Archive for May, 2012

What Makes You Special?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 30, 2012 | 2 Comments »

Texas wildflower: Indian BlanketRecently in on online discussion forum, a friend of mine shared an article on how up to 50% of women have the ability to see more color variation than the rest of us. Most of us have just three types of color-detecting cones, red, green and blue, each of which can detect 100 different colors. Our brains can combine these color variations exponentially to allow us to differentiate about 1 million colors. Tetrachromats — women with four color-detecting cones — have the added capacity of the orange cone’s 100 colors, allowing for an incredible 100 million different colors. (Tetrachromats are only female because the genes for our cones lie on the X chromosome. Women have two X chromosomes, and men have an X and a Y.)

Amazing! But then I got to thinking…unless you had the genetic test to determine if you were a tetrachromat or not, how would you know? You may be an artist and appreciate color deeply. You may talk to others about the nuances of different paint colors or the variations in flowers, but when all we have is our own experience, there’s nothing to compare it to for contrast. You could just be a trichromat with a deep appreciation for beauty. And if the people around you don’t see what you see, you might discount it or just keep it to yourself.

I see a lot of people discounting their gifts and talents, and I’ve been guilty of it as well. Often, it’s the things that come so easy to us, we don’t recognize it as a gift. Here are a few questions to help you identify where you might be overlooking your own unique attributes:

What do people compliment you on regularly? (Don’t discount anything here. Consider yourself a scientist on a fact-finding mission and put aside any judgment you might have. Make a list of all the things you regularly get compliments on, and consider comments from people in different parts of your life: work, family, community, friends. Notice the commonalities.)

What activities make you lose track of time? (Author Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi wrote about the state of flow in his book, Finding Flow. It’s that wonderful way of being when your intention and attention are aligned. You’re so focused and in-the-moment that the “monkey mind” is quieted. It’s often activities that can be challenging, those that push you to the edge of your abilities.)

What activities make you feel energized, rather than depleted, after doing them? (Conversely, you could also look at who in your life do you feel more energy around. See if you can determine why — what are the qualities in those activities, that person(s) or in your relationship.)

Answers to these questions will provide you with clues to your own uniqueness and help you towards your best life. We are each unique, and I believe we each have a purpose. Celebrate what’s wonderful about you and what you have to give and find ways to use those gifts in your life.

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Goals, Achievement and Failure

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 23, 2012 | 3 Comments »

triathlon finish

Finishing my 6th triathlon, and beating my personal best time. Achieving your goals feels great, but what about when you don’t achieve them?

“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”
~ Zig Ziglar

Do you set goals for yourself? Do you write them down or just know them in your mind or in your heart? Studies have shown it’s actually beneficial to write them down, and while I do that for my professional goals, I definitely have some that are just so intrinsically bound to who I believe I am that they are always within me.

It’s my birthday week, and it’s a big one. A decade milestone. I have mixed feelings about this, but it’s coming, whether I like it or not. So in true coach-y form, I’ve been delving into my feelings and the thoughts behind them.

On the one hand, I am happy to celebrate. First of all, I think it’s always fun to have a day to celebrate YOU just for being you. I always make it a point of telling the people I love and care about how much they mean to me on their birthdays. I like the idea of a celebration just because. Not because of any accomplishment or achievement, just for being alive. And while I’m not THAT old yet, I have outlived some of my friends. Thinking of their too-short lives makes me grateful for each of my years.

BUT…then there’s the other thoughts. The not-so-excited-to-be-FORTY thoughts. As a coach who trained in a class of amazing coaches, I’ve been self-coaching and been a practice client for my colleagues on many of these thoughts. These thoughts are dirty pain — as opposed to clean pain like grief, dirty pain is the thoughts about it that you have like “it’s my fault he left” or “I will never find another job/partner/friend like him again.” Dirty pain thoughts are nasty, and definitely painful, but they can be dismantled.

The biggest resistance I have about turning FORTY (it’s big…it deserves all caps) is that I haven’t achieved some of my personal goals that I thought I would have by now. I could explain this in two ways: 1) it’s out of my control, there are circumstances and others involved and there’s nothing I can do about it, or…2) I have made choices, for good reasons, that have led me to this point, and even though it’s not where I want to be, I honor and value the choices I have made. The first explanation puts me in the role of the victim or the martyr, and that doesn’t feel good to me. The second explanation puts me back in the driver’s seat of my own life, and I like that more. While I have yet to reach my desired destination, I do feel good about the journey.

If you have goals for yourself, and you don’t meet them (for whatever reasons), I invite you to explore what you’re telling yourself about not achieving the goal. You get to craft the story in your head, so make it a good one! Use goals as motivators to keep striving towards, but don’t use the goals as sticks to beat yourself up with.

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Making Your Brain Work FOR You

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 15, 2012 | 3 Comments »

I like to include a picture with each post. How do you show “enough” in a picture? Oh well, I like turtles.

“How you do anything is how you do everything.” ~ Derek Sivers, incredibly successful entrepreneur, author of Anything You Want

I knew starting my own business would be challenging, and it has been. There are lots of unknowns, many things I had (and still have) to learn as I go. One of the most unexpected and interesting learnings for me has been about myself.

I honestly didn’t realize how much pressure I put on myself. All the time.

Being a coach puts my analytic powers to good use. I use the tools I learned through training on myself daily, digging in to understand what’s motivating me, what’s holding me back, what is causing me frustration or stress. A lot of the frustration and stress I experience is completely due to the thoughts in my head. While this is somewhat annoying (why do I DO that?), I also know how to change it.

One of the thoughts that is on the frequent playlist in my head is “I’m not doing enough.” This can apply to many areas of my life: triathlon training, housework, family time. (The way we do one thing is the way we do everything.) But I’d like to share how it shows up in my work life. I hope that by sharing this, you may gain some insight and relief in your own work life.

What I’ve realized is that this thought comes up regardless of where I work, who I work for, or what I’m working on. And while it may seem like this is a motivating thought that makes me do more, more, more (and therefore achieve more, more, more), that’s not the case. When I have the thought that I’m not doing enough, it’s demoralizing. I feel overwhelmed and feel like it’s impossible to achieve. And it is. “Enough” must be defined, or it is always an impossible goal.

I’ve learned that the brain always tries to prove itself right. It constantly looks for evidence to support its thinking. So if I’m thinking “I’m not doing enough,” I can find piles of papers that need to be filed, unfinished projects, and of course there’s always the never-ending email inbox. All these pieces of evidence support that faulty thought.

But turn it around. After defining for yourself (understanding that your boss likely has some input) what “enough” is, find evidence for how you ARE doing enough. For me, I set aside a number of hours a day and a week to work on my different projects. I make a list of to-do’s (I get much satisfaction from checking them off!). I set deadlines for myself and meet them. And I focus on what I’ve accomplished instead of what I haven’t yet.

The other key to making my brain work for me instead of against me…reminding myself why I’m doing this. I’m an entrepreneur because I wanted more flexibility. I wanted to do something that helps people. And because coaching makes me happy. So I can ask myself: did I take advantage of the flexibility of my job today? Did I help someone today? Am I happy? And if the answer to those is yes, then I can put my over-active brain at ease: I did enough.

Do you need help identifying where you might be overworking yourself? I help professionals set and achieve goals that really matter to them. I can help you love the job you’re in or make a plan to create a job you’ll love.

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The Secret to Happiness

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 8, 2012 | 2 Comments »

“Happiness is not something the world owes you or can give you. It is not passive. It is not rest… Happiness is an activity of the soul in accord with excellence.” ~ Norman Melchert, philosopher, author, professor

I’ve been taking a fascinating continuing education class on Positive Psychology. The field of psychology has been largely focused on disease, but for the last 20 years or so, there has been a growing trend of looking at the positive side, looking at what makes people resilient and happy. What a fantastic idea: instead of singularly looking at what’s wrong, let’s look at what’s right!

We hear so much about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but statistically, a person is just as likely to experience Post-Traumatic Growth from a challenging event. At the beginning of my career, I worked with a number of cancer survivors. Many of them, even those who had recurring disease and who knew they would die from their cancers, would tell me it was the best thing that ever happened to them. They viewed their cancer experience as a wake-up call, to recognize what was truly important and discard petty grievances and stresses that didn’t matter.

Two of the prominent researchers in Positive Psychology, Martin Seligman, PhD and Ed Diener, PhD, have quantified a formula for happiness:

Happiness = Genetic Set-Point + Circumstances + Voluntary Variables

Your genetic set point is what you’re born with. I think of it as how optimistic or pessimistic you naturally are. This accounts for about 50% of your happiness, and as something you’re born with, you can’t really change this.

Your circumstances — where you live, the things that happen to you — account for about 8-12% of your happiness. Surprising? Sometimes in the Western world in particular, we believe that we need more, more, more to be happy. But many studies have shown that’s not the case.

So the remainder of happiness, anywhere from 38-42%, is made up of voluntary variables. This includes the ways in which we intentionally intervene on ourselves, our choices of thought and action.

The exciting news here is that while we can’t change our genetic set-point and may have limited control on our circumstances, we absolutely have control over the voluntary variables. This is why people say you can choose to be happy. I also think of the “glass half full” concept here. If you have a glass with your favorite beverage in it, do you consider it half full or half empty? Are you focusing on what you have or what you don’t have? And of course, there’s always the slightly sassy answer about being thankful you even have a glass!

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The Power of Positive Thinking

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 2, 2012 | 2 Comments »

Sedona

Taken in Sedona, NM, March 2012

“Understanding on a scientific level how cells respond to your thoughts and perceptions illuminates the path to personal empowerment. The insights we gain through this new biology unleash the power of consciousness, matter, and miracles.” – Bruce Lipton, PhD, The Biology of Belief

I’m recently read Bruce Lipton’s book, The Biology of Belief. As a cell biologist, he provides a scientific approach and explanation for the value of the environment on our cells, and collectively, on our bodies. His research provides a new dimension to understanding life, demonstrating that genes and DNA do not control our biology but instead, DNA is controlled by signals outside the cell, including the energetic messages emanating from our positive and negative thoughts.

Dr. Lipton recognizes it’s not just about positive affirmations – although those can be helpful – the key is that the subconscious and conscious mind must be in alignment. You can’t just put whipped cream on dirt and call it dessert. As he states, “the subconscious mind is millions of times more powerful than the conscious mind…You can repeat the positive affirmation that you are lovable over and over or that your cancer tumor will shrink. But if, as a child, you heard over and over that you are worthless and sickly, those messages programmed into your subconscious mind will undermine your best conscious efforts to change your life.”

So how do you know if your positive affirmations and your subconscious are in alignment? Sometimes I notice it in my emotions. When they aren’t in alignment, I feel dissonance, and I don’t really believe the positive affirmation. Or, I notice the results – my positive thinking isn’t having the desired effect. This is where I find working with my coach to be very helpful in allowing me to get to the underlying beliefs that are holding me back. A good coach can help you get to the root of the issue, the beliefs that your subconscious mind holds as truths but are limiting your potential.

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