Category: Achievement

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Learn to Carve

What do digital transformation, skill gaps, and workload all have in common? They all require you to learn how to carve.

It’s Saturday at 2 pm and I’m still in my bathrobe. I’m working on my blog on the weekend. Surely there is nothing you can learn from me.

Are you still here? Well, all right. Here goes. Gartner says that in the next ten years constant upskilling will replace experience in importance in the workplace. CompTIA says that the ability of IT professionals to understand both technology and business is rising in the list of skill gaps that technology professionals need to be closing.

Beyond all that, workload and technical skill gap issues are still smokin’ hot for IT just as they have been for several years now. Oh, and by the way, your company still wants you to innovate, which means, you’re going to need some downtime for your brain so you can come up with new ideas that are all your own.

What does that mean? You better figure out how to do what you need to do, when you need to do it.

You better learn to carve – carve out personal time, carve in technical training and business training.

Did you just scream? You know I’m still in my bathrobe right?

Fortunately, I’ve been reading Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport and marveling over the ways in which addiction can help with scheduling. Stop snickering. An all-nighter does have a way of clearing your calendar, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

Among other things, he addresses these points: digital media and the attention economy have created a state of distraction which results in both an inability to focus and an activity void when we step away from it. To successfully disengage from that digital experience (think social media, surfing, news, and streaming) we have to plan what we are going to do instead. Quitting cold turkey on any behavior leaves us staring into an uncomfortable void and vulnerable to relapse. I’ve hammered on this before – you need to have something great to do in your time off, in order to let go of the emails, all the important work that never ends, and the distractions that chip away at our lives.

Cal Newport then delves into how to reclaim your leisure time. None of this is new info to people who follow this blog but what he does propose is a reverse calendar – plot carefully the time you allow for non-constructive leisure and thereby force yourself to fill the rest of your time with something better. In a word, carve out the best leisure you can. Leisure that gives you time to ponder and create just feels like you have more life in your life.

So let’s bring all that back to the office. You know you have to set aside specific chunks of the day to do focus work that makes a difference. Time for the type of serious training and continuing education professionals need is often something we try to squeeze in on the side. Kinda like your exercise and maybe dinner.

What’s the answer?

Pretty much I’m proposing that we treat training the way we treat a vacation. Those of us who’ve figured out how to actually get our time off, know we need to have it on the calendar early – before the emergency project comes up. That’s so our managers can plan around it, which they can do… if it’s on the calendar.

So your professional training needs to go on the calendar. Your boss needs the details so she can plan around it. Just like a serious vacation, you need to know what you’re going to do and how much it will cost.

Also, you need to understand what you need to learn.

Because technology as a supporting role for business is simply table stakes now, interdisciplinary training along with technical training is going to be the new normal. You can’t come up with cool ways to add value to your business if you don’t know what your business partners are doing. You also can’t offer technical solutions that you don’t know how to build. Looks like us nerds are going to have to start planning in both business learning as well as technical skill development.

Once you know what you need to learn, and you’ve found a good way to learn it, either through a real-life project and online learning, or formal training, you’ll need to budget the time and the money. Just like a vacation. What? This doesn’t sound like fun?

Here’s the other thing. You should leave town – just like when you go on vacation. Try to hand over loose ends to a teammate, turn off your cell phone and put your out of office message on. You don’t have to literally leave town but if you can get your manager and team to treat you like you have – well, then, who wouldn’t want to take on training?

Sound good? Here’s how to make it real.

  1. Get your manager’s buy-in.
  2. Schedule your learning days, plan and fund your training.
  3. Don’t forget to include the certification test. Do the whole thing.
  4. Be a team player – offer to support your buddy’s training vacation too.
  5. Use the practice of learning days to create cross-training. It’s so much better to get called back for a production issue from your class than from your first post-pandemic trip. So get the team to try like crazy to solve issues without you… just like you’re on vacation. Then, if there’s something they need to brush up on, it’ll be clear and you won’t have to call in from the beach.

Once you’ve carved out time for learning, quality downtime so you can have free-thinking for innovation, time for vacation, and time to do focused work each day, you’re well on the way to be being a master carver, 2021 style.

And that? Is just what we trained for.

If you want help getting your calendar under control, set up a free 25-minute session. I’d love to talk time management with you. After all, it’s 2 pm on a Saturday and I’ve spent the morning enjoying a novel, I’ve put out a blog and I’ll be chillin’ watching the Super Bowl tomorrow.

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Review This.

If self-reviews make you want to jump out a window shouting “Review This!”, you might want to approach them from a fresh perspective. My advice? Stop thinking about your boss.
Prefer to listen? Click the play button.

So, I, like, ran a search on self-reviews. My first hit told me that self-reviews make employees feel more engaged. Well. My team is pretty engaged in wishing that they didn’t have to do them, worrying about when they’ll find the time and fretting over figuring out what to put in which box on the form.

I filed that article under W for wackadoodle.

I don’t know about you, but for me, self-reviews feel like pure, unadulterated torture. I often start my work session by penning my resignation letter. Dear Boss – I’d rather quit than relive this year. Goodbye.

If we were only talking about 2020, you might understand this attitude. But I feel like that every year and I love my job.

So what’s going on?

The self-review hits so many triggers, it’s hard to know where to start. The fear of being judged, which is tied to the primal fear of being tossed out of the tribe is just the most obvious one. There’s the taboo against self-promoting behavior, also tied to the loss of tribe anxiety. Then there’s the fear of failure, of not having done the things on the list that was given to you at the start of the year. Fear of exposure – the fear of others realizing that you don’t actually know what those goals meant, where you fit into them, or how you did. Fear of losing something – status or money – based on your answers.

Once you’ve kicked your fears to the curb, there are expectations to deal with. Am I making the most of this opportunity to document my strengths? Is this going to affect my performance ranking? My raise? Does my family depend on me getting this right? Good God, Man! Why didn’t I start this a year ago? Beyond that, the resentment – I told them all of this last year and it got me no-where. Eventually, we get down to the sneaking suspicion that none of this actually means anything.

Finally, you’ve arrived at the truth.

Because if you’re in fear, expecting some huge result or bent out of shape by the futility of it all, your self-review will be meaningless.

Why?

Because the person the review has the biggest impact on – is you.

I’d like to offer this twist of logic. What if you approached your review as if you were writing it for yourself? I contend that you’re doing just that.

Your company is paying you to take a moment to self reflect. To look back on your work year and jot down some of the highlights. Things that you did well, that you enjoyed, that you’re proud of. Some of that stuff happened for all of us. Even if our biggest project imploded, there’s still something in there that went right. There’s still something you learned. So jot that down too.

Be specific. Isn’t that the basic Review 101 advice? It’s good to do not because you have to have exact percentages in order to bolster the case for your existence on the planet, but because we get better insights when we have precision of thought. Coaches understand that for clients to get insights, they need to pick a single situation and analyze what actually happened. It’s the same for self-reflection in business too.

Talk about what you did instead. Let’s face it. We all knew that a never before seen virus was due to arrive in 2020 and we set our company goals accordingly. Right? No! Even if there wasn’t pandemic, our business goals wouldn’t have been perfection anyway. You had goals, you hit some and you missed some. Talk about what you did.

Deliver the information in light of what you want.

You signed up for your current job. Why? What do you actually like to do? What do you want to do more of? This is your chance to highlight the things you’re best at, which are probably the things you like best. It’s a chance to remind yourself what you want out of work.

Look, you’ve met your boss, right?

So trust me, your manager knows you.

Your self-review isn’t a blind date. You don’t have to impress your boss with it. You already did the best you could at that for the last 52 weeks.

Your self-review is a chance to remind yourself that you actually did a hella-lot this year. It’s a chance to lay out what the heck you want out of work and let your manager in on the secret.

So relax. Get a cup of joe and enjoy doing a little self-reflection.

After all – it’s your review.

And that? Is just good to remember.

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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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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

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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.

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Confidence and the Big How

Think you have to know how to do something before you can be confident?
Think again. I’m gonna lay it down – get ready to take notes.

Straight up. Confidence is a feeling. Which means, say it with me, you can create it anytime, anywhere. On your worst day – confident. On your best day – confident. Sounds good doesn’t it?

Wanna hear all about the free site for Medical Front Liners & other stuff? Click on and let me read you the blog.

We get tangled up when we think that we need to have built up a history of skill and results in order to have confidence. If you’re talking about how certain you are that you can deliver a piece of software within the time allowed, then yeah, ok, knowing that you’ve done it before gives you confidence.

SCRATCH. Back the truck up.

No. Truth: the feeling of confidence comes from your thoughts. So if you think – I’ve done this six hundred times so I’m sure I can do it again – that thought can bring confidence. Sure. But stick with me, it’s the thought “I’m sure I can do it again” that generates the feeling of confidence.

Now, let’s ditch arrogance right here. Arrogance is not confidence. Arrogance is thinking you are somehow, someway “better” than someone else. That’s not what we’re talking about.

Confidence is the feeling of self-assurance that comes from faith in your own abilities.

The Big How

My coach gets us to build confidence by having us do stupid dares. We dare ourselves to ask someone for a free dinner, we ask for a better seat at a concert or a new job. We dare ourselves to publish a book, or a blog or sing in public. We dare ourselves to start businesses, to grow our businesses, to get on a live event and coach people. We dare ourselves to enter a 5K, return a product, or just ask for help. Sometimes we dare ourselves to jump up on a park bench and recite a poem – for nobody, in front of everybody.

Why? Because all of these things are uncomfortable. And the more you put yourself out there, and do something that has you squirming and wanting to back out, but you do it anyway, the more you realize that you’re OK. Ok with being turned down, OK with being thought a fool, OK with being ridiculous, vulnerable or just plain wrong. OK with trying and failing, OK with trying again and OK with figuring out how.

At work, we are confronted with things we don’t know how to do – all the time. How to get it all done? How to create something, fix something, get our message across, and sometimes, just how to be happy.

Here’s the big secret – you don’t have to know how to feel confident. All you have to do is have faith in your ability to figure it out.

The Big How – is about writing down where you are now, where you want to go and then listing out all the things that can stop you from getting there. For each obstacle you write down the plan for overcoming the obstacle.

Say I’m an analyst and I want to be a team lead – here’s some obstacles:

  • People don’t see me as a leader
  • There are no current openings for a team leader
  • I’m not sure what a team leader does
  • I don’t have any large projects where I can demonstrate leadership.

Now, I think about how to overcome the obstacles.

  • People don’t see me as a leader – So I can demonstrate clear leadership of myself. I can volunteer to set up meetings, which will put me in control of the agenda and the meeting and the follow-up. I can look for opportunities to be of service to my team, and demonstrate teamwork and leadership. I can dress a bit better, carry myself like a leader.
  • There are no current openings for a team leader – but I can tell my manager I want to prepare for one. I can say I want to be the next in line, her replacement. All managers need a replacement in training. I can ask for additional work that will help me learn what she does.
  • I’m not sure what a team leader does – I can meet with other team leads and find out what their responsibilities are, I can imagine what would be helpful and take that work on of my own volition.
  • I don’t have any large projects where I can demonstrate leadership. I can lead smaller ones, and demonstrate skill, and when I notice that my boss has too many balls in the air, I can ask for the chance to take one. I can get on committees and work on their projects. I can ask for a project.

Now, I have a path. More obstacles might come, but for now, these are the ones I see. If more come, I’ll add them to the path. For now, I’ve got a lot of work to do. Some of these things will fail, but since this is my path, my Big How, it’s ok. I’ll just think of something else.

For some of these, I might have to carry the big how with me for a few days, asking myself over and over – how can I solve this obstacle? Eventually, your brain will give you an answer. Try it. Even if it fails, you’ll get more information about what to try next.

Once you’ve done this process consciously a few times, you start to understand that you have the best ability on earth – the ability to figure out The Big How.

You can start anywhere and go anyplace.

How’s that for confidence?

And that? Is just a great way to feel.

If you would like to have me walk you through this process, click here and book a free 25 minute session.

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Bring Your P.D. to Work

Yeah, not your police department. I’m talking about your personal dreams.
If your answer to that is – “Dream this, lady” – I’ve got the blog for you.

I’m pretty stoked.   We’re jumping ahead today and tackling something in the accelerated column of the plan for this year. 

If you’re not aware, the goal for the blog this year is to get back to basics.  I want to help you move from unhappy, out of control, boxed in, and overworked to happy, engaged, forward-looking, doing right-sized work.   Lofty, huh?

There are levels we have to pass through, and I’ll describe those in later posts.  To help us make this miraculous change, there are four toolsets, each a little more advanced than the one before.  These are short-term relief, awareness, thoughts as objects, and dreams, goals, beliefs.

We’ve been hanging around in the short term relief toolbox for a bit.  You need that relief desperately at the beginning.  Today though, we’re moving to the far end.  Why? Because that’s where we find the excitement and drive to keep us running ahead.  Otherwise, we take that short-term relief, start to feel better, and stop there.  That would be a shame.  The full journey is WAY MORE, WAY BETTER than just ending the pain.  

What is a personal dream?

A personal dream is something you want that carries an excitement with it, maybe a little anxiety, perhaps even fear.  It feels like getting on a brand-new amusement ride.   Get it?

A personal dream is also internally motivated.  We can have the same vision – buy a house – for example, and if it’s externally motivated, it feels completely different.  It feels like we’ve got a monkey on our back, like if we don’t achieve it, then there’s something wrong with us.   If we want that house because of an internal drive, then it feels like – wouldn’t it be amazing if I could get a place of my own? I wonder how I could do it?  If we fail, we feel like we’re okay, all good.  Just tripped there a bit, I’ll try again soon.

Yep, I’m still not great at this. Email me for a high res copy. Amy@RockYourDayJob

What is a personal dream at work?

Buying a house can be a personal dream you bring to work.  It shows up there as several months of steady employment needed for a mortgage, the ability to pay for the house or save for it.  A personal dream of home-ownership can motivate you to strive for a promotion or be assigned to a project that creates opportunities for a bonus.

We can also have personal dreams specifically about work, too.  It can show up as a desire to have a specific job, or work with a group that you admire, or become something you find exciting.  For years, my personal dream is to become an inspiring leader who builds team cohesion and finds terrific opportunities for her staff.

Aligning your PD with your Boss’s goals

Did you all get your goals for the year?  Were they inspiring? Got ‘em tacked next to your phone, do you?

Will this year be different?  Are you going to really work on them and make sure you hit them all, or are you going to follow marching orders, and if you’re lucky, your boss will have actually assigned them to you?

Are they in a ball under your desk already?

Yeah. I thought so.

If you want help tying a PD to a goal, I’m here.

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

What your boss wants is an external goal.  External goals often leave us feeling depleted and unmotivated.  To ramp up and actually hit those goals, you have to hitch them to a balloon, something that will get them some lift.  Tie them to your PD.

When I think of getting better at leadership, I get excited, happy.   I think – wouldn’t that be cool?  Wouldn’t I be cool if I was really great at that?  I want to run around and holler for my car keys; I want to get started.  

If I can add that zoom to my boss’s goals, that’s a win for both of us.  For example, if she wants me to figure out a process for getting a new type of application out to our users, well, that’s fine.  But it’s just a job, a task.  She tells me, I try to do it. 

When I ask myself – how can getting this new type of application out to our users help me be a better leader? Now I’m getting somewhere.  Perhaps I think our team could get to code these new applications.   That ties to my desire, my DREAM, of finding terrific opportunities for my staff. Boom.  I’m all on board.  Now this goal, which started out as a task, is part of my dream.  Now, I want to show up at work and get to it.  Now, I want to bring it out and talk about it during meetings with my boss. Now, I’m all in.

What if the goals you get can’t be tied to your personal dream?

Well, I got to tell you, there are very few that you can’t tie to your PD.  When it does happen, though, you want to tell your boss.   Tell him this is a task you’ll absolutely do, but you don’t wish to have more assignments like this.  Let him know where you’re headed, see if he can help you align it with your PD.  You don’t have to drop your PD like a hot potato, and you don’t have to declare defeat.   

And that? Is just good to know.

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When You Do That Thing You Do

No matter what your jam is, it’s better if you know why you’re there.
Don’t feel like reading? I’ll read it to you.

You know that thing you do that’s, well, just a bit crazy? Yeah, that. Do you have any clue why you do it? If it’s just your weekend hobby, getting right down to the bones of your why might not be so critical unless you’re the person on the skis in this picture. But if you’re putting in forty hours a week doing something, the more ownership you have for your why, the more agency you’ll feel.

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My first job was as a cashier at a grocery store. When things were slow, they’d send the boys out to get the carts. I didn’t get the memo about pushing carts and gender. Here’s the thing, the guys would go out and make a game of bringing in as many carts as they could, the train of silver and rust wheels stretching further and further. At that store, to get the carts by the door, you had to go up a ramp. The parking lot was gently sloped away from the building, so the closer you got to the door with your long line of carts, the more physically challenging it was to both get the carts up the ramp and to turn them and not crash into the windows.

Looking back, it might have been a slightly irresponsible game.

Never-the-less, the manager was a tough, cigar-smoking old fashioned barrel of a man, and he didn’t seem to mind it. Like I said, no memo. So I started going out and bringing in carts. One day, I had a very long line of carts, the most I’d ever stacked. I was headed for the ramp with a nice head of steam. It was late, there were no shoppers coming out, so I went for it. I got the front cart to the top of the ramp. A man stepped out from the shadows and put his foot on the front wheel of the cart. Of course, the whole chain came to a stop.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He asked. It was the assistant manager. I couldn’t see his face, he was silhouetted against the windows.

He wasn’t a dumb man. He could see I was bringing in carts. So I didn’t offer that explanation. I was nonplussed. I couldn’t think of a thing to say. I didn’t know why he stopped me and he never explained. He removed his foot and went back inside.

I can be a prideful thing. I pushed that chain of carts from a dead stop up the ramp, made the turn and put them all in a neat line by the wall outside the door. I never did know why he stopped me. To this day, I don’t know if it was because I was going too fast, if he thought it was a risk for our customers, if he didn’t like women bringing in carts or if he just didn’t like me.

I do know it took me a week to come up with the word that explained what I was doing, and I needed adult help to come up with it. Competent. I thought I was being competent. I was working at something productive at a time when the other cashiers were standing around. I was performing the work as well or better than the other people who brought in carts, meaning I brought in a lot and I brought them in quickly.

That was a pivotal incident for me. Once I found that word, the incident stopped bothering me. At least I knew what the hell I thought I was doing.

I learned a lot from that. I learned that waiting for someone else to explain why I’m working is folly. Nobody other than myself knows what I’m trying to accomplish at the most personal level by the way I work, the work I choose to do and the manner I choose to do it. Nobody other than myself needs to.

In the end, it didn’t matter at all what the assistant manager thought about my cart pushing skills. He didn’t bother to communicate his perspective to me. I, however, found my perspective and a deep sense of satisfaction at being able to answer his question. I knew exactly what the hell I thought I was doing and that felt great.

Things are a little different now at work. I’ve got a terrific manager and have been lucky to have several of them in the past. They’ve taken time to explain their visions and offer that most valuable of all things – critical feedback. Doing a good job requires more than keeping my station clean and the money in my register correct, but one thing remains the same.

Nobody can tell us what the hell we think we’re doing.

That, my friends, is something we have to answer for ourselves, and my friends, it still requires some thoughtful consideration to come up with the answer. The good news is, when you do, it still feels incredible, powerful and stabilizing.

So why do you do what you do – at work?

To answer the question, let go of the traditional for a moment. Because the assistant manager could see what I was doing when he asked that question of me, he took away that easy answer. I couldn’t say – I’m bringing in carts, what did you think I was doing?

So when you look at why you go to work and what you’re trying to accomplish there, don’t let yourself say – I’m promoting our new product, obviously. Don’t let yourself say – I’m paying my bills, duh. Really put some skin in the game. Your own skin.

What is it you are looking for? What is floating your boat? As a teenage female competing with others for recognition and for promotions, I wanted to be seen as competent. I wanted to demonstrate that there was nothing in that store that I couldn’t do. I wanted to be useful and strong. I was at work to prove that I could be independent, pay my own way and earn my keep.

Once I understood that, it didn’t matter if I was pushing carts, balancing registers or running down the aisles to get a customer just the right toothpaste. I could be competent and I could achieve my objective. I could change jobs and still keep working on being ever more competent. My reason for being at work was independent of my work, my gender, my employer or even my direct manager. My reason belonged to me.

I’m just a weird kid that grew up to be a slightly odd woman. I’m not a rocket scientist or a superstar. My features are symmetrical, so there’s that. But I do know one thing – if I can figure out why I’m working, so can you.

After talking to person after person about what they want out of work, I know that the chances are, you have a strong why. You have a noble calling. You want to be excellent. Or you want to help others. You are full of ideas and you want to share them. Maybe you want to provide for your family. There’s something there we want, separate from the mountain of objectives that we’re all looking at as we head into the breach of 2020, with our corporate marching orders and our electronic dashboards.

Find out why you do what you do. If you’re not sure, take a guess. Carry it around with you for a week or so. You’ll know when you find it because the guys with their foot on your wheel won’t matter anymore. You’ll know what the hell you think you’re doing and it will feel – great.

And that? Is just freakin’ awesome to know.

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Don’t Trip on the Rug

Your dream wasn’t canceled, but if you’re not seeing it… maybe you forgot to renew.
This week’s blog is part 5 of the 5-part series on permanent change

For the audio version of this blog, scroll to the end and press play.

I’d done it all. I’d worked through the lifestyle implications of the changes I want to make happen. I cleared out space for my new work. I believed it could be done, kinda. I was planning and doing, heading towards change when all of a sudden, it wasn’t in my frame of reference. I couldn’t see it and then I tripped.

This week, I was seriously trucking along. I was committing tasks to my calendar and executing them. I’d hit a major milestone on my side hustle and delivered results. At my day job, I was making progress on several fronts and I was keeping my health goals in line…I even got up early and went out for a run… in the dark… and yet…Boom!

A total eclipse of my plans.

A trainee showed up that I forgot was arriving. He smiled at me and I thought “Oh no! What am I going to give him to do?” I had to cancel a launch at my day job to allow for more testing and fixes. I fell behind on daily tasks for one of my side ventures. Then, I tossed all my health goals to the wind, plopped some cheese and crackers on a plate and went out to my porch, in 24-degree weather, to brood.

Stuff happened.

Stuff is always going to happen; it doesn’t mean we should go out on the porch and brood. If we do, it certainly doesn’t mean we should stay there. Especially if it’s dark and cold out.

The business of change is the business of renewal. Daily, weekly, any time.

Here’s the deal. All or nothing thinking is the enemy. At work, believing we know it all is the first step toward failure. When we think things are black and white, cut and dry, done and over, we lose. We don’t listen to other people’s ideas, we don’t try to think of improvements, we don’t run hard right up to the deadline. We give up, think small and don’t listen.

The same is true when we’re trying to change. If you indulge in all or nothing perspectives, you’re taking the easy way to failure.

Telling myself if I don’t do everything I planned, my plan is a failure, is ridiculous right? I’m being too hard on myself.

Or am I? I might be going easy.

It’s easy because I don’t have to sit down and evaluate where things went south and revise my plan. It’s easy because I don’t have to pick myself up and try again. It’s easy because I can just stop.

Too bad that’s not how we frame this type of quitting to ourselves. We don’t call ourselves out for this kind of cheating. Instead, we wallow a bit. I know I do. I feel like a failure, I ruminate on it, but I also give up. It feels bad, but it also feels like a bit of a relief.

The business of change is the business of renewal. Daily, weekly, any time, all the time.

So how are you doing on your goals? Did you set any for this year?

If you did, were you gung-ho for a bit?

How are you feeling now?

Or are you so gun-shy that you no longer set goals?

Here’s what I know:

You can always start over, every day and twice on Sundays.

If you shoot for the stars and hit Everest, heck, you hit Everest. Dude.

There’s more than one way to anywhere.

The business of change is the business of renewal – and revision.

Renew your commitment.

Revise your plan.

Do yourself the favor of seeing reframing and re-trying as the most compassionate things you can do for yourself. Because they are. There is no reason you have to take the best route to your dreams. Take any route, take all the routes. It’s a dream. It’s your inheritance as a human. A dream is a privilege.

The business of change is the business of renewal.

Whatever your dream is, whatever you want to achieve, don’t cancel it. Spend time with it. You were designed to go after it. It’s in your DNA.

If you would like to take the first step to permanent change, click here.

The business of change is the business of joy.

And that? Is something worth chasing.

Click play for the audio version of Don’t Trip on the Rug