Moving Forward on the More Difficult Challenges
s I thought about Aligning Who You Are With What You Do for this E-series, I noticed that my attention has been on how many of my clients, as well as myself, have something in their life, maybe a habit or a belief or a set of behaviors, that we know gets in our way of our total satisfaction. We are aware of it, we may have talked about it for years without taking action on it, or we may have made countless attempts to change. However, we do not meet our goal, or we get there and find that before we know it, we have gained that ten pounds again, stopped exercising again, said yes when we meant no again, found ourselves out of balance again, continue to irritate our partners in the way we promised we never would again, and so on.
Then there are those things that are not so much a life long habit, but a goal we just never seem to obtain, like writing a book, living in another country for a year, or getting that business off the ground. Many of us are accomplished at reaching many of our goals. We have achieved success in lots of areas of our life, however, there is this one thing that seems beyond our grasp or out of our control, something we do habitually that we have done for a long time, or something that never gets to be a priority.
So I started to think about what makes the difference between those things we can accomplish, and those that seem difficult or almost unobtainable. Usually, there is an entrenched belief or childhood conditioning, or a sense of impossibility, that is getting in our way. There are many schools of thought on how to deal with these issues: we can go to therapy to discover childhood patterns and gain insights into our behavior; we can 'just do it' and stop worrying about the reasons for why we are the way we are and try some new behaviors; we can find a coach to help move us forward; or we can turn to spirituality to give us acceptance and faith. No matter what path or paths we take, there seem to be some common themes or approaches that in combination, over time, help break those habits and help you reach those more difficult goals, so you are aligning who we are with what we do.
The first thing to remember is persistency. As the old adage says, "if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again." However, as much as we may know this, it is amazing how easily we can get discouraged. We are a culture of wanting things fast: from our impatience of waiting in line, to booting up the computer, we are geared to getting there quickly. The idea of having to wait to see results (which is what it usually takes when changing something old or not tried before) does not come easily for most of us.
We are told that we can learn from our mistakes, but how many of us just dust ourselves off and try again and again? Persistence requires that we take that negative 'mind chatter' of "why bother, it will never happen anyway, I couldn’t do it before so what makes me think I can do it now?” and ignore what it says—and keep on going no matter what.
This leads me to commitment. What does it mean to be committed? Recently, in a leadership workshop I attended sponsored by Richard Strozzi Heckler at the Strozzi Insitute, each person in the class was given the opportunity to 'declare' to the rest of the group what they were committed to. We demonstrated our commitment by how we spoke it, embodied it and demonstrated that we meant what we said and nothing would get in our way. It was not something that was a one-time event, but, rather, an ongoing commitment supported by practices and paying attention to the commitment.
The commitments ranged from being committed to being in our power, being a loving family member, building a community, or empowering others. How willing are we to declare our commitment to what is important to us, and to changing the habit or the belief or the behavior to get there?
This brings me to the next element that seems to really make the difference, and that is support. In one of my previous issues I discussed defining support, but here I want to emphasize that no matter how you define it you need to have it. There are several reasons why support is so powerful, and for the harder changes I recommend a support group to give you the additional energy, confidence and encouragement to keep going. It can be invaluable to find a safe environment, with shared goals and values, that can bring you new ideas and help you to see your progress, perhaps even when you don’t see it yourself.
We also need to be creative and look for new possibilities and approaches. You're probably familiar with the saying, “the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over again, and thinking you will get a different result.” Not only do you need to do things differently, you need to think about things differently. You want to look for new ideas, methods, and combinations of things that will make this attempt to change different from previous attempts. What haven’t you tried? What has worked that you can build on? What beliefs can you shift? In short, what is your declaration? You may need someone to help you brainstorm, and certainly this is where a support person or group can really help.
No matter what, an ingredient most necessary and sometimes overlooked is compassion.
Give yourself acknowledgement for continuing to align who you are with what you do. There may be some areas in your life in which you may think or do the old habit. The difference is that when you are committed to yourself, you will catch yourself sooner. There may not be a time when what we are working on goes away. What matters is that we take small steps and continue on our journey.
TIPS
Here's a summary of what I discuss in this e-series:
BOOKS
COPYRIGHT AND PUBLISHER INFORMATION
© Carole Rehbock. All rights reserved worldwide. No part of this publication may be reproduced without express written permission from the publisher.
Then there are those things that are not so much a life long habit, but a goal we just never seem to obtain, like writing a book, living in another country for a year, or getting that business off the ground. Many of us are accomplished at reaching many of our goals. We have achieved success in lots of areas of our life, however, there is this one thing that seems beyond our grasp or out of our control, something we do habitually that we have done for a long time, or something that never gets to be a priority.
So I started to think about what makes the difference between those things we can accomplish, and those that seem difficult or almost unobtainable. Usually, there is an entrenched belief or childhood conditioning, or a sense of impossibility, that is getting in our way. There are many schools of thought on how to deal with these issues: we can go to therapy to discover childhood patterns and gain insights into our behavior; we can 'just do it' and stop worrying about the reasons for why we are the way we are and try some new behaviors; we can find a coach to help move us forward; or we can turn to spirituality to give us acceptance and faith. No matter what path or paths we take, there seem to be some common themes or approaches that in combination, over time, help break those habits and help you reach those more difficult goals, so you are aligning who we are with what we do.
The first thing to remember is persistency. As the old adage says, "if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again." However, as much as we may know this, it is amazing how easily we can get discouraged. We are a culture of wanting things fast: from our impatience of waiting in line, to booting up the computer, we are geared to getting there quickly. The idea of having to wait to see results (which is what it usually takes when changing something old or not tried before) does not come easily for most of us.
We are told that we can learn from our mistakes, but how many of us just dust ourselves off and try again and again? Persistence requires that we take that negative 'mind chatter' of "why bother, it will never happen anyway, I couldn’t do it before so what makes me think I can do it now?” and ignore what it says—and keep on going no matter what.
This leads me to commitment. What does it mean to be committed? Recently, in a leadership workshop I attended sponsored by Richard Strozzi Heckler at the Strozzi Insitute, each person in the class was given the opportunity to 'declare' to the rest of the group what they were committed to. We demonstrated our commitment by how we spoke it, embodied it and demonstrated that we meant what we said and nothing would get in our way. It was not something that was a one-time event, but, rather, an ongoing commitment supported by practices and paying attention to the commitment.
The commitments ranged from being committed to being in our power, being a loving family member, building a community, or empowering others. How willing are we to declare our commitment to what is important to us, and to changing the habit or the belief or the behavior to get there?
This brings me to the next element that seems to really make the difference, and that is support. In one of my previous issues I discussed defining support, but here I want to emphasize that no matter how you define it you need to have it. There are several reasons why support is so powerful, and for the harder changes I recommend a support group to give you the additional energy, confidence and encouragement to keep going. It can be invaluable to find a safe environment, with shared goals and values, that can bring you new ideas and help you to see your progress, perhaps even when you don’t see it yourself.
We also need to be creative and look for new possibilities and approaches. You're probably familiar with the saying, “the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over again, and thinking you will get a different result.” Not only do you need to do things differently, you need to think about things differently. You want to look for new ideas, methods, and combinations of things that will make this attempt to change different from previous attempts. What haven’t you tried? What has worked that you can build on? What beliefs can you shift? In short, what is your declaration? You may need someone to help you brainstorm, and certainly this is where a support person or group can really help.
No matter what, an ingredient most necessary and sometimes overlooked is compassion.
Give yourself acknowledgement for continuing to align who you are with what you do. There may be some areas in your life in which you may think or do the old habit. The difference is that when you are committed to yourself, you will catch yourself sooner. There may not be a time when what we are working on goes away. What matters is that we take small steps and continue on our journey.
TIPS
Here's a summary of what I discuss in this e-series:
- Be persistent: change takes time
- Demonstrate and declare your commitment
- Find as much support as you can
- Stay open to the possibilities of doing things differently
- Be compassionate to yourself
BOOKS
- The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream, by Paulo Coelho. HarperSanFrancisco; Reprint edition (May 10, 1995)
- The Little Engine That Could, by Watty Piper, George Hauman (Illustrator), Doris Hauman (Illustrator). Grosset & Dunlap (June 1, 1978) (Note: this is a children's book with a wonderful message for adults as well.)
COPYRIGHT AND PUBLISHER INFORMATION
© Carole Rehbock. All rights reserved worldwide. No part of this publication may be reproduced without express written permission from the publisher.