CMU School of Drama


Tuesday, September 02, 2014

Accentuate the Positive

Builder Magazine: Restrictive diets often have the opposite effect we intend. A restrictive approach means all attention goes toward preventing certain foods from crossing our lips. When the mindset is “I can’t have x, y, and z,” we feel extreme shame when we “fail.” Even when we meet our goals, we have a nagging feeling that we could’ve done more. Instead of being inspired by how far we have come, we feel ashamed by how far we have to go. I find that for a healthy body and for a healthy business, I have more success with a prescriptive approach—meaning I focus on all the things I must do in order to fuel my body or build a healthy company.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I feel like I see this issue all the time on a personal rather than organizational level here. Not often, but sometimes I have a conversation with sometimes that may culminate in the other person saying, "Oh you can't do that xyz thing." Maybe some people just default to a no before a yes answer. That being said, I find that a prescriptive rather than a restrictive answer is both more preferable and generally more optimistic. Going further, even a no answer is fine if a good reason follows it up pertaining to the negative impact an action might have. I'm not asking everyone to be a yes-man, but maybe viewing actions is something less than black and white would be preferable.