PAUSE – 14.21 – What Do You Want To Do As You Grow Old?
May 28, 2014
Spring On The Trail
Reflection: We’re pretty quick to ask young people about their futures: “What do you want to be when you grow up? What will you do after graduation?”
However, once we step through that portal of adulthood and into a career, a family, and responsibilities of all shapes and sizes, those ‘imagine your future’ questions are often sidelined.
You make a choice. You set out on a path. You’re headed in the right direction. All is well. Or is it?
I recently delivered the closing keynote for a conference of career planners and employment counselors. My message focused on connecting them to the hidden value in what they do and how they are.
The conference planners asked me to also build in a message for those in their mid to late career years who might be faced with: waning interest, lagging energy, or a once raging fire in the belly now faded to glowing embers. And, so I did. Here are a few of the ideas I shared that I thought might also interest you. (more…)
PAUSE – 14.20 – Stop Trying So Hard
May 21, 2014
Reflection: Stop pushing. Stop forcing. Stop trying so hard. That’s the message I’m getting from a couple of activities I’m enjoying immensely these days: word play and painting.
I confess to a new addiction to solving the Jumble Puzzle in our daily newspaper. The challenge involves turning five sets of random letters into five words, extracting the circled letters from the solutions, and turning that subset of letters into the answer to a question posed in the accompanying comic vignette.
What I’ve learned from solving the Jumble is the value of soft focus. When I stare at those letters, trying to force them into the proper order, I’m frustrated. However, when I glance at the letters and let my gaze drift away, my brain plays with the possibilities and out pops the answers.
Same thing happens with my painting. When I stare intently at a scene trying to make sense of shapes and values, it’s a struggle. However, when I approach the challenge with a softer, more relaxed focus and less intensity, my mind makes sense of it much more quickly and surely.
Action: When you next meet a problem that tries your patience, try softening your focus. Start with an overview of what you know and what you see. Then step away. Back off.
Stop pushing for an answer. Cool your jets. Let your subconscious take over.
When you stop forcing an answer, and take a softer, calmer, more ease filled approach, you just might be surprised at how effortlessly solutions rise to the surface,
Quotes Of The Week: Flowers do not force their way with great strife. Flowers open to perfection slowly in the sun. – White Eagle
Trust in the inexhaustible character of the murmur. – Andre Breton
The quieter you become, the more you can hear. – Ram Dass
Resources Of The Week: Here are a couple of interesting reads for you.
Bethany Butzer shares a few idedas about effort and ease in her article, Stop Trying So Hard.
In the article, Ten Signs You Need To Stop Trying So Hard, Minda Zetlin writes about the pressure of pushing and forcing results in an article based on Todd Patkin’s book, Finding Happiness.
PAUSE – 14.19 – Five Ways to Perk Up Your Life
May 14, 2014
Reflection: Back in January, a local TV station asked me to share a few ideas to help people cope with Blue Monday. That’s the Monday of the last full week in January – what is referred to by many as the most depressing day of the year.
While the Blue Monday pedigree is questionable, everyone has blue days and they don’t limit themselves to the month of January!
There’s no need to hold in reserve the strategies you can use to perk up your life when you’re feeling low.
Action: Here are five actions to perk up your life any time you need a boost: (more…)
PAUSE – 14.18 – What Do You Think Matters Most?
May 7, 2014
Reflection: Places to be. Things to fix. Stuff to do. The lists grow long and the burdens grow heavy.
That’s why, every so often, it helps to pause and step back from the fray – to tap into a fresh perspective on the countless should’s and pressing have-to’s of our lives.
In my presentations on balance and renewal, I often challenge participants with an exercise that invites them to generate their own life wisdom and insights. I invite you to take ten minutes and give it a try yourself. Here’s how the exercise goes.
Action: On a blank sheet of paper, write the date and year of your 80th birthday. (Hopefully you won’t need a calculator to figure it out!)
Next, bring to mind a ten-year-old boy or girl sitting at your knee looking up at you with admiration. Give that child a name – real or fictional. Imagine the youngster saying, “You’ve lived a VERY long time. What can you tell me about what really matters in life?”
Your task is to put pen to paper starting with the words:
Dear (insert his/her name), You’ve asked me to tell you what really matters in life. Here’s what I’ve learned so far…
Give yourself ten minutes to jot down every idea that pops into your mind. (more…)
PAUSE – 14.17 – Tune In Not Out
April 30, 2014
Reflection: Have you ever chatted with a companion whose eyes continually dart over your shoulder scanning the scene behind you?
You may have no idea what you are missing in the space behind you; but you know exactly what you’re missing in front of you. What’s absent is your companion’s full attention. It’s unnerving and disengaging.
Tracking background movement is not life’s only distraction. Mental preoccupation dilutes attention. So do computer screens, smart phones, televisions, and more.
Rapport suffers when one or both parties to a conversation are more absent than present. And a lack of attention from someone who is central to your life (boss, key colleague, mate or partner) can be especially problematic.
Participants in some of the sessions I facilitate tell me how powerful it can be when they set their multitasking habits aside and turn their full focus to the individual and issue at hand. Amazing things happen. Other people settle down, open up, and share what’s on their minds. People blossom under the warmth of their attention. Relationships flourish.
Action: Here’s what you can do to create a more conducive environment for some of the important conversations in your life. (more…)
PAUSE – 14.16 – What Difference Will You Make Today?
April 23, 2014
Reflection: While taking my morning walk along the riverbank trail, I came across a couple of staff from the Meewasin Valley Authority. They were working their way along the trail, emptying the garbage cans scattered throughout the park.
It’s a workplace setting that has a lot to offer especially on a warm spring day. You can’t beat the great outdoors with a river view.
Still, emptying trashcans can’t be the most pleasant job in the world. They’re jammed with sticky cans and bottles and the remnants of fast food lunches in the park. To top it off, they’re overflowing with stinky, leaky plastic bags of doggy do.
On my way past, I gave the fellas a wave of my hand. And then I thought, “I could do better than that!”
So I stopped in my tracks, turned around and said, “Hey, guys, thanks for all the work you do cleaning things up out here. It makes a big difference for all of us, and I really appreciate it!”
And they, in turn, stopped what they were doing, looked up, and rewarded me with two of the biggest grins I’ve seen in some time.
I smiled right back and carried on.
Action: And in that small exchange, I was reminded that it doesn’t take much to lift another’s spirits or make someone’s day. (more…)
PAUSE – 14.15 – Are You Dazed? Try A Doze!
April 16, 2014
Reflection: When a busy toddler grows weary, he or she simply lies down and falls sleep. Doesn’t matter where. Doesn’t matter when.
When an elderly person grows weary, he or she simply nods off in the middle of a visit or the middle of a sentence. Doesn’t matter where. Doesn’t matter when.
As for the rest of us somewhere between toddlering and doddering, when we grow weary, we shake the cobwebs from our heads, grab another cuppa java, and will ourselves to wakefulness.
We power on. We don’t power down. Pressing …pressing …and rarely pausing. Because, after all there are important places to go, people to see, and things to do.
Sadly, this ends up working against us instead of for us. While we may be nominally awake and at work – it is with diminishing capacity and diminishing returns! That’s why, in a wearied state, so many things feel tougher and take longer. We’re neither fresh nor focused.
Now I’m not suggesting nodding off in a middle of a business meeting would be a good thing. However, I am suggesting that ignoring the body when it calls for rest can be a bad thing.
A study at NASA on sleepy military pilots and astronauts found that a nap improved performance by 34% and alertness by 100%. Although you and I may not be flying jets or spacecraft, how much more effective might we be if our performance and alertness improved that much because we took a rest when we needed one?
PAUSE – 14.14 – Are You Using The Three S’s of Appreciation?
April 9, 2014
Reflection: I so appreciate the fact that spring on the prairies is finally putting in an appearance. It seems that the month of April offers no shortage of opportunities to appreciate a variety of things and people.
This very week in Canada (April 6-12) is National Volunteer Appreciation week. A quick glance at an online calendar of special days reveals that’s not the only special day on this month’s agenda.
April also brings you National Siblings Day (10th), National Librarian Day (16th), Volunteer Recognition Day (20th), and Administrative Professional Day (23rd). You’ll find a host of whacky days on the calendar, too. Feel free to celebrate jelly beans, scrabble, and rubber erasers to name just a few!
In today’s everyday busyness, it’s easy to think that celebration and recognition are not that important – that appreciation is just icing on the cake. However, that’s just not true.
Many employee surveys show that a lack of recognition, appreciation and acknowledgement are a major workplace issue and a significant source of disengagement. It’s such a shame, because it’s such an easy challenge to address.
Action: What to do? Focus on small daily appreciative actions like these. (more…)
PAUSE – 14.13 – Had Any Epiphanies Lately?
April 2, 2014
Reflection: Epiphany: A moment when you suddenly see or understand something in a new or very clear way.
Ariana Huffington had an epiphany. She fell asleep at work, hit her head on the edge of her desk, sliced open her cheek, and came to in a pool of blood. One hospital trip and several stitches later, she set about changing her habits and adopting a saner, healthier way of being in this world.
Some years ago, I had an epiphany of my own. As a young Mom, I left the house on a deep freeze of a winter morning. Burdened by tote bag, gym bag, child’s backpack, briefcase, and clamping a wriggling snow-suited toddler in my arms, I tried in vain to lock a reluctant front door.
In the end, the entire load, including screaming daughter and me dropped to the step. Freezing tears streamed down our faces. In that moment of overwhelm, I knew there had to be a better way, and set about discovering what that might be.
Fictional news anchor Howard Beale had an epiphany. In the movie Network, he punctuates his on-air rant about the state of the world by declaring, “I‘m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore.”
Maybe you’ve had an epiphany or two of your own. Or maybe you’re working up to one at this very moment.
Epiphanies are rarely unheralded. If we pay close attention as life unfolds, we might notice the small occurrences that signal a need for change. But, heh, we’re busy, we’re preoccupied, and we’re on a roll! We get in a groove and it morphs into a rut that’s not apparent till it trips us up and down we go.
Action: The challenge is to tune into our ‘epiphanettes’ – those small wake up calls that surface day to day. (more…)
