Last week, we practiced accepting praise. This week, let’s practice giving it. Here’s the trick: instead of complimenting the thing or the action, acknowledge the person behind the action.Change “I love your dress” to “I love your dress. It really shows your flair for style.”Instead of “Good work today,” try “Good work today. You were really committed to making that deadline.”Aim for ten times a day, and see what smiles you get.

There are two parts to a compliment: the saying of it, and the receiving of it. Society has trained us to be humble and modest; too modest. So self-effacing, in fact, that when people say nice things to us, we shrug them off. We don’t hear them.“I love your dress.” “Oh, this old thing? I got it on sale years ago.”“Good work today!” “Yes, but I didn’t get this done, I could have done this better and . . .”We need to stop and really hear when people praise us. And believe them. Let them into our hearts. So ten times a day, all this week, when someone applauds your work, appreciates your efforts, or says anything nice at all about you, stop! Take a deep breath, let it soak into your bones, then simply say “Thank you.” Think you don’t get ten positive comments a day? Start listening for them.

We’ve spent the last three weeks discovering how we can deliberately choose what viewpoint we want to have about the issues and events that make up our lives. Here’s the take home message from this exercise: we get to choose how we want to be with anything and everything. This week, choose something you’re stuck on, and go through the whole process. Notice what viewpoint you’re coming from, generate several new ones, try them on, and then choose one.

Perspectives in PlayWe’re still not done with perspectives yet. When you played with new ones last week, you tried each one out, briefly. This week, go back to the list you made. Are there any new perspectives you’d like to add? Now, choose one, and just for this week, really live from that place. Don’t worry, it’s just for now. You can always go back and choose another, later.

Last week, you started to pay attention to your perspectives on what’s happening around you and in your life. That’s just the first step, though. You don’t have to be stuck in the perspective you’re in. This week, choose one or two issues, and make up four or five different ways of looking at them. Be crazy and creative. How would a fox look at this issue? A wise sage? A child? After you’ve invented these new perspectives, try all of them on for size. What does it feel like to look at this issue from this new place? Rest easy, now, you can’t do this wrong.

What is reality? Because we’re humans, we’re always in a perspective about something. We look at the issues and events of our lives in a certain way, and after a while, we think of that viewpoint as being the “real” viewpoint, whether it is or not. The truth is, what we call “reality” is nothing more than the way we look at our lives. Yes, there are facts out there, like the sun rises in the east, and we all have to pay taxes, but how we put those facts together is up to us. What is your perspective about your life right now? This week, pay attention to what viewpoint you’re in as you look at the different issues in your life, and what’s going on around you.

What are you thankful for?  Long or short, share your list with us and other Weekly Challenger readers.  I guarantee it will put a smile on your face and make your day!

What is your connection with God, the Universe, the Higher Power, or however you reference the Supreme Life Force? How can you strengthen and honor that connection every day this week? Perhaps you can meditate, or step outside and appreciate the beauty of the world around you, or pray. Perhaps you can just be aware of the Life Force flowing through you and being with you. What else can you do?

In the coaching school where I trained, we were taught “A complaint is an unvoiced request.” If we complain “I’m cold,” we’re really asking, ineffectively, for someone to turn up the heat. If we tell our partner “I hate that shirt,” we’re really asking him or her to change clothes. This week, try changing your complaints to requests, at least three times a day, and note what happens.

So what is your dominant way of experiencing in your world: visual, verbal, or physical? This week, choose a different approach and try strengthening that one. For example, if you are a verbal processor, look at something for a brief second, then look away, and hold the picture of that object in your mind, rather than saying the word to yourself. If you are verbal, you might try imagining what the object would feel like, rather than look like, or repeat the word without forming the picture. Experiment with all of the kinds of processing, in different situations. As you strengthen the other processing “muscles,” you’ll find you can take in more information, easier and faster, and retain it longer.