Monthly Archives: May 2012

Are You Content…?

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Ahhhh…. That felt good.  I took a couple of days off from blogging and a few other things, too.  It’s been a year since I left my corporate gig so it seemed like a good time to take a little break to think a few things through.  And to take some time to not think at all as well.

So what was on my mind?  I’ve been asking myself a few questions that I routinely ask my clients – many of which you’ve seen here.  When it comes down to it, the big question is whether I’m content or need a change.  As I think about that, it seems that all choices we make – spanning both career and personal life – come down to weighing these two things.  Am I content or do I need a change?

That’s how the balance should be, anyway.  If the answer to “Am I content?” is “No.” and yet I choose not to change…  Then I’m choosing to be dissatisfied, I suppose.

Since it’s on my mind, now it can be on your mind as well.

Are you content or do you need a change?

Coaching Challenge: Focus

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It’s the rare individual who is always focused on what he or she has to do, so I’m going to go with the assumption that we could all improve in this area.  That means that I’m going to throw out some challenges instead of having you simply think about your focus.  C’mon!  We all need to quit putting off something.  Time to quit thinking and start doing!

Here we go…

  • Scrub your to-do list.  What’s been on there the longest?  Dig deep and figure out why you’re avoiding that task.  Do what you need to do to get it done or give the task to someone else.  No to-do list?  Create one.
  • Identify something that you always delay doing – like my example of house cleaning.  Create or find a monitoring system to help keep you honest and timely with that chore.  Use it.
  • Think about the biggest thing you’ve been avoiding.  Identify how it ties to your long-term goals.  Remember why it landed on your list in the first place.  Think about who your procrastination impacts and who will be impacted when you complete the goal.  Recognize the motivation this creates and take advantage of it to get it done.
  • Spend the next week paying attention to when you lose your focus.  Is it in a certain environment?  At a regular time-of-day?  Schedule time for your biggest to-dos to match when you are at your best.

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone. ~Pablo Picasso

Maybe It’s Time To Quit

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If you find that you can’t focus on a task, quit.

What?  That doesn’t sound like something that would come from a good coach, does it?  But I mean it.  If you can’t focus on a task, you may be better off doing it at another time.

As you’ve read here before, throughout the day your willpower decreases – a phenomenon known as “Ego Depletion.”  When we’ve spent our willpower reserves, that’s when we begin to lose our judgment and make poor decisions.

Recently I found myself online around 4:00PM shopping for coffee and I couldn’t decide what to order.  I spent several minutes looking through the website, trying to make a decision and then realized that it just wasn’t going to happen that day at that time.  I quit.  Quitting at that point delayed the order by a day (not the end of the world) but it probably saved me money and time.  Money because when we can’t make a decision we sometimes decide to buy every choice and time because the next day I was able to more quickly get through the ordering process and be done.

So is this license to procrastinate?  No.  But it is license to recognize when you are at your best so that you can take full advantage.  It’s equally important to acknowledge when you’re not running at full capacity and the impact that might have.

Can’t focus?  Find a time when you can and, for now, quit.

Environmental Focus

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To really focus it’s important that we are able to figure out what it will take to find it.  That may differ from task to task, of course.  And our environment plays a big part in the process.

For example, to focus on running I need to have running music that has a beat I can match my pace to.  Without that, I get bored and lose my focus in a hurry.

Conversely, when it comes to writing I need to have all disturbances removed.  No music.  No background noise.  Preferably no dog dropping a ball at my feet.

Some people study better with music on, others need quiet.  Some people like to have silence while they run so they can think.  Not me.

Matching time set aside to focus with an environment where one CAN focus helps makes that time more productive.

Focusing On A Deadline

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One way to ensure we stay focused is to be up against a deadline.  It doesn’t matter if the deadline is given to us or if we create it ourselves, but it must be inflexible as I wrote about back in December of last year.

The Power Of A Deadline

I had the absolute pleasure of hosting a girlfriend gathering last night.  As I maneuvered the floor cleaner across the tile before they arrived, I joked about how inviting people over is a great way to get the house cleaned up.  Amazing what a little pressure and a deadline will do for our motivation, isn’t it?

It’s the same in business. When I was a project manager I found that I needed to set deadlines in order to keep myself and others on task. Even now as an entrepreneur I must find ways to hold myself accountable to be sure I move forward with the work that needs to be done.

Turns out research supports this need as well. A study mentioned in Willpower by Baumeister and Tierney shows that students with a propensity to procrastinate will push out completing work when they know a deadline is flexible. To the point, even, of leaving so much work until the end that the project cannot be completed.

Which brings us back to me cleaning my floors yesterday afternoon… I had an inflexible deadline because I knew someone would walk through the door around 7:00 PM and I knew exactly what I needed to get done before that time. So I did. Did my floors need cleaning before yesterday?  With three people and three dogs living in the house, most certainly!  But by having a deadline I finally prioritized the work.

Funny, I also finished getting my expenses into QuickBooks yesterday.  I have a meeting with my accountant today. See a pattern?

Deadlines are not just given to us by others. They are something we can create on our own, complete with accountability and the rigidity needed to make them powerful.

What work have you been putting off? Perhaps it’s time to give yourself a deadline.

Got To Focus!

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Maybe you’re someone who’s able to ignore all the noise around you and really focus on what needs to be done.  With a sick kid who is coughing and watching T.V. in the other room, I’m working hard to focus on simply thinking, let alone getting some work done.  You guessed it; sometimes I have trouble with focus.

In my defense, as a mom I should pay attention to the hacking kid on the couch.  On the other hand, I could easily use him as an excuse to get very little done today.  And an excuse it would be!

Unfortunately, he’s not the only thing vying for my attention this morning.  Those things that I must focus on seem less interesting than the shiny objects I long to be distracted by.

So I’m digging in, checking one thing after another off of my to-do list, and thinking that if I spend this week blogging about focus perhaps it will help me to focus.

We shall see.

Coaching Challenge: Confidence

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It seems that confidence will wane in a particular area.  For example, we can be very confident on one project at work but not another or confident around everyone except for a certain person.  Take a moment to think about where and when you have less confidence than you normally do as we go through today’s mini coaching exercise.  It’s time to boost your confidence and the confidence of those around you!

Here we go….

  • When thinking about the situation where you’re confidence is less than you’d like it to be, remember why you chose to do what you’re doing in the first place.
  • What one thing can you do to remind yourself of why it is that you are doing this?  Identify the value or the dream associated with this area and focus on it.
  • Has a recent failure damaged your confidence?  Like Davis, you may have failed but that doesn’t mean you’re a failure.  Take note of what you learned from the experience.  Recognize the value you brought in it.  Find your confidence in knowing that you were true to yourself and others.
  • If it’s around a particular person that your confidence depletes, ask yourself these questions:
    • What makes this person so important to you?  Is that valid?
    • What can you do to change how you react around them?
    • If the person is unavoidable (a parent, boss or significant other), what can you do to take your power back?  There could be another post on this… but really, that loss of confidence you feel is the power you hand over to them.  Remember that it’s yours to give and to take.

And finally, who needs your confidence?  Give it to them.

Your Confidence – A Gift To Others

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Confidence, like trust, is something that we give to others.  And as we give our confidence to others, an interesting thing happens: their own confidence grows.

For those of you who have relationships with children, you’ve likely witnessed this many times.  Kids tend to be more transparent about their confidence level as it can seem to affect their whole demeanor and even physical presence.  As we give them our confidence, they stand taller and beam as they take on our confidence as their own.

Perhaps you’ve also witnessed this at work.  When someone falters, particularly in front of people or while others are waiting for him, we can either become impatient with him or we can let him know we are confident in his abilities to continue.  When we choose to give our confidence to him, again, we are able to witness his confidence growing and the task can then be completed.

Giving confidence to others can be difficult; it requires us to let go of some control.

Being confident that a child will put away the dishes without breaking any requires us to let him do it – maybe even without supervision.

Giving our confidence to a coworker to finish her part of a project requires us to let it go and let her get it done in her own way.

Confidently allowing a sibling to make day-to-day decisions about aging parents because he or she lives closer to them means we need to give up judging the choices made.

Giving confidence to others means having patience, offering trust, and letting go of judgment.  When we are able to do this for others, the results can be amazing as their own confidence grows.

Be Confident

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Fortunately I’ve actually had very little time with bad bosses during my career.  The few that I’ve had have been pretty short-term and that, of course, was a very good thing.

While working for one particular manager who wasn’t among the best I’ve had, I learned again what I already knew to be true… but had neglected at the very worst time.  When starting a new role, I found myself without the confidence and assuredness that I normally hold.

As is often the case when coming into a new position, I was pretty much thrown into it with little preparation and little support.  A mistake managers often make with new employees: expecting that they know everything they need to know coming into the role.  Nobody ever can possibly have all the information they need on day one.  Anyway… that wasn’t the issue.

The issue was not knowing the intricacies of the job – and believing that everyone around me thought I should know them all – shot down my confidence.  When it came time for me to stand up for what my team needed, I gave up and backed down.  I knew the decisions being made were wrong, but I didn’t believe in myself enough to push as hard as I needed to.  I paid for it later.

Within a short time, I found a new role and moved on with another lesson in my pocket.

Trust my gut; be confident; and never be afraid to ask for information.

Now you can follow me on Twitter!

A Lesson In Confidence

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Sometimes we learn lessons from our children.

Several years ago now, our youngest son decided to run for Treasurer of his class.  We had recently moved so he was new to the school, but he still wanted to give it a try.

He spent time with us discussing his platform and rehearsing his speech and when the day came, he dressed up in his suit coat and headed off to school.

His speech went off without a hitch, we’re told.  And then his competition took the stage… and threw candy out to the audience.  You can guess who won.

As we heard him tell the story about his lesson in how politics really work, I was bracing for his reaction, ready for the tears.  They never came.

You see Davis was confident in what he had presented.  Confident in his ideas, confident that he had taken the path that was right for him, and confident that he’d been true to his values and ideas.  He had failed in his run but he was not a failure.

How often we lose confidence because things don’t work out as we’d hoped!  When we know that we’ve been true to ourselves, that’s when we need to remain confident in knowing who we are and what we’ve presented to the world.

Thank you, Davis.  Lesson learned.

Lost Confidence? It Pays To Remember Why…

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In order to be our best selves we need to be confident: confident about our decisions, confident about the path we choose to take, and confident in our beliefs, values and dreams.  As soon as our confidence starts to waver, that’s when we question all these things.

How to remain confident?  Now, that can be a struggle.

Really, there are so many things that come at us to weaken confidence.  Who hasn’t come to a bold, determined decision only to have it immediately picked apart?  If the person picking is important to us, our confidence can wane quickly – sometimes bringing us back to “square one” in the decision making process.

You know I believe in listening to and acting on feedback.  That said, we must work through our own decisions and be confident in them as we move forward.

So again, how can that be done?

I’m not going to pretend to have the answers but I can provide a helpful tip: an important piece in keeping confident is remembering why it is that this specific decision was made in the first place.  When decisions are made there’s always a reason, oftentimes a very good, well-thought-out reason.  We’ve got to remember that.

Why did you leave your job to start a new business?

Why did you recommit to your current job when you decided to stay?

What was it that compelled you to sign up for a marathon?

Why are you pursuing your degree?

We all have days when our confidence slips.  Remembering the deliberate choices made that brought this exact moment and experience to us can help bring our confidence up again.

Coaching Challenge: Strengths

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You have strengths and you need to be using them.  Every day.  In all that you do.  This week I’m challenging you to do so.

Here we go….

  • Still haven’t taken the time to figure out exactly what your strengths are? Use one or all of these methods to find out a little more about yourself.  Keep in mind, this is NOT something you can ask of someone else – only you know what makes you feel strong so only you can do this work.  Also, each of these looks at strengths from differing angles, so it’s not overkill to do them all.
  • Find ways that you can use your strengths each day.  I described how I do it in yesterday’s post.  Of course, you can’t very effectively do this if you haven’t done the work in the first bullet.  So go, get to it!
  • As Danielle LaPorte suggests, find ways to do more of what you love each day.  I will expand that and add: find ways to do more things that strengthen you each day.  In time you’ll be doing more of what you love and what strengthens you and less of what you loathe and depletes you.

People who use their strengths are happier and more successful, more balanced and less stressed.  All fantastic reasons to focus on that which makes you feel strong.

Putting Your Strengths To Work – Today!

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If during this week’s discussion on using strengths you’ve realized that you aren’t using your strengths daily in your work, don’t despair.  This doesn’t mean you have to quit your job to go find one that will.  You can probably figure out how to use your strengths right where you are.

For example, when I find myself in a meeting that’s not completely productive, using my strengths of “Forgiveness and Mercy” and “Capacity to Love and Be Loved” helps me to remember that not all meetings go as the facilitator planned.  It brings me patience to get through.

When I’m in a training session and I think I’ve heard it all before, bringing my strength of “Love of Learning” helps me dig deeper for a nugget of information I didn’t know before.

And using my strength of “Curiosity and Interest in the World” is something that I can use in every interaction that I have with another person, regardless of what I’m doing.

[Note: These are my top Character Strengths from the VIA Survey.  If you’ve completed a different strengths survey, these terms may sound different to you.]

Of course, to do all this it sometimes takes a very conscious decision to do so.  And when I work to keep my strengths top-of-mind, I am able to make it happen.

So no, you don’t have to quit your job.  Simply figure out how to bring your highest strengths to everything that you do.  You’ll be happier when you do.

To take the strengths survey mentioned above, navigate to www.authentichappiness.org and register for a free account. Once registered, check out the questionnaires and find the VIA Survey of Character Strengths (there’s a lot of other great stuff there, too). 

Strengths In Our Children

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Fostering strengths in our children can be one of the most important, most difficult endeavors those of us who are parents can do.  Marcus Buckingham tells a story about his reaction to finding out that his son wasn’t a master at drawing and how he – even as someone who has devoted his life to encouraging strengths – was immediately compelled to find a way to help his son improve his weakness in this area.  As parents, we see room for improvement and sometimes get a little crazy with all we can do to “help” – tutors, lessons, camps, drills, and so on.

Newsflash: our children cannot be the best at everything.

We know this, right?  Yet we want to see them produce straight As, become a sports captain, play the cello, and show perfect manners, too.

If you have more than one child, you probably have noticed that they are pretty different from one another.  In our family, this couldn’t be truer.  I’ll spare them the embarrassment of their mother publicly listing their strengths and weaknesses, but will tell you that one of them has bit of an entrepreneurial spirit.  It’s because of this that the video below really struck a chord with me – and with him as we watched it together.

In the beginning of Cameron Herold’s TEDx talk, he describes how he won a speech contest in 2nd grade and wasn’t given any support to reinforce that strength – though he did go on to become a highly rated lecturer at MIT.  Conversely, when he “sucked at” French, he was given a tutor.  And now, as an entrepreneur, he hires out what he isn’t good at so he can focus on what his strengths are.

Maybe your child won’t be an entrepreneur, or a lawyer for that matter.  Whatever they become, it will be as a result of what was encouraged, nurtured and allowed to grow.  It will also be the result of what was discouraged and squashed.  We, along with other significant adults in their lives, are the people who will do that for them, to them.  In any event, our children will be better served if we find ways to help them discover their own strengths so that they can feel strong in what they choose for a career path.

Even if it means that they won’t go to college, or take over the family business, or be whatever it is that you do as a profession.  It’s got to be their dream, not yours.

I hope you enjoy the video.

Cameron Herald: Let’s Raise Kids to be Entrepreneurs

Find Your Strengths

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Most of you think that focusing on your weaknesses and improving them is the path to improved performance.  The data show that about 60% of Americans believe this and it’s even higher in a few other countries.  To be fair, there are areas of weakness I’ve worked to improve – and still work to improve – which has helped me become a better coach, leader and friend.  You can probably think of a few areas where you’ve done this, too.

If we’re lucky, when we improve our weaknesses we’ll neutralize them.  Turn the former area of weakness into “good enough.”

Do you want to be good enough or do you want to be amazing?

I think most of us would rather have amazing than good enough.  Not simply because we’d look better to others but because we FEEL better when we are amazing.  We are happier.

When we use our strengths to meet our biggest challenges, we enter into what psychologists refer to as “flow.”  You’ve been there before: those times when you’re so engrossed in what you are doing that time slips away.  You feel strong in those moments and are using your strengths.

Beyond allowing us to feel amazing, positive psychology studies show that using our signature strengths is a key component to being happy.  The work of Gallup and Marcus Buckingham shows that using our strengths is how to be successful at work and how we find balance in our lives.  If you’d like to more than take my word for it, I encourage you to check out any or all of the works below.

Finally, if you’d like to take a quick survey to find your signature strengths, navigate to www.authentichappiness.org and register for a free account. Once registered, check out the questionnaires and find the VIA Survey of Character Strengths (there’s a lot of other great stuff there, too).  You also can begin on your own by completing this sentence that Marcus Buckingham uses in his workshops: “I feel strong when I…”

However you do it, discover your strengths.

What Strengthens You?

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Preparing for a presentation last week, I was reminded again how important it is for each of us to use our strengths in all that we do.  It’s also surprising to me that I’ve only posted about doing so a handful of times.  I’ve never devoted a week to the topic.  It’s about time.

Before we get too far in, it’s important that we’re all on the same page when it comes to defining “strengths.”

Here’s the thing… what you are good at is not necessarily the same as your strengths.

What?

That means that every time you were asked about your strengths in job interviews and you rattled off everything you are good at, you were probably answering a different question than the one that was asked. Your skills do not equal your strengths.

Strengths strengthen you. If you do something well and you hate it, it demotivates you, and it leaves you weary, then it is definitely not one of your strengths. You can also think of these as “burnout skills,” a good perspective when thinking about how what we do well can actually fry our spirits.

Quoting from Marcus Buckingham, a leader in strengths-based leadership: “You can be good at something – even really good at something – and still hate doing it. If that’s the case, then you definitely should not consider that activity a strength, because doing it will leave you feeling drained, weakened and depleted. Building your career around that kind of activity is not a recipe for long-term success.”

So what strengthens you? What, when you are done, leaves you feeling like you haven’t really worked at all? This is your gift, your genius work. You’ll hear it referred to many ways but really, it’s all the same thing. These are your strengths.

And doing what strengthens you not only makes you stronger, it also makes you happier and your life more balanced.

Stay tuned to learn more…

Coaching: Defining Your Life

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On the surface, the posts this week seem to be on varying topics; however, they do have a theme.  It’s all been about how you define each aspect of your life and how much control, or even responsibility, you take for every area.

Unfortunately we often give a lot of our power away to other people – people who may not even know that they’ve played a part in how we define success, happiness, balance or fulfillment.  At the top of your list of “who has input” for each of these should be YOU.  Is it?  Let’s dig a little deeper.

Here we go….

When thinking about your personal success, happiness, balance and fulfillment, which feels the most out-your-control to you?  Keep this particular area in mind as we continue.

Who are you allowing to have influence?  Does it make sense?  How would they respond if they knew?  How can you take the power back from them?  You realize you’ve given your power away, right?

Take five minutes to think about what these things mean to you.  Success not derived from metrics given to you at work but clearly set by you and on your terms.  Happiness defined by what you’ve chosen to include in your life, not dictated by others.  Fulfillment realized by what makes you feel full inside.  Balance achieved by all areas of your life being filled to the same capacity – and what each of those areas in your life is, be it family, work, faith, community, or any other you choose, is completely defined by you.

What makes you feel successful?  What makes you feel happy?  What makes you feel fulfilled?  What makes you feel balanced?

OK, it might take more than five minutes.

If nothing else, begin to shift your thinking.  Begin to see your life for what it is – your life.  Yours.

Own it.

Ready to make a change and can’t figure out where to start?  The first call is always free. Learn more…

Defining Happiness

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You’ve read this week that you are the only one who can truly define success, balance and fulfillment.  You are also the only one who can define what happiness means to you.

Ah, happiness.  It seems like a frivolous thing to pursue, doesn’t it?  I’ll tell you the same thing I told a group I was speaking to this week – and I’ve mentioned it here before, too: the founding fathers ranked the pursuit of happiness right up there with life and liberty. Frivolous? I think not!

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Are you pursing happiness or is it something you think should simply happen to you?

Regular readers know that I’ve been a bit of a happiness pusher.  At the top of this page you’ll find the words “Happiness and success are up to you.”  And they are.  So, how to pursue?

In Caroline Adams Miller’s book, Creating Your Best Life, she outlines several happiness boosters: journaling, expressing gratitude, physical exercise, volunteer work and altruistic behavior, savoring happy memories, forgiving, applying your strengths, and meditation.  Research shows these to work.  That said, I don’t think every person needs to do each one to be happy.  Pick one to pursue and when it’s a habit, pick another and then another.

Define what happiness means to you.

Defining Fulfillment

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How much attention do you pay to what truly fulfills you?  How much thought have you given it?

When we think about defining success or balance, it often comes down to feelings of fulfillment.  We feel successful when we feel fulfilled.  We feel balanced when we feel fulfilled.

Given this, you’d think we’d spend more time thinking about what that means for us.  More often than not, we’re moving too fast to pay attention when it happens.

There are many things that have the potential to fulfill our lives: time with family or friends, travel, specific tasks we do well, recognition, worship, writing, and the list goes on.  These things have the potential to fulfill; however, even this short list easily shows how my list will never match your list.  Things I find fulfilling may drain you completely.

People often let others define what success means or even what balance should mean.  But fulfillment is something that seems inherently personal; it’s something that must be felt and known individually.  Personally.

Pay attention to what fulfills you and you’ll begin to understand what will bring balance, success, and happiness to you.

Defining Balance

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“Balance” is a myth.  You know that, right?  What we must strive for is fulfillment, our balance coming from each area of our lives being properly filled, not precariously balanced.  More on fulfillment tomorrow.  Until then, here’s what balance looked like for me last year.  It looks very different for me now.  I had it then and I have it now because I continue to define it for myself.  As should you.

My Balanced Life originally posted January 24, 2011

I have a balanced life.

Most evenings I leave work somewhere around 5:00 PM. I see my kids, parents, and extended family. I even cook for my family quite a bit. Once or twice a week, my husband and I walk the dogs (when it’s above freezing, anyway). I spend time with my friends. Lately I’ve been making time to exercise. I regularly update my Facebook status.

On the flip side, I’m going to grad school. I lead three or four global projects in one of the largest, well-known companies in the world. I missed Platinum status with Delta by about 1500 miles last year. I eat my lunch at my desk (or by my computer if I’m working from home) more days than not. I coach a handful of people each week.

And yes, I have a balanced life.

Balance is a funny thing. What might look nuts to you is balanced to me. Why? Because my balance is all mine. And your balance is all yours. That’s the beauty and the trouble with it. The beauty is that it is yours to find and have. The trouble is that it’s all up to you.

Sorry.

Not your boss. Not your spouse. Not your mother-in-law who won’t drop everything to stay with your sick kid. You.

I know the moment when I claimed my balance. When I declared that my life was mine and I was taking it back. Claiming and doing are not the same, mind you. It took more than that singular moment to find my balance and it would be a lie if I said it wasn’t work to maintain it. 10 years later, it can still be a daily decision to keep everything in line.

So what does balance look like for you? And what is that first step you can take? For me, it was leaving my laptop at the office when work really could wait until the next day. When I got pretty good at that, I added another step… It’s OK to have dinner at 7:00; I give the kids a snack while they watch me make supper and we eat later. And then another… I will not forgo girlfriend time, ever. And then another…

Claim your balance. It’s up to you.

Thanks for reading! Now head on over to Facebook and join me there!