Wednesday Wishing…

I am not feeling very wordy today. I know, did you fall off your chair? (I have been looking for the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse all morning surely it is a sign of the end of the world.) I am sitting in 3 layers on my couch playing and reading books with my little man. I am resisting the urge to put the heater on because it is simply so guilt ridden. And perhaps I don’t feel like repeating ‘don’t touch’ a centillion times until I scream.

I am sitting here with my little man and wishing… I wish:

…my house was warmer

…it was wet OR cold. Not wet AND cold

…that my girlfriends lived closer

…that my floors swept themselves

…that I could sit all day and watch DVDs

…that I had a wad of cash that I could use to actualise any number of the little projects floating in my head

…that I was inspired to write

…that I was still in bed

Ok that is enough wishing from me. What do you wish?

A decade ago today…

Your whole world can change in a minute. A second, even. A single decision can shape your life. Or at least I used to think so. Now days before the ‘noughties’ comes to a close I’m not so sure.

A decade ago, today, I was faced with the biggest challenge of my life. No I am not talking about a regular rite of passage either. It was traumatic. I knew right then that my life had changed forever. But it took days, months and even years for the fallout to settle and for all of the consequences to manifest. I spent years putting my life back together. I was certain, absolutely certain, that some of the changes were irrevocable. I was sure, and told many times, that this one event would define and dominate my life forever. That a decision (made by someone else no less) had changed me.

We were wrong. The tragedy has been totally erased from my life. All that remains are faint physical scars. Yes I have been changed by the experience. I am stronger and wiser than I would have been otherwise. But the essence of who I am, and indeed, who I was always going to be never changed. The things that define me now, the corner stones of my life, are the things I was told as a result of the tragedy I would never achieve.

Like a bubbling stream we move around the boulders in our path, ever flowing towards the ocean. The path of least resistance, our natural desire, delivers us time and time again to where we were always going to go. No boulder can harm the stream or define it, and in time the water will wear it down until that boulder is indistinguishable from the rest of the pebbles.

A decade ago, today, I was faced with the biggest challenge of my life. Looking back it was no different to every other challenge – it just took longer to overcome.

5 way to tell a goal from an ego trip

Goals are so very chic right now. It is normal to be working overtime, freelancing or consulting on top of your 9 to 5 gig. It is more and more common for people to own their own businesses or to be undertaking graduate study whilst working ‘full time’. These things are almost not considered a goal anymore. They are just what you do. Goals are what we do on top of these miraculous feats.

But more often than not goals are somewhat random end states that we consciously nominate, based on who we think we are at that time and who we think we want to be. Which in and of itself shouldn’t be a bad thing, right? Maybe. The catch is that most often we really don’t know what we want. We have a good idea of things that might make us happy. We know what would make our families proud. We know what would make our colleagues jealous. We know what we are interested in. So we make a guesstimate, at best, call it a goal and flog ourselves until we reach it. Not sounding quite so glamorous now is it?

I am not against goals. I am a coach. I spend a lot of time helping others to set goals.I also spend a lot of time looking into a person’s unconscious motivation, secondary gains, values, experiences, beliefs, fears and ego before I help them set a goal. Why? Why don’t I just write down the first goal that comes to their mind? Or the biggest goal they can think of? Or prescribe the most enviable, ostentatious goal applicable?

Because anybody can set a big goal and achieve it.

There is nothing special about big goals. Anybody can set the goal of working for themselves and achieve it. Anybody can set a goal of buying a luxury car. Anybody can travel around Europe. Anybody can plan a beautiful wedding. Anybody can get their body into shape. Very few can achieve a goal based solely in the ego and feel satisfied and happy at the end.

On the other hand very few people have the guts and humility to set a goal that has real and deep meaning for them and to work on that regardless of how it is perceived from the outside. Very few have the willingness to admit that really makes their heart flutter and to set about achieving it. So few are prepared to chase their dharma especially if it is something unglamorous like becoming a green keeper, raising children or nursing.

The easy ways to know your goal is not just serving your ego:

1. Are you drawn to it like a moth to a flame?
2. Are the steps towards your goal enjoyable?
3. Do you find your weaknesses become strengths in the face of this goal?
4. Do you find it hard to articulate why you want the goal, because it is just so elemental to your make up?
5. Do you feel as though the stars are aligned & that the road to your goal has been blessed?

We don’t know who we will be in 5 years. We don’t know what we will regret later in life. We don’t know what we will be proud of at 75. We don’t know if we will enjoy something until we do it. Our experience is so very limited and we don’t know what we don’t know. We can’t trust our ego on these matters. We can trust our heart.

Don’t…

A useful piece of trivia is that your brain cannot instantaneously process a negative. Ha?? Let me explain:

Whatever you do – Don’t picture a purple elephant.

Whether you wanted to or not, just for a moment, you’re mind went there. You pictured that lilac elephant, didn’t you? Just as soon as it appeared the image was wiped from the screen of your mind. The fact is that in order to process a negative the mind first processes the positive, then reverses it.

What you focus on expands, gains momentum, takes root in your mind. If you are worried about what you don’t want you are very likely to get just that. What you don’t want. Instead focus on your desire and let all else fall away.

When no labels fit…

It is at once liberating and disconcerting to realise that I don’t have to work. Mind you, I am a full time carer to my son and run the household in much the same way as an office manager runs a business, but I don’t need to go back to work outside the home for around another 5 years or so.

I can be pretty slow on the up-take and despite this being the state of affairs since my maternity leave began 15 months ago, the realisation only hit me this week. Until now I have been busying myself with finding roles and labels for myself and what I do. You see I know I have value, but I have always known it through the filter of external labels. It was what I did and what the world saw me as that was valuable. Now the world sees me as a ‘Stay at home mother’ and while it is a role I relish it is (I’m being honest here) such a reductive label.

Before I go offending other mothers, let me explain. If you meet someone new and reply to ‘what do you do?’ that you are a mother people don’t ask what else you do, your opinion on current events, about your hobbies or after your current goals. Instead the assumption is made that all you are capable of discussing is your children and that the most interesting thing you do is make sandwiches and wrestle a toddler. This is NOT a whine about motherhood, but to simply point out the elephant in the room.

I love being a mum and I don’t take for granted the luxury I enjoy of staying at home with my young son. But by the same token I was a well rounded individual before I took time off to have children and that part of me still exists. I am driven and passionate, capable and adaptable and for the first time I have realised that areas of my life other than my career can benefit from these parts of me. My dreams can be the focus of my ambition.

I have a chance to live my passions -just because.

Goodbye feelings of inadequacy at not having an active career. Hello excitement at the reality of chasing the fun side of my life – now – while I am still young.

So without further ado the following is a list of goals that I will work on over the next 5 years with the same zeal that I used to apply to achieving promotions at work:

• Become fluent in Portuguese & Spanish
• Take up Trekking (New Zealand and Nepal first and Peru when my youngest is over 8 years old)
• Have a second baby
• Get married
• Learn to use food as medicine
• Live overseas
• Learn web design

My hope, and the true goal of this exercise, is that along the journey to achieving each of these goals I will have mastered the skill of deriving my worth from internal means only. How I feel, how I react, what I love, what I accept, the personal challenges I overcome and how much passion I can pour into each and every day.

Our parents’ mistakes

I am really struggling at the moment with this notion that productivity equals worth. As a society we are lengthening our work days and taking side projects like consulting, blogging and even second jobs. What I find most astounding is that it is Gen-Y who is leading the charge. What the? Yes we are in our twenties and building the foundations of our careers and indeed our lives but wasn’t it us that vowed never to repeat our parents’ mistake of putting work before fulfillment and happiness?

I feel like we are being duped. We say we are chasing our dreams and living life on our own terms – really? Hands up who dreamed as a child of working 80 hour weeks? Hands up who dreamed of feeling the need to schedule time in order to feel comfortable relaxing? It sounds a whole lot like we are chasing the job, so we feel good about our title on Linkedin and the money to buy the stuff that we see in ads and on recommendations from Twitter and Facebook.

I don’t mean to sound judgemental really I don’t. My biggest struggle when I took time off to have a baby was that I didn’t feel productive enough. But I have since detoxed from the addiction that is feeling constantly rushed and busy.

By all means chase your dreams, create your empire, but have perspective. The art of going with the flow, the skill of remaining calm in a chaotic world, the mastery of the ego’s need to feel constantly important will bode you just as well as a side project or kudos for working overtime – but they won’t break you in the process.

Secret desires

We don’t often admit (to ourselves) what we really want. If knowing what you want doesn’t terrify you and exhilarate you at the same time, then you don’t really want it.

We tell ourselves lies about what we want and justify them to others. We settle for lesser goals. We try to satisfy our appetite with more palatable pursuits. We compromise. We play it safe.

There is a popular, and flawed, theory about why we avoid our true desires. The theory suggests that we avoid what we really want because we are afraid of failure. Yes, failure sucks. I am yet to meet anybody who enjoys it. But I do know, and know of, plenty of people who relish in the memory of failure experienced and overcome. Failure is a situation, an event, an opinion, a belief. We aren’t deeply afraid of failure.

We are utterly petrified of anguish. We fear the heartbreak & the pain of watching our dreams perish before our eyes.

So often we don’t surrender to what we really wanted until we are on the brink of losing it. The aversion to the agony is stronger than the desire for the sublime reward of realising your deepest secret dream.

Don’t bite your tongue. Don’t doubt your gut. Don’t be afraid of knowing and chasing what you really want. Listen to the quiet voice within or else you might find that you started to fight way too late and only ended up with a front row seat to watch it slip away.

There will never be a right time. There will never be a perfect situation. It will never get easier, safer. Surrendering to your deepest wants will always be fraught with risk, the risk of being hurt in the deepest possible way.

Truth: I want another baby*. I realised this when the doctor told me the test was negative.

*Note – It is now a goal of mine for the next 5 years to have another baby. I won’t be trying for a baby in the immediate future though. Mum and Dad please don’t freak out.

Live your bucket list

I hear from so many young people that they don’t know what they want to do with their lives. It is such an accepted notion, yet is so utterly abstract. I don’t think many 20-somethings have really thought that sentiment through. Granted we may not know what empire we want to build or what field we will become the foremost expert in, so what? Those experts and empire-builders didn’t didn’t know in their 20′s what their life plan was either, they just started with one project and let it grow.

It baffles me why we feel the pressure to decide now – before we have uncovered our true skill sets – what we will dedicate our lives to. The odds of ‘getting it right’ straight out of high-school are stacked against us. We don’t know what we don’t know. And we don’t know who we will be in 5, let alone 10, years time. Its a much better bet to find your values, draft a loose list of things you would like to experience and move from there.

Why not live your life completing your bucket list?

I am blessed to be surrounded by amazing people, but none of them has decided what they want to do. Every single one of them has in the last 12 months been flexible and brave enough to say ‘yes’ to the next fun/challenging opportunity even though it deviated from their plans:

• Going to Law School
• Moving to a tropical paradise
• Becoming equity partner in a budding start-up
• Expanding a business
• Changing a career in fashion to a career in food

You can’t discover your secret skills and hidden talents by treading the trodden path. Stop trying to write your obituary now. Seriously, just stop it! Accept that you don’t know at 25 what will make you proud at 75 and make the best of what what is in front of you right now.

What will your next project be?

When change is synonymous with challenge

….

• you don’t notice that you’re growing
• you doubt yourself less
• you rise to meet the occasion as opposed to clinging to the status quo
• you don’t mourn the inherent losses
• you don’t see the baby-steps, except in hindsight
• you catastrophise less
• you are more realistic with your expectations
• you see obstacles as a part of the process
• you are less self critical
• you put up or shut up

Running on empty

We all have the capacity to contain energy & vitality. We are also apt at losing vitality and energy. Healthy, happy, productive people have found the right balance between activities that boost their energy levels and ones that tax their energy levels.

There are a number of reasons for keeping your energy levels high:

• It feels better
• You are healthier when your energy levels are high
• You have the reserves available to do the things you want to do

…but there is another reason for keeping on top of things and ensuring you have bountiful energy. Murphy’s Law.

Murphy’s Law states not only that if it can go wrong it will. But also that it will go wrong in the worst possible sequence.

The scenario goes like this – You are running on empty. You no sooner finish the thought “the last thing I need right now is…”  and you will get the call. If you’re anything like me then you will swear like a trooper. Then you will whine about the timing. Then you will remark about how you “just knew it would happen now”. And you did.

You knew it would happen and you knew when it would happen because you have been busy ignoring and denying the warning signs for a while now. You have put everything else higher on the priority list while your energy levels have been steadily declining. You knew it had to be dealt with, addressed, but the business of your life was put first. The dry cleaning, the errand, the overtime, the social engagement, the project, the favour, the deadline all taxed your energy and time, so energy boosting activities fell by the wayside and the domino’s began to fall.

Lesson: Know what fills your reservoir and make time for it. Guard those activities with all your might. You never know when the perfect opportunity might pass you by because you were too busy running on empty.

Life

It’s not always fair. In fact it rarely is. It favours the brave, the ambitious, the unencumbered, the blinkered and the tunnel visioned. So if you have loved ones, hobbies, are compassionate, have children, see the bigger picture beyond your wants – you have some tough decisions to make.

The ghastly thing about tough decisions (a.k.a big scary adult decisions) is that the pay off for bravely facing the hard truth and making a considered decision is… well, not much. These are the decisions you make behind closed doors, alone or with your partner. They aren’t broadcast on Twitter, they don’t become blog fodder and its not something you chit-chat about over drinks. Nobody pats you on the back for putting your family first, you don’t get a medal for walking away from a dodgy offer, no one gives you kudos for considering the consequences, being compassionate and doing the right thing.

The pay of we get for smiling through the tears, working our fingers to the bone, fitting yet more into an already overstretched work week or family budget, for passing up an opportunity in order to spend time with your kids, for taking a career break to work for Legal Aid, for supporting your partner in their dreams, for overseeing the care of ailing loved ones, for working 2 part time jobs to afford medical school? Your sense of self.

For those whose life will not be dedicated to setting the world on fire, founding charities or fortune 500 companies, for whom the sweetness of life will not be accolades, positive press, awards and making history, the pay off is something almost spiritual. To know your heart was big enough to love despite the sacrifices, to know you were humble enough to celebrate the small successes, graceful enough to smile through the tears and wise enough to see the meaning in it all.

The female connection

When I moved back to Sydney I had a dream about a kitchen table. And a couch. But the table was the important part. I desperately wanted a table that people [read female friends] would gather around and share, connect, eat and laugh.

It didn’t quite happen that way.

I am persistant and determined, some may even say stubborn. So I tried to artifically create my dream by holding ‘women’s circles’. It didn’t work becase it wasn’t the spontaneous, authentic connection I (I’d like to think we) wanted. So I gave up for a while.

I believe there is something immesurably powerful in women connecting with other women. Sharing, teaching, supporting eachother. In times gone by this kind of connection and support was inherent in the way our societies were organised. The gathering of women was vital to the passing down of wisdom; about womens bodies, cycles, birthing, childraising, relationships. Femininity was respected, honoured, revered and even feared. It was fear that drove the religious aristocracy to foster competition amoung women  & stamp out  women’s gatherings.

We may have been out in the wilderness for hundreds of years, but we are coming back. Instead of gathering in ceremony we attned conferences and womens networking events. Instead of cooking over the hearth we are meeting for coffee. We are bringing birth back into our homes and entursting our babies to midwives. We gather. We connect. We harness the power of Web 2.0.

Yes we are women of a new millennium, but we have ancient bones. We still deeply yearn for female connection and the power we generate when together is a force to be reckoned with.