Ending a tortured silence

If you’re anything like me, you really really hate looking stupid in front of someone. And so you would probably rather put up with the ”status quo” of a relationship in tortured silence rather than open your mouth and say something that might have the other person reject you, think poorly of you, or, worst of all, gossip about you. Heck, tortured silence seems like the least painful of the two options, right?

Welcome to how my dating world used to be. I was the queen of silently pining for a guy I liked: reading and re-reading his emails to see if I could somehow intuit if he was interested or not, finding ways to conveniently bump into him in the elevator or hitching a ride with him to a friend’s party. I would take notes about what he said and didn’t say, then run them by my girlfriends, and we would undergo an analysis that would make any forensic specialist proud.

The one thing I wouldn’t do is actually ask him if he was interested. Heaven forbid he would say no, and then it would be awkward every time I bumped into him. Nope, I thought, better to pine in silence, and then at least I would be safe.

Except for one small detail. I then never got to actually date the guy. Or even if I did, it was after months of agony. What a waste. At some point, I realized that it was actually far more productive, not to mention less painful, to take the risk, have the conversation, and then deal with whatever hurt would arise and move on.

Well, enter my coworker, Seth, two months ago. For a few weeks, the ambiguous tension between us had mounted, coming out in sideways remarks and nuanced in business emails. Oh, never have I been so eager to hear a response to my questions about our 401k plan! I was petrified to bring up my feelings, because what if I was making up this romantic tension, and he would think I was pathetic, and then I would have to continue working with him. Nope, I decided I would rather just make sure I put on lip gloss when I saw him, and pretend like it was business as usual. Sure, it would be a bit tortured, I thought, but manageable.

Then I realized I was being a chicken. Oy, back to this, were we? I was thinking about it all wrong. I had been assuming that the stakes were high, that if he weren’t interested, it would ruin our relationship. But I knew that this didn’t have to be the case. What if there were a way to have a conversation about our relationship in a manner that, regardless of the answer, put the relationship on a better trajectory? In other words, have the conversation with Seth in a way that was guaranteed to make us stronger as either a) coworkers, b) friends, or c) partners? And what if the success of our conversation were entirely up to me?

Well, I took my own best advice and had the conversation. It was scary, but once I started talking, it just felt so good to finally talk about it. I could tell he was relieved, too.

You are probably curious how it ended up. It turns out he was attracted to me, too, and so we started dating. But that, dear Readers, is a story for another day. The point is that I gathered my courage, designed a conversation with someone I care about and was ready to ensure a beautiful outcome based on whatever reaction he had. I stopped sitting in a tortured, tolerating silence, and took on designing. That’s the secret of all change – boiled down into one sentence.

Where are you being a tortured chicken, staying silent when you know you want to have a conversation? Can you start to see how maybe, just maybe, the conversation could lead to something good, regardless of the exact outcome?

A blog by Dr. Samantha Sutton, Vice President of Courses and Seminars and Senior Coach at The Handel Group

Blog reposted from The Daily Love

Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/jareth0205/

 

The “not enough time” fever

There is an epidemic sweeping the developed world called the “not enough time” fever. Think about how many people in your life (yourself included) complain about the symptoms of this particularly contagious illness

Swelling: You can’t seem to fit in everything that you want to do.

Starvation: You simply don’t have enough time to feel satiated.

Anxiety: You feel a nagging sense of dread and overwhelm about all that there is to do.

Memory lapse: You find the day just slipping away from you, and before you know it, it’s gone.

If these symptoms describe you, don’t panic. They also likely describe just about everyone you know, too, and so you are in good company.

So how do we kick this global time fever that has taken such a strong hold of our lives like a viral infection? Well, the first step is to see this illness is not actually caused by a virus, thank goodness. This illness is simply your “inner brat” throwing a tantrum. Your inner brat is the voice inside you that pouts, whines and cajoles in the spirit of a 6-year-old who doesn’t want to go to bed at bedtime. This “child” hates doing things it doesn’t enjoy, like going for a run, hates being denied momentary pleasures, like eating a cookie and, above all, hates taking orders.

If you really look at what is going on with your “time management issues,” you will see that the brat is really behind much of it. Here are some of the ways that the brat shows up:

1) We don’t want to stop doing one thing and move on to another.

In the spirit of a kid who is trying to con her parents into letting her have just ten more minutes of television, we often don’t like to stop one event when our calendar says we should. For example, the other day I had planned to check email for one hour and then go for a run. I was behind on my email, and it bugs me to be behind on my email, so I really wanted to finish it all in that hour. Once that hour was up and I wasn’t finished, here is how my inner brat started whining at me: “Oh just five more minutes. You can go on a shorter run, that’s ok. This email is more important.” And then, “Just finish these next two messages. Oh, and check the ones from Jennifer and Mark.” Finally, “Ok, fine, maybe you will lift today instead of running, because that takes less time.” Bye-bye run.

Start paying attention to how often you ignore and run through your designed time boundaries. I promise you, there are very few of us who cleanly execute the schedules we plan, and that is in large part because of our brat who just doesn’t want to stop.

2) We are gluttons.

This one is particularly prevalent in high achievers (in other words, most of you reading this blog). We want to get MANY things done in a day, and won’t take no for an answer. Like an all-you-can-eat buffet, we cram our plates with as much as we can, spilling on the floor and giving ourselves a tremendous stomachache when we realize that we only can fit, well, a stomach’s worth in our stomach. But like the stubborn brats we are, we go back to the buffet the next day and try the same thing again. And again. Our stomachs, just like the hours in our days, never get substantially bigger, but we won’t take “no” for an answer. Like how a food glutton doesn’t actually enjoy each bite or meal, the problem with being a time glutton is that we don’t enjoy the current moment or activity, because we are focusing on all the rest of the to-dos that we aren’t doing. Time gluttony is a double bummer: not only are we dissatisfied that we can’t do it all, but we don’t get to enjoy even the things we do get to do!

3) We are in denial of all that it takes to live a modern life.

Seven years ago, I kept a daily log of where I spent my time, down to 15-minute intervals. Even though I was an accomplished scientist and proud of my attention to detail, I was shocked at how unaware I was of where I spent my time in a given week. Not only were my perceptions of how much time I spent working (overestimated) and socializing (underestimated) way off, but I was also in denial of all of the little things that it takes to live a thriving life: eating, cleaning up, changing clothes, transit, grooming, settling in, checking my phone, random office conversations, etc. There were many things that took 15 minutes here or there that that really added up to serious time. It was no wonder that I was failing at scheduling my days and keeping that schedule. I wasn’t including these “little” things in my planning, and so I was starting projects late and then running into the next project. It was a time disaster.

The solution to your time fever, then, is not to rush to your nearest physician and get an anti-viral. It’s to become lovingly aware of just how much of a brat you can be about your time, and then get that childish whippersnapper into an effective regimen, like any good parent would. This means keeping crisp time boundaries, stopping your projects when you say you will, or you pay a consequence. For me, throwing $1 on the ground each time I blow a time boundary works like a charm. It means being honest with yourself about how long activities take, and doing the arithmetic about how many you can actually fit on your “plate” in a given day. It means taking inventory of all of the places that you spend your time and accounting for them beautifully in your planning.

Are you ready to break your fever? Write a note and tell me what your bust-the-brat regimen will be.

A blog by Dr. Samantha Sutton, Vice President and Director of Courses and Seminars and Senior Coach at the Handel Group

Blog reposted from The Daily Love

Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/micahtaylor

If you want to stay in limbo, try the Rubber Band game

Hello my readers! I published this blog last October, and the topic has been coming up a lot recently with my clients (and myself!), so I think it’s time for a repost. There are “forces” that have us stuck between not fully going all-out for our dreams, but then not giving up on them either… I would call this “dream limbo.” It’s a popular affliction. At the Handel Group, we call this the Double Agent, and I also like to think of it as  the “Rubber Band” game.

The Rubber Band Game goes something like this: say you have a dream, such as starting a company. You are scared about going after this dream– you might fail, look stupid, lose money. And yet, it’s your dream, and so you buck up and take a few steps toward starting that company. The closer you come to the point of actually taking the leap of starting the company, however, the more scared you become. The chance of failure is starting you in the face, breathing down your neck. And so you retreat a few hasty steps away from starting the company. Maybe later. Not now. The economy is bad, your house needs work, you don’t have the time anyways… the excuses flow. You hang out in a state of inaction for a while, but at the end of the day, inaction doesn’t feel right either, because you really do want to start that company. So you take steps toward starting the company. And the cycle repeats.

It’s as if you are standing between two poles (see diagram above): one pole is you going all-out for your dream (red pole), the other is you completely giving up on the dream (blue). You are tied by a rubber-band to each one. Seems like a fun party game, huh? The thing is that the closer you go to the red pole, the stronger the blue one pulls on you, so that you eventually snap backwards toward the blue pole. But then the red one pulls you even harder. And so you bounce back and forth, spending lots of energy and yet never really completing anything.

There are examples of this all around us. For example, one of my friends Liz wanted to have a baby with her husband. And yet as they started preparing to have one, she got scared. “Maybe now is not the right time. My husband just got a new job. I always wanted to go to China–we should definitely travel there before kids.” And yet, even as she was hanging out by the China pole, you could tell that her heart was by the kid pole.

I played the rubber-band game with my career. I knew I wanted to coach, and yet as soon as I enrolled in the coach-in-training program and was faced with the actual prospect of leaving the safe haven of science, I took a few steps toward the “science isn’t so bad” pole. And yet, when I was hanging out near the science pole, my heart was with the coaching pole.

The solution? Choose a pole, and then get a big ol’ pair of scissors and cut the rubber band of the other pole. Make a rule with yourself that once you’ve made a decision, there is no looking back. As the saying goes, great leaders make decisions quickly, and change their minds slowly. Once you’ve made your decision, the other pole is merely a distraction.

Where are you doing the rubber band dance in your life? If you want help getting out of the dance, I am leading a 4-week Design Your Career teleseries that will have you cut the Rubber Bands in your life and get to your dream pole. The course starts April 16, and recordings are available if you miss the first session. We have a social network supporting this course, so you can have community support in getting out of the dance. See you there!

A blog by Dr. Samantha Sutton, VP of Courses and Seminars and Senior Life Coach at the Handel Group

The key to mental peace: Stop, Drop and Roll

Stop, drop and roll. If you were raised in the era that I was, those three words were emblazoned across your childhood consciousness by Jake the fireman once a year during Fire Prevention Week. He and his fellow firemen would come to your elementary school and perform crowd pleasers such as “how to crawl out of a smoke-filled room” and “what to do if your clothes catch on fire.” If you were anything like me, you secretly just wanted to wear his hat, and wished he’d brought his dalmatian to the demonstration.

Decades later, I’m happy to report that I’ve never had to stop, drop and roll, most likely because I wear synthetics and don’t spend much time near open flames. But how about we put this familiar slogan to use in extinguishing fires that we DO experience in our daily lives: mental fires.

Think about a regular or recurring thought that, let’s face it, you really wish you didn’t have. For example, I have a bad habit of becoming acutely angry at someone in my life who has made a mistake or not done things to my satisfaction. I’ve even given myself a nickname when I behave this way: “Kaiser,” after a character in the film The Usual Suspects. When I am Kaiser, I find myself raging with thoughts like, what kind of idiot would do that? or who hired her? or I never liked him anyway! This rage is toxic for everyone involved: myself, the person I am raging about, and anyone who crosses my path.

I’m happy to report that I have the blaze of this mental habit, which we call a trait, nicely contained.  My reward is that I don’t get stuck in that mental habit, feeling angry and powerless. It’s very freeing.

My secret? I stop, drop and roll. Here’s how it works:

1. Stop. 

In a flash of insight, I realize that I am raging about someone, just like suddenly realizing that my sleeve is on fire. With fire, I see flame, smell smoke, feel heat. With Kaiser, I feel the anger, taste the toxicity and hear the mental grumbles. I then make a conscious decision: do I want to keep Kaiser around? As is the case with your clothes being on fire, the answer is usually no.

2. Drop.

I drop the thought mid-stream, just as someone on fire should drop to the ground. I don’t finish the thought, or finish writing the email, or finish whatever I was doing. And I don’t watch in fascination as the hairs on my arms start to singe and smell funny. I go immediately to the floor.

3. Roll. 

I roll my mind to something else, such as a new thought that gets me safely away from the Kaiser blaze. Sometimes, the thought I use has nothing to do with the current situation, like thinking about a movie I saw recently, or what I am going to cook for dinner. Sometimes, I roll to positive thoughts about the person involved, like making a mental list of ten things I like about her or him. Regardless of which way you “roll,” the key is to quickly roll yourself to another, non-toxic line of thought.

Welcome to my Stop Drop and Roll routine!

If you see bruises on my shoulders from all of that rolling, it’s because some traits can be quite second-nature, and require a lot of stopping, dropping and rolling before the fire is fully put out. Sometimes, I may stop drop and roll, and then when I get up, the fire pops up again, and it’s back to the floor I go.

But the more I practice, the better I get at extinguishing the flame of my trait, or mental habit, before it starts. My “fire-fighting” also weakens the trait, so it will be less compelling the next time it pops up.

I challenge you, dear reader, to design your own Stop Drop and Roll routine, and practice it in a way that would make Jake the Fireman proud. What does your mental fire look like? Are you ready to commit to dropping it? And to what are you rolling your thoughts?

If you do a good job, Jake might even let you wear his hat.

A blog by Dr. Samantha Sutton, Vice President of Courses and Seminars and Senior Coach at the Handel Group

Blog reposted from Mind Body Green

Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/myrrien

Are you “working around” your brat?

Do you ever find that in order to keep a commitment, you have to trick yourself?

For example, I was leading a teleseminar on the topic of time the other day, and one of my clients told me that, in her dream life, she would exercise in the evenings. The problem, however, is that she knows that while she is at work, she will “be consumed” by tasks and a never-ending email inbox, and will blow off her workout. So, she has learned to “work around” herself and exercise in the mornings.

We do this sort of work-around all the time. When I stopped eating sugar a year ago (and I love sugar), I threw out everything in my pantry that had any sort of processed sugar in it, because I knew that I would binge eat whatever was there. As another example, a client of mine used to get into fights with his family when they were all together during holidays, and so he stopped going to Christmas and started visiting people individually. Another client used to spend recklessly on her credit cards, and so she stopped using them and switched to tangible cash where she can’t accrue debt.

Now, all of these solutions may seem perfectly reasonable, at first glance. After all, each person found a solution that got them the end goal they wanted: a workout, abstaining from sugar, visiting family and staying out of debt. But by “working around” themselves, they actually cemented themselves as being people who need to be worked around. Think about it. Do you really want to be working around yourself?

Take my sugar example. Do I really want to have a relationship to myself where I can’t be trusted to not devour every sweet substance in sight, like a swarm of locusts? Am I proud of being compared to a wild insect? Not really. Sure, I may avoid eating sugar by clearing my pantry of it, but my relationship to my word to myself is pretty poor. I have almost no power to make momentary choices that align with my highest vision for myself. In short, I am like a bratty child who needs to be managed, not reasoned with. Do we really want to be that bratty child?

Granted, these work-around methods can be a good way for you to start building your Personal Integrity® in an area: not eating sugar, not fighting with family, not going into debt, etc. But once you have laid a foundation of integrity, it’s time to move on from a work-around into developing a mature, powerful relationship with yourself. The goal here, folks, is to practice keeping your word to yourself, no matter what. Where, if you say you will workout this evening, or you will design a fun family holiday, or you will not touch the bag of brown sugar in your cabinet, you keep your word to yourself. Because your word is law. We call this Personal Integrity®, and it’s like a muscle that gets stronger with practice.

There are lots of benefits of developing your “muscle” of Personal Integrity®. The first is that, let’s face it, you likely won’t be able to find a work-around for everything that you need to do in your life, and having Personal Integrity® means you won’t have to. You can just go directly for the “jugular” of whatever task you know you need to do.

The second, and more profound reason, is self-confidence and pride. Let me tell you, folks, that few things feel better than knowing that you can count on yourself to take on and follow through with anything, and you do. You walk around as someone you are proud to know, a great person, a person who inspires you. And you get to go home each and every night with that person. It’s a treat and a privilege that I highly recommend.

Where are you “working around” your brat? And what will you do to take on the brat directly? Write me a note and share!

A blog by Dr. Samantha Sutton, VP and Director of Courses and Seminars and Senior Coach at the Handel Group

Blog reprinted from The Daily Love

Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/blake

How to give your money some tender loving care

As tax season looms like an upcoming visit to the dentist, it’s time for us all to extend some tender loving care to the area of life called Money. If talking about money makes you nervous, feels wrong, or seems boring, take a deep breath and read on. Money deserves as much attention as any of the other 18 Areas of Life (like relationships, career, body, home, etc.) and causes as many problems. In working with clients on this for six years, I found there are a few things that help cultivate a “love fest” with Money. Here they are:

Write a money dream that inspires you.

When I ask my clients to create a dream around money, their dream often lacks any inspiration at all. For example, ”I would be finally out of debt and pay off all my credit cards. I would save for retirement. I would be responsible about my spending and wouldn’t go on ‘retail therapy’ binges.” While the intention of this dream is good, the underlying energy of the dream feels negative and restrictive. That energy comes from the fact that the author talks about what he/she doesn’t want (no debt, no binges) instead of what he/she does want. Your dream should be one you want to cozy up with and read again and again because it paints an irresistible picture of what you do want.

The solution? Focus on what you do want and how it feels to have it. For example: “I am proud of my savings, and have a robust retirement account that will take good care of me when I decide to retire. I respect my money and treat it with care, and in return it is always there for me. I have a plentiful budget for fun that pays for my travels abroad, show tickets and buys me a wardrobe that is classy and chic.” See how this focuses on what you do want, not what you don’t want? Now you try it. Imagine you’re starting with a blank slate. What would you design from here on out? I know it can be difficult to envision a blank slate given your current financial difficulties, but give it a try.

Tell the truth about where you are.

Many people would rather bury their heads in the sand than understand how money flows in and out of their lives. When I first started tracking where I spent my money, I was surprised at how poorly I understood exactly what I spent where. Consider that my ignorance was actually somewhat deliberate. Many of us would much rather play dumb and then get away with spending whatever we want, than actually have to do an honest reckoning. At the Handel Group, we have a term for that, and it’s called “the brat.” At the same time, many of us are also scared. We call that “the chicken.” You might be scared to step up as a leader of your finances, having to assert your value and worth and ask for the compensation you want, or to say no to certain expenditures. It can feel much easier to hide. Whatever you’re feeling, be sure to tell the truth about it, because that will show you what you need to address.

Find your limiting beliefs.

Many of us have wacky beliefs about money that spoil the love fest. For example, I used to believe that a purchase was only “a good purchase” if I spent the absolute minimum amount of money possible on it. While this was great for my bank account, it was not so great for my peace of mind because if I happened to see an item I just purchased on sale for a cheaper price, I would not enjoy my purchase anymore. Prices were a source of stress for me, because I could never really guarantee that I had found the cheapest price. Not to mention all of the time I spent trying to find the cheapest price before I even made it to the cash register. In order for me to enjoy my money and what I bought with it, I had to switch my belief from one that stressed me out to “a good purchase is one that I can afford and that brings me joy.” By shifting my paradigm to “what can I afford” as opposed to “what is cheapest,” I was able to guarantee enjoyment of my purchases.

Make a game of it.

Once you have written your dream, told the truth about where you are and understand your limiting beliefs, it’s time to take action. Make a plan for what you are going to spend, how much you are going to earn and how you are going to save. As you carry out the plan, make it fun by remembering what you are going to do with your money. One fun thing I do is to consecrate each contribution to my retirement account to one specific activity that that money will go towards. For example, when I finally have grandchildren, I plan to take each of them on a vacation each year. So, when I add money to my retirement accounts each month, I say “this is to take my granddaughter to Prince Edward Island on her 12th birthday” and get excited about the adventures we will have there. If you’re in a relationship, another powerful way to have fun with this is to dream about your money together with your partner. Enjoy!

When’s the last time you brought your creativity to your relationship with money? Being good with money isn’t just about being disciplined; it’s a matter of the heart. Please add a comment to the blog with more ideas of what would be inspiring or bring fun to your relationship with money. This tax season could actually be a source of pride instead of pain.

A blog by Dr. Samantha Sutton, VP of Courses and Seminars and Senior Coach at The Handel Group

Blog reprinted from The Daily Love

Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/seanheringphotography

Are you playing the long game?

Many of the upsetting experiences we have in our daily lives come from thinking that something is “wrong” in the immediate here and now. Your kid won’t go to bed, and the battle is driving you crazy. You just looked at your 401k after switching funds and realized that you lost money. You are petrified to give a presentation in front of an important potential business partner. You just went on *another* dud first date. We are creatures of immediacy, and so we tend to focus on the frustration, regret, worry and annoyance of the incident at hand.

I call this playing the short game: celebrating short-term successes and bemoaning short-term failures. There might an evolutionary reason for this kind of thinking. But what would your life be like if you played the long game?

I am a big fan of looking at my life as a long game, because it means that every daily mistake or uncomfortable situation, which can be bad news in the short game, can actually be good news in the long game.

Why?

Because in the long game, lessons learned through mistakes and tough times are arguably more important than doing something right or easily the first time. You will be able to use that lesson as a tool for the rest of your life, where it can do some major good over time.

As a small example, today I realized that I am on an outdated cell phone plan that is costing way more than the newer plans do. My knee-jerk reaction was to be upset that I didn’t catch that earlier, and regret wasting money for goodness knows how long. That is the short game.

But in the long game, it’s okay. Maybe I lost a few bucks this year on my phone plan, but I have now learned that I should check in occasionally with my recurring expenditures (phone, insurance, investments, etc.) and just make sure that I am purchasing wisely. I am certain that this lesson will save me some serious dough when I have bigger financial decisions to face than a cell phone bill.

I am playing a long game with dating, as well. Yes, I am focusing on love in 2013, so get ready for lots of dating examples this year, my readers. When I go on a date, it’s easy for me to think only of the short game.I hope he’s my one. I hope the date goes well. I hope he thinks I am cute. And so on. But if he’s not the one, I go home disappointed.

If I focus on the long game instead, then I can see how each date, dud or not, is important in the long run.What am I supposed to learn about the men I attract? About the men who attract me? About how I treat people? That lesson gets me one step closer to my “one,” and so is a success in the long game.

Where in your life should you switch from playing a short game to a long game? What situations would you then be able to celebrate as lessons, instead of regret as mistakes?

A blog by Dr. Samantha Sutton, VP of Courses and Seminars and Senior Coach at the Handel Group

Reprinted from Mind Body Green

Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/fevisyu/