Have your poor behaviors ever been enabled or have you enabled someone else's poor behavior? I'm thinking about that question this morning. I suppose there are times when I enabled people's poor behavior. As I think of that, I may have enabled it in the moment, but then followed up by holding the person accountable and helping them to change their ways. I remember when that happened with a relative--the relative acted inappropriately. I didn't say much in the moment, but later on we had a good talk about it, and that kind of behavior diminished which was good.
I can think of small matters related to me as a child that were accepted by my family. In hindsight, had family members sat down and discussed the matter with me, that would likely have led to some good help and support with the matter. Instead those enabled behaviors followed me through life until they hit a crescendo which forced me to seek some good help on my own. Since then my behavior related to that category has changed quite a bit for the better.
It's best to nip problematic behavior at the start if possible. That's why parenting is so important--parenting guides children in positive ways. Good leadership is also important in this respect--the best leaders guide their employees in positive ways. None of us have all skills, all strengths, or all abilities to do well, but almost all of us are capable of positive development where we play to our strengths and smooth over and improve our rough sports. That's the great and potential positive challenge of life.
So rather than accept and enable the challenging behaviors in yourself and others, try to find positive ways to move ahead of that with more beneficial, positive behaviors. Onward.
