Calling actress Rita Moreno a boss is an understatement. If you’ve watched the documentary, “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It,” you know about her incredible 60-year career spanning the golden era of Hollywood to the recent remake of the movie that brought her an Oscar, “West Side Story.”
But behind the scenes, things haven’t always been so rosy, with extreme romantic highs and lows, including her volatile partnership with Marlon Brando. Now 90, Rita shrugs off concerns about living alone. She smiled and said, “It’s ok—I like who I live with.”
February is often considered the month of love, but relationships aren’t limited to romance, friends, or family. You’re also in a relationship with things, like your calendar, work, and self-image. So, ask yourself a version of Rita Moreno’s statement: Do you like the person you’re living with? The person running your day, your career, and managing your identity?
In the past, you may have thought you had to push or criticize yourself to get ahead. When things didn’t pan out as expected, you could have detached. However, that’s a misuse of your natural creative energy.
If you’re thinking there has to be something in the middle of those two extremes, you’re right, and the answer is soft skills. You can use soft skills to shift from forcing or ghosting to wise decisions, and that’s what we’ve discussed in the February series, Three Ways to Practice Positive Attention.
Here’s a snapshot of what we’ve learned about giving your calendar, work, and self-image positive attention and soft skills examples to make them run:
It’s time to abandon the tired notion that the only effective motivation is the negative kind. If breaking that habit seems impossible, remember past managers. You don’t have to turn into the person who constantly pushed you to do more, no matter how much you already had going on. Or the person who would nit-pick rather than encouraging you to do better next time.
Be someone you like to live with by using soft skills to intentionally change your choices. When you do that, you’re acting like the creative, wise CEO of your life—a Soul Boss. Give all your relationships positive attention.