Reality sucks, especially on TV. Contestants are regularly voted off the island, fired from apprentice jobs and judged to be lacking in any discernible talent.

In “real life,” serious disappointments are likewise bitter pills to swallow. Many of us have endured significant economic hardships — from downsizing and outright business failures to mortgage crises and investment losses. Few of us have escaped unaffected.

Some people are more resilient, bouncing back quickly. Others struggle to cope with the changes forced upon them. (photo courtesy freedigitalphotos.net)

While few of us personally contributed to the housing bubble and bank collapses, each of us must take ownership of our responsibility to effect change and move forward. It may be tempting to see yourself as an unfortunate victim, but this line of thinking is pointless. When you assign yourself the role of victim, you deplete the energy you need to fight back.

It’s time to view your situation in a different way — an approach that many of us inherently fear and resist. You make a choice:

• Are you ready to take steps to remedy the situation?
• Do you want to remain stuck?

Survival requires us to move on. The problem is, we’re profoundly affected by loss. It drains our physical and emotional reserves, and it can contaminate our thought processes. Instead of optimism about the future, we become prone to negative thinking, doubts and fears.

Acknowledging reality is one thing. Choosing to see it differently so you can change it requires courage and imagination.

This article explores bouncing back from difficult situations, and suggest 4 steps to change what you can into the reality you want.

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This is a brief synopsis of a 760-word article and Article Nuggets,*suitable for consultants’ newsletters for executives and leaders in organizations. It is available for purchase with full reprint rights, which means you may put your name on it and use it in your newsletters, blogs or other marketing materials. You may also modify it and add your personal experiences and perspectives.

The complete article includes these important concepts:

• What Can You Change?
• Your Aha! Moment
• Stay in the Game
• 4 Steps to Creating a New Reality

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“So much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to do work.” ~ Peter Drucker

As any fan of The Office can attest, negative managerial behavior severely affects employees’ work lives. Managers’ day-to-day and moment-to-moment actions also create a ripple effect, directly facilitating or impeding the organization’s ability to function. (photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

The best managers recognize their power to influence and strive to build teams with great inner work lives. In The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work (Harvard Business Press, 2011), Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer describe how people with great inner work lives have:

• Consistently positive emotions
• Strong motivation
• Favorable perceptions of the organization, their work and their colleagues

The worst managers undermine others’ inner work lives, often unwittingly. Through rigorous analysis of nearly 12,000 diary entries provided by 238 employees at seven companies, Amabile and Kramer found surprising results on the factors that affect performance.

What matters most is forward momentum in meaningful work—in a word, progress. Managers who recognize the need for even small wins set the stage for high performance.

But surveys of CEOs and project leaders reveal that 95 percent fundamentally misunderstand the need for this critical motivator.

This is a brief synopsis of an 1300 & 800-word article suitable for consultants’ newsletters for executives and leaders in organizations. It is available for purchase with full reprint rights, which means you may put your name on it and use it in your newsletters, blogs or other marketing materials. You may also modify it and add your personal experiences and perspectives.

The complete 1300-word article includes these important concepts:

•  What Really Motivates Us?
• Facilitating Progress
  • Catalysts
  • Nourishers
• Dealing with Setbacks
• Inhibitors
• Toxins
• The Daily Progress Checklist
• Discovering Your Inner Work Life