Tough times – what will you do?

It’s officially a recession

Well, according to the local paper here, The Kansas City Star, we are now officially in recession. I don’t think that comes as a surprise to anyone! There has been a lot of chat over the airwaves and in the coffee shops about how bad things are. Certainly I can see the evidence of that around me and with my clients – yep, it certainly isn’t good.

What will we do?

There is a mindset thing going on here though as well. Now, perhaps more than ever, is a good time to review what is truly important to you. These are the things that you really value. They don’t change much as time goes on and they are like a compass. Doing things that are in alignment with that are very rewarding, when in conflict with them, life can be very stressful.

So, what is most important to you? There is a great book called: The five secrets you must discover before you die – John Izzo that I highly recommend. (By the way, if you want a great resource for books and book recommendations I suggest you check out www.goodreads.com). Of course, money is important and I am not suggesting that we ignore that. Making a living is essential. However, at these times and especially as the holiday season approaches I think it is worth considering the things that are truly important and how we are addressing those things.

So, rather than ignoring the “recession” and refusing to believe it, how about taking a look at what is great in your life and how you are going to get closer to your values without having to spend huge amounts to get there!

Thoughts don’t have to become things……

Ok, that heading maybe misleading but it leads me into a pet hate of mine. This surfaced today but I have seen it many times before. It is a variation of the sinister chain letters that used to circulate in hard copy and have now transferred to the internet.

Essentially the email runs something like – do not delete this email/poem/story. Unless you forward it to at least 20 of your closest friends your husband/wife/kids/family/all that you love will meet a grisly death in the next 7 days just see what happened to people who deleted it. However if you do forward it, you will get an amazing piece of good luck etc. etc. You know the form.

Now, I hate these because they play on people’s fears and it’s completely bogus. However that isn’t the point of this post. It set me thinking that these things work for a couple of reasons. Firstly people think they may as well forward it “just in case”.

Secondly though, there is the recognition factor. “You will have amazing luck” – if you go looking for examples of that in your daily life I bet you will find it. You don’t need to be threatened by such a malevolent email to do that. Try it – if you believe it you will attract it to you and it is amazing what you will see.

The problem with this is the flip side. If you go looking for doom and disaster then guess what? You will find that too. However, this is a choice. You can chose what to look for and your life can be affected either way. Note that this is absolutely NOT a result of a sinister email but if we allow that to be the start it can have that effect. It reminds me of an example I heard many years ago in a comedy show. Apologies if I misquote:

“Walking under ladders is definitely unlucky”

“why do you say that?”

“My Dad walked under a ladder once, 50 years later, all his teeth had fallen out”

Depends how you chose to view things!

It’s TV time

Let’s face it, the TV is a dominant force in our lives. I am a rather partial to watching it myself, particularly when it is baseball season. So, I am absolutely not knocking TV, it can be very educational and certainly helps us to wind down at the end of the day.

However it can be a time stealer. There are a lot of us today who struggle for time. One of the most common responses I hear (and give!) to the question “How are you?” is: “Very busy”. When I talk about balance the issue of time always comes up - “I would love to do that but it is a case of finding the time”

I would like to tentatively, and with no judgement, suggest we all look at our TV time in connection to our values and our goals. If you particularly value personal growth, or connecting with people, how can you incorporate the TV into those values? Possibly there is something else that you could be doing with that time that gets you closer?

As I say, this is not an axe that I particularly want to grind, nor is it an evangelical call to ditch the TV (as I say, I like it myself), but I would like to suggest it is an area where you might be able to find that elusive 30 minutes that would really help you connect with what’s most important.

 

Mind your language

Well, as one of the facets of life I particularly value is personal growth, it is always a positive thing when it happens – especially unexpectedly.

Today I was running an Inflection Point Workshop and I mentioned that the phrase: “It is what it is” is one I hear often and dislike. Why? Well because in my mind it has always been synonymous with a surrender of accountability. In other words, “it is this way and there really isn’t anything to be done about it, so why try?”

To me that has always meant an abdication of responsibility to challenge and seek alternative, perhaps better ways. Sometimes it is a phrase used to justify inappropriate behavior. “Oh, he’s just like that – it is what it is”.

So where’s the learning? One of my fellow work shop members called me on it and described a different interpretation, one that I hadn’t previously thought about. For her, that phrase means: “This is the situation, no point in over-analysing it, what do we do to move forward?”

So, whenever we hear the exact same phrase we will have a different interpretation. The learning for me was this: Think about possible interpretations of a phrase before jumping to a conclusion about intent. Especially if your thoughts lead to action or words that might be inappropriate.

Are there any phrases/language that triggers a similar reaction for you? Is it possible there is another way to look at it? If so, perhaps that was the intended message.

What is your role?

Maybe that sounds like a deep question for this time of the morning! In all areas of life we perform many roles. These roles are not intrinsic to who we are, rather they are functions that we perform in everyday life.

These roles are not always easy to identify – for example, what are the roles that you play as a family member, a father say? Well there can be many – playmate, disciplinarian, bread winner, teacher, mentor, coach, confident, friend etc.

In thinking about roles it is worth looking at different aspects of your life. Typically these include: Health, Career, family, Significant other, Personal growth, wellness, Money etc. It can be anything that is important to you. This compartmentalization of life is artificial of course because all aspects inter-relate but it is useful to finding priorities and identifying where we can make the most impact.

Within each of these “life sections” think about how satisfied you are in each area – scoring your satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10 can be useful here. Thinking about the roles you play can help to identify where you can REALLY impact your life satisfaction, either by doing more of it, less of it, or doing something new.

For example: In the father example above it may be that a lack of satisfaction can be tagged to lack of play time with your kid(s) – in other words the playmate role is not being satisfied. Now we are in a position to identify how we can find more time to address that and, by the way, the time required is normally relatively short.

So, thinking about the roles that you play in all aspects of your life can help identify the areas that can make the most impact in your life when addressed.

I know that

It is always a surprise to me how life presents us with so many learning opportunities. Often I find they are buried in familiar situations. I was working with my business partner in one of our seminars when he came up with the quote about the most dangerous three words in the English language: “I know that”.

Thanks for that Kevin! I have been thinking about that for a few days now. Whenever we think that we know something, it really gives us an excuse not to pay too much attention and means we don’t have to try to learn. It can also be dismissive of someone else’s efforts to help us – “Oh, I know all that”.

Herein lies the problem. Even if we think we know something really well, there is always and I mean always, something new to learn. Some new angle, someone else’s perspective that we hadn’t thought of etc.

Worse, saying we know something implies that we don’t even need to get better and/or there is no growth to be had in this area. Now, all things change. Even if we do know something today, who is to say it won’t change in some way tomorrow? If we assume that we already know we are actually wrong.

I guess the point of this post is that is about raising awareness. Every time you hear yourself saying that you already know something, how about re-framing that thought in terms like: “Knowing a lot abotu this already, I wonder what new perspective this information brings and what will I do with that?”

 

Family time

Well, it has been a hectic couple of weeks. I just returned from a week in Florida with my immediate family that included my parents, over from the UK. It was a really nice week and we were discussing it afterwards – what was the best part?

Often times the answer to this question involves a particular activity that we dis – a day out, a visit to a theme park, day at the beach and so on. This time however it was something quite different for me. Probably the best thing was simply hanging out with my parents and family generally. It is so rare that we simply do that without having the day planned. Specifically one of the most memorable times was the simplest thing – playing golf on the Nintendo Wii with my Dad – I think that was the first time we have played golf of any kind together for 15 years. How cool is that?

So, the point of this story is: What are the little things for you that are actually the most important? I realized again that simply sepnding time with my parents in pricelessly important to me – it doesn’t need to be some vague notion of “quality time” nor does it have to be doing something specific. What is it for you? These times don’t come back and we don’t get enough of them.

Again, what are the little things that are truly important to you and how are you going to get some time to do that? Making it a priority can really help your balance, even if the time you spend is short.

Balance is small stuff

I was asked a great question last week – “so what do you do for your personal balance?”

it is tempting to look for magic bullets isn’t it? You know the sort of thing. The pill to make you slim overnight, the exercise to give you rock hard abs in a week, the secret to achieving balance. Unfortunately I have yet to come across anything that really works that way, including achieving balance.

So, there really isn’t a work-life balance template I can give you that will work for everyone. What I can advise is look for the simple things that you can do that are really important. Huh? What does that mean? Perhaps an example will help.

I am married to a morning person – that is a challenge for a night owl like me. Some of her best times (and today is her birthday) of her day are in the mornings when nobody (especially the kids) is up and she can relax with a coffee and the paper. It doesn’t need to be a long time, getting up 15 minutes earlier is all it takes.

If I were able to gift you 15 minutes entirely to your self, what would you do with it? That is often the first step to figuring out what is truly important to you and going about intentionally reaching for it.

Time to travel

Travel broadens the mind – that is the saying but I haven’t been able to find the original author of the quote. Actually, I didn’t try very hard but the point of this post is: How does travel help us find balance?

I was reading a friends blog recently (thanks Jay) and you can find it here and one of his posts struck me as very interesting and relevant to the topics I muse about here. The post itself is “Your prescription for a Road Trip” and provides an excellent insight into the benefits of getting out on the road to shake you out of your habits and perspectives born of doing the same thing, going to the same places, getting into the same routine. Apologies to Jay if I paraphrase incorrectly.

Anyway, the point is well made and goes wider. In the seminars that I run I partnership with Dan Gabbert, we discuss the concept of the comfort zone and how operating solely within such a zone limits our growth. Many of us stay in routine and habits because they are safe. Even if we are miserable there at least it is misery in comfort and anyway, we know it, it might be worse if we tried to change.

Travel, even if just outside of the city really helps change that perspective and introduce us to new things, new ideas, new people, sights, experiences. What better way to experience life and get out of a rut in thinking?

We can all start in a small way – thought about going home a different way next time?

Book review #1

Well, I have finally decided to listen to the advice of my good friend Toby Troug (you can find his excellent blog referenced on my site and also here) and introduce some structure to these posts.

Therefore here is the first in a series where I will share some of my thoughts on great (and not so great) books I have recently read. The aim is merely to raise awareness of some of the works out there that can be influential.

This week (to which people who know me can attest) I read “Mindset – the new psychology of success” by Carol Dweck. The central thesis revolves around what people believe to be true about themselves – specifically the talents and intelligence they possess.

In a fixed mindset this belief holds that such things are fixed and set early in life, resulting in some people being smarter than others, better at certain things and that is just how it is. In the opposite state, known as a growth mindset, such skills can be developed and learned through experience. Most of us think within one of these terms of reference and we can use both – for example we might see athletic ability in a fixed mindset, math ability in a growth mindset.

The implications for coaching are potentially huge. In a fixed mindset there is a continual desire to avoid failure as this demonstrates that we are less good (and therefore less speacial) than others. Since these skills are fixed there is no point in trying to develop them so we avoid situations where we might fail – such as change.

Growth requires us to be learners, demonstrate that we don’t yet possess a skill and work hard to develop it. Working hard isn’t seen as a indicative of less talent as it is in the fixed mindset.

So, when facing change, or if you have ever considered that something is fixed, inherent, luck of the draw and can’t be changed, I encourage you to consider reading Mindset.