-employed in a job she detested. She’d wake up at 5 a.m. so she could pack parcels of pens, pencils and other sundries, deliver them all over Johannesburg, come back to take customer orders and do bookkeeping, and then collapse, exhausted, into bed at midnight. She managed to do this while simultaneously grieving the loss of my father, who was her lifelong sweetheart, helping my brother, sister and I through our own loss, and ensuring we were fed, clothed and educated.

My mother understood first-hand how horrible it feels when you’re trapped by your circumstances, basing each decision on what you have to do instead of what you want to do, and she wanted to protect me from such a fate. ‘You always need to have just enough money to say, “Screw you!”’ she advised. That way, I would never have to stay in a job I hated or in a relationship that wasn’t working for me because I didn’t have the financial resources to make a move.

By urging me to set up my own personal ‘screw you’ fund, my mother wasn’t simply doling out sound personal finance tips. She was also emphasizing the fundamental importance of autonomy, the motivating power of being able to do things out of our own free will and volition, as opposed to being coerced by some outside force. Engaging our autonomy – the power of ‘want to’ rather than ‘have to’ – is the second prerequisite for tweaking your way to significant change.

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Ted was a London-based client of mine who eventually became a good friend. He was twenty kilograms overweight and, because he travelled a lot for work, he found it difficult to get into a healthy routine. After a long flight he’d show up at a hotel tired, hungry and missing his family and seek out comfort in a cheeseburger and a couple of beers. Then, while watching TV, boredom would send him over to graze on the snacks in the mini-bar. His wife and doctor were after him to lose weight and exercise, but somehow, knowing what he ‘had to’ do never actually got him to do it.

Ted had married late in life, and he and his wife couldn’t have children, so they’d adopted a boy from Romania named Alex. Alex had been orphaned at a young age and had spent his early years in truly heartbreaking circumstances. He’d been kept almost exclusively in a crib, which prevented him from walking or exploring.

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