Michele Woodward

Powerful Coaching. Powerful Results.

Happier Living

Maybe You’re An Anxious Striver

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Years ago I learned something from my friend Jen Louden. It’s her idea of “Conditions of Enoughness”. Basically, it’s deciding before you set out to do anything what “enough” will feel like, so you know when you’re done.

I thought of this brilliant concept recently when hearing people talk about their drive for constant improvement. It occurred to me that constant improvement could actually be a bad thing.

Like, how you remove minute parts of a knife everytime you sharpen it. And, if you persist in sharpening the edge, at some point the knife loses its structural integrity and becomes a wisp of a thing rather than the sharp thing it once was.

I was reflecting on people who are what I call “anxious strivers”. The kinds of folks who are driven to go-go-go and do-do-do. Who only eat foods which have a point – their diet exists merely to provide protein, minerals, and “good fats”. They only read books which will improve their lives. Every spare minute is devoted to Doing Something In Service To Something Else.

Joy has very little role in their lives.

I have to ask, though: When you live in pursuit of constant improvement, when do you know how to stop? When do you know what enough is like? Because of the relentless “constant” in “constant improvement”, are you putting yourself on a hamster wheel that never stops and calling it exemplary performance?

Perhaps then, rather than constant improvement, we need to think about simply having clear goals and working to meet them. In that context, the questions become more like: How did I do yesterday? Do I need to do something differently than yesterday to reach my goal? Is it enough to keep doing what I’m doing and stay on this path I’ve set? Does this feel like enough yet?

That’s not to say stop learning. To stop incorporating your learning into your actions. I would never say that, because I’m a learner through and through.

I am suggesting that anxious striving, never knowing what enoughness looks like, never doing something just for the fun of it, sharpening your edge until you have nothing left… this is the recipe for burnout and unhappiness and, oddly enough, ultimately leads to a lack of real, meaningful progress.

Quit Your Job

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There has never been a better time to quit your job and find a new one.

(I can sense you spluttering from afar.)

(You’re thinking that it’s easy for me to say.)

(You’re thinking I might be certifiably nuts.)

(You’re thinking that I don’t know what it’s reeeeaaaallly like out there, especially for someone who’s young or old or whatever you’ve got going on in your life.)

But I know I’m right about this.

In the county where I used to live, Arlington County in Virginia, unemployment is at 2.2%. That’s a full two percent less than the U.S. average. I’ve talked to hiring people in Arlington and they have open jobs which they cannot fill. Good jobs.

I spoke to a client this past week who’s facing the same issue in Washington, DC. Open positions, no candidates.

Around the U.S., there are a record 6.6 million job openings.

Makes you go “Hmmmmm”, doesn’t it?

Because you’ve been stiff-arming a search for a new job. Sure, it’s crossed your mind. But you think:

  • Job searches are a pain in the butt and take forever
  • No one will hire me because I’m under 30/over 50
  • What if no one wants me?
  • What if I find out my skills aren’t that great?
  • What if I land in a place that’s even more toxic than the place I’m in now?

Shall we knock those down, one at a time?

  • With unfilled jobs across the board, finding a new role is going to be easier than ever
  • People who might have previously been excluded are now included, because jobs must be filled. If you’re qualified, you’ll get a look
  • See “unfilled jobs across the board”
  • If you’ve stayed current with your skills in your current role, you should be OK. If you haven’t, take an online course to brush up your skillset
  • Toxic work place? Let’s drill down on that one

“According to a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Yale University report, 70 percent of all jobs are found through networking. A recent survey by CareerXroads shows that only 15 percent of positions were filled through job boards. The survey showed that most jobs are either filled internally or through referrals.” (Washington Post) If you, then, focus on networking and generating referrals for your new job, you can ask about the work environment and office politics. If your friends (the people who are doing the referring) say the place is gruesomely toxic, you can pass on that opportunity in favor of the kind of workplace where it’s an utter pleasure to work.

Those workplaces exist, by the way.

And, studies have shown that income changes more significantly when you start a new role versus small annual increases at your current job.

So, a better workplace plus more money! What’s not to like?

You might say, “But I love living where I live and there are no jobs like you’re talking about here!”

What I hear you say is more about your priorities than anything else. Where you live is more important than what you do.

Which is totally fine. In fact, it’s awesome.

You know what’s important to you – now, own it. Realize that your job exists to support your life, so if you’re unhappy at your job… you can still get a new one. Maybe you’ll have to consider a different field, a different kind of role, a new use of your skills. As long as you stay in your town (honoring your real priority), you should be fine. Plus, you know, happier.

The Great Recession, which happened ten years ago this week, impacted all of us. We got frightened, and gun shy, and maybe a little bit cowed when it came to work. We remember when a lot of our friends and family found themselves out of a job and had a hard time finding something. Anything.

And so we’ve carried that trauma forward with us in a collective way.

Now is the time to lay down that burden, once and for all.

There are jobs out there. Good jobs. Lots of them.

If you’re not happy where you are, go somewhere else.

And if you’re an employer who’s not doing everything you can to make your workplace a good place to work with good pay for all – get ready. People can leave you in a hot minute these days – and they will if you neglect your greatest asset. Your people.

 

That Time I Learned Something New About Myself

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When I was just getting started in my career, a slightly old friend passed along some advice.

“If anyone important asks you to lunch,” she said, “make sure you order steak tartare and Scotch neat, just to show them how tough you are.”

My nose wrinkled at the thought of raw meat mixed with raw egg yolk and firewater for lunch. It’s highly probable that I responded with, “I dunno. How about a Cobb salad and a Diet Coke?”

Truth is, I’ve never been one to choose something just to make a point. It’s not how I’m wired.

Plus, even at a young age, I had decided that Scotch was not the distilled spirit for me.

I mean, Scotch. Just the sound of it conjures up people with expense account lunches and questionable moral underpinnings. Like club members at a club I wouldn’t want to join. Like your lawyer’s lawyer’s drink of choice.

I wrote off Scotch years ago with the throwaway line, “I am not grown-up enough for Scotch.” Oh, I had tried it, like everyone did. And it smoked, and burned, and made my eyes water, and was highly unpleasant. So deciding I wasn’t a Scotch drinker was easy – I merrily went along my way without the slightest bit of angst that I was missing something by exempting whisky.

Until, that is, I went to Scotland this summer and my mind changed.

Because there in the windswept Orkney Islands, I was finally taught how to drink whisky properly.

Hadn’t realized there was a right and a wrong way to drink liquor until a wise, gruff Viking of a man opened my mind and showed me a thing or two. Turns out I had been doing it wrong.

He taught me that fine single malt whisky needs to be treated the way you’d treat a fine red wine. You drink it warm. In a small, special glass. Maybe add a drop of water to open up the flavors.

I mean, who knew Scotch even had flavors?

You sip it. You let the flavors settle in. You appreciate the long finish.

You enjoy, in a slow and reasoned way.

And guess what? The whisky I drank became a pleasure.

The thing I thought I was not grown-up enough for became something I was excited to learn more about.

All I needed was to be taught by someone with deep knowledge.

Funny, huh?

Now that I’m home, I find my mind turning to other areas of my life where this might also be true. What could I possibly come to enjoy if I were just taught by the right person?

It’s a great question, isn’t it? And perhaps one you can ask yourself today, too.

Because the world is a big place, just packed with interesting things to learn and do. And, asking to be taught a thing or two by someone with deep knowledge isn’t a sign of weakness – maybe it’s your passport to new adventures.

 

Longing For The Missing Thing

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We human beings are funny creatures.

Sometimes we feel the most motivated when someone tells us what we’re NOT allowed to do.

After a lifetime of being a regular Sporty Spice, I developed arthritis in my right knee and ended up with a total replacement in February of this year. Once I had checked some post-surgery milestones off the list, my kind and handsome doctor said, “Well, Michele, you are cleared to do pretty much whatever you want. You can walk wherever you want to go, you can play golf, or tennis. You can ride a bike or use the elliptical. You can ski!”

I silently contemplated the last time I had skiied (15 years ago) or played tennis (summer camp?), while he paused.

“The one thing I don’t want you to do, though, is run. Your new knee just won’t tolerate that.”

“OK,” I said, with relief. See, I’m not built for running. I have short legs and a long torso, and other than that three weeks about ten years ago where I put my heart into finding the runner’s high (eluded me), I’ve realized that I’m built more for rambling than running.

The rehab for my knee replacement involved a lot of walking. I walked to the post office. I walked my dogs. I walked just to walk.

I watched my step count climb as my knee got stronger and stronger.

And one day while walking across a bridge, the most powerful feeling overcame me. I felt the profound and urgent need to break into a run.

Me. A non-runner. A lifetime non-runner. A softball player who specialized in hitting homers because then I could trot around the bases rather than sprint.

On that bridge, I found myself inexplicably longing to do the one thing my doctor explicitly forbid me to do.

I longed, beyond all reason, to do something I’m not actually built to do. The thing I actually have never really liked to do.

I wanted in that moment, with my whole heart and soul, to run.

This is human nature, isn’t it? Whenever something is placed “off-limits”, it becomes tantalizing.

It’s like there’s a huge neon sign in our brains flashing “You can’t! You can’t! But you wanna!”

A friend of mine suggests that when anything becomes a taboo, our minds go instantly into a famine mentality and all we can think about is the thing we can’t have.

If you’re on a diet and constantly remind yourself that you can’t eat french fries, all your darling human brain will think about is the fries.

If your boss directs you to never have anything to do with the IT department, you’ll see those nerds everywhere. (And your laptop will constantly fritz out, too.)

You will fixate on the thing you feel you lack, even if the thing you lack is something you don’t really want.

Weird, huh?

So it seems to me that now may be the time to take a look at two things in your own life. One, what have you placed “off-limits” for the people in your life? Your partner, your kids, your friends? Your direct reports? Your co-workers? Are you setting them up, then, to fixate on the wrong thing?

And, two, where have you done the same thing to yourself?

The cure for this extremely human drive toward Longing For The Missing Thing, though, is deceptively easy.

Rather than say, “I can’t run now that I have a bionic knee”, simply say, “I’m the kind of  person who rambles.”

This affirmative statement makes all the difference in where you put your attention. And makes your choices easier.

When offered fries on the side, you can come back with, “Thanks, but I’m the kind of person who eats leafy greens.”

See how focusing on what you have over what you lack makes your life get easier? And more full. And you feel more effective and engaged.

And that is especially true when you no longer feel compelled to do something you never really wanted to do in the first place.

 

Worth Failing For

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Workshop and seminar leaders, Little League coaches and life coaches, parents and priests. What do they possibly have in common?

My guess is that at some point or the other they may have asked someone, “What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?”

They ask this question in an attempt to figure out goals and dreams. To understand where someone might be holding themselves back out of fear of failing. To inspire.

All well and good.

The amazing, inspiring Brené Brown, though, asks the question in a powerful and different way.

She asks, “What’s worth failing for?”

I mean, really. Brené nails it. That is one piercing question.

So, let me ask you: What are you willing to stand up for? What are you willing to use your voice for?

Regardless of the consequences?

What do you love enough to risk everything for?

I ask it that way because I know myself and if my kids were ever threatened, I’d put myself between them and harm’s way in a nanosecond.

It comes down to this, then: Love is absolutely worth failing for.

Because I love so deeply and passionately about what’s happening in our world, I am conscious that I must my voice to say the things that need to be said. I am willing to put myself out there even if people disagree with me.

(And as an aside – disagreement doesn’t need to mean the end of a relationship. In fact, disagreement can bring people closer together as they grow to understand each other. Remember that next time you get in a Twitter war, will you?)

You may find this hard to believe, but there was a time in my life when I swallowed my words because I felt as though there was going to be a tough consequence if I spoke up. It was only after I was clear of this situation that I realized the toll silence took on me. And I felt the relief and coming-home-ness which came from learning to use my voice again.

When you look at things not from a vantage point of “how can I make sure I don’t lose?” but from the “what am I willing to lose for?” things change.

Even in the face of sure loss.

Even when things are tough.

Even when you know you are not going to win.

When you show up as yourself, put it out there, own it, love it…you’ve already won.

And whatever happens next doesn’t even matter.

Plenty for Everyone

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Let’s say you feel frustrated and unhappy and can’t really put your finger on the “why” of it. Let’s also say that you’re someone who’s always putting the needs of other people ahead of your own, but you wouldn’t call it that. You’d call it “doing what I’m supposed to be doing” or “what I have to do right now”. Or “love”.

But there’s that niggling frustration, every single day. The sense that there’s something you’re not doing that you could be doing. Something that would be delightful and fun. Nourishing even. You just can’t see a way to do that AND do the thing you’re supposed to be doing.

So, let me ask you this:

If you went on a picnic with three of the dearest people in your life, and you opened the picnic basket and there were only three sandwiches, what would you do?

Would you say, “Oh, it’s okay. I love you so much and want you to be fed and happy, so eat the sandwiches. I’ll just sit here and pass you the mustard and a napkin and anything else you need.”

Would you squish down your own hunger so the hunger of others could be satisfied?

(Plenty of us do this every single day. We do it because we have heard that parenting, partnering, working, or serving needs to look a very specific way. We let that strict definition shape a box that’s increasingly smaller and harder to live in.)

(And sometimes we live inside the teeny tiny box because we’re not sure who we would be outside of it. We’re not sure if we’re exactly comfortable with how big we might become if we were to step outside.)

(And, then again, we worry that the person who’s not having a whole sandwich because of our needs might be mad or resentful. That’s awkward, uncomfortable and possibly fatal to the relationship.)

(And we are doing this in the first place because relationships with others are so important. More important, in fact, than our relationship with ourselves.)

(And we might have learned that love looks like doing stuff for other people all the time, regardless of the impact on ourselves.)

Back to the picnic scenario. You’re hungry and there aren’t enough sandwiches. Your gut says to let other people have what is there because it’s appropriate, it’s right, it’s safe. But you’re starving, aren’t you?

Might you consider a simple solution of dividing each sandwich into four equal parts so that everyone could have some? So everyone could be nourished? Including you?

It’s time to ease your frustration and own your right to your own well-being, my friends. And while asking for your portion might be scary, the odds are it will turn out beautifully. Because I know for a fact that the three people you love most in the world want nothing more than to share their sandwich with you.

Because they love you just as much as you love them.

 

[This piece appeared first on my Facebook page. Are we connected there?]

What You Fear Most

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If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this lifetime, it’s that anything I fear finds a way to poke its head up routinely.

If I fear bursting into tears in a difficult conversation, guess what happens? I fight tears all the way through until I explode.

If I fear bombing a speaking engagement, guess what happens? I fumble, mumble and fall flat.

If I fear saying something racially, culturally, gender-ly insensitive to a person I care about, guess what happens? I’m not really present and forget that Frances wants to be called “they” and that Ashley is now Chris and I feel like a dope.

Y’all, I am a mistake making machine. And that is because I am a human being. Human beings make mistakes.

And, here’s the trick, I’ve gotten to the place where I no longer fear making mistakes. I know, right?

Because I no longer fear making mistakes – because I know I am a mistake making machine – rather than beat myself up for stuff I do wrong, I take them as moments for learning. I can appreciate the clarity that comes from a mistake. I can find the illumination. The grace.

And, of course, when I make the inevitable mistake, I know the Aftermath Process: I acknowledge the mistake, I make all repairs necessary (including apologies or restitution) and I make a promise to try my very best to never, ever repeat that particular mistake again.

Many of us fear (that word again) being told we’re wrong. It’s like being called out as the mistake making machine that we humans are is the worst possible outcome.

But it’s not. It’s simply our opportunity to learn. To grow. To do something new.

I will admit to enjoying schadenfreude – delight in the misery of others – just as much as the next mistake making machine. And, yet, I have taught myself to not live in that gloating space.

Because I know that one of these minutes-hours-days-weeks it will be my turn.

And when it happens I want you all to help me acknowledge that I screwed up, help me find a way to repair and hold me to my promise to do better next time.

Because when we hold each other this way, we are building something together, rather than tearing one another apart.

And this is a second thing I have learned in this lifetime.

You Do You (As Long As You Agree With Me)

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The cool kids like to say, “You do you” as a way of showing they’re not judging and we’re all free to be… you and me.

Yet, have you ever noticed that when you actually do yourself, some people will hurry to tell you just how wrong you are?

You: I really like lime LaCroix water.

Somebody: You know that stuff is horrible. It’ll strip the enamel off your teeth. You should just drink regular water.

You: (blink, blink)

***

You: I think Taylor Swift is great.

Somebody: Seriously? She can only sing four notes and she should have never covered Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September”. Who does she think she is?

You: (blink, blink, blink)

***

You: I love Facebook.

Somebody: First of all, they steal your data. Second of all, who wants to know what you had for lunch. And third of all, do you not have a life?

You: (blinkety, blink, blink)

***

So, “You do you” becomes “You do what I say because I’m right and you’re wrong”.

Kinda icky, huh?

The Somebodies who would criticize your Being You-ness are investing not in the relationship but more in their own feeling of being right. They seek to validate their own viewpoints or to emphasize their own importance.

Don’t be that person.

When you make the space for someone to fully do themselves, you’re giving them a great gift – the gift of real acceptance. Because whatever they’re doing is ok by you.

But, then, when someone’s Being Them-ness is full of hate, or violence, or unkindness, what do you do? Do you suck it up and let them do them?

In a way, you do. But not without honestly saying your piece, such as, “I completely disagree with you” or “That is not my experience at all”.

You can firmly and without reservations do yourself and voice your perspective in the face of hate speech. In fact, you have a responsibility to do so.

When it’s not a high-stakes conversation, it pays to get curious. You might try something like this:

You ask why they like lime LaCroix. Their answer might be, “Because I’m working on my sobriety and I’m substituting a couple of glasses of LaCroix in the evening for a fifth of vodka.”

You ask why they like Taylor Swift. Their answer might be, “Because my mom and her mom are first cousins.”

You ask why they like Facebook. Their answer might be, “Because my aunt is homebound and it’s a good way for us to stay connected.”

All perfectly fine reasons, don’t you think?

They’re doing them. Which is very cool.

And now you know a little bit more about them, and your relationship benefits.

I know what I’m suggesting here is hard. Listening and not correcting is really tough for us human beings. And as a human being, I struggle with this – boy, do I struggle with this.

I’m trying to do it differently, though, by holding onto the idea that when you do you at your very best and I build you up rather than tear you down, we create enough space for me to be me at my very best, too.

I remember that it’s all about building stronger relationships.

Which is what the really cool kids are doing these days.