over the next couple of weeks.
Have you been feeling stuck? Reliving the same lessons over and over again? Would you like to get unstuck and start making progress?
The end of one year and the beginning of the next is for many of us a time to take stock of the big picture in our lives. And as we go about summarizing this year and planning the coming one the process can reveal one of two major attitudes:
I’ll always advocate the half-full, forward thinking perspective on life, but even if you’re an aficionado of the half-empty position there are a few questions that, if you really consider them and answer them candidly, can help you surge out of the starting gate.
You'll find it helpful to write your answers to these questions down and put a date on them. First, the process of writing will help you synthesize random thoughts into something more coherent and focused. You don’t have to share your answers with anyone. On the other hand, you might want to choose to discuss them with a loved one or an accountability partner. The only caveat in sharing them is that you are not allowed to replace any “want to” items with “should” items as a result.
Another benefit of written documentation is that it will help you remember what you said, so you will be less likely to get squirrely on yourself later due to faulty memory or temporary frustration. It's relatively easy to make grand predictions about things like "I'm going to sell half a million dollars worth of product next year!" and by July you're so off the mark that you back down and create a number you're more likely to reach given current circumstances. We don't really fool ourselves by changing the number midstream. We simply set ourselves up for not meeting our own expectations.
You can do this. You can get unstuck, but only if you do something different than whatever it is that got you here in the first place.
Here's the background for my questions. I was at a community event a few days ago where the opening ritual typically includes a patriotic tune and the Pledge of Allegiance. After the patriotic tune this week the song leader spontaneously burst into "We Wish You A Merry Christmas." Simple enough.
Except wait. The next person on the agenda came to the podium and announced, "Next year I'm going to teach you 'I Have A Little Dreidel.'" He said it with good humor, but whoops! An assumption had been made that we would all be celebrating Christmas. I guess that Jewish gentleman finds a lot of occasions where he has to exercise his wit and choose not to take offense. I think he did a pretty graceful job of calling the situation to everyone's attention without hammering anyone with it.
A similar discussion has arisen regarding holiday cards. Should you and your business demonstrate your faith stance by sending Christmas messages? Is it OK to assume that non-Christians will receive them in the spirit in which they were intended - to spread the joy of the season? Or is it offensive in its presumptuousness? According to adherents.com, Christians only represent 33% of believers worldwide.
This goes for more than religion and holidays. Other big topics come under this "what is appropriate?" umbrella - politics, abortion rights, gay marriage - the list goes on and on. So what do you think? Is it better to steer clear of potential controversy, or do you think it's important to speak up (or sing out, or send) according to your values and let the chips fall where they may?
I welcome your comments. I'd like to hear what you think. Happy weekend.
If there's one phrase we heard over and over when receiving updates on project progress in my prior life as a banker, it was "The date slipped." Slipped? Did it fall on an icy sidewalk? Perhaps the date sneaked by when we weren't looking.
On some projects the date isn't critical - it's more a matter of meeting one's own expectations and maintaining one's credibility. But on some projects (like product development) missing the date can cost millions of dollars and potentially sacrifice first market position - forever.
The challenge in scheduling almost always revolves around team member' accuracy at estimating time necessary for the individual steps within the process. They overestimate (or sandbag if you're feeling cynical) so they feel sure they can hit the date, which means that the project looks interminable from the beginning. In addition, when they have the extra time allowance they tend to succumb to that old "work expands to fill the time allotted" principle. So unnecessary slowness happens, and few of us can afford slowness in this market.
On the flip side - sometimes under pressure to get done quickly (or because of unrealistically optimistic expectations) team members will underestimate the time needed for their step in the process. If this is the case, missing the first due date within the process blows the whole plan.
So here's how to avoid either of these problems:
When you use the buffer technique you gain several advantages:
Habits of thought are so tenacious because they are automatic. Sometimes we find ourselves in a mood or state of mind, and only if we stop and think can we identify the source of our happiness or discomfort. You can help yourself choose your thoughts by using a simple green rubber band around your wrist, and thereby change the way in which you see your life.
Why a green rubber band? It's to serve as a trigger to remind us of a point in time when we're in a certain state of mind - the kind of state of mind we want to cultivate. Green is an acronym:
G - Give thanks
R - Reject stinking thinking. Snap the rubber band if you feel yourself going there.
E - Engage hearts
E - Excellence is the norm
N - Never, never, never, never, ever, ever, ever give up
Thanks to Mike Mirau at Personnelity for sharing this with me. Have a great day.
Addiction does begin with drug abuse when an individual makes a conscious
choice to use drugs, but addiction is not just "a lot of drug use." Recent
scientific research provides overwhelming evidence that not only does drug
addiction interfere with normal brain functioning creating powerful feelings of
pleasure, but they also have long-term effects on brain metabolism and activity.
At some point, changes occur in the brain that can turn drug abuse into
addiction, a chronic, relapsing illness. Those people with a drug addiction
suffer from a compulsive drug craving and usage and cannot quit by themselves.
Treatment for drug addiction is necessary to end this compulsive behavior.
This guy has it built right in - he started out green sitting in a bush, then once he moved to his current setting he changed colors to match. Yes, we can put on a jacket or wear a mask at Halloween, but wouldn't it be great if we could change the rest of ourselves as readily as he changes his colors?
This year is drawing near to its close. Have you achieved the results you wanted (or even planned) to achieve? If not, what are you going to change?
Many people view change like a four-letter word. They don't like it because it makes them feel uncomfortable. Is that the case with you? Because if the answer is "yes" then I'd like to make a suggestion: look in your mirror and ask yourself whether you'd rather change and get the results you want, or stick with what you feel comfortable with already and fight the same battles all over again.
Don't kid yourself, because fundamental change takes focus, has occasional setbacks, and consumes energy. If it's important enough to you though, you can do it.
Did you ever sit in the movies and think (or even shout) "Don't go in there!" or "Don't open that door!" You hear the music getting more and more edgy, the lighting and camera angles becoming more extreme. You know what's coming because you've seen it before. You might not know exactly what's behind that door, but you want the other person to benefit from your insights. But at the movies, no matter what you say or even if you jump out of your seat, that person is going to do what the script says they are going to do. You might as well save your breath, because that person has to find out for themselves.
In life as parents and/or concerned friends, colleagues, etc. we see situations around us all the time that we recognize from our own experience. We've handled them well and know what to do, or perhaps we've bumbled terribly and have the scars to prove our knowledge of what doesn't work. Either way, when we see somebody walking off what seems to be a short pier, or into a fog we feel the need to pull them back, to shake them and say, "Don't go in there!" or "Don't open that door!" It's just like in the movies, when you can see what might happen to them, only more intense because you have an emotional investment in the relationship and in their well-being.
But sometimes it's an individual journey - and it's not ours but rather theirs to travel. They have to make their own choices, they have to process their own pain, they have to make their own mistakes. We often can't change their mind. And perhaps we shouldn't try, because when they choose for themselves only they are accountable for the results. When we get involved we share the accountability for what happens as an outgrowth of our influence.
Because we can only see from our own myopic perspective we might not know the lesson they need to learn from this - it could be about independence or it could be about finding a different type of partnership. It could be about responsibility or it could be about putting oneself first for a change. Again, it's their lesson, not ours, and we can't sit in for them or change the syllabus.
It's hard when you think you can see something coming - hard to bite one's tongue and let the chips fall where they may. It's tough to stand by when nobody can tell what's obscured by the fog right now, or how deep the water is at the end of the dock that a loved one is approaching. But they need to do it - they need to make their own choices. Then later, if they need us to, we pick them up and dust them off and help them get ready for their next adventure.
There are times when we feel the expectation to take sides - that we choose one over the other. We can't support everybody and everything. Our electoral system works that way, and so does our judicial system. Either we vote for someone or we vote for their opponent; we find the defendant guilty or not guilty. It's one or the other. But interpersonally sometimes it seems as though we're better off being "Switzerland," staying out of it and staying neutral to the best of our abilities. That way we won't burn bridges that we might want to cross sometime later.
When a colleague gets fired or a friend separates from a spouse we'll never know the whole story. Even if we want to choose a side we don't have enough information to "fairly" judge who should receive our moral support. So we're left using other criteria to decide who to gang up on - whether we've known one spouse longer, or whether we like the terminated colleague.
Some situations following these conflicts require that a choice be made. I can send a Christmas card to both of the estranged parties, but I probably don't want them both to be over at my house on New Year's Eve - at least not when the wound is fresh.
If we choose not to be Switzerland and decide to join one or the other's "team" we run the risk that later they'll be back together and we will have become the force against which they unite. They will be in the position of choosing their alliances and we will now become one of the choices.
Is it actually easier not to try to be Switzerland? Would we spare ourselves uncomfortable conversations and awkward silences avoiding the touchy subjects? Perhaps we could more easily stick with whomever our primarly loyalties lie and have a great time dishing the dirt with them about the other guy. It's said that men are known by their enemies as well as by their friends. Do we want to be defined in that way?
I guess it's actually easier being Switzerland when you're not tremendously invested emotionally in the situation. Is it better to detach from it all and stand by, an uninvolved observer to the conflict?
I'm curious what you might think about this subject. What are the situations where you've chosen specifically to be "Switzerland" - or have unrepentantly chosen sides?
