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From Here To There

March 11, 2012 By 4 Comments
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I am rather smitten with the idea of transformation. Utterly fascinates me.

It fascinates me how common things like today’s newspaper gets recycled into tomorrow’s paper towels. Like how left over table scraps can become food for tomorrow’s flowers.

Magical things fascinate me, too, like how a little baby grows into a tall adult.

And then there are amazing things like how simple trial and error leads to a new invention that changes the world. Like the light bulb. Or the Internet.

To some of these things we say, “Yes, but…”

Yes, but that’s nature’s way of doing things – has nothing to do with me.

Yes, but that’s somebody like Thomas Edison. That’s somebody like Steve Jobs. Not somebody like me.

Rarely, it seems, do we say, “Yes, but…I can do that, too.”

But it’s more than possible.

You absolutely have the power to transform things.

You.

And you can do it all by yourself, when you think about it.

You can transform the challenge of sickness into the relief of healing, just by talking about it in a different way.

As in, “I am on my way toward remission.”

You can transform the stress of working with a difficult person into calm productivity, just by managing your own energy and being an advocate for yourself.

As in, “I am not jumping into that drama with him. No, I am not.”

You can transform your business from struggling to succeeding, just by focusing on your strengths and what really matters.

As in, “Despite the advice of marketing gurus, I know I am an introvert and not at my best in large networking events. I’m going to meet people my own way.”

It’s daunting and a little confusing to think that you have any power to change anything. Because so many of us have lived our lives believing we’re at the mercy of others. That power belongs to someone else. That we’re small, insignificant, unable.

But we’re not.

I know you’re not.

The power to transform – to shift one thing into another – is your greatest superpower.

And, if you open your eyes and see, you will find that you use this great skill of yours every day, in ways large and small.

Every time you open a door, turn a corner, start a new document, begin a conversation, you have the ability to transform one thing into something else.

And guess what? The more you use this superpower, the stronger it will get.

The stronger you will get.

So begin today. Begin by transforming where you are right now, to where you’d like to be.

And that’s as easy as getting up from your chair and moving some place else.

 

 

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Filed Under: Career Coaching, Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Happier Living Tagged With: , , , , , 4 Comments

A Happy You = A Less Stressed You

March 4, 2012 By 2 Comments
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I wish you had been a fly on the wall.

Five women – smart, accomplished, professionals – sat around the room with the look of astonished recognition on their faces.

Because they had collectively realized that none of them gave themselves credit for what they’d accomplished, but, rather, focused solely on where they fell short.

That’s like saying, “Sure, I climbed Mt. Everest, but I could have had better shoes.”

I’m reading Rick Hanson’s book Just One Thing – a helpful, practical book with instructions on how to use your thoughts to change your brain function – and even your neurological structures – by approaching problems, situations and general living in a slightly different way.

Hanson quotes John Gottman’s famous research which found that “the brain generally reacts more to a negative stimulus than to an equally intense positive one.” And researcher Roy Baumeister found that “painful experiences are usually more memorable than pleasurable ones.”

So my five stressed-out professional women were absolutely normal when they downplayed their achievements and focused on their lack.

But.

What makes for happiness?

“…sense of security and worth, resilience, effectiveness, well-being, insight, and inner peace,” offers Rick Hanson. Which sounds just about right.

So, our innate human default – to focus on what’s not working – totally undermines our ability to feel happy…

Wait a minute. You want to feel happy, don’t you?

Of course you do, unless…you don’t.

Unless “Me As A Happy Person” totally conflicts with the self-image you have of yourself. Or the self-image handed to you by your family, your schoolmates or pop culture.

Think about it. Maybe you were told that “happy” is frivolous. All that matters is work. Work for work’s sake. Eat what you kill. Climb the ladder until you’re at the top. Strive and struggle, and keep pushing. You can be “happy” when you’re retired.

Or maybe you were told that “happy” is for other people. Other people who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths, and had everything handed to them. You know, the ones living on Easy Street. You – with your immigrant grandparents, and up-from-the-gutter family history – you have to work for whatever you get. “Happy” – pfffft. For someone else.

But here’s the intriguing thing.

Think about the children in your life. Do you want them to be happy?

How about your dearest family members? What would you do to insure their happiness?

And your best friend. What do you want for him, or for her? Would you call it happiness? Do you do what you can to help them achieve it?

Of course you do. You’re a devoted spouse, a good mom, a good dad, a great friend, a wonderful son or daughter. I know you.

You want the people you love to be happy. But you’re not really happy yourself.

So…you want for others what you deny yourself.

Innnnnteresting, huh?

Friends, it’s time to change that up.

Promise me this: Promise me that starting today, you’ll begin to wish for yourself that which you’d wish for someone you love. That you will begin to show yourself the same compassion you show others. That you will own your successes and celebrate them.

That you will begin a healthy love relationship – with you.

By doing so, you will literally change the wiring in your brain from nearly-always-negative to nearly-always-positive, and reduce your stress.

You will start being happy.

And after you’ve done that, the rest of living is all a piece of cake.

 

 

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On Being Kind

February 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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Meaning and purpose.

Integrity.

The power of choice.

Defeating stress.

How to listen.

These are all topics you and I have been talking together about so far this year. All topics I think are vital for success in today’s world of work. And there’s another important one I want to raise with you right now:

It helps to be kind.

I know, I’m a hopeless optimist. Because we all know, as Leo Durocher famously said, “Nice guys finish last”. Guess what? A new study even seems to support that idea. The study found that disagreeable men made about $10,000 more a year than more agreeable men.

The big difference between agreeable people and disagreeable people seems to be the extent to which agreeable folks will go to preserve relationships. Agreeable people will bend over backwards to prevent discord, difficult conversations or hard feelings.

And often lose something important in the attempt. When I’m overly agreeable, I lose my autonomy. My personhood. My ability to think for myself. My ability to advocate for myself.

Hey, I don’t want you to lose. Really. So let me offer a slight re-definition and shift that might give you a different perspective.

You see, in my mind, there’s an important difference between being overly agreeable and being kind.

It’s kind to offer advice, support and guidance to someone as they work through a challenging project at work.

It’s overly agreeable when  I take over the project at the last moment when you drop the ball – and you take full credit for the end result.

It’s kind when I give a chance to a kid looking for her first job.

It’s overly agreeable when I make room for the Area Vice President’s shiftless, idiot nephew in my department.

It’s kind to remind the boss when I’m going to be on vacation, and create a plan to make sure everything’s covered in my absence.

It’s overly agreeable to take work with me on vacation.

It’s kind when I quietly draw you aside and whisper that you have spinach in your teeth.

It’s overly agreeable to pick the spinach out for you.

Note the distinction?

That’s why the modern workplace could use more kindness and less at “any costs” agreeableness. I’m not saying we go all Meryl-Streep-in-The-Devil-Wears-Prada – in fact, the economic difference between agreeable and disagreeable women in the study was negligible. Researchers remind women: “Nice girls might not get rich, but ‘mean’ girls do not do much better. Even controlling for human capital, marital status, and occupation, highly disagreeable women do not earn as much as highly agreeable men.”

The thing is this: too many of us – overly agreeable men and agreeable women – bring to work all of our childhood “stuff” about being good and making everything right and smoothing relationships so no one yells at us, or tells us we’re big disappointments, or grounds us on Homecoming weekend.

We operate from fear, people. Which puts us at a disadvantage right from the start.

We’ve got to knock that off. Right away.

Because overly agreeable men and overly agreeable women lose when we mistake agreement with kindness. We lose money, we lose opportunity, we lose values, we lose ownership, we lose, lose, lose.

So, let’s re-define.  Kindness means:

Having an opinion.

Listening to the opinions others and respectfully disagreeing if that’s the way it is.

Saying no sometimes.

Saying yes only sometimes.

Appropriately helping.

Taking the risk to be fully yourself.

Truly kind leaders – regardless of their position on the org chart – are the ones we all remember. They’re the ones we are grateful to. Who are our most memorable mentors.

They’re the ones who make a difference.

Know what? That can be you.

You can leave a truly indelible legacy.

It all starts with kindness.

 

Photo credit: Michele Woodward

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Why You’re Stressed

February 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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It’s that feeling.

Very familiar now.

Too much to do.

Too little time.

You say yes,

When you ought to say no.

But if you say no

Who will do the thing?

In your secretmost heart, though

You ask,

“If I don’t say yes, then

Who will get the credit,

The thanks,

The approval?”

That question- the one right there?

That’s the very center of your persistent stress.

Constantly seeking external validation

To tell you

That you are good

Helpful

Smart

A good girl

A good boy.

Somebody.

Or some other something kinda like that.

When the antidote to stress

Is knowing

Internally

That you are good.

That you are kind.

That you are smart.

That you can say no.

And saying no does not make you bad.

You must finally know, inside,

That you matter.

Because if you don’t matter to yourself

All the stress reduction classes in the world

Won’t help a bit.

 

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“Is It Fun?”

January 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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A few months ago, I made a commitment to myself to start doing the Washington Post crossword every morning. I thought it would be good for my brain, and to up the ante, I made a few rules.

You know me: Michele Woodward, Rules Girl [when you know the rules, you also know how to bend them. I am just saying.]. Here are my crossword puzzle rules:

Rule 1:  Use only pen.

Rule 2:  Take only 15 minutes.

Rule 3:  If I’m not done in 15 minutes, drop it.

Five times out of six, I complete the puzzle under the rules. Which is surprisingly fulfilling. Ups my general Happy Quotient, if you want to know the truth.

And, there are one or two things I have learned from this exercise:

A. My intuition about a word is almost always right (except the other day, when the clue was “John Paul II, e.g.”  I wrote “POPE” when the answer turned out to be “POLE”. Ah, well.)

B. Sometimes an Across word is best solved by looking at the Down words that make it up

C. Challenges can be fun

That’s right, fun.  Look at me – I used the f-word.

Maybe you were raised with that wonderful work ethic that says “anything worth doing has to be hard”, which leads quite handily toward “work is hard, fun is frivolous; ergo, no fun for you, bucko”.

So you equate fun with anything but work.

Fun is tubing down the river with a cooler of beer trailing behind you.

Fun is a yo-yo tournament.

Fun is running a marathon (except for that pesky mile 21 where everything gets a little wobbly and you wonder where the fun is. The fun comes at mile 26.375, baby).

Work is a grind. Work is hyper-competitive. Work is eat-what-you-kill, dog-eat-dog, scarcity thinking writ large.

Fun and work, therefore, can never be equal.

But maybe think about it this way: work is just a challenge.

And crossword puzzles are challenges, right?

And some challenges can be fun and rewarding, and even fulfilling.

Especially if you know the rules and work within them. Kinda.

So, if my math is right, work can be fun and fulfilling if you turn the grind into a a kind of game, and you create some rules for yourself – rules you stick to.

[You may have heard of this idea of rules before. We also call these "boundaries".]

Such as:  “I will not work on weekends.”

“I won’t waste a minute in malicious office gossip.”

“If something doesn’t go my way, I will drop it and move on rather than obsess, stew and fret.”

These are just some of mine. Just like using a pen to complete the crossword in less than 15 minutes.

You have a choice, too. You can make your own rules.

Really.

Start by asking yourself, “Is this thing I’m doing fun?” And if the answer is no, then figure out a way to make it fun. Make it a game.

Your game.

And I’m thinking you’re going to win because you made up the rules.

You winner, you.

 

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