Category Archives: Fulfillment

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What is the question that will change your day?

The other night working in the Emergency Department I was dog tired as I picked up a chart of a patient to see.  After I obtained the pertinent medical information from this patient, I then asked my 94 year old patient, “Where were you during world war 2?”

He proceeded to share a little known story about his time working with General Patton.  The patient told me that even his own grandkids don’t ask nor seem interested in his life experiences.  It was an interesting and amazing patient interaction.  I left that conversation so energized that the last 2 hours of my shift flew by.

Reflecting on this event, reminds me of the power of our ability to choose what perspective we will be in and what powerful question we can ask of ourselves and others.  Perspective: It is amazing to me how quickly I can shift from ‘dog tired’ perspective to ‘wow what an incredible patient and story’ perspective–shifting from falling asleep to being fully awake–better than any cup of caffeine!  Question: It is fun and shocking the power of a question to shift our thoughts and energy levels.  I recently asked at a dinner party: What do you crave?  This one question made for a deep and meaningful and laughter filled discussion.

What is the question that you could ask at work and at home that would energize or change your day for the better?

 

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The Sage & The Saboteur: How to Overcome Your Limiting Beliefs

Do you remember the old cartoons that depicted an angel and a devil on each of your shoulders?  Well it turns out that we have a Sage and the Saboteur in our brains.  The Saboteur is a ‘voice’ or thoughts and feelings that was adaptive in our early development and when we were being chased by Saber Tooth Tigers.  It is an early warning ‘voice’ that may say early on in our lives, “Don’t even try to jump that fence because if you do, you will break your leg.”  However, this ‘voice’ grows up with us and becomes our limiting beliefs voice.  It begins to tell us, “You are not enough.” and “You are a failure.” and “You will never amount to anything.”  Ever heard that voice?  I certainly have, and I continue to hear it AND listen to it.

The other ‘voice’ is that of the Sage.  It tells us things like, “You are enough.” and “It is possible.” and “You can do it.”  It turns out that if we train ourselves to listen to this ‘voice’, our brain runs/functions much better in fact studies have shown over 30-40% better!  When we listen to this positive Sage ‘voice’, our brains are flooded with dopamine and serotonin–chemicals that immediately enhance our brains learning centers allowing us to think more quickly and creatively, solve problems better and see and create new ways of doing things.

If you are like me, you hear the ‘voice’ of the saboteur more than the Sage.  And if you are not hearing the saboteur, it means that you have not become aware of it or it is doing a great job of tricking you into believing that it is speaking the truth
or at least speaking things that are helping you.  The saboteur may have convinced you that without it’s advice you would make stupid choices or become lazy, but nothing is further from the truth.  The saboteur ‘voice’ that says, “Now, that was a stupid thing to do.” often will continue that mantra over and over again creating more sleeplessness and more anxiety whereas the Sage’s approach might be to say, “So you made a mistake, to err is human, and this mistake could be made into an opportunity depending on how you react to it.”

Ok. Interesting.  Now what.  The key to weakening The saboteur ‘voice’ (note: most of us have multiple Saboteur ‘voices’ such as a judger and a pleaser and a controller etc.) is:
1. Don’t fight them/it
2. Simply observe and notice the saboteur thoughts and feelings when they arise
3. Tag or label these thoughts or feelings every time you notice them (some who are in training against the saboteur will keep a journal or jot down a quick note when they notice the saboteur thoughts and feelings aka ‘voice’)

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50 No’s & 5 Yes’s: How to Treat Overwhelm?

Overwhelm is a HOT topic.  We all feel overwhelmed at some time in our lives.  Our To-Do lists are stuffed to the gills, and we walk around in a To-Do list haze so overwhelmed that we are so busy listening to the tape playing in our heads of what we need To-Do instead of capturing all the amazing things happening all around us.

Solutions?  Burn the To-Do list?  Maybe.

1. Practice Present Perfect: Our brains are designed to be in the present moment, but our To-Do lists and overwhelm feelings and thoughts are predominantly in the future.  The studies show that by not being focused in the present our brainsare much less efficient so the overwhelm and To-Do lists are actually making us less productive.  How do we practice being more present?  Keep a 3×5 card in your pocket or jot down notes in your smartphone when you are in a moment that you have lost track of time in.  These moments of flow are the present moments that bathe our brain in the chemicals that make us more efficient, more productive, and are the antidote for overwhelm.

2. Purpose:  It is easy to live in the land of overwhelm when we lose site of our purpose.  When was the last time you were truly thrilled? What was your most recent peak experience?  Tapping into these moments will help you focus on doing the things that you were made to do.  The things that you were made to do are those things that thrill you.  Get in touch with your thrilling moments and you will begin to get in touch with your Yes’s.  Now list the 1-5 things that you most love to do at work, at home, etc.  This is your YES list.   These are the To-Do items that you were designed to Do and Be with.

3. Prioritize:  Starting with No’s leads to less overwhelm and more YES.  I recently challenged one of my clients to put together a list of 50 No’s.  50 items that he is going to say no to.  What is on our list of No’s?  Which of these No’s are you going to commit to?  I would love to say No to checking my email on my smartphone when out to dinner…..The NO list is the list that frees us up to say YES.

 

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Is Life and The People In It Passing You By?

So often I live my life like the guy in this video.  Rushing around to get done all my to do’s while

not taking notice of those around me, not connecting, and not taking in all that is available in the moments.

This video reminds me to slow down and be mindful of those around me and to stop and take in each and every moment as if it were our last.

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The Gecko & The Geek

Our brain is often at war with itself.  The primitive emotional centers (The Gecko) vs. the advanced intellectual centers (The Geek). The Gecko gets us in trouble because it’s only capacity is to react whereas the Geek thinks, then reacts.

The Geko takes over when we are feeling stressed or out of control, and it reacts with fight or flight.  Unfortunately, This does not happen consciously, and The Gecko causes us not to think straight, react instead of act, fight first ask questions later, and put our foot in our mouth.  When stresses pile up and we feel out of control, the Gecko shows up, and we become less productive, effective, and lose our decision-making abilities.  In fact, scientific studies have shown that when we experience too much stress and overwhelm, our performance tanks.  Stressful things like financial loss are actually processed in the same area of the brain that responds to mortal danger aka The Gecko area.  We have all learned often the hard way that we make horrible decisions when we are under financial stress or any type of stress.

 

How can we be more Geek and less Gecko?

  1. Self-awareness.  Studies show that when you put people under high levels of stress, those who are quickest to recover are those who can identify how they are feeling and express their feelings into words.  Scientists, using brain scans, confirm that people who talk about and/or write about their feelings at the time they are experiencing negative emotions immediately over come these negative thoughts and feelings which improves their well-being and enhances their decision making skills.
  2. Make 2 lists: things you have control over and things that you don’t.  Burn the list that you have no control over–they are out of your control! And focus on the areas that you have control over.  So no news is good news after all.  I have made it a habit of not reading the newspaper and watching the news on TV because it only stresses me out.  Now I know why it stresses me out, and why it has been scientifically shown to be counterproductive.  It fills my brain with things that I have no control over allowing my Gecko to run wild.  So maybe we should change the phrase “G.I.G.O” from Garbage In Garbage Out to Garbage In Gecko Out.
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The #1 Way to Show Your Patients that You Care: Acknowledgment

“All the tests are back, and their is nothing wrong with your daughter.”  For years, I would step into a patients room and annouce the good news that there was “nothing wrong with you” thinking that the patient would be so releaved.  I was reminded of the impact of such a statment at work recently.  A physician had brought her daughter in to the Emergency Department for abdominal pain, and at the end of the visit, the nurse went into the room announcing to the physician that there was nothing wrong with her daugher.  The physician became very upset stating, “I would never bring my daughter into the Emergency Room if there was nothing wrong with her!”  With some ‘service recovery’, I was able to calm this physician mom.  But I was reminded again of how the “there is nothing wrong with you” statement must land with my patients.  For the last several years, I have changed my phrasing.  I now acknowledge that clearly there is something wrong but that our technology can’t find out what exactly is causing the pain.  This simple shift of phrase acknowledges and confirms our patients pain, suffering, and anxiety.  It is not about working harder or even spending more time.  It is working smarter and making the time really count by asking the right questions, saying the right things, and developing your presence (more to follow).

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Being Realistic is Over-rated

“Being realistic is the most common path to mediocrity…The moment you decide to be realistic you can pretty much guarantee that is what will happen…”-Will Smith

Is anyone else tired of being realistic?  A saboteur (or gremlin) is a self limiting voice that whispers into our mind.  The saboteur is the voice that “shoulds” on us.  It tells us what we should do not what we can be.

Realistic is the penultimate saboteur.  I can hear the voice: “You will never be able to do that, be realistic.”

Let us today press pause on that voice, and listen to the other voice-the voice that speaks to our heart and soul.  The voice that says, “You can do it!”

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Work Life Balance vs. Well Being

This article points out that well being is more important measure than work life balance.  If we have great work life balance but we hate our work and our life, then even though we have work life balance, we are miserable.  We need to look to well being: finding ways to be happy and content in our work and our life.

Why Work-Life Balance Isn’t Balanced

It’s necessary, but not sufficient. Here’s why focusing on wellbeing makes more sense.

by Yamini Tandon

Sheela was doing well in her job. She had an eight-hour workday, great friends, a supportive family, good health, and she was paid well. Everyone around her thought she was happy and lived an ideal life.

Sheela was well-compensated and appeared to have time to balance her career and personal life. But she was struggling.

But Sheela’s life was actually a mess. Her overly aggressive boss thought nothing of shouting at her in front of her colleagues. Though Sheela was a good performer, she was constantly anxious about the next time her supervisor would berate her. Though she was expected to work eight-hour days, her boss would call her at any time of the day or night.

Sheela began to dread hearing her cellphone ring and was so worried all the time that she couldn’t even sleep. She fretted that her colleagues and friends would lose respect for her, and she lost so much confidence that she couldn’t handle even the simplest of social interactions. Sheela began to spend less time with her friends and family, where she would have to put up a brave face, and instead devoted more hours to work, where she could worry freely, obsessing over every detail of her job to the point of compulsiveness.

By most traditional measures of work-life balance, Sheela was doing quite well. She was handsomely compensated for an eight-hour workday, and she appeared to have enough free time to balance her career and personal life. But in reality, Sheela was struggling. What’s more, her frustrations would not be picked up by conventional measures of wellbeing, because those measures don’t take into account the quality of people’s experiences, nor do they incorporate people’s own evaluations of their lives. Instead, those measures rely on factors like income and number of hours worked, under the assumption that these factors determine the quality of people’s lives.

Beyond work-life balance

When the idea of work-life balance was first introduced, it was a revolutionary concept. In the 18thand 19th centuries, the Industrial Revolution and its resulting shift to manufacturing work made it possible for employers to require workers to labor longer hours than ever before in human history. In some industries, people toiled 14 to 16 hours a day, six to seven days a week.

As researchers began to study the impact that these long hours had on stress levels, health, and family life, the idea of work-life balance gained currency, and many countries began to legislate limits to the workweek. Most developed nations now mandate 40-46 working hours per week, with a minimum of two weeks per year of holiday/vacation.

The concept of work-life balance has been instrumental in influencing these changes and bringing about an improvement in the quality of life that is assumed to accompany shorter working hours. But the concept is useful only up to a point. Globalization has undermined the relevance of reducing worker hours to achieve work-life balance and has revealed limitations; the most significant is that at some point, limiting hours further is just not sustainable.

France has mandated a 35-hour workweek, for example. But what can the country do next? The workweek can’t be reduced indefinitely, as this has implications for a country’s economic viability and competitiveness. In a globalized world, if workers in one country are unwilling to work for economically viable hours, then businesses will migrate to a country where they are willing to do so. In countries such as India and Pakistan, workers are motivated to work 10- to 12-hour workdays — and this is unlikely to change soon due to the large number of workers willing to do so to move up the economic ladder.

Another problem with the concept of work-life balance is that it takes the number of working hours into account but not the quality of the working experience. A person may spend 35 hours a week at work, but if that worker, like Sheela, has an abrasive manager or is in a highly stressful job or one that is not suited to her natural talents, then those manageable work hours are unlikely to enhance her quality of life. Conversely, a person may choose to work long hours because it allows her to progress in her career or to build a social system at work.

Thus, the assumption that reduced hours at work lead to an improvement in personal life is too narrow, and probably faulty. Other factors, such as social support, health, safety, and job fit, contribute greatly to the quality of a person’s life. Since the concept of work-life balance doesn’t take into account these significant factors, it does not provide direction as to how people can actually improve the quality of their lives, except for reducing the hours spent at work. As such, it is not actionable.

The assumption that reduced hours at work lead to an improvement in personal life is too narrow, and probably faulty

How we think about and experience our lives

A more comprehensive concept — one that’s more appropriate for the 21st-century economy — is that of wellbeing, which includes factors that contribute to our experiences and our perception of our lives. Until recently, wellbeing has been seen as an esoteric concept that is difficult to define and quantify. It is most commonly understood as relating to wealth or health, perhaps because of the ease with which these things can be measured.

One reason that wellbeing has been difficult to define is that it means different things to different people depending on what they consider important. To one person, it may mean prosperity or wealth; to another, it may mean values or community involvement or the realization of one’s potential. This is why wellbeing should be measured at the individual level, though it may be aggregated for organizations, communities, and nations. And any measure of wellbeing must be broad enough to incorporate an individual’s own choices and purpose in life while being specific enough to be compared and aggregated to facilitate action that can improve it.

Gallup has developed a wellbeing metric that includes the five key elements of wellbeing: Career, Social, Financial, Physical, and Community. These five distinct factors emerged from research that Gallup conducted across countries, languages, and vastly different life situations. Because these elements of wellbeing are universal, they can be measured and reported on for individuals, organizations, cities, countries, and regions around the world.

Because Gallup’s wellbeing assessment measures these elements individually in addition to yielding an overall score, it is actionable: The assessment gives individuals, organizations, cities, and countries the ability to manage wellbeing by undertaking actions to improve it. If an individual has relatively low Social Wellbeing, for example, she would do well to focus her efforts on improving interpersonal relationships with friends and family.

This can be managed over time. As her Social Wellbeing increases, she may choose to concentrate on Career Wellbeing, for instance, or choose to address both elements by spending time socializing with colleagues and making friends at work. In this way, wellbeing can be measured and managed comprehensively at the individual, as well as government, state, city, or corporate levels, by taking its various components and their interactions into account.

Conventional metrics such as employment status, income, educational level, hours worked, and women’s participation in the workforce are necessary to understand an economy, but they are insufficient when it comes to understanding and evaluating overall life satisfaction. Unless we begin to use a metric of a life well-lived — as measured by one’s own experiences and evaluation — people like Sheela will continue to be under the radar, aware that something is amiss, but without an idea why or what to do about it.

The Five Essential Elements of WellbeingFor more than 50 years, Gallup scientists have been exploring the demands of a life well-lived. More recently, in partnership with leading economists, psychologists, and other acclaimed scientists, Gallup has uncovered the common elements of wellbeing that transcend countries and cultures. This research revealed the universal elements of wellbeing that differentiate a thriving life from one spent suffering. They represent five broad categories that are essential to most people:

  • Career Wellbeing: how you occupy your time — or simply liking what you do every day
  • Social Wellbeing: having strong relationships and love in your life
  • Financial Wellbeing: effectively managing your economic life
  • Physical Wellbeing: having good health and enough energy to get things done on a daily basis
  • Community Wellbeing: the sense of engagement you have with the area where you live
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What Do You Want Your Button to Say?

One of my friends and partners took apart his Staples “That was Easy” button and rewired it to say a special statement to one of his sons.  I LOVE his creativity, but unfortunately it sounded like a lot of work.

It made me think of what I would have the button say to me if I could rewire it.  Answer: The minions laughter from Despicable Me movie.  Why you ask? Because I specialize in Reserved calm, leading from my mind rather than from my heart… The laughter button would remind me to laugh more.  BTW-I downloaded the minions laughter ring tone and whenever my kids call from home, my cell phone plays the laughter and makes me laugh out loud!

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Knowing the Language of Appreciation

I had a fascinating conversation with a USC Business School Professor last week.  He pointed out that only 37% of employees feel appreciated at their job, and the majority don’t trust their leaders.  What would a world look like where employee’s felt truly appreciated?
Are these employees being shown appreciation, but it isn’t landing?  What do you need to hear to feel appreciated?  It is different for different people.  I feel appreciated when I am verbally affirmed, but my bride feels appreciated when I give her my undivided attention.
So maybe these employees are being appreciated, but they are not feeling appreciated??  How could we better learn how to show our appreciation in the “language” that would be heard by our employees, co-workers, spouses, kids?  Curious?  I have some GREAT ideas on how to REALLY show those around you that you appreciate them.  Email me if you are interested!

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Happiness is Friends & Just Enough Money by Jennifer Robison

The search to define happiness has consumed a lot of human energy. Until recently, we’ve had little to show for it — some songs, a few poems, and a Charles Schulz cartoon about happiness being a warm puppy — but nothing of much practical use.
The best life evaluations come from people who went to college, got married, and have good jobs.
To get practical results, you need scientists. Fortunately, two of the best are now on the case: Angus Deaton, Ph.D., a renowned economist, and Daniel Kahneman, Ph.D., a Nobel prize-winning psychologist, both from Princeton University. Dispensing with romantic imagery, Dr. Deaton and Dr. Kahneman looked for happiness in numbers. More specifically, they analyzed responses to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index (GHWBI), a daily survey that asks roughly 1,000 U.S. residents a battery of questions about their wellbeing.
After analyzing more than 450,000 GHWBI responses from 2008 and 2009, Dr. Deaton and Dr. Kahneman found that happiness is actually the result of the fulfillment of two abstract psychological states — emotional wellbeing and life evaluation. The finding is important because it offered the researchers a new and more useful way of looking at happiness.
“What did we get from these data? Everything,” says Dr. Deaton. “The GHWBI asks clear questions about life evaluation as well as emotional wellbeing. These data are just terrific in permitting research that was not really possible before.”
Evaluation and emotion
The difference between life evaluation and emotional wellbeing is vital, though the two are related. “Nobody claims that the two dimensions are independent,” says Dr. Kahneman. “They’re clearly distinct dimensions that are correlated. But they have somewhat different determinants. What improves people’s emotional wellbeing is different from what it takes to make them say that they’re satisfied with their life.”
In other words, life evaluation and emotional wellbeing refer to different feelings. Life evaluation requires a long view of a person’s overall life. Though life evaluation is colored by the day’s emotions, Dr. Kahneman and Dr. Deaton’s GHWBI research shows that people evaluate their lives based on a retrospective of their achievements. If they’ve accomplished the goals they’ve set, are financially secure, and are emotionally fulfilled, they’re more likely to have a high evaluation of their life.
And research shows that the more conventional the goals, the better the life evaluation. Dr. Kahneman notes that the best life evaluations come from people who went to college, got married, and have good jobs; other studies show that people who wanted to be performing artists when they were 18 but didn’t end up to be were generally very dissatisfied with their lives at age 45. “Having goals that you can meet is essential to life satisfaction,” says Dr. Kahneman. “Setting goals that you’re not going to meet sets you up for failure.”
Emotional wellbeing reflects a much shorter view and refers to the emotional quality of an individual’s everyday experience. If the day’s experience is negative, emotional wellbeing will take a hit. That said, people with good emotional wellbeing seem to get it through social contact.
“Emotional happiness is primarily social,” says Dr. Kahneman. “The very best thing that can happen to people is to spend time with other people they like. That is when they are happiest, and so, without question, this is a major story. We find loneliness is a terrible thing. So is extreme poverty. But loneliness, regardless of how rich you are, is a very bad thing.”
But the research also indicates that you won’t become happy merely by socializing with your best friends and achieving your goals. You also need $75,000.
The magic number: $75,000
Of all the important and interesting findings Dr. Kahneman and Dr. Deaton’s research has uncovered, the most reported finding is that people with an annual household income of $75,000 are about as happy as anyone gets. More specifically, those with annual household incomes below $75,000 give lower responses to both life evaluation and emotional wellbeing questions. But people with an annual household income of more than $75,000 don’t have commensurately higher levels of emotional wellbeing, even though their life evaluation rating continues to increase.
This finding holds true even where living isn’t cheap. “When we mention $75,000, the question I always get is, ‘What about New York City?'” says Dr. Kahneman. True, $75,000 won’t go very far in big cities like New York, London, or Singapore, and it makes sense that a high cost of living will make even large sums feel puny. “Our finding indicates that $75,000 is the limit even in large expensive cities,” says Dr. Kahneman. “So, though there may be places in which happiness levels off at a lower income, $75,000 is the sufficiency point in the most expensive places.”
Dr. Deaton and Dr. Kahneman are not certain why, but the data are clear: Even in high-cost cities, incomes over $75,000 don’t correlate to greater happiness. They think this is because even in expensive places, $75,000 is enough to live on while allowing for emotionally rich — and enriching — social experiences. Some places such as New York may be expensive precisely because they are such great places to live, says Dr. Deaton, because their terrific amenities may offset the higher cost of living there.

“No matter where you live, your emotional wellbeing is as good as it’s going to get at $75,000,” says Dr. Deaton, “and money’s not going to make it any better beyond that point. It’s like you hit some sort of ceiling, and you can’t get emotional wellbeing much higher just by having more money.”
Your emotional life depends primarily on your relationships with people.
Emotional wellbeing may not improve with additional money, Dr. Deaton and Dr. Kahneman think, because of several factors. One is that humans adapt quickly to the things money can buy. A mansion is a thrill the first month you live in it, but it’s just a house the second.
Moreover, other research suggests that wealthy people don’t take as much pleasure in actual pleasure as do poor people. In one test, social researchers primed some test subjects to feel rich and found that the “wealthy” subjects didn’t enjoy luxury chocolate as much as the control group, the “non-wealthy,” did.
And Dr. Kahneman and Dr. Deaton believe that when it comes to the very wealthy with high life satisfaction, their evaluations may be influenced more by keeping score than by purchasing power. If life evaluation is based on reviewing how much progress people have made in their lives, money may become a marker of success.
“Not having enough money to live a decent life really gets in the way of doing the ordinary things that make people happy,” says Dr. Deaton. “What might create your emotional wellbeing is spending time with your friends, and if your income is below $75,000, you may not have the money to do it. But for life evaluation, money represents a sense of achievement. And that just keeps on going up when you have more money.”
Stressing the subject
So people who have achieved their goals, who spend a lot of time with friends, and who make a lot of money have the most life satisfaction, while those who earn at least $75,000 a year have the greatest emotional wellbeing. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t stressed. The GHWBI data show that college graduates report more stress than people without college degrees, and Dr. Kahneman and Dr. Deaton say that stress levels are generally higher in wealthy countries.
The GHWBI data also showed that most Americans are happy and satisfied with their lives — 85% reported a lot of happiness, enjoyment, and smiling; 24% reported sadness or worry; and 39% reported stress. Comparing the U.S. life evaluation scores with data available from about 150 other countries through the Gallup World Poll, the U.S. ranks fairly high. The only nations with higher scores are the Scandinavian countries, Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and New Zealand.
However, while Americans come in near the top for life evaluation and do well on wellbeing, they’re also among the most stressed. U.S. stress levels are the fifth highest when compared to data from other countries in the Gallup World Poll.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the 2010 poverty level for a family of four was a long way from $75,000 at $22,314 — and 15.3% of Americans earned that much or less. “It is worse to be alone, it is worse to be divorced, it is worse to be unemployed, and it is worse to be sick if you’re poor, and you get less benefit from the things that create emotional wellbeing,” says Dr. Kahneman. “There are huge emotional costs to poverty.”
And poor people are hardly carefree — in fact, the researchers found that the poor report more stress than the economically comfortable. They also don’t gain the benefit of stress alleviation on weekends, as do their better-off counterparts. And Dr. Deaton notes that there’s a big difference between the stress associated with success and the stress caused by constant deprivation.
But the data show that money doesn’t alleviate stress in the same way it alleviates unhappiness. In fact, money may go hand in hand with stress among high-earning people. “I think stress sometimes goes with success,” says Dr. Deaton. “America is a very rich, busy, striving country, and that may be associated with stress. But we sort of like it.”
With a little help from your friends
Dr. Kahneman says some studies show that while warm puppies really can improve emotional wellbeing, your emotional life depends primarily on your relationships with people. “I’d feel embarrassed to give that as advice — ‘improve your relationships.’ But obviously if people are going to get happier, it’s going to come to that,” he says.
There is one thing, however, left to mention in this discussion of happiness — individual temperament. Dr. Kahneman and Dr. Deaton’s research, and that of others, clearly indicates that some people are just born happier, or “sunnier,” as Dr. Deaton calls them. Their emotional wellbeing will always be higher than everyone else’s.
That’s not to suggest that those who aren’t “sunny” are doomed to lives of misery. Even the most pessimistic, grumpy-by-nature people can find solace in Dr. Deaton’s statement: “It may be that we’re not designed for happiness.” And what is it we were designed for? “To avoid getting eaten by predators,” says Dr. Deaton. “If nothing eats you today, you ought to be happy. At least it’s a start.”

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Thankful Lyrics

“Thankful” by Josh Groban

Somedays we forget
To look around us
Somedays we can’t see
The joy that surrounds us
So caught up inside ourselves
We take when we should give.

So for tonight we pray for
What we know can be.
And on this day we hope for
What we still can’t see.
It’s up to us to be the change
And even though we all can still do more
There’s so much to be thankful for.

Look beyond ourselves
There’s so much sorrow
It’s way too late to say
I’ll cry tomorrow
Each of us must find our truth
It’s so long overdue

So for tonight we pray for
What we know can be
And every day we hope for
What we still can’t see
It’s up to us to be the change
And even though we all can still do more
There’s so much to be thankful for.

Even with our differences
There is a place we’re all connected
Each of us can find each other’s light

So for tonight we pray for
What we know can be
And on this day we hope for
What we still can’t see
It’s up to us to be the change
And even though this world needs so much more

There’s so much to be thankful for

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Thanksgiving & Gratitude

Over and Over again the research is CRYSTAL CLEAR.  Gratitude works.  Those who take a moment every day to list what they are grateful for lead better lives.  So this Thanksgiving, try a serving of gratitude!

New York Times Online
Findings: A Serving of Gratitude May Save the Day

The most psychologically correct holiday of the year is upon us.

Thanksgiving may be the holiday from hell for nutritionists, and it produces plenty of war stories for psychiatrists dealing with drunken family meltdowns. But it has recently become the favorite feast of psychologists studying the consequences of giving thanks. Cultivating an “attitude of gratitude” has been linked to better health, sounder sleep, less anxiety and depression, higher long-term satisfaction with life and kinder behavior toward others, including romantic partners. A new study shows that feeling grateful makes people less likely to turn aggressive when provoked, which helps explain why so many brothers-in-law survive Thanksgiving without serious injury.
But what if you’re not the grateful sort? I sought guidance from the psychologists who have made gratitude a hot research topic. Here’s their advice for getting into the holiday spirit – or at least getting through dinner Thursday:
Start with “gratitude lite.”That’s the term used by Robert A. Emmons, of the University of California, Davis, for the technique used in his pioneering experiments he conducted along with Michael E. McCullough of the University of Miami. They instructed people to keep a journal listing five things for which they felt grateful, like a friend’s generosity, something they’d learned, a sunset they’d enjoyed.
The gratitude journal was brief – just one sentence for each of the five things – and done only once a week, but after two months there were significant effects. Compared with a control group, the people keeping the gratitude journal were more optimistic and felt happier. They reported fewer physical problems and spent more time working out.

Further benefits were observed in a study of polio survivors and other people with neuromuscular problems. The ones who kept a gratitude journal reported feeling happier and more optimistic than those in a control group, and these reports were corroborated by observations from their spouses. These grateful people also fell asleep more quickly at night, slept longer and woke up feeling more refreshed.
“If you want to sleep more soundly, count blessings, not sheep,” Dr. Emmons advises in “Thanks!” his book on gratitude research.

Don’t confuse gratitude with indebtedness. Sure, you may feel obliged to return a favor, but that’s not gratitude, at least not the way psychologists define it. Indebtedness is more of a negative feeling and doesn’t yield the same benefits as gratitude, which inclines you to be nice to anyone, not just a benefactor.

In an experiment at Northeastern University, Monica Bartlett and David DeSteno sabotaged each participant’s computer and arranged for another student to fix it. Afterward, the students who had been helped were likelier to volunteer to help someone else – a complete stranger – with an unrelated task. Gratitude promoted good karma. And if it works with strangers ….

Try it on your family. No matter how dysfunctional your family, gratitude can still work, says Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California, Riverside.

“Do one small and unobtrusive thoughtful or generous thing for each member of your family on Thanksgiving,” she advises. “Say thank you for every thoughtful or kind gesture. Express your admiration for someone’s skills or talents – wielding that kitchen knife so masterfully, for example. And truly listen, even when your grandfather is boring you again with the same World War II story.”

Don’t counterattack.If you’re bracing for insults on Thursday, consider a recent experiment at the University of Kentucky. After turning in a piece of writing, some students received praise for it while others got a scathing evaluation: “This is one of the worst essays I’ve ever read!” Then each student played a computer game against the person who’d done the evaluation. The winner of the game could administer a blast of white noise to the loser. Not surprisingly, the insulted essayists retaliated against their critics by subjecting them to especially loud blasts – much louder than the noise administered by the students who’d gotten positive evaluations.  But there was an exception to this trend among a subgroup of the students: the ones who had been instructed to write essays about things for which they were grateful. After that exercise in counting their blessings, they weren’t bothered by the nasty criticism – or at least they didn’t feel compelled to amp up the noise against their critics.

“Gratitude is more than just feeling good,” says Nathan DeWall, who led the study at Kentucky. “It helps people become less aggressive by enhancing their empathy. “It’s an equal-opportunity emotion. Anyone can experience it and benefit from it, even the most crotchety uncle at the Thanksgiving dinner table.”

Share the feeling. Why does gratitude do so much good? “More than other emotion, gratitude is the emotion of friendship,” Dr. McCullough says. “It is part of a psychological system that causes people to raise their estimates of how much value they hold in the eyes of another person. Gratitude is what happens when someone does something that causes you to realize that you matter more to that person than you thought you did.”

Try a gratitude visit. This exercise, recommended by Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania, begins with writing a 300-word letter to someone who changed your life for the better. Be specific about what the person did and how it affected you. Deliver it in person, preferably without telling the person in advance what the visit is about. When you get there, read the whole thing slowly to your benefactor. “You will be happier and less depressed one month from now,” Dr. Seligman guarantees in his book “Flourish.”

Contemplate a higher power.Religious individuals don’t necessarily act with more gratitude in a specific situation, but thinking about religion can cause people to feel and act more gratefully, as demonstrated in experiments by Jo-Ann Tsang and colleagues at Baylor University. Other research shows that praying can increase gratitude.

Go for deep gratitude. Once you’ve learned to count your blessings, Dr. Emmons says, you can think bigger.

“As a culture, we have lost a deep sense of gratefulness about the freedoms we enjoy, a lack of gratitude toward those who lost their lives in the fight for freedom, a lack of gratitude for all the material advantages we have,” he says. “The focus of Thanksgiving should be a reflection of how our lives have been made so much more comfortable by the sacrifices of those who have come before us.”
And if that seems too daunting, you can least tell yourself -Hey, it could always be worse. When your relatives force you to look at photos on their phones, be thankful they no longer have access to a slide projector. When your aunt expounds on politics, rejoice inwardly that she does not hold elected office. Instead of focusing on the dry, tasteless turkey on your plate, be grateful the six-hour roasting process killed any toxic bacteria.

Is that too much of a stretch? When all else fails, remember the Monty Python mantra of the Black Plague victim: “I’m not dead.” It’s all a matter of perspective.

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What Is Coaching? Values & Saboteurs

At the top of my website there is a link to a page that explains what coaching is all about, but words can’t do coaching justice.  I have found a great video to explain in a mystical, right brain kind of way what coaching is like.  So humor me….any thoughts??

 


2 Common themes explored in coaching are: values and saboteurs.

This video starts with a great example of saboteur(s).  It is that little voice or voices that whisper bitter sweet nothings into our hearts: “you are not enough.” “you are a failure.” etc.  Recognizing these saboteurs exist is the beginning to reaching the abundant life.

This video goes on to focus on finding your game aka what are your unique values aka what is your song to the world.

 

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What Are Our BEST Moments?

The high energy cases.  The patients that take up all the time, effort, AND ENERGY always seem to be the ones that create the most discussion and stress among us (doctors, nurses, etc.).  We always raise such a fuss and express so much frustration, anxiety, and stress when the ‘difficult’ patient arrives.  You know the ones: too much alcohol, too much craziness, too much neediness…  When these ‘difficult’ patients are not around everything moves smoothly.  We are in autopilot.  Isn’t ironic that the ‘difficult’ patients and situations at work turn up the energy?  From mundane to stresssss!  But these are the patients and situations that generate all our energy, all of our discussions.  When our loved ones ask about work, we share with them about the high energy moments.  These ‘difficult’ patients and moments are often the only thing(s) we remember about the day.

Contrary to what we usually believe–the passive, relaxing times are the best moments of our lives.  What if our best moments are occurring right before our eyes when our bodies and minds are stretched to the limits in our efforts to deal with these ‘difficult’ patients, people, and situations (This is what Professor Csikszentmihalyi points out in his landmark book: Flow).  What if the ‘difficult’ is really the technicolor of our lives?  If you are like me, I am thinking that these difficult times are the worst times, filled with negative energy, negative feelings, etc.  BUT I am working to change my perspective on this.  As I become more aware of these ‘difficult’ moments, I am able to embrace them, explore them, feel them…because in the end, they may actually be the best or at least the most memorable moments of our lives so let’s look at them for just that…technicolor, heart racing, fully alive, high energy moments…

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Cat Girl: Creative, Unique, Hear Me Meow

My son came home from high school today sharing the story of cat girl with us.  There is a girl in several of his classes that wore cat ears and face painted cat whiskers to school today.  The teacher asked why she was dressed up like a cat, and she announced to the class that it is October, and she dresses up as something new every day in the month of October.

I LOVE it! I told my son that is a girl you want to get to know.  Can you imagine the teasing that she must endure at high school to do her own thing? It must be immense, but she does it anyway!

Hats off for Cat Girl!  Creative, Unique, Hear Her Meow (or roar? maybe she will be a lion tomorrow?)

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Present Perfect, Living in the Now Here

One of the fundamental principles of coaching is the practice of what I call: Present Perfect.  The art of being in the now here (Brennan Manning is known for saying that you are either Now Here or Nowhere).  This practice is known by other names such as process or mindfulness.

The lack of mindfulness or living in the now creates a frantic pace to our lives that is fraught with stress, limiting our experiences, and not embracing life to the fullest.  When we are fully present aka present perfect, we are able to fully experience life.

So how do we live in the now? Here are a few ways:

  • Record Your Moments: Record some random moments for a week.
    • Set your alarm on your smart phone or your watch or whenever your phone rings in the next week STOP what you are doing
    • Carry a 3×5 card with you and write down what you are doing at the moment when your alarm goes off.  Ask yourself what are you doing in this moment? What do you notice? What are you feeling? What are you thinking?
    • This is a great way to start to exercise your living in the moment muscles…
  • Freeze Frame: This week when you are with your loved ones stop and ponder:
    • Are you fully present?
    • What are you feeling, hearing, tasting, seeing, doing….
  • Body Check: Stop for a moment and check in with your body…
    • Let go of your current struggles/to do list/etc.
    • Notice your breathing
    • Notice places in your body that are tense and relax them
    • Take note of what happens when you do these things…what is possible from this place that wasn’t before?

So how do YOU live life in the now? Any ideas? Please share your ways/tricks to stay in the present, now here of your life.