focus

In a world awash with media headlines, advertising slogans, bumper stickers, FB status updates, Tweets, and abbreviated OMG emoticons, it’s a wonder that complete thoughts still mean as much as they do.

If reader response to my ‘Quote of the Week’ section is any indicator, we continue to experience pithy ideas uttered or written by others as an opportunity to pause and ponder.

Earlier this month, I turned the tables, asking Pause readers to share their favorite quotes on balance and perspective with me. They did not disappoint.

And so, as promised, I share this contributed collection of inspiration – this bricolage – of words of meaning. A bricolage – my new favorite word – is something that is made or put together with whatever materials happen to be available. That’s a pretty apt description of all those quotes and phrases that hang on our refrigerators or bulletin boards, frame our computer screens, and adorn the tail end of our email messages.

I’ve chosen a baker’s dozen to share in the body of this e-zine. And, this link will take you to the complete collection of contributions. (Where sources were provided I’ve included them with the quotes.)

Thanks to all of you who took the time to dip into your collections and share your favs with the rest of us.

This will be my last Pause message of the year. I’m taking the week between Christmas and New Year’s to pause, relax and celebrate with family.

I’ll be devoting the first week of the New Year to a couple of specific creative projects. And, so, your first Pause e-zine of 2012 will appear in your In Box on January 11.

In the meantime, I wish you and yours the very best of the season – a time of warmth and fellowship. May you gather close and set aside your lists of things to do while you experience and remember what matters most in this wild and woolly world of ours. Peace, love, joy, hope and pause to you all.

PS – Here’s a link to our 2011 Katz Family Photo Review, if you care to take a peak.

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A Bricolage Of Inspiration

Via Alvina F:

Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything that made you smile.

Via Mo K:

Live so that they won’t have to lie at your funeral.

To put everything in balance is good, to put everything in harmony is better. – Victor Hugo

Via Dawn M:

The world is wide, and I would not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum. – Frances Willard

Via Cheryl W:

I can’t be happy every day, but at least I can be cheerful !

Via Stacy M:

Patience in the present, faith in the future, and joy in the doing. – George Perera

Via Lou M:

Work when there is work to do. Rest when you are tired. One thing done in peace will most likely be better than ten things done in panic. I am not a hero if I deny rest; I am only tired. – Susan McHenry

Via Sherrill M:

I believe that for each of us, the presence of our being is the greatest gift we can give. Truly accepting and loving ourselves has a ripple effect beyond comprehension. – Courtney Milne

Via Susan E:

Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.

Happiness consists of living each day as if it were the first day of your honeymoon and the last day of your vacation.

Via Allan P:

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. – Harriet Beecher Stowe

Via Janice T:

You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.

Via Debbie W:

Have a wonderful festive season and may your gifts of togetherness with family and friends be wrapped up with ribbons and bows!

Once again, here is the link to the complete collection of contributions .  Enjoy!

REFLECTION: What do you care most about in your workplace? And what are the chances it might be the same things that others care about?

This is a question endlessly researched by organizations everywhere as they do their best to keep their people happy.

Results from a survey released in October of this year by Mercer, one of the world’s leading HR consulting firms, tell a familiar story about what motivates Canadian and US workers and helps them feel more engaged at work.

Drum roll, please. In order of importance, employees are affected by:

1. Being treated with respect
2. Work-life balance
3. Type of work they do
4. Quality of people they work with
5. Quality of leadership in the organization

Although the results may not be surprising, what is surprising is that measures of what’s most important continues to remain similar even in the face of economic downturns and challenges.

ACTION: So what do these results suggest about the way we treat each other in our organizations? (more…)

REFLECTION:  It’s pretty easy for me to take a spin on my high horse when it comes to technology use and misuse. A while ago I found myself feeling self-righteous when a FB acquaintance posted a status update that read, “I’m really enjoying celebrating my xth anniversary – sharing dinner with my husband.” I thought to myself, you’re not really celebrating with your husband, you’re hanging with your FB pals and chatting with your Twitter buddies.

But, as they say, the chickens do come home to roost. Within days of the aforementioned FB post, my own husband and I were on vacation, lunching in Bar Harbor, Maine. These days, I always travel with my sketchbook, and have been known on occasion to lobby for a restaurant, or call dibs on a particular seat at a table, based on what there is to sketch while we’re waiting for lunch. This was one of those days.

No sooner had I placed an order for a lobster roll and a glass of wine, than I whipped out my art supplies, zeroed in on my target and started to sketch. About 5 minutes into the sketching, Dave posed this question, “So, tell me. How does a sketchbook differ from a Blackberry?”

As they say in the trade:  Busted!

What he was really saying – and what he did go on to say in the clearest and kindest way possible – is that it was lonely on the other side of the table.  (more…)

REFLECTION: Over the years, I’ve developed a habit that helps me focus on what matters most. Each week, I sit down for ten minutes late Sunday or early Monday, and build my list of priorities in four areas: Work, Home&Family, Community, and Personal. This is not an exhaustive collection of calls, errands, and follow-ups. I leave those bits and pieces to an electronic calendar. It is a specific list of projects and major/minor tasks that I hope to focus on and advance over the next seven days.

Sometimes a landslide of unexpected issues come up and hijack what I’d planned. In those instances, the list from one week to another looks nearly identical. Other times, like this Monday, when I reviewed last week’s Priority List, I was amazed at how many things I’d accomplished. And, I was delighted by how good that felt.

In that instant, I was reminded in a very personal and experiential way of the powerful impact of progress.

On this point, two Harvard researchers have recently confirmed what we instinctively hold to be true. It feels good to move things forward.

In their research, Amabile and Kramer discovered that when people consistently take steps forward – even small steps – on meaningful projects, they are more creative, productive, and engaged. This, in turn, has a positive influence on their work performance.

A & K refer to this phenomenon as the progress loop. It’s a cycle that has self-reinforcing benefits. Make progress on tasks, and you feel better about yourself. Feel better about yourself, and you’re more likely to make positive progress on tasks. And so it goes.

ACTION: What does this mean for our lives at work and at home? (more…)

REFLECTION:  Root vegetable soup, bison medallions, creme brulee, and a large serving of ‘Laurent’ on the side! That was the menu for a recent dinner in Montreal at a small restaurant made larger than life by the presence of the one man show that was Laurent.

Our server/chef was a tall, wiry character with an easy smile and a strong desire to please partnered with a clear love of food. Laurent moved back and forth through the restaurant orchestrating the experience for several small groups of diners. A smile of welcome here! An ‘I’ve not forgotten about you’ nod and tap to his forehead there. A hand resting lightly on a diner’s shoulder as he rounded the corners between the tables.

His eyeglasses flew repeatedly from their fold in his pocket to the end of his nose as needed. Warmth and energy emanated from the open kitchen – with the odd flambe thrown in for effect. The presentation of each dish at the tables was accompanied by a grand flourish of the arms along with a delighted, childlike clapping of the hands. The message? ‘Voila! Magic has just been performed before your very eyes.’

The food was good but the experience was delightful! How engaging to be in the company of someone so solidly in their element and so clearly in the zone!

We dined the next evening at a high end restaurant in Vermont where the food was superb, and the service was stellar. However, we both agreed our dinner was missing one key element – the joi de vivre of Laurent!

ACTION:  This experience made me wonder what others notice when they see me in action at work and at home. You might ask yourself the same question. (more…)

REFLECTION: How is your energy these days? Feeling bright and chipper, ready to take on the world? Dragging your backside out of bed in the morning, wondering how you’ll make it through another day? Or, maybe somewhere in between?

If you’ve explored the area of energy management, you’re probably familiar with the four categories of energy that can be drained or recharged: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. The thing is that it’s not always clear what causes an energy shortfall, and what needs attention.

For example, you can be emotionally drained by relationship issues, and experience that as physical exhaustion. You can experience fuzzy thinking and a lack of concentration, and assume it’s because you have too many things on your mind. That fuzziness may, in fact, flow from the fact that you’re feeling totally disconnected from purpose and direction. You’ve sprung a leak in your spiritual gas tank!

Crossed wires can explain why our efforts to recharge may prove futile. (more…)

REFLECTION: Sometimes a turn of phrase is all that’s required to accomplish a shift in experience. See if this change in phrasing makes a difference for you.

Most of us have a ‘To Do’ list of one kind of another. Many of us have multiple ‘To Do’ lists – for our various roles as parents, employees, bosses, and volunteers. September is often a season of new beginnings. We fire up projects that have languished over the summer. We register ourselves and others in fall activities, and generally ‘get back at it’ after our summer hiatus. Partner our own intentions with requests from others, and it doesn’t take long for those lists to mushroom into a full blown state of overwhelm.

At the point of seeming too muchness, it’s easy to forget why we wanted to do these things in the first place. Yet at some point we were actually looking forward to many of them. Tapping back into that initial desire and intention could change your everyday experience.

ACTION: Try this as an experiment. Turn your ‘To Do List’ into an ‘I’m Looking Forward To’ list. As you note down the activities at hand, think about how much might be looking forward to: sharing this experience, moving that task forward, making a contribution. Let that excitement and anticipation fuel your energy as you work your way through your day and your list.

Full credit goes to speaker friend and colleague, Sam Horn, for bringing this concept to my attention. I encourage you to read more from her about how you might turn this idea of reframing your ‘to do’ list into a short, medium and long term ‘ looking forward to’ list. See the link to Sam’s blog post in the resource of the week link below.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Begin each day as if it were on purpose.” – Author Unknown

RESOURCE OF THE WEEK: For Sam’s commentary on ‘To Do or To Look Forward To’, see her Serendestiny Blog.

READERS WRITE: In response to last week’s message on ‘Flourishing‘, Pause reader NM writes: This is great, Pat. Thank you! I would also note about the Relationships area, that (in addition to positive connections with others, what also matters is) a positive relationship with one’s self.

REFLECTION & ACTION: The motto of the University of Calgary (where I studied for my master’s degree in continuing education) is “Mo shuiles togam suas.” It’s a Gaelic phrase taken from one of the psalms. Translated, it means: “I will lift up my eyes.” What an inspired call to action!

My seminar participants tell me their overloaded days are often spent with their heads down-not eyes up. With their noses to the grindstone preoccupied with tasks and details, they wade their way through each day’s responsibilities, always fretting about the details.

If that’s true for you, try shifting that practice just a smidge. As you move through your day, take a moment here and there to lift up your eyes. Step out of the car-lift up your eyes. Step out of a meeting-life up your eyes. Tune in to the bigger picture and the reason you are about to pursue the tasks at hand. You’ll find a broader, higher, deeper purpose. (more…)

REFLECTION & ACTION: I have an irksome habit (and I have it in spades)-stuffing too much in! One more email. One more stop on the way. One more point in the presentation.

The motivation is good: squeeze maximum value out of each moment. However, the result is bad: time pressure and frustration, for me and for others.

Being more judicious about biting off more than we can comfortably chew is good for our health. Becoming more thoughtful and reasonable in all areas of life also brings positive changes to our mental health and our relationships.

A speaker colleague edits his presentations by keeping his audience and this question in mind: “What could they live without?” This question can be applied far and wide. Whether it’s our work, errands, or communications, we can ask ourselves, “What could we (or they) live without?”

With the enormous proliferation of email, think twice before sending a message into circulation. Will it add value? Will anyone read it? Will the other person’s world be better with this communication? Sometimes less is more. (more…)

REFLECTION & ACTION: In the early years of my business, I worked many weekends and often delivered an all-day seminar followed by an evening presentation. As burnout loomed, I chose a policy of working just one weekend a month, speaking and training no more than three days a week, and presenting in only two out of three time slots on a given day (morning, afternoon, or evening).

My productivity and energy soared. Amazingly, so did my profits. Clearly, taking care of myself was also good for my business.

Community service is another area where overload shifts the experience from blessing to burden. How many community groups can you serve at a time and still feel enthused as you head out the door to another evening meeting?

If you’re frustrated en route, you’ll feel less than enthusiastic at the meeting itself. Rest assured, if you don’t want to be there and can’t wait to get away, you aren’t the ray of sunshine that will brighten the day for others. (more…)