How to quickly change your life…

There’s a great book I just finished reading titled, “Change Your Questions, Change Your Life” by Marilee Adams, PhD.  The book is written in a simple format and is easily consumed.  It’s on my highly recommended list. 

One of the main thrusts of The Inflection Point community and my coaching is to get people to think differently.  Think about yourself differently, think about the world differently.  I’m not talking about wholesale changes in your thinking.  Instead, I work with clients to open up their thought processes and begin taking in more of what is available.  It’s possibly much easier than it sounds at first.

“Change Your Questions, Change Your Life” enables you to do just that – see the world differently and see what is available to you.  I won’t go into the book’s main themes here, but I will touch on my understanding of the main premise.

When you see something that you disagree with – a social condition, something your spouse has done, a coworker taking an action you disagree with – do you ask “Why?” or do you ask, “What can I learn?” or “What do I think can improve the situation?”

When you feel stuck or like you’ve made a mistake, do you think “That was stupid!” or “I’m an idiot!”?  These are simply judging statements that, if you know the answers, won’t help you get moving forward.  Instead, what if you asked, “What have I missed?” or “What can I do to fix it or change the situation?”  These questions get you into what the book calls “learner” and will move you forward! 

I know it’s sounds simple, and it really is.  It all starts with AWARENESS!  What questions are you asking today?  If your questions tend to start with “why…” or if they look to find blame, fault or “the guilty party”, try moving to “learner”.  It is much easier on your mind, less stressful on your body, easier on those around you, and helps you move past the challenges and get to living and loving life.

For more on these concepts, check us out at www.the-inflection-point.com.

What questions are you asking?  What questions could you ask instead?

The Awareness Gap

Have you met someone and thought, “I know somebody just like you.” Or maybe you’ve been presented a problem and known immediately how to solve it.  Or is it possible that you’ve jumped to conclusions, only to realize that your initial “gut instinct” wasn’t correct?  Did you meet someone and get to know them before you decided if you liked them or not? 

Sometimes it happens that we experience a person, an event – whatever – and immediately react.  If it truly is immediate, your “awareness gap” (as i’ll call it) is very small.  If, instead, you wait to pass judgement, collect data, make a decision, etc., your awareness gap is longer.  Why is this important?

No two people or situations are exactly alike.  Even twins have differences in their appearances, albeit ever so slight.  A short awareness gap – the time from your awareness of the event until you form opinions – may take you into trouble by assuming too much and not validating your assumptions.  A longer awareness gap gives you time to understand, to validate you opinions, to form ideas relevant to this time, this person, this event, or this situation.  From this place you can take real, appropriate action.

Societal pressures, especially at work, can often force us into short awareness gaps.  An employee presents a problem, the boss gives an answer.  “Wow, my boss is so smart, she always knows what to do.”  Maybe.  But even if it is a problem the boss has encountered before, situations, players, details all may be different and the boss’s solution may not lead to the best possible outcome.

Here’s a little joke to demonstrate:  A little boy comes home from school one day and asks his mom, “Mommy, where do we come from?”  She smiles, stops what she’s dong and sits down with him, knowing that the “birds and the bees” discussion would happen eventually.  She tells him about when two people love each other, marriage, sex, babies being born, God’s blessings, etc.  She finishes her story with, “Do you understand all that honey?”   He answers, “yeah, I guess.  But the new kid at school comes from Cincinnati.  Where do we come from?”

The simple lesson is be sure you know the question being asked, not the one you THINK is being asked.  In other words, lengthen your awareness gap to shorten confusion!

The Joy of Living a Balanced Life

I recently worked with a client who, in addition to a 60-hour per week “retail-like” job, a wife, friends, regular workout schedule and a house and two dogs, just started back to college in the evenings!  We’ve worked on balance in the past, but most of his attention in our coaching has focused on his job.  This week, as he took his first test in almost 10 years, he had an epiphany!

He realized that the addition of something important in his life that requires his overt attention (college) is adding a dimension of balance and simplicity to other areas of his life!  Does that seem counter-intuitive?  It did to him!

What we discovered as we talked about it is that some of the “little things” that have bothered him  or “ate at him” in the past really aren’t as important as he made them out to be!  The addition of college in his life added a “counterweight” to his “job” in his life.  Here’s a visual that might help.

Think of your life as a sphere.  (This is an extension of the “Wheel of Life” you can find at www.the-inflection-point.comthen click on “is it right for me?”)  So if your life is a sphere (picture a basketball) and each of the 3-dimensional sections of the ball are different aspects of your life – job, family, intellection, health, etc. – what happens if one of the sections becomes slightly larger than others?  We call this “out of round”, “warped” or “lopsided”. 

Now imagine if you poured all your energy into one area of your life.  How quickly would your ball become lopsided?  Think about how difficult it would be to shoot a basket accurately, dripple (move the ball forward), or even roll it along the ground in a straight line! 

But, by putting more focus on one of the other areas of your life (or ball) you begin to add a counterweight or balance.  Now, even though the ball may still be out of round, it is not totally lopsided, but becomes easier to handle! 

Likewise, if you add focus to an area where you were not focusing before, the lopsided or “over-focused” area comes back into shape – or, the little things become little again, and you begin to see what’s really important in many areas of life, not overly focusing in any one area.

The next time you feel you’re focus being sucked into one area of your life, consider what has not been getting your attention and consider focusing there.  What are you doing for your health?  If you work out does it release stress?  If you’re stressing over a relationship, maybe focusing somewhere else will bring a little clarity. 

Can you balance your life by adding something else to an already busy schedule?  Apparently yes!  (But what will you let go of and what will you learn?)

Thoughts, Beliefs, Actions

As we’ve been talking about Goal setting, one of the key ways to achieve something new is to do something different.  That might make perfect sense, but it can be a daunting task.  Today we’ll investigate how to make lasting change by understanding where to put your focus.

Your Thoughts, Beliefs and Actions are interrelated and directly related to what you do.  Let me explain via example.  If you want to set a goal about weight loss, for example, but your Belief is that you’re a heavy person, changing your Actions will be tough.  Here’s the rub – if you focus on “doing” things differently, but continue with a Belief that you’re heavy, you’ll have an internal, unconscious struggle – that’s hard to overcome! 

Instead, if your Thoughts focus on being thin – what a thin person does, how a thin person acts, what a thin person eats, how a thin person thinks, etc. – you will (over time) change your Beliefs about yourself.  Once your Beliefs begin to change (and you begin to Think like a thin person, imagine yourself as a thin person) it becomes much easier to start Acting like a thin person.  Sound incredible or ridiculous?  Maybe.  I’ve seen it work hundreds of times – stay with me and let’s keep digging…

Your Thoughts create your Beliefs.  If you think you are fat, you’ll believe it.  If you consistently talk about yourself as being heavy, you reinforce those Beliefs.  When you shop for big clothes, think about being on a diet, fret over your weight, etc. you are, in essence, continuing a Belief that you are overweight.

You can’t change the fact of your weight.  Instead, begin thinking of yourself in new terms.  Rather than focusing on your weight, let it go.  Start thinking like a thin person thinks.  Start acting like you think a thin person acts.  These thoughts will begin to change your Belief and as the Belief changes, your Actions will naturally follow.

Now when you intentionally do things differently, your subconscious mind aligns your Beliefs with your Actions – making your new behaviors OK!  And, as a bonus, your new Actions begin to reinforce your Thoughts, which deepen your Beliefs, which support your Actions, which reinforce your Thoughts…  (You get the picture!)

One critical element – the Thoughts-Beliefs-Actions model works to deepen positive or negative results.  Be intentional about your Thoughts!

Keeping Resolutions past February

It’s said that most New Years’ resolutions last until about mid-February.  If these resolutions are good ideas, what happens?  What is it that makes them so hard to keep?  Let’s investigate…

“Change is hard.”  How’s that for a belief statement?  You might be thinking, “But change is hard.” and you’re right – sort of.  Change is different.  To arrive at change we have to do something out of the ordinary.  We have to be intentional.  To change means we’re going to do something differently than we’ve done in the past.  It’s almost like a salmon swimming upstream – it’s more work than swimming downstream, but the rewards are great!

Rather than look at what goes wrong, let’s look at how to stay true to our resolutions.  In previous posts I talked about how to find value (or what’s important about that) in resolutions.  So how do you stay focused on the outcome you want?  How do you stay true to what’s important?

First, start by thinking about the kind of person who has what you want.  If you want to be a top sales person this year, consider how a top sales person acts, what they say, what they do, how they carry themselves, etc.  From here on out, when you think about what you are doing, ask yourself, “Is this what a top salesperson would do?”  If the answer is “No”, consider options and do something else! 

If your New Years’ resolution is to lose weight or quit smoking, ask yourself, “How does a “fit and healthy” or “non-smoker” act?  What do they do?  How do they think?”  Start acting like the person you want to be.  It might be hard to grasp – how can I act like a thin person when I’m not thin? – but this is the start. When you’re sick or feeling under the weather you don’t wait until you’re healthy to start thinking healthy.  You start thinking, acting and feeling heatlhy long before the virus is out of your system.  It’s the same with anything else!  Start acting like the person you’re becoming and soon you’ll be that person!  Do what they would do.  Eat like they eat.  Exercise as if you’re fit and trim (within reason).  When you want to grab dessert, consider what a fit and trim person would do.  Would a non-smoker take a smoke break?  What would they do instead?  Do that!

You might find yourself doing and acting as you have in the past – and missing out on doing the things your new self would do.  Give yourself permission to fail once in a while.  This is not an automatic”get out of jail free” card.  It’s an awareness that change takes time and you will, on occasion, stumble.  It’s OK as long as you recognize it and get back to your new frame of mind!

Your thoughts create your beleifs about yourself.  Your beliefs about yourself are the enables of your actions.  Start thinking of yourself as the person you want to be, and you will eventually, effortlessly, become that person!

Next time we’ll look deeper at the relationship between thoughts, beliefs and actions.

New Year’s Resolutions – How to keep them!

So how do you make New Year’s Resolutions that really mean something to you?  Or, more importantly, if your resolutions are important today, how do they stay important?  Let’s dig into that…

How do you find importance or meaning or purpose or resonance in your resolutions?  It’s really not that hard.  In the last post I suggested you ask yourself the question, “What’s important about that?”  So, if you resolve to lose weight, ask “What’s important about being lighter?”  You might come up with a few answers.  That’s great!  Now take them one at a time and ask the question again.  So if you said what’s important about being lighter is health, looking good and feeling good, start by asking yourself, “What’s important about being healthy?”

Do this 2 or 3 times with each answer, drilling down into what is truly important.  For instance, starting with weight loss you might move to being healthy.  You might find that what’s important about being healthy is living longer.  From there you might say seeing my grandchildren grow up.  You’ll find that you begin to hit on your values – those things that are at the core of who you are.  In the example, a value of FAMILY is starting to surface.  You might find some surprises here! 

One thing I found a few years ago was that I have an ego!  Not an over-the-top egotistical, me-at-all-costs attitude.  I do however bask in being proud of my accomplishments.  One of my “what’s important about that” answers to a goal of training for triathlons was “because others won’t do it”.  It may sound silly, but that motivates me – knowing I’ll do something others won’t do – more than just about anything else.  You might find some surprises too – embrace them!

Once you find what’s important about your resolutions, ask yourself this – “What kind of person {has/does/lives} the way I will be when I reach my goal?”  If your resolution is weightloss, consider what kind of person eats healthy, exercises, is proud of how they look (or whatever else you decided was important about weight loss).  Then when you ahve tough choices, consider “What would a person like that do in this situation?”  It’s amazing how often you’ll find an answer that keeps you on track!

Next time we’ll talk about looking for options when you’re in a challenging spot.

Why New Years Resolutions Fail

It’s a new year (or almost) and we’ll likely be making those well-intentioned resolutions.  Lose weight.  Get in shape.  Get on a budget.  Set goals.  Spend more time with family. 

Whatever your desires are for your life in the new year, there’s one thing for certain – making resolutions the “usual” way will fail.  What’s missing in almost every resolution, and in most goals, is that they aren’t connected to you.  Let me explain.

When you set a goal because it’s what you’re “supposed” to do, or what you “should” do, you’re likely to fail.  Instead, start by focusing on the outcome.  What do you want in 3, 6, 12 months?  If you answer, “I want to be healthy, 10 pounds lighter, and fit better into my clothes.” then you have a vision of the outcome.  Starting there will get you moving in a good direction.

But think about that outcome.  What is important about that to you?  Ask “What is important about being healthy, 10 pounds lighter and fitting into my clothes better?”  When you have answers, ask what’s important about those answers.  If you do this 3 or 4 times, you’ll get to what’s really important. 

If you get your head around what’s really important to you, you’ll find motivation for staying the course when you’re challenged to break those resolutions!

Next time, I’ll talk more about finding what’s important and how to prepare for those times when you fail.  (Hint: You’re not a failure if you slip up!)

Respecting the Holidays

The Holiday season is fast approaching, with Thanksgiving little more than a week away.  I recall as a child so many memories – some good, some not so good – of the holidays.  The family gatherings, seeing aunts and uncles that I hadn’t seen in months (it was a BIG family), the cold weather, football games at the park with neighborhood kids.  Lots to remember… 

Some of the memories aren’t as fondly recalled.  Fighting for a parking spot at the mall, the tension at home, not getting a toy I was hoping for, long Christmas breaks from school and missing my friends. 

But one thing always seemed to stand out no matter what was going on – people genuinely seemed nicer to strangers through the holiday season.  Whatever it is, whatever the reason, I remember that probably more than anything.  Strangers giving way at the mall, people saying “pardon me” or “excuse me”.  Everyone in a mood of giving.  One of my core values is “respect”, so the fact that I look back fondly on those little acts of kindness is no surprise.

What if we took that attitude forward every month of the year?  What if the “attitude of gratitude” that we hear about at Thanksgiving or the mantra “It’s better to give than to receive” was a year-round phrase instead of just at Christmas?  What would it be like to respect others first, without expecting anything in return?

How can I harm someone if I’m respecting them?  How can I ignore them if I’m respecting them?  How can I do anything but show love when i show respect?  It seems an attitude of gratitude and acts of giving to others are appropriate year round.  Maybe this is the year to make it a habit?

The Changing Seasons

In my Mastermind Group last week we started goal setting for the future.  We take a unique approach to goal setting.  We don’t “start on Monday” or make “New Years Resolutions”.  We don’t set SMART goals.  In fact, if a goal is a good goal, we use a goal setting process to deepen and strengthen our desire to have it, then we get started.  There is no “a diet always starts on Monday” attitude.  If it’s a good idea Monday, it’s a good idea now!

One of our group members suggested we look at our goals in terms of the changing seasons.  Starting now as we head into winter, what changes do I feel in my life?  Less sunshine, cold weather, less outdoor activities, etc. – all have a certain feeling different from the other seasons.  She began talking about her goals in alignment with the seasons and how she believes she’ll be feeling as the seasons change.   This struck me as brilliant as we all have different energy levels at different times of the year and so it makes sense to align our goal setting and expectations with what we know about ourselves.

What do I know about me in winter?  I love winter.  I enjoy the cold weather and, to some degree, I like that it doesn’t bother me and it seems to make a lot of other people grumpy!  It’s another day that God made for us to enjoy – that’s the way I see it.  So, I reason, let’s go out there and enjoy it!  But during winter I’m a slightly different person.  I like to stay in bed a little longer.  I like to be still, read, write, think, contemplate, and discuss.  For me it’s a time to settle and slow things down in my world and get grounded again before the activity and “bounce” of spring.

So, this winter, I’m going to accomplish goals that are in alignment with my winter personality.  I’ll do outdoor stuff sure,  but I’m going to focus on internal and indoor goals – family, relationships, intellectual growth, meditation, lifting weights instead of running – stuff like that.   I don’t know what goals I’ll commit myself to yet, but I’m quite certain they’ll be different than the outdoor, totally active goals of spring and summer!

Friday afternoon

Well, it’s Friday afternoon and, if you read the last post, you know there’s a difference in most people’s minds between Monday morning and Friday afternoon.  I’m not so sure about that…

I wrapped up my week (about 4:30pm local time) with a 5.5 mile run – the same way I started my week on Monday morning (5:30am!)  Something about that seems significant, or maybe just coincidental…

I want to use this post as a final shot at the difference between Friday afternoon and Monday morning.  If you’re doing what you love, what difference does it make what day it is?  If you’re doing something that moves you, what difference does it matter if it’s dark or light (night person or morning person)?  If you’re dong something that you think is important, it really doesn’t matter the day, date, time of day, weather, if people see you or not, if anyone even knows about it.  What matters is that you know.  What matters is how you feel about it.

I have several clients who are at the point in their lives when it doesn’t matter if it’s Friday, Sunday or Tuesday – if they’re doing the right thing for the right reason at the right time – they’re happy, proud, and living their dreams!  It’s a cool place to hang out.  Late on a Friday I can say I’ve done what I love doing today – it was a good day.  I’m not planning to let tomorrow get away from me – please don’t let it get away from you.  Do what you want, say what you want, live how you want to live. You only get one shot at Saturday this week – make it the best Saturday you have!