DOESN’T A WORRYNOMORE WARRANTY SOUND GOOD?

Again, I had a great revelation while watching television!  The scene was a Swedish detective mystery which I am addicted to.  The detective had pulled his car up to a house where he was going to interrogate a mean gal who might be the murderer.  He parked his car and went inside. She wasn’t home. Then gal came home and parked her truck directly in back of the detective’s car.

That’s when I started to worry.  What if he can’t get his car out? Why didn’t he think of this before he parked? Sure enough the mean gal started to curse and yell that someone was in her parking space.  Well, it all worked out and we found out that she wasn’t the murderer but I also found out that I was a little crazy.  This is a show, right? Then I remembered that I had recently read an article on brain science that said our brain believes that everything we see on TV and Movies, is real.  Of course, my brain should have worried about that stupid parking error…..and made my blood pressure go up.

I then realized that I often get caught up in worrying way too much about situations I see on TV. The fictional ones you understand, not the real live news.  Yes, I feel compassion for real people in trouble but I don’t feel like I can help  them or warn them like I do with fictional characters!

Then I came across this WORRYNOMORE  warranty which guarantees if the manufacturer or store can’t fix defects, the warranty will cover it. I envisioned a WORRYNOMORE LIFE WARRANTY I could get for all things that happen in my life. Unfortunately, I should have stopped there because I went onto read about Macy’s WORRYNOMORE warranty which you can get for an additional fee when you buy mattresses and furniture.  Oh my! Macy’s got only one star and at least ten of the most incredible stories about nightmares of absolutely run around and no customer service let alone compensation for major defects. And these were in 2015….

If you could buy a WORRYNOMORE LIFE WARRANTY for all of your life’s worries, how much would you pay for it? What worries would you like it to cover?  What would the elements of the warranty need to be in order for you to be covered(ie., money compensation, psychological counseling, a worry counseling sent to your home immediately?)

You are a lawyer, what would the language of the warranty look like?

If you did this exercise, you might find out something more about your worries….but I won’t give you a warranty on that!

HOW TO STOP WORRYING AND GET SOME SLEEP

I was forced into watching the Dr. Oz show this morning because his program is on right after the Today Show. Not switching channels was my first lazy move of the day.  However, he had a guest psychologist on who spoke about constant worry and the stress from it which can have disastrous affects on the body and mind.

She spoke with three women who had different patterns of worry but each found the worry was taking a toll on their live.  One of the suggestions was to interfere when the thoughts start by thinking of something silly(like a man in a bunny suit singing nonsense tunes).  Or to think of something pleasant that has happened in your life.  The trouble I found with this one was that I didn’t know what to think about after I had “interfered”.  I discovered that part of my thought process is to always  start planning activities or work on solving problems which sometimes produces more stress.

This indicates that I need to come up with different subjects to think about.  That’s really hard.

The other dynamic suggestion was, of course, meditation and breath control.  Taking a deep inhale for five counts, then hold for five counts then exhale for five counts.  I guess it would help to think of a mountain stream or a country side filled with flowers after doing this.

I then realized that I am handicapped in stress control because I don’t listen to music.  Maybe that comes from having been married to a composer and having to attend drum concerts! Also constantly being told that I had no musical ability….. Boy, now I can blame my lack of ability to handle worry on my ex!

So, what do you do with all this new found knowledge.  Well, its probably worth a try.  We all know we waste a lot of time worrying about things that never happen. One more solution that was given was to say that you will have a specific time to worry and will set up a “worry box” where you will put your worries until the appointed time.  I think that one might work for me. At least I could get some sleep! unless I start worrying that I might forget what’s in my worry box and overlook some important worry…..

Stay well and have some fun this week…..And Get Some Sleep!

PURPOSE: PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Purpose is the final trait that brings Autonomy and Mastery together for greater success!  So, exactly what is Purpose? You would think we would all know. And how does it fit into our Success Trio?

Being the glue that binds Autonomy and Mastery, Purpose is a goal that is defined.  It takes determination and is the object for which somethings exists or is done.  The word, Intentionally, is very important.  Meaning that it is a goal that is intended and not something that is thrust upon us out of necessity.

People are often asked, What is the Purpose of Life?  Such a basic question can be answered all kinds of ways.  Did you ever hear the one about the man who spent all his life trying to find the meaning of life until one day he met a peasant who said that the swami who lived up this gigantic mountain knew the meaning of life.  The man climbed the mountain at great peril to himself for 10 days until he reached the top where the swami had a hut. In front of the hut sat the swami.  The man approached him and said “I understand you know the meaning of life,I have searched the world to find out, please tell me”.  The swami eyed him for a awhile and then said in a voice filled with knowledge: “Life is a Fountain”.  Shocked the man replied: “Life is a Fountain?”.  The swami got up from his cross legged position and walked up to the man and said: “Life is not a Fountain?”.

We might say that the man wasted his life looking for someone to define his purpose.  How many other people are doing that in real life? Are you?

To purposefully do a task, it must be planned.  First, however, there has to be a need.  Once that need is  uncovered, then the purpose becomes clear about what the outcome should be.  For instance, if your refrigerator is smelling, then you know something has to be done.  Your purpose is to have a refrigerator which doesn’t smell.  It is not for you to clean out the refrigerator. That only one way of handling it. It’s important to recognize the difference.  One is jumping to one possible solution while the real purpose is overlooked.  Also this kind of thinking can stifle creative thought.

How many other ways can you see to getting the refrigerator not to smell anymore? An obvious, but absurd one, is to buy a new refrigerator….however, absurd thoughts for other situations might prove fruitful… Don’t limit yourself!

Next week we will put all three Success Traits together and see what we get.  DON’T MISS IT!

CHANGE: EVERYONE CAN DO IT BUT FEW DO!

Every lawyer wants to change something.  It might be a very small change, like not having to look for their keys every morning.  Or something big, like the area of law that they practice.

When you look at it, the small change seems simple.  Simply put a dish by the door and drop your keys in it when you come in and pick them up when you go out.  If you need to, do the same at your office.  Or always put them in a designated pocket.  It is a wonder that people will continue to spend valuable time looking for keys when 10 minutes of planning would eliminate that time waster.

Also some people like to organize and stop wasting time, other people could care less.  They might moan and whine but don’t have the energy or inclination to take the steps to change.  Some people feel so overwhelmed by the day to day activities that they don’t want to even look at the small annoyances in their lives, let along change them.

Are you one of those?  WHAT SMALL CHANGE WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO TODAY?

Now take this opportunity to decide how you will go about making this change:

  • Begin by writing down the small change you want to make.
  • Can you think of any reasons you have never tackled this problem?
  • Ask yourself, what is the advantage of not tackling this problem? Yes you might find that if you make the change, then you have to look at the big changes in your life.  Or maybe you would have to give up whining and getting other people to give you suggestions….which you never follow.
  • What specific steps do you have to take to make the change? Write those down.
  • Write down the date that you will complete the change.
  • Write down how you will feel after you make the change.

That’s the small change.  We’ll talk about the big change next week.  So stay tuned.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT WHEN YOU ARE NOT WORKING?

Ok, so I have an excuse.  I have been in the hospital with a bowel obstruction and that’s why no blog lately .  My Google Analytics tell me that many of you have deserted me in my hour of need.  Do you feel guilty?

But I am back and pondering on what I did when I had to be sick and had tubes running out of body.  I couldn’t really use my cell phone because the IV kept beeping when I wasn’t holding my arm straight out.  Same reason it was hard to read.  TV was awful and I didn’t have my M3 player to listen to Books on Tape.  I couldn’t WORK!

So I had to lay there and be unamused!  Then, of course, when I finally got to sleep the nurses would be in to take my blood pressure and temperature and wake me up.  WHINE, WHINE.

So I started to think about my clients and how proud I was of them.  They are struggling with little and big challenges.  They frequently don’t do what I think they should be doing and make up all kind of excuses.  But that’s alright.  The journey to success is hard and there are many minefields.  So I am thankful every day that the Universe has blessed me with the ability to assist and coach lawyers in their journeys.

I was going to write about confidence this blog but sickness got in the way.  I promise I will get to that on Monday (my usual blogging day) and in the meantime, I will just continue to be grateful for all I have.

ONE POSSIBLE WAY AROUND OBSTACLES TO RESOLUTIONS

I hope you all had a joyous and wonderful Holiday.  We have one more giant event to look forward to this week.  Let’s make it the best ever !

We have been talking about the dreaded NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS.  Yes, 87% of these resolutions never get carried out no matter what the good intentions might have been.  So in my search for how to overcome this obstacle and since we all agree it would nice to finally have some success with New Year’s Resolutions, I have come up with a few possibilities.  These I will share one each week until they run out.

THIS WEEK:  Let’s try the proposal from the new book, ONE WORD THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE. This was written by three men who worked on this idea for some time and have come up with a possible solution to our problem.  It certainly is worth a try.

The premise is that you pick one word that focuses on your wishes and needs for yourself in the coming year.  Each year you select a new one. You go about selecting this word by meditating on what your needs are and what the universe intends your direction to be. You should read the book for further instructions but basically you first need to spend some time coming up with a word that has great meaning for yourself and reflects what you want to accomplish in the next year.

So let’s try this with our example of two weeks ago.  We talked about the popular idea of losing weight in the new year.  We had specific goals planned and now we know we only have a 13% chance of succeeding.  Let’s try to get that up to 100%!

What one word might describe what  your need and purpose is for losing weight?  A few I came up with were: HEALTH, VITALITY,ENERGY,AND APPEARANCE. Say, for instance you picked Health.  Then everyday you would wake up with this word on your tongue and each night you would go to sleep whispering it.  Health might mean passing up that chocolate cake or finding an exercise buddy that can keep you on the path. Health might mean also your mental health by de stressing your life.  Health will mean a slightly different thing for each person using it but if it is personal word, it will have meaning.

I have a feeling, as a coach, that combining the one WORD  with a plan about how you were going to attain the fruits of this word might be the best way to do this.  This plan would be frequently updated and changed as the meaning of your word becomes more important in your life.

I just talked to a client about this idea and he immediately came up with the word FLEXIBLE.  He is going to use this word to create greater opportunities in his life to be able to get more tasks done that are really meaningful to him.  Prioritizing seems to be  very important right now.  He will have to see how that changes during the year.

So let’s all give this a try and see if we can leap over the obstacle of not caring for a long enough time to realizing our goals.  Sit for a while with no distractions and see what you come up with.  If it doesn’t happen right away, back off and just keep asking the universe to let it pop into your head.

By the way, I would be glad to share mine with you but I am still asking the universe.  Stay tuned, hopefully it will come soon and I can let you know.  Then we can see how it is working.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this was the answer to all that guilt we feel when we don’t succeed with our plans?  Try it, it couldn’t hurt.

Also please share your word with the rest of us.  We are all interested in supporting you.  No Blog next week as I will be sitting on the beach in Florida thinking up my word.

MORE ABOUT OBSTACLES

The awful thing that happens is that you stop caring.  All of the time and planning that went into the resolution seems no longer relevant to your life.  Yes, you lost a few pounds but the process of worrying about what to eat, when to eat and how to make time for exercise becomes overwhelming and you stop caring about the goal.

Why is it that the goal which seemed so important on January 1st is totally unimportant on February 1st?  Even if you used tactics such as being accountable to another person or picturing yourself skinny and fitting into new clothes, all that seems unimportant now.  Slowly you even may gain the few pounds you lost back. Then you feel guilty and less of yourself.

Looking very closely at this behavior may help us to understand it.  A few of the obvious obstacles may be:

1.  It a very happy experience to plan a goal.    You can decide all kinds of wonderful and healthy activities to have as goals.  You can enjoy the foreseen results in your mind over and over again.  it is fun to visualize how delighted you will be will the goal has been reached.  In reality you have enjoyed the goal without putting in any real work to achieve it.

2. The goal has many or at least some aspects that are not enjoyable.  Deprivation of chocolate cake is not enjoyable.  Getting into gym clothes and sweating is not enjoyable to many people.  Walking can be great experience to get out in nature but can also be a burden if your back starts to ache. For my clients, getting themselves out into crowds to network might not be a pleasure.

3. Goals take time and energy.  Planning and keeping a calendar and actually doing the tasks to complete a goal takes a great deal of time and more energy you  put out before the goal was undertaken.

4. Rewards are often not immediate. If you are losing a half pound or even a pound a week, it is obvious that this is a several month endeavor. Some goals take years to achieve.  It seems as though really worthwhile goals can take a very long time to complete.

5. Goals seem less important over time. We know this is true even though the beginning goals was very important and sometimes a matter of life or death.  Take for example quitting smoking.  Medical Science and common sense tells us that a person must quit to extend their life. There is no alternative to adding years to their life or at least not confronting such an agonizing death.  It is amazing that smokers can quite for a few days or even months but still go back to smoking.  Time has taught them how to stop but time has not been a help in keeping them from returning to the bad habit.

The basis of all of this is that you have stopped caring about the consequences of not reaching the goal.  Somehow or another the goal has been diminished.  It is no longer worthy of caring about.

Next week I won’t be here to write this blog but we’ll take this  subject up further on December 30 when I’ll be back.  If you have any comments please jump in.  This can be a fascinating discussion and certainly worthwhile.

WHAT IS YOUR OBTSTACLE?

We are now coming to that time of the year that REQUIRES we review our past and decide what to do about the future.  It is called making New Year’s Resolutions!  Because those of us who are concerned about our destiny will no doubt do this, let’s take a look at resolutions starting from the end and working backward.

Unfortunately, the end usually looks like not completing the goals or projects set out to do.  Going backward a little, can we decide at what time our energy and resolve started to slow down?  Was it a week? month?  or just a few hours? Now analyze why this happened.  Did you run out of energy? did you lose interest?  Did you just keep putting it off?

More importantly, what keep you from going forward?  Why wasn’t it important enough to work past the obstacle that you encountered?  You know how to do this.  You couldn’t have passed the Bar without knowing how to keep going in the face of tremendous obstacles.  Why were these resolutions less worthy of your strength than passing the Bar?   Was the reward not big enough?  Did you discount the value of the resolution after you set it?  Was the resolution too far out of your “comfort zone” to commit to?  Exactly what was the obstacle that you encountered?

The experts tell us that it take 23 to 27 days of consistently practicing a new skill or behavior  to change our long term habits.  There is a wonderful book called HABIT which goes into this in great depth.  The problem is that many of us have bad habits that we need to change as well as good habits that we need to add to our lives.  We all know what these are for each of us. List three of yours right now.

Take for instance the most common New Year’s Resolution……TO LOSE WEIGHT.  After filling ourselves with all the Holiday goodies, we are feeling guilty and the scale is definitely up.  So we go about making the resolution that we will lose 5,10 or even 15 pounds.  What comes next?  We know that dieting and exercise is the Golden Rule to weight loss but what about the Paleolithic  diet? or the Beverly Hills diet? or the carbo load diet?  Some of us can get distracted  right in the beginning by fooling ourselves that the resolution can be made easier.  Resolutions are not easy, that is why they are called resolutions.

So let’s say we do take the rational approach and plan out a realistic agenda of increased exercise and eating a better, low calorie diet.  We write this out and resolve that we will go to the gym three times a week and walk two days a week for 3 miles.  We decide to eat a good breakfast, a salad for lunch and meat or fish and vegetables for dinner.  We also added in some low calorie snacks, such as fruit, yogurt and nuts.

Next, we start with great enthusiasm.  We even write the exercise times down in our calendar.  The gym staff welcomes us back with open arms.  We feel virtuous when we have only a salad for lunch.  We are feeling better about ourselves………the scale even shows a slight decrease……then….AN AWFUL THING HAPPENS…..

*******STAY TUNED FOR NEXT WEEK AND FIND OUT THE EXCITING CONCLUSION……..