Stop, Pause or Continue? Get the questions right for the answer

April 5, 2023 By

Has this ever happened to you? You had to take a break from something – fully intending to go back to it – but somehow never did. You did not mean to abandon the project, but in the end, that is what happened. If so, you are not alone.

Recently I had to make some decisions about things in my life and work and there were some that I was not ready to just stop. But other priorities had to take precedence so I had to make a choice. Even as I was putting some things on hold, in my heart I knew that for some it was a death knell. I would not be back. Because that is what happens, even perhaps should happen. The issue then might be how we go about the pause.

I have identified three questions to consider when you aren’t certain about the future of something. It could be a project, an investment, a relationship – it is just something that in the priority ranking needs to be temporarily (or permanently) culled out of your life. This dialog is what helps me make decisions with confidence.

#1 – Why am I doing this?

This is the first question to ask ourselves because our reason why we even started is always the critical barometer for our consideration. In some cases, the reason we started something doesn’t exist anymore.  That is the real reason it has drifted down the priority list even if we don’t recognize that at first glance. When that is the case, it’s definitely not a pause, it is a stop and we should treat it that way. End it gracefully and generously with compassion for ourselves and anyone else involved.

#2 – Why am I doing this now? Timing is the second factor. Context comes from timing. It is how we see the current importance of things. It may be that something else in our lives is stalled or on some kind of hiatus and it has affected this particular thing as well. When we understand what the relationship is of timing and dependencies, it makes it possible for us to make a decision about when (or if) we will re-visit our decision. It may be a pause for now until we can determine if a later timing changes our perspective and priority. A key distinction is that we actually choose a date (or other condition) to re-consider our choice.

#3 – How can I use this now? Leverage. This is where we have the opportunity to create good from whatever the decision may be. A transfer of value is always a good thing. And knowledge applied is knowledge valued. How much easier to consolidate than to cancel! Yes this was a good use of my time, money and energy and it’s brought me to the point that I now need to do something else. Now I will transfer my results of this and feel good about the investment. It really becomes a continuation vs. a cancel.

Three questions. A good place to begin testing our response to shifting priorities.

When we ask the right questions, the answers that come make the path forward clear. We’re able to make the choices we need to make to keep the right investments of our resources front and center. As we live today like we want tomorrow to be, it’s important to remind ourselves that what we want for tomorrow is also subject to change. Because everything changes as we change. It’s why the word today is so important in that statement. It’s about NOW. It’s about what we want for tomorrow right now so we can live it right now.

Live today like you want tomorrow to be.

Live well.

Filed Under: Possibilities & Perspective, Winds of Change Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Resilience: Asking the other question….

March 15, 2023 By

Recently, I have found my focus shifting more strategically to what is next as I consider plans and priorities.

Perhaps you find yourself here as well.

A productive practice to consider is integrating what I call the other question into our thought processes. I’m always intrigued by inverse statements and questions. There is always another one there.

What we are considering is a fundamental practice for experiencing the full range of possibility thinking. We must be able to consider every side of our choices.

In my work as a strategist over the years, this has proven to be what has made the difference between goals and objectives that are reached with greater ease and those that create struggles or even get lost along the way.

There is always another question to consider. The other question is also what quite often delivers us the more significant return.

Questions that drive insight are the ones that move us forward.

Here are three to consider that will help you develop a possibilitarian point of view that leads to creative resilience:

What is the real change I want to achieve?

Know your true objective. Keep asking until you find it. There are several schools of thought on how many layers of questions to ask. For each answer, you ask why that is important. My experience has taught me that we get to the true answer somewhere between questions five and seven.

I want to achieve X.  Why? Because XX.

Why do you want XX? Because XXX.

Why do you want XXX? Because XXXX.

Why do you want XXXX?

Because V!

You cannot stay on track if you don’t know where you really want to go. We want to get to the core value being served by taking on the work. I recently went through this practice again about my values around health. It’s the most powerful exercise we can do to get to the truth about what we want to achieve. Of note is that sometimes this exercise helps us identify what we can stop trying to accomplish because our underlying reason isn’t of any real value. But in most cases, we get to our true motivation.

The more you practice this, the faster you will reach your core value. Resiliency is a natural result when we keep our core values at the forefront because we do not look at a circumstance without context. We examine everything against how it can serve what matters most in our lives and work.

What options am I avoiding?

This is crucial because, quite often, what we refuse to consider is our best choice. We all have non-negotiable positions. That’s not what this is about. It’s about what we might be afraid to try or think isn’t possible for us. It’s about removing limitations and not compromising boundaries. When we practice a resilient lifestyle, how we perceive things will change, and what we never considered before can move front and center.

It’s also about tackling resistance head-on.

What is important is that we exhaust every possibility without limiting ourselves to probabilities or what we think we want to do.

What am I missing?

Where are the blind spots? What aren’t we considering that needs to be addressed? What are the risks? If you know them, you can mitigate them from the start or, at a minimum, have a plan in place to address them should they happen. If you do not know the risks, you have not fully defined what you want. If this is a challenging area for you, start with your assumptions. Your risks will be in your assumptions. What are you assuming to be true? What if it is not? What are you assuming is not true? What if it is?

One of the many gifts I received from my iPEC family, where I studied for my certification as an Executive Life Coach, was a very special stone. I’ve had it for many years, and it stays with me as a talisman when I’m thinking through something challenging.

The word problem has been engraved on one side, covering the entire surface. On the other side is the word solution. The solution resides within the problem itself. We must examine it from all sides to find it, but it is there. The other question is what will take us to the other side.

Filed Under: Adjusted Sails, Personal thoughts & insights, Possibilities & Perspective, Resilience, Winds of Change Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

What would you do? Setting the right response in motion

March 8, 2023 By

A key lesson that I have learned over the past few years is that the easiest way to change how we respond to things or people we encounter is to have a system in place to help us. Frustration grows when it just seems like someone or something pushes our buttons every time. That trigger is going to continue to plague us until we change it. While it’s great when we can do that just by choosing to make that change, the reality is that it’s rarely that simple.

My experience has been that it really comes to down to sleuthing, solving the mystery, evaluating vs. judging. You see, that’s where I found the real issue. We can get so busy judging ourselves for our reaction, we don’t allow ourselves the opportunity to understand it. When we understand it, we are equipped to change it in a meaningful and sustainable way.

What you give meaning to is what causes your emotion. Before you react know why you are giving something so much energy or fear. When you begin to understand why you give things meaning you can begin to change how you react and why you do what you do.  ~Shannon L. Alder

There are five key investigation tools to use that will help you master the art of reaction every time. Using the word REACT, let’s break them down.

R – Recognition

This is the first step. Simply recognizing it’s happening and taking responsibility for it. Just by asking ourselves if in fact we are reacting, we start a valuable chain reaction shift. We are taking responsibility for our side of the equation.

E – Emotion

Emotions are wonderful. They are such a part of what makes life such an exquisite experience. But they can also derail us when they are part of a triggered response. In my early training as an executive coach we broke this down into another acronym – FLAGS. We use that to identify the dominant emotion in our response. Fear, Love, Anger, Guilt or Sadness. FLAGS. Once we can pinpoint the emotion that’s involved we can begin to determine where the core response and put productive measures in place to handle it. If the trigger brings up guilt as an example, that’s very different from fear in terms of next steps. But in both cases, it is the initial recognition of the emotion that will lead us to the next right questions.

A – Attitude

What did you expect? Where are your sensitivities? Many years ago, when I was really struggling communicating with a fellow executive, I had a conversation with a trusted friend and mentor. He suggested that my sensitivities were high and that I was expecting a certain action and so that is what I saw.  My attitude was a conditioning agent. I had to first be open to a positive exchange before one could happen.  Being candid with ourselves about our expectations and attitude toward a person or situation is a critical part of our excavation to our solution.

C – Context

This was perhaps the most important element for me in a number of situations. Has someone ever asked you what a word meant and you weren’t certain or there were several possibilities? What do you normally ask them to do? I suspect it might be to ask them to use it in a sentence to help you better understand what it might mean. The context of anything is the ultimate lens for deciphering it’s meaning. What else is going on? Is it related? Not related? Is it influencing? One example might be that you’ve had a pretty long day and you’re physically exhausted. You’re tired. Does that seem to be a factor in some cases? Or perhaps there was an incident just prior that left some unresolved emotions that are spilling over.

T – Truth

What do you know to be true? This is an essential question because it allows us to get to the taproot of the situation quickly. When we take assumptions off the table or at least recognize them for what they are, we’re in fact clearing judgments and other potential mental or emotional clutter in reviewing our next steps.

R-E-A-C-T

RECOGNIZE what is happening;

Identify the dominant EMOTION;

Check your ATTITUDE coming into the situation;

Consider the CONTEXT of the situation; and,

Focus on what is TRUE.

That’s the process. That’s the system. Like anything regarding our personal framework, it’s also a skill. This can be your most effective system for productive personal change.

As a final note, remember that as we change ourselves, we are also creating the opportunity to change other people’s perspective of us as well. That’s especially true for those where we have influence but it’s also not limited there. When we employ this skill, we can inspire others to do the same. It creates a CHAIN REACTION that’s positive and constructive.

Live (react) today like you want tomorrow to be. Live (react) well.

 

Filed Under: Adjusted Sails, Possibilities & Perspective, Resilience, Winds of Change Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Resiliency: Creating perspective with gratitude

February 2, 2023 By

Nothing challenges our beliefs like pain.

Whether physical, mental or emotional, when pain strikes, all bets are off when it comes to what we might have expected in our responses.

That is why it’s crucial for us to have a tool to create context and perspective for those moments.

That tool is gratitude.

You cannot be stressed and genuinely grateful at the same time. You cannot be angry and grateful at the same time. They are counter-intuitive emotions.

It can be hard to find gratitude when your world seems to be crumbling. And it’s maddening when others tell you about the silver lining in your cloud; or that there’s a purpose to everything. We know that of course. But at that moment, that’s not what we need to hear. What we feel in that moment is that nothing matters except the moment and its pain.

The most helpful thing we can do is to contain the moment and gain some perspective, even distance from the pain.

The fastest path to that wisdom is gratitude. This is not about being grateful for the pain. In fact, sometimes it’s about anything but the pain. Sometimes we need to rest the eyes of our soul for a moment. We need a life lens that takes away the harsh painful glare. Simple gratitude can do that for us.

However, I know from personal experience that gratitude will not always come naturally. It too is a skill that must be honed and developed. It is also one of the most vital prerequisites for resilience.

If we are not grateful we will not see the point in creating good. In the end, that’s what gratitude is really about – finding the good.

It may not be about everything in the moment, but it can be about something.

I remember during some dark days when it took all of my strength just to get through the day that the corner of light was always there because of gratitude. It was my diversion from pain to peace. Even if just for a moment, it immersed me in something outside of the pain.

Taking time to seek the good and be grateful begins to balance the scales.

It was during these days that I began a life practice that still sustains me now and that is my gratitude journal. Each day I express gratitude. A journal is a natural expression for me as a writer. It can take many forms but once we develop this life practice the skill becomes a part of us and something very special begins to happen.

We begin to seek the good in everything. We search for those reminders and we find them. After all, whatever it is we seek, that is what we find.

This is what begins to establish a life that is centered around gratitude as a core value. It takes us beyond the moment and into a deeper and richer experience of life. When someone asks how I am able to see possibilities where others may not, it usually comes back to this. When we begin to seek the good, we begin to find it. Not only in those days and times as an antidote to pain, but everyday and how we see our world overall.

Our thoughts are like magnets. When they are about what is good, that will be what we attract. Even when on the surface, we may not see it. The good is there. And we will find it. That’s the power of gratitude. It changes our perspective about pain but even more, it changes our perspective about life.

Live today like you want tomorrow to be. Live well.

 

Filed Under: Adjusted Sails, Possibilities & Perspective, Resilience, Winds of Change Tagged With: , , , , , ,

When strangers shift our lives…

January 20, 2023 By

In her Sunday Paper this week, Maria Shriver talked about the fact that it is almost always a stranger that ends up shifting our lives. I had to think about that for a moment but in the end, I would agree.

The words of strangers can cut thru the fog of what is familiar. And when their words move us, we want to take the conversation deeper.

Certainly, the authors of books and poems that touch us fall into this place of meaning.

Maria’s words brought my thoughts from this past week together.

Have you ever visited somewhere you’ve never been, and immediately it felt like home? The photograph above is of the house where some fellow writers and I lived for a week on Cape Cod last year. It is a rambling old house, originally built in 1858.

It’s an author’s house dedicated to authors.  Each of the six bedrooms is dedicated to a notable writer from New England. Every morning we would gather around an old wooden table.  One of us would represent the author of our given room for the day. We would read, then agree on a writing prompt and do what we came to do – write.

One of those writers was the Pulitzer Prize winning American poet, Mary Oliver. The morning that we read her work was special. I already owned some of her writings but had never delved into them. That changed with that morning’s exercise. Since then her work has shown up frequently in my chosen daily readings.

When I learned this past week that Ms. Oliver had breathed her last breath here on earth it took me back to that time and place. She was extraordinary. Through her seemingly ancient and yet forever young eyes she could see, and then help us to see, the astounding world we live in.

We would all be well-served to follow her advice and instructions for living our own lives.

I’ll be returning this year to that old rambling house in Cape Cod. I’m hoping that this year, Mary Oliver’s room is mine.

In the meantime, I’ll be spending time with her voice in my ear hearing that most important question:

Tell me, just what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?


Filed Under: Adjusted Sails, Learning & Growth, Resilience, Winds of Change Tagged With: ,

How much life are you leaving on the table?

January 10, 2023 By

There is a phrase used sometimes when talking about negotiations that, when you stop and think about it, has a broader application. It speaks to the difference between what someone actually pays and how much they were willing to pay. It’s referred to as the seller perhaps leaving “money on the table” by underpricing or giving in to negotiation pressure. It comes down to how much was possible from the transaction vs. how much was realized.

Let’s think about this beyond just financial negotiations and look at how we negotiate with ourselves about our lives and work. Over the past few months I have found myself asking: How much life am I leaving on the table? Is there a difference between how much life is possible vs. how much I am settling for?

In a word – Yes.

What is behind the idea of settling? It’s not all bad, is it? Sometimes we go along to get along. I’ve done it. I hope I’ve matured enough to know to choose my battles. But this goes deeper. It speaks to the dangers of too much compromise and not enough fight, particularly with (and for) ourselves!

As I thought about this, the first thing that came to mind was learning how to recognize when it is happening.  After all, how would we ever know?

Wisdom from Thomas Edison prompted this personal inquiry for me with this statement: “When you think you have exhausted all of the possibilities remember this: You haven’t!”

I thought about all the factors that might create a limited perspective of what was possible. There were five that kept coming up over and over. Here they are:

  1. Limiting Beliefs
  2. Limiting Choices
  3. Limiting Circle
  4. Limiting Practices
  5. Limiting Purpose

There is no question that when we limit what we believe about ourselves and our possibilities we are leaving life on the table. After all, if we don’t think it’s possible, we won’t even try.

And, the idea of only an “either / or” in choice has always befuddled me. I lean toward both or more instead of just allowing for one or the other. Since when did choices become mutually exclusive? One way of thinking about this is:  Why settle for A or H – why not choose both and create AHA! True creativity rejects choices that are limited. Just imagine if we had settled for red and blue and never discovered purple!

There is a belief often taught in personal development circles that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with.  While there are nuances to that – there is a genesis of something very true here. Our sphere of influence is so important. How can you expect to stay inspired and encouraged if no one you are in the trenches with shares your vision or ideals?

The idea of limiting practices is typically my nemesis. Wanting to attain something is good and it’s a start but wanting something isn’t what gets it done. Our daily practices make that happen. We think of this for our health without question. But it’s true in your work as well. What must happen every day or every week to move your needle forward? When we limit what we are willing to do daily, we leave life on the table. As I heard recently, when we aren’t achieving what we want, it’s rarely a lack of knowledge or know-how. We know what to do. We just don’t seem to know how to get ourselves to consistently do it! Sound familiar?

Candidly, the last one on the list came first or second when I first started thinking about this, but as new ones came up, it kept getting pushed down. I’m giving that some thought but for now consider that if you don’t have an unfettered purpose you are leaving so much on the table. It speaks to belief but goes beyond it. This is where we think about 10X or 100X or possibly 1000X factors for what we believe we can accomplish. Not for ourselves, but as an agent of change in the world. I may have to re-think where this one goes in its ranking on the list.

What do you want to be true 90 days from now in your life or work? At the end of 2020? By the end of this decade?

Consider these factors for yourself. Make sure you aren’t leaving any life on the table.

Live today like you WANT tomorrow to be.  Live WELL!

Filed Under: Adjusted Sails, Learning & Growth, Possibilities & Perspective, Resilience, Winds of Change Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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