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What’s Self-Care Got to Do With It?

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gym weightsIt’s amazing how often our misconceptions take us down the wrong path.

  • We think that the way to get ahead is to work harder than anyone else.
  • The path to professional success is personal sacrifice.
  • Sleeping less will give us more time for productive work.
  • Daydreaming is a waste of time.
  • We can just “push through it,” whatever it is.
  • Work is work, and our personal lives are our personal lives.

Wrong!

The truth is, we know that getting ahead isn’t about working harder than anyone else. Personal sacrifice can be taken to extremes, damaging or destroying our relationships and our support networks. Sleeping less not only leaves us tired; it can leave us with the same functional ability as if we were intoxicated. Allowing ourselves to daydream can open the door to creative, innovative solutions to problems that hours of holding our heads in our hands while staring at a blank page (or screen) failed to yield. Pushing through may work sometimes; it is far from a strategy for success. And, as much as some of us would like it to be the case, we are not separate people at work and at home. What happens at work doesn’t stay at work any more than what happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas, and vice versa. [Read more…]

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Dream the Impossible.

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iStock_000004817114verysmallI spent this weekend fostering dreams. No, I wasn’t working in a sleep-deprivation lab… I was facilitating an intent workshop for a client. They are a small nonprofit, founded to memorialize and honor the victim of a hate crime. In their early years, they focused on creating a physical memorial (a bench with a plaque) in his name, and provided victim services. They testified on behalf of hate crime legislation. Everything was done by volunteers. Most of them moved on. The organization languished.

However, one person kept the spark alive. He knew the work wasn’t done. He wasn’t ready to let the memory fade, or the underlying causes of the attack be left unchallenged. He still feels the pain of loss, the shock of a friend dead because of who he was.

He struck on an idea: produce children’s videos that address issues of difference and acceptance. He found a college teacher who was willing to make this a class assignment. An educator offered insights into key elements of the content. Students storyboarded, presented, and produced two videos.

Now, where do they go from here? [Read more…]

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Listen to Henry Ford…

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untitledToday’s post is more personal than most. It is a story about my son, Brandon, and holds an important lesson for each of us.

As you may recall from an audio post I made to my blog last year, Resilience Is Critical When Facing Challenge, Brandon is adopted. I first met Brandon when he was 15 years old. He reached out to request an interview for a photography project he was doing in school. He had to write the biography of his favorite photographer and, he told me, “I Googled gay photographers, and you’re my favorite.”

During the course of the interview Brandon learned a bit about me, and I learned a bit about him. Most importantly, I learned that he was living in an abusive home environment, and attending a school where he was getting assaulted on a regular basis. Moreover, he didn’t have an adult figure in his life that he could turn to for guidance, and whom he could trust. I offered him the opportunity to stay in touch, and he accepted.

As time went on, I learned that at home Brandon was told that because he is gay, he would never amount to anything, that he would end up living on the streets. School was not much better. Students would stand outside in the morning, praying for him. A teacher once asked whether he was ever going to “get better.” And he was told he would end up as a hairdresser or florist.

When I first began talking with Brandon about his future, he was already committed to moving beyond the “guidance” he was receiving from others; he had identified a one-year photography trade school that he hoped to attend. As a sometime photographer who knows how difficult it is to make a living that way, I encouraged him to think in terms of “both/and.” What would he like to study in addition to photography?

By the time Brandon graduated high school, he had been thrown out of his home, and I had taken him in. He had been accepted into a five year BA/BFA program at The New School in New York City, with plans to major in psychology (BA) and photography (BFA). Midway through his sophomore year, he made the decision to discontinue the photography major, and focus fully on psychology.

The next year he applied for, and was admitted to, a BA/MA program. This program allowed him to take graduate-level courses his junior and senior years, and granted him provisional admission to continue on for his masters degree without going through the traditional GRE and admissions process. His senior year courses would also be credited toward his MA. This fall, Brandon was notified that he was admitted to graduate school at The New School. Last month he completed his BA; while he doesn’t yet have all of his grades for the semester, his final undergraduate GPA will be in the vicinity of 3.9. At the end of this month he begins his final year of the MA program, majoring in Mental Health and Substance Abuse Counseling. And, over the winter break, he has begun training as a professional mediator.

The journey has not been easy for Brandon. If he had believed in the future that others predicted for him, he may never have even reached out to me. But he shut out those voices in favor of his own. And, despite the negativity of so many people in the first eighteen years of his life, Brandon is creating a positive future for himself…one in which he will be helping others to believe in themselves as well.

Brandon hadn’t heard this quote of Henry Ford’s until well along in his journey. Nonetheless, he has shown us all how true it is. “If you think you can do a thing, or you think you can’t, you are right.”

As you move through the challenges of the new year, think you can!

Comment below.

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What Are You Giving Yourself for the Holidays?

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bags 3 whiteWith the holiday season upon us, what gifts are you giving yourself?

No, I am not talking about a new car, the getaway vacation, or that piece of expensive jewelry you have been craving. I am talking about something you so much more deserve, and that is available to you no matter what is in your bank account.

In my work with clients, both at the personal and at the organizational level, there are a number of gifts that I encourage them to give themselves. Consider this a gift list from which to choose for yourself.

Passion: Today I was speaking with someone about my long-term engagement with photography. It will most likely never pay the bills for me. But when I pick up the camera, I am “in the zone.” The images that I produce receive critical acclaim; they are selected for juried exhibitions and museum collections; and they sometimes cause people to see the world around them–and even themselves–differently. I get the same feeling when I am working with people facing, and moving through, difficult change.

What are you passionate about? Where and how are you expressing that passion in your life today? If you don’t know what it is, give yourself the gift of Exploration…discover it. If you know it, but aren’t expressing it, give yourself the gift of Next Steps. Don’t spend another year regretting that you haven’t done what you could about whatever is really important to you.

Exploration: Discover your passion. What is your “why?” What touches your heart, your soul, your very being. For some people, the answer becomes obvious quickly; for others, it requires reflection. Allow yourself that time and space. Make that a gift to yourself.

Next Steps: If you know your passion, don’t save it for retirement, or “until things slow down.” Even if it is something that requires a considerable investment of time, money, energy, etc., there is something that you can be doing about it now.

I recently spoke with someone whose work options are constrained by the visa that he has. It is work that he is good at, but it is very different than his passion for a more creative writing career. My encouragement was to write, to take courses at the local community college, and/or participate in weekend workshops.

Starting to build that platform now will allow you to launch more fully into the passion when circumstances allow. What is that first, or next, step that you can take to pursue your passion? It is most likely a better investment than the ring you were considering buying for yourself.

Patience: Sometimes I hear, “Why start now? It is so long before I can really make this work.” That may be true. But if you wait until that “so long” has passed in order to get started, it will be an even longer time before you are making it work.

If making a new passion a more integral part of your life is a big change, it isn’t going to happen over night. It is going to require patience. Having a clear picture of what it will be like once you have achieved it, and knowing that you are taking concrete steps to do so, will keep you motivated. Being patient with yourself and with the journey is a great gift to give yourself.

Being Human: We are all human. We all make mistakes. We all hear things wrong. We all see things wrong. We all read things wrong. We all misinterpret things. We all make bad choices. We all take the wrong turn sometimes. Allow yourself to be human. Acknowledge what went wrong; if at all possible figure out why and learn from it. Then move on.

Love and Acceptance: Most of us do the best we know how. Sometimes it is good enough, sometimes it is great, and sometimes no matter how hard we try, we can’t pull it off. Sometimes we make great progress in what seems an impossibly short period of time; sometimes we seem to be going nowhere, sitting in neutral. At the end of the day, give yourself love and acceptance. This is where you are now; this is who you are now. Tomorrow you have the opportunity to pursue your passion, explore, take next steps, be patient, and be human all over again.

What gifts are you giving yourself this holiday season? Comment below.

NOTE: On Tuesday, December 29 I will be republishing “New Year’s Resolutions: Resolve for Results, Not Just Action.” Many people have found this post a useful guide for helping them establish more meaningful New Year’s resolutions.

 

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“What Would Steve Do?”

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iStock_000015325710SmallSome of us have trouble figuring out and committing to a path forward. The reasons are varied. We may not have all the facts we think we need. We may not be certain that we can get those whose support we want on board. We may feel uncomfortable with making decisions in general, or this decision in particular.

It is then that we all too often turn to someone else (a consultant, a coach, a therapist, a friend…) and say, “What would you do?” As a professional coach, I hear it all the time.

When I hear this question, I often think of a quote from Matsuo Basho: Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old, seek what they sought.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the question. It is a way of gaining different perspectives, especially if you are asking a diverse group of people who bring different backgrounds and experiences to the table. What does this look like through a financial lens, through a magnitude of change lens, through a market lens, through a feasibility lens? What does it look like through an interpersonal lens, through a spiritual lens, through a personal alignment lens?

Ask the question. Gather the insights. Weigh them.

It’s what all too often happens next that concerns me. Sometimes the decision is to not decide; there are too many divergent perspectives to commit to a path forward. Sometimes, it becomes a “hop scotch” of trying one thing for a bit, then jumping to the next, waiting to find something that seems to stick. And, sometimes we have someone else to blame if the chosen direction or actions don’t work out. “John got it wrong.” “Steve put us on the wrong path.” “How could Hannah have been so off?”

The truth is simple. If it is your change, you need to own your decisions. You need to own the correct ones. And, you need to own the incorrect ones. You ask John, Steve, and Hannah because they are bringing something to the assessment that you don’t have. None of them has everything you bring to the table either; none of them own the change in the way you do. You shouldn’t be asking them if you suspect they may give you bad advice, intentionally or otherwise. But what you are getting is advice, not instruction. If you choose to go forward with it, that is your choice, not their responsibility.

As Basho suggests, don’t follow in their footsteps, follow in their wisdom. If it will be helpful, go ahead and ask “What would Steve do?” Then have the courage and strength to make the decision, and to hold yourself accountable for the consequences.

How do you request–and respond to–counsel from others? Comment below.

 

 

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“What Does Mary Think?”

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iStock_000000227687_SmallWhether asked aloud or not, all too often the opinions of others are an important consideration when thinking about and executing change. As we have discussed in earlier blogs, it is important to get input from a range of people who will be affected by the change. It can inform decisions about what to change, when to change, and how to execute the change. So, asking, What does Mary think? makes sense when done at the right time, and in the right way. But, all too often, how we respond to the answer does not.

I had just begun grad school in September 1971 when I received my draft notice. In order to complete the semester, I enrolled “delayed enlistment” in the US Air Force; I began basic training in early 1972. Among the 48 men in our training group was “Airman Jones.” Airman Jones was from a rural part of the country, not highly educated, and not very coordinated. At the same time, he was good humored, and was one of the most hard-working people I have ever known. Everyone was willing to put in an extra effort to make sure that he was able to keep up with the rest of us in meeting our academic and physical requirements. What we never were able to do, however, was to train him to stay in step when marching. Sometimes he would step off with the wrong foot, sometimes not. It really didn’t matter; either way, he would regularly drift in and out of step with the other 47 of us.

There is a marching command, “Change Step, March.” On the word “March,” everyone does a quick “step-step” within a single beat of the cadence. The result is that you essentially are marching “Left. Right. Left. Right-Right. Left. Right.” We became very skilled at executing this command, which was given with one slight modification… “With the exception of Airman Jones, Change Step, March.” The result, 47 of us were regularly adjusting our pace to be in step with the one person who could not stay in step with us.

I tell this story because it is much like asking, “What does Mary think?” and then adjusting to align with the answer, regardless of what it is. And, when it comes to change, in one way or another this happens all too often. The top salesperson is allowed to maintain an administrative assistant and call his orders in rather than moving to filing them digitally on a tablet because “Tom isn’t technically savvy and he is too important to lose.” The CIO agrees to keep shadow systems running for the CFO because she doesn’t like “making all that information so readily available to others.” Joe’s newspaper continues to get delivered to the apartment door even though he has long-since moved out because “What would the neighbors think if they find out we are getting a divorce?” If Tom doesn’t need to become digitally savvy, the word soon spreads that you are not really serious about the change. If the CFO can run shadow systems to continue to maintain control over information, the purchasing department in Des Moines will be doing the same thing soon enough. And, sooner or later, the neighbor will know Joe is no longer living there, and why…and will most likely just shrug and go about her own business.

If the change is big, it’s tough. And when you are executing tough change, people are not going to be happy. If it is really okay to adapt the change when it makes Mary, or Tom, or you uncomfortable, then how important is it?

If it’s that big and that unimportant, why are you doing it? If it’s that big and that important, then be respectful of the discomfort it is causing. And continue to move forward.

What do you think? Comments and your own related stories are welcomed below.

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