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On the Verge of Transformation
Do you ever feel like you are in the middle of some kind of transformation, but not yet clear on exactly where you are going and what form things are going to take? Speaking from my own experience, it can be a bit unnerving when you are in the thick of it. You may feel as though you’ll never find your way through.
They say it helps to find inspiration from those who have gone before you. On that note, the above video, On the Verge of Transformation, features an interview with a caterpillar. I hope you enjoy it.
Here is what I said in the video:
These live caterpillars came in the mail the other day. My daughter is going to start a butterfly habitat. And when they arrived they were really little — teeny, tiny things. Just a couple of days ago, they started climbing up to the top. You might be able to see, they are starting to hang from the lid.
And I found myself staring at these guys the other day as they were still caterpillars crawling around, wondering if they had any idea what is going to happen to them — that their whole life as they know it is going to end — and if they felt fear. And I wonder, if I could interview a little caterpillar, what would it tell me if I said,
“Hey, do you have any fear about what’s going to happen to you?”
He’d probably look at me and say “Why would I have fear?”
“Because everything you know is about to end.”
And he’d probably say, “Says who?”
And if I said, “But you have no idea what’s going to happen!”
And he could say, “Neither do you.”
And look, they are totally surrendered. If ever there was a position of surrender, it would be hanging upside down while your entire body dissolves into mucus and nothingness and is completely reconstituted — and then to have to find your way out of the chrysalis all on your own. And yet, they do it all the time. It’s part of nature. And they have no fear.
The thought occurred to me that we are always going through our process all the time too. And we get scared, because we have stories about all the things we are going to lose and all the stuff we are going to suffer at. Yet, maybe we can take a cue from the caterpillar. Maybe I can have a little bit of comfort and faith in knowing that just totally surrendering to the process could result in something fantastic and beyond anything I ever could have imagined.
For more on change and transformation:
The Pinocchio Principle: Becoming the Leader You Were Born to Be (book) 
Busting Out of the Box (workshop)
Taking Your Leap, Part I & Part II
Bridging the Gap Between No More and Not Yet
Photo by Colin Stitt from Dreamstime.
The Downside of Going it Alone
Have you ever come smack up against an old assumption that was just plain wrong? The above video features a story about a painful lesson I learned years ago when I thought I could (and should) do everything on my own. It was probably the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done that didn’t involve falling down or tripping over something.
Here’s what I said in the video:
Years ago I worked at a hospital and I was teaching classes to help clinical professionals work through all the changes they had to make when managed care hit. These people had a lot of change to make. There was a lot emotion involved. They had to completely reinvent the way they saw patients and did all the things that they had done for years. There was a lot of resistance.
And I remember I got this idea that perhaps it would be helpful for them to see how others have worked through this. So I decided I wanted to make a video and I got approval to make a trip to one of the sister hospitals whose staff had already begun making the transition. I managed to find one of the oldest cameras around at the time. It was so huge, that the VCR tape actually fit in it. You can imagine the contraption and all the gear I had to carry.
I finally got to the hospital. We had a conference room arranged. I managed to coordinate and have all these people show up in this one room. I asked them questions that got on tape their reaction and their coping mechanisms and their pain – and the way in which they were able to take something that turned everything they knew on their head and work through it. It was heart rendering. It was moving. It was beautiful.
I singlehandedly worked the camera, I asked the questions, I tried to zoom in on people’s faces when they talked, and I spent a whole day doing this videoing. I came back and I edited it myself. Granted – I knew nothing about filming and editing videos. I had to use the camera in order to do editing, cutting and pasting with my VCR.
When I got back and had my finished product, everybody crowded around and we put the tape in the VCR and hit play. I was just devastated. It was horrible. And I remember watching it and just feeling my heart sink. Because all those stories that almost brought tears to my eyes as I was filming them – the sound quality was so poor, you couldn’t even hear people talking. The camera was shaky. The editing was horrible. And I was just so embarrassed.
That happened years and years ago when I thought I needed to do everything myself and had a lot of fire in my belly, but for whatever reason, I was very resistant to asking for help. And I learned such a valuable lesson from that. What I learned and how I have benefitted from that experience is that I have allowed myself to let go of the things that I thought I needed to do myself and enjoy working with people that have skills that I don’t, who can get almost even more excited about my ideas than I am — and see things that I didn’t see — to make it richer and allow something to be created that is far better than anything my little mind could ever have imagined.
So here’s my question for you, “What great idea are you sitting on, and who do you need on your team to make it happen?”
Picture by Diomedes66 from Dreamstime
Why I Can’t Promote My New Book Just Yet
A NOTE FROM DIANE:
I almost didn’t post the above video. It’s personal. And it was recorded in a fragile moment. But then I remembered how comforted I have felt by messages from people who were courageous enough to talk about the challenges and frustrations they were working through. And I decided, the hell with it. I’m going to put the video up. If it lifts the hearts of just one or two people, it’ll be worth it.
If you’ve ever been in a spot where, despite having access to an overwhelming amount of information and people that seem to have it all figured out, you just can’t seem to find any answers — know that you are not alone. And please also know, that you too will find your way.
Here is the written version of what I said in the video:
People have been asking me, What have you done to promote your book? Do you have a publicist? Are you going on tour?
I wrote this book — The Pinocchio Principle: Becoming the Leader You Were Born to Be. It took me six years to write it. It’s been out for three months. And I can’t get myself to promote it. I can’t get myself to do anything with it. And I know that I should.
So the other day, I was watching a webcast from someone talking about how to become a best seller — how to become a trusted advisor. And I began to fill my head with all these things I thought I should be doing. I found myself taking copious notes. And I got to this point where I couldn’t watch it anymore. I had to turn it off. Something got into me and I literally had to go cry. And I cried so hard I almost threw up.
After all that passed, I realized that the reason that I can’t promote my book yet is that I’m looking so hard outside of myself for people to tell me what to do in an arena where I don’t feel like I have the answers. And the irony is that the book I wrote is about how to trust your inner wisdom and how to navigate through your challenges and your uncertainty.
And so when I got done crying I had to start laughing. Because it’s kind of funny that I actually already have the workbook I need. It’s right here [in the book I’ve poured my heart into for the last six years].
The truth of the matter is that this book isn’t really as much for you as it is for me. And before I can really promote it — before I can feel as though it will be of value to people, I need to live it. And that’s what I’m going to do.
For more on finding your way:
A Story About a Bad Day
Ever had “one of those days?” This week’s blog post, A Story About a Bad Day, is about one that I had recently and the valuable lesson I gained through the experience. Below is a written version of what I said in the video.
I was driving to a client appointment while drinking a cup of coffee. Stopping at a light, I wedged the coffee cup into my lap and proceeded to fix my lipstick. The light turned, I stepped on the gas, and suddenly felt the sting of hot coffee, which had spilled everywhere. As I was getting onto the freeway I realized that I was about to go into a meeting looking like I had just peed my pants. So I rolled all the windows down and turned the heat on full blast. When I got to my destination, I slowly and carefully slinked to my seat carrying one bag in front of me and another behind me.
I tried to console myself with the thought that things could only improve from here. Unfortunately, they did not. I came home to meet a refrigerator repair man to find that it would cost more to fix my fridge than buy a new one. Shortly after that I went to lower some blinds which came crashing down when I touched them. I then realized that I had to get my daughter to a group photo where she was supposed to be wearing a t-shirt with a horse shoe transfer ironed onto it. Not knowing which direction the transfer was supposed to go, I quickly pulled it out of the package, and slapped it on the t-shirt to find later that she was the only little girl with the horse shoe pointing down instead of up. AND I had made a permanent horseshoe indentation on the built-in cabinet I just had painted because I was in too much of a hurry to put something underneath it. On my way back, I cut the corner coming into my driveway too short and scraped my car against the retaining wall.
I decided I’d call to see if I could get the blinds fixed. The repair woman asked me to carefully and gently un-wedge them from the wall. At that point I told her I didn’t think I should be doing anything like that today and proceeded to tell her about my day. She started laughing and quickly apologized, commenting that it was good to know other people had days like that. Then I started laughing. And it felt good. We joked that maybe I shouldn’t leave the house — just order pizza and call it a day.
But after I got off the phone I realized that I didn’t need to be afraid to leave the house. In one way or another I had gotten myself into a frame of mind that was affecting my whole day. Whether I was conscious of it or not, I believe I was drawing more experiences to myself that confirmed my belief that it was going to be a crappy day, which is exactly what I was having. Once I lightened up, I was able to let go of that and things got a lot better. And I learned something valuable.
My experience demonstrates the power our thoughts have over the way we see and experience things in the world, which directly influences the actions we take as well as the results that come of them. I’ve written more about this dynamic in my new book The Pinocchio Principle: Becoming the Leader You Were Born to Be. It is now available on Amazon. For more information or to download an excerpt, go to http://www.PinocchioPrinciple.com.
My Most Embarrassing Moment
This week’s blog post, My Most Embarrassing Moment, features a video about one of those experiences I’d rather not repeat and why the most powerful lesson from it didn’t come to me until years later. Below I’ve expanded a bit on the key messages.
One of my most embarrassing moments happened while running on a treadmill at a gym. When I went to fix my hair, my foot hit the part of the treadmill that wasn’t moving and I lost my balance. I hit the belt, which was still moving and was catapulted into the middle of the room where other people were working out. Whether it actually happened or not, it felt as though the room went silent and all eyes were on me.
I’m pretty sure I was bleeding. Though I was bruised and in a lot of pain, it didn’t come close to the humiliation and embarrassment I was experiencing. I smiled and nodded as people asked me if I was okay, pulled myself up and somehow hobbled out of there. To this day, I really don’t like to run on treadmills and tend to avoid them.
The lesson I took from that experience is that treadmills would hurt me. But there was a far more powerful lesson that I initially missed. When I fell, I wasn’t in the moment. My head was somewhere else. I wasn’t conscious or balanced and as a result, bad things happened. My belief that treadmills will hurt me and I need to stay away from them is an assumption. A faulty assumption.
In my new book, The Pinocchio Principle: Becoming the Leader You Were Born to Be, I drew an analogy of assumptions like these to the strings that keep Pinocchio from realizing his dream of becoming real and doing what he really wanted to do. My assumption that I need to stay away from treadmills is keeping me from what could otherwise be a very enjoyable experience, particularly if I don’t have the luxury of running outside. I’ve written a whole chapter about how our assumptions keep us from doing the things we really want to do in our lives and how we can dismantle these strings so that we can live and lead in new, powerful ways.
What’s your treadmill story? Maybe it is something you tried that didn’t go very well and led you to rule out the whole experience and figure you were no good at it. Maybe your story is about a person that reminds you of someone from your past with whom you didn’t have a good experience. In either case, chances are you’re believing things that are not necessarily true and keeping you from something that could be really great.
What would you need to do to be free of that?
Click here if you’d like to order a copy of The Pinocchio Principle, or go to www.PinocchioPrinciple.com for more information.
Become a subscriber at www.DianeBolden.com and receive my free report: Ten Traps Leaders Unwittingly Set for Themselves…and How to Avoid Them.
Though comments are currently closed, please feel free to email me at Diane@DianeBolden.com with your feedback, questions and thoughts. Have a specific challenge you’d like to see a post written about? Let me know. I’d love to hear from you!
Seven Powerful Lessons for Living that I Learned by Writing a Book
Well, my new book, The Pinocchio Principle: Becoming a Real Leader finally went to print on Tuesday, 1/11/11. The process of writing has been a truly rewarding experience full of highs and lows and as intensely humbling as it has been exhilarating. As I’ve reflected back on some of the things I’ve learned along the way, I was struck by how applicable these lessons are to life in general. And, being a writer and a coach, I feel compelled to share them in the hopes that they will be of value to you — if only in some small way.
Lesson #1: When you commit yourself to something that you want with all of your heart, a series of events is set into motion that allows you to get what you most need. However, some of these events may not necessarily be what you originally wanted.
The idea for writing The Pinocchio Principle floated into my head and onto a page in my journal almost six years ago. I dabbled at it – wrote a little here and there, sometimes in long spurts and other times in trickles. It went back and forth from my desk to my shelf again and again. In the latter part of 2009 I began to feel increasing frustration as I never seemed to have the uninterrupted blocks of time I needed to really concentrate and bring the book to life. Lo and behold, in the coming months I saw some of my largest coaching and consulting contracts come to an end. By January of 2010 my practice had become sizably reduced. I initially experienced frustration, disappointment and sadness. And then I realized that I had been given the gift of time and space. Three months later the first draft of manuscript was finished.
Lesson #2: Everything always takes longer than you think it will (note that it took another nine months for me to get from a first draft to a finished book).
This is actually a fairly well known adage called Hofstadter’s Law. Hofstadtler adds that his law holds even when you take into account Hofstadtler’s law. This is especially true when you are doing something you have never done before. You will not know what you don’t know. And mistakes will be made. If you beat yourself up for them, you will only prolong your suffering — and your delays. However, if you acknowledge and embrace these difficult lessons, you will move forward with far more confidence and lightness. You will also have a lot more fun. And so will everyone else who comes into contact with you and your work.
Lesson #3: Everything you do will be infused with whatever you are feeling when you do it.
Before I fully embraced lesson number two, I would try to power forward in spite of the fact that what I really needed to do was slow down. Anything I wrote in that state felt awkward, forced and completely devoid of the energy and passion I wanted to invoke. And I ultimately ended up having to rewrite those passages anyway. When I learned to reconnect with my intention of wanting my readers to feel uplifted and inspired, the words that fell onto the page came far more easily — and often in ways that uplifted and inspired me as well.
Pay attention to the energy you pour into the projects you work on. If you feel resentful or irritated as you go about your tasks, chances are the project will invoke those same feelings in everyone who comes into contact with it. Choose to infuse your work with love and positive intentions and see if people respond in a different way.
Lesson #4: The paradox of success is that only when you forget about yourself and your ego needs and focus on what you can give to others will you actually find what you seek.
As soon as I began to worry about what others might think of what I was writing (or of me), my writing fell apart. It was as though my left hand was writing while my right hand was grabbing hold of my wrist and keeping it from moving the pen across the page. I became too wrapped up in my own self image and needing to look good, which completely disconnected me from my true purpose. And as a result, the inspiration came to a complete halt. However, as soon as I became conscious of these egocentric thoughts and deliberately refocused myself on wanting to deliver something that would truly help my readers, I was able to get back into the flow.
I believe the same is true with anything we do. As soon as we worry about what others will think of us, we fall flat on our faces and end up experiencing the very things we most fear. When we shift our focus from what we can get to what we can give, we have a far more fulfilling experience — and so does everyone else.
Lesson #5: There is power in partnership.
I couldn’t have written this book without the aid of an unbelievable number of people who may not realize how invaluable their assistance really was. My coach helped me recognize the pitfalls I was stumbling into and guided me gently back onto my path. My editor reworded sentences to make the ideas to become crisper, clearer and more engaging. My husband and a number of clients and friends were kind enough to read passages of my manuscript and give me feedback, and the more eyes I had viewing the pages, the better the work became. Friends who had written their own books shared sage advice that guided me along my path. My designer showed amazing patience as I continue to revise cover after cover. Just as, if not more powerful than help in the mechanics of putting the book together was the support, love and encouragement I constantly felt from everyone along the way. Sometimes just talking through a concept helped me realize what I really needed to say and allowed me to more clearly articulate myself.
If you don’t have people around you who can be a sounding board, a coach, a mentor, a cheerleader – even a shoulder to cry on at times, I highly encourage you to seek people out who can support you in this way and rely on them often.
Lesson #6: Whenever you ask a question, you gain access to the answers you seek.
I actually wrote about this process in The Pinocchio Principle. Whatever you focus your attention on becomes illuminated. If you focus your mind on a question, you will find that the answers you seek begin to appear in various ways, often repetitively. They may come in the form of signs, information that you happen to come across, conversations you find yourself in, and even images that enter your mind. But you must pay attention in order to discern these answers, or you may miss them.
Some of the questions I held in my mind as I wrote The Pinocchio Principle included the following:
- How do you breathe life back into work and truly tap your highest potential? And how can you help others to do the same?
- How can you be who you really are (and succeed) in a world that seems to want you to be someone else?
- How can you successfully navigate through uncertainty (and help others to do the same) when everything around you seems to be falling apart?
- How do you tap into your creativity and inner wisdom in such a way that you are able to find the answers you most need at any moment?
The act of writing The Pinocchio Principle allowed me to find the answers I was seeking in such a way that I realized in the end my truest reward was simply having written it —regardless of whether anyone actually purchased a copy or not.
Lesson #7: Every dream worth pursuing will require you to go beyond what you believe to be your limits and push you out of your comfort zone.
There will be times when you question whether you really have what it takes to succeed. You will have days where you feel as though the work you do comes easily and carries you away in a flow of its own. And you will also have days where you will (literally or figuratively) sit and stare catatonically, immersed in the feeling of being completely, utterly stuck.
I have always believed that we are never given more than we are able to handle. The discovery I made in this process is that sometimes you have to be pushed to your edge to realize just how much you are actually capable of. The frustration, anxiety and doubt eventually do pass, but you may have to sit with them for awhile before they leave. They are like clouds that temporarily block the sun and cast shadows everywhere you look, only to help you better appreciate the bright beautiful light of day that was really there all along.
Click here if you’d like to order a copy of The Pinocchio Principle, or go to www.PinocchioPrinciple.com for more information.
Become a subscriber at www.DianeBolden.com and receive my free report: Ten Traps Leaders Unwittingly Set for Themselves…and How to Avoid Them.
Though comments are currently closed, please feel free to email me at Diane@DianeBolden.com with your feedback, questions and thoughts. Have a specific challenge you’d like to see a post written about? Let me know. I’d love to hear from you!
The True Gift of Giving
“All which I abandon, all which I give, I enjoy in a higher manner through the fact that I give it away. To give is to enjoy possessively the object which one gives.”
~ Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher
I had a roommate in college who was down in the dumps for a few weeks. Her usually delightful demeanor had become heavy and a little dark. She was going through one of those slumps we all encounter from time to time. One day when I came home from class, there was a envelope taped onto our door. As I looked around the building we lived in, I noticed similar envelopes hanging on other doors. This one had my name on it, handwritten. I tore it open and found a piece of notebook paper upon which was written one of the the most heartfelt notes I had ever read.
It was signed “from someone who appreciates you deeply” and as I read it, I found myself falling into the page while small tears began to collect at the corners of my eyes. The author of the note had recounted things I had done over the last several weeks – many of of which I thought were insignificant – that made a difference in that person’s life. There were kind, warm words of praise and gratitude as well as encouragement and inspiration. Whoever wrote that note apparently thought I was special and took the time to tell me why in such a way that it profoundly touched me. I looked up and saw someone across the hall reading her note and watched as her face began to light up.
When I opened the door, I found my roomate sitting contentedly writing in her journal and sipping a cup of tea. She looked up and smiled for what seemed the first time in weeks.
“Did you get one of these notes?’ I asked her.
“No,” She responded with a grin.
And then it hit me. She was the one who wrote the notes. She didn’t admit it at first, but I finally got it out of her.
“What led you to do this?” I asked her. “It must have taken you hours!”
“I was tired of feeling tired and sad and lonely,” she said. I was sick of my gloomy little world. And I decided that if I couldn’t make it better for myself, maybe I could make it better for someone else. “
She had started with one note. And then she wrote another. And then another. And it felt so good, she said, that she decided she’d just write until she didn’t feel like writing anymore.
That was over twenty years ago. And it still inspires me. She taught me more through her actions that I would have learned by reading ten books that day. I don’t think she intended it at the time, or even realized it until she started writing her notes, but the gift she gave to everyone in that building ended up being something that benefitted her just as much as everyone else. And my guess is that it is still benefitting her and everyone else – because I know it’s still meaningful and significant to me.
Gandhi said “You must be the change you want to see in the world”. Richard Bach wrote “We teach what we most need to learn.” And Maya Angelou tells us, “I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.” Perhaps this is one of the true gifts in giving – that when we get outside of ourselves to touch another human being, it has a way of bringing us gently back to ourselves so that we too receive the gift. And it holds true even when we think we have nothing left to give.
When our egos get the best of us and we think nothing will ever go the way we want it to, we can transcend a state of wanting by moving into a state of giving. Think of something you want right now, in this moment. What is it that “something” will give you? Most likely it is a feeling – perhaps a feeling of contentment, satisfaction, prosperity, abundance, or joy. Now, see if there is something you can do for another person to help them experience those things. Often when we give to others, we find we already had that which we were seeking. We realize the thing we thought we needed is a means to an end that we have already arrived at.
I have written about this phenomenon (and why it is so vital to leadership) at length in my upcoming book, The Pinocchio Principle: Becoming the Leader You Were Meant to Be, which will be released on 1/11/11. For more information, go to www.PinocchioPrinciple.com. If you pre-order, I’ll send you an autographed copy!
A few spots still remain in my upcoming Adventures in Authentic Leadership small group coaching series. You’ll have the opportunity to apply the concepts in The Pinocchio Principle to make ongoing progress toward your specific goals, aspirations, and challenges with support, feedback and accountability. The series kicks off on 1/13/11 and will meet every other Thursday from 11:30am to 1pm at my office in central Phoenix. Read more…
Become a subscriber at www.DianeBolden.com and receive my free report: Ten Traps Leaders Unwittingly Set for Themselves…and How to Avoid Them.
Though comments are currently closed, please feel free to email me at Diane@DianeBolden.com with your feedback, questions and thoughts. Have a specific challenge you’d like to see a post written about? Let me know. I’d love to hear from you!
Why I Wrote “The Pinocchio Principle”
This video is about what led me to write The Pinocchio Principle: Becoming the Leader You Were Born to Be. If you cannot see it on the page, click here to view it. Below I have expanded on the key messages. I hope you enjoy it!
What I really love about coaching is that it is not about telling people what to do or giving them answers. The beauty and the magic that happens with coaching is that the client gets connected with something inside of them that has all the answers they need. It is their inner wisdom – their creativity, ingenuity and resilience. It is also the seed that contains within it their unique talent, style, energy and passion. And it is amazing to see it come out.
I seek to do this for myself. I want to instill it in my kids. If I could give anything to the world, it would be to show people how to connect to the core of their true selves and to have the courage to bring that to whatever they are doing. I spend a lot of time reflecting on what I can do to get clearer on the process – and what I might be able to write about that could tell the story. One day when I was journaling, Pinocchio popped into my writing.
Pinocchio is a universal story – he is an archetype that mirrors so much of what is happening in our lives right now. Most people think of him as the guy whose nose grew when he lied. But Pinocchio is a story of a puppet that longed to be real. He wanted to transcend that stiff, hollow wooden frame and do things in the world that he couldn’t do as a puppet.
So many of us are at a place where we are ready to go beyond the boundaries we have previously set for ourselves – to dig deeper, dream bigger, and fly higher. We long to shed the strings that keep us tied to illusions that are simply not true – about what we need to do or be to enjoy success, and the limits that we think will keep us from achieving it. Like Pinocchio, so many of us long to be REAL – who we really are beyond the constraints that keep us bound.
What I love about Pinocchio is that he messed up. He told lies and then he recognized the consequences. He landed himself in a cage. He succumbed to temptation. He had misstep after misstep. And yet what the Blue Fairy told him was that to become REAL, he would need to prove himself brave, truthful and unselfish. And I think the same thing is true for all of us. Our journeys will be full of obstacles as well – and there will be times of frustration, anxiety and stress. The experiences we have will activate the courage we have within to be true to ourselves and others and of service in the world, just as Pinocchio’s experiences did for him.
That’s why I wrote The Pinocchio Principle: Becoming the Leader You Were Born to Be. It’s really a road map to help each of us take whatever experience we are having right now and utilize it as a window into ourselves that allows us to tap into whatever we need to rise above any situation that we find ourselves in. My hope is that it will help you navigate the perils and possibilities of your own personal odyssey so that you can unearth your greatness and bring it into the world in such a way that it blesses your own life as well as that of others. As you do this for yourself, you will inspire others to do the same – which I believe is the mark of a true leader – regardless of your vocation, title or role.
The Pinocchio Principle: Becoming the Leader You Were Born to Be will be released on 1/11/11 and is now available for preorder at www.PinocchioPrinciple.com. I will also be working with a small group of eight people to lead them through this process (based on the book) as well. A few spots still remain. We’ll meet at my office in Phoenix every other Thursday from 11:30am to 1:00pm from 1/13/11 through 6/16/11. For more information or to register, go to www.DianeBolden.com/AIAL.html. The cost is $900 ($75 a session) and payment plans are available.
Become a subscriber at www.DianeBolden.com and receive my free report: Ten Traps Leaders Unwittingly Set for Themselves…and How to Avoid Them.
Though comments are currently closed, please feel free to email me at Diane@DianeBolden.com with your feedback, questions and thoughts. Have a specific challenge you’d like to see a post written about? Let me know. I’d love to hear from you!
Outwitting Overwhelm – from Frustration to Freedom
If you’ve been following my blog for the last few weeks, you may have noticed that many of the posts have been about getting unstuck, overcoming procrastination and overwhelm, and moving forward. That’s because these are challenges I’ve been working through lately. And one of the best ways I know to find answers and solutions to my challenges is, well, to write about them. I think it’s because writing about something requires you to hold a question in your mind that allows you to access answers. Sometimes my answers come through writing, and sometimes they come through in other ways.
One of the insights I received came through watching my nine year old son do his homework. There is a dynamic there that has both fascinated and frustrated me. The kid is really smart. And his homework is really not that hard. He could sit down and finish it in a matter of minutes. But the second he pulls it out of his backpack, something happens that literally freezes him in his tracks. It’s as if a huge mountain has suddenly erupted out of the page and grown into a formidable and intimidating barrier between what he needs to do and his ability to get it done.
He sits and stares at the paper. He complains about the work it requires him to do. He worries that he’s not going to be able to do it right (or at all). And then any little thing that captures his attention suddenly absorbs every ounce of energy and focus he has. A bug. A little drop of water on the counter. The way the numbers on the digital clock change with each minute. Thin air has even captivated him in this state. And hours can go by before he has mustered enough courage and motivation to even raise a pencil to paper.
“Ryan,” my husband and I tell him, “in the time you take to complain and fuss about it, you could have it finished!” “You can easily do this – you are so smart!” we tell him. Amazing. None of that seems to get through.
And then I realized that my son is a mirror image of me when I get overwhelmed.
It’s not that the tasks are all that hard or the obstacles too entirely difficult to overcome. It’s that somehow my mind enlarges them to several times their normal size so that it feels as though I am getting ready to tackle Mount Everest when in reality I only need to take a little stroll around the block. I tell myself stories (sometimes consciously and other times unconsciously) about how difficult things will be – especially things I’ve never done before. And I get sucked into the crazy fallacy I have battled my entire life that has me believing I need to get everything perfect. Before I even realize what’s going on, I feel totally fatigued – can’t even think straight. And then I need to just sit for awhile – or go find something to do that is easy, so I can check a box and feel as though I have accomplished something, anything.
So now I know where my son gets it. Instead of trying to teach him. I have decided to allow him to be my teacher. In addition to showing me what is standing in my way, he has reminded me that all the words in the world don’t make a difference when you are trying to teach someone to do something you have not yet mastered. Kids learn through action, not words. And so do adults.
So if I’m going to do even a lick of good for this kid, (and my other kids, and my clients, and anyone else I might want to help), I have got to get busy working on myself. But how do you overcome a lifetime of perfectionistic patterns that keep you from taking the action necessary to achieve your grandest visions and goals?
With this question at the top of my mind, I went for a run. As with just about any of my runs, the first fifteen minutes was hard. I was tired and stiff. It wasn’t fun. But I powered through it. And then I got into my zone. My legs felt lighter. My breathing evened out. My head began to clear. I started to enjoy myself. And I ran a little faster and a little harder. It felt good.
And then I had a second, equally powerful insight. To break out of the perfectionism trap – to get out of overwhelm, to free myself from my own self-created prison, I simply need to get into action. To take even one small step toward my desired goal – with the knowledge that at first it may be uncomfortable, stilted, far from pretty, less than perfect. And then to take another, and another and another. Until finally I reach my zone. I have a feeling the more diligence and effort I put into those initial steps, the more quickly I will get through that “warm up” period and into a place where I can actually make headway – and – dare I say it – even have some fun?!
So that’s my simple plan. And I’m sticking to it. And when I need a little more motivation and inspiration, I’m going to go hang out with my son for awhile.
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
~ Albert Einstein
Copyright Synchronistics Coaching & Consulting 2010. All rights reserved.
If you liked this post, you may enjoy other articles written about Boosting Creativity, Productivity & Effectiveness. Download these and others for free at www.DianeBolden.com/solutions. While you are there, you can subscribe to receive a new feature article each month. You will also receive my free report on 10 Traps Leaders Unwittingly Create for Themselves – and How to Avoid Them.
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An Antidote to Life’s Frustrations
“An effort made for the happiness of others lifts us above ourselves.”
~ Lydia M. Child (1802-1880) Writer
Do you ever feel so mired in frustration and challenge that you cannot see a way to move beyond it?
When life gets you down, it’s easy to become overly focused on all the things that seem to be a source of discontent. And it is all too easy to become completely absorbed in the feeling of dissatisfaction itself. When we do, this fixation acts as a magnifying glass, expanding to several times their normal size every problem or challenge we have until it all feels too entirely daunting to move at all. And this orientation has a way of somehow attracting all manner of setbacks and further complications our way. As the old saying goes, “when it rains, it pours.”
Perhaps the way we tend to act when we are already feeling defeated contributes to the negative cycle. Or it could be that when we are so intent on seeing all the things that we feel lousy about that even things that would normally not bear weight suddenly feel incredibly heavy. In any case, we all have days where what is going wrong seems to capture more of our attention than what is going right and life just feels like one d@#n thing after another.
At times like these, I believe that the best thing we can do is anything that allows us to go beyond ourselves to be of service to another human being. It may seem somewhat naïve and Pollyannaish to suppose that forgetting all your troubles to go help someone else would do much of anything to change the situation. How could something so simple and cliché have any impact when you feel so overwhelmed that you cannot do another thing?
Like many of us, I was given this advice when I was a child and have heard it repeatedly over the course of my life. Yeah, yeah, I often thought. But whenever I act on that counsel, I find myself surprised and delighted by what ends up happening.
The other day, I woke up to a list of things that needed to get done so long that I had to have a few more cups of coffee just to read through it. Many of the things on my list I had been procrastinating for some time. But they had to get done, and putting them off another day was just going to make things worse. And then I remembered something that happened the previous evening.
Our air conditioner began to sound a lot like an old Volkswagen bug stuck in an idle. The repairman arrived at the end of the day – after spending hours on other calls that ran long and had him laboring on rooftops in triple digit heat. But he managed to patiently and thoroughly check our unit to find that a plastic grocery bag had somehow gotten sucked into the fan. As soon as he removed it, the air conditioner sounded fine.
He could have ended the service call and went on his way. But he didn’t. He stayed and educated me on what I could do to keep the unit running efficiently – and even did some maintenance he wasn’t required to do – which led him to discover and fix potential problems that would have soon become costly repairs. I recall how thankful I was for his service and told him I would put in a good word for him with his boss.
So I made the phone call. I expressed my appreciation and gratitude to his manager and explained that because of his exceptional service, I would definitely be calling that company again. The woman on the other end of the line was delighted to hear good news and eager to give some recognition to the serviceman. I soon realized that making that call not only lifted my spirits, but hers as well. It was this burst of positivity that gave me new energy and a sense of lightness that I brought to all my other activities.
So the next time you find yourself feeling defeated, see if there is something – anything – you can do for another human being. It doesn’t have to be big – just unexpected and uncalled for. I can almost guarantee that it will do just as much for you (and maybe even more) as it will for the other person.
Copyright Synchronistics Coaching & Consulting 2010. All rights reserved.
If you liked this post, you may enjoy other articles written about Inspiring Yourself & Others. Download these and others for free at www.DianeBolden.com/solutions. While you are there, you can subscribe to receive a new feature article each month. You will also receive my free report on 10 Traps Leaders Unwittingly Create for Themselves – and How to Avoid Them.
