How To Make Those Important Changes

If you were to ask a caterpillar if she wanted to become a butterfly, I suspect the answer would be something along the lines of, “Absolutely yes! I would love to float, fly and flit between all the pretty flowers. This crawling around is driving me crazy."

However, if you were to re-interview that caterpillar, after she had laboriously secured herself in a protective place, shed her entire skin, and began to dissolve her existing body into a stem-cell-like, undifferentiated soup - within the darkness of the chrysalis – you might get a different answer. Perhaps, “I had no idea change would be so difficult.” or “Help, get me out of here, I am scared of losing everything.” “Maybe this becoming a butterfly is not such a good idea.”

The point is, we may all desire to make some big changes in our lives and careers, but these types of changes are rarely easy.

What to do?

Actually, let’s start with what not to do. If you have a strong or persistent calling to make some important changes in your life - and if you have examined the calling long enough to know it is not coming from fear or ego - DO NOT IGNORE IT!! History and the teachings of myth are pretty clear on this. Shakespeare sums up the consequences of ignoring a big calling to change succinctly in the play Julius Caesar where Brutus states, "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and miseries.” You don’t want to spend your one precious life wallowing around in the shallows or miseries.

So, if ignoring, or medicating away, the calling to change does not work, what does? Here are some key factors to consider, drawn from the best of positive psychology, neuroscience, myth and the spiritual traditions:

- First, you really benefit from creating the time and space to explore the possibility of a major change. (Big changes require a lot of time and energy. If you are running too busy, you might end up leaping before you have looked, or never leaping at all.)

- Secondly, you will definitely benefit from knowing enough about yourself to understand what does bring you more joy, meaning, success, etc, whatever you want more of. (If you don’t know what you are looking for, how are you going to find it?)

- You will definitely benefit from a vision of a best possible outcome of the change that inspires or moves you. (Inspiration is a big force in helping us move past our current beliefs and limitations.)

- You will definitely benefit from having a plan, even if it is really basic. (Failure to plan is too often planning to fail.)

- You will definitely benefit from having the support of allies. (Changes can be hard, with many moments when you feel like giving up. Being able to plug into the emotional support of your friends, colleagues, partners, coach, etc. – can make a critical difference, and remind you why you set off on this change in the first place.)

- You will definitely, benefit from proactively managing your stress. (Too much stress can make a coward out of anyone.)

- You will definitely benefit from building on your strengths. (Building on your weaknesses leads to mediocrity.)

- You will definitely benefit from learning to do your best, but remain unattached to the outcome. (This is a very important teaching. Attachment to a specific outcome creates a bit of tunnel vision which can prevent you from adjusting and adapting to all the unforeseen circumstances that will come your way. And there will be many.)

If you have some big changes to make, or some have been thrust upon you, have faith. The single most common thing I see, in working with hundreds and hundreds of people making big changes, is – even if at first glance the change looked like an uninvited disaster - that in some unexplained way the change always led them to a better place.

The Perils of Too Much Multitasking.

It would make a pretty good plot for a Sci-Fi thriller. Aliens flood the world with cheap new technology that allows everyone to access unlimited information, stimulation and pleasant distraction. The information opium overloads people's ability to think, act and engage each other in conversation yet alone reproduce - civilization grinds to a halt.

Well maybe it's not a great movie plot, but there is a growing body of evidence that our skyrocketing predilection for multitasking is taking its toll. And I am not simply talking about the folks that drive their cars into ditches while texting or watching a dvd . I am talking about the typical multitasking most of us do trying to cram more and more activities into a limited amount of time each and every day.

The impact this everyday type of multitasking is having on our performance is getting better understood by science. One 2005 study conducted at the University of London found, “Workers distracted by e-mail and phone calls suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in marijuana smokers.”

Other studies looking at brain activity have found that the concept of successfully multitasking is a bit of a myth. When we think we are multitasking we are actually shifting scarce mental resources from one part of the brain to another. While we might get away with this in menial tasks such as walking and chewing gum, for more complicated tasks it definitely has its price. A study of brain activity from the University of California in Irvine found that if someone is distracted while engaged in one complicated task, it can take a full 25 minutes to get back to the same level of attention.

Work from the University of Michigan has also shown that multitasking releases significant amounts of stress hormones that negatively impact our health and memory. Higher levels of stress have been shown to greatly reduce our social skills, intuition, creativity and overall sense of well being. The long-term impact this has on our relationships, our careers and our quality of life is just beginning to be understood.

The bottom line is that while it might be impossible to live and work in the 21st century without multitasking, taken to extremes it can lead to a shallow, anxious, unproductive, unhealthy, impatient, lonely existence. You may think you are getting so much done, but there is pretty good evidence to indicate you are actually less productive, less effective, less healthy and certainly much less fun to be around.

So as this new year begins, I invite you to get very clear on what is most important to you, and allocate your time accordingly. And as relates to those key activities and key relationships that contribute the most to your success and happiness, establish a zero tolerance for distractions. It is very useful to create structures that limit your likelihood of being distracted. (For example some business owners and executives I know work from their home office several mornings a week to get some focused time on key productive activities. Others draw lines around when they turn off their Blackberrys and simply enjoy their private life.)

Also, the better job you do managing your overall stress level, the easier you will find it to keep present and resist the mind's temptation to fly out of the moment to battle some future challenge. It all comes down to better mind management. And if you take yours to the next level this year, it will pay big dividends.

How To Get Those Important Things Done.

Have you ever found yourself wanting to get something done, yet struggling to actually do it?

For most of us, this happens all the time. Whether it is something you want to do for your business, your health or career, our best intentions can often be torpedoed by conflicting thoughts and feelings.

For example, I have had the intention of writing this article for about 3 weeks now. Even though I have had ample time, until today it has simply not happened. I would block out time on my calendar to write, but when the time came, I would ignore it or otherwise get distracted. So, I would look out a week, and block out more time to “finish the article!!!” and sure enough as the next date rolled around, I would lose my commitment.

If you have a few things in your life you truly want to accomplish, but are struggling to move ahead with, here is a simple technique to try.

This approach is most powerful when you do it with a partner, where someone can act as your coach and pick up on any signs of resistance. However, in a pinch you can try it out yourself as follows:

Step 1) Stand up (in front of a mirror if you can), and state your intention. “I want to complete my article today.”
Step 2) Scan your mind and body for any sign of resistance or conflict. In this example I might notice a conflicting thought that “I don’t know if the topics will be of interest to all my readers.”
Step 3) Give voice to, or otherwise express or act out, your conflicting thought. In this example I might repeat the conflicting thought , “I don’t know if the topics will be of interest to all my readers” in a weak, whiny voice (it is important to act out or exaggerate the silliness of the conflicts) for about 15 seconds or until you feel it has been fully expressed and effectively removed. (In my case I know it is impossible to write something that will be a hit with everyone. Yet to wait for perfection is to stay on the sidelines, and thus not be of use to anyone. )
Step 4) Now that you have cleared one conflict, speak your intention again and see if you can pick up any other conflicting feeling or thought. If anything comes up go through the steps again.

Keep doing this until you can state your intention with a solid voice and a strongly felt sense of commitment. Make sure to eliminate any feelings of resistance, and pay careful attention to notice any body language (like head nods, slouches, eye blinks, etc.) that show up in the mirror and might indicate other conflicts to explore.

Once you have your strong commitment, act as soon as possible. We have a limited reservoir of attention each day. Anything (morning paper, email, phone calls, etc,) you let come between you and your principal commitment, robs you of the energy you need to get the important thing done.

Try it. This approach will serve you well for many everyday commitments. However, if you run up against some really stubborn conflicts, seek some help. We are all highly resistant to the changes we would most benefit from making. And it is hard to spot and work through the big ones on our own.

Why Remain Optimistic?

In the trough of a deep recession, optimism can be a scarce commodity. As wave after wave of negative economic news washes around the globe, anyone who struggles to find silver linings can feel like an endangered species.

However as someone who does believe in humanity's ability to adjust and adapt to new circumstances, I was bouyed to read Dr. Sonja Lyubormirsky's THE HOW OF HAPPINESS, and find more hard evidence on the benefits of remaining optimistic.

To be clear, when I talk about optimism I am not advocating ignoring the real challenges of life. As you look around the world these days, you can see ample evidence of humanity's seemingly limitless capacity for self-interest, greed and general stupidity.

Nevertheless, if you look for it, you can also see countless situations where the best in humanity comes forth in beautiful displays of compassion, creativity and selflessness. Both these truths exist, and the point is it matters which perspective you choose to focus on or put in the forefront of your experience of life.

There is overwhelming evidence that people who choose to cultivate the habits of optimism, that believe in silver linings and that things will work out in the end, enjoy; greater health, greater longevity, lower stress, more energy and higher achievement. As an optimist you will not only enjoy far more happiness, but are also far more likely to persevere, stick to your goals and respond better to challenging situations.

Cultivating optimism is not only worthwhile, it's achievable, even for those of us raised in fearful or skeptical environments. Research attests to benefits of optimism fostering strategies ranging from; expressing gratitude, regular exercise, practicing kindness, developing greater mindfulness, cultivating social relationships, and learning how to savor more of life's simple joys. (Sonja's book is a very good summary of these strategies and includes practical advice on implementation.)

Not only can the habit of optimism make you feel better, it can also influence what you manifest or make happen in your life. In this regard, psychologists have long distinguished between primary and secondary control. An example of primary control is your ability to directly influence existing realities - the rain, the economy, your boss, etc. Secondary control refers to your ability to adapt to reality. (I cannot change the rain, maybe I can learn how to have more fun on rainy days?)

While most of the social science research focuses on helping us cultivate greater secondary control and thus better respond to life, the spiritual traditions (and Keynesian economics) teach that what you think, believe, and act on, absolutely influences your primary reality. If you think it is a dog-eat-dog world out there, you are going to be fearful and that will influence your behavior and what and whom you attract into your life. (Pessimists tend to attract more pessimists. Optimists attract people of a similar energy.) If you think the economy is going to get worse, you will hold back on your spending, and your spending is someone else's salary. They pull back on their spending and that can affect your income. In short, you create the very future you fear.

How you see the world can definitely influence, what you think, how you feel and what you act on. As such, your view of the world can directly shape the future you are creating.

So, cultivating more optimism not only makes you happier, healthier and a heck of a lot more fun to be around, it will also have a positive impact on creating a better future for everyone.

Every roller coaster ride has its share of heart stopping plunges. Choose to have faith your little cart is firmly fixed on the track it is meant to ride. On the roller coaster of life you might occasionally lose your favorite hat and possibly your breakfast, but that is all part of the journey.

Lighten up. It's not personal. Take some time today to enjoy the spectacular view and count your blessings. It will all work out in the end.

Coaches and Money - What Is The Financial Reality In Coaching?

Recently, I have noticed a lot of misinformation going around on the topic of money and coaching. On the one hand, I see some pretty suspect training schools and various gurus inferring anybody, with little effort or preparation can leap into coaching and make a fortune, instantly. And on the other hand, I see some doom and gloomers, (and a few characters trying to scare coaches into working with them), telling the world that nobody in coaching makes a decent living.

While I suspect it’s part of our collective experience that many good people struggle to make a living at coaching, it is not true that coaching is a profession that most people can’t make a good living at.

As to the potential upside, the latest ICF sponsored study conducted by Price Waterhouse Coopers (in which some 5,415 coaches in 73 countries participated) showed the average annual income for a full time coach to be $82K, and that part time coaches on average earn $26k a year. In doing some prep work for a presentation I gave at the last ICF conference, I got some help digging through the tons of data that came out of this study. One of the interesting findings was that the average hourly rates reported by executive coaches were $299, business coaches $196, career coaches $161, and life coaches $136. (Not exactly starvation wages by most standards.)

As to a distribution of income, another study conducted by Grant And Zackon, which involved over 2,500 coaches and was published in the Autumn 2004 in the International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, showed that 70% of all coaches were charging over $100 /hour, 25% were charging above $200/hour and only 10% of the total were charged over $300/hour.

Despite the evidence that many coaches are doing just fine, it is absolutely true that many coaches do struggle to earn a decent living. One of the frequent messages I share with coaching audiences is that, as an industry, we need to do more to raise awareness of just what it takes to succeed in this young profession. I believe it is a huge disservice not to openly discuss the real challenges people face when they consider a self-employed career in coaching. (Over the years I have had so many prospective coaches call to pick my brain on this topic that I finally put up an article on my site covering my best advice and estimates on the time, costs and challenges of a journey into coaching. http://www.acoach4u.com/Life_Coach_How_To_Become_One.htm )

It genuinely hurts me to see good coaches and great people contemplate abandoning their dream of coaching for a living. However, no matter how much information we get out there - on the need for potential coaches to acquire the basic financial/marketing/entrepreneurial survival skills - it is a sad fact that a high percentage of all small businesses do fail. (The figures generated by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics typically show that a full third of all Professional and Business Services fail in the first 2 years. And when you see how quickly coaching is growing around the world this adds up to a lot of struggling people.)

Anyway, the point is that there is a start up curve and a risk of failure for any new business. Also, not everyone is cut out to be a self-employed professional, and there are currently few opportunities for coaches to let someone else do the marketing for them. If you want to be among those that succeed in this vocation, you have to take responsibility and get prepared. No one else, not the training schools, your coach, or the coaching industry as a whole, can be of much use to you if you do not approach this journey with realistic expectations, sufficient reserves of time and money, and a commitment to learn the key business and coaching skills.

Maybe I have seen a few too many clips of Dr. Phil, berating his guests but I agree with one of his mantras, you really can’t change things that you don’t acknowledge. So, in service of raising awareness, and in hopes of minimizing the suffering of those who are called to coach, here is my list of the actions that have the most negative impact your ability to make a decent living as a coach:

• Get no training, or sign up with the cheapest, unaccredited school that will train you in a matter of weeks, via DVD, and promise you a quick path to success.


• Fall in love with the coaching skills, spend all your time and money learning them, and never think about, or budget anything, to learn the basic business and entrepreneurial skills.


• Jump into coaching with an all or nothing approach, without researching, or budgeting for, how long it will take and how much it will cost you. (Longer than you expect and far more than the cost of tuition.)


• Wait until you have finished all your training, all everyone else’s training, and gone on to get two or three PhDs before you believe you are finally competent enough to begin to coach.


• Never attempt to find an ideal client group (niche) and thus waste a lot of time and effort on ineffective, unrelated, marketing initiatives directed at people who cannot afford you or are too stubborn to get any help with their problems.


• Attempt to sell this new generic service called “coaching” - that very few people really understand or want - as opposed to finding an existing need which can be better solved through coaching.


• Never do anything to proactively manage your stress, so you will always be at level 1, reacting to the circumstances in your life instead of creating from them.


• Never grow as a human being, or develop a daily reflective practice, so you remain stuck in your habitual reactions, wresting with your shadow or pain body, and never grow in self awareness.


• Never aspire to master the coaching skills or seek a reputable independent credential that establishes your competence in the marketplace.


• Try to do it all by yourself, instead of connecting to colleagues (free coaching circles, ICF chapters, using this network, hiring your own coach, etc.) for the support, information and shortcuts you will need.


• Try to reinvent the wheel as relates to finding out what works for marketing coaching services so you can fall into the very same potholes that all the coaches ahead of you have, and quit when you get discouraged. (And you will get discouraged dozens of times along the way.)


• Price your services on your fears and insecurities, as opposed to actually doing the marketing work to see what other professionals charge, or what your clients actually use the service for and can afford.


• Believe you need to be some kind of business whiz with a Harvard MBA to coach anyone in organizations or small businesses.


• Offer only one solution, 1 to 1 coaching at one price level, so you only have one offering on the shelves of your virtual store.


• Don’t keep track of how you spend your time and money each week, and have no idea how long you have to launch your practice before you run out of money.


• Don’t have goals for your practice and have no idea how much time you must market each week to achieve the number of new clients you want.


• If you are not getting any clients from your current marketing efforts, keep doing what you have been doing until you run out of money.


• If you are not getting the results you want, believe it is because of your inherent incompetence, or unworthiness, and shrink away from the world. (As opposed to trusting we have all gone through the same thing, (and we all have our fair serving of incompetence and insecurities), and ask for help.


• Coach just for the money, never treat your clients - your brothers and sisters - as the great gifts and teachers they are, and never be grateful that coaching is giving you an opportunity to be of service to the world, every day.

A good measure of struggle and even the occasional business failure does not mean you are a bad coach or a bad person. It is often simply the price you pay to learn how to be self-employed. I know many great coaches who are struggling to make it through their first few years. I know many good coaches who have to transition into coaching while keeping their day jobs. Many other good coaches have had to go back to work part time when their coaching business took longer to get off the ground than they had hoped for. Failure in business is not failure in life. Usually you learn a ton from it, and come back wiser and stronger.

If you are called to do this work, my hope would be that you find the information you need to succeed as a coach with the minimum amount of struggle. And even if it takes you 2 or 3 years, or 2 or 3 attempts, to find a way to earn a good living doing what you love, I hope you can keep going.

This work is important and the world needs you.

Good luck,

Steve

Yearning For Yin

To the ancient Chinese, the Tao (or Dao) symbolized "the way of nature", a way of living wisely achieved by careful balancing of the "yin" and "yang" energies of life. To Taoists, the yang represents the energy of doing, of moving into action. The yin is the energy of being and going with the flow.

The ancient Chinese sages taught that too much time spent in either the yin or yang can lead to imbalance, and that the universe will always act to restore balance. While it is possible to be stuck in the yin energy (I think we all know a few world champion couch potatoes), in our modern culture it is far more common to be addicted to the yang energy. We are raised to; do, accomplish, overcome, strive, accumulate, achieve, exert, etc. While the yang energy is essential to the success of many endeavours, if it is not regularly balanced by yin activities, (truly restorative, reflective time), it can lead to trouble.

Nature teaches that if you want to build a muscle, it requires some stress, followed by a period of rest. If you choose to continuously stress the muscle it will lead to injury. In our busy lives, when we chronically stress ourselves the injury can show up in strained relationships and a general loss of joy, direction and meaning. We can become far more fearful, more compulsive and more reactive. If we continue to ignore the yin, burn out and physical illness can follow.

Most people would acknowledge the truth in this ancient teaching. However putting this wisdom into practice is an entirely different matter. When you are stuck in a particular energy, it is our human nature to stay with what we know. For example, a super high achieving "yangster" might seek "renewal" in an exhausting physical workout. (For many individuals the very idea of completely unplugging and relaxing on a daily basis can seem preposterous.)

Without sufficient yin time or balance, life can become one long, joyless, exertion; a constant act of will.

With balance comes greater clarity and alignment, and we move into action from a place of joy and enthusiasm. It is easier for us to access our deeper wisdom and creativity. It is from a balanced perspective that we can begin to strip away the layers of conditioning and fear and begin to truly open our heart. It is only with an open heart that we can become truly inspired in our life.

As simple as this concept of balance may sound, the impact of its practice can be profound.

Happiness Redux

Here is a great article on happiness, that succinctly summarizes all you really need to know.

http://pathwaytohappiness.com/happiness/2007/05/15/controlling-your-happiness/

Cheers,

Steve