For 20 years I was a psychotherapist in Chicago and had a successful practice fueled by 3 books on personal growth. In those years I literally worked with thousands of clients who had goals and dreams that were not realized.

In my book Six Keys To Creating The Life You Desire I analyzed 6 underlying issues that were there root cause of their stuckness. In future posts I will examine these six keys but in this post I want to discuss a very common block for many entrepreneurs — conflicting intentions. The following excerpt comes from Chapter One of my book Mastering Online Marketing. Perhaps you will see yourself or someone you know…

Have you ever heard someone referred to as “their own worst enemy”? Do you wonder why many of us often seem to interfere with our own success? If so, you probably recognize that in spite of our constructive intentions to “do” something – become a successful online marketer, lose weight, call a relative, get that promotion, etc. – we don’t always follow through.

And in many instances it is not a simple case of procrastination. Rather it is more insidious… an often unconscious choice to achieve two opposing goals – ones that essentially make it impossible to accomplish either, because they cancel each other out.

Conflicting intentions are equal opportunity blockers… they come in every imaginable form. And during my many years consulting with entrepreneurs, I’ve seen so many variations of this pattern. Here are just a few:

• “I want to earn $500,000 a year but have loads of free time.”

• “I want to get rich even though my gut tells me that’s a selfish goal.”

• “I want to get married but still be free to do anything I want to do”

• “I want to be successful but I don’t want to do things that I don’t like.”

So what happens? These folks feel trapped and confused. Their dreams seem futile. Their results are second-rate or average at best.

Tips for fixing. First, you must acknowledge the existence of your conflicting intentions, even though they’re usually far more emotional than logical and may be buried deep in your subconscious. The good news is that you do have the power to change them. Try this:

1. Create a goal for yourself and write it down. For example, “I will mail my email subscribers every single week with valuable content to position myself as an expert in my industry”.2. Underneath your promise, list all of the things that can stand in the way of you keeping your pledge. For example:

• I don’t want them to opt out of my list because I over mail to them
• I don’t think my content is original enough
• I don’t have enough time to do this
• It won’t really earn me money

Numbers 1 and 2 actually represent your conflicting intentions… Number 1 is encouraging you to act differently – to change in a meaningful way. Conversely, the items you listed in number 2 are convincing you that your goal is not worth the price you’ll pay and urging you to let it go.

3. Now, go back to the list you’ve made in number 2 and write down your supporting belief for each one. For example, under “My subscribers will opt out of my list if I mail once a week” you put, “My content is not strong enough.” If you dig even further you might come up with, “I feel to pushy or intrusive when I mail to them.”

Once you’ve identified these, you can begin challenging their veracity and begin to make positive changes.   i.e. Is it true that my content is not strong enough? Is it helpful material?  What can I do to improve it if necessary?  Am I really being intrusive or is that “my issue” from my past?  So what if they opt out?  – that will leave people who really are interested.

This type of internal assessment will be invaluable as you build and maintain your online business. Begin by defining your own positive intentions – what you want to happen. Then ensure that you are willing to embrace “the journey.” Delve into your own conflicting intentions – face them, challenge them and work hard to gain mastery over them.

[If you know someone who could benefit from this article, I hope you will forward this to them]

Mitch Meyerson is the author of eight books including Mastering Online Marketing, Guerrilla Marketing On The Internet, Six Keys To Creating The Life You Desire and World Class Speaking. He had been a featured expert on the Oprah and has trained and certified over 300 coaches in his Guerrilla Marketing Coach Certification Program. He can be reached at www.MitchMeyerson.com

The next 12 Week Guerrilla Marketing Coach Certification session led by Mitch will be starting soon. Hold your spot here.

We know clients with very small or inconsistent incomes who feel financially secure. As one of them put it, “I know, no matter what, I’ll land on my feet.” They aren’t careless or impractical, either. These people have a natural sense of abundance, a deep belief that there is enough to go around.

We also know clients who have a great deal of income and investments and who are fearful every moment of losing them. To the person who lives with a sense of scarcity, there truly is never enough. He or she therefore is much more apt to go for the sure thing, the instant payoff, the action that will pay the bills today, than take the type of risks involved in seeking a higher purpose or meaning in life.

Karla, 35, is a case in point. She is a special education teacher who works with severely learning disabled children. “Every so often I’ll meet someone and they’ll ask me what I do, and when I tell them, they’ll say something like, “Oh, you’re such a special person to work with those children. It must be so rewarding.” I really want to die when they say that. I got my degree in special education simply because that’s where the jobs were, and I knew that I had to have a job the day I graduated college or I’d have no way to survive. To be honest, the job is boring and tedious. To me, there’s nothing meaningful about it at all. I know that there were probably other things I could have done with my life that I might have enjoyed more. But, hey, with a mortgage, a divorce, and a teenager, I was too afraid to go for it.”

A sense of scarcity is like a filter through which we view everything. It’s not necessarily reality. However, it’s a way of protecting ourselves from risk and disappointment. In truth, it often limits us to a life that is somewhere in the middle of happiness and unhappiness. It’s usually steady and stable. “I guess I’d call it vanilla,” Karla says. “It’s not a sundae with all the trimmings, but at least you’re eating ice cream.” One might think Karla is being practical. But thirteen years doing a job she dislikes goes beyond practicality. It’s her enduring sense of scarcity that won’t allow her to see that she does, in fact, have options.

Where do you stand on the scarcity vs abundance continuum?

Answer the following questions either true or false.

1. I often worry that there won’t be enough money even when things are going well
2. In choosing a career, security is a top priority.
3. I often worry about losing what I’ve gained through no fault of my own.
4. I rarely take risks with things that are dearest to me.
5, I have trouble believing, Do what you love and the money will follow.
6. I worry that my children won’t have as many opportunities in their lives as generations before them.
7. I have trouble believing that eventually everything works out.
8. I don’t feel especially connected to anything beyond my day to day activities.
9. When people say, “Don’t worry, it will work out,” I think they’re naive.
10. I have doubts whether there is a high power who has a master plan for me.
11. When I leave a relationship, it’s usually because I’ve met someone else – I’d rather stay than be alone.
12. Making changes in my life, whether it means moving to another home, or switching careers, can be very difficult for me.

Have you answered true more often than false?

It doesn’t mean you’re right or wrong. Just consider that when one sees scarcity all around him, taking the time to pursue such questions as, What would have real meaning for me? What do I really want? is that much more difficult. It seems impractical. But, that doesn’t mean it is. This isn’t an either/or type of endeavor, where you either take wild risks or stay stuck with what you have. There are ways all of us can begin to feel a greater, more freeing sense of abundance in our lives without giving up the tried and true.

Here are some more questions to consider to enhance your sense of meaning, purpose and sense of abundance.

1. When do you feel your life has the most purpose and meaning? When do you feel the deepest joy?
(i.e. With my grandchild; when I play piano; in my garden; when I take a course; when I exercise)

2. How could your gifts and talents fulfill a need in the world?
(i.e my art skill could bring joy to elderly people, my teaching skill could educate children, my optimism could motivate others)

3. What would I like people to say about me after I’m gone?
(i.e. he/she was a good person, creative, loving, talented,enjoyed life to the fullest)

4. In what ways would you act differently if you had only one year to live?
(i.e. Make sure I made a contribution to what I believe in; tell people I love how I feel about them; visit places I’ve always wanted to see)

Mitch Meyerson is the Founder of Guerrilla Marketing Coaching and the author of 8
psychology and marketing books. www.MitchMeyerson.com

Thousands of pundits, experts, philosophers and scientists have conducted research in an attempt to discover the common characteristics that successful people possess. And while opinions vary, most agree that those belonging to this elite group share the following 10 personality traits.

Look them over and see how you fare. Check your strengths and note areas where you may be weak. Not sure how you rate? Ask colleagues, family and friends to help you out.

1. Conscientious and Reliable… they deliver on their promises in a timely manner.

2. Altruistic and Considerate… they truly care about the welfare of others and demonstrate this concern often

3. Flexible… they understand that they must follow a plan but understand, expect and even welcome change

4. Able to give and receive constructive feedback… They have the courage to accept and provide specific feedback and constructive coaching without getting defensive.

5. Passionate and Enthusiastic… They have the fervor, energy and interest necessary to fuel their all important vision

6. Optimistic… They are positive thinkers who choose to see the best in people and situations but are not afraid to confront the cold, hard facts and weigh the risks in any new venture. Instead they use their energy and resources to figure out ways to make things work rather than why they won’t.

7. Committed to Livelong Learning… They ask questions; search for knowledge and information; value education and respect others who do so as well.

8. Tenacious and persistent… They don’t give up when the going gets rough

9. Balanced in mind, body and spirit… they possess the mental, physical and emotional intelligence and skills necessary to perform their job responsibilities at a high level

10. Focused on the long term… they understand that part of the work they do today is building long term relationships with clients and vendors and planning for their future.

After you assess yourself in these 10 areas, share your findings with a partner and commit to a measurable plan of action to raise your scores. This will make a significant improvement in the success of your business and life.

In 2008 Mitch Meyerson will be releasing his 5th and 6th books, Mastering Online Marketing and Guerrilla Marketing on The Front Lines

For more info  visit
www.MitchMeyerson.com

by Bea Fields, Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach
and President of Five Star Leader Coaching and Training

“When is John going to get me that report?”
“What is going on with the marketing report? When are they going to finish that thing?”
“I can’t believe Mary is so late in making those phone calls.”
“Okay…who dropped the ball this time?”
“Hey…that’s not MY job.”

Does this sound familiar? If so, your small business team may be faced with a big challenge with accountability, which results in finger pointing, frustration and broken trust…both with your employees and your customers. Personal responsibility and accountability can put an end to the blame game, saving your business thousands if not millions of dollars by increasing productivity and overall job satisfaction, which results in very satisfied customers. These five basic approaches can support you in increasing accountability, which are simple, yet they require actually building a culture of accountability for your business.

Communicate the big picture- Accountability stands a better chance of succeeding if everyone in your business embraces a larger responsibility for the success of the entire company. Spend time talking individually with team members about how his or her project affects the vision and mission of the business. With this communication, people can make wiser decisions from the context of the “big picture” rather than from the perspective of what may seem to be a detailed and boring task.

State clear expectations- If one person on your team does not meet your expectations, the entire team can fail. It is important from the very beginning of any new project to state the expectations clearly and repeat them over and over again until your team really “gets it.” These expectations need to be crystal clear, including dates, who is responsible for what, the details of the task and how you want the finished product delivered. If your expectations are fuzzy or confusing in any way, your team can break down, and the fine and very important details can fall through the cracks.

Accountability work groups- One of the best ways to achieve accountability is to develop shared accountability among team members. Accountability within the team can be accomplished by what Morris R. Shechtman calls “accountability groups,” groups which give team members the permission to speak and listen in a way which is frank and open. This accountability group can include 2-5 people and can then serve as a small unit of people working together to confide in with struggles, weaknesses and insecurities. They can then find creative strategies to work together in the direction of the growth the team intends to achieve.

Move to action- In order for accountability to work, people have to know that failure of completion will come with certain consequences, including written warnings, loss of a bonus or extra hours served on a week-end to complete the project on the table. Without consequences, your employees won’t take you seriously. They will think that they can use blame, justification and rationalization as a way to deviate from being responsible, because you have not followed through on what you said you will do if the tasks are not achieved.
Reward and recognition program- Employees need to know in a tangible way their efforts are indeed driving the company forward, and it is important for them to share in the fruits of their hard work. The offer of increased pay and benefits (vacations, time off and other perks) can keep accountability and morale high and can motivate employees to continue to strive for high levels of performance.

(c)2007 Bea Fields
Be can be reached at: www.FiveStarLeader.com

by Mitch Meyerson

“Every year I make a list of New Year’s resolutions, and by the end of January I can’t even remember what was on my list.”
“I have this great idea for a book, but I never get around to putting it down on paper.”
“Just when I start moving towards my goals I seem to hit this wall.”

Sound familiar? If you could “just do it” you probably would have done it. If you’re strong on ideas, but perpetually stuck at the starting line, the following tips will help.

• Be specific about what you want

Change “I want more money,” to “I want to earn $60,000 by December 31, 2004.” Revamp “I want to write someday,” to “I want to write forty pages by August.”

Keep your goals simple. Too many goals are overwhelming, a good excuse for doing nothing at all.

• Be suspicious of your failures

There’s an old saying that people vote with their feet. It means we are exactly where we want to be no matter how much we complain.

Be suspect of any goal you’ve had for more than five years and haven’t achieved. One man spent more than seven years trying to finish his MBA, dropping classes, taking extensions on papers, only to discover that he really didn’t want the degree at all.

When you’re doing what’s close to your heart, it’s easy. Work with your nature. Be suspect of anything that seems too difficult. People find it easier to blame themselves for laziness than to admit that it’s a difficult process to face up to who we really are and what we really want. It feels lonely to admit that we might be different from others, that your goals aren’t the same as theirs. Your failures might be your way of protecting yourself from becoming what you never really wanted to be.

What’s your current goal? Why do you want it so badly? Write two paragraphs answering these questions. Then convince a friend. Notice any possible resistance coming up. Ask yourself again “Is this what I really want?”

• Recognize your fear

Fear is a common response to risk and responsibility. The most common fears are fear of failure, fear of success or fear of abandonment.

The fear of failure indicates you may need to re-examine past disappointments. Talking them out in a supportive setting can release them.

A fear of success can often reflect an expectation of rising expectations–”If I achieve this, people will want more and more from me and I’ll never be able to give them what they want.”

Some of us have fears, often unconscious, of surpassing a parent with our success. A fear of abandonment reflects a belief that success will be connected with disapproval and loss of relationships.

• Are you “demand-resistant”?

Therapists define demand-resistance as having a chronic negative response to obligations or expectations. This is often unconsious. The person who suffers will make daily lists of things to do, then grow angry and anxious when it’s time to get moving. Unconsciously, he or she resents anything that smacks of being “told what to do.”

In some cases, even returning a phone call, or asking a friend to dinner is resented because it’s “expected”. Pleasurable activities, such as working out at a health club, or taking a class in Italian cooking, become “shoulds” to be done perfectly or on a rigid schedule. Work is a burden, and creativity and energy is blocked.

If you suffer from demand-resistance, you constantly find that you set goals and sabotage them. You are always angry at yourself, continually resolving to set goals and stick to them.

The antidote is to keep asking yourself, “Is this what I really want?” Demand-resistance is often a childhood response to overly controlling or overly protective parents. As an adult, such a person always feels vulnerable to being overrun.

The more sure you are of yourself, the more you work on building a strong sense of who you are, the less you’ll feel like resisting your goals just to prove a point.

• Create momentum

Write down your action steps with a dateline for completion. Suppose your goal is writing a screenplay. Your first action step can be something as simple as buying a how-to book. Your next step might be writing your idea for a movie out in one sentence.

Having one hundred small steps to one large goal isn’t unrealistic. Build in incentives. Reward yourself for the completion of each action step.

• Gather support

Let people know what you are trying to do. Don’t minimize the importance of support and reassurance along the way to any goal you set.

• Celebrate

Small successes lend the strength for bigger ones. Positive reinforcement can do more to reshape you patterns than self-criticism.

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Building Personal Power
(excerpted from Six Keys to Creating the Life You Desire)
by Mitch Meyerson

(Before developing the GMC Program, Mitch Meyerson was a prominent therapist and author of three personal growth books. Here is an excerpt of one of his articles. He coaches on personal growth issues as well).

Penny, a thirty-one-year-old public relations specialist recalls her worst experience. “Basically, my job was to convince feature writers at the local newspapers to write a story about a client’s charity event. I phoned the first reporter on the list and went into my pitch.

“Look,” he yelled, cutting me off mid-sentence, “there’s some damn charity event in this city every other week. Why are you bothering me with this?”

“I started feeling like an idiot. “But this is for muscular sclerosis,” I stammered.

“Big deal,” he said, hanging up.

“I knew he was just a jerk, but I couldn’t make another one of those phone calls the rest of the afternoon. I felt completely shut down.”

Shut down. That sinking feeling that begins like butterflies in the stomach then turns into something that feels like a fist is an event most people can identify with. Like a balloon deflating, our entire emotional state sinks down in seconds. We become quiet, withdrawn, ashamed. Curiously, only certain situations and people tend to “shut us down” and make us lose our personal power. One person criticizes us, and we shrug it off. But another person so much as looks at us the wrong way and we’re devastated.

What shuts us down? Usually it is a combination of the following:

Fear of rejection. Carole, 38, admits, “I’m a peacemaker; I hate to upset anyone.” Carole doesn’t realize that many of the people who get “upset” do it as a way of controlling her. She misinterprets other people’s anger as an invalidation of herself. If you believe you can’t assert yourself because it might make someone else unhappy, you’re stuck avoiding confrontation–and your personal power– at all costs.

An overdeveloped sense of responsibility. Some people are emotional sponges who soak up all the tensions in a room. “I’ll bet John’s depressed; I wonder if it’s because I didn’t return his call; Barry seems upset; maybe I should forget about asking for that new software program.”
When your antenna for other people’s emotions is tuned that high, the noise (and your imagination) is loud enough to distract you from your goals. Your unwavering focus on pleasing everyone around you is what’s shutting you down.

Fear of emotional independence. Louise, 29, came from a long line of ‘victims’ who confused suffering with sainthood. “Everyone in my family was depressed about something. If you acted like you believed in yourself, everyone thought you were conceited and the way you got attention was to pretend to be sad.” If you believe you’re going to get what you want by showing how much others have hurt your feelings, you’re shut down before you even start talking.

Fear of risking a relationship. Do you believe that if you made your feelings and desires known, exactly as they are, no one could possibly accept you? You’re a good candidate for getting shut down. The payoff for hiding your true self is always distance from other people. You’re bound to be powerless in relationships in which the fear of being fully yourself keeps you on constant guard.
Fear of change. You can be quite comfortable feeling one-down to everyone else if that’s what you’re used to. Plus, when you exert your personal power, the feedback from others–especially those who have something to gain by your powerlessness–can be quite negative.

You may resist using your personal power because you fear loss. Sometimes this fear is justified. But if you’re carrying around unresolved feelings of rejection from the past, this fear will be magnified. To let go of the fear of change, it may be necessary to work with a supportive therapist or group. The more centered you are in your self-esteem, the less you need to fear change.

If you feel shut down by other people, these tips should be helpful:

List your payoffs. What do you think you’ll achieve by giving up your power to other people?: “If I don’t fight with him, he’ll like me; If I tell her what I really think, it will make things worse; If I’m too pushy, everyone will hate me.”

Ask if you achieve your goals via your present behavior. One woman did this exercise and wrote that the payoff for being the ‘perfect employee’ and swallowing her feelings was supposed to be her boss’s confidence in her. Then she looked at the most recently promoted people in her company. Their qualities differed markedly from hers. They make mistakes. They argued with the boss on occasion. They won their boss’s confidence by being fully themselves.

Visualize. A potent tool for building greater personal power is utilizing the positive experiences in your own past. Create an internal file of memories of success. These don’t have to be huge triumphs, just times you felt good about yourself. Build on these feelings and create new visions for future successes. Visualize these experiences in detail as often as you can. What you concentrate on in life increases.

Find your emotional link. People who are easily shut down usually share a common history: they were invalidated–made to feel as if their feelings, thoughts and actions were unimportant or undesirable–by parents, teachers or early employers. Now they link the use of their personal power with shame and fear. If you blush or smile automatically when you confront a person who’s made you angry, that’s a giveaway.

Put that shame back where it belongs –on the people who shamed you. Write a letter. You don’t have to mail it. You don’t have to be fair. Get those feelings out so that they no longer choke your personal power.

You may have grown up in an environment that sabotaged your self esteem. But personal power can be developed. By identifying self-defeating patterns you can learn to empower yourself. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

This was excerpted from Six Keys to Creating the Life of Your Dreams by Mitch Meyerson. Visit here for more information on Mitch’s coaching and mentoring programs.

by Mitch Meyerson and Laurie Ashner

It took Beth, a bright, motivated, 30-something manufacturer’s rep months to figure out that what she was feeling wasn’t paranoia. “I had to sell out of the showroom five times a month. I’d be with a customer and glance over at my boss. He’d be whispering to the vice-president. His hand was cupped over their mouths. I stared straight at them, and they kept whispering. It was totally unnerving. How can you function with your boss walking around whispering about you when you’re trying to work?

You can’t. By some strange serendipity Beth met a woman at an industry function who had dated her boss. They became fast friends. “You’re not imagining things,” the woman said. “He once told me that the only reliable management technique is fear. One night he got totally drunk and passed out on my couch. Before he went down he told me that his goal in life was to rip off every person who walked into his showroom.”

Welcome to the dysfunctional work environment–DWE, for short. Beth’s experience may sound extreme, but she is hardly alone.

Kevin spent nine years in another DWE. When he didn’t get a memo and an agenda for the usual Tuesday morning meeting, he didn’t worry. The department head was new. Maybe the weekly meeting was going to be a thing of the past. He spent the morning sifting through papers that had been on his desk for weeks. He was feeling good about himself when he looked into the hallway and saw his colleagues coming back from what had obviously been the weekly meeting. It became clear that he wasn’t invited.

“Why wasn’t I included in the meeting?” I asked my boss after a week of trying to get a moment alone with him.

“To teach you a lesson.” he said.

“A lesson? What lesson?” I wanted to know.

“If you don’t know I’m not going to tell you.” He stood there grinning like the cat who had swallowed the canary. I felt like I was twelve years old and had left my new bicycle out in the rain.

“You hear about these dysfunctional families where parents emotionally abuse their children with their rages, unrealistic expectations, and addictions. Where do you think these people are from nine to five? A good number of them are in my office.”

Claudia Black, in her best seller, It Can’t Happen to Me spelled out the rules of the alcoholic, dysfunctional family: Don’t talk, Don’t trust, Don’t feel. She might just as well been speaking out about dysfunctional work environments. People who toil in them day in and day out know those rules well.

In the DWE, employees pilfer paper clips pens, and legal pads and whatever else they need to stock their home offices. They call in sick, come in late, make long distance phone calls on the company phone and Xerox a hundred personal copies when the boss is in the John. Why? To reward themselves in an unrewarding environment.

In the DWE, you’re not supposed to trust. Don’t trust that you’ll keep your job, no matter how hard you work. As one man told us, “They make a big deal about the fact that we signed a statement that we are employees-at-will when we took our jobs here. You’ll have little grounds on which to sue us if we abuse you is the take-home lesson. I came back from a business trip, and my boss had moved my office into what used to be a closet.”

Don’t talk, either. Don’t talk about anything that might possibly be an issue. Don’t talk about employees who quit and why they quit. “They send a memo to the shareholders about every change, every hiring and firing, all the news about the bottom line and what’s really going on. But employees never see that memo. If you keep in contact with someone who left the company and got another job, you’re digging your own grave.”

Perhaps the most galling thing about the DWE is working with people who seem to thrive in it. Certain employees capture the administration’s heart. They progress no matter how arduous the corporate ladder becomes. The strange thing is no one else sees much redeeming value in the daily work of these pets.

“There’s some people here who always seem to take it all in stride, no matter how ridiculous things get,” one woman complained. “I used to resent them. But now I realize these people have the same success the physically or emotionally abused spouse has who is able to live in unbearable circumstances, if you can call that success. They get hit hard, but then they won’t press charges and make excuses. Some people know how to duck the rages and take the punches when they come. It’s peace at an enormous price.”

Clients often dig in their heels when we suggest they leave their Dysfunctional Work Environments. They have kids in private school, a stack of bills to pay, a career in a field that is over-staffed. But sometimes something much deeper is at play. There’s a need to win over the disapproving person, a continuation of the childhood struggle to overcome disapproving, emotionally unavailable parents.

Add to that the fact that the DWE thrives on the sketchy self-esteem of its employees. Just as the abusing spouse tells his or her partner, “No one will ever love you if you leave me; you’re too ugly and disgusting,” the DWE encourages employees to feel that if they can’t make it here it’s because they just aren’t savvy enough for the job. These environments keep their workers by preying on the normal self-doubt all of us experience when trying to reach a goal. They try to convince you that if you don’t talk, don’t trust and don’t feel, you’ll excel, no matter how inept at your job you might be. It can take several hours of counseling with an unbiased person to bring you back to yourself.

To think that you can’t find a better job is nonsense. David is a case in point. “The salon I worked for was part of a worldwide chain known for its innovation. Whatever haircut I did was never good enough, even if the client jumped out of the chair and hugged you. To them, I could always do more. I did some serious acting out in those days. I worked hard all day and got drunk every night to escape the anger I felt. I didn’t realize it was part of the script I’d been playing all my life. My father was never satisfied. I always had to do it again, and do it better. It was never enough. I escaped him by hiding in my room. This job fit right in.”

“I told my story to a therapist who said, “Your boss sounds controlling, manipulative and unhappy.” I wanted to hug him. You really lose yourself under these circumstances. I needed an unbiased person, who could see the truth and bring me back to myself. I was so enmeshed in the whole environment that I didn’t trust my own instincts anymore.”

David bonded with several other employees and they left that salon to start one of their own. It wasn’t as hard as he’d been taught to imagine. His salon is successful to this day, ten years later.

You can survive a dysfunctional work environment–but don’t expect to thrive in it. It isn’t easy, and the rules are never clear. Borrowing a platitude from the twelve step programs, one needs to realize this: You didn’t create it and you can’t fix it. In other words, the only person you can change is yourself.

Not feeling, not trusting and not talking is the antithesis of creativity and personal growth. Twelve step programs teach that the only way out is through. It’s true. The way out of dysfunctional work environment is through — through the door.

Mitch Meyerson is one of the top Business and Personal Coaches in the industry. If you’re tired of existing in a dysfunctional work environment, set up a consultation with Mitch to strategize your way through the door, or if you want to share your Dysfunctional Work Environment story. We can change the names to protect the innocent! Just don’t email it from work they may be watching