Is Your Narrative Serving You?

“Is what you are doing serving you?”, I asked in yesterday’s blog post.

An excellent point came from a former trainer of mine: “Are your stories serving you?”, she asked, reminding us that what we do is not limited to our actions. It also includes our thoughts and the stories we tell. To others, but mainly to ourselves.  

We become what we think and we become the narrative we have chosen.

So, check your actions, your thoughts and the stories you tell: Are they working for you? And repeat questions and steps from the previous post ;)

Is What You Are Doing Serving You?

Is what you are doing serving you?   

By serving you I mean does it bring you closer to your goal?

Is it congruent with your commitment to self-care? 

Does it support your growth, learning, and development?

Is it pulling you forward or is it pushing you back?

Does it feed any of your insecurities, fears, undesired beliefs and feelings?

Does it make you feel better and be better? 

If yes, good. Go on, keep doing it.

If not, stop. 

Pleasure vs Joy

Inspire Learning

The verb “to learn” has no imperative form, I heard on the radio in a random interview.

True. We can teach but we cannot command someone to learn. What we can do is something better: we can inspire someone to learn. 

Fighting Inertia

A friend asked me just a moment ago, why someone who is not satisfied with a situation doesn’t do anything about it.

He himself is feeling frustrated and stressed about something specific in his life. He knows exactly what he wants to change, he has a very concrete image of what he wants to achieve, yet he does nothing for it.

“Why is that?” he asked me.

Our change starts the moment we bravely face the situation and acknowledge the problem. That is always the first step. So, from that perspective, he is doing something.

The second step is done when we reach out to a professional who we know can help us.

“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear”, says a Buddhist proverb.

That’s when we make a decision to work consciously on what we want to achieve – our third step – and we are able to recognize our “teacher”; the person who will accompany us on our journey of change.

Sometimes, the "why" my friend asked may be hiding in many different reasons:

• A structure that we are missing (aka the right professional)
• A commitment from our side (our decision)
• A underlying belief that is supported by the current situation
• A fear of the unknown, the unfamiliar
• A lack of connection with a vision

All of the above increase our self doubt and lack of confidence and the voice of the inner critic – this saboteur inside our head – becomes louder; we create excuses, we rationalize so many things to support our inertia; our frustration, even our stress levels increase (my friend suffers from stress). Depending on the levels of stress and distrust in ourselves, our decision-making ability is affected and we dive deeper into this vicious circle.

How to get rid of this circle?

Acknowledge the situation, make a decision, find the right person to help you, create a plan, enjoy your change. 

Getting Better with Active Questions

During a presentation with the title “Why We Don’t Do What We Know We Should Do: and How We Can Improve Our Odds on Getting Better!” at the WBECS, Marshall Goldsmith shared six active questions:

Did I do my best to:

1. Set clear goals?
2. Make progress toward goal achievement?
3. Build positive relationships?
4. Be happy?
5. Find meaning?
6. Be fully engaged?

Such active questions encourage people to think about what they can do to take responsibility for a situation.

If you were going to create your own list of six active questions to improve your odds on getting better, what would these questions be? 

Stop Postponing Life

When it comes to procrastination, the focus is on the tasks we postpone. There is a sort of procrastination that is worse: procrastinating life.

We keep postponing our happiness, our life, for when we will have X thing, we will be in Z place, we will be with Y person(s).

We transfer our happiness to that magical moment/place, where everything happen in those imaginary perfect conditions and we ignore the here and now.

Happiness is here. If we decide it to be. Life is every moment. We can accept it or not. And we can be grateful for it and smile about it and start opening our eyes and seeing for the first time eveything that we have.

Or we can keep focusing on what we do not have, on everything that exists in that imaginary perfect place we will someday reach and, until then, be resentful and have all the "reasons" in the world to not smiling – yet.

People, your life is now. Stop procrastinating happiness and start living. 

Set Yourself Free

"Freedom began on the day the first sheep wandered away from the herd." 

(Marty Rubin)

Tips for Listening

How do you listen?

Do you listen to understand or to reply?

Do you listen to convince?

Is what you have understood the same as what the other person meant?

Do you let your emotions get in the way?

Is your inner critic on when listening?

A brief, basic guide on how to listen:

• When listening empty your mind of assumptions and judgment
• Listen to connect
• Listen to learn and understand
• Ask questions for which you have no answers
• Be present
• Tune it
• Listen with an open mind
• Listen with an open heart
• Appreciate
• Summarize 

"It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the province of wisdom to listen." (Oliver Wendell Holmes) 

Best thing I heard today

"Even when I have insomnia, I dream."

Photo: Joel Robison 

On Leadership and Boldness

You never know where one step will take you. And you never know where the 

next one will lead. The difference in being a leader is that you take the step.

(Melissa Poe Hood)

On Leadership and Integrity

Be the model of what you are talking about. 

Choosing Who to Trust

Today was an interesting chain of 'trust happenings':

First, as part of the International Coaching Week’s celebrations, two pro bono sessions with people who trusted that I was the person to help them.

Followed by a call by someone who needed my assistance in a situation.

All three persons were unknown to me until this morning.

In the evening, a conversation with my nieces about honesty (and trust).

And finally, a class on the topic “Creating Trust” – oh, the coincidence!

In Charles Feltman’s book, "The Thin Book of Trust", he defines the four distinctions (assessments) of trust: 

1. Sincerity – “I mean what I say, say what I mean, and act accordingly.”
2. Reliability – “You can count on me to deliver what I promise!”
3. Competence – “I know I can do this. I don’t know if I can do that.”
4. Care – “We’re in this together.”

In each one of the above cases, the persons who trusted in me – even the students who showed up at the Trust class – have in one way or another assessed me in these four distinctions before being sure that I am the one (coach, trainer or aunt) that they can trust.

We all want to be in situations and relationships of abundant trust. That’s where we thrive, where we can be our authentic self, make our best decisions, take risks and evolve.

We want to have trust in our politicians, in our partners, in our bosses, in our family and friends. How about the trust that others can have in us?

And how about the trust that we have in ourselves?

The question I left my students with today was not only about steps to create or increase trust from the perspective of these four distinctions, but also about the steps and actions needed to maintain these, to maintain Trust.

What about you? How do you build trust? How do you maintain trust? 

Photo: Kevin Colton, from Ronen "Roni" Koresh's work "Trust"

No Excuses

With the shocking increase of votes for a neo-nazi party in Greece in the local elections, I have been constantly hearing the excuse that 'people are angry; it’s a vote of reaction'.

“It is wise to direct your anger towards problems – not people; to focus your energies on answers – not excuses.” (William Arthur Ward)

There are no excuses anymore. In the information era, one should have by now a very clear idea of who they are voting for.

Practicing our fundamental right to vote means responsibility. And the greater the problems, the greater the responsibility. Even for a vote of 'reaction', we have the responsibility to learn, research, to keep informed and to make a decision that provides answers.

I accept no excuses. If we are responsible citizens, then we focus our energy on finding solutions; on making progress and not excuses. 

Atonement

Today’s (second) post is about atonement.

Try as we might, the fact is we are human and we cannot be perfect. There will be something we did or did not do, something we said, a mistake we made or a post we missed.

The most effective steps to deal with them is to:

1. Take responsibility
2. Apologize 
3. Make amends
4. Forgive ourselves
5. Move on

Learning the lesson and making sure we do not repeat them is usually optional. 

Note: a common omission and mistake is to skip the very important step 3. Don't. 

On Friendship

                  "It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford 

                   to be stupid with them." 

                                                                                 Ralph Waldo Emerson

Go for What You Need

During a meeting yesterday, I mentioned the problem with delivering services that the client wants, whereas we must help them explore what it is that they need.

Talking with a colleague again today, the same topic came up.

On more than one occasion, an organization is open to discussing what their current challenges are and which needs are emerging, but even with this awareness they prefer to stick with what is familiar – what has been done in the past, or what others are doing.

This also happens with individuals: having just spoken with a friend, he knows what needs to be changed in his team, he knows that they do not get the results they need, he still opts for doing the same. No alternative approach is considered.

And with more personal issues: how many people suffer in a specific area of their life? And they may have a very good idea that their suffering is the result of x reasons. How do they approach the solution? By consistently doing the same thing. Over and over again. Expecting that something will change.

“What got you here won’t get you there” is not only the name of a very popular book of Marshall Goldsmith; it’s also a fact. How do we expect to be doing the same thing and get different results?

In January, I wrote a very short post about the power of our thoughts. It’s our thoughts that will define our lives ultimately. Our behaviors are a result of our thoughts and beliefs.

Yesterday I wrote about Control.

What is it that we must let go of, abandon, how do we need to reframe control, so that we can gain the outcomes that we need?

Learning is about courage. Have the courage to disengage emotionally from what you want, to get what you actually need.

What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful

About Control

I think my greatest achievement these past months has been learning these two lessons:

1. "You can change only what people know, not what they do." (Scott Adams)
2. "Your brain shall be your servant instead of your master. You will rule it instead of allowing it to rule you." (Charles E. Popplestone)

What Is Our Legacy?

Attending an event to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of a non-profit organization, I heard a speaker listing its many contributions to the community.

In our individual endeavors it’s easy to focus on our vision, on what we want to leave behind. How about working on our collective efforts with one thing in mind: what would we like to celebrate 20 years later? What would we like to have in our list of contributions? 

What do you focus on?

It is known that what we should focus on is found where the things that matter and the things we can control meet. Everything that falls into this space is where we should invest our energy, time and resources.

But here is the thing; there are two preconditions for that to happen:

a. Being aware of what matters to us and 

b. Accepting that we cannot control everything. 

What do you think? How easy is it for you to know what you should focus on? 

Do you meditate?

On a surprisingly hectic Sunday, I had two options: freak out or breathe.

And only one option if you are determined to find a solution: breathe. Or, meditate and continue.

Here is a guided meditation to help me and you start the week with new energy:

Notes on Goal Setting

When it comes to goal setting, there are many models that can be used: From the very popular SMART, to SMARTER, EXACT, and countless more that can be found with a basic google search.

Regardless of which model you are end up using, there are basically three elements that really matter:

1.     Relevance. What makes this goal meaningful to me? How is it relevant to what I want to create in my life, to who I am and what is important to me; to my vision and values? Relevance is what will give us motivation and ownership of the goal.

2.     Specifics. Exactly what is it that I want to achieve? When? How will I know it has been achieved? Specifics provide us with the necessary clarity and, eventually, even with the entire road map we need to follow.

3.     Appraisal. How can I evaluate the results? This will give us the opportunity to reflect on what has worked and what needs to be improved or changed and whether we are on track. 

The Greatness of All Things

Yesterday I looked down and I saw modesty on the ground. 

Today I looked up and I saw majesty in the sky.

Where will you look today? 

What will you see? 

Modesty

In the most neglected corner of the garden, a tiny flower caught my eye.

Discretion and humidity, in this tiny plant with so many qualities: the modest chamomile. 

Happiness and the Absence of Dichotomy

“Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time.” (Pablo Picasso)

I finished my work this evening with a huge smile on my face. I thought it was because of something new that I had created, plus the wonderful feedback from a student earlier today. Then I ran into this phrase and I realized the source of my daily smile.

I am not going to write that I am lucky, because it is not luck that has brought me here, to the absence of dichotomy in my life. It is perseverance, resilience, persistence and the determination not to compromise when it comes to my happiness.

According to Henri Matisse “creativity takes courage”. Leading our life is a creative process and if we want to experience happiness and fulfillment in it, the only thing we need is the commitment to be courageous. 

photo credit: http://stephanielevy.blogspot.gr/p/e-courses.html