There is no grey area

Are you moving towards your ideal life? That’s the question I ask all of my MBA mentees and quite often the response is ‘no, I feel as though I’m standing still.’ I then break the painful news to them that there is no ‘standing still.’ This usually takes them by surprise and even though they are intelligent individuals it takes them a few minutes to wrap their brains around the concept until I explain that standing still is an illusion and that if they’re not moving towards what they want then they are in fact moving away.

The trap of the grey area is one that I too fell into until my mentor pointed it out to me. The only escape from the grey area is action, consistent action. Even a small amount of action will move you closer to your version of an ideal life. And I don’t mean a life of unicorns dancing on rainbows. I mean a life that is a little healthier, a little more fulfilling a life that satisfies the needs of your own personality.

So, take some time to evaluate the areas you think you might be stuck or standing still and take one small action that will move you towards where you want to be. By the way, the secret is that you will not know if it’s the right action until you take it : )

*I have created a wall paper for my phone of the image above so that it serves as a constant reminder every time I unlock my phone. You can download the image here.

Bowling for a business meeting? Yes you read that right. At the beginning of the year I decided that I’ll try to do things a little different this year, so when an acquaintance reached out to me for a lunch meeting I replied with how about bowling or pool.  I specifically picked these because they are both indoor activities so the weather wouldn’t be a factor and the environment would be also relatively quiet so we could also engage in conversation. To my surprise she quite enthusiastically replied that she’d like to go bowling. So, I had my first bowling meeting of the year. We spent about an hour playing so from a time perspective it was comparable to any other lunch meeting and we both had a blast. Just out of curiosity I turned on my step counter and was pleasantly surprised that I had walked 3700 steps during our game. So I conducted business, worked out and had fun. I see more of this in my future and hopefully you’ll try it too.

So, the next time someone asks you for a lunch or even coffee meeting maybe respond with how about bowling and see how they react.

I recently had an email exchange with an individual regarding happy new and the usual pleasantries that are exchanged this time of year. One of the comments she made was ‘I hope the New Year brings new opportunities.’ My response to her was‘ how about you go out and look for opportunities and maybe the new year will meet you half way.’  Her email made me realize just how many of us often do rely on hope whether we do it consciously or unconsciously, although hoping is not a bad thing it does put us in a position of relying on external factors to deliver to us what we want and desire.

The dictionary defines hope as an expectation and desire for certain things to happen. Hope can give us energy and does allow us to cast a vision of how we would like our future to look and can do wonders for our psyche when in times of doubt and fear.  Hoping is not a negative in itself but must be supported by a strategy and actionable steps as a supporting cast.  So continue to have hope, just don’t forget to take action too.

The Arrival Fallacy

I recently read about this in Tal Ben Shahars book Happier. It really struck a chord with me since I feel that we all feel this way in one form or another. Recently an entrepreneur that was sharing her journey told me that if she only had 10 customers per month she’d be happy. Now I’m sure that many of us feel that if only we have X that we would feel Y, yet unfortunately that’s just not true. In her case  I’m sure that she hasn’t even considered what it’s going to be like to support and service those 10 customers on a daily basis. The issues that she’ll face on the accounts receivable, the customer service calls etc.

Another example that I’ve come across quite often and is very popular is hearing someone say when I weigh x pounds I’ll be happy. I can tell you from my  own experience of weighing ~260 to now weighing ~175 that there is almost more pressure to maintain this weight.  The reason being is that I think about weighing 260 every day and how I never want to ever get back there. So every day I take actions to prevent that from happening. My point being is that although I’m at a weight where I feel comfortable, I’m still on the journey of now maintaining the weight.

Every destination or goal will come with its own set of problems or challenges. So as cliched as it sounds to say ‘enjoy the journey’ I can tell you from my own experience that it is the best attitude to have.

My meditation practice has improved exponentially over the past year. I’ve been meditating in one form or another for about 12 years. I first started out taking some classes that looked a lot like Transcendental Meditation in a group setting. I was quickly turned off from that practice once I was told to ‘picture the guru in the light within my heart.’ Nothing against gurus, it just didn’t work for me.

I then attended a breathing practice meditation, but found that the idea of going somewhere to meditate was prohibitive to my schedule, mostly because I was lazy to do so. Books and audio were next on my journey and over time I cobbled together an erratic practice at best. Sometimes lying in bed and meditating, only to find myself falling asleep. Trying to sit upright with my legs crossed doing my best to imitate what I thought meditation should look like, but would find the position uncomfortable and aggravating to my lower back.

Finally about a year ago I found my sweet spot. I made a few small adjustments and can now meditate for an hour if I choose to without any discomfort and feeling as though only minutes have gone by.

Here are the changes I made that improved my practice

• Setup a large pillow against the wall and a blanket on the floor (see above pic). The pillow helps with the discomfort I felt in back from my previously herniated discs. The blanket provides just the right amount of comfort and warmth especially since I tend to get cold easily.
• I changed my breathing patterns. I used to count my breathing probably like most individuals do. Starting at 1 breathe in, 2 breathe out, 3 breathe in etc., however I found that by the time I reached 8 or 9 my mind started to wander and was no longer counting. The simple change I made was to only count in a 1, 2 cadence. So breathe in 1 and out 2, in 1 out 2 etc.  At this pace I can concentrate on my breathing much longer
• Cut down significantly on my alcohol intake. I’ve never been a big drinker, but what I noticed was that even one glass of wine would make my mind groggy the next morning and my meditation would not be as clear. So I made the choice to cut out alcohol, which has been a little bit of an issue socially but return on meditation has been phenomenal.

My technique. Again after all the years of practice I decided to create my own method, justifying by telling myself that some kind of practice is better than none at all. My meditation practice depends on the kind of day I’m going to have. I always incorporate my breathing technique for some period of my meditation time because it helps me relax and center myself. Then I combine it with one of the following

• Open monitoring. If I have a somewhat normal day of meetings and work related stuff then I spend my meditation time just recognizing my thoughts and allowing them to pass along while trying not to focus too much on any one of them. I find this very useful because many times I find my thoughts to be memories of the previous days and I almost feel as though I able to file the relevant ones into my mind for later recall if needed.
• If I have an important meeting that day then I try to envision the outcome of that meeting and how I want the conversation to flow. It’s almost as though I do a dry run so that when I’m actually in the meeting I don’t feel as though it’s my first time being there. The other part of visioneering is seeing how I would like my future to unfold and what steps I have to take to get there. This very often brings a smile to my face and I feel the corners of my mouth turn up as I meditate and is one of my favorite things to do.

The results I’ve seen in past year have been incredible.

• Increased focus
• Improved recall
• The ability to control my heart rate. My internal ninja loves this one. I’ve always had a great resting heart rate but after my meditation began to improve I was able to bring my resting heart down to the low 40’s at will.

Now seems as good as time if any to talk about accountability. With the New Year comes resolutions and promises made that have a high rate of failure unless steps are taken to ensure a degree of success.

In the last year I found myself sharing over and over a simple tool that that has helped me accomplish more than I thought I could in all areas of life. A simple accountability sheet that I adopted about 14 years ago while I was a real estate agent at Keller Williams Realty. I was fortunate to attend seminars and speak with best selling author of One Thing, Gary Keller(he’s the Keller in Keller Williams) a few times and he always emphasized the power of goal setting. Gary taught us a lot about how to goal set and how having an accountability partner can motivate a person to work harder for their goals and he was right!

This simple tool has helped through career changes, business challenges, business school and even my personal life. In retrospect the weekly updates can be compared to the weekly sprints that are an integral part of the agile methodology. Having a reliable partner that is willing to keep you accountable is also a key to this being effective. The job of the accountability partner is not to judge but to facilitate the development of the other person. If an item is moving from week to week without getting done then probing questions are encouraged in order help re-prioritize if needed.

I recently heard motivational expert Ed Deci say that we should there is a fine line between reaching to far from our level of competence where we are intimidated and we don’t take any action and being to close to our current level where we are bored. His advice is that the challenge should be about 4% than our current baseline in order for us to feel comfortable yet motivated to accomplish it. So this year I’m going to be aiming for ~4% improvement every month and will break down my weeks accordingly.

I hope this helps you as much as it has helped me.

Accountability worksheet