What Are You Waiting For?

I've begun to think that the old adage that patience is a virtue may be an outmoded relic of the past. It needs examining, if, as I suspect, the character trait of patience becomes the behavior of waiting too long to make change or manifest your dreams.

Much of so-called patience is just procrastination. And procrastination is a form of self-sabotage.

Patience can be sneaky. It sounds good to say we are waiting for right timing, or more resources, or for someone else to respond or take an action. A particularly deceptive form of sabotaging patience is in the idea that things are in motion and we are letting them play out.

Oh, I admit that all of those things may be true and valid in and of themselves. And what I see in many of my coaching clients is that this mindset can also be the mantra of excuses-making for staying too long in a comfort zone when there is an underlying commitment to be risk-avoidant.

If you believe yourself to be a patient person, if you take pride in that, it may well be an admirable virtue in your character. And nonetheless, I encourage you to ask yourself these powerful self-reflective questions, and see if you uncover a saboteur you didn't realize was lurking in you.

• Today, what am I waiting for? Is there really no forward movement I can take?
• Is what I'm waiting for contributing to a delay in making progress on other goals?
• What am I feeling while in this waiting state?
• What could I be doing on this or other projects that might move me forward differently, or faster?
• What risk am I avoiding by this waiting? Is that really a good idea, or is it hurting my success?
• If today's waiting is really productive, what else can I start or work on or finish in the meantime?
• What alternatives to waiting would be best for me right now, or best for my long term goals?
  

Courageous Attitude -- The Overlooked Resource

On her Facebook page, renowned poet Maya Angelou posted this quote: "If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain."

I love this variation of the Serenity Prayer, most commonly attributed to theologian Reinhold Niebuhr : God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.

Courage and attitude. Two important resources that often are overlooked when facing difficult times. Courage is simply the ability to do what needs to be done, despite potential negative outcomes. Most of us let our imaginings about potential negative outcomes make us blind to the potential positive results.

We let imagination rob us of courage. We could just as well allow imagination to focus on the positive, and be the fuel to move us forward. It's a choice, but we have to be conscious to choose the positive, because the unconscious will almost always choose the fearful negative.

If you claimed your own courage today, what would you do? How would you make a difference?

A common psychological defense when we are fearful is to become upset, angry, sarcastic, insulting, verbally abusive, or cynical. These negative emotional behaviors are called having a bad attitude, and they visit us when we are caught up in not liking something that we feel powerless about.

I don't know about you, but I don't need to answer the door when these visitors come calling.

Having a bad attitude is toxic to solution-finding, to generating alternative thinking, and to change, among other things. We can choose to react without attitude. We can even simply acknowledge that we don't like something or are afraid of something, without piling a lot of defensiveness on top of that.

What is in your world today that you don't like? Can you change it? Can you change your attitude about it? What positive outcome might happen if you did?

Asking for What You Need

I bet you thought that title meant asking other people to help you get what you need. And sure, it's good to be able to do that. But what I want to offer today is asking yourself for what you need -- asking more of yourself, holding yourself more accountable, or to a higher standard than you have been.

And maybe, in some cases, asking less, or asking for different things than you have been demanding -- for example: less work, more play or sleep; less uber-responsibility, more boundary keeping; less excuses-making, more critical analysis and problem solving; etc.

So have you taken an inventory recently of what you are asking of yourself? No? I'd like to recommend that you take an undistracted, unpressured,15 minutes today to take a head to toe, inside outside look at what you are giving yourself and if it's really what you need for the happiest, most confident and successful life.

Here are some prompter questions to use in your self-awareness process:

1. Do you insist on thinking positive, non-judgmental thoughts that move you forward towards your goals?
2. Are your beliefs, assumptions and perceptions binding you to negativity and sabotage, or freeing you for joy, new possibilities, and necessary risk-taking?
3. Do you give yourself opportunities for openheartedness and lovingkindness every day?
4. Are you fueling your body with immune and energy boosting nutrients, and getting enough sleep and exercise?
5. Do you recognize emotions as transitory flavors of experience and put them in proper perspective?
6. Can you let go of hurts, angers, fears, and reframe your viewpoint of what's possible in any situation?
   
7. Will you give yourself time to think twice before reacting, and respond quickly rather than procrastinating?
8. Do you have a gratitude practice, or a way to be grounded and authentic to your true self and inner playful child?
9. Is your personal support system toxic -- overcritical, doubting and discounting you -- or are they really on your side, providing encouragement, motivation?
   

Is it time to commit to changing what you ask of yourself? What will you ask for today?

Fear is good

What? What do you mean, fear is good?

Fear is a mind-body-spirit communication intended to keep us safe. Fear tells us to flee from the tiger, fight off the mugger, or freeze all your financial accounts when you suspect identity theft. Those are the right actions for the circumstances. Fear is just the kick start.

Fear is helpful when we respond as it intends us to -- with rapid critical thinking assessment of the situation and our capabilities.

Fear runs amok when we react to it emotionally -- with hypervigilence, panic, unnecessary defensiveness, anger, or hiding.

Long ago a book came out with the title: Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. I find my counseling and coaching clients who try to follow that prescription get stuck in being afraid of feeling fearful. Afraid of feeling. As if feeling itself were the problem.

Feeling is only the messenger. The message is: decide what you need to do, trust your ability to do it or get the assistance you need, and take action now. The magic of that formula is that the more we apply it, the less fearful of fear we become.

A Key to Undoing Self-Sabotage

How's your life going? Got everything flowing smoothly? Getting everything you want or expect from all the effort you're making?

No? Hmmm. When we feel like we're spinning our wheels, hitting a glass ceiling, or running into roadblocks, we need to step back and take a hard critical look at three factors:

• what specifically is not working the way we think is should
• how are our own actions, thoughts, beliefs, or feelings getting in the way
  
• where exactly do we have leverage (opportunity+control) for making something shift

From a coaching perspective, self-sabotage is simply the application of the least effective tool or process for the desired goal. It's not a moral failing; it's just being in a pattern that isn't working.

But before we can assess the three critical factors, the key to undoing self-sabotage is to let go of all attachment to continuing to do things the way we've always done them. And the attachment to any belief that if we just keep doing what we've always done that someday, somehow, something will magically change.

You know the definition of crazy?

Doing the same thing that doesn't work over and over and over again, and expecting a different result.

Why be stuck in crazy when a little coaching can provide you with new tools, help you customize new processes, and give you enthusiastic support to get your life flowing smoothly, and get back on track for getting what you want.

What's Your Prime Motivation?

About an hour from now I'll be speaking with my coach -- yes! coaches have coaches!! -- and she's going to ask me two critical questions:

~ Why do I want to accomplish my goals?
~ What's in the way?

Like many coachees, I want to just plunge right in to action. I don't want to waste time analyzing motivations, and pondering insights, and wander around inside my head until I make a discovery. No. I want to design an action plan and get going.

She's right, though to encourage me to take a breath, and a step back, and make sure that my actions are directly connected to my motivations. Otherwise, how can I possibly know whether I'm working on the right goals. How would I even recognize what the immovable obstacles are, or find the doorways to go through them?

Creative Alternatives Coaching sounds like it's all about action, and much of the time it is. But before action can be productive, we just might need to apply a little creative alternatives effort to the thinking process as well.

So today's coaching questions for you, dear reader, are:

1. What do you really really want in your life right now?
2. What is your prime motivator for wanting that?
3. From your current point of view, what is in the way of having it?
4. And go deeper -- what thought or belief or emotion is in the way of removing the obstacle?

How Can You Challenge Yourself Today?

Change happens in two ways. It can be thrust upon us by external forces such as the requests of friends, family and others, and the unexpected shifts in life situations that demand response.

When this type of change is resisted, it can cause turbulent times in relationships, careers, perception of economic or social stability, and other intense difficulties. We tell ourselves that there's nothing wrong with how we are, or how we've been doing things -- if only others would realize that and cooperate.

Hmmm. Is that really true? Is it an effective position to take?

Change can also be a pro-active, self-selected, self-challenge process. When this type of change is embarked on, we are more likely to engage with it as an adventure, or an experiment. Our emotional defense mechanisms aren't triggered because we actually can have fun and gain satisfaction from the achievements that self-determined change brings.

Being a bit of a control freak, I prefer the latter. What about you?

How can you challenge yourself today? Here are a few ideas.

1. Emotional challenge -- identify a loss (of person, job, dream, etc) you haven't grieved, and admit how that loss changed you, for better or worse. Then consider how you grew from the experience of this loss.

2. Habit challenge -- select a personal habit you know you need to change, and do one small thing differently today. Make it a game, see how unusual or new or out of character you can be with your one small difference.

3. Interpersonal challenge -- decide to do something impromptu that will bring a smile to a neighbor or stranger. Give an apology, or make an unexpected phone call, or leave a treat for someone who does something usually unacknowledged for you.

Being Coachable

Are you coachable? That's the question a coach is silently asking during an initial conversation. What does that mean?

Recently I surprised myself by not being at all coachable on a particular issue I requested to work on. This has me thinking: what should coaches really be aware of and ask before agreeing to take on a new client.

Since coaching is all about effecting change, a prospective client must really want things to be different. Really wanting is not the same as being persuaded by external forces such as family, doctors, or societal norms and expectations. True desire to change is an internally felt pressure.

A coach should ask: on a scale of 1-10, where is your true desire for change?

Because coaching is oriented around moving forward, a prospective client must have a genuine willingness to name goals, design plans, and take action that is either self-generated, or co-created with the coach. Or clients must at least be willing to accept and follow through with the bold requests of the coach for a specific period of time. Willingness is the motive power that makes change happen.

A coach should ask: what priority does effecting this change have for you in relation to other priorities? In other words on a scale of 1-10, where is your genuine willingness to work for it?

Another key dynamic that should be addressed is the issue of resistance. Clients sometimes believe they want change and will say they are willing to work for it, but will have strong resistance to giving up old habits or changing self-sabotaging attitudes. Sometimes resistance signals a need for counseling rather than coaching. The question is, can the client honestly examine their resistance and experiment with what life would be like without those old habits and attitudes.

A coach should ask: what will sabotage you as you work towards your goal? Are you open to examining and experimenting with some different choices and perspectives?

In my personal and professional experience, the coachable client desperately wants change, is eagerly willing to work for it, is more than ready to examine their saboteurs and resistances, and is self-reflectively open to experimenting with new choices and possibilities.

Swim, Gallop or Fly?

Coaches often wonder about the difference between coaching and counseling. A recent forum post captured my interest and prompted this response.

I take as my role the job of helping clients not just see the light at the end of the tunnel and figure out how to get there. As a coach, my job is to help the client jump the tracks and take to the air -- in other words, to leave altogether the paradigm of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and building the track to reach it.

My job is to help coachees envision a completely new view of themselves and their possibilities.

In other words, (and switching metaphors) a fish never imagines it can gallop because it has no frame of reference for being a horse. As a counselor, my job is to help the fish adjust to the disappointment and sense of loss it may experience if it happens to see a horse and want to be one, to teach effective coping tools for the inner urge to leap out of the fish tank, to tame the post traumatic stress of being nearly stepped on by a horse, to heal the depression or anxiety about the inevitability of being a fish, and to reintegrate its identity as a fish with a sense of belonging to its pod or school of origin.

As a coach my job is to help the fish imagine how horse-ness might work in the fish tank, to help the fish identify what it would need to be more horse-like within the parameters of obvious physical limitations, and to guide the fish in creating the action steps for experimenting with incorporating selected horse traits into the fish's world view and behavior patterns.

In other words, my job as a coach is to help clients think big, act brave, take the next leap, and discover they can not just gallop, but fly.

Reframing Perspectives: Truth, Reality and Commitments

The essence of coaching, I think, is in helping clients reframe perspectives that no longer serve your highest purpose or greatest need. Often that will call into question ways of thinking and feeling that you have held as true or real. For some, re-ordering these beliefs can be temporarily unsettling.

Truth and reality have many levels and colors. As children, many of us were taught that there is only one Truth, and one Reality. As we grow into adults we learn that what was presented to us as the one Truth or Reality was our parents’ or society’s explanation, but that what was unknown when they formed their truth and reality has since been replaced or augmented by new knowledge.

If we’re lucky to be well educated or if we are naturally open to the process of critically thinking for ourselves, we easily reframe the perspectives about truth and reality we’ve been taught in our early years.

But if we’re committed to sustaining a certain explanation, it’s much harder to reframe old, outmoded, dysfunctional views into new, more growthful, more healthy perspectives.

In coaching, we ask: what belief or assumption are you committed that might no longer be the version of truth you want to invest in? What reality have you been committed to that you now see has to change?

Change itself necessarily implies that there is an old version of reality and a potentially new one, an old truth and a new one. If this were not so, there could never be any change at all.

Growth by it’s very nature is change.

What is the central truth you are committed to right now? How does that commitment shape your choices, your current reality? How might you need to change that explanation of truth in order to have the choices and reality you really want?