When The Going Gets Tough

I love quotes.  I keep a document on my laptop with my favorite sayings, and when I’m feeling down or befuddled, I read through them.  It’s like a private chat with a good friend or a coach.  I usually find some nugget of inspiration or a new way of looking at things that lifts me up and provides a fresh perspective.  Kind of a little reboot.

An oldie but a goodie is: when the going gets tough, the tough get going. 

This quote can be used a number of ways.  If the going gets tough and I’m in hiding-out mode, it inspires me to get back in the game, even though I don’t describe myself as ‘tough.’  I revise the quote to say, when the going gets tough, successful people get going.

Turn it into a game!  How many ways can you change this old saying?  Here are three more ideas:

When the going gets tough…the professional/grown-up gets help.

How many times have I seen this situation.  There’s a big mess, and someone will hunker down and try to figure it out or resolve it themselves.  They’re like an angry child protecting a toy yelling, “mine!  Get away!”  There are a couple of things going on here.  You’ve got a control freak who thinks they’re smarter than everyone else and if we’d all just leave them alone, they’d fix it. Or someone who feels that if the problem comes to light, they’ll get blamed for it and they don’t want anyone to see.  Either way, you’re dealing with someone who cares more about being right than getting a good result.  Grownups know that a team pulling together without big egos can produce much more powerful results than a single person or a really small team working off in a corner on their own.  Yes, it might take more effort to coordinate across a bigger group, and yes, compromises may be required.  But the outcome will almost always be a stronger, longer lasting, and more widely accepted solution.

When the going gets tough…it’s time to follow your gut and heart.

When things aren’t going well and we feel besieged, often we try to ‘think’ our way through.  We re-examine the evidence, pour over our well-laid plans, look at the numbers, and try to plot the logical route through the minefield.  In an effort to come up with the answers, we sometimes forget to check in with our best on-site consultants, our gut and our heart.  Creative answers don’t always lie in the data.  Sometimes what a situation calls for is a dose of intuition.  I speak with so many clients who have decades of experience, yet they doubt the ingrained inner knowing that has accumulated over the years.  Listening to your gut can yield some great out-of-the box creative thinking.  In some circumstances if you slow down, breath, and listen to your heart, that voice of truth will tell you that the situation or path you’re on doesn’t fit your life anymore.  It’s time to make a change, and whatever problem you’re trying to solve is not the real problem.  People seldom arrive at that moment of truth through thinking – it’s something they need to feel. 

When the going gets tough…it’s time to laugh.

One of my most endearing and beloved memories of the time my Dad died was how we, as a family, found and enjoyed humor up to the end.  Waiting in the pre-op area of the hospital before the surgery to remove my Dad’s esophagus (He had esophageal cancer.), Dad joked, “what am I doing?  I feel fine.  I don’t have any symptoms.”  When his surgeon, the epitome of cranky bedside manner, came in to chat, Dad repeated this comment.  His surgeon, with an absolute deadpan face and voice said, “then we’re gonna give you some. “ Mom, Dad, and I laughed so hard.  I think other people in the area thought we were nuts.  Were we running away from how scared we were feeling?  Perhaps, but it helped me deal with what turned out to be one of the last conversations with my father.  I love it that we laughed at such a time.

When the going gets tough, how do you respond?

Set Goals for Success

My niece, Nikki, is one of my heroes.  She knows what she wants, and she consistently makes decisions that take her in that direction.  When she gets gift certificates for her birthday or Christmas, she saves them up so she can have something she wants, unlike her aunt.  I’m instant gratification girl.  If I get a gift certificate I need to spend it.  It burns a hole in my wallet, and Now! Now! Now! isn’t soon enough to go shopping regardless of whether or not I need or want anything.

So goals are hard for me.  Well, setting goals isn’t hard.  In my years working in corporate America, planning was a big part of my job.  But sticking to the plan is a challenge for me especially if it something just for me vs doing something for someone else.  If this sounds like familiar, here are some ways to look differently at setting and attaining goals.

What do you really want.  It’s important to be clear about that.  How can you get something if you can’t name it?  Your goals and your intentions need to be specific.  Break them down to the core details so you understand them from all angles.  If you want to lose weight, what’s behind that goal?  To look better?  For health reasons?  Are you feeling a bit old and want to be ‘lean and mean’ again?  Are you in a dark place and want to stop hating how you look and therefore hating yourself?  The more honest you can be and the more detail you can uncover, the more options you can explore for how to reach your goal.

There’s a quote from Maya Angelou which inspired Oprah for years:  When you know better you’ll do better.  But even though we all know the health hazards of smoking, so many people struggle to quit.  Smokers I know cite a number of things they get from smoking:  pain relief, relaxation and stress relief, something to do with their hands and/or mouth.  Until they change their feelings about smoking, they’ll probably struggle trying to quite.  People change in response to their emotions, not knowledge and logic.  As you break down your goal and look at what’s driving you to have that goal, examine your feelings along the way.

Set goals that work for you.  For me, that’s shorter-term, actionable goals.  Losing 40 pounds may be the result you want, but at the safe and recommended 1.5 to 2 pounds a week, that’s  – yikes!  20 weeks aka 5 months as a best case, you rocked it, scenario.  If you like your gratification instant (like me), that’s way too long to wait.  However, if you set daily goals that take you in the direction you want to go, like having one meal a day be salad and doing 30 minutes of cardio 5 days a week, you can track progress to those specific, action-oriented goals and build on them over time.  

Along the lines of setting goals around action you can take daily, don’t defer your life until you reach your final destination.  If you want to pay off your debt in 2 years, try to incorporate some of the rewards of reaching that goal into your life sooner.   That’s not an invitation to spend like there’s no tomorrow.  Examine what paying down your debt means to you and how it will feel.  Does it mean freedom?  Or security?  Look for other ways to create those feelings for yourself today.

Every good plan has a contingency plan built in.  If you make short-term, daily/weekly action commitments, you can incorporate rewards and a support system along the way.   How will you stay accountable to your intentions?  The buddy system works great, so recruit a friend who has similar goals or is working towards something and keep each other motivated and on track.  Hiring a coach (like me!) is another great strategy.  When you put some skin in the game, your chances of success skyrocket. 

I can’t wait to hear about your goals and dreams.  Contact me.  

Conquering the 'F' Word

Do you have a dream, but are afraid to move forward?  Are you carrying around baggage from a previous disappointment and hesitant to go through that experience again?  The ‘F’ word – fear and it’s partner, doubt, are real and need to be faced head on.

What if my dream doesn’t come true?  There’s an old saying:  you’ve only failed when you stop trying.  Your dream may not come true exactly the way you envision it today.  Adjust and adapt.  Perhaps you’ll identify a new opportunity or a new niche that interests you.  Go for it!  You may need to implement in phases due to financial considerations or time constraints.  That’s OK.  Just don’t dumb your dream down or reduce it because of those factors.  Keep an eye on the destination and allow zig zags and stepping stones to be part of the journey.

What if I don’t have what it takes to make my dream come true?  Actually, you may not, especially if your dream is really big. Do you want to open a high-end restaurant because you love to cook, but your current job is in accounting?   You’ll need to go back to school.  Do you want to be an entrepreneur but you’ve never even owned a lemonade stand?  The transition from corporate employee to business owner can be rocky and full of ‘learning’ experiences.  Trust me – I’m on that road right now.  Be open to learning and summon up the confidence to stumble.  Acknowledge where and who you are today, and look at who you need to be.  Then take action to fill the gap.  Even small steps build momentum.

What if it turns out I don’t really want what I’m dreaming about?  What if I’m disappointed once my dream comes true?  There are some people who aren’t satisfied with anything.  They hide in dreams or say, my life would be great if only….  Others are driven by ego and ‘shoulds’ imposed by their younger self or parents. Start with acknowledging who you are today.  Be grateful for today.  Truly look at your life and find the good things now.  Make a commitment and implement daily practices to stay conscious of those nuggets and figure out how create more of them in your life.  Once you stop hiding in fantasies or clinging to ideas that aren’t true for you anymore and start living your life today – now – your true dreamer will emerge.

What if it’s harder than I think it’s going to be?  No surprise here - it will be.   The bigger your dream the harder it’s likely to be.  What an adventure!  It will require you to learn and demonstrate persistence, courage, and strategic thinking,  You’ll need to let go of the myth that you can do it all on your own.  You’ll need to build a team of people to help and support you.  Your precious ego is going to take a beating.   Think how different you’ll be two years from now.

What if it’s easier than I think it’s going to be?  Lucky you – everyone will be green with envy.  Next step – dream bigger.

What if everyone tells me I’m nuts for wanting to pursue my dream?  A lot of people will.  Listen to their concerns and incorporate their advice and feedback into your plans.  If their feedback is to abandon your dream, smile, say thank you and move forward.  Your heart and gut is the best judge of what’s right for you.

What if I run out of money while pursuing my dream?  Part of your planning needs to include financial resources.  Part of the zig-zagging may mean staying in your current job for awhile longer, or getting a part-time or contract job while you build your dream.  Perhaps you’ll need investors, which means you’ll need help learning how to swim in the shark tank.  That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pursue your dream.  It just means you’ll need a very detailed plan.

If you have a dream, I’d love to be your dream coach.  I have a proven 10 step process which has helped thousands of dreams come true.  It will teach you key skills and techniques you can use over and over for making any dream a reality.  Contact me, and let’s get started on making 2012 the year your dream comes true.

The Hero Worship Game

A few months ago I signed up for a workshop.  I looked forward to it for weeks, but it now goes on the list of times in my life when I’ve felt the most horrible about myself.  There’s a handful of events that are on that list, but it’s been over 25 years since the previous time.  As I walked back to my rental car – yes, I traveled for this workshop – I knew a full-blown pity party was on the horizon.

Just for fun, on the way to the airport I thought, what would someone else do or think in this situation?  Here’s my list:

What would Jane Austen do?  She’d stand back, make keen observations about human nature and create subtle and spot-on character assassinations which she’d then weave into a simple story.

What would (insert the name of your favorite super hero) do?  The image of Batman came to mind – Michael Keaton in the opening of the first movie when he dropped the bad guy off the roof saying, “I’m Batman,” while Prince music blasted (OK, throbbed) in the background.  Love it!

What would Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian or (fill in the name of your least favorite reality character) do?  They’d say in a whiny voice, it’s not my fault.  I’m so rich and beautiful.  I don’t understand why no one loves me.  Boo hoo.

What would Harry Potter do?  He’d suck it up, grit his teeth, and rely on his friends to help him find the strength and resolve to get through it. 

What would Harry Houdini do?  Disappear – poof!

What would Butch and Sundance do?  Jump off a cliff after cracking the best joke in the history of movie dialog (in my opinion).  Sundance:  I can’t swim.  Butch:  Are you crazy?  Hell, the fall will probably kill you.  Sundance:  Oh shittttttt...

What would your inner 4 year old do?  Burst into tears (OK, I did that in the car) crying elephant tears, wail,  and end up with red and puffy eyes.  Apologies to my fellow Alaska Airlines flyers.

Finally a couple of days later, I came around to the often-used, but still worthwhile question:  what would Oprah do?  She’d accept and acknowledge how she feels, but then she’d look for the lesson.  I got out my journal and filled pages. 

Next time you have a bad or disappointing experience, play this game.  Make it fun!  Who is your favorite author, superhero, movie character, or other inspiration?  Let your imagination and snarky sense of humor run wild.  Just remember to end up with Oprah, acknowledge how you really feel and then look for a lesson that you can carry forward.

Step-by-Step

I’ve always hated to be asked, when you were little what did you want to be when you grew up.  For one thing, that was a lonnnnnggggg time ago, and second, I never thought about it.  Same thing at work: where do you want to be in 5 years?  Alive, happy, successful, not broke, not ill, not much else comes to mind.

Thinking back over the patterns in my life, the pattern of taking things just a step at a time is what I see.  When I got divorced at 21 I just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.  I was heartbroken and humiliated, but I knew I had to move forward even if it was just with little steps.  I decided not to go back to college because it seemed to me at the time like a step backwards.  It was important for me to move forward – to lean into my life.

I never had a big career plan, I just took the next opportunity that seemed right to me at the time.  I even moved to LA in 1985 not knowing anyone, but it was the right thing to do at that time, and I didn’t have any doubts.  When I got laid off 7 years later, it was an easy decision to move back to Seattle.

When I got laid off again in 2009 I had to decide whether to look for another corporate job or start my own coaching business.  Finding another corporate job would have been the comfortable, familiar route, but I had already decided I wanted to be a professional coach.  I wanted to stop doing all the ‘corporate’ stuff and move forward in a career that expresses who I’ve always been as person.  Like Michelangelo, I chipped away at the marble until the statue appeared.

Thinking back over these scenarios I see a pattern.  I haven’t forced big leaps, I’ve just made decisions when I’ve come to a crossroads and always with the intent of moving forward even when it was scary.

Sometimes a client will describe their career as being an escalator that they stepped on out of college, and they’ve just passively ridden along ever since.  Now they don’t like where they’ve ended up and want a career makeover.  What’s missing for them is an overall vision of the direction they want to take. 

The women’s magazines lately have featured a theme of reinvention and makeovers.  The thought is tempting:  sit in a chair for 2 hours and let someone else give me new hair, makeup and clothing and I’ll be a new me.  Or spend 10 days on a structured eating, exercise and journaling program, and I’ll be reinvented at the end.  Tempting.  I’d like to snap my fingers and be different, but I know it doesn’t work like that, at least not for me.  That’s just not how I’m wired. 

I’m a ‘one foot in front of the other’ person.  What works for me is to have a vision of the overall direction I want to go, and then just move forward one step at a time. The progress seems glacial until you look back over a span of time.  I have some friends who set goals and then focus all their energy on meeting them, but they sometimes lack that higher-level vision of where they want their lives to go.  It’s like they’re running wind sprints all the time. 

Make a list of the big change points and crossroads in your life.  Think about the patterns and recurring themes.  What insights do you get?  What lessons are you being given the chance to learn, over and over again?  Do you think you ‘should be’ one way, but when you look back over your life, do you see someone different?  Instead of feeling bad or inadequate, try working with how you’re wired.  You don’t have to settle for status quo, but move forward and approach changes in a way that works for you and works with who you are.

Value Your Self

Do you see the value in yourself? Or should I say your self?

People come to me as a career coach for a variety of reasons – they’re having performance issues at work and need to figure out how to dig themselves out, they want a power-packed resume so they can find a new job, they want to identify their dream job because the path they’re on isn’t where they want to be anymore. 

People start out seeking coaching around their jobs and career, but after a few sessions (how many depends on the person), the wall between ‘career’ and ‘life’ begins to crumble.  Work/life balance?  Is there such a thing?  Issues at work but nowhere else in your life?  Not likely, although they may appear different on the surface.   Career is easy to talk about.  It’s at arm’s length, held at a distance as a separate entity.  People sometimes even speak about themselves at work as if it were a different person.  Over time, they begin to see that it’s not.

If you want to make a change in your career, whether it’s to improve and grow in your current job or find a new one, the first step is to explore and understand how you create value at work.  How do you do that voodoo that you do so well?  Everyone seems to start at the same point.  We think about what we do but totally overlook the value of our contributions and accomplishments to our team, our projects, our customers, our company.  People often say to me, I don’t think about that – I just do my work. 

If you don’t recognize and appreciate the value of your work, no one else will either.  It’s the classic fairy tale.  Are you hoping Prince/Princess Charming (aka your boss) will see the jewel you really are through your humble, ash-covered exterior?  It wasn’t a true story when you were a kid, and it’s not a true story today.  If you need to dwell in that land of make-believe, read romance novels.  In the real world you don’t have to brag, you don’t have to take credit for work you didn’t do or for work done by your team.  But to truly thrive at work, you need to ‘own’ your accomplishments and the contributions you make.  Stand proud in your space and find joy in being you.

It’s a journey and oftentimes I start by working with clients to update their resume even if they aren’t looking for another job.  Just the process of talking about their work history, and discovering how to express strengths and accomplishments by recapping results delivered begins to unlock a new self image.  I remember when I first took the StrengthsFinder assessment and sat down with my team to review my top five talent themes.  I had this epiphany:  I didn’t need to be good at everything, and I was OK with things that aren’t natural talents for me because, dang, I’m really good at what I’m good at.  Stepping into your own space can lead to a powerful shift.  It’s like letting the genie out of the bottle.  That genie, by the way, can help make your dreams come true.

So to make changes in your career, whether you change jobs or not, start with identifying and appreciating your strengths, accomplishments, and the unique ways you create results and therefore value.   To make changes in your life, let that wall between your work self and the rest of you come down and follow the same path.  Identify and appreciate your strengths, accomplishments, and the unique ways you create value for your family, your loved ones, your friends, your community, and anyone else who touches your life.  Let the genie out of the bottle and see the value in your self. 

I’d love to support you on this journey.  Let’s start with talking about your career.  Who knows where it will lead – perhaps to the life of your dreams.

Ode to Steve Jobs

My MacBook, iPhone, an iPod are sad today mourning the loss of Steve Jobs. So am I. The media reminds us that we’ve lost a great visionary who was an inspiration to people all over the world even outside the technology industry.

As I read these wonderful tributes, they seem incomplete.  No…I don’t need the details of his personal life, although I’m sure some magazine will dig those up to make a profit.  While Steve Jobs may have been an extraordinary visionary, he must have also been extraordinary in many other ways to be able to bring his visions to life. 

To have a vision is one thing – a wonderful thing – but you need more than creativity.  It needs a foundational purpose that will inspire others to adopt it as their own, and this will fuel the fire for doing the hard work needed to make that vision a reality. 

I know so many people who have great ideas and grand visions, but their ideas aren’t grounded in a purpose other than to boost their bank balance and ego.  I saw a sign on a church down the street:  Heart is happiest when it beats for others.  Purpose provides the fuel, and when the purpose is ‘other’ centered, the foundation is rock solid.  Steve Jobs had a sense of purpose to make daily lives better.  In my opinion this formed the foundation for his visionary thinking and gave his creativity a target.

His communication and presentation skills were also extremely strong.  When he spoke, people were mesmerized.  I read a book on the techniques he used to craft and present his message.  The key was simplicity (and tons of editing).  He understood his vision so well that he was able to condense it down to its core and then communicate it in simple terms so others could not only understand it, but were inspired to follow.  When the vision is yours, that’s easier to do. 

In my corporate job I had to listen to a lot of presentations.  I could always tell when someone was presenting other people’s ideas or content or were presenting to an audience who didn’t share a common vision.  Their message was often muddled.  They needed to dwell on details and complexity in an effort to sound like they knew what they were talking about or to compensate for a lack of shared vision.  It was usually a disaster.

Having ideas is fun!  But if you aren’t ready, willing, and able to do the hard work to take those ideas and turn them into reality, they just stay inside your head.  As often happens, someone else will have a similar idea, but they will do the hard work to make it happen, and poof!  Your great idea is making someone else’s dreams come true. 

We’re bombarded with stories of fast and easy money.  I’m so sick of it!  (That’s a rant I’ll save for another post.)  If you want a great example of someone who had an idea out of the blue and put in the hard work to make it happen, check out April Morris’ story.  Express Effects Cosmetics  I met April at the Dream University conference I attended a couple of weeks ago, and I’m now a big fan.  She had an idea while in her car one day – I wonder if you could add an appetite suppressant to lip gloss to help people lose weight.  It took her years to turn that idea into a product, THINgloss^®, but she was driven by the underlying purpose to create a better life for her two kids.  She leveraged her strengths so she could change careers, which enabled her to fund her prototype, went back to school to become an herbalogist so she could work with chemists to develop the prototype, and then started marketing.  She now has success beyond her wildest dreams.

Do you have an idea that’s burning a hole in your head?  Check to make sure it’s driven by an other-centered purpose, clarify your vision so you can communicate it clearly so others will be inspired to join you, and make sure you’re ready, willing, and able to do the hard work.  Who knows, you could become your own version of Steve Jobs.