Bookish Weapon Number One

Let’s look at three powerful statements that taken together are one Bookish Weapon. But first, bookish weapons are everywhere because books are readily available especially in the area of self-help. Today’s bookish weapon is from “The Resilience Factor,” by Karen Reivich, PH.D. and Andrew Shatte, PH.D. This book really helped me train my mind.

The Resilience Factor, review by Bill Montgomery

Do you know your ABCs?

They are the basics for handling adversity. You could say this is the ground zero bookish weapon. The A stands for adversity. That one is pretty easy. What about B & C? First (or I guess it is second) take C. C is for consequences, feelings, and behavior.

Most often when adversity happens we feel something, do something, or both. Stimulus – response. Pavlov’s dog, right? Often we get wrapped up in the consequences without even realizing how we got there. It is much more complicated than that and we can have much more control over our feelings and behavior. That brings us to the B in ABC.

“B” stands for Beliefs

This is what you believe about the adversity. Let’s say you get a flat tire in the morning on the way to work. Is it an inconvenience or is it going to ruin your whole day? Well, if you have a belief that the beginning of a day sets the tone for the whole day, then maybe it will ruin your day. Remember, your beliefs determine your consequences, feelings, and behavior.

The authors do point out that sometimes, like when a bear is about to attack you, or your pet gets run over by a car. The emotions are triggered by the event and not beliefs.

Use this knowledge to identify beliefs and help you clarify what happened. Discover the belief that triggered your emotion. Now, challenge it.

Bookish Weapons

Relvich and Shatte give you three statements that help you be resilient in real time:

A more accurate way of seeing this is…
That’s not true because…
A more likely outcome is…and I can…

As I mentioned these three statements are a Bookish Weapon themselves. They are powerful and force you to think through the situation and my favorite part of the book.

There are also what they call Iceberg Beliefs. I think Tony Robbins would call them Global Beliefs like “Life is a struggle.” They can support you or not. The question to ask is, “What is this belief costing me?

Stay on offense!