New Years countdown begins!

Only two days until the New Year begins.

Are you ready?

I would like to suggest that today is the days to begin thinking seriously about your resolutions, intentions and big picture goals for 2012.

  1. Write down your top three.
  2. Make sure they are goals and not measures of success.
  3. How will you hold yourself accountable?  Who is your buddy?

Another idea for this new beginning is to set out some ways that you will support family members, close friends and co-workers in the new year.  Resolutions and intentions will not only benefit you.

I think that this is the year I need to step back and really start treating my 16 year old son like a man.  It is time for me to start showing him more respect.  The transition from demanding mother to a “loving female role model” in his life is going to be one of my intentions for 2012.  I think it will probably scare him.

There was a wonderful scene from the sitcom Modern Family that was posted on youtube recently.  At a party in their home, the wife was making fun of her husbands inability to provide her with a new dishwasher and everyone was laughing.  The situation was a classic example of disrespectful behavior between husband and wife.

Research has concluded that;

a man would rather me respected than loved.

A woman would rather be loved than respected.

Let me know when you want to discuss this!

At the end of the scene the husband pulls a brand new dishwasher out of a hiding place with a Christmas bow wrapped around it.  Wow! Dead silence.  Awkward silence.

How can your resolutions and intentions benefit the whole world in 2012?

How do you define abundance?

The Oxford Dictionary of English defines abundance as a very large quantity of something, plentiful, prosperity, or overflowing.

I define abundance in terms of my values. People are very important to me. Social events, retreats, and enjoying the performing arts allow me to connect on a broader level. Playing the piano for my own enjoyment feels good but I enjoy it more when I work with other musicians and students. A great sense of humor is at the top of the list along with wit and playful banter. Deep discussions about spirituality, human potential, and energy are at the core of my close relationships and reading material. Time experiencing nature, especially flowing water is especially reviving.

If I am living an abundant life, there is plenty of time to think and read. Connecting ideas and drawing out big picture concepts is thrilling. I love strategic planning but am a little on the weak side when it comes to implementation!

My measure of abundance is to have enough resources to do what I love to do.

How would you measure and define abundance?

If I Live to Be 100!

If I live to be 100…………..

  • I want you all there with me
  • I want to feel good about my life
  • I want to be surrounded by people
  • I want to laugh and see the humor in life
  • I want to get out, move, experience the beauty of nature

On our way back from visiting my mother and sister in Cleveland Lauren and I listened to the audio version of If I Live to be 100- Lessons from the Centenarians by Neenah Ellis. It was much more engaging than I expected. Each of the centenarians she interviewed for a weekly segment on NPR was uniquely different. Some of the individuals enjoyed the company of people of all ages; others were still active and inspired by their life work as an educator, artist, or social leader. There were couples that had been married for 60+ years and others that had never married or had children. Their stories of life in the early 1900’s, the Depression, the World Wars and so on were fascinating.

In the book DO THE WORK!  by Steven Pressfield, he suggests that you start with the end in mind.

Start at the end: Figure out where you want to go; then work backwards from there.

Say I want to live until I am 100 years old,   I would plan to die after 2061! I have 50 more years ahead of me.

Neenah Ellis shares with her readers the fact the humans are children for much longer than any other species. We begin our adult lives around age 20. If we work until we are 70, our “working life” is 50 years. By age 50, we will have worked 30 years, which is only 60% of our “working life”. I have 40% of my professional life ahead of me!

What about the remaining 30 years in this “live until I am 100” scenario?

Maybe I should not invest in a career that concludes with retirement. Maybe I should invest in work and life experiences that will serve others and me until I am 100!

What would that look like?

Zoom Out!

I love to play around with Google Earth. The ability to zoom in to see your house and zoom out to see the world is thrilling. The ability to see your life situation in the big picture is a valuable skill. Often times we are stuck in details and challenges we are facing right now, this minute. More often, we panic about future catastrophes that are just waiting for us along our journey in this world.

What is the big picture life that we want to begin creating this year? When we think about setting goals and intentions for 2012, it is important to distinguish between big goals we have for our life and the measures of success we want to achieve. The big umbrella goal leads to measures of success, that are then followed by an action plans. The final step, of course, is accountability!

For example;

Big picture goal:   I want to allow my body to return to a naturally healthy state.

Measures of success:

  1. I want to lose 30 pounds of excess weight.

Action Steps:

  1. Join Weight Watchers.
  2. Remove unhealthy foods from my house.
  3. Establish an exercise plan.

Accountability: Work with my coach, friend, or other system that holds me accountable.

It will be much easier to think of measures of success that would have an immediate impact on your life. The reality is that the big picture, “zoom out” goals you establish are for a lifetime!

The Morning After!

Ah, the stores are open,  the sales are on, life is back to normal!

The brief respite we had on Christmas Day is over.  The morning after is filed with sadness.  I have been preparing for this holiday season since Halloween.  (Which by the way is completely ridiculous!) Now it is over.  I dread having to clean up and put all the decorations away.

Is it really fair for us to have to many holidays all shoved togehter in a three month period.  No wonder the rate of seasonal depression is so high in January, February, and March.  Why can’t we spread things out a bit.  Martin Luther King Day, Presidents Day,  and Valentine’s Day are great holidays but nothing like the rush you get between Thanksgiving and New Years.

My sister has carefully crafted special door decorations for each month and season from my mother’s door at the nursing home.  School children learn very early on the craft schedule has more to do with the calendar than artistic development!  We are trained to expect celebration with the passage of time and season.

We are celebratory people!

We like to come together and share time, space and laughter.  Social media,  electronic communication and the worst of all, texting, has taught us to be aloof.  Teenagers actually “date” through text messaging and rarely ever exist together, in the same space.  They are really missing out if you ask me!

I think it is time to create some new celebrations.  Do you remember when the  characters on Seinfeld created “Festivus”!  What celebrations can you create in 2012 that will pull your “tribe” together.

For unto us a Child is born!

Christmas day is a time of great relief! The Christ child has been born! The gifts are open and all is complete!

The world has an eerie feel to it. All of the stores are closed. It is impossible to find a restaurant to eat in aside from the All You Can Eat China Buffets. (I threatened to take my children there for Christmas Day dinner this year!)

I can be a time of rest a relaxation. A feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment surrounded holiday decorations and a festival of outdoor lights.

How many people really experience this feeling during Christmas Day? Is it possible to retreat from shopping, going out and about, planning and accomplishing in order to rest for one day?

I have started to declare Sundays a no (or low) electronic day. I want to preserve some of what we experience on Christmas in every week of the year.

What about an electronics holiday,

An eating holiday

A social media holiday

A holiday from work, (yes, even thinking about it!)

A holiday from others,

A holiday from your home,

A holiday from your usual “role”

How can you plan to celebrate and take a holiday one day of each week in 2012?

Anticipation

During the Christmas Eve service at Tabernacle Presbyterian in Indianapolis, the sermon focused on the anticipation of Christmas Eve. The description was about the concept of the meniscus that forms when the molecules of a liquid cling more closely to one another than to the sides of the container forming a convex curve.  One more drop of liquid and the container will overflow. Truly, the feeling that you are about to burst if Christmas morning does not come soon!

One of my favorite hymn s of the Advent season from the Lutheran hymnal was called Unexpected and Mysterious.  I like that idea. I always try to surprise my family with unexpected gifts that were not on their “list”!   The advent of the birth of Christ seems so logical now when we look back on it. Knowing about the life of Christ and the traditions that surround this celebration make this event seem mundane.

The spirit of the celebration is still about the Unknown.

The anticipation we can feel about the unexpected and mysterious workings that are going on behind the scenes in our own lives can cause us to be fearful just as it did for many individuals surround the Christ child. We may be prepared for the expected.  We may have correctly anticipated reality.

Are we ready for the unexpected?  Are we willing to recognize the mysterious? How can we calm our fear, trust in the divine plan orchestrated by Love, and embrace the unexpected and mysterious as it enters our lives in 2012?

 

You better watch out, You better not cry, You better be nice, I’m telling you why,

Santa Claus is Coming to Town!

For Christmas, we received a game called “Would you rather……..?

One of the scenarios was: Would you rather………..

find out that your employer has been secretly videotaping your every minute in your office -OR- find that your employer has been recording all of your private phone calls.

The player that picked the card has to choose the answer that she thinks the majority of the other players will choose.  If she is correct then she gets another turn.  It is a fun game but the basic premise is creating embarrassing situations.

Neither of the scenarios would be acceptable to most people. We live our lives with the idea that that majority of what we do or say is private. We count on certain informational boundaries between work and our personal lives. With the arrival of Facebook and other social media, it is becoming much more difficult to maintain control of our privacy. When someone chooses to run for public office, they have to be ready to have their entire lives exposed to the public attention with limited context and accuracy.

There is no place at all that is not looking at you. Rainer Maria Rilke

This  quote is not about other people looking at you or knowing what you are doing. It is not about other people judging you or using information about you for their own good.  It is not about how fearfully we protect our personal secrets.

What you are looking for is who is looking. St. Francis of Assisi

Do you believe that there is an all knowing, Divine Being, that observes all your actions and knows all your thoughts? Does this Universal Force also know your past, present, and future?

How will you intentionally co-create your life with this Source of energy and knowledge?

What will it take to live in harmony with God?

Are you looking for Who is looking?

Internal Security System

I have a friend that is always concerned about money. We all have friends and neighbors that are concerned about money. The difference in this case is that she and her husband have more income and “stuff” than many of their friends. Yet,  consistently,  conversation with her toggles between,  I am renovating my kitchen,  buying a new car, taking a cruise and you know we are going to have three kids in college at the same time, I only have a few presents under the tree this year or  “I can’t believe how much I spent on dinner and drinks”.

In an effort to allow people to be who they are,  I realized that this friend thrives on the cycle of thinking she has to have something, buying it, realizing how expensive it is, thinking that she needs more money, experiencing the rush of getting more money and then finding something else to spend it on.

The mistake I have been making is worrying for her that she might not have enough money. She loves this cycle! This is who she is!

Today’s epiphany for me is that all I want is security. I do not want to worry about the mechanics of life. I want to float above the everyday and live a life full of unexpected miracles.

When I was on a guided tour in Venice, our guide shared with us a unique saying that I have shared many times over.

It is better to be late in this world than early for the next.

I have used this phrase when I show up late to a meeting as well as a warning to others that are driving too fast!

I have added this comment to today’s discussion because I want to live somewhere in-between. I really want to have one foot in this world and the other experiencing the divine.

Lord, please send someone to clean my house so I have time to pray!

Give the Gift of Change

I have learned a lot about communication through the coach training program I have been involved in over the past year. The most important element of the training is that you, the coach, are always working on the client’s agenda.  This has been one of the most difficult skills to integrate into my business and personal relationships.

Certainly, there are relationships that call for me to impose and follow my own agenda. Working with a coach has been a beautiful, empowering experience! I have accomplished more and moved quickly through situations in a way that astounds me. Attempting to work through issues with a friend or loved one is good but you tend to take many side streets for the other person’s agenda along the way.

The service I provide for my clients is valuable because everything we talk about is about them. I offer information, resources, intuitive responses, and helpful ideas. I am a good strategic planner and can connect the dots to form a cohesive approach to problem solving and awareness. At the end of the day, it is still about their agenda and the ideas, actions and solutions that they generate for themselves. I always have to leave my personal agenda at the door before I walk into a meeting, pick up the phone, or send off an email.

I challenge you to give the gift of change to someone you know and love. It could be a co-worker, friends, service professional, family member, or partner.

Change the way you communicate with the people you love.

It is one thing to tolerate other people and their idiosyncrasies but it is an entirely different thing to allow them to be the way they are.

Micromanaging has gotten a bad rap in the business world and it is not being very well received at home these days either. Letting others take initiative and invest in a group project is great but that means that I lose control!

Fact:  I never had control.

Controlling attitudes and actions come across as disrespectful. If we respect and honor another person’s intelligence and goodness, we open up the possibility of developing trust.

The core skill in the coaching profession is to ask empowering questions. Take a few extra seconds to rephrase your agenda into an open-ended, respectful, affirming question.

Try it, you have the opportunity to give the best gift you have ever given to the people you love!