Month: July 2019

(<3 minute read time)

Ya know those certain spots on your commute where you can just expect there to be a traffic hassle?  You may not live where I do but you probably have experienced this.  

There’s this one exit I take now and again, it’s a long one-lane exit (that really should be at least two lanes if you ask me).  It’s pretty much a guarantee every time I take that exit someone is going to try and scoot over in front of me at the last minute.  

This used to really get under my skin.  “Oh I see blankity-blank-blank, your time is so much more valuable than mine.  Please, go right ahead” I would say aloud angrily (as if they could hear me). Then, I would “let” them over and seeth over how inconsiderate they were.  

This is just a small example of the many “stories” we all tell ourselves.  We can’t help it. Our brains pick up clues around us and then piece the clues together to explain them and make sense of them.  We wrap the clues up in a story.  

In my case, the story I told myself required believing the other driver was inconsiderate, selfish, rude and purposefully so.  This “logical” explanation had really very little to do with the facts. I had no idea who this other driver was, where they were going, or why they were not in the exit lane earlier.  I could not possibly KNOW he/she was a self-centered jerk, my brain just made up that story.  

This is an important concept to get a hold of.  If we are not careful, we will believe we are just taking in observations of the world around us.  

What parts of your day are you telling yourself a story about and is the story serving you?     

The good news is, if you choose to, you can override this automated storytelling function of your brain.  You can direct the way the story gets written. All of a sudden that jerk in traffic can become someone totally different.  

The same is true for the stories you tell about the far more impactful parts of your life.  You can take the clues you have about your career, your family, even yourself and wrap them up in a story that serves you much better!  

Please do not read this as: “Make up stuff that isn’t true so you can feel good” when what I am really saying is “Find the absolute facts and decide on purpose what you want to make the facts mean”.   

In short, your brain will be authoring a story whether you choose to direct it or not.  Why not do it on purpose?  

Often we are too close to our own stuff to discern fact from fiction, a helpful story from an unhelpful story.  Most of us can use an objective perspective. I can definitely help, just click here to schedule a free, 30-minute discovery session. 

(<3-minute read time)

We set goals.  We go after them.  We experience failure.  We get up, dust off and take another whack at it.  And if we choose to repeat the “fail, get up, dust off and take another whack” part for as long as it takes, eventually, we get there.  We reach the goal.  

But what about the people that don’t reach the goal?  They’re not incapable. They are smart, talented people.  What gives?

Here’s what gives.  The main reason why any one of us hasn’t reached an intended goal yet is because our belief is not strong enough.  

I can hear some of you now.  “Oh come on Deneen, are you saying all I have to do is believe in my goal and it will come true?  Isn’t this some Law of Attraction woo woo BS? I mean I actually have to DO something, not just believe.”

And you’re right.  Action is a required part of reaching goals.  I was having this same conversation with my coach recently and she blew me away when she said:

 “We can’t out act our thinking”

She could not have been more right.  

Think about how you feel when you initially set a goal.  We often start with the end in mind and we imagine how awesome it is going to be at the finish line.  We start off enthusiastically believing it could all really happen.  

But then, we start tackling it.  It gets hard. We fail.  

Our thoughts change.  We start believing the OPPOSITE of what we believed when we started out.  We start believing we can’t. Here is where we often downsize, delay or give up on the goal.    

Today I want to offer you the option to re-decide FOR your goal instead of changing your mind AGAINST your goal.  Reconsider all the reasons why you wanted the goal in the first place, all the reasons why it was once possible.    

What you will come up with is a bunch of thoughts.  Thoughts are all optional – ALL of them! Why not pick the ones that propel you forward?  

Spend some time in re-decision mode.  Are those thoughts that you had at the onset still plausible? If they are, then re-decide to believe them again!  If not, why not? (Be sure you like your answers!)    

Success is just a series of decisions.  I encourage you today to re-decide, and keep on re-deciding until you get the result you want.  

It’s perfectly normal to want to throw in the towel, especially if your goal is a stretch.  Sometimes it’s hard to muster up the desire to take another whack, especially if you’ve already taken a bunch of whacks.  If this is you, I can definitely help, just click here and we will chat.  No awkward sales pitch – just a free helping hand.  What do you have to lose?     

Photo credit:  majorvols

(4-minute read time)

Sweaty palms, racing heartbeat, visions of totally blowing it… Have you been there? Yeah, me too.  

Interviews, public speaking, corrective action issues, networking events – any of these things can send us into a tailspin of nerves.

Most of the time we think that if we had experience in whatever it is we are nervous about we would not be nervous.  We think experience = confidence.  

This is going to come as a surprise to many of you but experience does NOT equal confidence.     

Just because I have done something before, even several times before does not mean I am confident.  In fact, in order to have done it the first time I had to, despite the lack of evidence from my past, have some level of confidence that I could accomplish it.  So if it does not come from experience where does it come from? 

First, let’s define confidence.  

I used to think confidence meant that I thought only good things about myself.  Now, I know that confidence means being aware that I am great in some ways, not so great in others AND that my shortcomings can not disqualify me from having confidence.    

Which leads us to the #1 way you can begin increasing your self-confidence today.  Think about yourself on purpose.  What are you great at?  What are you not so great at –  what are your opportunities to learn, grow, evolve?  What are you making those opportunities mean? I want you to seriously consider taking just 5 minutes today to answer these questions.  Commit to answering the questions. Then answer them. Then choose. It’s all just your opinion anyway and you can choose any opinion you want.  Choosing an opinion of yourself that serves you is one of the best confidence boosters ever! (Note: This may be easier said than done, if you are struggling with this – find two good and one not-so-good qualities and just practice.)   

Let’s talk about a second place self-confidence can come from: Committing to a goal, outcome or result.  In my corporate career, I taught public speaking courses.  Every session included a room full of nervous participants.  Funny thing is, they had no idea I was nervous too. Even after thousands of hours of facilitating training courses I still get nervous (more proof that confidence does NOT come from experience).   Despite my nerves, I was committed to the learners. I was committed to helping them learn and committed to being an example that it is indeed possible to do public speaking AND be nervous. I knew that no matter what I was going to show up with my A-game and do my best. That commitment created confidence.    

Once you commit to a goal with an “all-in, 100%, no matter what” kind of commitment the next place confidence will come from is the Willingness to fail.  I have written several posts about failure and you can learn more about what I think about failure by visiting here & here.  In short, failure itself is never bad.  It’s what we make it mean about ourselves that feels awful.  We end up talking terribly to ourselves about ourselves after a failure.  

All of that self-harassment we do on the backside of failure is optional.  But for the sake of argument, let’s just say we can’t help it. Let’s just say we know for sure we’re going to give ourselves a lashing after a failure.  So what?? The worst thing that can possibly happen is that we feel bad about ourselves. It’s just negative emotion and there is no emotion you can’t handle.  For my public speaking learners, it was not the ability to speak in front of people that created their confidence. It was the belief that even if they failed, they would be ok.  

So to recap, here are 3 new ways you can generate confidence today:

1. Think about yourself on purpose. You don’t have to think you are amazing to have self-confidence.  Like all of us, you have amazing qualities and you have some places to work on.  You just have to think about yourself on purpose and embrace it, all of it.
2. Commit to a goal, outcome or result.  Committing (really, really committing) to a goal, outcome or result generates confidence because when we are truly committed we will keep taking action even when it feels hard or we don’t feel like doing it.  When we persevere we build confidence. It doesn’t even have to be a big goal, just something that challenges you a bit is perfect!
3. Be willing to fail.  When we face the possibility of failure and do so knowing for sure we will be ok even if we fail, it creates confidence.  This willingness to fail allows us to show up even when the odds are against us and we have the opportunity to prove to ourselves failure isn’t the worst possible scenario.   The worst possible scenario is letting fear rule and not showing up in the first place.                  

Self-confidence is one of the areas clients ask me about the most.  Yet most of them think they are the only one who feels this way. Can you relate?  I can definitely help, just click here to schedule a free, 30-minute discovery session.   We will just chat and you will get a taste of what having a personal trainer for your brain is like! 

(3-minute read time)

Our thoughts create your feelings, which drive our actions and ultimately our results.  Therefore, it makes sense to think on purpose. When we think about thinking on purpose, few of us would choose whiny, cranky, irritable, thoughts.  We would never choose complaints.  

Yet studies show we complain an average 30 times a day!  And every time we do, we are taking a few steps backward.  Complaints introduce negativity that can’t help but impact our results, our quality of life and some research even suggests, the length of our lives!    

“Every time you complain, your irritability — like a virus — is neurologically picked up… So by all means, train your brain to be optimistic and positive because (according to 30+ years of longitudinal research conducted by Duke University and the Mayo Clinic), it will literally add years to your life.” — Mark Waldman  

For those exact reasons, I made up a challenge for myself last month.  I called it “The Complain Diet”. For a whole month, I was not going to complain – about anything.  

I imagined it was going to be challenging but not hard.  I imagined that all I would have to do is pay attention and choose my words carefully.  

I failed.  

It was not but a few hours into my Complain Diet when sneaky complaints snuck out.  By the end of the first week, I caught myself saying things like:

“He just doesn’t get it”     

“There’s never enough time”

“Rain?  On a Saturday?? Again???”

“Of course there’s a traffic jam (Insert annoyed sign here)”

Now, none of these SOUND terribly negative.  Some of them might even seem like they’re just simple observations.  But alas, they are not. They’re complaints.  

At one point I even thought to myself “Sheesh Deneen, if this is what you do when you are focused on NOT complaining you must really sound like a whiny brat when you aren’t paying attention”.    

And then I gave up.  

I gave up trying to NOT complain.  I focused on what I do want (gratitude) instead of what I don’t want (complaining).  

Our brains will find what they are looking for.  When I intend to look at things with a lens of gratitude that is what I will see.  As the old saying goes “When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change”.  

There are lots of ways to generate gratitude, here are a few favorites:   

• Gratitude Journal – you can even do this electronically with the 5 Good Things App (gotta love it, there’s an app for EVERYTHING!)  
• Find 1 person in your network every day – personal or professional – and tell them you appreciate them are grateful for them and why.  Surprisingly this does more for you than them!     
• Think about where you find the most grateful people or wherever you feel most grateful (nature walk or the beach maybe?) and go spend some time there
• Be grateful for things you might have initially judged as negative.  How can you spin that traffic jam into something that happened FOR you, not TO you?
• Read this post and learn about being grateful for yourself and even for things you want but don’t yet have  

How about a helping hand to change the way you’re looking at things?  I can definitely help, just click here to schedule a free, 30-minute discovery session. 

(<3-minute read time)

It was a holiday weekend and I had multiple projects, big ones, all needing my attention around the same time.  I hadn’t taken a day off in months and I was so ready for a break.  

I had to choose between what I wanted in the moment (a respite) and what I wanted even more than that (value for my clients).

Have you been there?  Whether it was resisting happy hour with colleagues so you can finish a report…. Or declining a piece of birthday cake at a party so you can have the satisfaction of sticking to your commitments… Or waiting to say what’s on your mind in a highly charged situation until after you have had a chance to think it through…  We’ve all been in the place of choosing gratification now or gratification later.

Recently, it has become even more apparent to me that choosing the latter equates to more intense and more meaningful gratification.  I think, sometimes, we forget that when we choose “gratification later” that “later” part actually does come! And when it does – oh wow, is it way better and way more valuable than the short term, instant hit we get from succumbing to our more primitive desires.       

Learning to delay gratification can be a game-changing skill in your life.  Take some time today to think about where you might be able to evolve in this area.  Maybe it’s delaying the gratification of relaxing until after you exercise in the morning?  Or delaying the gratification of food, drink, or socializing online or in-person until after you accomplish a task?  Delaying the enjoyment of care-free evenings until you finish that certificate or degree? Delaying the pleasure of travel until you pay off that last trip?   

Whatever it is, practicing the skill of delay will help keep you focused on your goals and lead you toward the results you want MOST.  There’s the things we want in the moment and then there’s the things we want even more than that. The things you want most will likely involve delay.  

As for me, what did I end up doing when I was faced with deciding between the respite I desperately desired and showing up for my clients the way I truly wanted to?  I ended up talking to my family and asking if we can reschedule the holiday. In the past, I would have never considered this as an option. Today, I am grateful to have a “What are all the possibilities” outlook.  I asked, we agreed and soon I will have that time off I wanted, be able to enjoy it guilt-free AND have the satisfaction of creating a ridiculous amount of value for my clients. I will have earned time off and earned satisfied clients.  Win-win.   

Delaying gratification can be challenging. It can also be the very thing that gets you to the win-win scenario you desire.  I can definitely help, just click here to schedule a free, 30-minute discovery session

(<3-minute read time)

Often, I hear my clients tell me that want to do things like…..

Make more money 

Be happier 

Travel more 

Work less 

Increase their self-confidence 

And then they follow up that desire with the poisonous thought:

“But, I don’t know how”

When we tell ourselves “I don’t know” it is always a lie.  You can read more about that here because that isn’t what we are talking about today.  Today, we are going to look at the fact that too often we unnecessarily place great value in knowing HOW we will do something before we ever do it.      

Here are two scenarios to demonstrate:  

Scenario #1:  I recently registered for the longest race I will have ever run so far, a 15k.  When I think about running this race I do not wonder about HOW I will do it.  

Scenario #2: I have some pretty intense business goals that I am pursuing this year.  When I think about these #2019moonshotgoals I often start thinking (and worrying) about HOW I will do it. 

Both of these scenarios involve me accomplishing a goal I have never done before.  Yet, in one situation I find myself wrapped up in the details of the “how” and the other just seems like a done deal. 

Why is that?

It’s because of my beliefs around me actually accomplishing the goal.  

When I think about Scenario #1, the 15k, I get an image in my mind of me at the finish line at the race.  I see myself all sweaty, feeling tired and proud. There are lots of other people around and they’re all sweaty, tired and proud of themselves too.  I envision an awesome day!      

When I think about Scenario #2, my business goals, all I see is them in their current, unfinished state.  Then I start to think about how I can change that and questioning if I even can change it in the time I have left.  This demotivating vision is a symptom of my doubt.  

Whenever we’re not fully believing that we can and will achieve a goal, we get all caught up in the mechanics of HOW to make it happen. 

Our brain wants to see the plan and then, if it decides the plan is do-able, it becomes willing to believe the goal is possible.

On the flipside when we believe for sure that something is going to happen we just don’t worry about how we will do it.  

Test me on this.  Think of something in your life that hasn’t happened yet but you just know for sure it is going to.  I’m willing to bet you haven’t spent much time worrying about how to make it happen.    

For the other areas where you are feeling less certain, the solution is to work on your belief and not the “how to” plan.  Once you really truly believe you can do it, the “how to” naturally follows.    

Our results are a direct reflection of what we believe.  Changing our beliefs can literally change everything. Need a hand examining and changing some of yours?  Let’s chat, just click here to schedule a free, 30-minute discovery session.   

(3-minute read time)

In this final post about transforming relationships, we’re going to look at an actual fix for those challenging relationships. 

First, let’s recap Part I & Part II real quick: 

• All relationships are just thoughts

• It is not other people’s behavior that causes the problems, it is our manuals for how other people “should” behave 

Even if we just left it at that, and you really actually applied these concepts – you will feel some relief in those challenging relationships.  But wait, there’s more!  

Let’s start off with an intentionally over-simplified, hypothetical scenario.  You have an employee who was late for the staff meeting again. You have already spoken to her twice and offered coaching, direction & support.  

Naturally, you probably have an expectation that your two conversations were enough and going forward she SHOULD be on time to the meetings.  

And then she was late.  Again.  

Boom.  Unmet expectation.  Unfollowed manual.  

How do we respond?  

Typically, many of us just find someone to vent about it with.  Then maybe we have a third, super-frustrated conversation with our team member.  (Which by the way does not motivate her at all).

What gives?  How on earth do we make someone do what they are “supposed to do”?

We don’t.  

The best option is to place healthy boundaries.  That term, “boundaries” gets thrown around a lot yet few people do this well.  Most people think boundaries involve telling other people what they can and can not do.  That’s the furthest thing from the truth.  

A boundary, done well, always allows the other person to choose to do as they wish and focuses mainly on your response to their choice.

Here’s an example for that team member who has not been making it on time to the staff meeting: “If you are late to the meeting again, I will move to the next step in corrective action and a formal write up will be placed in your file”.  

In this scenario, your employee can come to the meeting late again if she chooses to.   

Disclaimer: Employee issues are often far more intricate than being late to a meeting.  As I mentioned, I intentionally over-simplified the scenario. The reason I did so is to let you focus on the mechanics of how a boundary works.  The key takeaways are that:

• Boundaries should be delivered in an emotionally healthy and mature way.  Translation: Don’t share the boundary when you are mad. On a related note, in some cases you do not need to share the boundary at all – you can just follow through.  

• The other person gets to choose how to live their life, and no matter what they choose it does NOT determine your emotional well-being.  You are always in charge of that.

• You must be prepared to follow through on the boundary  

This works in our personal relationships too!  

Let’s say your child has been refusing to clean his/her room.  Or your spouse keeps working late. You could demand compliance, which usually involves a lot of unnecessary negative emotion.  

Or you can calmly set a boundary: 

“If you aren’t going to clean your room today I am going to ________”.  

“If you are going to be working past 6 pm, I am going to _______” 

Notice how the other person still gets to do as they wish?  We don’t have to control them. We just have to control ourselves.  

Controlling ourselves here means actually following through on the boundary we set and retaining emotional well-being in the process.  Maybe you can use some help with that? Just click here to schedule time to chat with me!