Be a Super Hero!
I got to be a super hero on Friday and for those fleeting hours, I’ve got to admit, I really enjoyed it!
My son has been racing motocross for the past 7-8 years. I rarely go because I get so nervous and stressed out watching him ride. After his last racing accident (early spring)he had 4 broken bones in his right foot. My husband and I swore he’d never want to resume racing. However, he followed every key race and tracked the progress of his racing buddies and couldn’t wait to get back into it. He’s determined and tenacious!
So, I bravely offered to take him riding on the practice track all by myself on Friday. This meant that we had to load and unload the bikes ourselves, pack the gear, drive to the track, sign-up and unload the truck. Driving the truck used to be a challenge but now that we picked up a newer pick-up truck, it’s easier for me to drive it! Fortunately, my son is now 15, and although a bit small for his age, he was able to handle the most difficult tasks with just a bit of my assistance (getting the bikes in and out of the bed of the truck).
The day went well! He rode hard. He rode fast. He didn’t get hurt. Nothing happened to the bikes. He got in a full practice in just a few hours because it wasn’t very crowded at the track.
I was way out of my comfort zone the entire day but in my son’s eyes, I was his super-hero and the best mom in the world! We had a great time together! He’s already looking forward to the NEXT time (yikes!). I’m certainly more confident that I can handle this on my own and willing to do it again. (Heck, being super mom is clearly worth it, right!)
I never held myself capable of doing this on my own. But by shifting my belief and asking my husband how I could best do this on my own, I had the opportunity to shine big in my son’s eyes.
In your own life, is there a belief holding you back from experiencing something? Is there an opportunity right there in front of you for you to be a super-hero in your son or daughter’s eyes? If so, what are you waiting for…push through and be a super-hero! From one darn proud super-hero…”It is definitely worth it!!”
The Tension of the High Achieving New Mom
Also found this article at the Glass Hammer site in the Work/Life Balance area. The tips are interesting and insightful so I thought that New and Expectant Moms visiting my Blog might also enjoy the content.
Here’s the link:
The Tension of the High Achieving New Mom
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It’s not JUST ABOUT Work-Life Balance
I have studied work-life balance for well over a decade and conclude that the key reason why there’s still a gap for employers, business owners, and employees despite millions being spent in programs is because these opportunities are mostly all externally-focused. Thus, work-life balance as we’ve known for years has been primarily focused on programs, services, benefits, and the like while neglecting that true balance is internally-driven. The symptoms often associated with unbalance include overwhelm, burnout, stress and other mental, physiological and emotional issues. Yet the programs, although helpful, don’t fully address the problem.
Balance is derived from a sense of harmony, peace and alignment. One who works 90 hours a week could actually be more balanced than someone who doesn’t even work at all. Balance is about knowing what you’re doing and why you’re doing it and feeling that sense of control over your life. When you’ve usurped power of your life to someone or something, it’s that powerlessness that causes feeling of imbalance.
Some of the more popular programs including childcare, elder care, concierge services, health and wellness benefits, flextime, telecommuting, and job share help ease the burden of working long hours while managing a life outside work. They also allow for working longer hours. Yet true work-life balance is about being aligned, making the right choices for you.
My studies have revealed that it’s not just about work-life balance, time management, stress management, or increasing productivity but all these things combined to help each individual overcome what I call Obsessive Distraction Disorder (or O.D.D. for short!). Distractions increase when you’re not aligned with what’s most important to you! By targeting what matters most, decisions are based on top priorities—what’s most important to you!
The typical work-life program offerings help create more time and sanity. However, time spent unwisely is still time lost; time that can never be recaptured! Unlike other resources, time is not a renewable resource. Therefore, it’s highly important to recognize what’s most important in all aspects of your life and realign around those things. Be crystal clear about your values, integrity, needs, purpose and priorities.
Remember the old adage…it’s not about working harder, but working smarter. In this case, think more broadly, work is a part of your life that serves a specific purpose, so LIVE SMARTER, not harder! Make wise choices aligned with what matters most to you!
Endure Success despite Multiple Priorities
Researchers frequently study traits of successful people. I find that it’s important for each individual to first define what success means to him/her. When you know this criterion for yourself, you can track, measure and attain it. Every adult seems to have conflicting demands and multiple priorities these days. Those who endure success despite these ongoing challenges have a few key things in common, they:
* avoid regret by making sound decisions in their life and their work
* have positive energy that helps them focus on enjoying the present
* thrive on challenges by seizing opportunities as they present themselves
When success seems elusive for an individual it is usually due to a mismatch between your core values or moral compass and what you are doing. Your needs, integrity, goals, beliefs, and strengths comprise who you are. When you are congruent, you’re able to create higher levels of success; when who you are and what you are doing are not aligned, it creates undue stress, frustration, worry and overwhelm. Also, when you rely too heavily on one or two strengths rather than leveraging a variety of your strengths, you’re less likely to achieve your highest levels of success.
I referred back to a December 2006 issue of Entrepreneur magazine to explore this issue further and found several principles that helped one company beat the odds and endure success.
These are my notes on the Guiding Principles:
1. When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
When you feel stuck and things aren’t working anymore, rethink, analyze, and discover so that you can shift directions before you dig too deep!
2. Take action–you can’t afford to wait for all the facts.Avoid waiting for all the answers before proceeding. Make your best guess decision and go forth to seize opportunities as they present themselves!
3. Get comfortable with ambiguity.
The only thing truly certain in today’s economy is that things will continue to change.
4. Find your brilliance and leverage it relentlessly.
Your strengths uniquely set you apart; know your core strengths and use them to differentiate yourself in the marketplace and stand out!
5. Being all things to all people is the golden rule for failure.
Be a leader by doing what you do best within your niche or target market. Avoid straying from your core of what you do best.
6. Cut the fat. Leave the muscle. Get lean!
Eliminate anything that doesn’t add tremendous value to your customer and your bottom-line. Streamline and reconfigure to optimize your resources.
7. Embrace globalization.Outsource where it makes sense by reinforcing your business strategy.
8. Create a culture of trust.
Timely honest communication helps create trust.
9. Foster a sense of ownership.Engage your team by empowering them and allowing them to have a bit of an entrepreneurial mindset. Have a clear and consistent vision with a message conveying your vision, the supporting initiatives vital action steps.
10. Hire and retain the very best people.An entrepreneur I interviewed said “Hire slow, fire fast” to communicate the need to be selective when hiring your employees to insure you employ smart passionate people who fit your culture.
11. Reward people for a job well done.
In addition to financial rewards, when appropriate, provide timely positive feedback that recognizes contributions.
12. Innovate, innovate, innovate! Look outside the paradigm for new ideas.
Instill creativity and reward thinking outside the box.
13. Choose your customers (or those who influence your customers).
Identify your target market. Also align your vendors and suppliers as the most appropriate to help you serve your customer base.
14. Give customers what they really want.Understand your customer’s needs by frequently doing market research to best understand what they want. Customers buy based on the perceived benefit they will receive from your product/service.
15. Practice perpetual optimism.Manage your moods by instilling a positive sense of hope through your energy as the leader. Being ambiguous and fearful evokes the same in your employees.
16. Never, ever be a victim.Victims have a low level of energy often portrayed with guilt, self-doubt, worry, fear, embarrassment, hopelessness, anxiety, apathy, and lethargy. If you or your employees are stuck in this low level of energy, shift the perspective quickly and begin increasing self-worth. (I’ll say more about this in a future BLOG post because energy leadership is a vital ingredient to your success!)
Receive Love
Mothers Day is a day for recognizing and appreciating our moms. This year, I feel fortunate that one of my colleagues, Renee Trudeau, provided me with her book, “The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal” as a gift I could forward to the subscribers to my e-newsletter. I received a couple notes from readers expressing their gratitude.
The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal is written as a reminder to the importance of self-care. My testimonial, “…it is a powerful and life-shifting book for every mom who continuously falls to the bottom of her ‘to-do’ list and forgets about the things that make her happy and feel her best. This practical and life-affirming resource empowers moms to reflect, renew and rejuvenate.” Although the offer for the free download has expired, the book is still available through major bookstores and online.
This past weekend, I did celebrate Mother’s day and surrounded myself with a nurturing and loving environment. After taking my mom out to lunch on Saturday afternoon with my two children, I brought my daughter and two friends to her dance competition and enjoyed watching the performances and skillful dancers. I also enjoyed connecting with other moms! Unfortunately, it was a late night! We got home after midnight.
After a restless night sleep due to over-exhaustion, I awoke to the sounds of my son hobbling through the kitchen on his crutches as he prepared breakfast for me. As I listened, a smile filled my heart! My son set his alarm clock so that he could awaken before me to prepare my favorite breakfast. How wonderful!! It tasted so good!
My daughter and her friend awakened late in the morning and washed my car after they helped themselves to breakfast. Again, a wonderful moment to accept love and be ever so grateful! I relaxed all day,and even took a nap. What a superb way of nurturing myself while my children expressed their love to me.
My husband made me my favorite dinner and cleaned up the entire mess afterwards.
For my Mother’s Day, I slowed down, relaxed, and gave myself permission to absorb the love around me. Hope you did something special as well!
How Hungry are YOU?
After posting about needs and hungers last week, a number of people contacted me asking for more information. The important thing to note is that there are both healthy and unhealthy ways to feed your hungers; hungers are not necessarily BAD. Hungers may often masquerade as one of your highest ideals, values or desires. Some of your hungers may be very easily satisfied while others may return routinely, thus, creating a constant theme in your life.
Hungers operate at different intensities. Knowing the level a particular hunger is driving you, will be helpful in finding the most healthful ways of feeding it.
For example, if you are starving/famished you are likely deprived of a key component necessary for life. If your hunger is at this high level of intensity, chances are that you may need professional therapy to intervene because at this level there is a sense of desperation. You must have and will do anything to feed the need.
The next level of intensity, craving, exhibits a high demand and/or begging. At this level, there is still some level of danger that may benefit by professional therapy because one may do many things to get this hunger met, including (but not limited to) sacrificing your own integrity. If you do not feel at a level of choice, seek professional help!
The next three levels are less intense and may be able to be resolved with the help of a trained coach or perhaps on your own through your personal support network. At the Hungry level you must have it, if not immediately than relatively soon; the hunger is somewhat under control but on the verge of taking over your life. The Longing For level is an experience of regular and continual absence of the need because you have grown so accustomed to it not being fed. The danger here is that it is still there, in the background, and can easily intensify once allowed the presence of that need. Lastly, Having an Appetite For, is a healthier place of preference and some choice. It is the beginning of noticing that there is a deficiency. If you were to notice it at this low level and take some immediate action to take care of the feeding the need, then the other, more intense levels are short-circuited.
At the lowest level, a hunger is a mere whisper. You can usually avoid the compulsive, out of control feelings of the more intense levels just by simply recognizing the need and giving it a nugget or morsel to feed on.
Think about the emotional hungers you long for…do you have the need to feel safe, feel valuable?; to be right, to be appreciated?; to receive respect or love? If so, these are just some of the hungers I have worked on with my clients to help them find healthful ways to resolve in their life.
Are You Hungry?
Often when I am working with a client 1-1, we work on identifying their needs. Sometimes because of the nature of needs being something we crave deeply, especially when they are not being met, I refer to them as (emotional) hungers.
A number of years ago when I was teaching at the Coach Certification Institute (an organization which unfortunately no longer exists!), we helped others learn about the importance of hungers and the impact they have on our lives. They were referred to as hungers because they are propelled by a very strong instinctual drive; they operate with an almost primitive intensity and compel us to feed them at all costs, even if what we feed them is not the best nourishment for us. For example, a person who has an unmet need for attention, will do almost anything in order to feed that emotional hunger, similarly to when you come home after working all day but not eating a thing and reaching for whatever is handy to immediately meet that need.
Unmet hungers are dangerous because when they are not recognized and nourished appropriately, they can easily direct all of your available energy and attention towards getting the hunger fed, even if you do not realize it is happening! Hungers can totally distract you from the things you value and the life you truly want to lead. When someones actions are not aligned with what they say they want, there is a huge chance that there is an unfed or mis-fed hunger is operating in their life.
It is important to realize that you may need an outside observer to help you identify which hungers drive you. As a professional coach, I have a variety of tools and resources at my disposal to help my clients first identify and then work to resolve existing hungers. Once hungers are identified, the next important step is to find consistent and nourishing ways to feed them. When your hungers are well fed, you are released from their compulsion.
Stay tuned for more about needs and hungers in the weeks ahead in this Blog and in my free weekly e-newsletter. You can subscribe at http://www.nrgcoaching.com/ or by clicking here.
Life Renewal strategies
Today in my bi-weekly e-newsletter I provided 6 tips and some additional resources for helping you renew your life. Here are some additional principles and strategies that may guide you in your quest to effectively transform your life.
1. Live a balanced life while you pursue your transformational goals. Allow time out for other interests and pleasures. Insure your personal foundation is strong and can persevere.
2. Avoid energy draining people who do not support your transformational goals. These people will convey their doubt and lack of support almost every chance they get. They will cause you to doubt yourself. Instead, surround yourself with like-minded people and people who support you wholeheartedly.
3. Investigate other’s successes. Explore how others have done what you’d like to do. Interview 3-5 very successful people who have achieved a similar transformation in their life. Discover how they did it, what was critical for their success and what suggestions they are willing to offer you. List the qualities that contributed to their success. Select a quality you know you need to develop and look for practical ways to develop that quality every day.
4. Practice daily habits that support your transformation. Determine your top priorities and specific actions you need to take. Eliminate distractions that may cause you to get off track. Create mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional well-being practices you can do regularly that support your desired being. For instance, it you say you want to lose weight, eat sensibly and do physical exercise as part of your regular lifestyle. Take some actions every day toward your desired outcome.
5. Detach from the outcome. Although your personal transformation may be important to you, want it but don’t need it. Find other ways to get your needs met. Realize that regardless of the outcome, you will still be in a different place for having gone through the process. There are valuable learning opportunities inherent in the process of transformation. Transformation is a spiritual experience that cannot often be intellectualized. It is a feeling that cannot be forgotten or captured in words but is with you for the rest of your life.
6. Stay in the present. Enjoy your life today and don’t wait for the transformation to finish before you are happy. No one can predict the future, so, delaying your happiness and personal fulfillment to a future state will not be effective. Bring joy and gratitude into each day. If you aren’t happy with where you are today, you’ll need to learn the lessons involved before you will be able to move on. Acknowledge and reward yourself along the path of your transformation. Celebrate who you are becoming.
Stay tuned tomorrow for some empowering self-discovery questions! Come back often for more tips and strategies!
Avoidance Tactics are Really just your own Distractions at Work
I have found that there are certain tasks I really do not enjoy doing. Most of these things are those items I am really not naturally very good at. For example, managing my bookkeeping is something I dread. I usually avoid the electronic files and just cannot seemed to get focused to do them. In my mind, I am just not good at it. So, I avoid it. I really hate doing it!
Avoidance is a distraction in itself. By avoiding doing these tasks we are actually procrastinating! In most cases, procrastination is letting the low-priority tasks get in the way of high-priority ones. For example, it is socializing with colleagues when you know that an important work project is due; watching television rather than doing your household chores; or talking about unimportant things with your partner rather than discussing your relationship concerns or other important issues. In my case, it is more simply ignoring the low priority activities with hopes that they will eventually just go away!
So, in the meantime, my standards have declined. I used to keep an absolutely clean home and well organized office. Instead, I let it slip because I was focusing on my higher level priorities. I also realized that my standards were set too high and were unrealistic. Unfortunately, though the result is that I zap a lot of my energy working in a cluttered space and being dissatisfied about how my house or office looks. One solution is to hire someone else to do it; this is called outsourcing. However, these are things I do not want to outsource because I like to handle them myself and have the family share in the responsibility.
On the other-hand, managing my books and database is something that can be outsourced. I have taken some classes, updated my programs, and had some 1-1 but still feel resistant to doing these tasks. These are the types of activities that are essential for me to do as a business owner.
Delegating and outsourcing are great solutions for those tasks you really don’t want to do! Now it is time for me to follow my own advice and hire (or barter) for these services. Anyone know a good administrative assistant?
Stay Focused During Extreme Times
In today’s volatile and uncertain economy fears abound across many industries and professions throughout the US and abroad. People fear losing their job, their home, their financial savings, and their health.
This fear has immobilized many people and caused a sharp decrease in workforce productivity. It is very difficult for people to concentrate on the task-at-hand when they have so many concerns. We are indeed living in challenging times. These are times of uncertainty but life will continue.
Now is the time to focus like never before, to determine what’s really most important to you, and how you can best proceed. It’s a time to take fate into your own hands and be in control of your life. Rather than feeling like a victim, create your paths, secure your future, do what you need to do to help overcome your fears.
Fear is an indication to do something. Doing nothing or ruminating about all the possible scenarios can keep you stuck. There are very few guarantees in life. You may need to take some risks to take control. Determine for yourself the degree of risk you can handle and make choices based on this. Find ways to keep your productivity high as well as the quality of your work so that your self-esteem doesn’t suffer unduly.
These are days of extreme and often irrational pessimism. The way to survive this crisis is to stay focused on the fundamentals. The benefit to you is less stress, more control. The benefit to the economy and to businesses is that productivity and standards don’t suffer.
What’s your fears telling you to do different or do differently??
