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Alright.  This post is part 2 of 12 in my series about the current set of training that I am undergoing in my career as a life and career coach.  If you want to get caught up, part 1 is available here.

I went over to Vancouver on Friday night, at the end of the school week.  I’d just finished up a phone interview with GenoLogics in which it seemed they were looking for someone more technical than my skillset currently provided for.  Not a particularly empowering experience.  But that was okay, because I was excited about this weekend’s training.

I packed my stuff, kissed Bay goodbye, and headed out to the ferry.  I finished up part 1 of this series on the ferry ride over, drove in to town, and walked up to Quizno’s to get dinner.  I ended the night chatting with some friends and then got to bed.  Getting up at 4:30AM means getting to bed early too.

Then I hit a snag…

Omens

I woke up at 4:30, tired, but excited about the coming two days.  In fact, I was practically buzzing with energy – my passion was sitting close to the surface.  I walked out of the bedroom and marched with authority to the shower.  My thoughts went like this:

“Man, I am so excited.  Let’s plan the morning out.  Eat breakfast, get in the car, drive with good music down the quiet roads to the border…”

“F*CK!!” (sorry if the language is offensive.  It’s authentic to how I felt)

I had forgotten my passport.

I HAD FORGOTTEN MY PASSPORT!

I had forgotten my passport..

What would you do in a situation like this?  Here’s what I did.

At first I checked to make sure this was the case.  I already knew it was.  I could remember exactly the process I used to pack.  I had absolutely neglected to put my passport in my bag (it hadn’t even occurred to me).

Okay, first things first – I still had to shower, no matter what.  As I got ready to do that, I gave myself five minutes to be angry, sad, furious, whatever with myself.  Beat myself up if I wanted, regret that I was going to miss some of my training, whatever.

Then I committed to shifting.  This was what was.  To speak in more abstract terms, this is what the universe has presented me with.  What was I going to do with it?

When something happens, it happens.  There’s nothing we can do to change it, only to be fluid in the moment.  We can’t control the universe, only be present to what we’re given.  So how was I going to be fluid?

As I dressed for the day, I went through my options in my head:

1. Catch the ferry back, drive home, get my passport, drive back, catch the ferry, drive down to Seattle.  Arrive at around 4PM.
2. Catch the ferry back, get Bay to meet me at the Clipper, and potentially catch it down to Seattle.  Get a hotel room for another night.  Possibly not even an option.
3. Catch the ferry back, get Bay to meet me at the floatplane terminal, and catch a floatplane down to Seattle.  Get a hotel room for another night.  Arrive at around 11:30AM.

Option #1 was simply far too late.  Option #2 was not an actual option as the Clipper sucks to catch from Victoria (awkward hours).  That left option #3.

At this point, I had two choices: Be disempowered by the decision, or empowered.  Was I going to be a victim, at effect with what had happened, or would I be a leader, at cause to what had happened?

I chose to lead.  I looked at the positives.  I had ridden the floatplanes before – they were beautiful.  I’d be able to take some really great pictures (which I did).  And it would give me a chance to stay over in Seattle another night and hang out with my team for longer.  And at least I wasn’t spending four hours driving.

So, with my attitude shifted and my perspective framed in the positive, I headed back, met up with Bay and then flew down.  Bay was phenomenally supportive and I’m incredibly grateful for her support.  She met me at the floatplane terminal with my passport after having gotten only 4 hours of sleep.  What a woman!

The rest of the weekend

I arrived and excitedly greeted my team members.  It had been a month since we’d seen each other and it seemed like such a long time.  Going through a transformational process like this, and getting to see people you are working with in such a distinguished light really builds a strong bond.  We hugged, said hi, and then sat down.

I arrived just in time to leave for lunch.  We chose people to go for lunch with, based on who we currently were the least connected with.  The new girl chose me, since I had just arrived.  Fine with me!

At lunch, I felt awkward.  I was having a hard time getting a good conversation going, and when I feel like I can’t connect with someone, I start to babble like an idiot.  It’s not that I’m a bad conversationalist – in fact I’m great.  It’s just that I end up speaking a lot, in order to fill the silences.  The moments where conversation die down really start to terrify me.

One of the great things I learned this weekend was about my judgments.  More specifically, that they are about me, not the person I’m judging.  We often have a tendency to notice something, and judge the other person.  Everyone is their own person, doing their own thing.  They are responsible for their own actions and thoughts, and we can’t change them.

The judgment is actually an opportunity to learn something about yourself.  Where is that judgment coming from?  Why do you feel that way?  What is it about this person that is triggering you?

I spoke up and noted how I felt at lunch, and requested some coaching on it.  The team took turns working with me, and I was really surprised to find out that what lay underneath all of this was that when people don’t respond to me in a way that generally would indicate they like me (ie, by making conversation with me, laughing with me, holding eye contact, etc.), I start to feel deeply inadequate.

Wow!  This was a big realization, and it all flowed out from the starting point of noting how I felt when someone was really quiet and not connected with me.  (and I was judging her for that too, to be fair).

Judgments often provide us with an opportunity to discover a place where we have either over- or under-learned something.  If I judge someone for checking out a girl, that might be an indication that I’ve overlearned being polite.  Sure, it’s great to be respectful of people around you, but at some point, you need to engage with people.  There’s a difference between being lecherous and noticing someone attractive.

I judge people that are poorly put together and look like they don’t put effort into their appearance.  But what does that say about me?  Probably that I am overly concerned with appearance, and that I could learn a little bit about relaxing from this person.

When you first read this, you may be tempted to shout (mentally) “But it’s not about me, it’s about them!”  With time (less so, if you engage in coaching), we got to the bottom of it.  Take note and be present to the fact that you are the one being triggered.  That other person is simply being who they are.  The judgment comes from within you.  You are the one responsible for it.  Don’t offload that responsibility onto someone else.

Breakthroughs, breakdowns and commitment

One of the epiphanies that I had this weekend was related to the relationship between breakthroughs, breakdowns and commitment.

Breakthroughs are what we all want.  They’re the exciting (and scary) part of growth.  They’re the point where we experience our epiphany and move beyond the existing structures that we have in place to something new.  It feels great when you have that breakthrough moment.  You know that things will be different going forward.  Of course, you’ll eventually normalize this new place, and will then begin seeking the next breakthrough, but that’s okay – that’s what this game is all about.

Breakdowns must proceed breakthroughs.  You can’t have a breakthrough without one.  In order to achieve  new areas of growth, we need to push beyond where we are comfortable.  Doing so will naturally trigger our self-defences, and will require a moment of having them break down around us before we can fully immerse ourselves in that area of unknown and experience our growth.

Where does commitment fit into this?  Well, you can’t have a breakdown without having commitment.  If you are not committed to the change you are seeking, it will become easy to turn back when you are faced with a moment of breakdown.  Breakdowns are scary – they require you to remain outside of your comfort zone and just be.  To sit with that feeling of discomfort.  Without a commitment to back this up, we will naturally retreat back to what we know.

Here is one of the great powers of working with a coach.  Not only are you working on your stuff, and creating breakdowns and subsequent breakthroughs with great velocity, but you also have accountability and commitment built in to the process.  Coaching isn’t cheap, nor should it be.  It’s an investment in ourselves.  The price is a good thing, given the kind of work that we’re doing.  When you’re getting something for free, your commitment to its success is not going to be significant (if present at all).  When you are paying a decent amount of money to create the change you want, you’re going to be invested in and committed to it.

Further, you’re supported throughout that breakdown.  A coach stands for you, even when you are unable to stand yourself.  Your coach is there to hold the place for you that you have affirmed you are striving for.

Powerful change is challenging.  Most of us assume that we will simply be able to push through whatever barriers stand in our way when we want something enough.  In actuality, the kind of changes that we’re talking about are deep and fundamental, and get into the sticky areas where our context and self-defence mechanisms get in our own way.

The stuff that gets in the way of our growth and development at these points is the same stuff that always gets in our way (not enough time, not enough money, too many other things I have to do, my partner wouldn’t let me do that, my kids need me, etc.). These reasons genuinely seem real and valid to us, especially when we’re at the verge of major breakthroughs.

A coach’s job is to keep you open to the realm of possibility.  Sure, money is something that needs to be considered, but it doesn’t mean you don’t have options.  How might you make that money available?.  Your spouse won’t be okay with this change?  Why not?  Can you talk to them about it?  What’s really in the way?  You don’t have time to make these changes?  What kind of game are we playing for here?  This is what you’ve identified matters most – what is taking up your time that is more valuable than that?

Commitment becomes easiest to break when we’re on the verge of a breakdown – that’s when our self-defences are running highest.  That’s the point where it becomes easiest to turn away from the breakthrough we are aiming for and retreat back to what is comfortable.

Closing out the weekend

I can feel a shift starting to take place.  The process that I’m going through requires a fairly substantial change in my thinking.  Coming from a place of simply being present to who I am, rather than acting automatically and predictably, is a bit of a departure from what I’m used to.

As a kid I would even go as far as strategizing and planning out my conversations on the phone and in person.  As you can imagine, this didn’t leave a lot of room for simply being present and going with the flow.  Switching from this approach to one that is based around simply putting myself into the world, openly and authentically..  Well, it’s taking time and effort.

But as I said, I can feel a shift.  I’m starting to get this, and things are starting to click for me.  Little by little, and with the support of my coach, I’m beginning to step into my own role in this existence, and I’m alive with the possibility!

Interested?

That’s all for now, but I will certainly continue on with this series as the months go forward.

I am looking for clients.  Specifically I’m looking to work with brilliant polymaths aged mid-20s to late-30s.  That is to say, people that are successful in a variety of areas, and recognize that they can shine brightly.  These people are wondering “I’ve achieved success… why is it so boring?  Isn’t there something more?”, “I know I’m capable of brilliance – why haven’t I taken off yet?” or maybe even where all of their time has gone.

If this sounds like you, or you know someone that might be interested in talking with me, please let me know.  I want to work with you and your friends!

Thank you for your continued support and reading.  I have definitely embarked on a challenging and unique journey, and I can’t be successful without your help.  Take care of yourself and stay tuned!

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I’m on a ferry right now heading off to the first of what will be twelve intensive weekends spent in Seattle, attending more training related to coaching.  Victoria has just experienced a terrible week of weather, and while the rain seems to have settled a little bit, it’s dark and gloomy outside.  The lights are a little dimmer on the ferry, and the air is peaceful and quiet.  Most of the people beside me are working on their laptops.  One person is watching the latest Louis CK special and is not laughing out loud – clearly he’s crazy.

With this set playing from Nick Lewis, I’m feeling productive, so let’s get started.

Values?

I guess that’s got to be the first question.  What does it even mean when someone starts talking about values?  The term is being thrown around a fair bit these days, and I suspect that is often especially true when the economy is in a recession.  This strikes me as reasonable, since money represents one of the easiest ways to get distracted from what is really important to you.

Values are what genuinely matter to us.  They’re the things that, when we remove all distractions and look deep within ourselves, motivate our decisions.  Values are the reasons eating vegan is important to some people, but a waste of money to other people.

When you find yourself arguing with someone and both of you walk away convinced that you’re right and the other person is an idiot, it’s likely a case of the two of you holding different values.  It’s not that they’re ignorant because they don’t recognize the suffering that animals suffer, nor that you’re an idiot because you spend more money than you need to on things that aren’t that important.  One person simply holds money in high value (economics is a strong motivator for them) while the other person holds equality of animals and people in high value (justice is probably a strong motivator for them).

We generally feel our values at a very visceral level, and often act without being aware of them or how they are affecting our choices.  It might just be second-nature to you that you recycle certain things, but the extent to which you recycle is likely a function of your values.

Likewise, almost everyone does some kind of financial budgeting in their lives, but the degree to which they do so, as well as the emphasis they place on various things in their budget, is often a reflection of their values.  People that put a high amount of money away for investing probably hold economics and security in high regard.

But… boundaries?

Great question, me!  But first, what do I mean by boundaries?

Boundaries are our ability to set and maintain strong … boundaries.  Boundaries come into play constantly in our lives.  Here are just a few examples:

• Your boss comes in to your office and says “Hey, I’m going to need you to stay later tonight than you would normally have”, but provides no reason.  Whether you accept or reject this request is a function of how strong a boundary you put around your own time.
• A friend shows up on your doorstep and says “Hey, I’m bored and thought I’d stop by for dinner”.  Whether or not you feel compelled to oblige them (notwithstanding whether or not you actually want to) is a function of your boundaries.
• One of your divorced parents says “I’m going to need you to let your other parent know that they’re not welcome here any more”.  How you decide to act (notwithstanding whether or not that parent is justified in their statement) is a function of the boundaries you have set with your parents.

Boundaries are terribly important.  For one, they make it easier to turn down unwanted requests when they come our way.  Being mentally aware of what you are and are not willing to do goes a long way toward actually acting on it.  For another, the more times you act on a given boundary, the stronger you become in maintaining it.  Routine builds foundation.

Boundaries even help us with little things we would never imagine, like the socialization that happens around Christmas time.  If you have strong boundaries around what you will pay for a Christmas gift, you are better able to resist the social norming and marketing that imposes on us a duty to spend ever increasing amounts of money on gifts.  (“But they got me something really expensive last year, I should spend more this year!”)

The interplay

So how do these two concepts interact?  Very closely, actually.

First and foremost, it’s all fine and good to make a statement like “From now on, I will not let myself be taken advantage of in this way”.  But if you don’t understand why that is important to you, it becomes easier and easier to bargain and compromise with yourself the next time you’re put in that situation.

It may sound odd for me to suggest that we would bargain and compromise with ourselves in order to alter our boundaries at the very moment when we should be most committed to them.  However, it’s actually quite simple.  Boundaries come into play when you are facing pressure to act a certain way.  That pressure can come in many forms, but is most commonly social pressure.  Pressure from the person standing on your doorstep making a request of you, pressure from your relatives at Christmas-time and pressure from your boss asking you to stay later.

When we feel this pressure, the weaker and less affirmed our boundaries are, the easier it is for us to give in to the perceived social pressure and make compromises and bargains.  When your boss asks you to stay later and your boundary was only “I will not stay later more this month”, your train of reasoning will likely look something like:

“Well, he does have a point, there is a lot of work that needs to get done, and I can always go for a romantic dinner with my husband another night”.

Because the boundary itself does not have any inherent meaning to us, we are put in a position where we are more willing to acquiesce to the pressure and than find a way to rationalize it against the context of the boundary.  When we are faced with this kind of pressure, and our boundaries are simply words that we have stated only internally, we have nothing to focus on but the request being made.

Now, contrast that with a boundary that is backed and understood in the context of our values.  Understanding why a boundary is important to us makes it that much more real, and it instills the boundary at a more visceral level.  When we are faced with the same question, instead of being left in the position where we bargain with ourselves to reason why it’s okay to stay, we are now in a position where the question becomes:

“Am I willing to compromise my values of family and romance in order to stay later tonight?”

Do you see how much more powerful that question is?

Get to know yourself

Understanding who you are and what is most important to you is an integral factor in establishing firm boundaries and maintaining what is most important to you.  There is no end to the pressures exerted on us in our daily lives, and they come from every angle, most often unintentionally and covertly.  Due to how out of tune many of us are with our own values, we often don’t even realize that they have been trod upon.  All that we note is our unhappiness after the interaction.

Take note of the times when you find yourself making statements that are couched in the language of boundaries, and try to ask yourself why it is important to you.   Rather than focusing on what you do not want to have happen in the future, shift your focus to what you would like to have happen, and how that is important to you.  Move the conversation away from boundaries and into the context of your values.

Summary

Finally, the summary:

• Values are an incredibly important aspect of who we are.  They guide and direct many of our actions, most of the time subconsciously;
• Boundaries allow us to resist social and other forms of pressure.  Having strong boundaries goes a long way toward protecting yourself and your time, and allows you to act in ways that are more authentic to who you are; and
• Boundaries that are not connected to our values are easier to compromise and bargain away.  The strength of and commitment that you have toward your boundaries is a direct function of how tied they are to your values.

A quick update on me

Just a quick update on myself too – I started writing this article on my way to the start of what will be a year of education in ontological coaching (coaching based on the concept of who someone is in their purest form).  I cannot emphasize how transformative I feel this year will be.

While everyone brings a different set of self-defences to the table, I was shocked to be given the awareness that mine is an inability to show people my own vulnerability.

While this is incredibly meaningful to me, the impact of reading these words for you will likely be minimal.  I guess that’s how it has to remain for now (maybe it’s okay that I can’t always articulate an idea…?).  More to come as the coming year presses on.  Stay tuned and thanks for reading.

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The fall term is starting to draw to a close.  That means that my work at the Law Centre downtown is starting to wind to a close and I’m closing out or transferring the remaining files that I have.  It also means that my time is starting to free up a little bit and I will be able to focus more on building my coaching business.

This term has involved a tremendous amount of time and effort building the foundation for what I will do once I graduate.  Identifying the business name, determining the target market, what is my niche, who are the people that I can best connect with, how should I market to and connect with those people, etc., etc.  Building the foundation can be frustrating, because you don’t see the fast results that typically signal progress to us.  It goes slowly, and it doesn’t provide the changes on the surface that we typically associate with success or transformation.  But that’s because it’s foundation.  It’s the groundwork upon which all of that good and more exciting stuff is built.  Without the foundation, your efforts will crumble without the support they require.

I’ve also been conducting more experiments on myself, and that’s what I’m writing about today.

Retreating from your vices.

What does this mean?  At first brush, it sounds pretty negative doesn’t it?  Rather than dealing with the problems you have, just run away from them!  That’s not what I mean though – I mean take a retreat from them.  Maybe even a vacation, if you prefer that terminology.

The genesis for this post began when I decided that I wanted to drink less coffee.  I’ve always loved coffee.  I like the flavour and the smell, but most of all, I love the buzz.  I don’t know what it is, but that sense of getting energized is something that I’ve always been drawn to.  Maybe it’s the fact that I’m naturally a person with a lot of energy and I love to accomplish a lot of things.  Perhaps the ability to “overclock” my personal CPU and get even more cycles out of myself (or at least, provide the illusion that I’m doing that) is especially enticing as a result of my nature.

However, for a long time, I’ve felt like my relationship with coffee had become unhealthy.  It’s not that I required coffee to get up and start my day.  I’ve never really allowed myself to make it a habit to that extent.  The problem, for me, was more one of self-control (a theme you will see revisited a couple times in this post).  When I would decide it was time for coffee, I wouldn’t just drink one cup – I’d have three or four.  It wasn’t enough to simply get a mild buzz, I wanted to be vibrating!

When we ended our orientation and began working proper at the law clinic, I made the decision to drop coffee for a month, and see what the result would be.

Why?  There’s a few reasons why.

First, I wanted to see if I could do it.  I was pretty sure that I could (it’s just coffee right?), but nevertheless, I knew that I would feel a sense of accomplishment simply from having the discipline to do this.

Second, I wanted to give myself some time to reflect on what kind of relationship I wanted to have with coffee.  I recognize that describing my coffee habit as a relationship might seem a little dramatic, but the shoe fits, so why not.  Did I really want to drink coffee every day?  What about every second day?  Did weekends count?  These were all questions that I was trying to resolve, but found it difficult to do when I was actively drinking coffee.  I would think half-heartedly about the fact that I wanted to consume less, but the next day at work when I wanted to really get some work done, suddenly there was a cup of coffee in my hand.

Vices are funny things that way.  Alcohol is a great example.  The morning after a heavy night of drinking, it’s easy to look in the mirror and swear that you don’t plan to do that ever again, but next weekend, when all your friends are drinking at the party… well, you know how it goes.

The Next Step

Halfway through “The Great Caffeine Withdrawal” (as I dubbed it), I enjoyed the process enough that I decided to add two more experiments into the mix: alcohol, and refined sugar products.

There’s a never ending amount of research suggesting that alcohol is consistently linked with cancer, and I really don’t want to set myself up with habits for the rest of my life that are going to detract from my longevity and quality of life.  Alcohol had become a crutch for me in a lot of ways too.  Most often it was a way to loosen up in social situations, and, oddly enough, I used it as a cure for boredom.  Nothing to do?  No problem, have a few beers and play video games.

As for refined sugar, my decision was to drop things like cookies, donuts, pastries, pie, cakes, pop and juice.  For the most part I’m pretty good when it comes to eating sweet treats, but, as always the case with me, the biggest issue is self-control.  Bay would buy a bunch of cookies for our cookie jar at home, and while I would initially begin eating one cookie a day, before long I would be shoving three in my face as soon as I got home.

The Common Thread

The common thread that runs through each of these things I chose to retreat from is one of self-control.  Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses.  I have fantastic discipline, but absolutely terrible self-control.  I can set up systems of rules, and when I do, I’m excellent at adhering to those rules.  But, if you just put a bag of cookies, a 12-pack of beer and a pot of coffee in front of me and said “consume until you feel you’ve had enough”, you’d come back to a few crumbs, 12 empty bottles and me bouncing off the walls.

By setting up a specific duration of time during which I wasn’t going to consume any coffee, sugar or alcohol, I created a simple rule that I could follow — I exercise my discipline, rather than my self-control.

The Results

The results were really interesting.  Let’s start with coffee first.

I allowed myself to continue drinking tea, because tea has never really been an issue.  Sure, I will easily drink an entire pot of tea in one sitting, but that doesn’t cause me any problems and it wasn’t making me unhappy.  The relationship with tea was not a problem.  Also, since I never drank coffee consistently in the morning, it was never an issue to get out of bed or get the day started.  I would come in to work, make a cup of tea, and begin the day.

One thing that I did notice was the signalling that coffee produced.  In the past, coffee had always been something I would go and buy (or make) when it was time for me to really get down to work.  If I had a complicated problem that I wanted to work on, or needed to push through a lot of work in a short amount of time, the cup of coffee was a little signal that it was time to get into that mode.

Sure, I could make another cup of tea, but it just wasn’t the same. In the end, this came down to a matter of reprogramming myself.  If coffee had been the way that I had signalled to myself that it was time to get things rolling, I would have to substitute in a new signal.

I chose to use some specific songs, and switched from green tea to black tea when it was time to knuckle down.  This wasn’t really that problematic, but it was an interesting part of my relationship with coffee that I had not been aware of prior to this point.

Sugar had similar results.  It’s not that I was dependent on sugary treats – I exercised good discipline when at the store simply by not buying them.  Without having them at home, I wasn’t compelled to shovel the cookie jar into my face, and there was no problem.

The thing about refined sugar products was that they had come to symbolize a reward.  I first noticed this returning to work after having the charges against one of my clients stayed (which means that the Crown, for one reason or another, drops their case against the client – they effectively walk away from the charge).  I got back in to work and paced around a bit.  I felt like going and getting a donut, or something else sweet to symbolize the moment of triumph.  But, without having that option, I just sat back down.  I could make more tea, but there’s nothing special about that – I make tea all the time.

Again, the solution here was to come up with new ways to signal that success.  Separate the signal from the product itself, and then reattach something new to that signal.

The results for alcohol were a little more drastic.  Much like refined sugar and coffee, alcohol had come to symbolize certain things for me.  It symbolized relaxation and also symbolized the end of the week.  In addition to that, it was also a big part of socializing.  If I was going to meet up with people, drinks would usually be involved.

One really funny thing that I noticed was that I would find myself thinking things like “Hmm, well, there’s a party going on that I could go to, but I’m not drinking, so do I really want to be there?”  After reflecting on this a bit, it struck me that this statement really said more about the party than anything else.  If I wasn’t interested in going unless I was going to be drinking, why would I even want to be at the party in the first place?

I noticed another funny thing while not drinking.  Most of us that drink recognize that awkward moment between the first time you get together with a group and the end of the first drink, where everyone is friendly, but the vibe hasn’t quite settled in.  People are still figuring out where they’re comfortable and what to talk about and are generally focused a little too much in their heads, rather than simply being present.

This moment always passes, typically after everyone has finished their first drink.  The funny thing I noticed was that the moment passed regardless of whether or not I was drinking.  It was simply a matter of time and sitting in the slight awkwardness of the moment.  I’m sure that many of you won’t find this surprising at all, but to me, it was a bit of a revelation.  The fact that this moment passed once people had gotten a little bit liquor’d up was one of those things that I’d always simply assumed and never had any data to suggest otherwise.

Again, I’ve found myself in situations where I miss liquor.  Going out for dinner with Bay and cheers-ing our relationship with a glass of water to her nice glass of champagne just didn’t feel right.  Sitting around home and drinking tea with my parents was okay, but I enjoy drinking beer with friends and family.

So is it all gone for good?

Definitely not!  Removing certain vices from my daily life for the course of thirty days does not mean that I never intend to have them in my life again.  What it does mean is that I’ve cleared myself out from them and can now be completely present to the kind of relationship I want to have with them going forward.

As an example, I mentioned above that refined sugary treats had come to symbolize a reward – a treat when things have gone well.  This is the kind of relationship that I would like to have with this vice.  Not something I simply eat because I’m bored of studying and want something to break up the tedium.  Not something that I eat as a matter of course every single time I come home from work.

Alcohol, as I mentioned, is also a great way (for me) to celebrate, and is something I really enjoy sharing with good friends and family.  But again, I don’t want to have a relationship with liquor where celebrating means I drink my way through 12 beers in a night.

What about coffee?  Is it making it’s way back into my life?  Well, that’s the actual casualty of this experiment.  I don’t really miss it.  I substituted black tea for the moments when I wanted to supercharge myself, and I also drink decaffeinated beans when I really want that delicious taste that I enjoy.  If I’m not missing any other aspect of it, is there really a reason to make it a part of my life?  I can’t think of one.

And that’s the beauty of this approach – you don’t need to do anything in particular when you’re done.  Maybe you will finish your 30-day retreat and come to the conclusion that you’re content with the relationship you have.  Maybe you’ll change your mind and want to strike out some new balance.  Either way, you will hopefully arrive at your conclusion more present to what it means, and with more purpose and awareness behind the decision.

What does this mean for you?

Think of  something in your life for which you’re not particularly happy about the relationship you have with it.  It might be drinking, it might be overtime work, it might be exercise (maybe you hate jogging 4 days a week but you do it because you feel you have to).  Identify what it is, and isolate it.  Then, remove that thing’s presence from your life for the next 30 days – take a retreat from it.

More important than anything else here is that you commit to those 30 days.  Commit yourself to remove that thing from your life for those 30 days, and refuse to allow yourself to break this commitment.  When you find yourself missing that thing, or getting frustrated because you can’t have it, reflect on why that is.  Why are you missing it right now?  What does it mean?  Is this a reward system at play?  Is it a thing you use to relax?  (And is that the relationship you want to have with this thing?  Maybe you don’t want to need this thing in order to relax…)

Isn’t this just a cleanse?

It depends what you mean when you use the word “cleanse”.  For most of the people I see posting on Facebook, a cleanse is a ridiculous diet that does not have any scientific merit and is meant to “supercharge your health”, or at least clear out all of your toxins.  (Something that our biology has had millions of years worth of evolution to do far better than lemon juice, honey and cayenne pepper ever will).

Further, I don’t see how you could possibly intelligently reflect on the relationship you have with something when making such a drastic change to your overall diet.  Removing coffee from your system is one thing.  Removing all solid foods is quite another.  Your system will be in such a state of shock that it will be a challenge to focus on anything other than how much you want to feel some texture between your molars.

Summary

Here’s the summary for those of you that want all of the sex and none of the foreplay:

• Temporarily retreating from your vices can be a great way to gain better control of them
• Removing the influence of a vice in your life will put you in a better position to understand how it affects you, and what kind of relationship you have with it (and remember, vices aren’t just something you consume – they can include things like work!)
• Use moments of desire as an opportunity for reflection, rather than regret or frustration
• Taking a retreat from something in your life does not mean it has to be permanent
• The goal in an exercise like this is to end up more present and conscious of the decisions that you are making.  If you can achieve that, you’ve scored a victory for yourself and your self-awareness.

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List B

List B!  First of all, thank you to everyone that took the 10 seconds required to vote in my psychology experiment.

I have to admit, I was surprised that I didn’t see more votes.  I guess it’s harder to get people to participate actively than I thought it would be.  That or my analytics are vastly over-reporting the number of people visiting this blog.

So, what was this all about anyhow?  Read on to find out.

Creating momentum

A lot of effective coaching is helping a client generate and maintain effective momentum.  Many of us can start thinking about something we are passionate about, but very quickly have limiting thoughts take over our mental space.

“Well, I can’t possibly do that because it would mean I’ve have to quit my job” or “There’s no way I could do that, my parents would never let me”.  Even if those thoughts are true, they’re irrelevant when we’re trying to figure out what it is that we are passionate about.  If you’re passionate about something, it’s worth exploring that freely.  Maybe you can’t do it immediately.  Maybe you would have to quit your job if you were to chase after it right away, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t value in simply understanding that you are passionate about it.

I call this dissipating our momentum.  It’s a challenge to part the fog that sits in our head and getting the brain moving in a direction you want takes time.  When we let limiting thoughts get in the way of pursuing how we really feel, we stall the process.

Don’t get me wrong – limiting thoughts have their time and place.  Once you’ve identified what you want to do, the next step is determining how you can actually achieve it.  This is the point where it’s okay to see your limiting thoughts (provided that you don’t accept them as immovable barriers that will forever stand in your way).  When trying to determine how to move in the direction you’ve identified is correct for you, it is important to see what will stand in your way, and then to think creatively about how you can move forward.

So, what does all of this have to do with lists?

Just start moving

The key to all of this is that the hardest part is often just getting your brain going.  I’ve worked with many clients that knew where they wanted to go, but simply could not get the ball rolling.  We identify a goal that they want to pursue, but when it comes time to try to figure out some steps to actually start moving in that direction, they draw a blank.

One of the things that I’m good at is determining next steps.  It’s one of the reasons GTD methodology has been such a good fit for me, and one of the reasons I was a natural at project management.  My brain naturally breaks projects down into small, bite-sized increments.  However, coaching should never be about the coach — it’s about the client.  I’m fine offering a few suggestions, but the best suggestions ultimately need to come from the client.  After all, you possess everything that you need in order to resolve your problems.  That’s the true beauty of coaching.

During my training, we used a technique referred to as the “chinese menu” (why that is the actual name I do not know).  The idea behind this approach is that it is okay to offer a few suggestions, but it is important to provide a number of other entries or blank lines for the client to write in their own suggestions.  Imagine two scenarios:

•  In the first scenario, I have one suggestion for you.  I write it on an otherwise blank piece of paper, and then ask you to come up with some other suggestions that might work.  When your mind stares at that single items on an otherwise blank piece of paper, all you can envision is that one item.
• In the second scenario, I also have one suggestion for you.  However, I write 4 numerals down, and draw a horizontal line across the paper from each of those numbers.  On the first line, I put my own suggestion.  When you look at this piece of paper, your mind is naturally going to try to think of at least three other suggestions that will get you toward your goal.

In reality, the number of lines I draw is actually irrelevant.  The real goal here is to generate momentum.  Once your mind has accepted that it needs to come up with some answers, the gears will start to turn and the ideas will start to flow out.  It’s amazing how many solutions come out of your head once you actually get the ball rolling (my client’s routinely surprise themselves by the number of solutions that they generate on their own).

So… again, what does this have to do with lists?  Well, my experiment was to try and determine:

What kind of layout will best generate momentum?

That was the ultimate aim of my experiment.  If I was to create empty slots alongside my own suggestion, ready to be filled out, which configuration would best start the momentum that we want to get a client on their way?

The results were a little surprising.  I figured that List C would be the best to fill out.  Why?

Well, I figured that List C was simply begging to have a single item put into the first slot.  There’s already an item in the second slot, and that makes my own mind absolutely desperate to fill in that first slot.  Once the first slot is filled in, there is only one other item to fill out in the third slot and you’ve got three solutions.  The momentum is rolling!

In reality, only 2 people (out of 20 total) voted for List C.  I didn’t vote, but that would have been my vote as well.  List A received 5 total votes, and List B received 13 votes – 65% of the total votes!

List B clearly trounced the other options.  Another thing worth noting is that after filling out the first slot of either List B or List C, the resulting list is exactly the same.  So what matters most is which list generates the most initial momentum to get you working.

Thanks to your responses, I now have some valuable information!  From now on, I know that when I have a suggestion to offer my clients, the best way to create a “chinese menu” is to put my suggestion first.  The other benefit (that I can think of) to this approach is that the rest of the list remains open-ended.  If I draw enough lines, the client isn’t working to “complete” a list – they simply have one suggestions that gets them started and can then go as long as they are able to.

Thank you!

A big thank you to everyone that participated in this experiment.  There’s another favour that I would like to ask you – please help me out by passing along this site to anyone that you think may be interested.  It’s challenging to write on a consistent basis, especially while attempting to develop both a law career and a professional coaching career simultaneously.  With your help, I can generate more readers, and nothing provides more momentum than knowing that what I’m writing about matters to people.

Thanks for your continued support!

The near future…

Finally, a brief update on my own journey.  As mentioned, I’m actively trying to develop both a career as a legal professional and as a professional coach.  It’s very challenging trying to balance both of these pursuits, but challenge has always been what drives me, and time management is an area in which I excel.

This fall, I will be working a clinical term at UVic’s legal aid clinic, the Law Centre.  There I will be assuming conduct of client files and representing clients in court.  I anticipate being much busier this term than I was during my summer school term, but I am nevertheless excited for the coming four months.  Stay tuned!

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You can help me out with 10 seconds of your time.  I’ve been thinking about motivation and how we can best spur ourselves onward to action.  I’ve slowly absorbed the fact that I have a bit of an emotional aversion to the process of actually getting things done (hence the many systems that I set up and maintain to spur me forward).

To help me gain a better understanding of overcoming aversions like this one, use the poll below to answer this simple question:

Without knowing anything else, which of the three lists below makes you most inclined to start filling it out?

Each list has three slots.  List A already has the third slot filled, list B has the first slot filled and list C has the middle slot filled.

Poll

List A

List B

List C

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The results

I will share the results and what I think they mean after I’ve gotten enough answers.  Thanks for taking part in the experiment!

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The summer is drawing to a close, and I feel like I have a little bit of distance and time to reflect.  I took on a tremendous amount on this term.  I achieved many of my goals, but wound down the term feeling a little burnt out.  Since my goal for school was to actually get away with giving it less of my time and attention (while maintaining a GPA that I was happy with), I won’t focus any more on that.

[Update: I just got my grades and this goal was a success.  My GPA did not drop at all and I was able to devote much more time to other pursuits this summer.  Feels good to celebrate a success!]

While completing the term, I put a lot of effort into setting up my coaching practice, and I have been regularly coaching a number of clients throughout the summer.  We’ve had some great successes, and it’s been very inspiring to be a part of this process.  As part of my goal, I’ve been undergoing coaching myself, and this has been a surprising journey.

Exploring things like what motivates me, how I derive value, and what my strengths and weaknesses are has been confusing and enlightening.  Often both at the same time.  One astounding insight I had was the realization that I’m an intuitive person.  When I told my Mum, she said “Well, yah, wouldn’t you say that you’ve always been a very intuitive person?”.  It’s funny, the most significant discoveries we make about ourselves are often those that are already obvious to everyone else.  It’s taking me 32 years to come to this realization.  I’m fairly certain I would have come to it eventually as time bore on, but through coaching, this process was vastly more efficient and my growth was accelerated.

One of the assessments that I undertook as a result of this ongoing process was from a book titled “Strengths Finder 2.0″, by Tom Rath.  The book is pretty short, and is really just a compendium of the various strengths (as the author has chosen to categorize them).  The real meat of the process comes from filling out a test online and then see what strengths are fed back to you.  (Unlike the Myers-Briggs tests I did when I was in secondary school, this test had just shy of 200 questions, rather than 20).

Today, I’m sharing my own strengths, so that you can get a glimpse into what sort of things you can explore through coaching.  Imagine if you could move yourself in a direction where we you were working with all of your strengths, instead of weaknesses.  Wouldn’t everyone be better off in this situation?  By working with a coach, we can all move in the direction of where we are our greatest and most authentic selves.

Let’s look at my results:

Strategic

The strategic theme enables you to sort through the clutter and find the best route.  It is not a skill that can be taught.  It is a distinct way of thinking, a special perspective on the world at large.  This perspective allows you to see patterns where others simply see complexity.  Mindful of these patterns, you play out alternative scenarios, always asking, “What if this happened?  Okay, well what if this happened?”.  This recurring question helps you see around the next corner.  There you can evaluate accurately the potential obstacles.  Guided by where you see each path leading, you start to make selections.  You discard the paths that lead nowhere.  You discard the paths that lead straight into resistance.  You discard the paths that lead into a fog of confusion.  You cull and make selections until you arrive at the chosen path — your strategy.  Armed with your strategy, you strike forward.  This is your Strategic theme at work: “What if?” Select. Strike.

My biggest take-away:

• Trust your intuitive insights as often as possible.  Even though you might not be able to explain them rationally, your intuitions are created by a brain that instinctively anticipates and projects.  Have confidence in these perceptions.

Learner

You love to learn.  The subject matter that interests you most will be determined by your other themes and experiences, but whatever the subject, you will always be drawn to the process of learning.  The process, more than the content or the result, is especially exciting for you.  You are energized by the steady and deliberate journey from ignorance to competence.  The thrill of the first few facts, the early efforts to recite or practice what you have learned, the growing confidence of a skill mastered — this is the process that entices you.  Your excitement leads you to engage in adult learning experiences — yoga or piano lesson or graduate classes.  It enables you to thrive in dynamic work environments where you are asked to take on short project assignments are are expected to learn a lot about the new subject matter in a short period of time and then move on to the next one.  This Learner theme does not necessarily mean that you seek to become the subject matter expert, or that you are striving for the respect that accompanies a professional or academic credential.  The outcome of the learning is less significant than the “getting there”.

My biggest take-away(s):

• Refine how you learn.  For example, you might learn best by teaching; if so, seek out opportunities to present to others.  You might learn best through quiet reflection; if so, find this quiet time.
• Be a catalyst for change.  Others might be intimidated by new rules, new skills, or new circumstances.  Your willingness to soak up this newness can calm their fears and spur them to action.  Take this responsibility seriously.

Relator

Relator describes your attitude toward your relationships.  In simple terms, the Relator theme pulls you toward people you already know.  You do not necessarily shy away from meeting new people — in fact, you may have other themes that cause you to enjoy the thrill of turning strangers into friends — but you do derive a great deal of pleasure and strength from being around your close friends.  You are comfortable with intimacy.  Once the initial connection has been made, you deliberately encourage a deepening of the relationship.  You want to understand their feelings, their goals, their fears, and their dreams; and you want them to understand yours.  You know that this kind of closeness implies a certain amount of risk — you might be taken advantage of — but you are willing to accept that risk.  For you a relationship has value only if it is genuine.  And the only way to know that is to entrust yourself to the other person.  The more you share with each other, the more you risk together.  The more you risk together, the more each of you proves your caring is genuine.  These are your steps toward real friendship, and you take them willingly.

My biggest take-away:

• You might tend to withhold the most engaging aspects of your personality until you have sensed openness from another person.  Remember, building relationships is not a one-way street.  Proactively “put yourself out there.”  Others will quickly see you for the genuine individual you are, and you will create many more opportunities to cultivate strong, long-lasting connections
• (See: 1.  This blog.  2.  This experiment)

Communicator

You like to explain, to describe, to host, to speak in public, and to write.  This is your Communicator theme at work.  Ideas are a dry beginning.  Events are static.  You feel a need to bring them to life, to energize them, to make them exciting and vivid.  And so you turn events into stories and practice telling them.  You take the dry idea and enliven it with images and examples and metaphors.  You believe that most people have a very short attention span.  They are bombarded by information, but very little of it survives.  You want your information — whether an idea, an event, a product’s features and benefits, a discovery, or a lesson — to survive.  You want to divert their attention toward you and then capture it, lock it in.  This is what drives your hunt for the perfect phrase.  This is what draws you toward dramatic words and powerful word combinations.  This is why people like to listen to you.  Your word pictures pique their interest, sharpen their world, and inspire them to act.

My biggest take-away:

• If you enjoy writing, consider publishing your work.  If you enjoy public speaking, make a presentation at a professional meeting or convention.  In either case, your Communicator talents will serve to assist you in finding just the right way to frame your ideas and state your purpose.  You delight in sharing your thoughts with others, so find the medium that best fits your voice and message.
• Volunteer for opportunities to present.  You can become known as someone who helps people express their thoughts and ambitions in a captivating way.

Discipline

Your world needs to be predictable.  It needs to be ordered and planned.  So you instinctively impose structure on your world.  You set up routines.  You focus on timelines and deadlines.  You break long-term projects into a series of specific short-term plans, and you work through each plan diligently.  You are not necessarily neat and clean, but you do need precision.  Faced with the inherent messiness of life, you want to feel in control.  The routines, the timelines, the structure, all of these help create this feeling of control.  Lacking this theme of Discipline, others may sometimes resent your need for order, but there need not be conflict.  You must understand that not everyone feels your urge for predictability; they have other ways of getting things done.  Likewise, you can help them understand and even appreciate your need for structure.  Your dislike of surprises, your impatience with errors, your routines, and your detail orientation don’t need to be misinterpreted as controlling behaviours that box people in.  Rather, these behaviours can be understood as your instinctive method for maintaining your progress and your productivity in the face of life’s many distractions.

My biggest take-away(s):

• Others may confuse your Discipline talents with rigidity.  Help them understand that your discipline helps you pack more effectiveness into a day — often because you prioritize your time.  When working with others who are not as disciplined, ask them to clarify deadlines so you can adjust your workload to accommodate their requests.
• Timelines motivate you.  When you have a task to complete, you like to know the deadline so you can plan your schedule accordingly.  Apply your Discipline talents by outlining the step-by-step plan you will use.  Others will appreciate your cues because they will help keep everyone “on task”.

Moving forward

I’m entering my third year of law school, and am currently trying to sort out exactly where I want to take the next phase of my life (along with Bay, of course).  Career choices are available to me, and the real conflict that is starting to emerge is one that I’m well familiar with: Doing what “should” be done, or what I want to do?  At the core of this conflict is the battle between doing what social pressure tells me to do and doing what I feel passionate about.

I know that my intuition is right, but now I have to figure out what that means, what the consequences of pursuing that path of action are, and how to explain what I feel to the other people that are affected by my decisions.  I’m unwilling to make changes in my life that would affect the people I love without them being onboard, so it’s really important to me that I’m able to understand what I want to do and why I want to do it.  Keep checking back and I promise I will provide updates.  This is a journey that we all undertake, so I hope that by sharing my own insights, we can all grow a little bit.

I have been seeking inspiration for a while – I want to keep writing, but none of the blog ideas I’ve stored are jumping out at me.  So help me out: post a comment or message me privately and suggest something for me to write about.  We both win – you get to hear a different perspective on something that’s on your mind, and I get to know that there are people out there that think about the same things I do.  And hey, we both get to learn!

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For a long time, my writing has been heavily focused on productivity.  I love being productive, and it provides me with a sense of purpose and of balance.  When I’ve accomplished things during the day, I feel like I’ve actually made the world a better place through my own industry.

In the first part of my life as an adult, I spent a lot of time learning how to maximize my productivity.  This, in effect, was a way for me to get as much as I could out of life.  The logic went that the more I can do, the more enriching my life is.

However, in recent years, that focus has started to shift.  It’s not that I no longer value productivity — it’s that I value something else above it: balance.

We can spend so much of our time focused on productivity that we lose sight of the present.  If we are no longer able to appreciate the moment at hand, what’s the point?  Without an ability to appreciate what’s going on around us, it doesn’t matter how much we accomplish.  Everyone else may gain from my productivity, but how fulfilling can I really say my own life has been if I’ve been unable to enjoy it?

We have become so focused on productivity.  We’re always looking for new ways to squeeze more efficiency out of our employees, ways to accomplish more during our commute, ways to do more things every day and tools to help us manage everything that we’ve chosen to taken on.  How often do we stop to ask if we’re doing what’s most important to us?

Productivity without balance is a vice, not a virtue.

If we don’t check ourselves and seek out balance by setting our own boundaries, how do we determine when enough is enough?

I know many people that are either unaware, unable or unwilling to set boundaries for themselves and allow the drive to be productive rule their day.  The result?  Their bodies set and create the boundaries for them when they won’t.  Stress, illness fatigue and burnout are all ways that our body provides an indication that we need to re-prioritize balance in our lives.

Tragically, our working culture has evolved to the point that you can often overhear people boasting about how late they’ve been staying at the office, as though it is a badge of honour.  It isn’t; it’s a sign of an unhealthy working culture.  Employers should be seeking to imbue in people an appreciation and respect for balance.  It means that they’ll get more out of their employees, hold better retention rates and have more satisfied workers.

Productivity without balance is a cancerous pursuit.  Without taking the time to check in with yourself and prioritize the other things in your life, your own industry will be coming from a less meaningful place.  Productivity that does not have a purpose behind it is like growth for the sake of growth.  This kind of unhealthy focus on productivity can develop its own vicious cycle.  The more out of balance you become, the easier it becomes to take on more stuff.  With a myopic focus on productivity, you lose an awareness of the other demands on your time.  Without a sense of balance, it becomes easier not to say no.

By making the effort to prioritize balance in your life, you will ensure that you remain productive in the greater sense.  Think about it – if you’re living your life out of balance, worn out and tired, who’s really gaining from your productivity?

By prioritizing balance, you maximize your productivity

By striking a balance in your life, you’ll actually ensure you are maximally productive by attending to all of your needs, rather than just a few.  These needs include things like:

• Sleep
• Nutrition
• Fitness
• Your relationship/Marriage
• Friends
• Family
• Fun

The more out of balance you become, the greater your body and mind will subconsciously pull you back toward your centre.  Your ability to sustain productivity, when done at the expense of balance, will suffer from diminishing returns.

Many of us respond to this reduction in productivity by attempting to push ourselves harder, staving off the inexorable return to balance as long as possible.  We don’t realize that the longer we remain in a productive state, the longer we need to recharge our batteries.  This isn’t a failing on our part (though we often treat is as such) — it’s simply a fact of life.

Imagine yourself as an elastic band.  Our natural, balanced state is the when the elastic band is left at rest.  When we push ourselves to be productive, we are tugging the elastic band from two ends.  The longer we push ourselves to be productive, the greater this elastic band is stretched.  We can attempt to squeeze more productivity out of our heads, but this requires stretching the elastic band even further.  The longer we hold ourselves from a state of balance, the more effort it requires to stretch that band further.  Hold yourself to a state of productivity for too long and the band snaps.  Your body will eventually take over and forcefully undertake the return to balance.  If you’ve pushed yourself too hard, that will often be via crashing into sleep, illness, or worse (Eg, your head could explode).

Summary

Here’s what we’ve covered:

• Productivity, when pursued to the detriment of balance, is not a virtue — it’s a vice
• A tunnel-vision-like focus on productivity is cancerous and self-perpetuating
• When you prioritize balance in your life, you actually maximize your ability to be productive
• If you think you can actually get more accomplished by cutting back on the other important parts of your life, you’re only fooling yourself

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It’s been a week since I completed the first of four intensive modules that lead to my accreditation as a professional coach.  In between completing law school, searching for articling positions to work once I graduate and developing an iPhone app with two other colleagues, I’ve been coaching clients that answered my initial call for volunteers.

Personal plug: Before going any further, if you’re interested in coaching, please get in touch with me via this page.  Onwards!

As always, the TLDR can be reached here.

Training

The coaching instruction was highly informative and very rewarding.  Although Erickson Coaching Federation (“ECF”) is an international school in many different countries, this is one of the few opportunities to take the training that they offer in an intensive format.  As a result, there were many would-be coaches present from the far reaches of our planet.  Turkey, Mexico, Germany, Sweden, Paris, and Bangladesh, to name a few.

Although spending eight hours each day focused on the material was draining, it was also exciting to learn in the context of this cultural melange.  While I have a natural intuition toward the kind of relationship that coaching requires, it was great to get a foundation and framework underneath that to guide that intuition.

One of the most significant pieces of wisdom I took away from the training was the question posed in the title of this post:

What do you want?

Think in positive terms, not negative

By this, I don’t mean that you should pretend the sky is blue when it’s pouring rain out.  What I’m referencing is the fact that our minds are excellent at visualizing the presence of something, but not the absence of it.

If someone tells you not to think about penguins dancing, it’s very difficult to construct an image that encompasses that concept.  As Marilyn Atkinson (the instructor for the intensive, and the president of ECF) indicated, you can do something like visualize penguins dancing with red circle and a cross through it, but how do you actually visualize the absence of penguins dancing?  Our minds simply aren’t geared in this way.

What our minds are good at doing is visualizing positive things.  We can visualize dancing penguins – and we can do it quite well.

Ironically, most of us spend a good deal of our time dwelling on the past and thinking about what we didn’t like about our day.  I’m not sure when or why we moved in this direction, but this mode of thought has become fairly ubiquitous.

Think back to the last time you went to a friend or family member for advice.  How much time did you spend complaining about your situation at work, how you don’t like the workload that you’re being given at work, how you’re not being given enough respect for your abilities, etc.

So I hear what you don’t want.  But what DO you want?

This is the fundamental question that we must start asking ourselves.  Okay – it’s clear that you don’t want to keep feeling like you’re being given too much workload at your job.  But what do you actually want?  What does that ideal result actually look like?

At first brush, this question might sound like a platitude, kind of like stating the answer in jeopardy but then simply having to rephrase it with “what is” at the start.  But this method of reversing the way we think generates profound results.  Think about something in your life that you’re not happy with.  Now try to imagine what your ideal result looks like.  Can you visualize it?  If not, that’s the first problem to overcome.  It’s easy to identify that you hate your job, but more challenging to identify what the job you want looks like.

In my perspective, a lot of coaching revolves around helping clients change their thinking from one of focusing on the negatives to focusing on the positives.

It doesn’t matter what you don’t want..

Seriously; it’s not about what we don’t want.  Thinking and focusing on that will only keep the imagery fresh in your mind (remember – the brain isn’t good at visualizing the absence of something).  What matters is what we do want.

Get in the habit of catching yourself when you hear these kinds of words in your mind:

• I hate that…
• I don’t like it when…
• Why is it always…
• It’s so dumb how…
• It’s not fair that…

It’s not that hard

It really isn’t!  But shifting your thinking in this subtle manner will have powerful and wonderful results.  It’s amazing how much more inspired you will feel when you shift your focus to visualizing what you do want, rather than what you don’t want.

Analogize your thinking (and life in general) to a road trip.  Imagine you had just left a city that you didn’t really enjoy.  Your thinking might be something along the lines of “Well, I don’t want to spend any more time there!”.  But this isn’t going to provide you much inspiration with respect to the rest of your trip.  Achieving this aim is as simple as sitting in your car 10 minutes outside of that city.

By shifting your thinking to something like, “Alright, I think I want to go to Disneyland next”, you create a positive image that can be visualized.  Your mind is then able to start thinking about the paths to achieve that positive goal and move in that direction.

So why do I even need you Adam?

Have I just given away all of the magic juice of coaching?  No.

The challenge is not in determining what, it’s in the how.  This solution-based mindset is one of the core principles behind coaching, but it’s not the only value that a good coach offers.  Applying principles like these can often be challenging – especially when life gets challenging, stressful or just plain busy.

It is, however, one small step that you can start taking on your own to change the way that you think and approach the problems in your life.

If you do give this a go and find success (or failure, for that matter), please post a comment and share your story.  After all, the more we share, the more we benefit.

To Summarize…

• Try to be aware of the times when you are thinking with trigger words like:
• I hate that…
• I don’t like it when…
• Why is it always…
• It’s so dumb how…
• It’s not fair that…
• Shift your thinking from a focus on the negative (what you don’t want) to the positive (what you do want)
• The simple exercise of identifying what it is that you actually want will inspire you and free your mind up to start thinking about how to actually get there
• If you’re interested in some coaching, get in touch with me at aquiney@gmail.com

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A lot has happened since I last posted.  I included a link to one of my articles detailing my weekly review process over at GTD Times, and got over 100 daily visits across the span of about 5 days (without doubt a record for this humble site).

Unfortunately, that timing coincided with an assignment in one class and writing a take-home exam in my administrative law class.  As such, I effectively invited a bunch of people into my home and then fell into a coma for the duration of their visit.  Not the best way to increase traffic or treat people that are interested in what I have to say.

Administrative law was a challenging course, though only inasmuch as the subject matter was very dry, and it was a large-credit course condensed into half the time.  I was spending 8 hours a week in class, and additional time reading.  The challenge was to stay motivated and engaged throughout.  Nevertheless, things have started to settle down a little bit, and as I travel over to Vancouver for the weekend, I’m given the familiar gift of a dedicated 1.5 hours in which to put thoughts to keyboard.

Today I want to talk a little bit about the importance of retreating.  If you don’t need convincing and only want the strategy, you can skip to it here.

..from what?

From everything.

What I’m hoping to convince you is that there is value in having the self-discipline and awareness to take a step back from time to time and pull away from whatever you are currently focused on.

Why?

There are many good reasons to purposefully retreat from your current task or project.  First and foremost is the need to combat diminishing returns.  Although this is generally an economic theory, it is applicable to much of our daily lives.

Can you think of a time when you were banging your head against the metaphorical wall for hours, trying to solve a problem, only to go for a walk, return and immediately conceive of the solution?  These experiences are not uncommon, and are illustrative of the value of retreating.

When a problem is receiving all of our focus, we can develop mental tunnel vision.  Our mind’s become focused to the extent that we are unable to synthesize or incorporate any additional information from outside of our particular area of focus.  It is not until we step back that the blinders on our mind are removed and we are free to think of a solution in terms that exist outside of the confines of the box we were operating in.

Do you take breaks at work?

If you answered no, you probably thought to yourself “I’m way too busy to take a break, I can’t afford the time”.  The fact is, you can’t afford not to take breaks.

Without taking time to retreat and reconnect with yourself, the efficiency with which you are able to apply yourself to your work will diminish over time.  This is not an uncommon process amongst law students.  A-type personalities have an aggressive bent and love throwing themselves at a task.  Failure in achieving that task within expectations is met with zeal and resentment, and a redoubling of effort.  Many a weary face have I seen turning in assignments in the morning, telling fables of seeing dragons at 5 in the morning, shortly before they awoke in a pile of drool in time to hand in their completed paper.

I’m using hyperbole here because it’s more fun, but you can probably relate to this state of mind.  Most of us would benefit from procrastinating less (also here) and taking more frequent breaks.

I can’t afford to!

Actually, you can’t afford not to.

This is a good statement to trigger your self-awareness and alert you that maybe you need to take a step back.  With unbelievably few exceptions, taking 15 minutes away from a task you are working on is not going to result in failure.

Retreating from your tasks and projects is important, but this philosophy should be applied not just to work, but to life in general.

For the first two years of classes, I’ve been a part of the co-op program.  This means that I take classes for four months, then work at a legal job for four months, and back again.  A lot of my friends planned their work so that they finished on a Friday, and then started school again on a Monday.  When I told them that I had two weeks off, they exclaimed disbelief: “You’re so lucky!”.

Luck has nothing to do with it.  You have to actively make time for your retreats.  No one else is going to do it for you (and the same applies for your breaks at work).  Are you thinking that you can’t afford the time off?  Why not?  The benefit you will gain from taking two weeks off to process your own thoughts and reconnect with yourself will far outweigh the material costs of missing out on the paycheque.

But I go on vacation..

Vacations are awesome.  For many people they are a form of retreat.  It takes them away from their context, frees their minds up to relax and focus on what they want to achieve when they get back home, and spend time with the person that they love.  For some people, this is all that they need, although I must admit that the people I know that take the most vacations are often the ones that are the most stressed out on a daily basis.  They should probably be retreating more on a daily basis, and less on a monthly or annual one.

When you go on a vacation, are you doing a lot of planning?  Are you stressed out at all about the cost, either during the vacation or when you get back home?  Do you go on vacation to let your mind sit idle for hours on a beach, or to be exposed to culture different from your own?  None of these are cause for judgment, simply different approaches to vacation.  I love being exposed to new cultures when I travel, and so this type of vacation really isn’t much of a retreat for me — it’s time I spend actively engaging and expanding my mind.

It’s about balance — remember?

Regardless of the approach you take, the bottom line is balance is a quality that we must seek to imbue in our lives on a continual basis.  This balance must be sought at the microscopic level (on an hourly or daily basis) and on a macroscopic level (annual vacations, etc.).  If you never make the time to be at peace with your thoughts, you’ll never have the time.

Some strategies

Okay, you’re convinced.  Here are some of my own strategies to help adopt the habit of retreating:

• Remember the trigger phrase
  • If you catch yourself saying something like “I can’t afford to take a break right now”, it’s probably the time when you most need one.
• Question your assertions
  • If you’re telling yourself that you can’t afford the time away from your task or away from work, question how accurate this is.  Why can’t you afford to take that break?  Will the benefit you gain from taking a break really be that detrimental in the long run?  Looking back, would you have more regret for not taking the break, or for having taken it?
• Ask yourself what would happen if you didn’t have the option of turning down the break
  • I always ask my wife this question when she refuses to take a sick day (in spite of being dreadfully snotty and sick).  What if she wasn’t given the option — would her entire project fail?  Would she get fired?  Would the world end?  Ask yourself what would happen if your power went out for 15 minutes and you couldn’t continue working during that period.  (If you’re thinking about how you really need to start saving your work more often, you’re missing the point).  The consequences of taking a break are not that bad.
• Specifically schedule time in your work calendar for breaks.
  • Label them “appointment” or something sufficiently vague.  Doing this for 15 minute breaks may become onerous, but I know more than a few people that would benefit from booking time like this for a couple of hours during the day — if only to ensure that they have a few hours of undisturbed time.
• Whenever your situation is undergoing change (new job, moving homes, etc.), give yourself more time than you think you need
  • Don’t assume that the weekend will be enough time — specifically leave a little bit of extra room between the end of one job and the start of the next one.  A few days off will not break your bank (and if it is, perhaps you should be focusing some attention on living within a tighter budget).  Taking the extra time will allow you to adjust and accept the change at a reasonable pace.
• If you need more encouragement, think of all of the things you wish you had time to accomplish but never do
  • The simple act of contemplating what you might use the added time off for will help you focus on the value that retreating may provide, rather than just the costs

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It’s been a month since I’ve finished my workterm at the DoJ and returned to school at UVic.  This past Spring was four months filled with a tremendous amount of discovery, and with a little bit of distance between me and that time, I’ve had some time to really think about what my vision for the future looks like.

Law school, at least at UVic (and I suspect at most other universities), is tied with the MBA program for the most expensive degree offered.  As such, there is a tremendous amount of pressure on the students to put that degree to work for them upon graduation.  This pressure is reinforced by the fact that the faculty of law makes available many opportunities for students to get in touch with the large firms that are hiring articling students upon graduation.  These opportunities happen in the form of wine and cheese events, on campus interviews (affectionately named “OCI’s”), and open houses for prospective students at many of the large firms.

There are two main effects that fall out of this process.  One, they grant students a valuable opportunities to get in touch with the people that they want to work for.  Two, it creates an intense pull on students to “put their degree to work for them” by going to work for the firms that are advertising through these means.

Although UVic does a great job providing information to students regarding alternative career paths and getting in touch with smaller firms, the fact is that these opportunities are under-represented and under-funded.  This is simply a natural and unfortunate consequence of the capitalist model.  Those firms with the most money can afford the greatest amount of advertising, will be the best represented, and will be able to draw in the best students.

Okay…?

Why am I telling you about this, and what does it all mean?

Well, for one, it means that I and my colleagues are acutely aware of the pressure to start making money pretty soon after graduating.  More importantly, it means that I am all too familiar with how easy it can be to get caught up chasing after money, rather than your passions.

Permit me one last digression.

My undergraduate degree was in computer science.  It took me a while to get through this degree (I had no idea what I wanted to do for the first three years that I was in school, so was doing poorly in a business degree until I found computers).  When I entered the faculty around 2000, it was the height of the dot com boom and fallout.  The result was that many of my colleagues had entered the degree program because it seemed like a good general degree to have, and like it would allow them to make a lot of money.

When the tech bubble collapsed, those colleagues stayed in the degree, because they didn’t really know what else to do, and they had already spent two years learning the foundation.  What’s more, They were stuck in a bad position – they had entered a particular degree because they thought it would make them money.  When that no longer became a guarantee, they felt they had no choice but to stick it out and try to put their degree to work.

Fortunately for those people, the tech industry is here to stay, and while the money is not as good as it used to be, there is still a high demand for people that are able to work with computers.  Unfortunately, many of those same people are miserable.  They’re stuck in a career that is making them good money, but they’re doing something that they don’t enjoy.  These people chased after money, rather than their passion.

Ironically, I believe these people are actually worse off than they would be if they were not making good money.  Why?

Money clouds your vision

Money acts as a proxy in our society.  By itself, it does not actually provide you with anything. Money simply acts as a legal tender which allows you to exchange it for X dollars worth of product or service.  A twenty dollar bill is simply a convenient way to temporarily hold that much of value in a format that everyone has agreed upon.

Most importantly, money is not a proxy for hapiness.  While it may provide you with the means to affect the changes in your life that will allow you to realize your passions, it will not by itself create those passions.  (Is anyone really passionate about just having lots of money?  Maybe, but those people strike me as boring and unimaginative).

People, however, have an incredible propensity for deceiving themselves, and money provides a convenient way to distract us from the fact that we’re really not very happy.

Money does an incredible disservice when we allow it to become the metric for determining whether or not we are following our passion and/or happy.  We start using it to acquire other possessions (generally stuff that we don’t actually need), which gives us temporary gratification, but nothing longterm and substantive.  We start spending more money to chase that feeling of gratification, and now we need to make more money.  More clothing, nicer purses, better cars, bigger houses, etc.  The cycle is ongoing, and at no point does it lead to true happiness.

The longer you chase money, the harder it becomes to change your course

If you’re not following your passions, you’re going to need to take steps to move on to a path that actually does allow you to actualize yourself (or stay miserable), and doing so will often require taking a pay cut.  Moving from one field to another means leaving some of your established expertise behind and starting out again in a lower position.  If you’ve been using that money as a proxy for your happiness, you may have accumulated debt-loads that prevent you from starting back over.

How do you avoid falling into this pitfall?  Well, the first thing to do is to establish a habit of checking in with yourself and determining if you’re meeting your own goals and appropriately pursuing your vision.

Perhaps you don’t even know what your vision is – there are a lot of people that are unsure what their ideal future actually looks like, and only have vague notions of what a truly fulfilling job would look like.

Here’s an example to get you thinking: let’s say that the economy was exactly as it was, but whatever you do for a living paid $10,000 less across the board.  No matter where you found a replacement job, it would pay $10,000 less than it would normally.  Would you keep doing that work?  If not, how come?

Chasing money will leave you poor, chasing your passion will make you rich

The big caveat is that wealth won’t always come in the form of money.  (it’s like an episode of Tales from the Crypt - Oh the ironic endings!)

Ask yourself what you are willing to sacrifice in order to achieve your passion.  Thinking this question through can really grant you some insight.  If there’s something material that you wouldn’t sacrifice (excluding things like food, water, oxygen, and, while not material, naturally your family), why is it that you would not be willing to sacrifice that?  Is your passion not worth pursuing?  Do you doubt that you really feel passionate about it?

This question serves as a litmus test for what matters to you in your life right now, and more germane to this discussion, it can help you determine what you are actually chasing.

If you are willing to sacrifice in order to achieve that which you are passionate about, no amount of money will be able to equate the wealth that will flow to you.

For what it’s worth, I also believe that when we are following our passion, we maximize what we have to offer the world.  My intuition tells me that you will, over time, find yourself paid in kind for that maximization.  Even if you aren’t, will that matter?  Perhaps your passion is teaching children, certainly an underpaid profession.  If that’s the case, wouldn’t you prefer to be doing something you are passionate about, than spending your life miserable, but with lots of  money?

Patience

As you can tell, nothing that I have written here provides an answer for short-term riches.  I’m not wary of getting rich quickly and easily – I think that doing so has a tendency to create a paucity in other aspects of our lives.  True value and wealth is achieved through the exercise of virtues like dedication, integrity, patience and, of course, passion.

Wrap-up

As always, here is the summary:

• Money is a proxy for things; by itself, it does nothing
  • (It’s a cliche, but it’s still true – money won’t make you happy)
• Money should be treated as a means, not as an end in itself.  If you’re pursuing a career solely because of the money, ask yourself why
• Money will cloud your vision.  What are you passionate about, and are you pursuing that?
• In order to achieve your passions, you must be willing to sacrifice.  If you’re not, ask yourself how passionate you are, both about what you are unwilling to sacrifice and that which you believe to be your passion
• Be patient.  Follow your passion and know that the rest of life will fall into place

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