Archive for the ‘Vision’ Category

There are some wonderful benefits to being outrageously honest with ourselves and others about what we want. Here are some of my favorites:

• Learning increases.
  The gap between reality and what we want is the playground of learning. The farther I allow my wants to venture ‘out there,’ the more I can expect to learn.
• Energy moves.
  As long as I hold my wants in check, I’m reining in my life-force energy. Be honest about my wants and my energy has a place to move.
• Creativity ignites.
  Desire for something I want is fuel for my imagination. Once my imagination is engaged, I can see beyond the obstacles of today.
• Focus emerges.
  Experimenting with my wants allows me to better discern what I like and experience new realities. Then I can focus on what feels good and right to me.
• Trust builds.
  When we’re honest with ourselves and others we can be trusted. When we’re not, we become controlling, manipulative, passive aggressive: untrustworthy.
• Relationships grow.
  Honest truth telling is the glue of a healthy, growing relationship. Our truths and wants evolve and grow as we do, and connect us more deeply to others.

I see people holding back the truth about their wants for many reasons. Here are just a few:

• “I don’t have time to deal with this.”
• “People just can’t always get what they want.”
• “I’ve got too many things on my plate already.”
• “If I got what I really want I’d be spoiled.”
• “What I want is not possible, it’s not happening.”
• “I can’t have what I want because of him/her.”

All of these reasons come from an external focus, from ‘reasons’ outside of us. Shift our focus internally, and a whole other world of possibilities opens up!

Remember the IAM Touchstone I Come First as a way to shift from that external focus to an internal focus. The easiest way to do this is to ask ourselves the question:

What do I really, really want?

We can tell the truth about what we want and thus create the benefits listed above.

We can tell the truth about the ‘reasons we can’t’ and, well, that would be true too.

It’s simply a matter of focus. So how about telling the truth about what you want, like never before?

Here’s a challenge: share 10 things that you want here, and inspire others to do the same. Continue everyday for a month!

A former counseling client emailed me to help her mediate a conflict with her mother. They’d been trying to work through things for months and seemed to hit a wall. The desired result was to get past the conflict so their relationship could improve.

I believe it takes skill, finesse, resilience, a healthy self-esteem, and objectivity to be really effective in conflict resolution. When things become personalized, objectivity can go out the window. When conflicts arise between family members, close personal relationship and friendships, things can become painful, uncomfortable, and scary.

Common situations that lead to conflict:

• The Blame Game
  Finger pointing, accusations, buck passing, using excuses, defending, and explaining are all ways people deny taking 100% responsibility for what they create in their life. In a conflict situation, questions to ask yourself are, “What was my role in this creation?” What were my beliefs? Intentions? Expectations? Behaviors? that contributed to this situation?”
• Judgments and Self-Criticism
  People aren’t who we want them to be. We’re unhappy with ourselves. Things aren’t the way we want them to be. Inner turmoil and struggle creates stress, anger, frustration. We all want to be unconditionally loved and accepted for who we are. Practicing compassion, tolerance and love for each other’s humanness (and ourselves), invites happiness, inner peace, and offers healing and growth opportunities.
• Stuffing things for too long
  Sitting on something that is simmering will eventually start to boil and lead to a blow up. I’m an advocate for clearing things up as soon as possible. Withholding upset creates a gap in a relationship that widens the longer a person remains silent. One of the keys to clearing things up in a healthy way is the ability to hear another without personalizing.

When both parties can be in an objective space, having a conversation using these 4 opening statements can be a useful Model in conflict resolution. Notice the intentional omission of any accusations or blaming language?

In this model, YOU take full responsibility for your experience, interpretation and reaction as well as what you need to bring the experience to peace within yourself. To be the most effective, let go of any attachment to what you want or need the other people to do or be. This is critical to offset high expectations.

1. This is what happened (from your perspective).
2. This is how I felt about it at the time (taking full responsibility for your reactions, interpretations, assumptions, feelings…)
3. This is how it affected me (taking full responsibility to what happened as a result of how you felt, what changes might have occurred…..)
4. This is what I want from you now (which might be nothing, you needed them to hear you, you want an apology…) Understand that what you want might be offered. Be prepared for your request to be denied.

These steps can be very therapeutic regardless of the result because it creates an opportunity to have a conversation where both people can express what happened, show up for themselves and be heard. Being able to show up and hear things that might be upsetting by remaining compassionately detached and present is a skill that takes lots of practice and high self-esteem.

Mutual respect, compassion, accountability, strong self-esteem, good communications skills and the willingness to grow as a person are key ingredients to having more successfull conflict resolutions that build trust and safety in any relationship.

Finally – seek help if you need it. Sometimes we are just too close to the situation and need a third-party to help move things forward.

I have been looking forward to writing on this topic because I have come to crave having people around me who tell me the truth.  I want folks around me, in my life, who are direct and are willing to tell me what they are really thinking.  I’m especially craving this after moving from the East Coast to Minnesota.

Minnesotans have a lot of great qualities but direct-ness is not high on the list.  It’s difficult for them.  They want to please and not hurt feelings so they often end up telling you what they think you want to hear rather than what they really think.

In my retreat community last fall I was trying to explain to them (a group of Minnesotans) my strong desire for those in my life to tell the truth.  I told them that I hold a strong value to be honest, to speak the truth.  One of them spoke up then and said in a quiet, humble way “whose truth do you mean?”  It stopped me cold.  They were right.  It’s not about “THE” truth, it’s about “MY” truth.  And everyone has their truth, their perspective.

If we request this of each other – this truth telling – it means being confronted with the fact that we each have a different perspective.  It presents an opportunity to listen to each other more deeply, try to understand what each other’s truth is.

So, is there such thing as “THE” truth?  Well, yes if it is about a fact.  Like “No, I didn’t take out the garbage last night.”  But I don’t think there is such as thing as “THE” truth when it comes to a perspective or opinion.  Yet, I do still believe (and crave) those around me to share with me their truth.  Bring that on.

P.S. This is shorter than usual because I have been helping with my brand new days old niece!

I love thinking about career strategies, but that wasn’t always the case. I made some poor choices early in my career. I remember the day my manager told me that he would love to promote me but his hands were tied because I didn’t have a bachelor’s degree. I was so angry. It seemed so unfair; I had gotten excellent performance reviews for 6 years in a row. I thought about what I really wanted for my career and decided I could complain about it or do something about it, so the next week I enrolled in night school to get my bachelor’s degree. I worked really hard. I had a full-time job during the day, school at night, homework on the weekends, and going through infertility treatments. My husband must be a saint!

After I got my degree I moved into a better position at a new company, or so I thought. At first I loved my work, but after a few years I began to get restless. I wondered what was wrong with me. When I told my boss I wanted to do something different, she said, “Why can’t you just stay where you are?” If you read the Career Concepts article in this lesson, you’ll see that I favor the spiral career concept, so there’s nothing wrong with me.

I couldn’t just quit my job due to financial obligations and had no idea what I even wanted to do, so I hired a coach (the lovely Karen Tax) to help me figure it out. We created a strategy so I would have enough money in the bank to take off a year from work and begin a coaching program. I also found a great part-time job. Interestingly enough, that year was my husband’s highest salary ever due to the bonuses he received (this was post 9/11).

Now I’m completing a master’s program in May, have my own business, and am partnering with Karen in this venture of IAM Learning initiatives.  What I’ve learned is that in our world today, it isn’t likely that we can plan out our whole careers in this linear, static fashion. However, it is essential to be strategic about our careers. If I had not been strategic about my career, I would be have likely been laid off as the company I work for is now in bankruptcy, and my career choices would have been very limited.

In the Sight Your Destination lesson, we asked you to think about what you really, really want for your life and career. As you think about strategies you have employed in your life and career, which ones have worked best for you?