How to Keep Your Dream Alive (despite doubt, hesitation and other obstacles)

 

Do you have a vision you aspire to make real? No matter what the day/week/month brings… hold strong and continue to breathe life into it. And don’t let your doubt or hesitation steal its fire.

As children, most of us received mixed messages. You may have been encouraged to follow your heart and give life to your dreams in addition to being conditioned to be practical, hedge your bets, and take the safest route. Over time, many of us have allowed the roar of public opinion – that often tells us our dreams are frivolous, selfish, and unlikely to come to fruition – to silence that small still voice within.

But those among us who have risen against their odds have learned to reverse that process and believe in themselves and their dreams despite the overwhelming evidence around them that would suggest that success is improbable.

“If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lost that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all.

And so today I still have a dream.”

~ Martin Luther King

The beginning of each year brings with it the question of what you will focus your time, energy, and resources on accomplishing. It is an optimal time to reacquaint yourself with your dreams and visions, your purpose and values, and the question of how you can become a living example of that which you most admire.

You may be quite sure of what it is you would like to create, do, have, or become. Or perhaps you have only small pieces of a bigger puzzle that has not yet come together.

We all have different talents and strengths, diverse styles and passions – along with a unique combination of experiences (for better or worse) that allows us to discover and apply them to create something bigger than ourselves. You may not know exactly what form it will take, but if you pay attention to the whispers and yearnings of your heart, you’ll begin to make out the shape of something that beckons to you.

The power of your dream will be bolstered by the degree to which your vision expands beyond your own interests to those of others around you. Spend some time contemplating where you feel most drawn and why.

When you land on something that will allow your gifts to align with those of others to accomplish complementary goals, you’ll join forces with something much greater than yourself. It will lift you up when your energy is low and sustain you through moments of doubt and fear.

If you’d like some support in learning how you can leverage your unique style to best connect and collaborate with others to make your vision real, take advantage of a special Happy New Year offer.

For a limited time when you enroll in the Leverage Your Style Behavioral Style Self Study, you’ll have complimentary access to Navigating Change, Challenge & Uncertainty: How to Unleash Extraordinary Performance in Unchartered Territory. Go to www.MeetChangeWithStyle.com for more information (including the curriculum for each course) and to enroll.

You’ll also receive a research-backed, highly validated Target Training International assessment that’ll provide you with a comprehensive 20+ page report about your specific style, including your strengths and areas of opportunity.

Here’s to the power of YOUR dream!

Maximize the Possibility of the New Year (and minimize potential pitfalls)

 

The beginning of each year invites us to consider how we can dig deeper, reach higher, and unleash more potential in ourselves and those we lead.  It begs the question…

How can you maximize the possibility of the New Year… while working through the change, challenge, and uncertainty it brings?

Making the most of what’s possible begins with self-awareness.  Since we all approach opportunities and challenges differently, what is natural for one person may not work for another.

But with an understanding of how to leverage your strengths and sidestep your pitfalls, you can find and execute your own winning strategy.  You’ll minimize the time it takes you to get things done and maximize your effectiveness in getting results.

And if you can couple that self-awareness with an understanding of how to best work with the unique style of others, you’ll find and leverage opportunities to better collaborate with others and influence them to be a part of what you are creating.

When you blend that with an ability to navigate change with ease and grace, you’ll expand your horizons, your reach, and your impact.

For a limited time, you can take advantage of two courses designed to help you do just that – for the price of one…

When you enroll in the Leveraging Your Style DISC Behavioral Style Self-Study (which includes a comprehensive, research-backed TTI assessment), you’ll receive complimentary access to Navigating Change, Challenge & Uncertainty: How to Unleash Unprecedented Performance in Unchartered Territory.  You’ll also have an opportunity to enhance your experience with a one-on-one coaching session with me at a special rate.

Go to MeetChangeWithStyle.com for more information and to view the details of each course, including the curriculum.

Take advantage of this exclusive opportunity to leverage your unique style to open new doors for yourself and those you lead. 

Change is inevitable.  But when nothing is certain, anything is possible.

Here’s to making 2024 your best year yet!

Diane

P.S.  This course combination is also available to bring in-house to your organization. Email Support@DianeBolden.com for more information.

 

 

It’s Not What You Do – It’s the Way that You Do It…

 

Ahh December.  Twinkle lights on trees and rooftops, the smell of wood burning in fireplaces, a refreshing chill in the air…  and of course, a whole slew of things to do that can tip the scales for people who were already feeling overwhelmed with work (and maybe even life itself).

How You Do Things is as Important as What You Do (…maybe even more so)

It’s tempting to approach all those things the way you do items on a checklist – just power through them in the most efficient way possible.  The risk of that, however, is that you’ll relegate yourself to a kind of “autopilot” state, where you’re going through the motions with your head and your hands but not really your heart.

And when that happens, the things you do can feel empty – for yourself and others too.

Never Underestimate the Power of Presence

I’m convinced that when people receive what we give them, they experience the energy we put into it.  You’ve probably had someone tell you to have a good day while looking at their phone or multi-tasking.  It just doesn’t have the same impact as it does when they look you in the eye and are truly with you, sharing a feeling and not just words that sound good.

The end of the year brings into focus what really matters in our lives.

November leads us to think about what we are grateful for.  December allows us to spend time with those we love, both giving and receiving in ways that create and perpetuate joy.  And as we move closer to January, we do well to reflect on what we most want to experience, accomplish, or become in the new year.

It’s a time that calls us to be present – and to pour our very selves into what matters most.

Honor What’s Most Important

You may not be able to DO everything on your list (most of us never really can).  Instead, take some time to identify what is really important to you.

What are the things you care so much about that it’s worth slowing down to pour enough of yourself into them that people are moved by the experience?  Those things you give yourself to wholeheartedly will be the game changers in both your personal and your professional life.

So be intentional.  Start now.  Today. 

What matters most to you?  And how can you be completely present and intentional in a way that allows others to truly experience the magnitude of what you have to offer?

Because when you do, what you give to others will enrich your own life as much as it does theirs.

 

What if You Could Transform Conflict Into Collaboration?

 

We’ve all been there – something happens that pushes your buttons, and frustration begins to seep in.  You might tell yourself a story about why the other person is acting in ways that seem intentionally insensitive or disrespectful.  And that story will likely put fuel on your fire.  Worse yet, believing your story could lead you to act in ways that create combustion.

And before you know it, you’re in a full-blown conflict.

This week’s article, A Matter of Style – How to Turn Conflict into Collaboration, just published in Brainz Magazine, will help you to prevent this kind of conflict from emerging.  You’ll learn five specific tips to transform situations wrought with frustration into opportunities for creating cooperation and synergy.

And if you’re interested in learning more about how to best connect, communicate and collaborate with others, go to LearnYourStyle.com to take a two-minute quiz that’ll determine what is likely your most dominant behavioral style.   Along with your results, I’ll send you information about your unique style and tips on how you can leverage it to maximize your effectiveness, influence, and impact.

Here’s to making the best of situations that may otherwise bring out the worst!

Diane

P.S. – Did you catch last week’s Doodly video on how to better understand and work with people’s differing styles?  If not, you can watch it here.

How to Connect, Communicate & Collaborate with Greater Influence & Impact

 

Are there people in your office (or your life) that drive you nuts because they insist on doing things so differently than you do?

We’re led to believe we should treat others the way we want to be treated.  But if one person’s preferences are another’s irritations, using that approach to connect, communicate and collaborate doesn’t always work very well…

When people don’t say and do things the way you’d like them to, you might believe they are intentionally trying to make you crazy – when in reality they are just operating with a style that is different than yours.

This week’s video will give you a leg up on understanding people’s differing styles in a way that’ll transform frustration into appreciation, collaboration and synergy.

And if you’d like to find out what is likely YOUR most dominant behavioral style, take this complimentary 14-question quiz.  Along with your results, I’ll provide you with tips to help you not only understand but also LEVERAGE your unique style to maximize your effectiveness, influence and impact – with others who are both similar to and different from you.

Here’s to your success!

Diane

P.S.  If you know of others who might like to learn about their style  – and how to best connect, communicate and collaborate with others too, you can direct them to www.LearnYourStyle.com to take the complimentary quiz as well.

How to Leverage Your Past to Supercharge Your Future

Well, the dust is finally settling, and the holiday decorations are (almost) packed up and put away for next year. For many, the holidays are a frenzied time – a rush to the finish line that has adrenaline spiking for days on end. Between running around trying to find the perfect gifts to sending out cards, preparing meals, entertaining family and friends and spending a lot of time around people we don’t often get to see, it can be exhausting.

Some of us were lucky enough to have a bit of down time before jumping back in to the excitement that the New Year brings. And others of us have simply been riding that wave that takes us from one activity to the next, with little time for transition. Though New Year’s Day has come and gone, it is never too late to take advantage of the demarcation that the end of one year and the beginning of another brings.

The turning of each year lends itself well to waxing reflective, calling to mind both the experiences in the past that have led us to the present moment, as well as what the future might hold – what magnificent things are bubbling up within us, just waiting to take form.

It’s curious that we often associate moments of reflection with major milestones (like a New Year), rather than as a continual process in our lives. Yet it’s easy to let the frenetic pace of business, the holidays, and personal affairs prevent us from enjoying the clarity of being alone with our thoughts, and even going beyond them into the silence of our own experience.

We get swept up in a kind of auto pilot mode, where we just do what is in front of us and go from one thing to the next, without a lot of thought.

But it is in the evaluation and reflection of our experiences that we receive insight – a vital gift that can become meaningful and empowering force in our lives.

Pressing on from one thing to the next without pausing long enough to integrate what we have learned deprives us of the gifts these experiences bring. It’s like finding a few wrapped presents with your name on them that were left behind in the festivities – and absentmindedly throwing them into a box instead of opening them up to see what’s inside.

Our experiences are uniquely designed to allow us to learn – about ourselves, others, and life itself. We learn about what works, what feels good, what doesn’t, who we are, what we are capable of, what we want more of (and less of too).

But only if we pause long enough to entertain the questions that allow us to unpack these gifts that are waiting to be opened.

If you have not yet afforded yourself the indulgence of conscious and intentional reflection, I encourage you to carve out some time to do so. Because the best goals, the best visions to move toward in the coming year will be those that align with the whispers of your heart – those that tap the infinite potential and wisdom that is already inside you. And you’ll never really know what those are until you take the time to go within and ask.

Below are some questions that can help you in this process. Some of these questions might seem more powerful to you than others – let yourself go where you are drawn with them. You may even want to take a quick look at them and then put them away and see what comes to you when your mind is empty of thoughts.

Or, you may scrap these questions and come up with different ones of your own. The important thing is to allow yourself the time to go within and listen with curiosity and earnestness.

QUESTIONS FOR YEAR-END REFLECTION

 

• As you reflect on this past year, what were your three or four most significant accomplishments, breakthroughs, and/or achievements?
• Looking back over the year, what (if anything) blocked or held you back as you moved toward your goals/objectives? How will you overcome those obstacles in the future?
• What were your biggest insights or realizations over the past year that you gained through your experiences?
• How will you apply what you learned this past year to what you want to create in the upcoming year?
• What are the top two or three things about your job/practice that you most want to be different this year?
• What two or three changes do you most want to see in your personal life?
• What significant challenges will face you this year? Personally? Professionally?
• What strengths will you rely on most to face the challenges that lie ahead?
• What qualities, skills, etc. could you develop within yourself to better arm you for the upcoming year?
• Picture yourself a year from now, looking back over the past year. What three or four accomplishments would you like to have achieved?
• What actions are you prepared to take to achieve your desired results for the upcoming year?

If you really want to supercharge your coming year, consider joining me and an intimate group of fellow leaders in the spring session of The Pinocchio Principle Unleashed:  The Real Leader’s Guide to Accessing the Freedom & Flow of Your Authentic Genius, kicking off in April. This exclusive 13-week leadership development experience goes beneath the surface of what most programs deliver, to help you learn to unleash genius in yourself and those you lead.

Enrollment will be limited to eight participants.  Join the waiting list to have access to registration before it opens to the public.

I look forward to another year ahead of navigating a path of discovery – one that will lead us all closer to our most precious goals, and allow us to make the most out of every experience we have – leaving everything we touch a little better off for the interaction – our teams, our customers, our colleagues, friends, family, and of course, ourselves.

Wishing you a wonderful and prosperous New Year ahead!

 

 

 

Why What Used to Work May Now Be Working Against You (and what to do instead)

Imagine finding yourself in a dark room…It’s a room that was once lit but has since dimmed.

And you have been doing everything you can to turn that light back on.  You’ve even gone so far as to build a contraption that allows you to generate electricity through your own manual effort, sort of like a giant hamster wheel.

The problem is you have to run continuously to produce the smallest splinter of light.  And you find yourself pushing harder and faster to get that light to grow so that more of the room is illuminated once again.

Off in the distance, there is another room that glows brightly and warmly beckons to you. The radiance coming through the doorway of that space is pure and beautiful and you can almost feel its glow. But despite the draw of that warmly lit room, you stay right where you are.  Instead of getting off the crazy hamster wheel that requires constant exertion and toil, you just keep running faster and faster.

And you are becoming exhausted.

This metaphor came to me in a moment of reflection.  I had noticed a theme that I’ve seen echoed among several of my executive coaching clients – and in my own life as well, from time to time.

What used to work well no longer produces results. And that’s a problem. What was once easy and energizing begins to feel cumbersome and draining.  And rather than moving you forward, in some cases it actually thwarts your progress.

But when it’s all you know, it can be difficult to let it go.  You worked so hard to perfect those ways of being, of working, of relating.  And it paid dividends in the past.  You might have thought to yourself, “If I could just double down, and put a little more effort into it, a little more discipline, I could turn it all around,” right?

That’s what many of my clients thought.  Maybe you can relate…

For some, the work they did won them a promotion.  Their intense operational focus and ability to dig in and get results merited them an increased scope and elevated role.  They became responsible for leading and empowering others to do the work they once focused the majority of their effort on.  They were being called to make a bigger, more strategic impact, but their fierce and intense focus on operational details was preventing them from making that leap.

For others, it was work that once excited them but was no longer stimulating. They could do it in their sleep.  Sure, they were good at it, but it was becoming a boring, tedious grind.  It was harder to get out of bed in the morning. There was nothing to look forward to.  And in their quiet moments, they dreamt of doing something bigger, bolder and more impactful.

Some even had ideas and projects they longed to pursue or propose.  But they just couldn’t get themselves to break out of the ruts they were in, and/or doubted whether they really had what it took to do anything different.

And for many others, it was about working in a way that was simply not sustainable. They had a tendency to take on more than most, prioritize everything equally and live in constant fear of letting people down.  So they continued running a race that was increasingly difficult to keep up with, let alone win.  The stress and pressure of their environment was high, but small in comparison to the anxiety they heaped upon themselves.

Regardless of which group you find yourself in, there is a better way not far off in the distance. At some level you are probably aware that something has to give…   You dream of feeling energized again, of being unencumbered and inspired and engaged in meaningful and fulfilling work.  But you can’t get to that new place without being willing to leave the old one.

You can choose to stay in the dark, dreary room because it’s comfortable.  It may no longer be satisfying, or even pleasant, but it’s familiar.  Do you ever shy away from the light that is beckoning you to leave that space because you are afraid of what you’ll see or whether you’ll be able to handle it?

We all do that from time to time, even though…

The light reveals new possibilities for growth, significance and satisfaction. It not only illuminates the challenges and opportunities, but also your strengths – including some you may not have realized you have.  And it ushers in new vitality, new energy and new clarity.  When you summon the courage to leave your dark, dull room and follow the light, you’ll be filled with vigor and joy, and you’ll find your enthusiasm renewed, your passion reignited, even if you don’t believe that yet.

The light of new possibilities brings both freedom and flow.  No more running like hell without getting anywhere.  No more banging your head against a wall only to end up with throbbing pain.  No more feelings of being trapped by your circumstances.  Once you summon the courage to follow the light into new possibilities and ways of working, you’ll experience a momentum that propels you forward in a sustainable way.

I know this because I have experienced it firsthand myself. And over the last twenty plus years I have helped hundreds of executives just like you experience it too.  I can tell you that there is simply nothing like it.  And it has to be experienced to be believed.

That light that beckons to you is a call to step into something bigger and more satisfying. It invites you to release old, outworn ways of working that no longer serve you and step into your personal and professional best – to unleash your greatness, to make a bigger impact and a bigger contribution.  And it brings with it not only new levels of performance and effectiveness, but also fulfillment that enhances your life both on and off the job.

The sad reality is, some of us stay in our dark rooms longer than others. But there is always a way out.  Making that move requires resolve and determination.

It starts with a conscious decision and a commitment to yourself.  You don’t have to have it all figured out. All you need to do is give yourself permission to be curious about it. Once you begin to entertain the idea that there is a better way, you are already on the road to finding it.

You can ask yourself, “What would it look like if things weren’t so hard? What small shifts could I make that would allow me to enjoy my work (and my life) more — without sacrificing my performance?”

Your reticular activating system will kick in and help you find the answers to your questions.  You’ll notice things that previously escaped your attention and find yourself drawn to resources, people, and potential solutions.  You’ll tap into your own wisdom and begin to discern what you must do next – what small changes you can make that could end up having the biggest impact.

And then you’ll need to summon the courage to act on those insights.

“The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself.”  – Mark Caine

When you answer this vital call to realize more of your true potential, magic happens.  You can make a bigger impact doing meaningful work without sacrificing who you truly are.  Best of all you’ll enjoy your life more.  You become a shining example and a far more effective leader to others who will learn to make the same improvements in their own lives and careers.

The process can be unnerving.  It requires you to let go of something you know in order to move into something you don’t.  And though the rewards of making that move are profound, it isn’t always easy.

Having someone to guide and support you through the process can really help. I created The Pinocchio Principle Unleashed: The Real Leader’s Guide to Accessing the Freedom & Flow of Your Authentic Genius to assist high achieving executives just like you in making that vital leap with professional high level support and guidance, so you can move through it very quickly, with courage and grace.

The program is a distillation of the most impactful approaches and techniques that have helped my clients over the last twenty plus years to successfully affect their own personal and professional transformations.  These are powerful methodologies I repeatedly utilize in my own life as well.

I’ll be personally guiding an intimate group of executives through this process over the next thirteen weeks utilizing a powerful blend of online training (that you’ll have lifetime access to), small group mastermind meetings and one-on-one coaching support.

What differentiates this program from all the others out there is that it isn’t about blindly following a recipe for success that attempts to make you someone you are not. The program is designed to help you move more deeply into who you truly are, so that you can connect with your own wisdom and allow it to guide you in ways that are authentic and natural to you, and lead you to your own personal uniqueness and strengths.

You’ll learn to leverage your experiences in ways that bring clarity and focus into your life, and experience lightness as you begin to let go of things you’ve been making yourself do all these years that have weighed you down and created unnecessary pressure and anxiety.  All this while enjoying unprecedented levels of performance and energy that is sustainable – because it comes from the inside out.

Whether you decide to join me, or opt to go it alone, I encourage you with all my heart to exercise the courage to answer your own personal and professional call to greatness.  Make the decision now to step out of that dimly lit room and into the light of possibility, expansion and growth.

 

If you’d like to chat about The Pinocchio Principle Unleashed program and get answers to any questions you may have about it, you can click here to schedule a call directly with me.  But don’t wait too long.  The fall session will be kicking off on Wednesday, September 22 and there are only a few seats remaining.  To maximize interaction and individualized support, registration is capped at 8 to 10 people.  Click here for more information or to save your seat.

Does your organization sponsor professional development?  To assist you in getting approval to use corporate funds for your registration in the program, download the business case for participating in the program.

 

 

 

Ten Tips for Taking the Tyranny Out of Your To Do Lists

 

My recent post, Don’t Let Your To Do List Keep You From Living Your Best Life, was born of a growing awareness that a fixation on to-do lists and time management systems can actually work against you if you’re not careful.  That being said, with or without to-do lists, there is never a shortage of things that need tending to.

So how do you get stuff done without becoming trapped in your system?   Here are ten tips for how not to be a slave to your to-do list:

1. 1) Write things down to get them out of your head, but don’t let them become set in stone. You are just freeing up brain space so that you can take a look at the gook in there and sort through it.  Think of your list more as a collection of options than an inventory of things that all have to be done.  Challenge yourself on whether these tasks (a) really need to get done at all (b) really need to get done now and (c) really need to be done by you.  The more often you engage this filter, the more your to-do list will become an accurate of a reflection what you really, honestly need to do.
2. 2) Don’t allow your list to be something that hangs over your head and haunts you. Procrastination is largely a function of avoiding a decision we think will be painful.  But the resistance this procrastination reinforces and feeds ultimately becomes more painful than anything it could protect you from.  So, make some decisions about the things you will commit yourself to, and those you will give yourself permission to delegate, defer, or dump.
3. 3) Schedule some time each day to do something you really love – even if it is only twenty minutes or a half-hour. Dedicate yourself fully to it – do whatever you can not to let anything interfere with it.  This little gift you give yourself will make you feel good throughout your whole day, and the energy you gain by doing something that feeds you will help you to get more of the mundane things done in less time and with less effort.
4. 4) If there is something that must be done by a certain time, designate a block of time to work on it. This is especially helpful with big projects that can (and often need to be) broken down into smaller steps. Even a half-hour here and there will allow you to make progress.  When you put it in your calendar you can be certain that you will get to it, and it will not weigh heavy on your mind and suck up energy that you can use to do other things.
5. 5) Remember that little things expand. So designate blocks of time to tend to the little things that you think will only take a few minutes but often end up taking three or four times longer than you anticipated.  These little things expand for many reasons – sometimes we just underestimate how long they will take, but other times we linger over them and allow them to become avoidance mechanisms that keep us from doing what’s really important (and nurturing for ourselves and others).  This could be anything from checking email to scheduling meetings to going through a pile of papers.   When you set limits on how much time you will designate for these things, you’ll be surprised at how quickly you can get through them.
6. 6) Allow for flexibility so that you can listen to your intuition on what to do in each moment. As you go to undertake a task, pay attention to how you feel about it.  If a wall goes up as you sit down to do something and you just can’t seem to make any progress or if you keep running into obstacles, it may be an indication that it just isn’t the best time for you to work on it.  You may want to designate another time to work on that thing and in its place, do something you have more energy around.  Often when you come back to what you were snagged on, you will find that things flow much better.
7. 7) Don’t let things sit for too long. If it can be done (or delegated) in the time it takes you to write it down or find another time to do it – and you are not in the middle of something more important, just take care of it quickly.  This nugget applies to little things – like dropping someone a quick note or filing something in its proper place instead of putting it in a pile you have to sort through later.
8. 8) Reflect and celebrate. At the end of the day, spend some time reflecting on what brought you most satisfaction, rather than all the things you have yet to do.  Celebrate the progress you are making and the degree to which you really brought your whole self to whatever it is you did that day.
9. 9) Be sure to zoom out and not just in. Taking care of your to-do list involves a lot of keeping your head down.  So, make sure you take some time to look up and out every once in a while.  Check-in with yourself on the bigger picture of what you most want to create, achieve and become and let that vision guide your actions. Doing this regularly will keep you from getting caught in the weeds and allow you to have a bigger, more strategic impact.
10. 10) Rest in the knowing that you will get done that which is most important. You no longer need to run that loop in your head that has you worried that something will fall through the cracks.  You have it handled, so you can devote your full attention to whatever you choose to do in each moment.

To-do lists are only a small part of moving the needle and making the impact you are capable of.  For more tips on achieving and sustaining the success you desire, download my special report: Why Real Leaders Don’t Set Goals (and what they do instead).  

 

 

Photo by Thirdman from Pexels

Don’t Let Your To Do List Keep You From Living Your Best Life

When I used to sit down to eat meals as a kid, I would save the food I loved the most for last. I wanted to get all the other stuff out of the way – those squishy potatoes, the chewy meat, the cooked carrots.   What I really wanted to savor was the green beans. So I would grin and bear the other stuff – and often by the time I got to those delightfully garlicky green beans, I was full.

One day I noticed that for years, I have had a tendency to approach my life that way. There are never a shortage of “shoulds” that hang over my head. Run this errand or that, take care of such and such, schedule time with so and so, close the loop on any number of things. And more often than I like to admit, I have lived in constant fear that one or more of these things would fall through the cracks – causing me to let someone down, or show up unprepared, or drop the ball on something altogether. So I learned to make lists that would allow all these things that swirled around my head to land somewhere.

Making lists was a good thing in many ways. It did free up space for me and keep me organized.   The trouble was that the lists became like that food on my dish that I felt like I had to endure before I could let myself enjoy the really good stuff. And just when I thought I made some headway and was close to experiencing the sweetness of what I really wanted to do, something else would land on my plate.

What I really wanted to do is play. Not the kind of play that people do when they are avoiding something and just want to escape. I wanted to create. I wanted to write. I wanted to think outside the box. I wanted to do something that scares me just because I can. I wanted to push my limits. I wanted to tap the well that has my biggest, grandest most precious ideas and visions. And I wanted to make them real.

I have to admit – it did unnerve me a little because what I wanted to do was totally unchartered. There were no predetermined answers. It wasn’t finite. It hadn’t been done before – at least not by me. It wasn’t something I could check the box on and be done with.

And I worried that I may not have what it takes. I feared that once I allowed myself to stand in that space that I may not know what to do, or that even if I did I might get it wrong. The thought of it made me feel a little naked, exposed, vulnerable.

But I wanted it anyway.

And then I saw that though I was admittedly afraid of failing, of faltering, of being in a space where I had no idea of what I was doing, it seemed that what I had been even more afraid of was my own joy.

Because the drudge of a to do list, while not necessarily all that gratifying, was familiar and held the illusion of allowing me to be productive, and responsible and a good girl – the kind that eats everything on her plate. And I traded that for the pleasure of relishing my green beans while I was still able to enjoy them.

I thought I was making progress when I did away with my to do list altogether. I busted it to pieces. Instead of having a master list that I let run my life, I decided to identify the things that I thought really needed to get done and then I just scheduled time to do them. But then I noticed that I still didn’t have any time on there to do the things I really wanted to do. There were no green beans at all.

What I was trying to do was not do away with my to do list as much as trying to get through my to do list more efficiently. I was eating faster and playing games with myself to make getting through the meat and potatoes a little less onerous, so I could distract myself from realizing that I still wasn’t getting what I really wanted.

Maybe you can relate? Do you feel like you are running in circles and even getting a lot done, but still unsatisfied and wanting more? Longing to do strategic, move the needle kind of work, but stuck in the weeds of the operational day to day check the boxes stuff?

Are you telling yourself that you can’t have what you really want until you “get through” a whole host of things you don’t really want to do? And feeling used up and unfulfilled at the end of the day?

Does it all really need to get done?

When I took a closer, more honest look at my to do list – with the help of a friend who really challenged me on what I thought HAD to get done right away, I realized that I was clinging to things that no one was really going to care all that much about if they didn’t get done. Some of them didn’t need to happen in the next few days or weeks. And others really didn’t need to happen at all. I gave myself permission to hit delete on a few – whew! I moved others out a bit. And in their place, I designated time to write and create.

I gotta tell you, now that I’ve been doing it for awhile, it feels darn good. It’s nurturing. It feeds me. And I have a feeling doing these things is more related to my true purpose on earth than checking those boxes ever could.

So I challenge you – what is it that has been calling to you lately? What juicy thing on your plate have you not let yourself enjoy? Take a look at the things you are making yourself do first (or instead), and do an honest assessment of what really needs to get done to allow you to live the life you really want to live.

You might think letting go of things on your to do list is irresponsible. That it’ll get you into trouble. I used to think that too. But what I’ve found is that it is far more negligent for me to hold back on the things my heart most wants to do – the work I am most invested in – the calls that beckon me to see what I’m really made of and bring more of myself into the world.

And I would venture to say the same is true for you.

 

If you’re interested in more on how to lead your best life – in a way that allows you to experience extraordinary results with less effort and more joy, I encourage you to check out The Pinocchio Principle Unleashed: The Real Leader’s Guide to Accessing the Freedom & Flow of Your Unique Genius.  Though the spring group session is now full, you can join the waiting list to be notified of the next session.

Also – there is now an Executive Track available that blends the program with ongoing 1:1 coaching for an individualized and custom tailored experience.  If you have questions or would like to discuss which version of the program is right for you, you can click here to schedule a call directly with me.

 

Extraordinary Results. Less Effort. More Joy.

The other day I came across a piece of paper that brought back a rather unsettling memory of a pivotal conversation I had long ago, about something that was very important to me.  I didn’t realize just what an impact it had on me until I stopped to recall it – and consider all the things that have unfolded in the years that passed.

I filmed a video about it that you can find on my LinkedIn page.

I’d love to hear your thoughts after you watch – you can leave a comment right on LinkedIn.  And if we are not yet connected there, hit that blue “Connect” button while you’re at it.

Sometimes it takes a while to embody the things you strive for.  The journey may have a lot of twists and turns and ups and downs.  But it’s definitely well worth traveling.

If you’d like some support on your journey, there are still a couple of seats remaining in the spring session of The Pinocchio Principle Unleashed – The Real Leader’s Guide to Accessing the Freedom & Flow of Your Authentic Genius kicking off on Wednesday (3/3).  It’s a thirteen-week leadership development program that will help you move beyond the conditioning that keeps you from rising to the extraordinary results you are capable of achieving – with less effort and more joy along the way.

 I’d love to have the opportunity to work with you.

Here’s to the journey – and the ever-unfolding destination!