I am absolutely tickled pink about an article a former client wrote. Some time ago, I donated three coaching sessions as the door prize at a Toastmasters conference. I very much enjoyed working with the recipient. She let me know that she just wrote an article about hiring and working with a life coach.
So here it is: Life Coach: Should You Hire One?
Mar 13
Recently I completed some fantastic training on Energy Leadership with iPEC in New Jersey. Like most coach training, we learn techniques and concepts and then practice on each other, which opens the door for a lot of new learning, breakthroughs, and transformative thinking! A major takeaway for me from the weekend was this: It’s time for me to play a bigger game.
I have been stagnating in a few areas of my life and not stepping up to the plate with my true potential. I’ve been playing it safe, going with “good enough,” and making a lot excuses for not going bigger. I dug a comfortable little hidey hole in my complacency and fear. I have allowed certain beliefs and thoughts to hold me back.
The experience of new training and new thinking challenged me in these areas. It was really uncomfortable, and I felt a lot of resistance at first–which means that is precisely where I need to grow. Once I realized that I was playing small, it became more and more evident to me based on some feelings (and actions) I have had lately.
Now I’m completely energized and excited about the next phase of my life game.
So I hereby make this promise: I promise to play bigger. For myself, for my clients, for the world.
How will you show up for a bigger game in your life?
Loyal blog readers may remember some time ago that I posted about the three D’s of task management: delete, defer, and delegate. Well, I’ve had some serious experience with delegating recently. I hired a virtual assistant (VA) several months ago. The different in my business, my approach to it, and my personal growth has been startling! I want to share my experiences here, partly to sing the praises of VAs and partly to show how a simple change can bring about profound learning.
Virtual assistants can do all kinds of support work for a businessperson. Without getting into too much detail, they can offer administrative support, some Web work, design, event planning, phone calls, documentation, you name it. I found my VA through a local networking group, and we signed a contract by which she provides me 4 hours of her services each month. How I ask her to use the time is up to me. So far, I have had her work on both of my Web sites (which were recently relaunched in Wordpress), design promotional flyers for and assist with some training events, optimize my profile on some business networking sites, make phone calls and perform some research, and create a PowerPoint presentation from some extremely raw text. I plan to have her help me with a newsletter, more slide presentations, and some marketing tasks in the future!
What surprised me in the process of making use of this support is how much it helped me grow! The lessons ran deeper than I could have imagined (and are still revealing themselves to me). Here are some of them.
Obviously, I recommend a good VA if you need or want some support in your business. As you think about the cost of hiring someone, weight it against the immediate benefits of getting things done, and remember to think about the bigger picture advantages!
Feb 11
One of my favorite holidays is fast approaching: Valentine’s Day! Why do I love it? Because I love love itself. I like to celebrate love. And I am continually challenged to do so in a meaningful way. It occurred to me lately that the point of such a holiday is about showing love, not proving love.
Valentine’s Day is the feast day of Saint Valentine. Not much is known about Valentine, except that he was martyred in the third century. He is the patron saint of engaged couples, happy marriages, love, lovers, and young people (among other things). He is represented in pictures with birds and roses.
Somehow, the observation of a saint’s feast day has turned into a marketing whirlwind of products. They start to appear immediately after Christmas–whole aisles of things that are heart-shaped, red and pink, and cutesy-poo (sometimes nauseatingly so). Much like the commercialization of Christmas, Valentine’s Day has been seized by marketers as a way to ram more needless “stuff” down our throats. I’ve seen people (men, mostly) coming out of shops on V-day with armloads of flowers, chocolate, balloons, and stuffed animals. It makes me a little ill, frankly. I can’t imagine demanding that of someone. You don’t really need that stuff to show someone how much you love them.
So the challenge becomes how to celebrate love in a meaningful, heartfelt, and thoughtful way. My husband and I made a pact to just do something together. Some years that means we hand-make Valentine cards, sometimes we cook a nice romantic dinner and eat it by candlelight, sometimes we cuddle on the couch and watch a good movie, other times we head to art museum to get some culture.
I am truly curious to hear some great ideas from my loyal readers. How do you show your love in a way that’s meaningful to you? What Valentine’s Days past do you treasure in your heart?
Feb 1
As of today, I have been snowbound for three days. We got a rare heavy snowstorm starting Friday night, and about 6-8 inches of accumulation. It’s absolutely beautiful! Luckily, the power has stayed on, so we have “weathered” (hyuk hyuk) the storm in great comfort. We had plenty of groceries, and even got a new snow shovel before it arrived.
I have reveled in this break from the busy-ness of everyday life. My calendar was mostly cleared of appointments–the two remaining ones have been rescheduled. I had lots of work to do here at home, plus some cleaning projects, a full TiVo, and a stack of books to read. I haven’t been bored at all, nor have I had cabin fever (I credit that to many, many snow days with no TV when I was growing up). I welcome the opportunity to slow down for a few days. It’s a rare luxury.
Think of Henry David Thoreau, who isolated himself from mainstream society for over two years at Walden Pond. (He still received visitors and made visits himself; he didn’t live as a hermit.) His time there inspired his classic masterpiece, Walden, which covers his thoughts on self-reliance and simple living.
When we’re given a chance to slow down a bit, what can we do? What creativity comes forth? What do you notice about your regular life when you’re offered a respite from it?
Jan 27
I hereby declare “do-overs” for January 2010. Yep, we are starting over, rebooting the year. Mulligans for all!
All around me, people are having a rough start to the new year. Many were bidding adieu (and good riddance) to a difficult 2009, and then 2010 starts off with a few hard punches to the gut. Around me I see lost jobs, breakdowns, deaths, ended relationships, and diminished resources, not to mention the obvious natural disasters. Mercury is in retrograde, I hear. Perhaps we can blame it on that.
Last night at a local meeting, I had the privilege of hearing the fantastic Mary Cantando speak. One of the points she made that stuck with me was that when something bad happens, try to look for the silver lining, specifically by saying (aloud) “Three good things about this are…” Once you say it out loud, the good things start to flow from your brain. When you can consistently look for the good, it can help you balance the bad and not let it get hold of you.
Three good things about a very hard month?
We won’t get do-overs for January, but perhaps we don’t really need them. We can and will rebuild and create something wonderful, among the rubble of the pain, loss, and heartache. This is what defines success: not avoiding being knocked down, but continually getting back up after it (inevitably) happens.
Jan 18
There is a task management mantra that many people swear by (including me, and some of my clients). If you are feeling overwhelmed, start implementing the three D’s: delete, defer, and delegate. Write it across the top of your week or month in your planner or calendar, so you are reminded of it as you review your tasks.
I’ve used and recommended this technique for while, and it seems fairly simple, but there can be surprising depth in this simple process, so I have decided to explore it in a short series of blog posts. I’ve previously discussed the first D (delete) and the second D (defer).
The third D: delegate. If a task cannot be deleted or easily deferred until later, consider delegating it to someone else. I find this option to be a little harder than deferring, but not quite as difficult as deleting. Here’s why: delegating a task to someone else means letting go of it. Sometimes, letting go feels like relinquishing responsibility, and that can engender some guilty feelings.
Instead, look at it this way: if you delegate a task, what does that free up for you? Letting someone else do it will create more space in your planner and your life. What could you do with that time and space?
A good example: last year, I met and then hired a virtual assistant to help me with office work a few hours a month. I’m still learning to think in terms of delegating tasks to her, which is a challenge. What I have found is that when she completes a task for me, she does it in about a fourth to a half the amount of time I would take to do it. This frees me up to do higher-level billable work and creative thinking. As I tell people, she works ON my business, so I can work IN my business. Because of this, I am learning to thing bigger and my creativity is flowing, because I know she can handle the smaller details that distract me!
Some other places one can delegate (even if you don’t have underlings at work!):
What are some creative ways to delegate tasks?
Jan 12
There is a task management mantra that many people swear by (including me, and some of my clients). If you are feeling overwhelmed, start implementing the three D’s: delete, defer, and delegate. Write it across the top of your week or month in your planner or calendar, so you are reminded of it as you review your tasks.
I’ve used and recommended this technique for while, and it seems fairly simple, but there can be surprising depth in this simple process, so I have decided to explore it in a short series of blog posts. I’ve previously discussed the first D, delete.
The second D: defer. If a task or appointment cannot be deleted, consider whether it can be deferred until later. If it can be easily moved and will significantly help you out, go for it. Reschedule it!
This choice, in my opinion, is the easiest to make. Deleting an item entirely can be difficult to do, but deferring it until later is much easier on our consciences. It’s often easier to defer than to delegate, and thus “let go” of a task we have claimed responsibility for. I think many people (myself included) defer most of our to-do list when necessary (rather than deleting or delegating).
When deferring a task, it would serve us well to defer it only briefly and only once, so it doesn’t linger until it becomes a house-on-fire-must-handle-immediately task later on down the road. It can be far too easy to get in a vicious circle of moving from one crisis to another, putting out fires on a daily (even hourly) basis. That adrenaline rush lifestyle, however, is ultimately not sustainable. After a while, we end up crashing, hard, and doing nothing at all simply as a way to recuperate. Then we are at the extremes of either doing everything all at once, or nothing at all, neither of which serves us. The truth is, we all have to find an optimal mix of important, urgent, not important, and not urgent things to fill our time.
It’s also far too easy to defer all the fun things in favor of not-so-fun things. How many times do we cancel lunch with a friend, “date night,” or goofing-off time because other things seem “more important?” When looking at your planner and deciding what to defer, think hard before deferring these items that might bring some delight (the fourth D?) into your day. It may seem super-easy to cancel that lunch date with your pal, but consider this: Do you want some levity and fellowship in the day? How important is that meeting to your friendship? Would it give you some balance?
If you defer something more than a few times, you might need to check in with yourself: Why is this task constantly deferred? Is it truly important? If it is, why haven’t I done it yet? What would it take to get it done?
Jan 5
There is a task management mantra that many people swear by (including me, and some of my clients). If you are feeling overwhelmed, start implementing the three D’s: delete, defer, and delegate. Write it across the top of your week or month in your planner or calendar, so you are reminded of it as you review your tasks.
I’ve used and recommended this technique for while, and it seems fairly simple, but there can be surprising depth in this simple process, so I have decided to explore it in a short series of blog posts. Let’s jump right in, shall we?
The first D: delete. This is fairly obvious–get rid of those things on your calendar or to-do list that you can really do without. Sometimes it can be surprisingly difficult to make this cut. We find it much easier to defer until later, or delegate to someone else. We tend to overcommit, we like to be involved, we want to say “yes” to everything. Suddenly, our calendar can fill up with the usual assortment of appointments, get-togethers, parties, meals, and all kinds of other events. If we do a lot of business networking or are self-employed, the list of appointments and tasks gets even longer. Suddenly the days are chopped up with a lot of busy-work, and not enough real meat to the day. Ever feel like you were running around a lot, but not really accomplishing anything? I know that feeling well. It leads to burnout, where you then end up doing nothing at all just to recuperate.
“But wait,” you might be protesting, “if I put a task on my calendar or in a list, then clearly I need to do it, I must do it, and therefore I can’t possibly delete it.” How can you approach your task list with an eye for removing some items?
You can, of course, begin by asking yourself question like, “Is it truly necessary? Does it have a big/immediate payoff? What’s in it for me?” Those can help you do a preliminary cull (or figure out what to defer or delegate).
It’s more enlightening to ask yourself something like “If I say NO to this task, what does that open up for me?” and “What do I want more of in my life? What am I willing to trade off to get it?” These kind of questions work particularly well if you look at standing commitments–things you do every week or month, or even just once or twice a year.
For example, I used to volunteer regularly at my local classical music station, every time they had a call-in fundraiser. At the time, I listened to the station a lot while I was working, and I like giving my time to help out, even when it took a significant portion of my workday. After a few years, I realized I was only agreeing to volunteer because I felt bad saying “no”–even though I no longer listened to the station! I was able to decline the next request to volunteer and reclaim a bit of my schedule.
It is difficult to say “no.” However, if you have thought through your needs and desires and can say “no” from a place of wholeness and love, you will open up new possibilities for your personal growth and joy. You will allow yourself to be your best because you can choose and commit to things with intention and mindfulness.
How do you cut items from your list or planner?
The calendar year is nearly finished, with a new one looming immediately. Your thoughts might be turning to New Year’s resolutions. I’ve heard many people say, “I don’t make resolutions, since I never keep them, so then I don’t feel guilty.” Others make a lot of resolutions and then keep one or two. Some might make resolutions and then promptly forget them. And some people use the opportunity of New Year’s resolutions to make a real change in their lives.
I am a fan of resolutions! I feel that if they are made properly, with the right mindset and with an action plan, they can help a person grow. So here, without further ado, is my completely unofficial handy-dandy guide to make a resolution that you can (more likely) stick with.
1. Ditch any thoughts that begin with “I should,” “I ought to,” or “I really need to…” If you’re nagging yourself before even making the resolution, your chances of keeping it are pretty low.
2. Ask yourself: “What do I want more of in my life?” and “Where can I grow?” Asking yourself a positive question like this will lead to you being more likely to stick to a goal. Instead of just “denying” yourself something (quit smoking, stop biting your nails), commit to something positive! For instance, if you want more joy in your daily life, you might resolve to do something you really enjoy once a week, like playing golf or watching a movie in a theater. If you do want to do something like lose weight, you can put it in a positive framework, perhaps by saying, “I resolve to improve my health and wear a size 8 by end of next year.”
3. Make your resolution SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-limited. If it doesn’t meet these criteria, then it’s not likely you will achieve your goal. Remember, your resolutions (like all your goals) should be something within your control! Resolving to win the lottery is useless, as that is not in your control. Resolving to buy a lottery ticket every week certainly is in your control.
4. Ask yourself the critical follow-up question: “How will I achieve this?” This is the lynchpin that can keep your goal linked to reality. A pie-in-the-sky goal like “I resolve to make a million dollars this year” doesn’t do anything for you if you don’t have a plan for achieving it. Follow up a good resolution with a plan for action! For instance, if you resolve to shave 10 points off your golf game, you might create an action plan that involves some lessons with a pro, more time at the driving range, and watching some videos to help you improve your putting.
5. Put it on paper. Write down your resolution; put action benchmarks in your planner, so you can check in throughout the year. When you write something down, it becomes more real to you. Writing something is a deliberate act, and little more mindful than just saying something out loud. You can also make a “dream board” with pictures of your achieved goals, to help motivate you.
6. Get some accountability! Got a buddy with the same resolution? Check in with each other! This works particularly well if you want to learn a new skill (take a class together, practice together) or do something like lose weight (gym buddies) or stop smoking (support group).
Always remember, you don’t have to wait until January 1 to get started on a new resolution. There are new years starting every day! Some notable new years include Chinese New Year (lunar new year), which is on February 14, 2010; several cultures celebrate new year on the vernal equinox. There is also Rosh Hashanah (Jewish new year), Samhain (Celtic new year), and of course, your own birthday.
Anyone want to share their resolutions in the comments? I’m always intrigued! In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll share three of mine.
1. I resolve to work hard on my business so that my average monthly income doubles.
2. I resolve to work on and complete at least one monk’s cloth embroidery project.
3. I resolve to cook a real meal every other week (husband agreed to do the same!).
Email Laura
Twitter
LinkedIn
Inside919
Facebook
RSS feed