coaching – Emily Downward

Counting My Blessings

May 1, 2013emilydownward

“Is your life as fabulous as it looks on Facebook?” I was recently asked by a friend I hadn’t spoken to in awhile.

So I’ve decided to come clean: Yes and No.

How my life isn’t as fabulous as it looks on Facebook: I’ve had some crappy days lately. I don’t post about that. Actually, after attempting to get through it on my own, I finally “broke down” and asked for help from some of my trusted and loving colleagues (my ego hates to admit this, but it’s true, I can’t do it all alone). Coaches rock!

How my life IS as fabulous as it looks on Facebook: Even on the crappy days, I count my blessings. I know how lucky I am to have found someone amazing to share love, to have a loving family, to have an incredible group of friends, colleagues, and past colleagues who are supportive and inspiring. I am so thankful to know my passion for coaching and to be a certified coach. I have phenomenal clients that I get to work with, and to watch them grow in their confidence and realize their dreams is my distinct honor.

The field of positive psychology, the basics of which I apply in my life and in my coaching and find myself craving even more, focuses on increasing people’s resiliency, our ability to bend without breaking, to bounce back when life knocks us down. One of the quick ways to help yourself is by using the ratio of 3:1. For every negative experience, have 3 positive ones to increase your positive emotion over negative emotion. Interestingly, the frequency is more important than the intensity, so even if you count the simple positive things, it can work. I think this also helps by focusing your attention on what you do want rather than what you don’t want. Positivity, besides just feeling good, also broadens your mind and inspires you to be more creative. It also leads to stronger relationships with others. All these benefits can give you even more positive experiences to cherish.

Oh, and another thing? Positivity is contagious! (Did you catch it?)

One Small Step at a Time

March 6, 2013emilydownward

I’m currently rehabilitating my right hip. Due to scoliosis and some other factors, it’s significantly weaker and has been causing me a lot of pain and making it difficult to walk. I’ve been doing a combination of therapies to relieve the pain and make it stronger, and after a couple of good days, I thought I’d join my boyfriend on a run around the lake. I was excited about getting out there and doing a run/walk, enjoying the nice weather and spending time together.

Unfortunately, I significantly overestimated my body’s current ability. I didn’t get very far at all before I began limping, and less than a mile into it, my leg started giving out completely. When this happens, I can usually catch myself with my other leg so I don’t fall down, but it’s very painful when it gives out. At this point in our “run,” I was hobbling. I decided to let my boyfriend run ahead without me while I turned back to SLOWLY make my way back to the car.

It was ridiculously slow. I had to stop and stretch several times, and I had to take very small steps to prevent my hip giving out. This gave me plenty of time to think, and my critical mind jumped in with a barrage of insults. “I CAN’T BELIEVE I can’t even run a mile! It was less than a year ago that I was doing my last triathlon and now I can barely walk! This is pathetic.”

I realized that although I want very much to be back at my triathlon training level, the reality is I’m not. I can either try to force my leg to do more than it can do (with the consequence of setting myself back and causing more pain), or I can take small steps, doing my physical therapy and allowing my body to rebuild the muscle strength at its own pace.

I am often impatient for things to be different, so this situation reminds me of many other times when I wished things were different NOW, whether it be at a job or in my personal life. I think the first step is recognizing where you are versus where you want to be, and the next challenge is to consistently take small steps towards your goal. It most often cannot be done all at once. Perhaps you want a new promotion. What are the steps to get there, other than talking to your boss or the decision makers about your intention? Notice what skills or expertise you need and determine ways to get that experience. Break down the progression into smaller steps, and keep your focus on executing those smaller steps flawlessly.

I also use coaching to quiet the critical voice inside my head. When I struggle against reality – what is true versus what I think it should be – I cause myself an incredible amount of stress and frustration. Accepting the reality doesn’t mean I give up on making improvements, though. It just means I have more peace in the moment. So I’ve traded the negative self-talk for encouraging thoughts: “Every day I do my exercises, I’m getting stronger.” And I’m taking purposeful, small steps – literally – towards my goal. (It’s working!)

I Don’t Know! (Or Do I?)

October 10, 2012emilydownward

I struggled for many years not knowing what I wanted to be doing, just knowing it wasn’t what I was doing. I was good at my job and had gotten promotions, moving my way up to additional responsibilities and larger salaries. I enjoyed having people report to me and mentoring them, but most of my responsibilities, which had at one time seemed like interesting challenges, had become uninteresting and incredibly stressful to me. In addition, I was overwhelmed with a never-ending amount of work, unrealistic deadlines and intense pressure from all sides. It took a huge toll on me, and my body was screaming for my attention. I knew I had to make a change.

And yet, I didn’t know what else to do. I figured I might as well keep doing what I was doing until I figured it out.

Now, I realize that when I was telling myself I didn’t know what to do, it was kind of a lie. Now, I know that our brains can spin incredibly believable stories, and most of them aren’t true.

Sometimes, when faced with making a big change, we get freaked out. Change can be scary. Even known terrible conditions and situations are sometimes chosen over the unknown, as depicted in the movie Shawshank Redemption. When faced with release from prison, long-time inmates struggle with their newfound freedom, preferring to stay in the known and confined community they’ve become a part of. While it’s inconceivable to think any of us would choose prison over freedom, I wonder, how many of us are living in a prison of our own making?

When you’re not sure what to do – ask yourself, “What DO I know?” Like a game of Hot and Cold, keep following what feels hotter, and take steps towards what feels better. You don’t have to have the whole plan figured out. (In fact, it may be better if you don’t: life may throw new opportunities or challenges at you that you can’t imagine now.) As I once heard Martha Beck say, when you’re driving from New York to Los Angeles, you don’t have to see the whole road. You only need to see as far as your headlights shine in front of you.

For me, when I was struggling several years ago, while not yet knowing what I wanted to do for a career, I knew I wanted to return to living close to my family. I craved those social connections and support.

Also ask yourself, “What do I know that I am pretending not to know?” I find that meditation and journaling help me when I’m trying to figure this out. I’ve also gotten help answering this question working with my own coach.

In my situation several years ago, I realized that I no longer valued things the same. While I had once felt pride in my title, I had come to see that a title didn’t make the person. While I still enjoyed my salary, I realized that for me, the price I was paying emotionally, physically and spiritually wasn’t worth the reward. And I realized my desire to do something to help people was growing, and what I was doing wasn’t in line with that.

As I recently wrote, sometimes change is forced upon us, and sometimes we choose it. And sometimes it creeps up on us and we wake up one day and realize that while the situation around us hasn’t changed, we’ve changed internally – our values, our preferences, our goals. I believe that we’re each here in human form to learn how to be happy. We have different missions to achieve that, and we each are given different struggles to overcome. And as we grow and learn, sometimes we find that we’ve outgrown jobs, relationships or situations, and it’s time to move on. Follow what makes you happy.