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What Working Moms Really Want

May 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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If I could write a letter to Santa for Mother’s Day on behalf of all moms out there, I’d ask for just these ten things:

1.  An end to the “mommy wars” and universal gratitude for the moms who’ve opted for full-time parenting, because without them there would be no Teacher Appreciation Days, no booster clubs, no cookie sales, no field trips (duh, no chaperones), no one to take an aging mother to the doctor, and no rides home when a neighborhood kid misses the late bus.

2.  A boss who values quality over quantity, and who understands that someone who gets all of her work done in six hours might just be hugely efficient and smart, rather than underemployed and, therefore, overpaid.

3.  Co-workers who support a mom’s priorities, such as getting to the game before kick-off, or being assistant Girl Scout leader, rather than begrudging her the “time off”. [see the quality vs. quantity idea above]

4.  HR professionals who see an employment gap as something to be lauded and praised, rather than as a bar to career advancement.

5.  A supportive and true partner who sees socks that need picking up, and picks them up; who cooks regularly; who cleans without prompting; who changes diapers; who fetches a teenager who calls from a party after midnight; who thinks the mom in the house is the most amazing, gorgeous woman on the planet. And tells her so. Frequently.

6.  Equal pay for equal work.

7.  Sensible yet stylish shoes that can go from pre-school drop off to the office and on to evening ballet lessons without prompting bunions, callouses or plantar fasciitis. [dreaming big here]

8.  Girlfriends who support the mom-part of their friends, and who willingly allow children to call them “Aunt”.

9.  Space and time for moms to learn, grow, rest and rejuvenate. Space and time for them to receive as an antidote for all the giving they do.

10.  A communal sense of pride, meaning and purpose in the life of a mother, who manages to work/start a business/run a family/bake cupcakes at the last minute/smile/love/find the shoes/plan the summer camp schedule, and do it with grace (most of the time), flair (some of the time) and true genuine caring (always).

Yes, it’s Mother’s Day, but you can play Santa by simply checking off one or two of these items for the mom in your life – and you might want to start with the picking up the socks thing.

You can trust me on that one.

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Filed Under: Authenticity, Career Coaching, Clarity, Happier Living Tagged With: , , , , Leave a Comment

The Roots of Shame

April 29, 2012 By 6 Comments
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Let me throw some stats at you:

The average American woman stands five foot four and weighs 164.7 pounds. She wears a size 14. Her waist measures 37 inches.

The average American man stands five foot nine and weighs 195 pounds. He wears a size 44. His waist measures nearly 40 inches. (CDC stats)

And,

The recent economic downturn hit men harder than women. Forbes says, “The share of men in the United States with a job is at its lowest point ever.” And forty percent of working wives are the family breadwinner according to the Chicago Tribune.

Now, allow me to pull in some other interesting data for your perusal. According to research at Boston College, the accepted societal norms for women are to be:

Nice.

Thin.

Modest.

Use all available resources on her appearance.

Men are supposed to:

Be in emotional control.

Put work first.

Pursue status.

Be violent.

I learned this from a powerful and straightforward new TED talk by Dr. Brene Brown on the subject of shame, and vulnerability.

What got me thinking while viewing Dr. Brown’s new talk is the wide gap between what we expect ourselves to be and who we really are.

Women should be thin – but the reality is that most of us are not a size zero.

Men should put work first, and pursue status, but the recent recession put more men out of work than ever before. Hard to put something first when you don’t have it, huh?

Women should be modest, which I figure means quiet, self-effacing and non-confrontational. Exactly the recipe for career success, don’t you think?

And speaking of time, what working mom has the time or energy to put all available resources on her appearance? I don’t know about you but I find it’s easy to spend money on my kids’ clothes, shoes, haircuts, dermatologists, orthodontists and dentists, and if there’s any money left maybe I’ll get myself a new t-shirt on sale at Target. Maybe.

Yes, the gap between who society says we should be and who we are is often quite large.

And it’s right in the gap that shame nestles.

Shame keeps us a far distance from feeling real happiness and fulfillment. Because it’s shame that says, “There is something profoundly, critically wrong with you. You should be different than you are. ”

[There's that word again - Should.]

You all know I have no fondness for that particular word. Because The Word That Must Not Be Named usually comes from an external source, and often is in conflict with what’s truly best for us.

“You should be a doctor.” says your father, even if you have it in your heart and hands to be a glassblower.

“You should be thin if you ever want to catch a husband,” says your mother, even if she’s heavy herself. And her sisters are heavy. And her mother was heavy.[ And they're all married, btw.]

If shame has roots in the conflict between what’s expected and what’s real, then shoulds are its potting soil.

Now, here’s what I know – if you can break the Should Habit, you’ve got a shot at breaking the round-and-round shame circle.

And it’s easy. Stop shoulds by simply substituting a wonderful word – choose.

Without any shoulds in your life, you are free to choose to be that happy, outspoken size 14 bread-winning woman that you are.

Without any shoulds in your life, you are free to choose to be that fantastic at-home dad whose size 44 suits found a new home at Goodwill.

Without shoulds, you can be you. Finally. Without any shame.

That’s what I choose. How about you?

 

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Filed Under: Authenticity, Career Coaching, Clarity, Happier Living Tagged With: , , , , , 6 Comments

Why Bother Being Perfect?

April 22, 2012 By 3 Comments
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I’m going to put it out there: The pursuit of perfectionism is the primary reason so many people are stressed. And stuck. And less successful than they’d like to be.

Yep, it’s all wrapped up in perfectionism.

And perfection is an elusive animal. Ask any pitcher.

Yesterday, April 21, 2012, Philip Humber of the Chicago White Sox pitched a perfect game. For those whose grasp of baseball is a little loose, let me explain – Humber pitched nine innings and none of the batters he faced made it to first base. Every batter had a strike out, or his fly ball was caught, or he was put out at first base.

That’s a perfect game.

Which is really rare.

How rare? Well, only 21 perfect games have been pitched since 1880.

If my math is right, that’s something like one every six years.  A perfect game is a level of perfection that most Hall of Fame pitchers never even achieve.

Baseball itself is not a game of perfect. The Sultan of Swat, Babe Ruth? Struck out 66% of the time he was at the plate. And he is revered as a big hitter.

True perfection, my friends, is elusive, and rare.

And, yet, you agonize over your presentation, that report, your website, a resume, an offer. As if what you produce has to be the equivalent of a perfect game. Every single time.

That’s a lot of pressure you’re putting on yourself. What, you expect daily perfection?  Maybe even minute-by-minute perfection?

Honey, not even Hall of Famers get to that level of perfection.

Phil Humber is not perfect. Seven years ago, Humber had reconstructive Tommy John surgery on his throwing arm. Twenty-nine years old, he’s played for four different teams, and been sent down to the minors from the big leagues a couple of times. He didn’t book his first Major League win until 2010. Probably the last guy you’d think would toss a perfect game.

But he did. And he did it despite all the odds against him.

About being added to the list of pitchers who’ve thrown a perfect game, Humble Humber said, “I don’t even know what to say. I don’t know what Philip Humber is doing in this list. No idea what my name is doing there, but I’m thankful it’s there.”

See? I’ll bet you he didn’t go out to the mound before that first inning and say, “I’m going to throw a perfect game.” I’ll bet you he didn’t say, “Today’s the day I make history.”

I’ll bet you that Phil Humber walked to the mound and said to himself, “Let this first pitch be good enough, just the way the catcher calls it.” And after he had done that, he focused on the next pitch.

And the next.

And the next.

And by the last pitch of that game against the Seattle Mariners, Phil Humber had thrown a perfect game.

He did it good enough pitch by good enough pitch by good enough pitch.

He did it loose, and easy, and focused. Totally present in that moment when he released the ball.

So, too, you. Rather than obsessing about the word choice in the fourth line of the third paragraph – obsessing for weeks, or even a month – let that good enough word go, and get the thing out there.

Rather than stressing out about your “niche”, start working with good enough clients and get an idea of who you like to serve – and serve more of them.

You can always adjust. You can always tweak. You can always revise. You can always shake off the called pitch.

But if you never deliver the throw in the first place, you’re not really in the game.

And remember the lesson from Phil Humber’s unexpected history-making perfect game: When you give yourself the space and freedom to allow for good enough, the result is a graceful kind of ease that opens up room for a result better than you might even have expected.

Good enough pitch by good enough pitch, you’ll have solid inning after solid inning to your credit.

And with that kind of steady performance, you just might find yourself in the Hall of Fame.

 

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Filed Under: Career Coaching, Getting Unstuck, Happier Living Tagged With: , , , , , 3 Comments

Small Green Shoots of Faith

April 8, 2012 By 2 Comments
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On a cool October day, I knelt with my knees in the dirt to plant tulip bulbs. I used a special bulb planting tool that I’ve owned so long that I’ve forgotten where it came from. Dig the hole, drop in the bulb flat side down/tip up, fill the hole, scooch over, dig another hole. Water the whole lot in.

I love the rhythm of bulb-planting.

And the very best part?

Every bulb planted reminds me of  how important it is to have faith. And to be able to wait.

Because when you plant a tulip bulb in October, then all you can do is… wait.

Wait through the snows, the torrential rains, the short, dark days, the gloom of January…. you patiently wait.

And if you got all worried and anxious about the bulbs – were they okay? would they come up? – and you went out on a frosty February Saturday to dig them up just to check, you’d kill ‘em.

So tulip growers must wait, and have faith.

Faith that you dug the hole deep enough.

Faith that nature will take its course (which, naturally means you plan that 25% of what you plant will feed the neighborhood squirrels).

Faith that on one March morning you’ll see tiny green shoots pushing up through the earth.

Tiny, mighty green shoots.

That’s the magic moment for me, the moment when my faith pays off.

Every time I see those small green shoots of possibility.

You see, I plant mixed tulip bulbs and never know what color will come up where, which makes that small green shoot a promise of the surprise to come. Doubling my delight.

All because I had the faith to plant them that October morning and resisted the urge to dig them up just to check.

Oh, plenty of us are too cautious to plant the bulb in the first place – we’ve been told for far too long not to get our hopes up. Why make the effort? We’d probably plant the bulbs upside down, or they’d rot, or the squirrels would have a family reunion feast in our front yard, leaving us with nothing.

And some of us need constant reassurance that we did the right thing by taking the time to plant bulbs. Are other people planting? Did I do it right? Do you think it’s working? How can I know for sure it’ll work?

Then there are those of us who are in-between and wonder why to plant anything at all when we’re just going to be moving on before anything happens.

Fear, insecurity, hopelessness set in and the opportunity to create something truly beautiful escapes us.

You know this is a metaphor, right?

Planting = your best work.

Waiting = faith that consistently doing what’s right is the most fulfilling part of the journey.

Green shoots of possibility = proof that you did the right thing most of the time.

Fully grown tulips = your beautiful, precious reward.

You, my friend, are the master gardener of your life and your career.

Every single day, with your choices, you are planting seeds and bulbs, trees and shrubs – in the ways you talk to others, the ways you show appreciation, the ways you collaborate, the ways you encourage, the ways you take responsibility.

Every single day, you have the choice to plant your seeds in your own rhythm, with the faith that – someday – you’ll see those small green shoots break through the earth with the promise of something quite spectacular on the way.

It’s all up to you to create your fabulous garden of a life. What will you plant today?

 

 

 

 

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Filed Under: Career Coaching, Clarity, Happier Living Tagged With: , , , , , 2 Comments

The Provocative Edge

April 1, 2012 By 5 Comments
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In a coaching session this past week, I used a tactic that sometimes gets good results.

[Sometimes. Whether it did this time remains to be seen.]

My client is a very smart, very talented, very successful guy who is in a leadership role in an industry that’s failing, in a company that’s panicked. From the day he started the job almost two years ago, he knew something was wrong. Something was off. And now he’s seeing all the bad stuff come to fruition. He’s exhausted, burned out and stressed. Yet he’s spending 80 hours a week stacking the deck chairs on what feels like a sinking ship, and there’s never enough time to do everything that could be done.

“But,” he asks me.

“But, at his level can you leave a job after less than two years in the role?”

“But, I”m a smart guy – isn’t it my obligation to make it work?”

“But, shouldn’t I have another job in hand before I leave?

“But, they’re paying me – don’t I owe them?”

I call this The Motorboat moment: But, but, but, but.

Which is no pleasure trip. It’s more like bumping through heavy chop in high winds. It’s no fun, and a little nauseating.

So I whipped out my best coaching stuff – I put on my figurative trench coat, dark glasses and beret – and I became The Coach Provocateur.

For every “but” he said, I said, “Go ahead, quit.”

For every reason he offered for staying, I offered a vision for what’s next.

For every “no”, I said “yes”.

Because time after time I have seen that when I offer a rather outlandish suggestion – “Quit today and move to Tahiti” – it allows the client to say, “Well, not Tahiti, but maybe Atlanta.”

And there you have it – Atlanta. A workable goal. A clear objective.  Something that feels pretty good.

But you only get there by considering the extreme potential.

My client’s homework is to consider what it would be like to leave in three months. What it would be like to take some time to recoup and renew – his soul, his body, his psyche. And he may come back with another solution than the one I offered. And that is perfectly OK – as long as it’s a solution he can use.

As long as it expands his comfort zone and gives him the relief he craves.

So, no doubt you have something you’d like to address.  To fix. To do better.

OK, what’s the most extreme, Lady Gaga-esque approach you can think of? Dream it up. Biggify it.

Then say, “If not that, then what?”

You may find that by considering that provocative edge, you’ll find your perfect solution.

 

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Filed Under: Career Coaching, Getting Unstuck, Managing Change Tagged With: , , , , , 5 Comments
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