Monthly Archives: February 2011

Have some FUN

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Last week featured a pretty heavy topic so I thought it’d be good to turn to a bit lighter topic – fun!

Are you having enough fun? Are you having enough fun at work? Even at the best of times, I’m thinking most of us don’t have enough fun at work.

Of course, first you must agree with premise that having fun at work is appropriate and necessary. Since I’m writing about it, it’s easy to surmise that I’m of the belief that it is appropriate, necessary and important to have fun at work. A lot of folks out there agree with me, too.

According to WebMD, workplace stress raises heart risk for women and stress can “play a part in problems such as headaches, high blood pressure, heart problems, diabetes, skin conditions, asthma, arthritis, depression, and anxiety.” More than $300B is the estimated cost of stress to U.S. businesses every year.

That said, bringing in cake to celebrate the birthdays for the month isn’t going to magically bring down your blood pressure. Like everything, reducing stress by having fun is something that we should likely think about every day. Yep, having fun is something you should add to the to-do list for your day at work.

As my dad used to say, fun’s fun when it’s fun for everyone which means that you’ll need to figure out what fun at work looks like for you. Just keeping a sense of humor at work is a good start. Here are a few other suggestions mostly -mine because I couldn’t find a nice list to copy and paste here.

  • IM your coworkers – yes, I know that we are supposed to all be paying attention during every moment of every meeting; but sometimes it’s fun to reach out and chat with a friend at work.
  • Wow – my virtual workplace is showing! If you are lucky enough to work with people who sit near you, go see them! Share a joke or funny story. Get up outta your chair and say hi!
  • Check out some comics online. Of course, Dilbert is a favorite – but I also enjoy Randy Glasbergen’s workplace funnies as well.
  • Simply smile at people when you walk in the halls. Smiles truly are contagious and how great to be an instigator.
  • Plan some fun – grab a coworker and head out of the office for lunch or coffee and get away from your desk and computer.

Brainstorm a little and make your own list. Anything that brings your stress level down a bit qualifies as fun in my book, so get creative. And then go have some fun!

Related Posts:
Balancing Work and Play

Coaching: Perseverance

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It’s Friday and time to close out this week’s theme of perseverance. As you read through the posts this week, did situations come to mind where you need to push forward or simply hold your ground? With that in mind, I’d like to close the week by leading you through a mini coaching engagement. I invite you to really think about and write down your answers.

Here we go…

As you consider a situation where you feel you must persevere, can you remember a time in your past when you pushed toward a goal and found success?

During that time, what helped you get through the lulls and setbacks? Is there anything from that successful experience that you can bring forward to your current state?

Considering that perseverance includes goal-setting, movement, patience and balance, recall a time when you set a goal, started on an action plan, displayed patience, practiced balance. Remember that you are able to draw on your past expertise to persevere in today’s circumstance.

When you think about milestones you will reach as you move toward your goal, what accomplishments do you see yourself celebrating? Who has supported you and how will you include them in that celebration?

How will you know when you have completed the journey? Take some time to envision this future, imagine the path and see your success.

With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable. ~Thomas Foxwell Buxton

Related Posts
Persistant Puppy
Walt Disney’s Perseverance
A Little Nut
Perseverance’s Parts

Perseverance’s Parts

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As I’ve been thinking about perseverance this week, it’s occurred to me how much goes into the act of persevering. It’s a pretty broad bucket, really.

Persevering – and this is courtesy of a reader who emailed me after reading A Little Nut – requires a goal. We do have to know where we’re headed if we hope to stick to the trail.

It requires movement. One can’t persevere if the journey doesn’t begin at all. Make the mark.

Of course, patience is required. Reaching goals takes time and for that, we need to call upon this virtue and remind ourselves that slow and steady often does win the race.

Throwing in some balance can be a good thing too. While being a little nutty about getting to our goals might be OK; overdoing it can become obsession and that will hurt more than can be gained.

Additionally, there are also a few things that may not be required; however, they can make the journey more enjoyable. I’m thinking about things like recognition of milestones and rejoicing in progress made. Sharing our journey with those who support us and letting them know how integral they are to our success. And learning from setbacks and accomplishments can sometimes be as rewarding as the reaching the goal itself.

Now as I persevere, I’ll remember that I’m calling upon many different skills, values and experiences to stay on my path. In recognizing this and narrowing it down, perseverance seems a little less daunting; a little more doable; a lot more possible.

A Little Nut

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The greatest oak was once a little nut who held its ground. ~Author Unknown

I was looking for a great quote to start out today’s post and found this little gem. I love the idea of being a nut holding her ground when I persevere. Let’s be honest, sometimes perseverance can seem a little nuts.

It doesn’t take much to make me doubt my sanity when pursuing a goal. I can be swayed by setbacks or when simply stalling out during a time when I think I should be moving forward. I have to remind myself that marching in place is better than falling behind – which requires that I give myself an internal pep-talk. And then I’m talking to myself… and that can seem nuts….

From an external perspective, occasionally there are people in our lives who are not supportive of our dreams and our efforts. For someone like me who has an off-the-chart need for reinforcement from others, even when significant people are neutral it can feel like a lack of support. Either way, if support is needed and can’t be found, persevering is that much harder.

And when support isn’t forthcoming in the moment when we are already giving ourselves an internal pep-talk, no wonder we sometimes want to quit! Pressing forward can seem like it’s not only impossible but crazy, too.

It’s at this point when we need to persevere. Hunker down. Hang on. Don’t go backwards. Sit tight. Persist.

Hold your ground and act a little nutty.

Walt Disney’s Perseverance

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Travel with me back in time to 1938. It was four years past the original book release of Mary Poppins and Walt Disney made his first attempt to gain rights to transfer the beloved story to film. Mickey Mouse was a big hit and this was the year that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released, winning Disney an Oscar (accompanied by seven miniature statues). Really, the Snow White story provides another wonderful example of perseverance, but I’ll try to stay on track.

Anyway, 1938 was a big year for Walt (understatement), so you’d think that when he approached Helen Lyndon Goff (pen name P. L. Travers) she would have been flattered at the opportunity to work with him on a film adaptation of Mary Poppins; but no. Turns out that she didn’tthink a film version of her books would do justice to her story; she didn’t want it to be turned into a cartoon.

So Mr. Disney asked again… and again… and again… and again… for 20 YEARS! During that time he released animated classics like Pinocchio, Fantasia and Bambi. He opened Disneyland. He moved out of animated films with Treasure Island, Old Yeller and The Disney Club. These were the golden years of Disney and of course I can’t begin to do justice to these 20 years with a little paragraph here.

And yet year after year, he’d pick up the phone, send a letter, drop by – however it was that Mr. Disney courted Ms. Travers’s business – to try to get the rights to Mary Poppins.

Heres my commentary: really? Why? How did he see the potential? Why was he so driven? Or was it just a crazy obsession because he’d been told no? And didn’t he have enough going on? Why this? We won’t know – but my mind wanders. Back to the story….

Finally, P. L. Travers gave in and the rest, as they say, is history. Mary Poppins released in 1964 as one of Disney’s most successful musicals. It won Oscars. Julie Andrews won an Oscar. The songs, editing, and visual effects added even more Oscars, resulting in a total of 13. (BTW – all this information is available on Wikipedia and Answers if you want even more information on the topic.)

As you can see, Walt Disney’s perseverance paid off. In my post yesterday, I cited this as something that I found more applicable to me personally than the “hey, look how they picked up after failure” stories. I can relate to doggedly going back to something that I think really needs to get done – just like Disney did with Mary Poppins. I know I wouldn’t have had the insight to see the potential in Mary Poppins (seriously, I don’t think I could sit through the film!), but I can think of things in my life that I shouldn’t give up on. For that I can learn a lesson from Walt.

Even if it takes 20 years.

Persistant Puppy

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5:00 AM on Sunday and I awaken to puppy whines, again. Sigh. However, there’s some hope of grabbing a few more hours of sleep. He’s let out and then brought to bed to curl up to sleep a little longer.

6:54 AM. Really? Can’t make it a full two hours? OK, out he goes again and then my plan is to pull the same curl-up-in-a-warm-bed trick again. Squirming. More whining. Yep, we’re up.

In those moments when I was trying to calm him down for the second round, my theme for the week became clear: perseverance. Thank you, little Moose.

While few can seem more perseverant than a puppy or a small child – or a teenager, for that matter – the most successful entrepreneurs also have stories riddled with examples of their perseverance. Many of these, like Thomas Edison and Walt Disney, are woven into the fabric of the American story to such a degree that quotes like “I haven’t failed, I’ve found 10,000 ways that don’t work,” (Edison) and “If you can dream it, you can do it,”(Disney) are said so often that you perhaps didn’t even know where they came from. Yes, perseverance is at the heart of the American dream.

These American dream stories can be found with current main characters as well: Oprah, J. K. Rowling, Steve Jobs, Lance Armstrong, Justin Bieber.

If you are at all like me, you hear these stories and think a couple of things. First, I’m thinking that perseverance is all well and good, but don’t have a Light Bulb or Mickey Mouse kind of dream. What on Earth would I go after with such tenacity? Next, I think that failure stings a bit. You don’t have to go too far into my posted writings to see examples of when failure set me back and I didn’t get back up swiftly (I’ll give you the quick link to My German Elephant so you don’t have to go digging). What I want answered in these success-peppered-with-failure stories is this: how long was Walt’s recovery time after being fired from the Kansas City Star? Did he want to give up altogether after Universal Studios essentially stole Oswald the Rabbit from him? And was Edison really OK with all those failures? Or did it hurt a little when his Ogdensburg, New Jersey ore mining plant went under? Did he really feel like he hadn’t failed? Were they human or some sort of sub-set of super-humans that I can never aspire to be?

So I went looking for pieces in the stories that I can more closely identify with. The story of Disney’s commitment to bringing Mary Poppins to the screen is one of those. Because I try to keep these to 500 words or less (and to build the suspense), I’ll dive deeper into that story tomorrow….

Coaching: Relationships

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The regular rhythm of this blog is that I provide some food-for-thought about a particular topic Monday through Thursday and then Friday you are challenged to walk through a mini-coaching session around the theme. OK, I deviated last week… but generally, this is what you can expect.

The posts this week have covered a wide spectrum regarding relationships – commitment to a significant other, bringing love to the boardroom, networking, and even letting people move out of our lives. This makes it hard to find a set of questions that will pertain to them all so instead I will offer up a series of questions for you to think about from each angle. I invite you to really think about and write down your answers.

Here we go….

Concerning your significant other:

Did you agree with the premise that love is a commitment? If so, are you truly committed to your significant other? How can (or do) you show that commitment? If you don’t feel like you are committed, how does that feel to you? Is it something you want to change? What one thing can you do today to make sure your significant other knows that you love him or her?

In bringing love to the workplace:

What did you think about that? Was it silly to you or did it ring true? If it was true for you, can you identify ways where you can bring your loving self to work more often than your jaded, cranky or ambivalent self? What one thing can you do to show some brotherly love to your coworkers?

And about networking:

Do you enjoy networking for the sake of networking or is it about relationship building for you? Should it be about relationship building? What does your network look like? Are there people in it who can help you with your career? Your hobbies? Help find you a date? How can you hold on to people once you’ve met them? Is this important to you? What makes it important to you (if it is)? What one thing can you do to build or find a new relationship to add to your network in the next week?

Least favorite, possibly needing to move someone out of your life:

Is everyone in your life there for a purpose? Are you there for them? Are there any toxic, crazy-makers that you should back away from? What about possible co-dependence? Are you being honest with yourself about the health of your relationships? And if you do need to make a change, are you coming at it from a foundation of love? Will you commit to examining your relationships?

Whew! That’s quite a bit to chew on! To end on a light note, I will share a quote from one of my favorite examples of a very special relationship – Pooh and Piglet. Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. “Pooh!” he whispered. “Yes, Piglet?” “Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s paw. “I just wanted to be sure of you.” ~A.A. Milne

Related Posts
Love is a Commitment
A Meeting Full of Love
Relationship Post #3
Letting Somone Go

Letting Someone Go

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Keeping relationships may come easy. Letting them go? That’s pretty tough.

I suspect that many of you, like me, have had times where family members have quit talking to each other. Or a choice needed to be made about keeping a friend or letting her go. Or we simply grow apart from people; sometimes because of us and sometimes because of them.

The thought was brought to the forefront of my mind this week because I may have one of those, “Do I keep you or not?” situations coming up. (For those of you reading this wondering if it might be you, it isn’t you. And Todd and I are solid – see Monday’s post.) It is interesting that the problematic situation resurfaced this week while I’m writing about relationships; interesting enough to bring it up.

Any way it comes up, we have to choose our action in the thick of some pretty heady emotions. When someone incredibly important to me quit talking to me for years, I had to decide how I would react. I was young and I acted poorly. I was upset, bitter, and behaved in ways that I wouldn’t now. And then when she decided to come back into my life 15 years later, I had to make another decision regarding whether I would let her back in again (I did) and if I should forgive her (I did, but it still stings a little). Given how I acted, I recognize that the forgiveness needed to go both ways.

And now, when the tables are turned and I’m thinking about whether someone of significance should continue to be a part of my life, I fully understand the consequence of that action. It’s something that I do not take lightly. However, there are occasions when separation is not only healthy for us; it’s healthy for the other person as well.

So what to do? I’m not sure. Either way, it will likely not be easy.

Relationship Post #3

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I thought writing about relationships would be easy because keeping relationships comes easy to me. I don’t see it as networking; I see it as collecting interesting, fun, fascinating people in my life. And the more people I connect with and learn from, the richer my life is.

That’s not to say that I necessarily enjoy events like “Business after Hours” or greeting people during that part where everyone shakes hands at church. My husband and I joke about how awful we are at mingling and how glad we are that we have each other at certain events. BUT, if I’m introduced in a real, authentic way to a real, captivating person, I’m usually hooked.

So what have I done to build my network that I can share with you? This is hard because I’m not totally sure… but I will try.

I think the first thing is what I mentioned above. I find people pretty interesting – and generally I’ve found that when people talk to someone who is legitimately interested in them, they like them in return.

Next thing is that when people are different from me, I kind of want to know more. I’m OK with people in my circle of friends who have beliefs I don’t hold. I find it interesting.

I also seek to reconnect. I invite people to coffee, lunch, drinks. When I travel I make arrangements to see people I haven’t seen in ages. I don’t wait for someone to reciprocate; I just send a message to whomever it is I feel like seeing and tell them we are overdue to chat even if I was the one to set it up the last time around.

Connecting my friends is also something that I do. I love mixing up neighborhood, work and long-time friends at parties. If someone talks to me about a favorite charity, business venture or new hobby, my mind goes into overdrive trying to come up with someone I know who can help them out with whatever they are up to.

And here are a few of my shortcomings… if I wait too long to reconnect, I assume that person has no idea who I am and get nervous about contacting him or her. I’m also more conscious of status than I’d like to be (we’re all human, right?) and think that maybe those sorts of folks won’t find me as interesting as I find them.

As you can see, I don’t have the networking thing nailed. But if you’d like to have coffee and talk about your charming, remarkable self, I’m your gal.

A Meeting Full of Love

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What if we brought love to the workplace? Sound a little crazy? Let’s explore…

One of my top values is my faith. When taking the Strength Finder assessment I uncovered that one of my top five strengths is Belief. A former coach of mine challenged me to bring that strength to work. I just couldn’t see how that would work out…

Until now.

Last week I finished reading Extreme Facilitation by Suzanne Ghais and Chapter 11 – The Spiritual Capacity: Helping Groups Transcend Their Limitations – has really stuck in my brain and spent some time spinning there. Ghais asserts that most of us share a moral compass that includes a foundation in love – people from every major religion as well as agnostics and atheists, too. So what if we brought love to the workplace?

I’ve been thinking about that. And the more I think about it, the more I think I actually do bring love to the workplace, as well as many other places that I go. What does that mean? For me, I’m seeing it this way right now:

Come into meetings assuming that we are all there with good intentions.

Greet people warmly and sincerely with a smile.

Listen when people speak and make every effort to not talk over them or interrupt.

Don’t argue; seek to understand.

Follow through on commitments.

Be trusting and trustworthy.

This list could go on and on, now that I’ve started to create it. Feels a little less like a crazy idea and more like a meeting you might want to attend, doesn’t it?

 

Love is a Commitment

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It’s Valentine’s Day and so our thoughts turn to love…

My husband and I are high school sweethearts and, with him a year older than I am, we “suffered” through the long-distance-relationship that was his freshman year. This was a time, my young readers, when a long-distance call was expensive and mail was actual mail. This required a commitment!

I diligently wrote to him every day and he wrote to me too… with less frequency (see above mentioned freshman year). I understood; however, I remember a time when I must have been pretty frustrated with the lack of correspondence from Grand Forks. On this day I sent a postcard that read, “Love is a commitment not a feeling. Where’s my mail?”  And then I quit writing until I received the hoped for letter. The silent treatment has always worked for me with him!

Of course, I said it to make a point and more importantly to get him to sit down and think about us for a moment when his life was so full of things far away from me. At our young age, I think we were particularly blessed to know that love is indeed a commitment and that we needed to work beyond the feeling (wonderful as it is) to make a life together. I guess we sort of understood that, as Gary Chapman shares in his book The 5 Languages of Love, the average in-love experience lasts two years. After that, it needs to be something more.

But commitment seems a little like work, doesn’t it? Sort of boring, maybe? Certainly not romantic! At first blush, perhaps. Then I started thinking…

This commitment makes me feel content.

This commitment makes me feel happy.

It makes me feel joyful, secure, adored, and delighted.

Above all, this commitment that I share with my husband makes me feel loved. And a commitment like that is more romantic than any feeling I’ve had the pleasure of knowing.

Intention vs. Execution

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Historically I’ve used the word “hop” quite a bit in my personal lexicon; but lately I’ve been interjecting “intention” instead. It sounds stronger to me – more deliberate and, well, intentional.

My intention this week was to post here every day and educate on coaching – and I got 3/5 of the way there. I managed to get three posts out because of planning and execution during a week that has simply been crazy. Intention didn-t get me there – execution did. And so I’m reminded that intention without execution is simply hope.

Dont get me’ wrong; hope is a good thing! Hope, though, implies putting faith in something else – that things may be a little out of our control. For example, as I sit in the Seattle airport this morning, I hope to get home on time today. My getting home on time depends on pilots, airplanes, air traffic controllers, the weather and many other things completely out of my control. As such, my hope is put into those things.

Intention, on the other hand, drives execution. If my hope to get home is messed with today, I may make efforts to reschedule with other airlines or even rent a car to drive home instead. Intention is internal. It’s about the things I can control.

My current manager touts the importance of precision, rigor and discipline. Being that I’m more of a free spirit and someone who is totally comfortable with ambiguity, these are virtues that I have rarely aspired to. That said, I’m seeing how I can benefit from a little of those things in my life and am learning from him how a little structure can bring about positive results.

And thus my intention is to be more disciplined in the execution of things that I can control.

At least I’m hoping so!

Career Coaching

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International Coaching Week continues and so does my opportunity to share different coaching flavors with you.

I love coaching just about anyone on any topic; however, my focus to this point has been on career coaching. Whether making a decision to move from being technical to a manager, moving from a manager to an individual contributor, or deciding to move into an entirely different industry, asking the right questions to help people decide where they want to take their career next is an exciting part to play.

As you might imagine, career coaching is really about working through transitions. The International Coach Federation lists these as some of the focus areas in career coaching:

  • People in career transition
  • People with a big career decision to make
  • People in a corporate job or considering one
  • People struggling with the decision of whether to stay in a corporate job or choose another option
  • People who would like to work with a coach familiar with the following:
  • The changing expectations of employees & employers
  • Trends in the workplace
  • Values and issues of loyalty & security
  • Specific evaluation criteria for your company, your future, and your career satisfaction
  • Determining your readiness to strike out on your own or look for another career

Making a career change can be an exciting time. Having a coach to discuss the possibilities can help make the process go more smoothly.

I’d love to be your career coach!  Learn more about the services I offer on the Breakthrough Strategies website. 

Retiring Without a Rudder? You May Need a Coach – DailyFinance

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Today I am going to cheat a little and refer you to an article I recently found about the niche of Retirement Coaching. After reading this piece, I’ve shared how exciting I think this is with many people. In our financial focused world, it seems that financial planning equals retirement planning – but retirement is about so much more than simply having enough money to get by! How exciting it would be to plan for retirement more holistically.

I hope you enjoy the article as much as I did and that it gets you thinking about retirement in another light.

Retiring Without a Rudder? You May Need a Coach – DailyFinance.

Enjoy the day!

Life and Personal Coaching

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This week is International Coaching Week and, as promised on my What is Coaching page, I’m going to spend this week sharing a few of the different niches in the coaching world with you.

My personal coaching focus is on career and business coaching; however, I thought I would write first about Life (or Personal) Coaching as many people seem to equate life coaching to the coaching profession as a whole. And I will begin by saying that all coaching has the potential to bleed over into the personal aspects in the lives of our clients. I’m sure you can understand this as you think of how your personal life has impacted your career, your health and your plans.

Now back to the topic at hand: Personal Coaching.

The International Coach Federation outlines the following focuses that a personal coaching engagement might delve into:

  • Life Planning
  • Life Vision & Enhancement
  • Extreme Self Care
  • Spirituality
  • Relationships (Singles, Couples, Families, etc.)
  • Health & Fitness
  • Creativity
  • Financial Freedom
  • Organization
  • Children/Teens/College Students
  • Attention Deficit Disorder

You will find coaches that call themselves “Life Coaches” and are available to discuss any personal goal you may have. However, there are many coaches who focus on a specific niche such as Financial Freedom or ADD to more narrowly target the needs of their client base. These niches are chosen by the coach based on their interest and background; yet, many of the basic techniques of coaching remain the same whether the discussion is around personal or business goals.

Coaching: Risk

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Are you feeling courageous today? Have you thought about a risk you’re willing to take, explore, or maybe just think about? Perhaps it’s something really big like moving to another country… or something that on the surface looks small but would be a huge change for you. Whatever it is, give it a little thought right now. And with that in mind, I’d like to close the week by leading you through a mini coaching engagement. I invite you to really think about and write down your answers.

Here we go….

As you think about the options in front of you, what would happen if you made a choice to go in the direction of change?

What is the worst thing that could happen if you made that change? What would success look like?

Is the picture of success worth the risk you pictured?

Are there other options available to you? What would happen if you stayed exactly where you are?

Would you grow?

Settling on a direction to take in this choice, what is one thing you can do to get things going? What would hold you accountable to do that thing? A person? An event? A deadline?

If you still feel unsettled about what direction to take, what do you need to help you make your choice, take that risk, or find more courage? Is there an obstacle? Does someone hold information that you need? Do you need to find out more on your own? What would ideal support in this situation look like for you? How can you get that?

And as you contemplate it all remember the words of Mark Twain: Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.

Go ahead. Take it on!

Waiting for a Sign

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It’s been Risk Week here at Carolyn’s blog and as I continue to ponder the topic, a quote from Kevin DeYoung’s Just Do Something sticks with me; “…don”t think you need that peaceful, easy feeling before you can make up your mind.”

Isn’t that what often keeps us from taking a risk? Whether it’s popping the question, throwing the birth control pills in the trash, or moving to that city you’ve been thinking about for years – sometimes we want everything to feel just right.

I can tell you right now that sometimes that peaceful, easy feeling has been a precursor to a really bad decision. And then other decisions where I felt like I was jumping off into the scary unknown, well, they ended up being the best thing ever. So what to do?

Waiting for a sign or the stars to align is not the way to make life choices. A person has to come up with something beyond this sort of guess work.

Unfortunately I can’t remember who to credit with once asking me this brilliant question when I was considering a significant career move: Will your resume look better a year from now if you take the new job or if you stay in your current job? Boom! Pow! Yeah! The decision became crystal clear and I’ve used it as a barometer ever since.

And when the career change seemed really scary, I could hear my dad’s words echoing, reminding me that it wouldn’t be a promotion if it didn’t frighten me a little bit. (Thank you, Dad!)

Of course, only you can find out what motivates you to make a choice. Yet in any event, if we can find our way to that future place and see where one road might take us versus the other, sometimes things become quite clear in this present moment.

And then the decision can be made.

The Courage to Talk Straight

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Taking risks and making big decisions go hand-in-hand, right? Lately I’ve been rethinking that. You might look at the career decisions I’ve made and think I have little aversion to risk. But that’s simply not true; or at least not in every instance.

What might look like smaller, less challenging issues actually get to me more than contemplating those bold choices. In Stephen M.R. Covey’s book The Speed of Trust, he describes people who build high-trust relationships with others as having the ability to “talk straight.” You know… they tell the truth, they’re honest, that sort of thing. I do those things… it’s the next thing that gets me: they let people know where they stand. Oooof! That one can be hard for me.

My intention is not to be dishonest, to act without integrity, or to distort facts. However, I will quietly keep my mouth shut when topics turn to a subject where I disagree with the majority in the conversation. I imagine this goes back to a history where my unfiltered statements hurt others and damaged relationships. The pendulum has swung to the other side where Id rathe’r have you guess where I stand, maybe even assume I agree with you, just so I won’t hurt our friendship in the long run.

Sounds like that is a reasonable survival tactic, doesn’t it? Well, no. In doing this, I’ve found I keep others from knowing me and leave people with a false – or at least ambiguous – impression of who I am. Letting people know me feels risky. Way riskier than changing jobs, going back to school, or getting married at 19.

And so I am beginning to let go of my protective barrier, bit by bit, conversation by conversation. According to Covey, my lack of courage is an integrity issue (ouch!) and having it described that way motivates me to flex my courage muscle. Now I’m taking little, daily risks to let people know the real me.

I hope they continue to like what they see.

No Thank You

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A few weeks ago I was so energized; so excited. I’d had the opportunity to spend time with a young lady with a dream. My role was to coach her through the process. I could see the end goal and knew that she would get there.

And now I know she won’t. Or at least she won’t right now.

While I’m saddened, I can’t say that I’m surprised. As we closed out that initial (and only) meeting, I’m certain that I was more energized and excited about her dream than she was. I had to fight the urge to go do the research for her action plan. The first few steps were so easy… completely within her reach and control.

That should have been my first clue – that she hadn’t done them already was a sign that getting through those first important steps might be hard. But she had decided to work with me….

And then I heard back from her. “I really enjoyed our talk and know that your help would greatly motivate me.” Do you hear the “BUT” coming? Her explanations were good ones, of course. Professional and understandable. What I heard was different, though. I heard, “But” the thought of success scares me; the thought of failure scares me; what if I’m not successful? Etc….

Unfortunately we won’t know.

She did get me thinking about my own dreams and goals. There are some out there that keep dancing around me like pretty fairies. And I let them dance without grabbing hold. They are so pretty when they fly around, aren’t they? And while my excuses may be good ones that are professional and maybe even understandable, they keep me from catching my dreams.

I’m so sure she could have done it. I hope one day she does.

Now I just need to go grab those dreams of my own.