Capturing the wind: Generating your optimal flow of energy

(This article was originally published on March 25, 2008 at http://bit.ly/ac8yRd)

When my husband Bill and I began planning our move from Chicago to rural Kansas – as we made initial design and budget decisions for our almost-off-the-grid house – we realized that our biggest single investment we would in our wind turbine.  Now, more than two years later, we’re living in our new house and the wind tower is part of the landscape out of our north-facing windows. It is a beautiful structure, in a quintessentially human-made way.  Tall, straight, and geometric, it’s topped by three glistening white blades and a proud yellow tail perfectly poised to shift and catch the gentlest of prairie breezes.

Every morning I wake up, go into the baby’s room, draw the curtain and open the shade to check and see how fast the blades are spinning.  Will there be plenty of energy to meet all of our electric-powered desires? Or do we need to conserve our energy as we depend on our back-up source to meet our basic household needs?

This was a high energy morning, with the wind blowing through tall grass, rippling across the pond, and spinning through slender white blades high in the sky.

How’s your energy level?

Ours is a pretty high-tech windmill, it’s true. Nonetheless, turning wind into electricity is simple physics: Wind blows; tail shifts; blades turn; electricity hums.

If only we could improve our personal energy flow with a simple twist of the tail!  But, all too often we humans allow our habits, addictions, preferences, and unarticulated priorities to block the flow of energy in our lives.  We make choices about self-care, relationships and time-management that deplete rather than renew us.

Increasing your energy can be as easy as instituting a few new habits or as dramatic as a major lifestyle change.  Either way, the process begins with awareness. If you’d like to have more energy for your life and work, start by taking a moment to check in with yourself. Breathe deeply, get comfortable and complete the following four-part scan.

1. Check in with your body: In this moment, what is the character and level of your physical energy?
2. Check in with your mind: In this moment, what is the character and level of your intellectual energy?
3. Check in with your heart: In this moment, what is the character and level of your emotional energy?
4. Check in with your soul: In this moment, what is the character and level of your spiritual energy?

What did you learn? Is your energy flowing in just the way you’d like it – supporting your best life and your best work?  Is your energy in one or more areas too low?  Or is your energy too frenetic, making it difficult to focus and enjoy your work or time with your family?

Stress & Relaxation

Each of the different energy types (physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual) is like a muscle. Just as a body builder needs to take a day to rest and recover after working out a particular muscle group, we need to find a sustainable balance between exertion and recovery for each energy area. Take physical energy, for instance.  In order to feel at my best physically, I need to exercise and stretch my body for at least an hour every day.  I also need to sleep 8 hours each night.  Effort and Recovery. To stay spiritually connected, I need the rigor of daily meditation and the relaxation of a quiet walk in the hills. Exertion and Rest. To stay intellectually engaged I need the challenge of developing a new project at work and the opportunity to recover with a full day off at the end of the week. Stress and Relaxation.

I’ve drawn on my own experience and the work of other coaches and writers to develop the Energy Inventory below to help you identify ways to boost your energy in one or more areas. Go through the list below and check all of the statements that are true for you.  (Congratulations! Those are the ways in which you are cultivating your optimal flow of energy.) The remaining items give you some clues about what may be draining your energy. What you do with those clues is up to you.

The Energy Inventory

Physical Energy

□        I eat well, including at least 5 servings of fruit and vegetables daily.

□        I stretch my body every day.

□        I know and practice (at least once a day) some form of breathing exercise that helps me tune into the strength and wisdom of my body.

□        I don’t smoke.

□        I drink no more than one caffeinated beverage each day.

□        I drink no more than 3 or 4 alcoholic beverages each week.

□        I exercise every day.

□        I watch no more than 3 hours of television each week.

□        I get at least 8 hours of sleep each night.

□        I have had a full physical within the last 12 months and have been to the dentist within the last 6 months.

□        __________________________________________

□        __________________________________________

Intellectual Energy

□        I read for pleasure.

□        I regularly take it upon myself to learn something that has absolutely no relation to my work.

□        I know my net worth and am comfortable with the flow of money in my life.

□        I regularly engage in some type of professional development.

□        I have a mentor and a mentee.

□        I take at least one complete day off work every week and have set aside time for my next vacation.

□        I set aside time during each workweek to reflect on my leadership, pausing to consciously learn from my successes and failures.

□        I turn off my email and the Internet for several hours every day.

□        I have a place in my home or office where I can work uninterrupted whenever I need to.

□        I have friends and colleagues who challenge my assumptions.

□        __________________________________________

□        __________________________________________

Emotional Energy

□        I have a best friend or a soul mate.

□        I have a circle of friends who meet my needs for sociability and companionship.

□        My friends and family accept me for who I am.

□        There is nothing unspoken between me and any member of my immediate family.

□        I do not have any habits I find unacceptable.

□        Everything about my home environment is just the way I want it to be.

□        Everything about my work environment is just the way I want it to be.

□        I have a coach, therapist, or spiritual director that I can call on in times of transition.

□        I laugh several times each day.

□        I hug someone every day.

□        __________________________________________

□        __________________________________________

Spiritual Energy

□        I have reflected upon what “spiritual” means to me and have begun making choices that deepen my spiritual life.

□        I set aside at least five minutes of quiet time every day for meditation, prayer or contemplation.

□        I have a daily gratitude practice.

□        I have a journal and use it.

□        I listen to music I love every day.

□        I notice and appreciate something about the natural world every day.

□       I spend time outdoors every day.

□        Upon awakening, I acknowledge the new day before I begin reviewing my to-do list.

□        I know my life purpose and can articulate my core values.

□        My work is meaningful to me.

□        __________________________________________

□        __________________________________________

Making the Energy Inventory your own

Of course, if there is anything I’ve listed here that does not feel right for you, based on your values and priorities, cross it off!  But resist crossing something off because it seems unachievable given the way you currently allocate your time.  I’ve left blank spaces in each energy area so that you can add your own ideas to the assessment. I had fun creating this list, and it’s helped me capture some energy that I’ve been missing in these last few weeks, as a longer-than-average Kansas winter hung on by its frosty toenails. My hope for you is that you will enjoy my list as a jumping off point to your list and that – like the yellow tail on our wind turbine – you will make whatever shifts necessary to generate a powerful and continuous flow of energy for your life and work.

I’d love to hear about your experience reading this article, conducting the scan, and using the Energy Inventory.  If you need support or have questions or comments about anything I’ve written, please give me a call or send me an email.

 

On the Leadership High Wire: Focus on Purpose

It’s a vivid metaphor, a nightmare easily imagined by more than one person I’ve coached: Your organization is the circus tent, and the people who have paid good money to see you perform are, instead, tossing jeers and big sloppy spitballs at you from their comfortable seats on the sidelines.

Those who should be gasping when you teeter, seem distracted, and absolutely uninterested in your success.

What is worse, even from mid-air, you recognize their faces: The spitballers are your board members, the men and women who supposedly have the largest stake in your organization.

In meeting after meeting, you do everything you can to engage them. But still, they keep lobbing their excuses and bad advice.

You’ve tried every way to quiet them. You’ve gone along with their ideas, and spent weeks following up on their suggestions. You’ve empathized about the demands of their busy lives, and you are falling-down-dizzy from rushing back and forth responding to their requests and attempting to anticipate their needs.

But, the harder you try to please them, the more precarious your position on the tightrope. You forget where you are going. You’re frustrated. You can’t get anything meaningful done. Your staff is starting to notice.

If you don’t get it together, you are going to crash and fall, and the organization will come tumbling after.

There is a way through.

When you get shaky out there on the tightrope, in the middle of the tent, far from the ground and without a net, the only way through is by going back to basics.

When it seems like no one is on your team, it’s up to you to reconnect with the reasons that you came out to play in the first place.

Reconnect to the purpose of your work.

Ask yourself: What is the purpose that drives my work in civic life? What is the deepest purpose of my work in this organization?

Take a moment to remember the excitement you felt when you took the job. What inspired you the most? What did taking this job say about who you are and what you care passionately about? What opportunities and challenges are even more important than your position or your paycheck?

Think about your aspirations.

★ What kind of impact does your organization make when it is at its best?

★ What does the community need from you right now?

★ What is the first step?

★ What is your priority for the week?

★ For the month?

★ What can you accomplish in the next three months that will give you a deep and real sense of satisfaction in your work?

Breathe deep. Reconnect with the strength of your commitment and the power of your skills and experience. Forget for a few moments about the spitballs. You are purposeful rubber. Spitballs bounce.

When you reconnect with your purpose, your breathing steadies and the teetering slows. You do what needs to be done. You ignore what needs to be ignored. You assess carefully. You say “no” to the peripheral. You say “yes” to the essential. You speak from your heart. You make requests for the help you really need.

Don’t get reckless or vindictive. Take smart, purposeful risks. Don’t lose your job . As Marty Linsky says, disappoint your own people at a rate they can absorb.

Walk your wire with confidence, driven by purpose, and hearts will fall in line. The spitballs will dry up as team members reengage with a shared purpose. You’ll remember what fun it is to be a civic leadership acrobat.

 

Make Your Resilient Leadership Game Plan

Are you repeatedly thrown off-balance, as you juggle all of the people and projects that mean so much to you?

Are you frustrated by the difficulty of mobilizing people when it really counts?

Are you taking care of everyone but yourself?

When is the last time you paused to reflect and learn from your own experience?

Do you have a hard time staying true to yourself amidst the whirlpool of others’ opinions?

Are you just not feeling as resilient as you used to be?

I know that you are committed to making a difference through your work, and your service to you community. If you are like I once was, you feel that in spite of all your hard work and accomplishment, something is missing. You know that you cannot continue to choose between yourself and your mission, but you are not sure how to make it all work.

You need a Resilient Leadership Game Plan. And a partner to challenge and support you as you play.

I help dedicated people like you stay engaged in the difficult work of leadership. I coach people through complicated organizational and personal transitions using muscles I’ve developed over 25 years in the trenches as an actor, nonprofit administrator, and leadership coach. Like you, I’ve dedicated myself to projects that have succeed beyond my wildest dreams, and mourned as no-less-important ones tumbled into oblivion.

As overwhelmed as you have ever been, I’ve been there, and I will share with you the skills and practices I’ve developed to build and maintain my resilience.

Fredrick Beuchner describes your calling as “the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” As a coach, I support you in staying healthy and engaged at your heart’s own intersection of hunger and gladness. My experience has taught me a lot about hope and pragmatism, and I bring both to every coaching conversation.

For over 10 years, I’ve been working with people like you who hold positions of responsibility in their organizations and communities, to help you dig deep, hold steady, and do what is necessary to live a good life while making a difference that extends beyond your lifetime.

Your work requires a daunting range of leadership skills, including the ability to bring people together across factions, speak from your heart, energize others on behalf of a shared purpose. You need to constantly shift your perspective from a birds-eye view to the view from the trenches, where you are sometimes called upon to make some extremely unpopular decisions. Success requires helping your people embrace the change they resist so vigorously.

No wonder you sometimes teeter on the brink of burn-out.

In a coaching program customize for you, I’ll help you renew yourself as you develop leadership skills to meet the challenges you care deeply about. I’ll partner with you to:

☆ Clarify purpose and set goals.

☆ Design interventions.

☆ Evaluate risk.

☆ Diagnose data.

☆ Track progress.

☆ Improvise, stay flexible, and play the game until it’s won.

So much depends on you. You have mountains to move, a mission to meet, family and friends to love, conflicts to resolve, and joy to discover along the way. You ask a lot of this life, and you are more than willing to give back tenfold.

Is it any surprise that you can’t do it alone?

You need a courageous confidant; someone to challenge and support you; someone to encourage you to slow down enough to discover what’s working and what isn’t: You need a straight-talking, heart-centered, deep-listening, provocateur and concrete strategist who will hold you accountable for learning what you need to learn, and doing what you need to do.

As your courageous confidant, I will help you:

☆ Maximize your capacity to make a difference in the world.

☆ Get the people on your team working purposefully and productively together.

☆ Feel healthier, happier, and more connected.
When you create and follow your Resilient Leadership Game Plan, you’ll discover what purposeful leadership really means.

Let’s get started. All you need to do is take 5 minutes to learn how resilient you already are.

Click here to receive your free Resilient Leadership Game Planner and score a free personalized 30-minute coaching session with me, Coach Julia. You will receive a call from me within 48 hours of your download, to schedule your free personalized 30-minute coaching session.

Start winning back your resilience now!

 

What’s Your Resilience Quotient?

If you are engaged in the rewarding and difficult work of civic leadership, then I’m betting that the word resilience has found new prominence in your vocabulary.

What is your Resilience Quotient (RQ)?

Resilience is the attitude that keeps you coming back to the fray.  A high RQ means you have lots of capacity for both reflection and action.

Resilient leadership is reflective – you consciously learn from successes and failures.

Resilient leadership is active – you keep bouncing back from defeat and leading others up from disappointment.  You manage tension, and use what you discover within it to redesign your approach to a problem.

Resilience allows you to continually orient others toward purpose through the foggy reality of community and organizational life. It supports you in staying curious in the face of frustration.

Leadership capacity and the “Resilience Paradox”

Three leadership capacities that we often neglect when the going gets tough are:

1. Holding relentlessly to purpose.
2. Speaking to loss.
3. Testing multiple interpretations.

Under increasing pressure to perform, we focus on tasks and details while failing to maintain the connection to our larger purpose.

We expect our people to suck up their disappointment and deal with necessary changes.  We cling tight to our definition of the problem and drive with blinders on toward the only solution we can imagine.

Paradoxically, consciously practicing those three leadership skills will go a long way toward increasing your RQ.

If you want to become more resilient under pressure, look for opportunities to:

1.  Hold relentlessly to purpose.

• Reflect deeply and regularly, to remind yourself what is so important about the work that you do. Re-articulate your vision for the world and clarify how what you are working on right now supports that vision.
• Practice communicating your purpose to allies and skeptics.  Check in with them to make sure that they are getting it. Don’t give up until they do!
• Assess every intervention in relation to how it moves your purpose forward: Make a hypothesis before you intervene, and follow up by evaluating the results. Then create a follow-up experiment that links even more profoundly to purpose.

2. Speak to loss.

• During these tough economic times you may think that everyone on your team recognizes that they are going to have to give something up.  But understanding something in our mind doesn’t make it easier to accept in our hearts.  You can ease the pain of loss with empathy.
• An insightful and understanding word from the person in authority is sometimes all that is needed to help a team member move on after a disappointment.
• Notice ways in which the economic climate is causing your people to work harder or relinquish aspects of the job that they love. Tell them you know it’s hard. Ask if there is anything you can do to help.

3. Test multiple interpretations.

• Don’t get so caught up in your push towards purpose that you forget the old adage that there is more than one way to skin a cat.
• Look at the problem through the eyes of your staunchest opponent, or from the perspective of someone who is completely apathetic.  Go back to brainstorming solutions with a Beginner’s Mind.
• Ask other people for their thoughts.  Stay curious. Assume you’ve been missing something important.

When resilience wanes, you have a choice.  You can hunker down and avoid the call to leadership, or you can clarify your purpose, listen empathically to people who are hurting, and stay curious about what whose perspectives you are missing.

 

An invitation to reflection.

The Advent of a Brand New Year

As 2009 tumbles to a close, I’ve drawn inspiration from traditional Advent calendars (with their tiny cardboard doors revealing beautiful images, candy, and trinkets) to create a playful and interactive tool for reflection and planning for the year ahead. Click here to check it out.

The calendar includes questions about your work, your leadership, your home life, and your spirit. Just one question each day will guide you down a path of reviewing the year that’s been and setting your intentions for 2010.

Just point and click on the day’s image to reveal your next question. In week one, we take stock of 2009. Week two focuses on the present, with some room for acknowledging failures and growth areas. The week leading up to the Winter Solstice is all about gratitude and celebration. And our questions for the last ten days of the year provide a framework for setting goals and intentions for the new year.

Spend as much or as little time each day on this as you desire. You might choose to simply click on the new question each morning and reflect on it as you go about your day. Or you might make an appointment with yourself for written reflection.

I hope you enjoy it. Please share your experiences in the comment section using the link above.

 

Gratitude – Let me count the days.

Thanks-giving.

It was a chilly Sunday morning in late autumn almost three years ago when my Bill, our dog Pepper, and I hiked out to High Prairie Cemetery.

About six miles southwest of our thriving metropolis of Matfield Green (pop. 62), and at least a mile from the nearest gravel road, the cemetery is a touching relic of the days when pioneers from Ohio, Indiana and points east struggled to make a living on homesteads in these rock-strewn hills. The residents of Thurman, KS built houses, plowed and planted where they could, built a schoolhouse and mustered communal resources to erect a church and establish a cemetery.

Between 1891 and 1903, at least ten people were buried at High Prairie – poignantly, all of them were women and children. Their markers are scattered among a grid of 100 or more empty plots.  It is a lonely but beautiful resting spot for ten souls who did not live to try again in a more hospitable place.

Perhaps the most striking thing about High Prairie Cemetery is the community custom of accounting for each and every day of a loved one’s life.  Sarah Beidler’s gravestone recalls a brief stay of 18 years, 1 month and 2 days.  Her brother Robert survived just 8 months and 27 days.  Clydie B. Riggs’ stone reads 1 year, 8 months, 14 days.  Otto Hines’ family bid him goodbye after only 1 month and 10 days. There are stones for Mattie Mustard, 49 years, 1 month, 2 days, and for Mattie’s son Alva, 14 years, 10 months, 17 days.

The words on those gravestones seem to me to say, “We mourn the loss of this person we love. we are grief stricken. And yet we are grateful for every single day of his life, of her life. ”

Whenever I feel myself flagging, I think about that Sunday morning walk and the lesson about gratitude that I took from the not-quite-forgotten members of High Prairie Methodist-Episcopal Church.

I’m grateful for the 48 years, 2 months and 1 day I’ve lived and learned upon this earth.  I’m grateful for 9 years and 27 days of loving Bill and for the 2 years, 4 month and 2 days since Luke was born. I’m grateful for 20 years and 9 months in the city of Chicago and for these last 3 years and 7 months and 2 days in Matfield Green, where I’ve enjoyed more than a thousand miles of walks in the prairie, at least that many Kansas sunrises, countless little birds, dozens of wild turkeys, scores of whitetail deer, packs of howling coyotes, one elusive bobcat scared out of the grass in front of me one autumn morning, and for the Bald Eagle who sat on our fence post the other day, contemplating which of our chickens to have for lunch.

I’m grateful for the work I do as a coach and the connections I’ve made as I do it, for mentors, students, clients and colleagues. I am grateful for supportive friends and for family members who love me and who let me love them. I’m grateful for autumn in the Flint Hills, for blue skies dappled with gray, and for the wind in the grass outside my window as I write these words. I’m grateful to you for reading them.

What are you grateful for?

Establishing a gratitude practice

To heighten your own sense of gratitude, dedicate the days between now and Thanksgiving to establishing a personal gratitude practice.  Create your own practice or try one of these:

1. For five minutes, once a day, write down everything you can think of that you are grateful for.  Nothing is too small or too silly.  Use a timer if you have one so that you can be completely in the moment as you write. When you are finished, take note of how you feel.
2. Buy a pack of notecards that you like and write a thank you note to a different person every day. Thank them for something specific or simply acknowledge how grateful you are for their presence in your life.
3. Tell at least one person each day how much you appreciate them and why.
4. Take a few minutes in the morning or before you go to bed at night to contemplate gratitude.  Sit quietly, focusing on your breath.  When you feel calm and centered, turn your mind to the word “Gratitude.”  Think about its meaning and about the people and things for which you are grateful.  Gradually let go of the words and simply allow yourself to feel and experience the essence of gratitude.  If your mind wanders, gently bring it back to the word, “Gratitude.”  When you are ready, conclude by giving thanks for the opportunity to practice.

What is your daily gratitude practice?

The power of gratitude

One of my clients keeps a gratitude journal, making an entry each evening, rain or shine.  No matter how difficult the day has been, she knows there is always be something to be grateful for.  Her practice encourages her to notice life’s little gifts and is “a great antidote to feeling sad or depressed.”

Making gratitude conscious, through regular daily practice, is a radically hopeful act.  Gratitude sooths the spirit.  Gratitude returns things to their proper perspective.  Gratitude energizes the body and mobilizes the mind.

Matthew Fox writes in his book Creativity: “Gratitude is the ultimate enabler.  Gratitude moves us from apparent laziness to heroic giving.  Never underestimate the power of gratitude.  It can move mountains.  It can build great things.  It can arouse us to action.  That is why gratitude is the ultimate prayer.  It suffices to get us moving, get us giving birth, get us creating.”

What will happen when you harness the power of gratitude?

 

Making the Most of Your Life – Step 10

Make the Most of Your Life

I want a lot for my clients, colleagues, friends, and others like you, who dedicate their working life (or a big chunk of their free time) to making the world a better place.

If you are contributing to the well-being of this planet and the people who live here through art, service, education, environmental stewardship, health care or any other effort in your community, you have a responsibility to see that you are renewing yourself effectively and constantly.

Moreover, you owe it to those who look to you for leadership to set aside ample time for reflection, to evaluate, learn, plan and make the difficult decisions that your work requires.

When my wishes for you come true…

You thrive in all the roles you play in the world. You feel connected, creative, resourceful and whole. Wherever you are in the organizational chart – you recognize that leadership is an action that is available to anyone at anytime, and when necessary you are unafraid to lead.

Your life is full of nutritious people, including people with whom you can express your full range of emotions. With their support, you know that you can survive even the most difficult times. You know that you are part of a team, a member of a thriving community. Others look to you as a guide when they need to manage loss and navigate change.

When my wishes for you come true, your are open to possibility, wonder, and joy. And the world is a better place because you are making the most of your life.

Are you making the most of your life?

As a coach, I provide support, challenges, an open mind and some structure within which individuals can experiment and grow in their leadership, relationships and satisfaction with life. Each of my coaching clients sets his or her own agenda for our work together, but sooner or later, it seems that we touch on 10 essential steps or pivot-points. In these first few blog entries, I’ve introduced each of those steps and encouraged you to begin to make them your own.

How big is the gap between where you are now and FULL engagement with life?

Without talking with you, I can’t know to what extent you feel you are making the most of your life. Do you feel 80% fulfilled? 60%? Less than 50%?

However large or small the gap, you can start to fill it by paying attention to the first 9 steps.

Step #10: Experiment & Learn.

This 10th and final step is less of a set of directions than it is advice about how to approach the process as a whole: Treat Making the Most of Your Life as an experiment in which you cannot fail, you can only learn.

There is no right order to these steps. And you will probably never be done with them. There is no need to bite off all of this at once. Think of these as steps in a dance and you can jump in whenever, wherever, and however the rhythm moves you.

If the idea of dancing through the steps in order appeals to you, start that way. Devote a week or two weeks to each one, and watch how a deeper fulfillment unfolds for you in the process.

If a more improvisatory approach to the dance appeals to you, by all means, dip into it with one step each day in whatever order you please. Whatever approach you choose, do get yourself a journal and make notes about your progress. Stay curious.

Get the support you need.

If I can support you in any way – in a formal coaching relationship or simply as a friend or a colleague, please let me know. If you need someone else’s support absolutely Ask For It.

I came to coaching as a profession to support and challenge people to make the most of their lives, because I know that if you feel more fulfilled in your heart and in your body, you will have more to contribute to the world. You will be less prone to get caught up in negative self-talk or depression. Or conflict for the sake of conflict. You won’t have time for it.

This is not the only way. It’s not the only dance. It’s not the last word, or the last note in the song of your personal growth and the impact you will have on your community when you are at your best. But it’s a start. And unless you rated yourself as 100% fulfilled and engaged, you owe it to yourself to start where you are and with whatever you can get your hands on. Dance to the music that’s playing.

The stakes are high.

So, get started. Experiment. Learn. Experiment some more. Make the most of your life, so that you can join wholeheartedly with others in making our wishes for this world come true.

 

Making the Most of Your Life – Step 9

Making the Most of Your Life Step #9: Build Your Team

If you want to make the most of your life, don’t do it alone. Ask for help. Create a team to support you as you reach for the pinnacles of effectiveness, creativity and joy. Find people who will catch you if you fall.

Build your team by making requests.

Think about a challenge you are facing now. Perhaps it’s marketing your business and building your client base. Perhaps it’s a fundraising campaign. Maybe you are preparing for a big event, exam or presentation.

Identify the people that you’d like to have in your corner and ask them for help. Share your dream or dilemma, and offer them the gift of helping you be successful.

Make a request.

I know. It’s scary. But do it anyway. Make a request.

Think about it as an invitation. Everyone wants to feel connected. You are offering an opportunity for connection.

Sometimes you’ll sense that someone is already in your corner – or wants to be – they just need some direction about how to get involved. Make your request and then watch with wonder as they unleash their full power on your behalf.

Practice. Practice. Practice.

Start practicing making requests . Hone the skill so that it’s ready when you need it most.

Think about what would make your life more wonderful. Your secret wish or an idea you want to explore. What if you didn’t have to explore it alone? What if it was no longer a secret?

What if you asked someone to…

• Introduce you to that person you’ve been wanting to meet?
• Suggest people that you need to know to build your business or further your mission?
• Sample your services?
• Help you brainstorm?
• Challenge you to think about aspects of your dream that you haven’t considered?
• Help you hone your thinking?
• Provide you with a forum in which to practice what you do?
• Take care of your child for an afternoon?
• Join you as a volunteer on a project?
• Join you for a walk or at the gym?
• Teach you something?
• Give you feedback?
• Be your cheerleader?
• Commit with you to devote the time and attention to building a friendship?
• Help you design an experiment that will move you toward a dream you’ve been dreaming for a long, long time?

Stay open and unattached to outcome

Make your request boldly, but at the same time, practice staying unattached to outcome.
Welcome the response you get, be it “Yes,” “No,” or “Maybe.” Prepare yourself to graciously accept whatever you are offered.

Set the stage

I find that it’s easier for me to make a request if I first let the person know that I’m going to make a request, that I appreciate the opportunity to ask for help, and that it is important to me that they respond from the heart.

I want helping me to add to their life, not subtract from it.

Set the stage for a joyful exchange: A “Yes” is good, but their honest “No” is equally good. And sometimes the best response of all is a creative counter-offer. Your colleague doesn’t want to do exactly what you’ve requested, but has a an even better idea. Celebrate.

“Build Your Team” is not about command and control. (That would be no fun at all.) It’s about making the most of your life while helping those around you to make the most of theirs.

 

Making the Most of Your Life – Step 8

Share Your Dreams

Throughout the summer, in these e-letters, I’ve offered a 10-step process designed to encourage you to consciously make the most of your life. So now, step #8: Share Your Dreams.

This one is really simple: Make your life a dialogue. Tell other people what your life is all about, and see what happens. (Listening helps too.)

Invite them to know you better as they understand just what it is you desire for yourself, and just what kind of change you hope to make in the world. Welcome them to join you. Watch as they become inspired to connect you with the resources you need.

Risk engaging others in dialogue that shifts and changes your dream, perhaps so that it becomes unrecognizable on the way to becoming really meaningful.

Sharing your dreams is simple in concept, but it requires a sense of momentum that may best be gained by revisiting steps 1 through 7.

So, let’s do a quick recap.

1. Eliminate clutter.
2. Practice presence.
3. Pause and reflect.
4. Take great care of your body.
5. Embrace your angels and your demons.
6. Think and talk about values.
7. Know your purposes and priorities.
8. Share your dreams.
9. Assemble your team.
10. Experiment and learn.

Build on what you’ve learned in steps 1-7.

As you eliminate clutter, consider what is essential for your comfort, creativity and sense of connection. Consider what those essentials say about you and your priorities.

What books will you always want to have handy? What keepsake remains on your dresser, instantly available to help revive a memory or a feeling or a person from your past or a sense of who you are at your very core? What kinds of spaces make your house feel like home? What kind of furniture do you want to have there? Who do you want to feel welcome? What activities do you want to make it easy for yourself to return to without thinking or planning?

How will you arrange your space — at home and at work — so that it supports you in practicing presence, making time for reflection, and taking great care of your body? What challenges did you encounter as you worked on steps 2, 3, and 4? What help do you need to meet those challenges?

Considering your strengths and vulnerabilities, what did you learn? Who do you need on your team?

What courage do you gain as you reconnect to your core values and your purpose? What is so important and so true that you must tell the world about it?

Tell the world.

Bring your dreams into conversation with the world. Invite someone into your slightly less cluttered home or office and give that person a tour of what you’ve uncovered. Tell a friend or a colleague how you’ve benefited from consciously practicing becoming more present for your life.

Share a story about a skill you are trying to master or a vulnerability that is getting in your way.

Tell your spouse or your board president about your highest priorities, and what you are doing to make sure that you have time to do the work that matters most of all.

Who knows what might come of it? One thing for sure: It helps to have allies when you are trying to make the most of your life.

Go ahead; open the door to your dreams.

 

Making the Most of Your Life – Step 7

Infusing Your Life With Purpose

We’ve made it to Step #7 in my Ten Steps for Making the Most of Your Life: Know Your Purposes and Priorities.

This may be a good time to mention that what I’m offering is not the ladder to Nirvana — but rather an ongoing process for generating meaning in your life. You may learn and begin to practice the steps one and a time, but the wheel of your life needs all ten spokes to keep itself spinning toward satisfaction.

A purposeful life requires choices.

Step #7 is really about choice making. You can’t do everything. You can’t intervene in every way. You can’t fill every leadership vacuum. You are a capable, talented, wonderful person whose skills and time are in demand, and would be useful in many arenas. You can drive yourself crazy trying to do it all — or you can prioritize based on purpose.

Take time to reflect on purpose.

Take a moment to pause every 24 hours (or so) to review what is most important to you. Reflect through the lens of these three questions:
1. What do I know about my life’s purpose and the values that guide me?
2. What will I do today to bring that purpose alive in the world? (In other words, what is my purposeful goal for the day?
3. What do I need to say “NO” to in order to devote the time and energy necessary to achieving my purposeful goal for today?

Start a conversation between yourself and the world about purpose.

I have a personal mission that informs the mission for my coaching business, and together they are the best, current statement of what I know about my life purpose. You can read them at http://www.coachjulia.net/pages/Mission.html.

My purpose has to do with connecting, and with encouraging people to do what ever they need to do to speed the flow between what Frederick Buechner calls “the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” It’s lofty and it’s mine and it feeds me.

I check in with myself every day to make sure that what I’m doing resonates in some way with my purpose. And it’s a work in progress. Every time I consciously choose one priority over another, every time I say “yes” to one opportunity and “no” to another, I further clarify that purpose.

In this way, purpose becomes an ongoing conversation with myself and with the world.

Remember Stephen Covey and the rocks?

I think that Stephen Covey’s “Big Rock” metaphor, coupled with a few minutes each day to answer the three questions I listed above, is about the best time management regime there is.

If you are unfamiliar with Covey’s concept, just imagine your day or your week or even your year as a Mason jar. Picture all of the things that you could possibly do with your time as either big rocks, pebbles, sand or water. The priorities you choose based on a sense of purpose (your own or your organization’s) are the big rocks. Tasks and commitments that are necessary (or fun) but not as connected to purpose are the pebbles. Less purpose-related tasks are the sand, and then, finally, the water.

Fill your daily Mason jar up with sand or water, and there won’t be any room left for the rocks and pebbles. A succession of days devoted to sand, water and pebbles, leads directly to burn-out.

But start your morning with a connection to purpose, and with identifying the goal that is your “Big Rock” for the day, and you’ll find there’s still plenty of room in your jar for everything else. Achieving your big rock goal provides you with a sense of meaning and the satisfaction of making progress on something truly important, while generating the energy necessary to deal with the nuts and bolts of life and work.

If there is one step in the process of Making the Most of Your Life that could be a short cut to everything else, this is it.