1. 1 The Thought-Patterns of Success
1:50 PM Monday April 30, 2012
by Elizabeth Grace Saunders | Comments (69)
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Your passion for your career can sabotage your attempts to succeed.
When you go from feeling energized, excited and in control of your work to feeling an overwhelming
compulsion to achieve and produce, you've tipped from helpful harmonious passion into harmful
obsessive passion.
But when you've grown accustomed to operating from a state of obsessive passion, you may want to act
differently, but you just don't know how. Your deeply ingrained mental and behavioral patterns naturally
lead you toward seemingly uncontrollable compulsion to work. Paradoxically, these natural reflexes inhibit
the quality of your professional output. And when you do make small attempts to change, like leaving the
office on time, you experience withdrawal symptoms, which send you scurrying back to your familiar habit
patterns.
Fortunately, there is hope. You can rediscover a life of harmonious passion by intentionally changing your
behavior and by replacing harmful thought patterns with helpful ones. To help you with this process, I've
disclosed the thoughts I most commonly see coursing through people's minds when they feel stuck in a
state of obsessive passion and offered suggestions on how to modify them.
Flawed Evaluation of Worth
Harmful Helpful
I am important and of value because of what I am of value because of who I am, not what I
I achieve, produce or have. Therefore if I do. I am a unique individual whose life has a
stop achieving, producing or having, my life special purpose regardless of what I earn,
no longer has value, meaning or purpose. accomplish or own.
Perfection is an ideal abstraction created by my
mind that can not exist in the reality of an
Perfect is the only option. Less than perfect is
imperfect physical world. I can choose to adapt
failure.
my evaluation methods so that less-than-perfect
is still seen as a success.
I am only as good as my last Every life experience offers an opportunity for
_____________. If I stop or rest or don't growth. Each day, I can do my best, correct my
perform to the same or better level in the mistakes, and learn for the next time I meet a

2. future, I will lose everything. similar challenge. My past provides a secure
foundation for my future.
Sense of Over-Responsibility
Harmful Helpful
Activities rarely go exactly according to plan and often
If everything doesn't go according to times, no possible scenario could make everyone
plan and make everyone happy, it's happy. I take responsibility for the areas within my
my fault. I should have planned more, control but release responsibility for those outside of
done more, been more. my control, including unforeseen circumstances and
others' emotional responses.
There will always be more work to do. By choosing to
I can only rest without guilt once all
rest at reasonable intervals, I increase my productivity,
the work is done. If I stop any sooner,
accomplish more, enjoy life and stop feeling resentful
I am lazy, selfish and irresponsible.
toward others who take breaks.
My needs are the lowest priority. I It's good for me to be considerate of others' needs, but I
will only get enough sleep, eat well, also have a legitimate need for proper self-care. When I
exercise and do activities I enjoy take time to nurture my physical, mental, emotional and
once everyone else has their needs — spiritual health, I have a greater capacity to truly
and most of their wants — met. connect with and support others.
Insecurity in Relationships
Harmful Helpful
I can choose to not allow my perception of
Everyone is watching and evaluating me. If I
other people's opinions of me dictate my
don't appear to meet their standards for
opinion of myself. I am free to live as I please
outward success, they will think badly of me.
and make the choices that are right for me.
I'm bad at forming and maintaining It may not be easy for me at first, but I can
relationships. I can never make my friends and learn how to form and maintain better
family happy so why should I try to have a life relationships. I may not always meet
outside of work? everyone's expectations, but I have a better

3. chance of success when I make a good effort.
I feel in control at work because certain actions I can choose to stay in a place of security and
predictably produce specific results. It's too isolation, or I can choose to open my life up to
much of a risk to venture into areas where I others. I may experience some loss of control,
don't always know what to do, and I can't count but ultimately I create the possibility of great
on other people's response to my actions. joy in true relationship with others.
If you think you might have fallen into the trap of obsessive passion, go through this list and ask yourself:
Do I agree with any of the harmful thought patterns?
If the answer is "yes," you can incorporate more helpful thought patterns into your life through these types
of activities:
Writing down your thoughts in a journal and then revising your harmful thoughts into helpful ones.
Keeping a list of helpful thoughts on the wall of your workspace
Meditating on the helpful thoughts by repeating them aloud (or silently if you're in a cube)
If you have been able to free yourself to achieve without becoming relentlessly driven, let us know how
you succeeded in the comments. Have you noticed a difference in yourself or your work when you
operated from a state of harmonious versus obsessive passion?