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These Ladies Taught Me A Lot

These Ladies Taught Me A Lot

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With Mother’s Day coming up soon, I look back to memories of growing up and the influence of all the females in my life. Many of whom are no longer here. 

There were aunts, teachers (mostly nuns), cousins and, of course, my mother and my grandmother. As the youngest grandchild of 7 with a Mom that worked, I spent a lot of time being taken care of by my grandmother, affectionately known as Babci (Babcia means grandmother in Polish). 

I looked up to my Babci and Mom and learned so much from them (that’s Babci, Mom & me in the photo). Today, I reflect on what’s important to me now, how I spend my time, what I have in my life, and see how that relates to what I witnessed as a child and teenager growing up around them. I’m so proud of the influence they had on me and how that has benefited my life. 

Three areas in particular stand out…

Gardening and nature to stay grounded

I love gardening, all things plants, flowers, and visiting Botanical Gardens when traveling too. In fact, I spent last weekend traveling to 2 large botanical gardens with friends and had a fabulous time! Sunburned, allergies in full effect from the spring pollen, tired and sore from 6+ hours of walking around each day plus 2.5 hours in the car to get there and back, but my heart is full and soul fulfilled. 

Babci had a wood shelf with 3 levels of snake plants on the back porch. If my memory serves, she probably had 15-20 plants in total. She’d take a coffee cup, the biggest one they had, and would sip the water into her mouth then blow it out over the plants to mist them – her mouth was the original plant mister. 

One day I saw her through the window, she was on the back porch crying. I was little and immediately thought something was wrong. Turns out she was grating horseradish root! Even though she was out on the porch in the fresh air, it still caused her to cry. Cross my heart it seemed way worse than when she chopped onions!

The importance of daily rituals and routines for personal and spiritual development

I love to visit churches and sacred sites when I travel to new places – there’s something so peaceful and reverent about them. 

Growing up I had a strong influence from both my Babci and Mom when it comes to spirituality, dedication, devotion, daily and weekly practices. They both prayed and attended church on a regular basis. 

When my grandmother couldn’t attend church anymore because she was no longer able to walk, I remember her caretaker would carry her into the kitchen, placing her in a chair. And on the kitchen table would be a stack of prayer cards and prayer books. 

Babci would spend hours everyday, meticulously going through each prayer card and prayer book pages, silently praying for everyone and everything. 

This was her daily practice, her morning routine and later in the day, her afternoon routine. 

There were many spirituality influences too, these one stand out the most in this moment: statues of Holy Mary on the dresser with a large rosary draped around her neck, holy pictures of angels, archangels, popes and saints on the wall and in picture frames propped up on the furniture, a last supper picture near the dining table with palms from Palm Sunday positioned behind it – which we’d replace every year with new palms. 

Strong work ethic supporting connection and purpose in life  

Babci was a cleaning lady at the local hospital. She didn’t speak English and would walk miles to get there and walk miles to return home. She was doing important work to keep the hospital clean.

Mom also worked in the medical field as an x-ray tech at a doctors office, while working at the hospital on weekends to get her foot in the door. Then she went full time at the hospital when the doctor retired. She was so smart… always planning, strategizing and putting in the work. 

Mom was always connecting with others and helping patients directly. And after the long work days, she would go to Babci’s to check in on her. And travel to see Dziadzi, my grandfather, in the nursing home in another town. Then finally home to us kids who were now junior high and high schoolers to take care of us. Grocery shopping happened in between all of that, and preparing meals for my Dad and us – or at least making sure the fridge was full. 

These amazing ladies not only taught me the grace of kindness and compassion, but also the importance of daily rituals and routines for personal and spiritual development.

While my personal practices today may look different than theirs, I’m so grateful for how they infused this dedication into my life.  From my journaling to my Reiki practices, and my meditation practice – when it’s that time of day, these memories often flood back.

Wishing a Happy Mother’s Day to you and yours.

Are You Cultivating Helpful or Unhelpful Habits

Are You Cultivating Helpful or Unhelpful Habits

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Almost everything you do is driven by habits. We all have good, helpful habits and bad, or unhelpful, habits. You can think of your habits as the drivers getting you closer or further away from achieving what’s important to you. Habits are the foundation for major change in your life. That’s why it’s so important to understand if you’re cultivating helpful or unhelpful habits. To achieve your goals, you want to provide the best support and conditions that set you up to be successful. This happens by cultivating helpful habits that are directly aligned to those goals. And by eliminating any unhelpful habits that are slowing or blocking your progress.

How to Cultivate Helpful Habits

Bad habits are the saboteurs that make it harder to achieve what we desire. As mentioned earlier, helpful habits move you toward achieving your goals and desires, whereas unhelpful habits slow or block your progress. To increase your success when changing an unhelpful habit, it’s best to replace it with a new helpful habit. It may be as simple as making a small pivot. Like when you quit drinking soda you replace it with Zevia instead for a week or two, and gradually pivot again to water or herbal tea. Decide what you want to achieve and move toward that goal. It’s more effective than focusing on what you need to stop or get rid of which often creates more pressure and feelings of being deprived. Also, start small with new habits. If it feels too big you’ll either get stuck and never stop or quit after a few days. For example, if you want to begin a daily morning routine that includes journaling and prayer or meditation, start with 5 minutes per day, and gradually increase it by 1 minute each week. To increase your chances of success, create a process and track your results. Something as simple as placing a check mark on a calendar for every day you complete your morning meditation is helpful. Track your results for at least 8 – 12 weeks to evaluate your progress, make any adjustments and to ensure long-lasting results. Get leverage and support when working on your habits. Ask a friend or colleague to point out if you’re demonstrating a habit you’re trying to change, or to complement you when they see you sticking to your new habit. For instance, they can point out when you’re late to a meeting or if you’re on your phone and not listening when others are talking. Cultivating your habits using the above strategies will support positive results. More tips on cultivating habits for success can be found here.

Two Words that Help Change Your Mindset

Here’s a suggestion from one of my own coaches. Change the phrase “I can’t” to “I don’t” when in a situation where you have a hard time sticking to your helpful habit or goal. For instance, let’s say you have a healthy eating goal of limiting high carb processed foods like flour and sugar. You’re out to dinner and the bread basket arrives. Instead of saying or thinking, “I can’t have any bread”, say or think “I don’t eat bread, that’s not for me”. This subtle shift helps change your mindset. “I can’t” is very limiting, and puts you into a victim or less-than mindset which may blow up on you in the long-term. “I don’t” is empowering, you’re in charge, you’re taking responsibility and it’s your decision. You should be able to feel the difference in energy in these two statements. Where can you make this shift? Think of a few examples and commit to making this shift at the next opportunity.

Act with Intention: Cultivate Helpful Habits

This method of cultivating helpful habits works for creating helpful habits and for changing unhelpful habits. The key is to put intention into the helpful habits you want to create, and be as specific as possible by adding in a situation, time, and location. For instance, you’ll meditate each morning for 5 minutes in your bed immediately after waking up, at 6 a.m. Include how long, where, when and how frequently. Or another example is you’ll take a fun 20 minute walk around the block with your dogs after dinner on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. For unhelpful habits, you make the trigger of that habit your situation, and then change how you respond. It’s a simple pivot toward what you want to achieve, like in the quitting soda example earlier. That response (having Zevia, water or tea when habitually reaching for a soda) becomes your new habit. Two more tips for cultivating helpful habits are: Make it fun. You’re more likely to stick with something you enjoy doing. For example, add your favorite music to your exercise routine or listen to your favorite books or podcast during your new walking routine. Be compassionate, kind and easy on yourself. You may slip up and that’s ok. Pay attention and stop any negative self-talk or harsh judgments, like “I knew you’d fail” or “you never stick with anything”. Instead, just refocus on the results your striving for, get excited about achieving them, and kindly say or think to yourself, “this slip is ok, you’re making great progress”. In the comments, please share one helpful habit you’ve successfully created this year and what goal it has helped you achieve.   Photo by Rawpixel on Unsplash

Put a Stop to Your Self-Sabotage Once and for All

Put a Stop to Your Self-Sabotage Once and for All

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Let’s put a stop to your self-sabotage once and for all.

Do you want something in your life but can’t seem to attain it? Maybe it’s a goal, dream, or vision you have and yet, month after month, year after year, the time passes by and you’re no closer to achieving it.

Have you already realized you’re sabotaging yourself? Do you actually witness yourself about to do the opposite of what could make you fulfilled, yet you still take that unhelpful action.

Sometimes it feels out of control or like you’re not the one driving that behavior. That’s your subconscious keeping you from living your best life.

Or maybe you’ve rationalized that it’s ok to watch TV for 5 hours when you planned to work on your finances, organize your office and then go for a walk.

You tell yourself that you’ve had a long stressful week at work and you deserve to numb out while binge-watching a TV show. But this short-term ‘reward’ doesn’t support or help your long-term goals.

Dissonance and Cognitive Dissonance

Dissonance is the opposite of harmony. It’s the tension when two conflicting or disharmonious things are combined.

For instance, you say you want less stress in your life and began to see good results by meditating daily, yet now you don’t make it a priority and don’t take the time to meditate at all.

More specifically, cognitive dissonance is a theory in social psychology. It refers to the mental conflict that occurs when your behaviors and beliefs don’t align, like in the meditating example above. You believe and know meditating daily reduces your stress, but your behavior of no longer doing so doesn’t align with that belief.

This mental conflict, or cognitive dissonance, can cause you to feel uncomfortable, stressed, anxious, ashamed or guilty. And since you have an instinctive desire to avoid these types of feelings, you attempt to relieve it.

That’s where the self-sabotage comes in and can have a significant impact on how you think and behave, and the decisions and actions you take. You may get some temporary relief, but in the long-run it’s unhelpful and destructive.

For instance, you may ignore your doctor’s advice, blood test results or published research that causes dissonance. And you may explain things away or devalue them to continue in your pattern.

Years ago, one of my co-workers knew smoking cigarettes was cancer causing yet she explained that it was necessary to calm her nerves given her demanding role at work. She also justified her smoking habit by saying she was concerned about gaining weight if she quit, like she witnessed in her other family members and friends. We’ll believe and keep doing just about anything to relieve the discomfort.

Self-Sabotage: Your Saboteur at Work

You may believe that this sabotaging voice is trying to protect you from harm or that it’s really helping you in some way.

But self-sabotage really is you creating problems for yourself that interfere with your true goals.

It’s not some outside force creating havoc in your life. Realize this and take responsibility for you and your saboteur.

And understand that your saboteur wants you to maintain the status quo in your life.

These are examples of saboteur thoughts. Do any of these sound familiar to you?

  • You’re not good enough or I’m not good enough.
  • You don’t deserve this or I don’t deserve this.
  • They’re going to get upset with you.
  • That’s too hard.
  • I’ll never be successful at this or you’ll never be successful.
  • I’ll do it tomorrow.
  • It’s not okay to be wealthy/happy.
  • It’s not safe to put yourself out there, they’ll criticize and judge you.

Listening to your saboteur is a choice you’re making so that you can feel differently. Pay attention to these thoughts or beliefs; noticing them is the first step in stopping your self-sabotage.

Additionally, expect the saboteur to get stronger whenever you begin to make positive changes in your life. Expect it and be ready for it. The action steps below can help.

Act with Intention: Identify your saboteur and stop your self-sabotage

The saboteur loses its power over us when we’re aware and can identify it, realize we have other options in that situation, and then consciously choose the action at that time that serves us best (gets us closer to our true goal).

Here are some actions to take to identify your saboteur and stop your self-sabotage. It takes practice and work, and consistency, and over time you’ll be back in control and seeing positive results.

  1. Identify your saboteur by answering these questions. Where are you sabotaging yourself? What does your saboteur often think or say? In your environment, either at work or at home, what self-sabotaging language is being used, by you or others? For instance, a new opportunity at work has come up. It would be a promotion for you and you’re excited to learn more about it. Then you feel a little apprehensive, even nervous or scared, and the following thought stream pops into your head “I’m not ready for this. What if I fail? It’s easier to just stay in this role and not put myself out there to be rejected.”
  1. Next, you want to challenge and change those beliefs. Every time that thought, belief or language comes up, recognize it as your saboteur and change it. Then consciously choose a new thought and behavior that supports your long-term goals and wellbeing.

In the example above, you recognize those thoughts and beliefs for what they are. It’s your saboteur.

  • Challenge “I’m not ready for this” with “Of course I’m ready, this is the perfect job for me.”
  • Challenge “What if I fail?” with “What if I don’t fail? What if I don’t even try?”
  • Challenge “It’s easier to just stay in this role and not put myself out there to be rejected” with “This new role is part of my long-term career plans, I’m ready for it and I’ll do a fantastic job. If I don’t get selected now, they may consider me for other opportunities in the future because I pursued this role and they know I’m interested in my career growth.”

You may need to get some leverage involved in order to change that thought or behavior. To do that, ask yourself, “What is this costing me in terms of health, wellbeing, relationships, and success? How is this holding me back from my goals and dreams and the vision I see for myself?”

In the example above, the leverage could be envisioning yourself in 2 – 5 years in the future, in the same role, earning a similar salary, not being challenged or growing professionally or personally. How would that feel? What have you missed out on? What are you still tolerating? How does staying stagnant impact your wellbeing, relationships, your long-term goals and dreams?

Challenge Yourself

If you’re struggling with achieving a particular goal, your saboteur could be at work. Sometimes you’re not even aware of it.

I challenge you to get really focused, act intentionally, identify your saboteur and stop your self-sabotage once and for all.

Leave a comment below when you start seeing the positive changes from stopping your self-sabotage. Share your success to encourage others.

Take the Time to Integrate

Take the Time to Integrate

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The definition of integrate is to form, coordinate, or blend into a functioning or unified whole.

Taking the time to integrate is to intentionally stop taking in more and to combine what you’ve already have for deeper growth and development. Once you integrate, you get to deeper levels of knowledge and fulfillment in your life.

For instance, if you love to learn new things, you may have a tendency to read more and more books, take more workshops and listen to more podcasts. It almost feels like an addiction at times. A friend or colleague recommends a new course or workshop and you sign up, take it, and quickly move on to the next one.

Many times you don’t gain much, in fact, you just consume and never implement what you’ve learned.

You never integrated it; you never took the material to a deeper level where it could make a significant impact in your career or in your life.

The Myth of More is Better

More is better is a myth. The constant strive for more in our culture prevents us from seeing and experiencing the true value of what we already have.

It supports the idea and feeling that wherever you are is not good enough, because more is always better.

It’s hard to be grateful and appreciate all that you have now when your focus is on getting more.

I’ve worked with people who were always focused on the next project or the next job, and never appreciated all they were experiencing in their current role. They missed the fulfilling things like the relationships they were building, the people they were helping and the new things they were learning.

The energy around more is better feels like a chase – a futile one. You’re chasing after things just to accumulate more. And once you have it, you’re dissatisfied and off to the next thing, and the next and the next.

And it’s not just physical things. We’re constantly absorbing more and more experiences, information and energy but without the time or opportunity to sort through it all.

Take the time to sort through it and you’ll begin to feel some significant improvements.

Why It’s Important to Integrate

The chase for more erodes your energy and your sense of fulfillment. Taking the time to integrate gives you your energy back. You begin to feel more in control and organized.

Taking the time to integrate helps to reduce the overwhelm, stress, and exhaustion you experience in your day to day life. If you’re feeling uncentered, off-balance or even fractured, it may be the signal that it’s time to integrate.

Act with Intention: Take Time to Integrate

Here are some suggestions to start taking intentional action around taking the time to integrate.

First off, slow down and realize if you’re in a “more is better” mindset and exhibiting behaviors like described above. When you notice this behavior or thought, change it to a more helpful behavior or thought. Simply saying “slow down” or “stop” can be enough to bring about some awareness.

It took some time to get here, but now I quickly recognize if I’m going down a ‘learning” rabbit hole. Any emails or suggestions for a new book, course, training program or free live event I either delete immediately or I scan it to see if it’ll be useful and put it on my “maybe later” list.

Taking time to integrate is more than just not taking more in. You want to intentionally integrate experiences and information as they occur or directly afterwards.

One good practice is to spend 5-10 minutes after a meeting or workshop to integrate your key takeaways. Things like what you learned, what you’d like to implement from the training, if anything. Better yet, take notes during it to include which things you’d like to test out and apply to your own life.

Additionally, take a break and stop taking more in – for days, weeks or months if needed. That means no new podcasts, books, workshops or courses during this time period.

During this break from consuming more info, data and things, sort through what you already have. This can be done by simply taking the time to think about things. Embrace daydreaming. Let you mind wander. Meditate. This is how your brain sorts and categorizes information.

A good question to ask is: Is this information useful for you and can you apply it to your life? If not, let it go.

If it’s useful, your next step is to take action and test it out. Apply it and experience this information.

Lastly, after testing it out review what you’ve learned through the application and experience of integrating it into your life. Are there any additional lessons or knowledge? Have your beliefs changed as a result?

Taking the time to integrate is the best way to become a more unified whole. You’ll find it brings new levels of understanding and wisdom, and you’ll feel more fulfilled in your life.

 

 

Photo by Aiony Haust on Unsplash

Why Taking Responsibility Feels So Good

Why Taking Responsibility Feels So Good

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Responsibility is part of your personal power and that’s why taking responsibility feels so good. When you’re feeling powerless, stress and anxiety increase, and it’s a small step to blaming and complaining about others or the situation. Responsibility is about responding to your circumstances from a higher place, a place aligned with your goals, your dreams, your values, and your contribution to others and society. The empowering nature of responsibility amplifies feelings of satisfaction and fulfillment.

Response – ability. What responsibility really means

The word responsibility broken down is response – ability. It’s simply the ability to respond. It’s when you intentionally and consciously make choices and take actions for the benefit of others or for yourself. You choose behaviors and make decisions to bring about change, change for the better. For instance, say you’re leading a team at work and one of the team members seems disengaged in meetings and is missing deadlines and deliverables. Do you immediately blame the individual or ignore the situation, hoping it’ll improve on its own? Or, as a responsible team lead, do you have a private conversation with him to share your observations and find out if there are legitimate reasons for the lack of engagement and poor follow-through?

Owning it

Most importantly, when you’re taking responsibility you take action and you own the outcome of that action (your choice or decision). Refusing to take responsibility by blaming others or the circumstances for your situation gives away your power. You ultimately are denying your ability to respond – to take action to change the circumstance for the better. It’s the law of cause and effect. You take action, create the cause, watch the effect and take responsibility for the outcome – good or not so good. In the earlier example, the responsible team lead took the action to have a private conversation to find out if there are legitimate reasons for the lack of engagement and poor follow-through. The outcome could be a turnaround in behavior and results just from that simple conversation. Or it could be continued problems with this person. Either way, a leader takes responsibility for both actions and outcomes, owns that outcome and may have to take additional actions if the situation does not improve.

Leadership, not victim-hood

Imagine if this leader never addressed the issue, and this situation jeopardized the entire project getting done on time and on budget, not to mention the poor morale from the other team members. These types of choices happen in our personal lives too. The choice to be proactive and empowered and take responsibility or do the opposite: be the recipient of things “happening to you”. Victims avoid taking responsibility; they feel powerless to effect change and so they don’t take any action. They may complain about the pain and suffering it’s causing them, and you might hear them say “why is this happening to me?” or “it’s just not fair”. Ultimately, they wait for someone else to fix the problem. This victim-hood has some benefits, like getting sympathy or attention from others, but long-term it can have a negative impact on your physical and mental wellbeing, your peace of mind, and your overall fulfillment in your career and life.

Why you feel good when you take responsibility

The empowering nature of responsibility amplifies feelings of satisfaction and fulfillment. The feel-good chemicals and reactions in our body go off when we stand in our power, for our own benefit and especially for the benefit of others. By taking responsibility, we build trust and confidence in what we can do. And helping others just feels good, plus it strengthens the trust and relationships we have with them. Even if you don’t get the result you wanted, you still feel good knowing you tried your best in the action you took. As the saying goes, “it’s better to try and fail than to never try at all”.

Act with intention: Take responsibility

Here’s a great exercise to help you nurture more responsibility in your career and in your life. Step 1: Pay specific attention to your language and behavior during challenging situations. Become aware of any blaming or complaining language or behaviors you exhibit throughout the day. Do you say things like “someone should fix this”, or “why is this happening to me?” Are you reactive or defensive a lot? Do you find fault in others or whenever something goes wrong do you immediately shout “it’s not my fault” or ask “whose fault is this”? Jot it down when you hear it or make a mental note. Step 2: Next, begin to change the language or behavior as it’s happening or immediately afterwards. When you hear yourself saying “why is this happening to me?”, change it to “What can I learn from this?” or “How is this challenge causing me to grow and expand?”. Come from a place and attitude of growth, learning, expansion and responsiveness. Other healthy responses are “what do I want as on outcome out of this?” or “what can I do to positively change this?” These statements and new behaviors will build your personal empowerment and responsibility. It’s best to use your energy productively and responsibly. Remember the law of cause and effect and take action, observe the effect, take responsibility (own the outcome) and adjust your actions going forward to bring about your desired results in your career and in your life.   Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash