3 Questions to Rediscover Yourself

 3 Questions to Rediscover Yourself resilience emotional intelligence

“I just can’t get over the fact that my CEO gave the VP role to an outsider who doesn’t have the expertise or experience I have. I’ve been so loyal and have demostrated my value many times over the years.  It’s not fair and it’s turning me into someone I’m not,” one of my clients said to me. It had been almost a year since this had happened and my client was struggling.

“Who do you want to be?” I asked.

There was a long pause. “I honestly don’t know anymore as I’ve been so focused on not getting the promotion I’ve lost my overall sense of purpose in this job.”

We all have setbacks like these and truly resilient people find a way to make meaning of these situations, re-invent themselves and rediscover their overall purpose. So here are three questions to begin that process:

  1. Who are you being right now?
  2. Who do you want to be?
  3. What do you need to give up to be that person?

It took a few sessions but my client realized that she needed to let go of her righteous indignation as it was blocking her from being the confident, creative and strategic person she wanted to be.

For those of you who follow my blog this is the first in a series of posts about resilience which is built around the word PAUSE.  The P in PAUSE stands for:

P – Purpose. We live in a VUCA world (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) and so it’s easy to forget about the important things and just survive from day to day. Resilient people are clear about their overall purpose in life, whether that is simply to be a kind person, be the best parent ever, look after the earth, contribute to those who are less fortunate or to bring about radical change in the world. Discovering and then living our purpose is a key first step towards resilience.

Getting clear on our purpose is a lifelong continual process of reflection and action. In addition to the three questions posed earlier, I have found these strategies helpful:

  • Know yourself. Resilient people continually learn about themselves, their values, strengths, who they wish to be and what they want to accomplish. There are many ways to do this, including values and personality assessments, getting feedback from others and taking time to reflect.
  • Set goals/intents. During times of turbulence, it’s important to be working towards something bigger. Some people are continually working towards big goals while others prefer to set intents about who they want to be, rather than what they want to accomplish.
  • Plan small wins. Resilient people feel like they are making progress on a daily basis and build small wins into their days so they feel that, even if the major challenges are still there, they feel like they’ve made progress towards something that day.

Take some time to get re-acquainted with your purpose and then watch this space for the A in PAUSE … it’s something that almost everyone who works in resilience talks about!

There’s no bad weather.

 Theres no bad weather. resilience emotional intelligence
“There’s no bad weather, there’s only inappropriate clothing,” my sister reminded me during a winter outing in Alberta. 

“And a crappy attitude towards winter,” I thought as I watched her family play excitedly in the snow in their backyard while I stood in the doorway whining about how much I hated winter.

Given that I had moved to a warmer climate many years earlier, my clothing at the moment sucked, as did my attitude. My lack of weather resilience during the winter was one of the factors that prompted my move.

We are living in bad weather right now, if not literally wherever you are right now, then certainly figuratively. These are unpredictable times where “that could never happen” is indeed happening. Since most of us cannot control or influence much of that bad weather, we are left with donning appropriate clothing and attitudes.

This is the realm of personal resilience, the ability to thrive in the midst of any kind of situation.  Thankfully I have developed a fair bit of personal resilience over the years, even if I still do struggle with winter. 

Perhaps the first key to resilience is recognition that your life doesn’t have to be determined by what’s happening around you. We need to take a pause, and consider our path forward. My question to you is, “what clothing do you need right now to manage the weather?”

For more tips and strategies on personal resilience, it’s not too late to sign up for my online course which starts this week.

And watch this space as I will be revealing the 5 factors I consider central to personal resilience in 5 separate blogs over the next few weeks.

Season’s Greetings!!

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I wish you and yours a wonderful holiday season and a happy, healthy and abundant 2017. Thanks for your support and interest in my blogging! All the best for the season – Tammy 

On Empathy

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“But what if I really don’t care if my co-worker’s dog died? I am so not a dog person and don’t get all this pet stuff that people get into. I get that empathy is important but if I’m not feeling it, wouldn’t it be worse if I faked it?”

Touché. I had been facilitating a workshop on emotional intelligence and was talking about one of the important qualities for leaders, empathy. It was a great question and a challenge shared by other leaders I’ve worked with.

Empathy doesn’t mean total identification with someone’s specific experience, but rather recognition of the human experience of suffering. If we can get in touch with times we’ve suffered – experienced loss, sadness, loneliness – then we can use that experience to connect to another person and express empathy authentically.

Getting Over Procrastination

 Getting Over Procrastination perfectionism learning happiness emotional intelligence decision making change

I can be a procrastinator at times (even about things I want to do!) and have been thinking about the combination of things that leads me to procrastinate and how I might address that. I realized that it`s the intersection of three things … thinking that whatever I need to do is too big, too hard and that I have to do it all at once. I love blogging, for example, but if you have been following my blog you know I go through periods of regular blogging followed by no blogs for months!

I realized this past fall (after not having blogged for over six months!) that these three things were at play. So I was able to start again by telling myself to spend 10 minutes just thinking about the blog, even if I didn`t do anything else with it that day. Well, to my amazement I did an entire blog that day!

I have a work project right now that feels too big and too hard and so I am reminding myself of bigger and harder projects I have done. Then, I am committing 10 minutes towards the project. This combination seems to be working for me for now!

What are your patterns of procrastination and how have you deal with them?

In This Moment …

 In This Moment ... mindfulness learning happiness emotional intelligence

When I returned from my vacation this past September, I wasn’t able to give myself the weekend to transition as I usually do. I went from a very chilled out and quiet lake resort to downtown Vancouver in a matter of hours! As I was walking towards my hotel and witnessed two incidents of road rage while ambulances, sirens screaming, raced by, I became very aware of how anxious and grumpy I had become. Thanks to my mindfulness work with the wonderful Jivi of Winds of Change I remembered that I didn’t have to react this way, that I just needed to take one minute standing on that busy street corner and find my present center. I stood to one side of the sidewalk, took a deep breath and reminded myself that I was alive, had everything I needed and that I was just witnessing the range of human experience.

The next time you find yourself feeling anxious try saying to yourself … “In this moment” with the following prompts:

  • I am breathing and alive!
  • I observe that …
  • I notice that …
  • I feel …
  • I wonder about …
  • I appreciate …
  • I can choose to be …

There may be other prompts that work for you … but starting with “In this moment, I am …” led me to a very different experience that day!

Whining is Not a Strategy!

 Whining is Not a Strategy! strategy 2 leadership emotional intelligence decision making communication appreciative inquiry

In our strategic leadership workshops, we often hear from people some version of “But so and so won’t let me …” or “I’ve complained many times about our company’s … ” or “Our organization is so messed up that …” to which we sometimes say (kindly of course  Whining is Not a Strategy! strategy 2 leadership emotional intelligence decision making communication appreciative inquiry  that “Whining is not a strategy.” If you are whining or looking at what is wrong, you cannot see opportunities and will not develop your skills. If, for example, you don’t think you are being provided with enough clarity about your job, instead of continuing to complain about or ask, over and over again, for clarity, ask yourself what you could learn about dealing with ambiguity. That will definitely lead to your next opportunity to learn and grow which is indeed a better strategy than whining!

Why Ask Your Head When Your Gut is Screaming?

 Why Ask Your Head When Your Gut is Screaming? learning emotional intelligence decision making
I would love to say that I always trust my intuition, but sadly I do not. And sadly, not trusting my intuition has resulted in me taking on work and projects that were not good for me, inevitably leaving me with confidence and competence shaken.

So why do we ask our heads when our guts are screaming? For me, it usually comes down to two patterns:

  1. Wanting people to say good things about me. I have taken on projects or agreed to work with people when my gut was screaming no. I went ahead anyway because I was worried what they might say about me. Ironically, the outcomes were even worse than if I had said no to begin with. I rationalize the decision by saying things like “you never know what they might say to …” but really I get work by doing good work, not by trying to figure out who might say what to whom. And I do good work when I listen to my intuition. Duh.
  2. Thinking there’s not enough – of whatever. When I’m in scarcity mode I ignore my intuition and get involved in messy projects. I rationalize it by saying I could learn something, this could be an adventure, I shouldn’t be uppity about the type of work I take, I need the money, be glad you’ve got work, etc.  When I reflect on these situations honestly, it has always cost more, whether emotionally or financially, when I ignored my intuition.

What has helped me listen more to my intuition is to think long term and develop better skills at saying no in a respectful way.  When don’t you trust your intuition and how have you addressed this?

Go Where You’re Loved

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I remember listening to an author once (sorry I can’t recall who it was!) who was asked about how she dealt with critics of her work. She replied, “I go where I am loved.” Most of us already have really well developed inner critics and so we don’t need to seek them out. Going where we are loved to find an audience for our work and our style (whatever work that might be!), leaves more energy to continue developing ourselves. Continually going down a path with people who don’t appreciate who we are leaves us demotivated, uninspired and worn out. Find those who love you and nurture them!

Didn’t I Do This Yesterday?

 Didnt I Do This Yesterday? uncategorized leadership creativity coaching change  Vanity Fair Bruce Springsteen
I’m a bit of a biography nut and was intrigued by an article on Bruce Springsteen in a recent Vanity Fair article. In it he stated that, ““You have to create the show anew, and find it anew, on a nightly basis,” Springsteen said. “And sometimes,” he concluded, laughing, “it takes me longer than I thought it would.” Later on in the article, he says, “I’ve always felt a lot in common with Sisyphus. I’m always rolling that rock, man. One way or another, I’m always rolling that rock.”

I was struck by the connections to creativity and leadership in what he said. Our creativity gets expressed when we continue to push that rock uphill. In my case, just because I may have created a blog I really liked yesterday (or many other previous days!), doesn’t mean I don’t have to go through my creative process again and find some inspiration. While my creative process might become familiar to me, I don’t know that it’s gotten any easier. Some days that rock is pretty heavy!

And this is certainly true of leadership as well. We need to show up every day and find the inspiration and best parts of ourselves. Just because we made a difference one day doesn’t mean we don’t need to do the same the next day. We have to recreate our passion and commitment for leadership every day. And that, too, can feel like pushing a big rock uphill.