Don’t Chain Your Joy to Your Desk

Think breaking free from your desk has to happen before you find joy? Bass Ackward, man.

Look, work is hard, right?   Being out of work, looking for work and having work – we’re talking difficult situations, regardless of which boat you’re in now.

Whether you’re overworking, underworking or struggling to find or keep a job, in every case, you’re going to hit up against a belief.  The belief that you have to know the solution before you get to the results.  Not so, Sparky.

I know exactly what it feels like to hamstring myself by tying together things that can be independent.

I was a woman who wanted to be “She who never wonders what to wear.”  The experience of walking to my closet each day and trying outfit after uncomfortable outfit, was balled up so tightly in my head with being overweight that I actually believed that I couldn’t have any other experience until I lost weight. It simply didn’t occur to me that you don’t have to be thin to have seven outfits that look good and fit.

I used to have twenty-five percent of my salary tied to credit card debt. Along with my mortgage and a car payment, that pretty much meant we were always one paycheck away from financial failure. I didn’t think I could change that. I thought you had to born with the miserly Scrooge gene in order to be debt-free.

I had my experience of being utterly miserable in my job.  I believed that my boss had no idea what I did all day, had no time to understand it and basically, disregarded me.   I felt the amount of work on my plate was more than anyone could ever do and I believed that I didn’t have the political clout to help our team. I was miserable because of my work.

It’s easier to see when we’re talking about frumpy clothes and harder to see when we’re talking about work but in each case, a belief that was connecting two unrelated things was holding me back.

I believed I had to be skinny to have clothes I liked.

I believed I had to be born with a talent for money to get out of debt.

I believed that my boss, my company and my workload had to change for me to be happy.

None of those was true.

I have stayed inside a dressing room long enough to hear the canned music tape play completely through three, count ’em, three times. No lie. Turns out, if you’re willing to spend several hours inside a clothing store, trying on every style, in every size, you can emerge as “She Who Never Wonders What To Wear”, even if you’re a size 16 – or 2XL – or a size 2.

I have also been thunderstruck with the thought – What If Money Is A Skill? Whaaa?? I have read dozens of books on personal finance. Turns out, with patience and time, you can get out of debt without living in a tent or starting a farm. Who knew?

 It’s also true that you can be happy, at work, at the job you have now. I learned to love that exact same job I described. I did it because I wondered if I could be happy doing anything and I set out to find out if that was true.          

Just like getting out of debt, or finding nice clothes that fit, getting happy where you are is a matter of trial and error. To get happy I did all sorts of things. I made a playlist of in-your-face music to listen to on the way to work. I played it every day… Drive by Incubus, Happy by Pharrell Williams, Taking Care of Business by Bachman Turner Overdrive and 51 other songs that made me feel in control and ready to take on my day. I left on time for a week straight just to see what would happen. I figured out what I loved and was good at and did those tasks first, forcing myself to find ways to offload work or make the dull stuff more efficient. I spent a week saying no to three things every day. I listened to management and leadership books. Basically, I kept trying stuff until I found what worked for me.

One day, as I was walking out of the office, on time, I passed the desk of a dear friend. I knew she was deeply unhappy and I also knew she didn’t have to be that way.

I coach, I bother with all this because I’m profoundly certain that you can be happy.  I want you to know that you can be deeply satisfied, right where you are.

Don’t, please, please don’t chain your joy to your desk.

The two things don’t depend on each other.   Don’t wait for things to change.  Try things -things I suggest and things you think of for yourself. 

There is nobody on the planet who can tell you where your path goes, or how you make magic in your life.  Nobody.   You are so incredibly unique and perfect, and so amazingly yourself, how can anyone know what fantastic direction you’ll go?

If you chain your joy to your desk, if you wait for your job to make you happy, you are missing the race.  You are missing the path.  You are sitting down on the path.  And that’s OK but please, if you’re not happy there, don’t stay there.  

And I don’t mean leave your job. By all means, stay there, until you figure out how to be happy at that job.  Even has you fail at things, you can be happy. Even out of work, keep trying new ways. Find ways to feel joy, even as you struggle, fail, and triumph. Once you do that, nothing is chained to your desk, not you,  not your happiness, nothing

And that, is just my wish for you.

If you would like a free 25-minute session – click here. It’s free, it’s on zoom, camera on or camera off. It’s my pleasure

2 Truths and a Thank You

Q2 2020 – that was fun.
Now, it’s time for mid-year reviews. What’s better than that?

I have been doing a shit ton of thinking, and just in case you didn’t know, that’s way more than a metric ton. You probably have too.  I hope you’ve spent a day with the TV off at least once. I hope you’ve seen a friend, even if it’s on Zoom. I hope you have a life coach.

The whole blog – plus some riffs on how to do this work – read for you. Also, a shout out to Brig Johnson and Brooke Castillo for their podcast conversation.

Thank you

I’ll start with the thank you.  I want to thank my client, who began our recent coaching call, telling me she’d been thinking about me and asked how I was.  If you think I’m writing directly to you, my friend, with your amazing smile, I am.  Your grace and concern for me meant the world, especially considering all that you have on your plate right now.  Thank you – One Million Times –  for demonstrating the absolute best response to any situation. 

               “I’ve been thinking of you.  How are you doing?”

 In any conversation, the normal ones, the difficult ones, or the awkward ones, starting with words that say “I see you as a person and I care how you are” is the most honest and most welcome thing anyone can say.  So, if there’s someone that you work with or care about, and they don’t share all your life experiences, maybe you disagree on one or two ideas, and you’re unsure on how to begin, try this:

               “I’ve been thinking of you. How are you doing?”

Truth #1

The only place where we can deal with the human condition– is now.

After having to make an utterly unwinnable decision about the life of my dog – I’ve been thinking about death.  I have a client with anxiety about death.  I told her that I start my morning meditation acknowledging that all the work I do today, will be required again tomorrow. Oh, and none of us escape death.  You get it. We all get it, but sometimes the world around us just makes that fact more crystalline. More cutting. More devastating.  One morning I found myself asking – how? How does anyone do it?  How do we live knowing this?  

The answer my brain gave me was immediate.  Now. We live now, the only place we can live.  When we are now, right now, we meet the world where it is.  

Truth #2

There is only one way to deal with any issue – you must do it as who you are today.

I hope you have a life coach.  I do.  I get coached regularly, and I also get randomized coaching – I sign up, and any coach available, shows up on the other end of the Zoom line.  Both my random coach and my on-the-regular coach told me the same thing as I did my own work on racism, politics, and police.   They told me to stop. They picked and prodded.  They kept bringing me back to my body, my feelings, not letting me escape into vague solutions or diversions. They wanted specific situations, concrete examples, actual feelings.  I had to sit in my own soup.   Not fun. Not what I ever want to do on my own.  So much better with a coach.   

They both insisted that I stay where I am, not changing, not going anywhere.  They both told me there wasn’t a timetable.   There is no specific date when this latest self-project is due, nowhere to go.  It’s always right now; I’m always me.  One black coach, one white coach. Both letting me see that I’m OK right now, and I’m not going anywhere without bringing myself along.

Whether I’m trying to understand how I got to June without getting the right things done at work, or I’m trying to deal with my fears for my son or my frustration at being back here again as a country – If I’m running from my feelings, hiding from the truth of my current thoughts, beliefs, and emotions, I can’t get to the next, maybe better, version of me. I can’t deal with any issue as an imaginary, somehow better, version of myself. I only have who I am now. 

Why do these two ideas matter?

There is only one place from which you can deal with the organized chaos that is work or the ferocious change that is life.  You must handle them both from the here and now, as the person you are today.   Marginalizing your feelings, distracting yourself, and being unwilling to sit in your soup, sends your brain off dreaming about the future or ruminating on the past. 

So what?

So, you are missing your chance to act, to observe, to experience work and life – as it is now.  

Emotions are a giant doorway into the now. 

If you would like a free 25-minute session – click here. It’s free, it’s on zoom, camera on or camera off. It’s my pleasure

Treat them as objects – things to be handled, cradled in your lap, held up to the light – known.

At work, and in life, the more you can bring yourself back, again and again, to the specific feelings you’re having, the more you can stop trying to become a different person and just accept the person you are. 

Having a coach lets you be you – out loud and unjudged, honestly, imperfectly.  With a good coach, you find nothing but compassion and acceptance.  He shows you that you can be accepted as you are. 

Accepting yourself,  you can relax and start to be curious about this person you are. 

That softening of judgment, that’s the opening. As you stay here, with the opening, the opening starts to change around you. For me, it’s like relaxing. I stop feeling like someone or something is trying to impose expectations on me. If I’m OK as I am, then there’s no reason to resist change. There’s a new perspective, naturally arising in the moment. From that new now, a new me breathes in.

And that? Is how you move forward.

What Was I Thinking?

Feelings are a better predictor of actions than thoughts. Too bad they’re so messy.

It was 6:40 in the morning, and the woman on zoom was wearing leopard print glasses.   I reminded myself for the third time that I absolutely did not want to talk about the thing that was bothering me.  I didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to have a conversation about it and I certainly didn’t want coaching on it an hour before I was due to start work.   I’d booked the session specifically to get an idea of how another coach might handle a client with no issue.   Plus, I just didn’t want to discuss it.

The whole blog, read to you by me. You’re welcome.

“Hi!” She said.  “What can I help with?”

“I don’t have an issue,” I said.  “Don’t you have a question of the day or something?”

She smiled at me.  “Sure.  Tell me, what were the three main feelings you felt this week?”

I sensed a trap.   I wasn’t going to lie.  “Stress, excitement about a project I’m starting and, um, frustration.”

Inside of twenty minutes she had me talking about the issue I’d sworn to avoid.   Here’s the thing – by the time we were done – and I’d gone through a fistful of tissues – my actions from the last week made a lot more sense. 

The coach had me name the cause of my stress and then dug into that situation until I was openly saying all the things that I thought but wasn’t admitting to.   She gave me permission to feel the feelings, sit with them, and really feel them.  I was astounded at how deep and strong the feelings were.   I hadn ‘t been feeling the fear, the sorrow, or the abject disappointment.  I’d bundled it all up as “stress”, wrapped it in a blanket of TV, work and books.  I dumped it my psyche’s laundry room, where, I hoped, I’d wash it out of my system without ever opening the bundle up to see what was in it.

This was a personal issue but we do the same thing at work.  Our issues might be just as upsetting or more subtle, but if we’re not willing to dig in, get messy and really look at what we’re feeling, our actions at work can be just as mystifying as my sudden need to watch every episode of House.

At work, we aren’t binge-watching TVor sitting at our desk with a great thriller novel and a bowl of chips, but we do the same thing – we drown out our feelings by going through emails, not settling in and working, taking care of small things or snapping at coworkers.

If the underlying motivation for all this activity is unwelcome feelings or a desire to not look under the hood and find out what’s fueling our emotional engine, the results are the same – our actions seem oddly disconnected from our intent.

Why Bother?

Look, I did not want to unroll my personal emoticons for the lovely EU coach with the leopard print glasses.  I sure as heck prefer logic to emotion at work too.  There’s one problem with avoiding emotions –

Emotions Drive our Actions.

Figuring out what we’re feeling and then allowing ourselves to feel them can yield powerful benefits.

  • Actions stop being mysterious.

Let’s take an example from myself at work – for some reason, I seem to be incapable of delivering on time any report on the team’s activities.  Once you dig into the feelings you have when you’re confronted with the task, you might just have an eye-opening insight.  Any time I have to report out exactly what our team did for the past quarter, I’m gripped with a certainty that we did nothing. Not because we’re slackers but because I have terrible recall for things that are complete.  When I understood that I had a deep feeling of being a fraud, it was easier to understand why I kept putting off doing the darn power point.

  • Build Self Compassion

When you understand the feelings, you’re having it’s easier to be compassionate with yourself.  Once I realized how I actually felt about score cards, I felt compassion for myself.  I mean, I’d feel bad for anyone who worked hard and still felt like they were somehow not cutting it. 

  • Release Judgments

I had a lot of judgments about myself not doing the scorecard report on time.  I was lazy, lacked discipline, a procrastinator, a disorganized manager.  Once I realized I was just a person who only remembers how to solve problems and what the current list of problems is and I quite literally believed that I wouldn’t find any accomplishments recorded, all that negative self talk fell away.  Of course we did stuff.  Of course, we earned our pay.

  • Change your thinking and get different results.

Armed with my insight, I decided to change the way we do the reports.  Why not invite the team and have them tell me what they did? Why not have them each bring the data for their area and let’s put them on the PowerPoint together. Now, we meet once a quarter and celebrate all we’ve done as a team.  Members get to see what other people did and we all get to feel like we’re part of a group that adds a lot of value.

And that – is just a great way to feel.

If you would like to have a free session where I walk you through how to uncover your own thoughts & feelings, click here. Free, on Zoom, my pleasure.

Agency

Is this a random spill or symbolic artwork? How you make sense of your world is entirely in your mind.

I’ve struggled this week with how to make a blog on personal power at work relevant in the light of current events.

Although I can listen, see, imagine, and sympathize, I will never experience what it is to be a black person in America. Although I’m the mother of a police officer, I will never know what it’s like to be one. I can’t walk in any of these shoes.

Here are the shoes I can walk in – a pair of pop-art pumps with chunky heels – because these shoes belong to me.

These are literally, my shoes.

Standing in those shoes, here’s what my experience as an American woman has taught me – systemic, conscious, and unconscious bias is 100% real.

Here’s what I can tell you – I have been told and shown, based solely on gender that I am ridiculous, inconvenient, a threat or worse yet – a disposable object.

Here’s what I believe – People do abuse power and when anyone in power acts as if the rules and laws don’t apply to them, they should be held accountable.

So let me be clear – on the macro level, I for sure don’t think we should pretend inequality, injustice or violence doesn’t exist. That would be crazy. I believe in social agency. I believe in protest, in free speech, and the ability to leverage our influence to change our laws. We have a truckload of problems with bias in this country and we should get to work on them.

For the purposes of maximizing our impact at work, I don’t think it serves us to relinquish our sense of agency, even if the deck is stacked against us. Which brings us to today’s topic – agency.

Agency: the ability to act independently, to impact the course of your life, and to set goals for yourself. A sense of agency is linked to subjective well being on both a personal level and for us as a society. As my grandmother used to say, as long as you have choices, you’re OK.

So many of us give our agency away on the day-to-day. When we give away our agency, we’re giving away our sense of control and, along with it, our own power.

You get to look at the world around you and decide what’s working and what’s not. You can change your mind about all sorts of things.

You change how you view yourself.

You can change what you think about your job, your boss, your capabilities, and your value.

If you’re going to embark on a journey of this sort, let me encourage you to change the way you view your own agency. I’d like to encourage you to see yourself as the CEO of You, Inc. No matter what deck is stacked against you at this moment, you have the choice to validate that reality by giving up or spend some of your time on the planet trying to reshuffle the cards. My advice is always choose to reshuffle.

For this at-work example, let’s say that I want to move up one level in my organization and to do that, I’ve decided I’ll need to demonstrate leadership on a large project.

One way to approach this is to ask my manager to give me a large project to lead. Then, I can go back to my desk and wait for the project that never comes. When review time comes, I can be frustrated by the fact that nobody gave me a chance to shine and, I can settle for whatever wages I get, remaining in my current position, probably doing less tomorrow than I did yesterday, because, well, nothing works.

Let me tell you, this happens all the time. Why? Because the person in that example believes that they must be given a project by someone else. Can she control her boss? Hell no. Can she make someone give her a project? Not before the next review cycle comes up and not without legal action and money. Maybe not ever. So this is a completely dead-end way of dealing with the here and now – even if it’s true! This is why, in the moment, I always act in favor of personal agency.

So let’s say, despite the fact that I’m an old woman of average intelligence, I think I have the ability to maximize my personal benefit, and demonstrate my effectiveness, regardless of what project my boss gives me.

Now let’s say because of this belief, I tackle even small projects with a professional process. I document what I do, I create templates to use to build efficiency, I keep track of how long I expect it to take, how long it actually takes, and what caused any variance. Let’s say I sat down at the start of the project and wrote out my expectations of how I would perform and in the end, I evaluated my performance.

Basically, I treat this little project that I’m doing by myself, as if it was the big opportunity I’ve been waiting for. I’ve assumed all the authority over how it will be handled. I’ll be evaluating my own performance, so my manager’s feedback is now secondary. I’ll be learning from the project and improving my skills. Because I’ll understand why any problems in delivery or performance occurred, I’ll be able to build in processes to prevent future delays or disappointing behavior of my own making.

Here’s what I’ve just done – I’ve taken all the power over my performance and my opportunities, out of the hands of my manager, and put it all right on my desk. I’ve basically just made my manager irrelevant in the context of this project. I don’t need to know when he wants it done, because I already know when it will be done. I can just check to see if that will suit him. If not, I can offer up options. I’m not forced into a timeline, I’m negotiating one. I don’t need him to tell me what he expects because I know what results I’m delivering. Now I can just confirm I’m delivering what he’s looking for. I basically treat my manager like he’s my customer. I have lots of power. I have the goods and services he wants to buy. I just have to keep myself relevant.

Do you see what I did there? It’s still work. I still need to deliver stuff and make it good but it is a completely different ballgame if I see myself as the owner of Myself, Inc., and my manager as my best customer. My work experience is no longer at the whim of my boss, my work life is at the whim of ME. If my boss doesn’t agree with my evaluation, well, that just means we need to communicate better. Or I might decide to make it mean nothing at all.

What I find actually happens is I get really curious about what my boss thinks. I’m not devastated when my boss has something critical to say. I’m fascinated. I take this bit of information and analyze it. Did I miss something in my own eval of me? Great! I’ll add it to the working template for next time. I already do this for myself, so getting this information upfront is like getting a free trip around the monopoly board.

Ok, sound good? So to build out your own little Yourself, Inc. empire where you rule with confidence and independence, take back your own agency.

  1. Commit to working for yourself and refuse to let your boss control your opportunities. Strike a blow for the republic of you!
  2. Study your own work by stating beforehand what you will be doing ( time estimates, results expected, and expectations of your own behavior) and then by evaluating what actually happened.
  3. Take it one step further and ask yourself how you can be better, faster, or more professional next time and add that information to your documents.
  4. When the next project comes, repeat the process but shoot for improvement using the information you learned.

In a short time, you’ll have great confidence in your ability to deliver, your ability to estimate when you’ll deliver and how you’ll approach the work. When you have that kind of bedrock under you, it’s easy to ask good questions about projects, you can estimate quickly and with confidence.

It doesn’t work if you don’t put in the effort to do it fairly. You must lay out your expectations for yourself upfront. Don’t just do work and take stock at the end, looking back at the project and feeling good or bad about it. You won’t build confidence and communicate to yourself that you take your work seriously.

Because you value your own work and treat it with respect, you no longer have your ego tied to the size of the project you’re handed, the team that comes with it, or really anything external. All your satisfaction is internally driven. When your own evaluation of your performance is the most important one you get, there’s a lot of freedom in that. When you hold yourself accountable to you, and you treat yourself like a professional, you have just shown yourself who you are at work. Better yet, you’ve just shown everyone else, too.

And that? Is just a great way to work.

Namaste

The divine in me, sees the divine in you.

This week – no blog. Just a prayer that we come to a place of moderation, where we reject extremism and sweeping generalizations about race, gender, jobs, roles and issues.

We are so much better than this.