Month: September 2020

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Stick a pin in it.

Think the future is too wide open to plan? Think again.

Everything I needed to know about suggestibility, I learned from the Breck Girl.

Ok before we get to the story… this entire blog is just a plea for you to get out an index card and write down five things you want to get done in the next five years. Then tape that on your computer monitor. Also, if you prefer to listen or watch, check out the links below. Ok, back to the Breck Girl.

The whole blog, with intro & outro, read to you….by me.
Want the white board and a trimmed down version? Here’s the Vlog.

During the 1970s and ’80s, Breck shampoo was a thing. They ran a campaign that featured pastel portraits of women with awesome hair.

My very-much-younger self took a liking to a Breck Girl ad. I tore the pastel portrait out of a magazine and tacked it inside of the door to my closet. Over the next five years, I’d see it every time I opened my closet. If you’ve met a teenage girl, you know I saw that ad – a lot. The Breck Girl had gleaming honey-blonde hair, no bangs, and loose curls.

I didn’t believe I could actually have hair like that – I just liked the picture.

Then one day I took it down. I looked at it. Really looked at it. Holy smokes. I’d turned into the Breck Girl. Yep, that there picture below is me. Best hair day ever.

I was astounded.

Forget the hair, I thought. This is how you get stuff done. You have a very clear image, you look at it a whole lot. You have positive thoughts about it and the next thing you know, you’re asking for hot rollers at Christmas and letting your bangs grow out. The impossible becomes something you move toward, little by little, year after year.

Over the years, I learned some more things… keeping a vision in mind, even if it seems far out of reach, leads to taking action when the opportunity arises.

A decade or so later, I was carrying an entire year’s earning in credit card debt. I was very literally, the working poor. We often had to charge our income tax bill to our credit cards. I worked seventy hours a week for a decade and just got more in debt.

I started to seriously consider the idea of becoming debt-free. It was ludicrous. But it was a pretty darn clear vision. I thought about it often. That’s where opportunity comes in.

For instance, when I was in the library, wondering what I might want to read, the idea of books on getting out of debt sprung to mind. Why? Because I was thinking about being debt-free, on the regular. I read a lot of books on personal finance. A lot.

Another example is when I was bringing in my mail and an offer for a 0% interest balance transfer arrived, I thought – how can I use this to get rid of some debt? I signed up for, and paid off, and canceled, a ton of 0% credit cards.

See what I mean? Having a clear, concise idea about something you want makes you primed for taking opportunities when they arrive.

Writing down goals and paying attention to them, even without a full-blown plan, can have significant positive results in your life. Of course, it’s way more effective with both a plan and an accountability partner. ( See the abstract from Dr. Gail Matthews’ research here.) The point I’m making is that just because you’re not ready for the plan and the weekly action, don’t put off setting up goals.

Look, 2020 won’t last forever. The world is always in a state of change. But the things we want most are pretty darn stable. So look dream a bit. Think about something that you really would like to achieve even if it’s impossible or ridiculous. I mean something that really matters. Let yourself dream a bit.

-How old will you be five years from now?

-What would you like to have accomplished by then?

-Write down four or five things on an index card.

-Put the start and end dates: 10/1/2020 – 10/1/2025

-Tape that card to your computer monitor.

Imagine what it would be like to be in 2025, and have all that. Enjoy the dream.

And just know, some of that is really going to happen. Why? Not because it’s magic.

Because now, you’re going to notice opportunities to move towards those goals.

Just like you notice blue Hondas when you’re thinking about buying a blue Honda, now you’ll notice ways to actually make the impossible, possible.

And that? Is just good to think about.

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Get Your Results Right

Think you control the results on your project? Think again.

3 ways to get this content – Vlog, Audio or Blog.

The full blog, read for you. Enjoy.

A meeting made me cry.

In a good way.

Ok, so crying at work is never really a positive. It messes with your makeup and then you have to buy more Kleenex. Tearful co-workers can freak people out, but a little sniffle of gratitude never hurt anyone.

Here’s the setup. It’s a big project, unplanned, unbudgeted, needs to be done in three months and four departments must agree to make it happen. I called a meeting. I invited everyone I could think of. I sent the invite in the afternoon for the following morning at 8:30 am. I wasn’t sure anyone would come.

Everyone came. A dozen people changed their plans and got on zoom.

Right now, at this moment, I still feel grateful.

Why? Because we all know, I was not in control of that result. That result was created by a team of people dedicated to getting things done.

I could influence the result by selecting the right people, picking a time that most people had open, and wording the invitation correctly. I could contribute to the result by acting quickly to get the meeting on the calendar, by showing up myself, and by doing my best to distribute a meaningful agenda. What I couldn’t do was control how other people responded. That was on them.

So the fact that the meeting happened and the project kicked off and got underway rapidly was a broad result made of up of lots of personal contributions.

Realizing that all those people measured themselves against a yardstick of being responsive, engaged, collaborative, and open-minded got me thinking. I thought – I’m proud to be one of them. I work with great people. I’m so impressed. I’m so lucky. Those thoughts give rise to a powerful feeling of gratitude. And yeah, I get a bit choked up.

That story is an example of the difference between results we control and results we don’t control.

Self-coaching is all about evaluating your own thoughts, feelings, actions and results so that you can have a better experience at work and in your life.

As part of that process, you look at your results and tie them back to your actions.

You tie actions back to feelings and, ultimately, to thoughts.

It’s important that you start that process by analyzing the right set of results. Personal results. Our actions create personal results. Our personal results can influence and contribute to broader results, but those broader results can’t be tied back to our own stack of thoughts, feelings, and actions. Only our personal results do that.

Why? Because other people influence and contribute to broader results and guess what? We don’t control other people.

Let me lay it out for you visually:

Situation: Three month deadline on brand new project.

Thought: I need to quickly know which teams are impacted and those teams need to understand the project.

Feeling: Urgency

Actions driven by the feeling of urgency: review my understanding of impact, schedule meeting for the following morning, invite representatives from many areas to ensure no one is missed, provide a concise, clear agenda. Acknowledge the inconvenient timing and express appreciation to the invitees. Send invitations.

Result: Everyone shows up.

For the purposes of coaching yourself, that result line is incorrect. It’s what happened but it’s not the result for me that the actions created for me.

To better find my personal result, I’ll take another look at the thought.

I need to quickly know which teams are impacted and those teams need to understand the project.

The result I created for myself after doing all those actions was: I acted gave myself the best chance to find out who was impacted. I provided meaningful information to other teams as soon as I learned it, something that matters to me.

Everyone showing up was the result of a dozen personal results, driven by a dozen different thoughts, which caused a dozen people to show up on zoom. It had very little to do with me beyond the invitation. That result, of the meeting taking place and the project kicking off less than a day after I learned of it, belongs to the collective.

Why does focusing on personal results matter?

If it seems selfish or self-centered to spend your time focusing on your results rather than the broader result, remember this. We still have to work hard to influence and contribute to the broader results. Tying our personal growth and job satisfaction to actions and results outside our control is losing game. You’re not going to be any better tomorrow at controlling other people.

The most control you’ll ever have is over your own thoughts, feelings and actions.

Results that are in your control, tie back to your own standards and are meaningful to you personally are the big engine of job satisfaction and engagement. Feeling like your work matters is huge. Feeling like your work matters to you, and knowing that you’re in alignment with your own standards the root of engagement.

So when you’re reviewing results, don’t forget to look at both sets. The broader results and your personal results.

And that? Is just a good thing to do.

Want to learn how to set your own bar, deliver your best results, and stop being overwhelmed by the chaos?

I’ve got a program for that: Reboot Your Day Job.

In six short weeks, you can get back control, make the big decisions you’ve been putting off and be more organized and productive than you ever thought possible.

Six weeks. $600. Everything changes.

Book a free 25-minute session to find out how my program can change your life.

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Understanding Your Actions

Not all actions are created equal. Here’s how to use your less-than-helpful actions.
Click here to listen to the blog – or at least check out my new intro. Enjoy!

Sometimes I’m brought to awareness to find myself in mid-air with no idea how I got there.

Not really, but it can feel pretty close to that. Don’t tell me this hasn’t happened to you. You’re sitting at your desk, you have a scorecard, or heat map, or report or presentation to deliver. Suddenly you look up, you’re a half-hour closer to the end of the day, but the screen in front of you shows pictures of a weather disaster that hit Antigo, Wisconsin in 1922. What the heck are you doing?

If you’ve been following along with this blog, you understand that thoughts drive feelings, which drive actions. This is really helpful to know when you have a nice clear thought to work with. Something like “I want to create a demographic report like I want a hole in the head,” is pretty easy to trace through that stack. Thought: negative. Feeling: resistance. Action: google etymology of ‘a hole in the head’. Result: useless information, no report.

Most of the time, we’re not all that clear on how we got to our current action. We just sort of wake up to our results and wonder where we went wrong.

If you don’t know what you were thinking, and you’re not all that clear on what feelings are actually being triggered inside you, never fear. You can start with the one thing you probably do know – what you were doing.

Actions that my clients report to me, and that I notice in myself, tend to fall into a few broad buckets.

Delaying/Avoiding

Purposeful/Focused

Inaction

Adjusting

Rejuvenating

When you have a moment of awareness and you catch yourself in mid-action, notice which bucket the action falls in. From there, you can work you’re way out of undesired actions using the techniques below. You can also pay more attention to desired actions and start to notice the types of feelings that create those valuable actions and results.

The main thing you need to know – any time you are approaching a planned activity that will require action and result in change, you will encounter a moment of mental resistance. This is normal. Our brains are designed to prefer conservation of energy and easy gratification. We want to be in the recliner, eating chips, binge watching. Why? Because back in the day, this was a smart strategy in a world where rest and food were limited. Our world has changed, we haven’t. So don’t let that mental resistance hold you back.

Now, on to the tactics you can use when you catch yourself in mid-action.

Avoidance actions: If you’re sitting at your desk with a mouthful of cookie that you haven’t swallowed and one in your hand, ready for demolition, you’re probably in delay/avoid mode. If you’re scrolling social media or wandering around the building looking for the perfect ballpoint before you start your project – you are busted. There’s nothing wrong with you. Basically, you’re avoiding something. The problem arises when we attribute our desire to avoid things to the project we have to do. Ever notice that once you get into it, most projects are not so bad? We tell ourselves we don’t want to do the thing, but in reality, what we’re avoiding is how we are feeling. This is really tricky to pick up on and why you hire a coach to help you. For now, if you catch yourself in this type of activity, you can work your way out of it by stopping and jotting down everything you’re thinking about your current project. Make yourself keep going for a whole page. Once you pass the halfway mark, just start jotting down all the positives about the project. Chances are, you’ll be ready to get to work with your current pen. No bowl of chips needed.

Purposeful actions: Here’s where we all wished we lived all the time. You have a task, you’re focused and you’re getting stuff done. No worries. If you catch yourself in this type of mode, make a quick note of how you feel and what you think about the project. Being aware that working makes you feel good and understanding the way you think about work when you’re not avoiding it, makes it easier to divert yourself from avoidance in the future.

Inaction: What we think and feel can also drive inaction. Inaction can be a benefit or a detriment to our work. Sometimes what we’re not doing is positive. We’re not goofing around, we’re not beating ourselves up, we’re not watching re-runs of The Office. Just like noticing how you feel and think when you’re doing purposeful work, noticing your current state of mind when you’re not handicapping yourself is good information. More often, we’re not doing our most important work. If you become aware of that nagging feeling that you’re working on the wrong thing, stop and notice what you’re not doing. Ask yourself why you aren’t doing your project. If you’re like me, your brain has lame answers for this. Often, I’m very busy answering an email about something that will happen next week, while I’m studiously not doing the thing that’s needed tomorrow. Just like avoidance actions, the fastest way back to my primary activity is to stop, spend three minutes writing down my thoughts about my primary activity, and then move to some more positive thoughts. If I can’t think of a single nice thing to think about the work I’m not doing, then I just list facts. Listing the facts often calms me down and gets me focused by cutting out the drama. Changing “I don’t have time, I’m not ready and I’m a failure, I’m going to blow this” to something less angst-ridden and more factual like ” The deadline was unexpected, I’m the only one here to do the work, something is better than nothing” is often all I need to get out of inaction.

Adjusting: Sometimes the action we’re taking is reframing. We are aware of our thoughts, and the feelings they create. We realize that this trajectory is leading us nowhere fast. So we interrupt our own behavior chain with a new thought. We use thoughts as actions. We notice our thought. “I hate PowerPoint”. We notice our feeling – frustration with all those little boxes and the endless formatting. We understand already that this won’t help. So we take the action of changing our thought to “Just do the darn thing and move on.” We feel grim determination and we format our title slide. That’s adjusting.

Rejuvenating actions: These are the really great actions that actually do relax us. These are not to be confused with the actions that drain us. This is walking the dog, not scrolling Facebook. This is playing a game with your kids, not watching them watch TV. Sometimes this looks a lot like work – this weekend, we built a shed and painted it. It was work, yes. It was also very satisfying.

So as you catch yourself engaging in an action – ask am I –

Avoiding? Working? Not taking action? Adjusting? Rejuvenating?

Is this action beneficial? If so, what can I notice about how I’m thinking and feeling?

If the action isn’t working for you, write down a half-page of your current thoughts. Then write the facts of your situation. Now, is there anything helpful you can think about this set of facts?

From there, you can move to another type of action.

And that? Is just good to do.

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Sit Down and Work

It’s not enough to want to the job.
Happy Labor Day! No need to work at reading this. Press play and the get he intro, the blog and the rants. Enjoy!

I had an epiphany a few years back. I was thinking about the difference between two people I knew who were both applying for the same job. Either one could have been hired. Both were excited by the prospect. Both were similar in skills. There was no clear decision point to decide the issue but in the end, the interviewers chose one.

I spent several hours musing on why the team hired the person they did.

In the end, it came down to this:

One of them wanted to have the job. One of them wanted to do the job.

And that? Made all the difference.

Here’s the deal. Regardless of how we feel on any given day, we need to sit down and the do the work. It’s a hella easier when we want to do it.

I’m bringing this up, because here on Labor Day weekend, it’s good to remind ourselves that we want to do the job.

It’s good to remember that we want to do a terrific job. Not because it will please the people around us, but because it pleases us. I have never had a client yet, no matter how miserable, who didn’t want to be great at their job.

Think about that.

I work with people who have burnt the heck out, and they STILL want to see themselves as highly competent. They want to be the go-to person at the office, they want to write clean, elegant code, they want to engineer flawless systems, create marketing campaigns that shine, bring secondary infection rates to zero, and a dozen other inspiring things.

Why? Because we want to feel confident, competent and relevant.

How do we get that? By sitting down and doing the work. There’s no escaping it.

Whatever our position is, there’s work to be done. That’s just a fact. How we think about that work drives the way we feel as we approach each task. That’s a huge game changer there.

You can tell yourself that you’re an amazing fireball at work but if you don’t believe it, that kind of thinking isn’t going to help. So it’s not enough to chant some happy horse stuff about how great you are. You gotta be real up in there.

You gotta ask yourself some hard questions, like “Would I pay me this much to do what I do?” If the answer is no, you better be doing some follow up work. For instance, ask yourself what you would have to deliver to actually earn that bank.

One thing I always want to know is – How can I do my job better?

I’m stunned at the number of people I know who don’t ask that question during their reviews. It’s sad, but some people think admitting they have room to grow is a sign of weakness.

Here’s what’s weak – not working when you’re supposed to be on the clock. Here’s what’s lame – working yourself to death on the wrong task. Here’s what’s a shame – putting your head on the pillow at night knowing you didn’t bring it that day.

We all have days when we do one or all three of these. I don’t care who you are. If you’re growing, you’re mucking something up. That’s where your opportunities are and you can’t find them if you won’t look for them.

There’s a bright side to all this though.

Showing up, crushing your day, and giving your work a smackdown feels mind-blowingly good. Why? Because then when you tell yourself you’re an awesome desk warrior with a mean code stack, you believe it. Great thoughts about your bad self feel amazeballs.

The crazy good part is that when you believe that stuff, and you think like that, you show up, step up, work hard and leave the work day high-fiving yourself.

Which is why, nobody ever tells me that they just want to be average.

You can sit down, get to work, deliver results, and step right into that cycle. If you don’t think you’re kickin’ it at work, then start with one of these:

– I’m going to be better today than I was yesterday. – I’m going to do the one thing that will create the most value today – or my favorite: Enough already. Today I’m going to sit down and crush it.

From there, you move right into feeling focused, valuable, determined and from there, you take action. What you do at work has meaning. It creates results. All it takes is one day, crushing it to get you back in the saddle. So as we celebrate all things work, think about the days you most enjoyed on the job. I bet you a free hour on your calendar that you were focused and working well.

OK…but working hard means I work too late. What about a home life?

Hell yeah. You should have that too. Straight up. You gotta break the back of the belief that doing a great job is painful.

How do you disconnect them? You look to your own brain. Ask it to solve for the best of everything.

The absolutely magic question for this labor day is – How can I be smackin’ the cover off the ball at work and have the life of my dreams?

When you set your big, beautiful, creative, imaginative, puzzle-solving brain looking for the answer to that, you win. But rest assured, the solution will include work: smart, focused excellent work.

And that? Is just the best way to labor.