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When Everything’s A Priority

January 27, 2013 By 1 Comment

 

Flipper

In the go-go-go world in which we live, sometimes it feels impossible to prioritize – there’s always so much going on, and so much to do, and so much we should be doing. We careen along our lives as if we’re in one giant pinball machine, banging into buzzers, whizzing by bumpers and – sometimes – losing ourselves deep black holes, with the only option… to start all over again. Pull that spring back as far as it’ll go and – wham! – you’re launched right the chaos of blinking lights and dinging bells.

Bing. Bing bing. Bing bing bing. Bing. Thwack. Bing. Bing. Bing.

Knowing your priorities can make this a whole lot easier.

Oh, I know that there are some who say, “Priorities, schmi-orities. No one’s gonna tell me what to do, and where to go! No way, man!” (or, “dude”, depending on age group).

Yes, for some people priorities feel limiting and inflexible. But for all of their no-way-man resistance, they still have priorities which they serve.

How do I know?

Simple. I watch what they do.

Because you can only see what someone truly prioritizes by watching what they do. Actions always reveal true intentions.

There are a couple of ways to identify your priorities.  First, you can use my Personal Planning Tool worksheet, which ultimately drives you to identify those things, in rank order, that are most important today. Download the PDF.

You can also sit down with a piece of paper and a pencil and do this exercise. Pick a day last week – a typical day when you had stuff to do.  Ask yourself:

When did I wake up? How did I feel?

When did I get out of bed? How did I feel?

What did I do first? How did I feel about that?

What did I do next? How did I feel about it?

[note: be more specific than saying "I went to work"; say, "I drove to the parking lot, parked, went to my office, read email, went to the meeting with Jim, phone calls with Tom, Dick and Harry. Lunch at desk while checking email," etc. and continue to note how you felt at each of these times.]

Keep asking “What did I do next/how did it feel?” until you get to when you got into bed and when you fell asleep.

Now, go back and look at this typical day. Anything pop out at you?

What did you make time for, without fail?

Where did you always say yes?

Where did you feel great? Where did it feel awful?

It’s a hunch, but I’ll bet that the people, places and things you said yes to, made time for and felt great about are your true priorities.

And the other stuff may be other people’s priorities, or what society tells you “should” be priorities, but which really hold no oomph for you.

So, looking at your time, it might be revealed that your true priority is your daily five mile run.

Or the office fantasy football league discussions. Which allow you to feel the deep satisfaction of belonging.

Or taking your kids to school and picking them up. Allowing the space to be fully engaged in their lives.

Or your health. Or someone else’s health. Permitting the grace of caregiving, or the power of self-care.

Or your own learning and growth. Gaining mastery of knowledge and understanding.

Whatever it is, it’s yours. And by honing in on your priorities, you come into awareness of your own ability to achieve, and to accomplish, and to be at your best more of the time.

So you might say one thing is a priority – often it’s around work, or your marriage, or your kids – but when you take an honest look at how you really spend your time, something else might show up.

Whatever that is? That’s your real priority. It’s not necessarily your spoken priority, mind you. But it is what you’re serving.

Address this misalignment between what we say and what we do and – just like getting bonus time – we’re on the road to getting happier, more effective and wiser.

So instead of saying, “My work is my priority”, honor that maybe your real priority is the things your work allows you to do – to connect with others, to learn, to grow, to have the space and time to run five miles a day, or pick your kids up from school.

It’s your choice. All of it – your choice.

You can be the ball.

Or you can be the Pinball Wizard, working the flipper to serve your most vital priority.

 

 

Filed Under: Blog, Career Coaching, Clarity, Getting Unstuck, WiseWork Tagged With: , , , , , , 1 Comment

It Starts With Your Energy

January 13, 2013 By 1 Comment

Energy

 

So, how do you “work smart with heart”?

Well, one sure way is to stop worrying.

I know, easy for me to say.

But you know what? In many ways, it is very easy for me to say. See, I was born worried.

Even when I was a kid, I fretted:

Was I doing it right?

Maybe I was doing something wrong without even knowing it.

What were people thinking?

What if there was an accident?

What if the conversation went the wrong way?

Perhaps I’m clueless and nobody really likes me.

I could be broke.

Something bad could happen.

And you know what? With that mindset, it often did.

My worries birthed reality. Which made things more difficult.

Much more. Difficult.

Finally, I came to the place where I realized that I had 100 units of energy to spend every day, and if I could stop slicing and dicing them up with worry, then I might actually be able to get more done.

[Some days, to be honest with you, it was "get something done at all."]

My 100 Units of Energy Theory is this: If you have 100 units of energy to spend each day – and you can’t save up from yesterday because those are spent, and you can’t borrow from tomorrow because those belong to tomorrow – then using what you’ve got to get where you want to go is critical.

And spending twenty or thirty units on worry is totally misplaced energy.

Worry gets in the way of honoring your priorities. Of growing. Of insight.

Of everything, come to think of it.

Worry tries to insure a future outcome. But who among us truly knows what the future holds? I sure don’t. Sure, be reasonably prepared and take care of yourself – I sure do. But why not also be reasonably open to whatever comes?

You’re resilient, and you’ve weathered challenges before – and you’re still here, right? You must be doing something right.

I imagine you’re doing a lot right.

So, working smart – with heart – means candidly looking at how you’re using your energy today and asking yourself, “How much am I putting into worry? How can I re-program these units into something better for me?”

Because you can worry about all the bad stuff that might possibly happen…or you can actively make good stuff happen.

Your choice.

 

Filed Under: Authenticity, Blog, Career Coaching, Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Happier Living, Managing Change, WiseWork Tagged With: , , , , , 1 Comment

Obsessed?

May 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment




Back in the ’80s, a synth-pop-spiky-hair kinda band released a song called “Obsession”. Watch the video – it’s a hoot. The refrain went like this:

You are an obsession, you’re my obsession
Who do you want me to be to make you sleep with me?

Sometimes I blurt out this lyric when working with clients about their career – hey, it makes sense in the moment! – and ask them, “Who are you trying to be so you’ll be accepted? How are you contorting yourself to get approval?”

Believe it or not, this is often a very fruitful discussion.

Because so many people are obsessed with their jobs, and will do anything – anything! – to stay in them. Especially, (I am going to use the dreaded phrase) “in this economy”.

But obsession is obsession and implies a certain single-minded focus which is not always healthy. Kinda stalker-ish, if you want to know the truth. And when you’re obsessed, your judgment might not be clear. You might make compromising decisions.

You might put your integrity on the shelf in pursuit of your preoccupation.

You might forget who you are as you bend yourself to someone else’s desires.

You lose yourself.

“Michele, it’s hard to get a job out there,” you say. And I know it is. But one of the central tenets of a real career strategy is to be yourself.

Hard as that may be.

And if you attract a job while not being yourself, it’s probably not going to be that satisfying. Like a meaningless hook-up at an ’80s dance club.

Know your strengths. Understand your values. Serve your priorities. Say “yes” when you mean “yes”, and “no” when you mean “no.” Honor your integrity.

And when you do, you will take the right job, and keep the right job.

You will excel. On your terms.

Which is the best possible outcome of a career strategy.

Filed Under: Authenticity, Career Coaching, Getting Unstuck Tagged With: , , , , , Leave a Comment

Whose Urgency?

February 20, 2011 By 2 Comments





We’re standing in a ragged gaggle at a grown-up party.  Cocktails in hands.  Dressed up slightly for a Saturday night (nice jeans instead of the neighborhood’s traditional weekend uniform of yoga pants and sweats).  We’re feeling festive-ish, even.

When she says, “Michele is so funny.  I mean, you always say the funniest things.  Say something funny, Michele.”

All eyes turn to me.

And I got…nothing.

I mean, nothing.  My mind is totally blank.

Faintly, you can hear the sound of crickets in the distance.  Chirping.

I shrug. “It’s kind of hard to be funny on demand.”  I get a courtesy fake-laugh – because obviously I am so totally hilarious – and the gaggle breaks up. I wonder if I should have hauled out the joke that got me published in Highlights magazine as a fifth grader: What kind of ears do engines have? Engineers! (OK, I stole it off a bubble gum wrapper, but I was published!)

In this era of “on demand” everything, we often find ourselves in this same predicament – put on the spot to serve someone else’s needs – although it can come in other guises.

Your boss says:  “We have a great opportunity to get five tons of raspberries but we have to decide right now!”  The fact that you work at a law firm who has absolutely nothing to do with raspberries doesn’t feature – it’s an immediate opportunity and it moves to Urgent status.

And you got nothing but crickets chirping in the distance.

Because it’s stupid and a waste of time to even consider what you’d do with five tons of raspberries when you do contract law and, besides, you’ve got plenty of other things to do.

It’s like when your kid says: “Moooooooooom.”  Or: “Daaaaaaaaaaad.”  Even from another room, you know the tone.  You jump up from whatever you’re doing and run in there. Panting, you say, “What!?”  He needs you to find the remote.  She needs you to find a certain pink ponytail elastic.

In that moment, their urgency becomes your urgency.

And you’re just a little bit cheesed off.

Come on, you can admit it. It’s frustrating when will-’o-the-wisp, fleeting fancies that are urgent to someone else take you away from serving your own priorities.

What would happen if you said to your kid: “I am in the middle of something, honey. I can be there in five minutes.”  I’ll tell you what would happen. He’d find the remote.  She’d either find the ponytail thingy or decide on a headband.  They’d figure it out.

What if you said to the raspberry hoarding executive: “I am just wrapping up the Framastam contract.  Can you give me thirty minutes?”  

[As an aside, I know this makes you nervous because a boss is a boss and to be obeyed (it's amazing how many people tell me this - as if Odin, God of War himself were seated in the corner office - when I know for a fact that the guy in there is usually really uncertain, kind of frightened and slightly in over his head).]

But trust me, if you asked for thirty minutes, Mr. Raspberry 2011 would find another sucker co-worker to play out his drama. And you could get on with your business. 

What do you do, then, in your own life when faced with a figurative five tons of raspberries?

Well, when asked to drop your own priorities to adapt to the flaky urgency of another, my friend, take a deep breath and remember this simple mantra:

Let there be crickets.

Filed Under: Authenticity, Clarity, Happier Living Tagged With: , , , , 2 Comments

What’s Important To You?

April 25, 2010 By 11 Comments



In the last couple of months I’ve written about getting un-stuck by choosing growth. About how you can never make a mistake when you are centered in integrity. About how you can, singlehandedly, turn around a challenging work environment – and how to leave a toxic job. I’ve written about creating a new way to measure your own success.

And now, the single most important thing you need to know.

Ready?

The most important thing you need to know is what’s most important to you.

I was standing in my kitchen the other morning, exhausted. It’s been that kind of week. Lots of people giving me unsolicited advice about who I should be and what I should be doing. A lot of assumptions made about me and who I am. Several well-meaning folks attempting to graft their yardstick of success on to me because, very obviously to them, I have fallen short.

As I stood there, baffled, buffeted, blue – and exhausted – I had the most wonderful epiphany.

The most important thing in my life became crystal clear.

My true priority revealed itself.

And in a moment I knew that everything would be OK – because, day in and day out I am serving what’s most important to me. To me. Not to the well-meaning and not-so-well-meaning folks I encountered last week.

I am putting my energy where I want it to go, and that’s the right thing to do.

Because my number one priority is being a present parent for my children.

And although you love me, well-meaning friends, and want to see me on the Today show, knee to knee with Matt Lauer, I’m not going to do it if it means I’ll miss my daughter’s softball game. I’m just not.

And although you don’t understand it, other folks, when I tell you that I’m not that interested in traveling to Marrakesh or Istanbul unless my kids can come too, I’m sorry.

And for those who think I should be making a ton more money than I do – that I’m “leaving it on the table” – you are absolutely right.

That’s a by-product of serving my priority.

Sure, I could be back in a corporate job with a fatter paycheck and juicy stock options. But that’s not my priority.

My kids are.

Let me clarify.  I am no helicopter parent.  I am not all up in my kids’ business.  When I say my kids are my priority, I have an intention.  And my intention is to be reliable, dependable, connected – present – for them.  Because that’s how I think independent, functioning, happy adults are formed. And my big responsibility is to sherpa them to their adult life.  That’s my job.

And I’ve chosen a career for right now that allows me to serve that priority as fully as possible. See, being a self-employed coach allows me to make some key decisions for myself.  For instance, I don’t work between 4pm and 7pm. Just don’t. That’s the time we go to the dermatologist (did I mention that they’re teenagers?), the dentist, the doctor, the orthodontist (did I mention that they’re teenagers?), and every other -ologist known to man.

Four to seven is softball practice and/or games. It’s the time for a run to Target for poster board. It’s when we walk the dogs, or practice a change-up. It’s time to sit on the sofa watching Ellen and discussing both marijuana use in middle school, and what constitutes a hootchie-mama outfit.

This is the golden time that we sit down to dinner together.

A couple of nights a week, I teach or take clients after seven, which works because that’s allegedly homework time (did I mention that they’re teenagers?).

It works. I make the all the money I want to make, I have the time to serve my highest priority.

But here’s the trick. Saying, “My kids are my number one priority” is pretty daggone politically correct. Who would publicly say otherwise without fear of being hauled into the town square (or Twitter) and being stoned by the community?

You are allowed to have your own priority. And it might be growing a business. Or climbing the corporate ladder. Or creating incredible art. Or treating malaria in Africa.

Wherever you spend most of your time, or want to spend most of your time, that’s your priority.

And if you are out of sorts, blue, off step – then look at how you are spending your time and creating your days. If you are spending time on stuff that’s not really your priority, start making some changes.

And you can start by putting your fingers in your ears, saying, “nah, nah, nah, nah, nah” to shut out the voices of folks who would tell you what your priority should be.

Filed Under: Authenticity, Getting Unstuck, Happier Living Tagged With: , , , , , 11 Comments
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