Tag: perspective
Doing what you don’t want to do
When it comes to doing something I don’t want to do, I make one of two choices:
- I don’t do it
- I do it, and am clear about my reasons why
In career-land, this practice has been extremely useful. Anytime we work with other people there will be much that is out of our control. If we’re working for someone else’s business or entity, we don’t control the budget or policies. When we’re working with clients, we don’t control their business decisions. We don’t control the way other people act, either. There will be plenty of times when we are asked, told, or demanded to do things we don’t want to do.
At surface level, this is disempowering. However we almost always have choices. We can choose to go along to get along, negotiate, or say no and let the consequences be what they will be. Sometimes we make choices because we believe that the short-term discomfort is worth the long-term gains. Those gains might be money, career advancement or more opportunities later on. In any case, acknowledging to ourselves that we’re making a choice takes our power back.
I have a great non-work example. Last month I decided to do a showcase dance performance, something I’d been thinking of for the last three years. A non-competitive showcase is basically a dance recital for adults. In my case, I will be performing a Latin fusion routine with my dance instructor as the lead.
Partner dancing is one of my favorite hobbies. I’m most comfortable with country two step and other “bar dances” like the Cowboy Cha Cha, Schottische, and Horseshoe and have done them enough to have a great time without thinking much about the footwork. I also do ballroom dancing once in a while.
I will tell anyone that with all of these dances, I’m not a technical dancer. The moves are not executed perfectly and I’ll get off step once in a while. But I’ve danced enough to follow experienced leads and get back on count quickly, and I rely on styling and smiling for the rest. This has been just fine to have fun social dancing.
With this showcase, however, I’m learning a style of dance that is new to me and I want to be as technically accurate as possible from the beginning.
New style + new focus on technical precision = frustration2.
The Latin movement that I’m learning for the Rumba and Cha Cha is completely different from the type of dancing that I’m used to. I have to learn to move my feet, knees, hips and ribcage in a new way. It’s so unnatural to me that I feel like I’ve never danced before.
It reminds me of the last adult ballet class I took a few years ago, but it is even more painful. In ballet I can feel what the movement is intended to be even if I don’t perform the moves or sequences correctly. Latin motion is so new that I have no idea if I’m doing it right unless the instructor tells me.
To prepare for the showcase in two months, I’m taking three hours of lessons each week. It’s confusing, frustrating and embarrassing and I get so mad because each step is a struggle to execute correctly. I mostly hate it. And my attitude in class shows it, which isn’t fair to my instructor and only makes the lessons harder for me.
I could quit but I won’t. After years of relying on energy, expression and fancy moves instead of technical details, I am determined to learn how to perform the dances accurately. I’m choosing to take lessons that I dislike in order to dance well at the showcase and be a better social dancer afterwards.
In next week’s lessons I’m going to remind myself of the goal that I’m working towards. I’m also going to focus on being grateful for the opportunity and try to bring a lighter attitude to the studio.
To motivate myself, I watched the movie Dirty Dancing. If Baby could learn the Mambo in less than a week, I can learn Latin Rumba and Cha Cha in two months.
This experience is good practice for the work realm: remembering that I have a choice about doing things I dislike, including my attitude.
I still plan to have as many spins and dips in my routine as I can convince the choreographer to include, including something like the picture below.
I have 63 days to work on this backbend. My hands and feet should be closer together with more arch in my spine and my leg pointed straight up in the air. The pretty sunset is like the flair that used to distract attention from my sloppy footwork. This time I want solid technique as my foundation and the fancy moves to be an enhancement.
Will I do it? Yes I will. Nobody puts Baby in the corner.
Sometimes life sucks and then it gets better
Sometimes life sucks. Stuff happens. You’re stressed out. Don’t feel like your normal self. Aren’t up to doing all the things you used to do.
It could be for any or multiple reasons, right? We’ve all been there.
I’m there.
I like keeping my private matters private, so I’m leaving the details out. Thanks for understanding and not asking about it!
And anyway, I don’t want to talk about the details. I want to talk about how I’m handling it.
I’m prioritizing my health and wellbeing, the people I care about, and doing the very best I can for my clients.
So how is that going?
Well, business is great. The people I interact with from day to day are the best I could ask for, and I like my job every single day. So that’s good!
I am focused on doing great work for my clients. I am not, however, taking on much new work, finishing my book, or posting my blog every Thursday (thanks for noticing, by the way). Payroll and taxes are on track but my QuickBooks is more than a little out of date. I’m not up for all of it right now, and would rather focus on the most important stuff and do the rest when I can.
My health and wellbeing and the people I care about are up and down. Good days, bad days, fun days, sad days. I haven’t been to yoga in over two weeks, but went dancing and golfing for the first time in eight or nine months. I’m reaching out to my friends and family when I need support. But I’m not being a great friend to all of the people that matter to me because I don’t have the energy for it. I try to let them know I care and be there when it counts the most.
The negative stuff is temporary. I’m looking forward to getting past it and excited for the future. Overall life is good, I’m fortunate, and I know it. Grateful.
People say “be gentle with yourself” when you’re going through a rough time. Well, yes, but what does that mean exactly? For me it means I know my priorities and that’s what I’m focused on. I’m doing the best I can with what I’ve got.
I hope you are doing great. And if you’re not, I hope you’re also focusing on the most important things and letting the rest go until you’re ready for it.
Because Life’s a Bittersweet Symphony and sometimes you gotta just Shake it Off.
Give Yourself a Break
If you’ve set goals or made plans and haven’t exactly followed through on them, give yourself a break. Beating yourself up isn’t going to deliver your achievement.
There are all kinds of reasons why progress slows down and sometimes comes to a stop. Maybe your immune system is lowered by the cold and flu season or because of extra stress in your life. Maybe you’re going through a challenge or transition and you have less energy than normal.
You could power through the fatigue and stress – for a while. Eventually your body will overrule your ambition and you’ll find yourself with less energy and strength than you had in the first place.
Instead of blaming yourself for not powering through your body’s requirement for rest, you could choose to accept it. It is only a temporary phase, after all. You could choose to acknowledge what is happening: “I am tired and have less energy. I need extra rest.” Then, you could allow yourself a break while you regain your strength.
This is not laziness. It is demonstrating self-awareness and self-value by placing your health among your highest priorities.
You may have created a deadline in your mind, or hoped for an achievement by a certain timeline. However, your body has its own reactions to your external environment, and its own ways of gauging what your mental, physical and emotional status is.
As a personal example, early this autumn I hired an editor to refine my manuscript. When she sent back her recommendations, I was excited and planned to finally finish my book within a month. Then my cat died, my business demanded extra attention and I had unexpected stressful events to deal with.
I wanted to work on my book. I’m so far past the time when I thought it would be published that I’m embarrassed when people ask me if it is available for purchase yet. Despite my wants and my ego, I decided to listen to my body when it told me I needed a break. I cut back on my obligations, slept a lot more, and stopped thinking about my book.
Two and a half months went by – not my ego’s timeline, but my body’s. Then I was ready to pick up my manuscript again.
As it turns out, putting it aside for a while made editing easier than in the past. I looked at my writing with a fresh perspective. I came up with a method of giving myself a small editing assignment each day that followed the same pattern. I keep a running list of each assignment on a piece of notebook paper and write “done” next to each task when I’m finished. Then I jot down the next assignment.
I wonder how much better my editing is now than if I had tried to force myself to do it when my mind and my energy weren’t ready?
I hope that you are full of good health and making progress in the areas of your life that make you happy. If not, maybe it is time for a break. A break without self-judgment or letting your ego make you feel disappointed. Maybe it is time for a healthy, restful break that you will emerge from better than ever.
Something Beautiful to Look At
Last spring I planted flowers in the pots in my backyard. Nothing extravagant. There were Bougainvillea, Chrysanthemums, and some filler plants that I don’t know the names of and that I hoped would live through the heat, the shade, the bugs and the squirrels that always want to hide their peanuts in those planters.
Every time I walked past my back door, I saw the flowers in their pots and felt a rush of happiness. It was like looking at the beautiful flowers gave me a boost of positive energy.
I noticed this feeling again when I had wrapped Christmas presents for my family and set them under my little fake tree on a cabinet. Every time I walked past the cabinet I thought the presents looked so pretty sitting there, and I felt more cheerful. I’m no expert with wrapping paper, and don’t go wild with Christmas decorations. In fact I didn’t put a single ornament on that tree, but the presents made it pretty enough.
It made me think about how useful it is to have something beautiful to look at throughout the day. It adds a little spark of happiness that stays with me and brightens my day.
It also made me wonder why I don’t get the same boost of happiness when I look at the things that are more permanently in my house – paintings, the cheerful yellow bedspread that took me months to pick out, or my grandmother’s chandelier. Well, the chandelier makes me feel good because it reminds me of my grandmother and her unique taste. Turquoise blue painted over brass! But that is a different kind of beautiful that comes from family love.
I realize that part of the joy of looking at something beautiful is its temporary nature. The flowers die and nothing much grows in the backyard until it is warm again in spring. I enjoyed looking at the wrapped presents because a few days later my family unwrapped my handiwork. I asked them to “sufficiently admire the packages before opening them!”
The flowers and wrapped packages don’t last long enough for me to get used to them like I do with my paintings and bedspread.
So now that I am without flowers on the deck, and have no pretty presents to look at, I am making an extra effort to notice any pretty thing that I see while I’m out for a walk, or in a store, or if I catch a glimpse of a bluebird that sometimes rests on a branch outside my office window.
Little beautiful things to look at to brighten my day.
Two Tips For When You Feel Stuck at Your Job
When you feel stuck in a job, you can get tunnel vision that focuses on what isn’t working.
When you feel trapped because your salary pays the bills and provides health insurance, and gives you the means to support people who depend on you, it can seem like there aren’t very many good options. You may reject ideas about how to improve the situation or not have any ideas in the first place.
When you’re working in a job that isn’t right for you, it is draining. It is typical to feel overwhelmed and exhausted. On top of that, if you’ve been in an environment where you’ve been frequently criticized and your contributions haven’t been valued, it is common to lose confidence in your abilities.
I’ve had people tell me that they were so discouraged at work that they actually preferred being at home sick with the flu to going to the office!
This isn’t a good emotional state to begin creating a better job or work environment! But the truth is that there are many possible ways to improve work situations. It is just harder to access those possibilities when your perspective is narrowed by fear and discouragement.
You’ve got possibilities. Write ’em down!
One way to remind yourself that you do have options is to make a list of all the ways that your work situation can improve. This is a brainstorming-style list designed to open your mind, so including things that don’t seem realistic is actually a good idea. Things like, “My boss gets fired and a great new manager takes over the department,” or “A friend at another company recruits me to join his staff.” Or even, “I quit my job and go back to school to become a naturopathic doctor.”
If you are more visual and prefer not to write lists, mind-mapping is a great exercise. Take a blank piece of paper and jot down a single word or short phrase that represents what you’re ideal job situation would be. Then draw lines to connect the words that have common themes, and soon you’ll see patterns emerge.
Lists and mind-mapping are great ways to broaden your perspective when you feel stuck. These exercises tap into the part of your brain that has unique ideas and flashes of insight. In the short-term, taking these actions can boost your attitude by reminding you that there are many possibilities to improve your job situation. Then, with a more open mind, you might decide to pursue one of your ideas or discover a new opportunity that you might not have seen before.
Taking a Break
Today is a milestone: I sent my manuscript off to an editor! After a year of starts and stops, this is a big step forward. Clink, let’s raise a glass to that understatement!
Of course once the editor sends it back in a few weeks, I will still have work to do. I will go through her recommendations, add, delete, rewrite and do another round of polishing.
But while the editor is working, it is best that I’m not. Otherwise we could get into a version control nightmare. I am happy to avoid that!
So what to do with three weeks? It would be prudent to use this time to write my book proposal. It’s a huge task, and one that I’ve been dreading. Or I could work on the twenty-minute talk I’m preparing to give to small groups, to start drumming up an audience of future readers and happy job quitters.
Should I?
Nah.
I’m going to take a break. I’ve been working nearly every single day, weekends included, on my consulting business, book, blog or all three and think my perspective is narrowing. I want to put all my work aside and shut off from technology as much as possible. PC closed, phone silenced, tv off. Well, the tv is a gimme since I rarely watch it anyway.
This is my chance to turn off the usual noise my head and see what else I might like to think or feel or deal with.
Since early August, I’ve been taking a class that focuses on interpersonal awareness and managing relationships. It is turning out to be heavier than I anticipated. Not that I was expecting a class on these topics to be lighthearted fun, but c’mon, I’ve participated in so many of these types of workshop already! I went into it thinking this class would be remedial, a piece of cake. More like humble pie!
Sigh. I guess there’s always more to learn and process.
So this is a great time to take a tech break. I’ll focus on getting as much as possible from my class. I’ll spend more time outside, read and try to relax.
I’ll be back with a new post mid-September, and hopefully with a clearer head, a fresh perspective, a tightly edited manuscript, and much to report back on. See you then!
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