Equanimity; balance; Archives - TransformingLives.Coach

Lesson From a Landslide

December 1, 2015 By Brian Gorman

A few weeks ago I made reference to the Himalayan pilgrimage that I took in 2007. Shortly after that post, I was contacted by a former client who thought he knew me fairly well until he learned about this trip to India; he wanted to know more about it. After reading my blog Pilgrimage to the Himalayas, he and I sat down to discuss the journey and its impact on me.

I thought that I would take this opportunity to share one of the lessons that remains deeply ingrained in who I am, and how I attempt to show up every day. Below is the original blog entry.

Traffic. Flooded roads. Travel delays. I am sure you have experienced them, as have I. However, never have I experienced them in the same way as in India.

Shortly after leaving for Gangotri, we find that the road ahead is blocked by a landslide. We turn around, and head back a few minutes to the last village we had passed. There is time for breakfast. As we enter the small eatery (I am not sure that I have ever seen an American equivalent), our guide and drivers have already started assisting the proprietor at the stove. Soon we are being served chai, freshly prepared bread (one of the many forms that bread takes in India, though I don’t remember which), and butter. There is a school located up the hill behind us, and as we eat several boys come in to buy new pens. I am sitting at the front table, closest to the cash register, and observe these transactions. For most, it is a quick exchange, pen for rupees. Then one young boy, perhaps eight or nine years of age, comes in. He must try the pen, then another, and yet another. The clear plastic barrels, the colored caps, the ink are all the same yet he tests each one, comparing the results, before finally settling on one of them. I wonder whether this is a habit that will follow him through life, and how it will serve him.

Breakfast is leisurely. We know that when we get back on the road, it will be open, or it will still be blocked. There is no need to rush to find out.

In fact, we discover that the landslide that allowed us breakfast has been cleared. However, not many kilometers ahead there is another. This one is much more substantial. As we drive toward it we pass a huge bulldozer starting to warm up. It will be a few hours before we see it again. When we travel as far as we can, we pull to the side of the road and park. The parking is a bit random, some vehicles on one side of the road, some vehicles on the other. There are buses of pilgrims, taxis, motor scooters, cars, and trucks. Everyone knows that we will be here for hours. I confirm that for myself firsthand when I walk down the road and see the massive rocks blocking our way.

Imagine this. You have a travel itinerary, a destination. The plan is to drive to Gangotri, drop some gear at a guesthouse, and begin the next trek. Instead, you and hundreds of others will be waiting for a significant period of time on a mountain road, a national highway no less. For us, the experience was very Indian, amazing, and thought provoking.

Some took the opportunity to nap, either in their vehicles or along the rocks on the side of the road. Others read. People walked up and down, stopping to meet others and to talk. We had passed a waterfall shortly before we stopped. The sun was out, so it became a place for people to do their laundry. Some (myself included) set shoes and clothes out in the sun to dry. There was dancing and singing. There were processions of pilgrims. What was missing was the anger, the vitriol, the impatience, the honking of horns, the expressions of rage that such a circumstance would have elicited anywhere I had ever been before.

Eventually, the road is opened. It took a bulldozer, dynamite, and a large road crew. It is 3:10 in the afternoon; we have been here over six hours. People move back to their vehicles and, slowly, our pilgrimages resume. We reach our destination three hours later. Tonight we will spend at a guesthouse in Gangotri. Landslides happen, itineraries change. It is about the journey.

Whether dealing with a major change, or just experiencing day-to-day life, the unanticipated happens. Plans and expectations are disrupted. It is amazing how much emotional (and sometimes physical) energy gets consumed when this happens. So many of us continue to be surprised by the surprises; indignant at the flight delay (or, as I witnessed once, indignant because travelers were delayed getting to the airport by snowy roads and their flight took off on time without them); frozen by disbelief when the promotion doesn’t come…or the divorce papers do. We allow ourselves to be victimized by things we cannot control.

What if, instead, we were able to begin from a point of acceptance for what is? There are surprises; flights are delayed, even in the best of weather, and do depart on time even during storms; sometimes we don’t get the job; sometimes relationships end.

I learned to play pinochle from my grandparents. My grandfather taught me, You can’t control the hand you are dealt; you can control how you play it. Spending six hours on a national highway in India waiting for a landslide to be cleared brought that lesson home to me more deeply than it had ever touched me before. And, while it isn’t always easy, it remains a lesson I attempt to apply every day. With the energy that is conserved, I can then look at how–given the circumstances–forward momentum can be restored.

What is your experience with “accepting what is?” Has it served you well, or gotten in the way? Does it come easily, or is it a challenge? Comment below.

When It Comes to Change, There Is No Immunity.

June 16, 2015 By Brian Gorman

Change: A Disruption in expectations. You think it’s going to be sunny, and get caught in a rain shower. You plan on retiring from the employer you have been with for twenty years, and find out they are closing their US operations. You are contacted by a recruiter who is asking you to apply for a position that would be a significant promotion.

Change…

What you see as a minor change may be significant to me. What I see as a positive change may be a negative change to you.

Change is an inherent part of life. There is no immunity. Whether it is a personal change or work-related, there are an almost infinite number of adjustments that are made just to maintain the status quo. You spend a little more than you had planned on your children’s back-to-school wardrobe, and cut back for a week or two on the grocery bill. Sales are up for the third quarter, and you treat your sales department to an unexpected night on the town. The old service delivery model is not working as well as it used to, but there is another tweak that can be made to help it last a bit longer. Sometimes the changes are that minor, and sometimes they are transformational.

Change…

Some people will tell you they avoid change as much as possible. Others will tell you that they embrace change.

I am one of the latter, so let me tell you what that really means to me. I look forward to the challenges of change. I look forward to the lessons that I will learn, the growth that I will experience, in going through my own change or guiding another through change. i look forward to the opportunity of sharing my forty years of change experience with others so that they can learn what I know, and I can continue to learn and grow.

Let me tell you what else it means. I look forward to change selectively…Not coming at me from every direction, not thrust on me unexpectedly by others. I look forward to enough change to keep me challenged, but not so much change that it overwhelms me. I look forward to change when I am able to balance it with stability and equanimity at the same time.

Change…

There is no immunity.

There are, however, inoculations that will help reduce its impact.

First, no matter who initiated the change, don’t allow yourself to be victimized by it. You may not be able to call for the hand to be re-dealt. You can control how you respond to the hand that you get.

Next, learn the patterns of human response to change. Knowing how you and those around you will be responding as you travel through the life cycle of a change gives you back some sense of control. You can be prepared for the response. Perhaps you can even be doing something to accelerate it if doing so will help move the change forward more quickly. Or, you can take steps to mitigate it, if the next step in the pattern (left unaddressed) will disrupt the forward momentum of the change.

As an example of the former, knowing that “experimentation” follows “positive perception” when you are building commitment to a change, you might develop a means for your early adapters to begin to experiment with the new tablets before you roll them out across the organization. As an example of the latter, knowing that resistance is inevitable in the case of major change, and knowing that resistance is driven by either willingness or ability, you may focus early on communicating what will be done to help people develop the skills they will need to succeed with the change.

The third way that you can reduce the disruption of change is to strengthen your own resilience, the resilience of those around you, and–for organizational change–the resilience of those throughout the organization.

Resilience is the ability to re-calibrate to disruptions with minimal impact on your productivity or the quality of the work that you do. In essence, what this means is that the more resilient a person is, the more quickly they can be back to 100%, and the less what they are doing will suffer in the interim.

We will be covering more about resilience in future posts. In the meantime, know that: while each of us starts with a baseline of resilience, there are ways that it can be strengthened; when working with other people, it is possible to build on the resilience strengths that each of you brings; and it is possible to hire for resilience. This is always a good idea, since whatever skills the individual is bringing to the job will most likely become obsolete sooner rather than later; you want people who are able to re-calibrate to your changing needs.

If you want to find out more about resilience before I post on it again, feel free to contact me directly. Also, check out Dr. Linda Hoopes’ radio blog and her website.

What are you doing to help reduce the disruptive impact of change? Comment below. Share your experiences.

Work Your Plan One Week at a Time.

May 25, 2015 By Brian Gorman

Undertaking a big change is daunting; it can seem overwhelming. In past blogs we have talked about different aspects of planning. Today the focus is on executing against that plan.

In general, my recommendation is to work your plan one week at a time. (Here I am focusing on change at the individual level…if you are leading your organization through change, much of what I am offering here can be applied–with some translation–as well.)

Momentum is important during change. Move too fast and you may get all of the pieces in place, but never achieve the actual outcomes that you are seeking. Move too slow, and your change is likely to grind to a halt.

Taking a week-by-week approach, with your installation (what you are putting in place) and realization (what you are actually setting out to achieve) milestones in mind helps to maintain momentum. Think about it. In the next month I am going to update my resume doesn’t quite drive action the same way as This week I am going to make 15 networking calls.

You may or may not have any realization milestones that you plan to meet each week; you should definitely have installation milestones for yourself. Quoting from Wikipedia, “A milestone is one of a series of numbered markers placed along a road or boundary…Milestones are constructed to provide reference points along the road. This can be used to reassure travelers that the proper path is being followed, and to indicate either distance traveled or the remaining distance to a destination.”

Using milestones on a weekly basis allows you to know not only that you are actively doing things, but that you are on “the proper path.”

So why not create milestones for every day?

Generally, unless you are in a position to control virtually every aspect of your day, daily milestones become burdensome; they are too easy to not achieve as other day-to-day things come up; and, the discouragement of not achieving them can drain energy and actually get in the way of forward momentum.

That being said, I will sometimes work with a client to create “buckets of activity,” with the goal of accomplishing something out of each bucket on a daily basis. For example, someone who is looking to build a brand presence using social media might have one bucket for Twitter, one for LinkedIn, one for their business’s Facebook page, etc. Rather than spending every spare minute for a week strengthening their LinkedIn presence–and losing connection with their followers on the other media–my recommendation is to ensure that they do at least one thing out of each of the other buckets every day as well.

Your weekly milestones allow you flexibility over when you undertake your change-related tasks. If today is lost to unexpected overtime at work, or unanticipated disruptions at home (or both), you still have the remainder of the week to complete the work that you have set out for yourself.

What happens if, week after week, you are not meeting your milestones? If you find yourself in this situation, it is likely that one of two things is going on.

You are setting your weekly expectations too aggressively relative to what you are able to deliver. You either need to re-calibrate your expectations of what you can get done in a week, or you need to look at what you can take off the plate so that you can meet your targets. Then, you need to actually take things off the plate!
Your change is a good idea, but not imperative. The other things in your life that are taking your time, energy, focus, etc. away from this change outweigh the importance of the change you are working on. It is time to either lower your expectations for this change, or to put it aside.

If, on the other hand, you are completing everything you have set out to achieve mid-week each week, you should be accelerating your plan.

There is another reason to work your plan one week at a time…things don’t always go as planned. I am currently working with a client whose “buckets” include addressing certain aspects of his health. When he encountered an unanticipated delay in his surgery he had two choices…push his entire plan back by months, or accelerate other aspects of the plan to fill in the intervening weeks. My encouragement is, always, to maintain the forward momentum.

Finally, working your plan one week at a time helps you maintain your boundaries. It tells you when to take a break and rest for the next week; it helps you to avoid burn-out. When the only thing that we have in mind is the desired end state, the urge to be constantly working can drive us in unhealthy ways. Being able to say, I have accomplished what I set out to do this week. I am proud of myself, and can see the progress. And, now I deserve a break, is a much healthier approach.

For a mini-case study of how I applied this approach to a major change in my life, email me at brian@briangorman.net.

What is your experience when working your change plans? Please comment, and/or add your own story.

Are You Talking With the Right People?

May 6, 2015 By Brian Gorman

It is great to be supported by the people around you. It feels good to be acknowledged. It’s super to have others tell you that you are right.

When the going gets though, having a tight-knit circle of friends and supporters makes it seem a little easier. But if those are the only people you are talking with as you define, plan, and carry out your change, you are making a big mistake!

One of the realities of how we as human beings approach change is that we have a tendency to “play to our strengths.” One person may conceive of and shape the change incessantly for months on end. Another may plan it out to the most minute detail. Someone else may take the “Fire, Ready, Aim” approach.

One risk of limiting those who advise us to those who think like us and support us without question is that sometimes playing to our strength may be a mistake. Those of us who are creative are often much better at starting things than at bringing them to a successful conclusion. All the planning in the world won’t move you forward; nor is it ever possible to execute a major change “according to plan.” (As the old saying goes, People plan, and the gods laugh.) Nor is jumping into action too quickly the best idea.

Another risk that comes from surrounding yourself with nodding heads is that you will end up with a limited perspective on the circumstances driving the change, as well as the approach to addressing those circumstances. Abraham Maslow put it this way. “If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”

When facing a major change, you need more than a hammer in your toolbox. You need counsel from people who see things through a different lens. You need to hear from others who have faced similar situations. You need to listen to those who have attempted this change journey before. Especially listen to those who have failed. Those who were successful may or may not know what contributed to their success; those who failed will have a clear grasp of what went wrong.

Value the perspective of those who are optimistic about your chances of success; they will give you encouragement along the way. Also value those who are pessimistic; they may be pointing out the potholes that you will want to avoid (or to be prepared to address) along the way. Appreciate those who are focused; they can help keep you from being distracted and moving off-course. Those who are proactive may compel you forward; their counterparts may be able to keep you from moving too quickly. Listen to people who can tell you what is just noise, and what is critically important for you to address.

It may only take adding one or two people to your circle to significantly broaden the voices you hear. But, they need to be people whom you trust, people whose thinking can cause you to change your mind, to think and/or act differently.

It may also require that you challenge those who have traditionally supported you, helping them understand that you need both their support and their challenges as well.

In all of your conversations, be clear as to who is making the decisions. Listen with an open mind. Don’t shoot the messengers. Finally, if you are the decision-maker, set the expectation that you want total candor, and that you will carefully weigh the counsel you are receiving. And, be clear that once you have made the decision, you expect their unwavering support.

What has been your experience when seeking counsel about change?

Balance Is More Than Not Falling Down

April 7, 2015 By Brian Gorman

Be open to action, and to reflection.

Be open to holding on, and to letting go.

Be open to knowing, and to not knowing.

Be open to doing, and to not doing.

In 2007 I took a Himalayan pilgrimage. Over the eight months before I left, I invested in preparing myself for the experience. While those preparations began in the gym, I soon realized that this journey would require more than physical training; it would require mental and spiritual preparation as well.

One day early in my preparations I met a friend for dinner at a Chinese restaurant. When the check came, I opened my fortune cookie. It read,

Balance is more than not falling down.

Wherever you are on your change journey, there is an important lesson here. It is a lesson that applies in so many ways that one could probably blog about it for months. (As my son says, “No worries.” I am just going to highlight a few of them, and move on to another topic next week. I trust you to draw from your own experiences to add to the lessons that I am offering here.)

Just as my pilgrimage required me to call on my physical, spiritual, and mental energy, each change journey makes its own unique energetic demands on us. It may challenge long-held beliefs and practices. It may require us to re-frame our relationship to others, or to work, or to religious or spiritual or political beliefs. Whatever the change, it is likely that successfully completing the journey will not be possible with one shift; rather, multiple shifts will be required.

Perhaps you are still committed to that New Year’s resolution that resulted in a new gym membership. While the gym may be an important element in loosing weight and developing the body that you want, it cannot be the only one if you are to succeed. Doing so may also require you to change your relationship to your body: how you see it, what you expect of it, and/or how you treat it. That’s why I have never understood those people who walk out of the gym and light up a cigarette, or the ones who spend their entire workout telling their buddies about how much they drank over the weekend. It’s not just about the workout.

Balance is more than not falling down.

“Play to your strengths.” There is one theory of change that suggests this is exactly the way to go; build on strengths rather than focus on weaknesses. Another suggests that you should focus on your vulnerabilities, or they will undermine your success; manage them as risks, or risk failing.

Who is right?

In my experience, both are. When the going gets tough, we each tend to play to our strong suit. Perhaps you’re known for making decisions, or taking action, or planning, or anticipating problems, or… And, sometimes your strong suit is exactly what is needed at that point in time.

But sometimes, what is needed is the opposite; sometimes what is needed is your weakness. Perhaps you are strong on reflecting, on finding the solution through a long and deep contemplative process; but circumstances warrant quick decisions and action. Maybe you are known for holding on to things that have had meaning in the past, sustaining traditions or heirlooms, or beliefs; but circumstances call for letting go of these things before the door closes on the opportunity to complete the change.

Balance is more than not falling down.

Do you know your strengths, and your vulnerabilities? Do you consciously choose when to call on each?

Are you at the action gym, or the reflection gym, or the decision gym, becoming the ever-more-masterful exerciser of your strengths? Or, are you at the action gym, or the reflection gym, or the decision gym, working on your vulnerabilities to bring them more into balance with your strengths?

Balance is more than not falling down.

Balance is leveraging your strengths, and strengthening your weaknesses. It is knowing the full range of resources that you have available to you, and calling on each when appropriate.

Balance is being open to action, and to reflection. Balance is being open to holding on, and to letting go. Balance is being open to knowing, and to not knowing. Balance is being open to doing, and to not doing.

Balance is more than not falling down.

What is your experience with balance–or the lack of it–when approaching change?

Balance Is More Than Not Falling Down.

September 23, 2014 By Brian Gorman

Last week I shared some thoughts about our tendency to enter “fight or flight” when we find ourselves in the midst of a significant change; I suggested that often the better approach is to not get lured into the pull of taking immediate action; I offered a simple tool, and the guidance to focus on importance, not urgency; finally, I said that this week I would offer a way to avoid the loop of a crisis altogether…So what is it?

Actually, it isn’t a big secret. It’s something we all know. And, it’s something many of us struggle with, if we pay any attention to it at all.

Spend time every day focusing on your equanimity.

What is it that brings you peace, that helps you return to center? For me, it is a morning ritual of yoga and prayer. For my son, it is a physically challenging workout at the gym. Knitting. Gardening. Biking. Running. Attending mass. Meditation. Cleaning. Ironing. Sketching. Painting. Taking a walk. Mindful breath. Conversing with oneself in the mirror. Whittling. Driving. Reading the Torah, the Bible, the Quran, or other spiritual or religious works. Poetry. Journaling. Playing the bagpipes. Spending time in nature. Each of these is someone’s answer to How do I stay centered?

If you have your own way of maintaining, or returning to, balance…go for it!

When the going gets tough, it is essential that we carve out the time to focus on balancing/re-balancing, and that we make it a non-negotiable part of our routine. We all know it is easier to retain balance than to regain it. Avoid the tendency to “not have time.” Don’t just “fit it in.” Sure, there are often trade-offs to finding and protecting that time for yourself. But, if carefully made, they are well worth the peace of mind that maintaining that centeredness can bring during a crisis.

If you don’t currently have a way of centering, you are far from alone. In this day and age it isn’t at all unusual for us to get so enmeshed in activities that we let go of–or never develop–a means of reconnecting to our center. If this is the case, my encouragement is that you begin to seek out your way of connecting back to yourself. As you can see from the list above, there are an infinite number of possibilities. Here are some of the guidelines that I share with my clients who are seeking to find their own means for establishing and maintaining more equanimity in their lives.

Find a quiet time and a quiet spot to spend some time alone. Reflect on when you feel most calm and at peace with yourself.
Close your eyes, and put yourself “in that moment.” Where are you? What are you doing? What do you see?
Jot down some notes, and repeat the process.
It may take more than one try, and some time, to create a list for yourself. You may need to reflect back years–perhaps even back to your youth–to find those moments. Try to compile a list of 6, 8, 10, or more “possibilities.”
Take a look at the list you have created. If there are places that sometimes allow you to feel at peace, and other times do not, cross them off. (For example, if driving can be your magic elixir, and you also find yourself frustrated, cursing under your breath and honking your horn when you are behind a too-slow driver, it is probably not the practice you want. If it is playing the piano–except when you hit a wrong note–take it off the list.) You want those activities, those locations, those things that have the potential for helping you center every time you connect with them.
Put aside those places that have provided that solace for you in the past, but that are not readily accessible. Going to the beach may be a great way for you to spend the vacation recharging, but if it is not nearby, you can’t count on it to help you recenter tomorrow.
If drugs or alcohol have made it onto the list, scratch them off… Whatever they may bring you is not the equanimity we are seeking.
By the time you reach this point, you will have a pretty good sense of what is resonating with you; select something from your list (or something you have never tried before).

Now you need to set aside your time and begin to practice. In this context, considering whatever your grounding activity is as a “practice” is a good idea. Meditation instructors are known to tell their students that setting aside 5-10 minutes every day is much better than meditating for an hour once a week. Whatever, your chosen practice, the same is true. Quite simply, the longer you go without reconnecting to center–or consciously working to move toward center–the further out of equilibrium you are likely to become.

What do you do to help you stay centered?