How Did You Get Here?

February 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Have you ever found yourself in a place where  you never thought you’d be?  Over my lifetime, I’ve asked myself several times, “How did I get here?”  Sometimes, it wasn’t a good thing either – like when I realized I’d been practicing law for nearly ten years and felt no passion for it. Sometimes, though, I’ve posed the question out of a sense of awe – like when I was crossing the equator on a boat with my family in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a three-week passage. We were fulfilling a dream, doing things we never believed we could carry off, and were in the exact place we wanted to be at that moment. It is these times, obviously, that we need to be striving for.  It is that sense of awe and purpose that fuels us to be the best we can be.

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines the emotion of passion as “an intense, driving feeling or conviction”. By definition, then, your passion inspires you to act.  In May 2010, Simon Sinek delivered a TED talk that very convincingly demonstrates the way to inspire leadership is to find people who have passion for what they are doing. And it’s not surprising that the premier management consulting firm, McKinsey&Company, recently came out with a study evidencing peak performance and job satisfaction when an employee at any level finds meaning in his or her work.

These are consistent with one of my favorite inspirational quotes that comes from an ancient yoga theorist, Pantaljali: “When you are inspired… dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”

Change begins from within, from that place of passion and purpose and cause. Once you find it, you begin to live intentionally. You are making conscious intentional decisions about your life – which leads to a life lived on purpose, performing at your peak. So much more is possible from this place.

Regardless of how you got here, whether you’re in a good place or one not so great, find your inspiration, meaning and passion in what you do.  And from that naturally comes more inspiration, meaning and passion. I’ll meet you there.

 

Filed Under: Change, Motivation, passion, Success Tagged With: , , , ,

What Does Saying No Really Mean?

January 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment

This past week I found myself feeling overwhelmed. I was Drowning – that feeling we get when we are doing too much. Everyone has a different threshold, but I had clearly reached mine. My To-Do List was not only getting longer, but it also was not having anything taken off. In other words, I was getting nothing done. My mother and stepdad were coming into town for a short visit and I had no idea how I was even going to spend time with them, and as they get older, I want every minute of them that I can get.

When we are frantically trying to do too much, everyone and everything around us suffers. We cannot be present with those we are with, we forget to take care of ourselves, we don’t get enough sleep or eat properly, we are more inefficient, we lose things, we become disorganized, our environment is in chaos, and we are more prone to accidents or getting sick. You know that feeling. And when it hits, it’s time to say No.

When we say No to things on our plate, it is more than just saying No to things that we’d otherwise be doing. When we say No, we are actually saying Yes to a way of being. We are saying Yes to a greater calm, to being present and being intentional in how we live our lives. We are saying Yes to being in choice. And that’s powerful.

Ask yourself if you are in that state of Drowning. Have you hit your threshold? Do you need to be saying No to things on your plate? If your answer is Yes, get intentional about what you will say No to, and put the plan in place. It feels powerful and freeing. On the other hand, if you are feeling stuck, that there’s nothing you can say No to, please contact me. I will help you figure it out. Because there is always something you can be saying No to. You are always in choice. You get to choose how you will Be. Please don’t settle for any less.

Filed Under: Dealing with Overwhelm Tagged With: , , , ,

Truly Being in the Holiday Season

December 19, 2012 by Leave a Comment

I’ll be heading away on a wondrous extended family vacation in December over the holidays, and even before we get on that plane, I’m planning to design on my own, as well as with my husband, how we want to be together and in relationship with the others when we are there. Don’t get me wrong – I love my family and am counting down the days to being together, but I also anticipate a lot of together time, some of which will involve very tired and sometimes hungry people of all ages. There are personality dynamics to consider in addition to the fact that it can get frustrating when it takes a lot of time to move all of us from point A to point B. In the past in these situations, I’ve chosen to ‘be’ loving and open, light-hearted and fun, compassionate and understanding. Not surprisingly, these states of being are the real me when I’m at my best. And not surprisingly, I have enjoyed myself and my family more than I ever imagined.

December is upon us along with the gloriousness of the holiday season, and yes, the stress that comes along with it. The key to getting through it as unscathed as possible is taking the APD steps – Anticipate, Practice, Design:

  1. Anticipate: your relationships and interactions during this season. Think about all the interactions you’ll have and all the places you’ll have them: At home, at the mall, on vacation; with your children, with your parents, with your friends, with other family, and even with sales clerks in the stores in which you’ll be shopping. This may not cover it all, but if you get most of them, you will have no problem applying this technique to new or unanticipated scenarios.
  2. Practice: humility, understanding and forgiveness. Remember that there is not one single person who was put on this planet with the purpose of pissing you off. At the same time, there is not one single person who was put on this planet to please your every whim – the world doesn’t center around you. Let’s not forget that you are not the only one experiencing the pace and stress of the holiday season and all that it brings (good and bad). Why someone gets under your skin has to do with a clash of values (those things that are most important for you to be your best, like gratitude or acknowledgment or order or beauty – and someone is stepping on those values, likely because their top values are different than your top values). Once you get that the person in line at the grocery store who is talking on the phone incessantly is not doing that to piss you off, it’s far easier to forgive and move on. For more on this concept, read Dr. Fred Luskin’s Forgive for Good.
  3. Design: how you want to be. Think about each and every one of the relationships from #1 above, and design for each in advance how you want to be in your interactions with them. Remember: you get to choose your behavior and your reactions in any given situation. How you ‘be’ will dictate how you act. And in my experience, there is no doubt that if you anticipate and plan beforehand, you can be proactive, not reactive, in these situations.

I’ll let you know in January how the family vacation went down, but in the meantime, I’ll hold my preferred way of ‘being’ throughout the month of December. Happy holidays to all.

Now time to get packing!

Filed Under: Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , ,