Values: Personal Brass Tacks

A key to knowing yourself is being crystal clear about what is absolutely fundamental to you. What drives you personally and professionally? What underscores how you choose to live and be in this world? An unclouded picture of your personal beliefs, principles, YOUR values positions you to fully articulate and illustrate your preferred future. Without that clarity this is darn near impossible to do.

Think of values as your personal brass tacks, what you won’t compromise. It is painful when we do experience life in conflict with our values. Values are  compass points to help you get clear, get into action that is on course come smooth sailing or rough waters, to get results which and get a better life. A fundamentally gratifying life in all its guises- not a mindlessly “blissful” life devoid of worry, stress or hardship. People who live the “good life” in a fundamental way, live with happiness grounded in a deep-rooted sense of harmony and flow with their values and deploy their strengths to help realise their Values. This sense of happiness a profound satisfaction and contentment is reflected in how they live their daily lives regardless of the environment you are experiencing. I know all this to be true from my personal experiences as well as my work with clients in clarifying values and taking action according to them. If you have been reading this blog for a while you know that I have referenced values in multiple postings over the past several months.

Ayn Rand is not some I generally quote however, she has one of the finest statements on values and happiness I have encountered: Happiness is a state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievements of one’s Values.

But what exactly is a Value? What does the word mean? Being a bit of a logophile (someone who loves words) I headed to the dictionary- well several really. Here’s what I found: it can be a verb or a noun and takes on many shades of meaning dependent on the context in which the word is used. The word value in general connotes “worth” and implies there is an intrinsic excellence or desirability to have it. Values are the qualities, characteristics and trains you consider worthwhile. They are your deeply held driving forces. Your personal brass tacks, when you get right down to it, what matters post to you and how you choose to live and by in this world personally and professionally.

Attention to your values affords you great strength and serves as a powerful bottomless resource personally and professionally. You become more self-aware, prioritize tasks, make choices inline with your ethics and live as your fully authentic self. The deep self-awareness that comes from values clarification, provides an opportunity to step back and see what story you are telling through your life. That is, to understand how people perceive you, how you perceive yourself and how you would like to be perceived. You create the opportunity to identify the personal qualities that you would like to enhance and which you would like to change.

Values influence your choices, but your choices also influence your values over time.  At certain junctions and times in life some of your values take on a greater sense of urgency or some may drift away and while other may take their place. There are however, likely some absolute core values you hold which do not ebb and flow over time. At a recent Values Clarification workshop I hosted  one of the participants remarked that before becoming a parent orderliness was tremendously important in his home, his office, all aspects of his life, but now, reflecting on impact of parenting orderliness is still important but adventure is also deeply important, “Adventure is generally messy, literally and figuratively, a bit more mess in my life is good. My desk is still neat, I still know where all the bills are and when they need to be paid, but not everything has by perfectly aligned. My kids have taught me that.”  If you neglect to examine the congruence of your actions with your values, your actions may be misguided by old assumptions that no longer hold true for you, or immediate concerns and instant gratification rather than your values.  And that as we have learned over the past couple years is not a path to long term success, stability or credibility. It is just no way to live.

Because Values are foundational, I am beginning a short series focusing on this topic. Over the next month or so we’ll explore to clarify your values and be mindful of them as a resource in all aspects of your life, personal and professional.  I look forward to explore this topic with you and invite your comments to enrich this exploration.

Avoid Burnout? Why yes I’d love to, what do you suggest?

Avoid Burnout? Why yes I’d love to you and I imagine we all would.

Rich Tips is a newsletter I receive, a recent issue had a wonderful succinct list ten tips to avoid burnout. Richard Male and Associates is an international non-profit consulting firm and produces a weekly newsletter targeting non-profit organization. As written these 10 tips are for Executive Directors or persons in other leadership positions, but there is wisdom in these tips that can be used by all of us. My additions are in italics.

Tips on How to Avoid Burnout

Executive directors easily get burned out. What with the conflict situations that arise between staff and board, the overwhelming feeling of not knowing where the next paycheck is coming from, and the general sense of stress that comes with being the leader of a non-profit — it’s no wonder executive directors lose their sanity from time to time.

This week, let’s take a look at how an executive director or other leader of a non-profit can preserve his/her sanity amidst the ups and downs of running a non-profit organization.

1. Don’t take everything personally. For example, when you get turned down for a grant, don’t let it get you down on a personal level. Instead, learn from the experience and vow to do a better job at securing the grant next time. When you don’t get the response you immediately expect from some at work, home or play, step back and consider is the response really about you or is it more about what is going on for the other person?
2. Stay focused on the goal and don’t get crazy dealing with the every day details of what you have to do. Keep your eye on the bigger picture.
3. Anticipate rather than react; plan ahead. People have a tendency of driving through the rear view mirror. When you anticipate your future and plan ahead you will prevent many of the roadblocks in your path to success.
4. Build a team. It is important to have a team of people who share the same vision and mission and are willing to take on the appropriate responsibilities and workload. This is as true for your family life, as well as, at work, in your social life, volunteer work, etc. Some times your load will be heavier than others. Sometimes you need to call in reinforcement. Sometime you need to clearly, politely call attention to an unfair or untenable imbalance. Be clear headed, calm and focused when you do.
5. Minimize internal conflicts. I have seen very healthy people get burned out almost overnight when there was an internal conflict with the staff or board members. Bend over backwards to support your staff, make them look good, and give them credit when they earn it. It is the team — not the superstars — that will win the games. Again, this is as true for your family life, as well as, at work, in your social life, volunteer work, etc.
6. Be proactive with your board. Your board members are critical elements in your drive toward success. Make sure you are spending adequate time with them in between board meetings. Being proactive period can do a lot to blunt the effects of stressful times, and I some cases circumvent a stressful event.
7. Take a vacation. Make sure you take time off each year to rejuvenate yourself. This will help you deal with some of the insanity of the non-profit. Reminder folks and this is one I say all the time, ask any of my clients, colleagues, friends or family “the world will continue to rotate on its axis if you are not at the office.” Really it will. And if it won’t there are much bigger problems at hand that you can not address alone, so might as well take a breather
8. Hire a coach to work with you to provide the emotional support that will help you succeed. A coach can help you navigate the swells in life and work, they may provide emotional support, but more importantly they will create a space to purposely reflect, support you in charting a forward route, help keep you on course, so that you may succeed.
9. Realize that everything in NOT a crisis. Learn to differentiate between an urgent and non-urgent situation.
10. When you feel overwhelmed, try to stay calm. If you always over-react to situations you will lose control over what you should be doing and your staff will lose confidence in your ability to deal with problems. We all get stressed out. We all get overwhelmed some times. There are numbers ways you can check and changes your reactions. Here are just a few, a coach, mentor, or counselor can help you discover and uses techniques that work for you.  Try a two part assessment, first what is really or is this really a threat and second; if it is what can I realistically do about it? Explore how mindfulness can help you be calm and present.  Breath, deeply, consciously when you feel overwhelmed.

What is your best tip for avoiding burnout?

Coming Attractions

Things are really beginning to pick-up speed here, almost as fast as the leaves are falling on my front yard. Things happen when you put focused effort behind your intentions, wisdom from my parents being proved yet again. There several upcoming events and happeningst that I’d like share with you.

Coming in November

Knowing and Living Your Values: From Self Awareness to Meaningful Action

Would you like to live, work and get results with peace and confidence in this turbulent world? Position yourself for success by making decisions rooted in your values and taking proactive steps to achieve the results you want with a sense of peace, even in a chaotic world.  This dynamic 4 week program will help you get clear, get into action and start getting results. Participated in a previous Values workshop? This course will help you take things to the next level.

• Get crystal clear about your values
• Set and take action on goals grounded in your values
• Get support where you get stuck and begin to
• Get the results you want at home or at work.

When: Saturdays, Nov. 7, 14, 21 & Dec. 5;  10:30 am – 12:00 pm

Location: Inner Wisdom, 31 N Kellogg St, Galesburg, IL

RSVP by Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009 at (309) 343-8806, Inner Wisdom

There is a minimum of 4 people and a maximum of 12 people for the course

Investment: Readiness to make lasting change, openness to possibilities and $225

Benefits: Clarity, Focus, and Results

Coming soon

Where the Stress Things Are: A Workshop to Start Taming Your Stress Things

A hands-on workshop to clarify and prioritize what stresses you most, identify practical and personalized strategies to tame your stress and create a plan of ongoing attack

A short series on personal and professional Values will be featured in November on my blog. Values are foundational brass tacks and clarity about your personal brass tacks allows you to purposefully deploy this knowledge create a personally successful and satisfying life. Attention to your values affords you great strength and serves as a powerful bottomless resource.

November 9^th I begin a Wellness Coach certification program through Wellcoaches, which is setting the gold standard for wellness, health and fitness coaching, with a strategic partnership with the American College of Sports Medicine. One of my goals in life is to help increase access to health and wellness services for all people and so I will be accepting a limited number of new clients who are interested in making lasting changes in their well being at a discounted fee for my services. If you know of people who would benefit from some support in building their self-efficacy and making lasting positive changes regarding their well being or other aspects of their life, please feel free to refer them to me.

As ever I invite you to visit my website as well as my blog. I welcome your feedback comments and suggestions.

All my best wishes,

Deirdre

Five Simple Steps to Change- they really do work!

When we last left our dancing heroine she was undertaking part 5 of her Gremlin Taming Plan on the dance floor at the 46^th Annual Harvest Moon Championship Ball; in front of God, Jose Dechamps and Joanna Zacharewciz (current undefeated US Rhythm Champions) and everyone else in attendance. To recap: she choose option B) Not. Not to do the same mental steps over and over, letting the jitters best her, but to instead create new choreography to better suit the rhythms of her life and stretch her capacities as a dancer and as a person.

So how did our heroine do? Beautifully. None of her worst fears and Gremlin’s favorite tall tales came true. She did not miss a spiral turn and do a face plant. She did not run from the dance floor, on the verge of tears because she blew the routine. No one said, “What the heck do you think you are doing? Do your REALLY think you belong out there on the floor?”

Did the steps always flow beautifully? No, but that is okay, because they moved across the metaphorical floor of life with a positive energy.  Better yet when she did miss a grapevine or spiral turn, she just kept moving into the next pattern of steps. Each pass on the floor, each heat became easier. Practice makes perfect, right?

Change, lasting change, is about cultivating new habits. Conditioning yourself, to think, act and ultimately live differently than in the past. Change takes time, and practice and sometimes not reaching your mark.  When you don’t reach your mark easily that is an opportunity to try a new tact.  When you do reach you mark that is an opportunity to do it again, again and again until it’s just the way to do “It”- whatever “It” is for you. These new habits become the familiar steps in your life’s choreography. You can always choose to rearrange them or incorporate new ones into your dance.

Was the experience interesting and beneficial? Yes. So, the jitters remained for our heroine but were transformed into positive stress propelling her and her partner across the dance floor. Reinforcing self-efficacy. Igniting the deep sense of gratification of accomplishing a personal goal. When our dancer was awarded high honors for an Argentine Tango routine and told she would be performing the routine as part of Saturday night’s events – events that included rounds of professional competition and performances by Jose Dechamps and Joanna Zacharewciz, she did not pass out cold. She got her game face on eventually, took some very deep breaths, straightened out her big girl panties, headed for the door and danced her heart out in front of a crowd. She was humbled and thrilled to hear people clapping and grateful for the opportunity to take a risk.

Crossing the Finish Line: Job Well done Team

Some months ago I posted an entry about the Tour de France as a metaphor for how support networks help us to reach our personal finish lines, our goals, especially those goals that are a stretch. Each member of the team offering their unique strengths and gifts to help propel you towards your end goal, celebrating each individual’s efforts and  achievements along the journey as well as the exultant relief of crossing the finish line- job well done. And what’s more so discovering that you can do something hard and long, that you can discover new resources of ability and drive and radiate in gratification from the experience. Gosh talk about a good win. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, a.k.a The Yarn Harlot had a post about completing a 5 K race to raise funds for breast cancer research that illustrates this with humor and grace. Below is a snippet …

“The delightful creature on the left in this shot is my sister-in-law Katie’s friend Lexa, who is an actual distance runner and some Canadian Version of Sporty Spice.  (After the run she went to yoga and then to play vollyball. It didn’t even touch her energy level)  and Lexa did Kate and I the favour of pacing us for the race.   When she said that we were all going to stick together for the race, I was mortified – and not at all sure it was a favour.  All I could think of was that I was not only going to hold them  all back with my pathetic wheezing and molasses like speed, but that I also wasn’t going to be able to let my failure be a secret. Like most people,  I prefer my humiliations pretty private, so it was all I could do not to insist that they leave me to my fate.  She insisted, and it turned out to be wonderful. She’s the best kind of encouragement.  Cheerful, kind, and firm as bloody concrete.”

I encourage you to look at her 10/6/06 post to read the entire story. If you are not a knitter scroll past the knitting  photos until you see the one of 4 women ready to run and read on.  Be inspired. Set yourself a stretch goal, gather your strengths, guts and team and get into action. Keep going, when you are winded take a moment to collect your breath and then keep moving forward, you might just be surprised by how close the finish line is on the horizon.

Five simple steps to change: You’re the Choreographer for Your Life.

The big girl panties, professional weight tights, performance shoes, rhinestone festooned dresses and an alarming amount of foundational garments are unpacked and spread around the hotel room. This weekend is the 46th Harvest Moon Championship Ball and I am  competing prepared to tame some Gremlins on the dance floor again. I am off to the Ball with my glass slippers and nerves of steel, well almost.

Today, I put on my rhythm dance armour, to Cha-Cha, Swing (East and West Coast), Rumba, Mambo, Bolero and Argentine Tango my way through the nerves I inevitably feel when performing.  Yes, I will most likely always have a strong feeling of jitters about performing, but how I choose to interpret and react to the sensation of the jitters is entirely under my control.  I am giving myself two options… sometimes its best to narrow down the options of ourselves like we do for kids: You can pick which pants you want to wear, the red ones or the purple ones, but you are going to wear pants… to help with making decisions, but I digress.  I can a) let them over run me, or b) not. Now the second option which is the one I am choosing is not as simple as “not” implies. “Not”, option b, is the what, not the how of my Gremlin Taming Plan. My “not” is changing the normal choreography I  would have followed and changing the steps and quality of movement I bring to the experience.

Let’s unpack the how my Gremlin Taming Plan, there are 5 parts.

Part 1:  Acknowledge that what causes me concern – the jitter, nerves, performance anxiety whatever you want to call it- exist.

Part 2:  Examine what story I am telling about them and look for evidence about why my concerns are founded and unfounded. No one likes to make mistakes, and it can be very disconcerting to make them in public, and YIKES! there are current and former professional national champions here, watching , glup… What am I nuts for thinking I can get out on the floor and look as if I belong here… Heavens to mercury what if I catch my heel and do a face plant instead of a spiral turn… blah, blah, blah.

Part 3: Weigh the consequences I get from my story. Well if you focus on what might happen, especially what bad things might happen you’ll never get to see what good things might happen.

Part 4: Retell my story in a new more positive, proactive voice. You have trained. You have practiced. You have some skills and more importantly you LOVE to dance. You like to watch other people dance and they in turn like to watch you to dance and we all want to do well here. The better I am the better they are, so really this is a win-win. And if for some bizarre reason you do a face plant in place of a spiral turn it will become a memorable cocktail story.

Part 5: Live out my new story and see how my energy shifts. I’ll let you know, but I think it will be something along the lines of this. I whirled and twirled, smiled, cha-cha’ed and contributed to a day filled with excitement, joy and encouragement for many people. It was a success and really gratifying and dang it a lot of fun.

There is no magic formula here and many other folks have outlined in their own words and ways how to begin shifting your normal patterns of thinking and doing. I offer the metaphor of choreography for your life and that you as an adult are the primary choreographer for your life. You can choose to do the same steps over and over, or you can choose to rework your movements to better suit the current rhythms and stretch your capacities. Will it always flow beautifully? No, not likely. Will the experience be interesting and beneficial? Yes. So go find your rhythm, listen to the story is offering and tell your best story now as well as you can.

Flying Along the Edge of Chaos

This is a time of great creative vitality in the air.  Some folks are tapping into their creative vitality because necessity is the mother of invention.  Others because they have had of enough of going through the motions, or doing what they think they are “supposed to do” and ready to take risks to craft a better life. The people who really impress me are the ones like my sister R, and two friends M and T all of whom making big career changes, but are dreaming responsibly. Each of these women has made calculated decisions to actively pursue their careers in a new way. All are educators who felt the need to grow professionally in ways that support a positive environment, stretch them, align with their values and adds to the richness of their whole lives, including their families. Two are actively pursuing Graduate studies while working full time in new roles; as an assistance principle and as librarian. The other has elected not to pursue tenure at the college where she’s been employed for the past 5 years, because the environment feels poisonous to her. Each woman is taking risks, working hard, facing the unknown courageously and focused on gratification. Long term, lasting gratification born from exploring, exploiting and building on their innate strengths, exercising their personal agency to craft their lives to suit their most important needs, make the most of their abilities and position each for long term authentic happiness.

Thursday, Oct. 1, 2009 was my first day of fully committing my working time to my Coaching and Consulting practice. This is an exciting adventure; this new chapter in my professional life is one I have been working towards for many years. The overwhelmingly positive responsive I have received regarding this new chapter in my professional life has been and will continue to be a great boost. Thank you. While I have the plot line and characters outlined in great detail and in some cases fully realized, there are additional possibilities for me cultivate and others unknown to be open to as well. I am fortunate to have many sources of information and wisdom from which to draw:  my mentors, my family, friends, colleagues and clients to name a few.  It is time for me to be on the “Edge to Chaos” and fully attend to creating a better future for my husband, my family, my friends and my community, and consequently myself as are R, M and T.

As I talked about in my Crafting a Future on the Edge of Chaos post “Edge of Chaos” is a concept explored in complex adaptive systems and is a place for growth.  Defining features of complex adaptive systems is they form entities that are greater than the sum of their parts and the parts that make them are whole systems in their own right (Dimitrov, 2003).  My family, my clients, my colleagues, you my readers and all the elements in the varied networks that intersecting in my professional and personal realms make up the larger complex adaptive system of my life.  Each adds a unique dimension and opportunity or challenge, for growth and change along the Edge of Chaos.

There are four broad areas of activity associated with Edge of Chaos:

1. Setting vision
2. Creating boundaries
3. Ensuring adequate communication flow
4. Empowerment

Couple these areas of activity with reality-based hope, openness to possibility and you can create a vision for your future that becomes real. In the coming weeks and months I plan to share with examples of how I and other people I know who are also making big changes are living these areas of activity out. I also invite you to share with me and the readers of this blog examples of how you are/have done the same.

Saturday Night Fever: A Tale of Dreams Coming True

Last Saturday night a group of ordinary people did something exceptional. They put on their dancing shoes, wiped nervous sweat from brows, fluffed out feathers, straighten ties, step on stage and danced as part of the local YMCA’s Dancing for Dreams event, helping to raise more than $19,000. A whopping $4,000 more raised than the previous year’s event and darn close to this year’s goal of $20,000. We may make it yet, as money is still rolling in day by day. Dancing for Dreams is the primary fundraiser for our YMCA and the funds raised helps to provide scholarships for kids and families who otherwise would be unable to take advantage of the health and wellness services provided by our local YMCA.

Seven local stars and 6 people fulfilling the role of “professional partners” carried on a tradition that began three years ago when a couple of local women thought that an event based on the Dancing with the Stars phenomenon might make a good fundraiser. Being formidable, resourceful and persuasive they sold the idea to the YMCA Director. With virtually no budget, but with much dedication they pulled in a number of people, including me, to pull to get the first event, which raised a $5,000, a sum that seemed impossible at the time. So the next year the event grew merging with an auction (live and silent) event already in place for the YMCA. Year two the dancers alone again raise a sizable sum, and now we happily repeated this achievement again. Part of what makes this so amazing is this event occurs in a small Midwestern town (population 9,900), where farming remains a strong way of life and there is limited industry.

It is a privilege to for me to be part of such an effort, three years running now. All of dancers are amateurs with the exception of one young ballroom instructor. This wonderfully motley crew, spends hours learning to dance, learning their choreography, selling tickets to the event, as well as figuring out costumes and having some real fun. It’s gutsy for our local stars in particular, to get out on stage to dance, as the evenings entertainment.  Our stars have included, a high school librarian, attorneys, a retired judge, the county clerk, a physician’s assistant, a program director, a bank president, several business owners, an optometrist, the art center director, a school superintendent and the YMCA’s Executive Director (who by the way has got some good rhythm).  My hat is off to all of our local stars and “pros” who have tackled the Waltz, East Coast Swing, Bolero, Tango, Foxtrot, Jitterbug, West Coast Swing, Rumba, Hustle, Cha-Cha and Samba over the past three years. Most of these folks don’t dance regularly, some may never dance again, and some you could not imagine dancing in the first place, but each of them has said how much they enjoyed the experience. For some it has been a dream to learn how to dance. For some it was just an interesting way to support a good cause. All of them put their best foot forward, took a risk and made magic happen.

It astounds me what can happen when people put steady, solid actions together with dreams and hope.

New Season, Noomii, New You?

Noomii is an exciting  resource I would like to share with you. Noomii is an online tool for life coaching, business coaching, and career coaching that uses the power of weekly coaching sessions to help you achieve your goals. There are two ways to use Noomii: with a professional life coach or with their free pair coaching system in which you and a partner take turns coaching each other. Either way, it’s easy, fast, and fun.

Pair Coaching is Noomii’s innovative new system for helping you and your friend make your goals a reality. Every week, you and your coaching partner get together for a coaching session, just like you would with a professional coach.  Pair coaching is a new kind of life coaching in which two people take turns coaching each other. Instead of working with a professional life coach, you first coach your partner, and then switch roles and your partner coaches you in return. Pair coaching with Noomii is 100% free – you simply provide your time, encouragement, and a commitment to be there for your partner. Pair coaching is a great way to try life coaching to see if it’s right for you. The best part is that anyone can be an effective pair coaching partner; Noomii shows you how! Many of our users start out with pair coaching and then hire a professional life coach when they want to take their coaching to the next level. Find out more in their FAQ section.

I am delighted to be among the professional coaches listed on Noomii and to be able to suggest this resource to my clients friends and family.

May the coming weeks be bountiful and inspirational for you, may you rest well tonight and be ready to go tomorrow morning to tackle whatever comes your way.

Respect, searching and support: It’s not easy being green

Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too. – Voltaire

We are privileged to live in a society where our freedom of thought and speech are protected and nurtured. The preponderance of websites, blogs (including this one), talk radio, talk shows and the like serves as evidence of our ability to think and speak openly. As Americans we celebrate the ideal of the independent spirit. There is though at least one competing characteristic in our Americanness, our humanness, that can inhibit our most authentic voice, the one that speaks of our personal points of view, our inner most tenets, our deeply held personal values. One characteristic is the desire to belong- to fit in, to be connected with a community. An other is the way in which we express and experience respect for others, and especially when there is a difference of opinion, thoughts or approach.

Wynona, a participant in one of my workshops, tapped into her experience of these competing characteristics and the tension created by this dynamic. Wynona feels a profound need to find a spiritual home for herself and her beloved family (husband and two young children) to ground their family life. She is also seeking for this spiritual home to provide her with additional support as she begins her foray back into the workforce as a fitness professional after spending a noble fours years as a stay-at-home Mom (which incidentally is a more than full time job in my opinion). As she discussed her powerful desire to find a place, a community that would embrace the same ideals held by her and husband, one that would value the need for less stuff in favor of more time and doing, of making memories and demonstrating authentic acceptance of difference, tears slipped out of the corners of her eyes and roll down her cheeks into a tissue. The tears were not a block for her, but rather the release on a lock to her concern.

These tears were a symptom of the pain she was experiencing because as much as she wants to find this spiritual home she has not yet found in it the churches of her youth or adulthood. Wynona and her husband have recently moved back to her hometown and are actively integrating themselves into the community at large. She explained while she respects those community and places of worship she felt she did not fit; they were too traditional in their expression of the various doctrines. She worried that she will always feel as an “outsider”. That her family, her children would lack the mooring that a spiritual practice and community bring to so many other people because they had not found one. Could she possibly be such a non-conformist, what price might she have to pay? Where could she go to find the spiritual home that was the right community for her family?

To the great credit of the group that gathered on that day, they shared with Wynona there are other churches and places of worship in the area and began naming at least a half dozen, including a Quaker group, a Presbyterian Congregation and a Unitarian Church. They group as diverse as they were with their own religious practices and spiritual beliefs, listen, respected and supported Wynona thinking for herself.

Frankly being part of a deeply personal and utterly respectful conversation has been an antidote to the shouting matches that all too often erupt in the media.