We are a culture of judgment. All of us make snap judgments every day. It’s part of our wiring; for example we need to make quick judgments to determine if we are in danger or safe. How else could the human race have survived for millions of years? Aside from our biology, our families, schools, churches, workplaces, and entertainment are sources of messages with judgment attached to them. From infancy, and some even claim from the womb, we pick up messages and can find ourselves automatically accepting these messages as truth. We also pick up the emotion that is attached to the message. If your parents believed that making a living was a struggle and lived in a state of fear about money, guess what? On a subconscious level you pick up on the fear that is attached to the message about scarcity and that message is stored and automatically plays in your thoughts when issues of money arise. In the course of a lifetime we receive thousands of messages and depending on the situation and the emotional charge attached to it, we form thought patterns based on these messages that either serve us or diminish us.
I’m reading a fascinating book by John Bradshaw called “Healing the Shame that Binds Us.” The book describes the process of internalizing these judgments and explains how this can become toxic when we assume the emotion as our own identity, specifically with regard to shame. There is such a thing as healthy shame. Healthy shame keeps us from acting in an unethical or morally unacceptable way. When shame becomes toxic our self-talk becomes unhealthy, sometimes in the extreme. We believe that we are defective, unlovable, incompetent, unworthy. At that point our self-talk or inner critic has a field day. Our thoughts are then messages from our inner critic that are triggered in various situations. I had a situation in my last corporate job where my boss told me that I sucked. It was a completely unprofessional and inappropriate statement but my mind zeroed in on the message that I was inadequate. That triggered emotions from other times in my life when I had felt shamed and my inner critic was off and running with a long list of the various other ways that I sucked. Because that situation was so emotionally charged for me it took a fair amount of time to have any rational thoughts about it. For a while I was literally paralyzed with shame.
There are other ways that our inner critic speaks to us. She/he will tell us what we should or shouldn’t do, will make every situation seem like a catastrophe (if I don’t save more money I’ll be out on the street), will project our thoughts and feelings onto others; will make generalized judgments, especially about people (all bosses are insensitive pigs). When we are in the mode of “all or nothing” it’s a sure sign that it’s a distorted message from our inner critic.
The good news is that we can learn to talk back to our critic. We can challenge those generalizations with facts. We can learn to stop our inner critic in his or her tracks. It takes awareness, persistence and practice but it can be done.

How often have you invested in a personal growth training to try to improve something you felt you were not good at? Perhaps it was marketing, sales, personnel management or public speaking. For most of us, trying to improve our weak areas in operating our business or managing our department comes with the territory. Whatever the area, we feel as if we are required to do battle with what we don’t do well.

As it turns out, the majority of people around the world feel this way. In their groundbreaking book Now, Discover Your Strengths, authors Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton say that across all ages and cultures, people are more concerned about their weaknesses than their strengths. We believe that our weaknesses matter more in holding us back than our strengths matter in advancing us.

That’s nonsense, say the authors—widely held nonsense, but nonsense nonetheless. In their provocative theory, they suggest that the better strategy is to play to your strengths, building upon your core talents, and work around your weaknesses. You can work to add skills and knowledge to increase your performance in any area, but unless you are building upon one of your innate talents, your efforts won’t produce exceptional results—some results, yes, but not dramatic improvement.

“Unless you have the necessary talent, your improvements will be modest,” write Buckingham and Clifton. “You will be diverting most of your energy toward damage control and very little toward real development.”

The expression “damage control” is their term for trying to minimize your weaknesses—the areas where your lack of talent actually get in the way of your performance.

“Managing Around” a Weakness
Instead of trying to overcome your weaknesses by brute force—and at the expense of putting the same energy into growing your strengths—they offer five strategies for what they call “managing around” a weakness:

Get a little better at it. In some cases, your weakness is only moderately impeding your peak performance in other areas. If so, then maybe damage control is the right solution.

Develop a support system. This is the proverbial string tied around the finger to remind you of something. Whether it is time management systems for those with a talent for adaptability but not discipline, or a scheduled walk in the park for disciplined folks who neglect self-care, you can often blunt the effects of your weaknesses through such structured inputs.

Study your prospects. If your skills tend toward the analytical and away from such talents as wooing clients or dealing directly with confrontation, then you probably ought not be spending a lot of time in sales. But when you do have to sell something—such as one of your ideas—approach the problem analytically. Rather than agonize over your lack of salesmanship, study your prospects, dig into what makes them tick and what ideas they’ve accepted in the past, and let your enthusiasm for your ideas do the talking.

Find a partner. This may be the best approach for small business people and “solo” practitioners. Go into partnership discussions with a clear-eyed understanding of the strengths you bring, and the strengths you need from your partner. Don’t be shy about your strengths—the whole point of this is to create a world in which you get to do what you are really good at. And be open-minded about what a partnership looks like. For some solo practitioners, an administrative assistant or a marketing consultant could be all the partnering you need.

Just (Don’t) Do It
The last option, say Buckingham and Clifton, is just don’t do the things you are weak at. In a corporate setting you might get away with this, particularly if you are a high-performer in the areas of your strengths. If you’re a small business owner and your organizational chart tends to have “me” written in most every box, not doing something may not seem like much of a choice. But keep it as a goal and continue to work toward the day when you can contribute to your business exclusively from the place of your highest strengths.

Ancient Romans named the month of January for Janus, their god of gates, doors and beginnings.

Always pictured with two faces—one looking toward the future, the other back at the past—Janus is a fitting symbol for the turning of a new year.

As we step through the doorway from one year to the next, it’s natural to do as Janus does: look back and ahead. But this year, instead of just reflecting on the past year or making New Year’s resolutions, consider using this first part of the year to take stock of your life.

Who are you? What do you believe? What do you really need?

When we discover who we really are, we stop living on auto-pilot and start to live with intention, focus and purpose. Our choices become clearer. We begin to make active choices in our life, instead of making excuses or passively living with the status quo.

Here are a few questions to get you started. Have a journal or some way to record your thoughts. (Writing by hand keeps you in touch with your breath and your heart.)

•  What is aching to be expressed?

•  What needs healing

•  What unique gifts, talents and skills do you bring to the world? How are you using them (or not)?

•  Who do you need to forgive? How about yourself?

•  What beliefs are holding you back or getting in your way?

•  What can you let go of in your life?

•  What makes you happy?

Don’t forget to consider the vital information that other “parts” of yourself are giving you. When you use only your head, your experience of yourself and the world is more limited.

•  What is your body telling you? When someone yells at you, does your stomach tie up in knots? Do your shoulders stiffen when you’ve been too focused on fulfilling others’ needs and ignoring your own? Notice the messages your body is giving you.

•  Check in with your heart. The heart is the home of what is most alive in us. What does your heart have to say about your job? About how you spend your days? Does it need more play time? What, according to your heart, really matters?

•  Listen to your intuition, your “gut.” Your intuition speaks volumes, but often gets ignored. What is this voice saying now?

Don’t forget to notice what you already have that is working. Acknowledge and give thanks for the gifts and the beauty and the miracles that are in your life right now. Write them down.

Tell the truth. Now is the time to start being honest about who you really are. Encouraging those unlived parts of ourselves to emerge can provide an exhilarating sense of discovery and optimism for the New Year and beyond.

What gets in the way of truly and completely accepting and loving yourself exactly as you are?  For most of us it involves some sort of judgment or comparison.  We all have lots of beliefs that we hold about how things are supposed to be.  We get them from our families, our religions, our culture, our workplace, etc.  Messages like big girls don’t cry, it’s important to please everyone, success at any cost, more is better than less, especially when it involves what we earn.  And let’s not leave out our judgments about weight and appearance.  I won’t be happy/worthy unless I lose 20 pounds or wear a size 2 or have the best clothes.  Some of these beliefs are so embedded in our consciousness that we hardly know that they are there.  We hold ourselves up to some idealized view of perfection and judge ourselves as falling short, or believe we are “less than” others because we don’t measure up.  Our inner critic kicks in and punishes us for the way we are.

I find it helpful when I find myself listening to my inner critic to take a breath and start asking myself if that voice is really telling the truth.  Do I really believe that I’ll be happier if I earn more money or look like Angelina Jolie?  Or am I really just buying into some cultural belief that doesn’t really serve me.  What are my own values around money and appearance?  What is your inner critic telling you?  Do you think you need to make everyone else happy, live in a bigger house, drive a better car, get a promotion or look or behave like some idealized and impossible standard?  Do those beliefs really serve you?  Do they get in the way of seeing your unique gifts and talents and loving yourself as the miracle of creation that you are?

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t work on improving ourselves.  Sometimes we do need to make better choices for our health, be more tolerant and forgiving in relationships, get in touch with our goals around money, learn a new skill, etc.  What I am saying is that when we listen to our inner critic we are less likely to feel good about ourselves and make choices from our true desires and values rather than what we think we “should” do.

Self-acceptance can be a life long journey.  It starts with self-awareness and curiosity.  The more we are open to the possibilities of who we really are and what we truly value and desire the happier we will be, with ourselves and everyone else.

“Get your ideas on paper and study them. Do not let them go to waste!” Les Brown

I don’t know about you, but there’s something in me that has always resisted journaling. I have the best of intentions but when it comes right down to it, I only journal sporadically. My attitude about that has really shifted recently. I read a new book, “Becoming a Life Change Artist” by Fred Mandell and Kathleen Jordan. One of the suggestions early in the book is to use a sketch pad, rather than a journal. I decided to give it a try and the results have been pretty interesting. I keep my sketch pad and colored pencils handy, whenever I know I will be needing to take notes for one of the classes I’m taking, or if I have some free time and just want to play. For me, adding the elements of color and doodling have made all the difference. Journaling feels much less like a chore, something I should be doing, versus just taking notes in pretty colors, catching some random thoughts and feelings, jotting done some ideas for my business that I want to remember, or just playing with colors and shapes.

A couple of different instructors have told me recently that are brains are not designed to be storage devices. When we try to remember everything, keep everything in our head, we are actually blocking our creativity. We need to drop the stuff we’re trying to store so that we have more capacity to produce, create, and invent. The fact that I’m hearing this from more than one source has really had an impact on me. I have to admit I still don’t use my sketch pad every day. But I have been feeling more alive, joyful, creative and productive. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence.

The process of coaching takes you on a journey and for myself and many of my clients it is the journey to our most authentic self.  It’s an amazing ride filled with highs and lows and lots of “aha” moments.  Personally I’ve had a coach ever since I started studying coaching and the self-knowledge I’ve gained as well as the clarity about why I’m here has been invaluable.

I’ve noticed that there is a common misconception though and it has to do with finally “getting there”, to that elusive place of enlightenment, nirvana, complete inner peace, whatever you want to call it.  The truth is, most of us will never be Jesus or Buddha.  We’ll be a work in progress.  We live in a very goal oriented culture and we place a high value on results and the more immediate the better.  When we don’t immediately find enlightenment, we start second-guessing and doubting ourselves.  We question our decisions and can get stuck because we’re not there yet.

My invitation for you is to step into the place of “right for right now”.  Realize that you are making judgments and decisions from where you are right now.  You may feel differently a month from now, or a year from now and that’s OK.  Do your due diligence about your decision but don’t judge yourself as wrong.  How liberating would it be to make decisions from that place?  We are all doing the best we can from where we are right now.  We may not even have the gift of tomorrow.  When you live from “right for right now” you are encouraging yourself to trust and grow your most precious asset, your authentic self.

Namaste

What do you have in common with Rembrandt, Monet and Picasso?  Unless you’re a fabulously talented visual artist the answer may not be obvious.  In their new book “Becoming a Life Change Artist” Fred Mandell and Kathleen Jordan outline the skills that all creative people possess and the good news is that we can learn them.  If you’re like me and have never taken an art class in your life it’s still possible to unleash your creativity and use the same skills these amazing artists have used to navigate any transition in life.  I believe at some point in everyone’s life we all have an opportunity to reinvent ourselves.  There may be a triggering event such as the death of a spouse, divorce, getting downsized, or even something positive such as graduating from college or retirement.  We find ourselves in unknown territory and without some of the skills necessary to navigate to our desired destination.  I also believe that there has never been a time in history when it is more necessary to learn about life change and transition.  I have a 17 year old son and career-wise he may have to reinvent himself many times before retirement.  Change is constant and we must learn to expect change and manage it and pass those skills on to future generations.

This wonderful book outlines the four creative dimensions of life change and shows how they parallel the creative process of the great masters.  The second part of the book outlines the seven skills that are necessary to navigate those dimensions; those skills were also developed and applied by artists in their creative journey.  The book is filled with real-life examples of people going through life changes and how they managed the dimensions and used the same skills in their own journeys.

I’ve read a lot of books about change and I have to say this is my favorite.  It’s a great blend of inspiration and practical step-by-step guidance that anyone can use.

What does it mean to own your own power? How do you know when you are giving your power away? I began to ponder these questions when I embarked on a new quest for personal growth in 2002 and several times a year I am reminded that I still have work to do in this area.

When I was growing up, to be female meant to defer to authority, particularly male authority figures. As I became an adult this was a pattern that was largely subconscious for me. It took years of distance from my birth family to even see that this was an issue for me. In many subtle and not so subtle ways, I gave away my unique power to others. Even the word “power” was a loaded one; I had no wish to identify with the idea of power. Power meant control, of other people, of resources. Power started and perpetuated war and conflict.

I now have a completely different meaning of power for myself. Power means understanding and speaking what is true for me. Having power means owning and appreciating the unique gifts that I have as a human being; it also means appreciating the unique gifts of others.

When I am truly powerful, I feel completely free to be myself and have the expectation that others do the same. When we are all standing in our power we have the ability to create a new world, where everyone is viewed as unique and appreciated as such, regardless of status.

When I give my power away, the world is somehow diminished, just as I am. As a coach it is my honor and privilege to witness the unique gifts and power my clients possess and to remind them of their gifts, and champion them, when they are having trouble seeing them. To me, that is the definition of true power.

I’ve been meeting with a women’s spiritual group over the last several months and one of the ideas we’ve been working with is based on “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz. We all have those situations in life where we ask ourselves why in the world is this happening to me. I happened to have lunch yesterday with one of my wise women friends and we were discussing a situation in my life with my teenage son that is troublesome. We hadn’t seen each other in a couple of years but like all wonderful friends we just jumped in where we left off. We talked about how important it seems to be in life to be able to just take what comes and look at it from a higher perspective. What is the lesson? The truth is when we’re deep in the midst of it, sometimes we just don’t know. It takes some time, prayer, and doing our own personal work to really understand the lesson. If it involves another person, sometimes we just have to step back and say this is really about them and not about me. As a mother I want to step in, take control, reassure my son that everything will be all right, but in all honesty, I know that my son is becoming his own person. He has his own mission in life and my lessons are not his, and the lessons he needs to learn are not necessarily mine. He is on his own path and all I can do sometimes is appreciate him for his own uniqueness and trust that he will find his way. Everything is happening for a reason and I have to trust , in time, we will all learn the lessons that are meant for us as individuals.

As a coach, of course I work with this every day. I trust that my clients are creative, resourceful, and whole, and that the work we do together advances the life lessons that they are here to learn. I have witnessed this happening, as if by magic, and feel privileged to be doing this amazing work. I have to admit, as a mom, it’s a lot harder to have that perspective. So my lesson today is to keep reminding myself that what’s going on with my wonderful son is not about me. He is his own person, and right now my work as his mom, is to trust in him, knowing that it really is about him.

While we don’t have control over the weather, other people and what they think of us, much as we’d like to, we would do well to pay attention to the areas in our life that we can actually do something about.

1. OUR ACTIONS. We alone our responsible for what we do.

2. OUR WORDS. Spoken or written, the words we choose impact our lives and the lives of others.

3. OUR BELIEFS. If we believe that others should take care of our needs, then we will be frustrated when they don’t. We can change our beliefs.

4. OUR VALUES. What’s important to us is our call. No one else can tell us what to value.

5. OUR WORK. Although many of us complain about being stuck in a job or a profession, we actually get to choose what our work in the world is.

6. OUR FRIENDS. Those we choose to associate with say a lot about what we think about ourselves. We can choose to have friends who support us or who bring us down.

7. OUR INPUT. We can select our source of news, turn of televisions and/or ignore advertising.

8. OUR TIME. Though it sometimes feels as if we have no choice, we do choose every day how we will use the 24 hours a day gives us.

9. OUR BASIC HEALTH. While we can’t control our genetic make-up, we can choose to exercise, sleep enough, eat healthy foods, get routine check-ups, etc.

10. OUR LEGACY. All that we choose while alive, our actions, words, etc, will become the gift we leave when we die.