Michele Woodward

Powerful Coaching. Powerful Results.

gifts

Think Small. Do Big.

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You can make a difference.

You can.

And I know you want to.

But so many of us hold back because we associate making a difference with some big, grand gesture, like bringing peace to the Middle East, finding the cure for cancer or winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and overlook the fact that we can do good right here. Right now.

You could purchase a gift certificate for a local restaurant and give that as a gift to a neighbor. You are helping a small business stay afloat, and giving your neighbor an evening to remember.

You could volunteer at your local community kitchen or food bank, and bring some non-perishables along to donate. Do it often enough and you’ll form new relationships and new insights about others, and yourself.

Take your neighbor kid under your wing. You know, that kid you’ve known since he was a toddler who just graduated from college? You know he’s struggling to find his first job. Be his mentor, and help him get his start in the world.

Offer to set up a Christmas tree for the elderly widow down the block, even if you don’t celebrate Christmas yourself.

Hold the door open for the pregnant woman pushing the twin stroller through the door at Starbucks.

Allow the guy with the left turn signal flashing to merge in front of you.

Make dinner for your family.

Look  people in the eye and listen as they talk. Really listen. And keep your phone in your pocket.

Be the kind of person you’d like to be friends with.

Go out of your way to be of help and assistance.

Right now, you’re saying, “Platitudes! Doesn’t she know what my work is like? I don’t have time to do any of this!”

The 10 seconds it takes to hold the door open for that woman at Starbucks – no skin off your back, huh? You can do that little thing, can’t you?

And by doing so, what do you usher into the world?

For that woman, the awareness that she is not alone fending for herself and her children.

For you, the realization that you have the capacity to help others.

And suddenly the world is not so big and unconnected.

And the world is not populated with enemies.

But by friends.

And your blood pressure lowers to a manageable level.

And you have a smile on your face.

And you have created good by doing one small thing.

At this time of year, there’s a lot of scrambling and purchasing and expectations and unmet expectations and your stress level can be through the roof.

But not if you focus on the little ways you can make a difference in other people’s lives every day.

Put a quarter in someone’s meter.

Buy a Christmas tree from the varsity baseball team so they can travel to the state tournament next spring.

Arrange for Karate lessons for you and your kid.

Hug your wife for no particular reason other than to connect in that moment.

Tell him you love him.

Tell her you admire her.

Think really small.

Do really big.

 

 

 [photo courtesy: Grace Woodward]

I Am A Loser

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There are three ways to tell this story:

1.  Although after winning a commanding 43% in the final round of The Washington Post’s @Work Advice Contest, they chose someone younger with consistently fewer votes.

2.  I don’t care that I didn’t win The Washington Post’s @Work Advice Contest because I really don’t have time for it anyway.

3.  I gave The Washington Post’s @Work Advice Contest my best shot – I wrote like Monet painted – but the judges preferred Van Gogh.  And that is OK.

See, there are always many ways to tell a story.  And I told all of those versions of my story in the first 24 hours after I found out that, despite having the vast majority of the final vote, I didn’t win.

It was hard.

It really hurt.

Because I had put myself out there, and told all of you that I really wanted the job.

And I worked hard.

And I put other things aside to focus on the contest.

And I fell short.

Then I got a grip, and thought of all the clients over the years who have been final candidates in some executive search and haven’t been offered the position.  What do I advise them?

Honor the full sweep of your emotions. Because there are no “wrong” emotions.  There are just emotions.

So, heeding my own advice, I was – by turns – angry, sad, self-chastising, denying, accepting.

No pretending.  Just whatever it was, as it was.

And, after all of that emotion, I settled into this thought:  Close, baby, but no cigar.

But the damn cigar is completely within reach.

The cigar that’s coming next for me may just be a different brand, and aroma, and size than I expected. And I will welcome it.

You all know that I believe we each have 100 units of energy to spend each day.  Yesterday’s are gone, and tomorrow’s belong to tomorrow – so how I spend my 100 today is vital.  And totally up to me.

I know that in order to achieve anything, I must use my energy to support my greatest priorities:

Being a good enough parent.

Doing work that makes a difference, and that I am proud of.

Caring for my emotional, spiritual, physical and financial health.

Truth is, I would have loved writing for The Washington Post.  But not writing for The Washington Post offers me the opportunity to put more energy units on my true, real priorities.

Plus, there are gifts for me in not getting what I wanted.

(Which is something I often suggest clients look at – and after they throw something at me, they usually find the gifts inherent in any difficult situation.)

For me, the gifts were multiple:

I tested my writing skills and found them strong, coherent, and well-received.

I connected with people who love my work.

I found new people who love my work.

I enlarged my comfort zone.

I felt tremendous gratitude for an ocean of support from people all around the world.

So, I am a loser.  No doubt about that.

How do I know?  Because I did not win.

But, I am a happy loser who feels like she got the best possible part of the whole deal.

See, in losing I found more of myself.

And that’s a win, sugar. A big, honking, bona fide win.

 

4-Step Holiday Survival Guide

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I wonder if you’re heading into the coming “magical” Christmas week with slightly more than a teensy bit of anxiety?  So much to do, so little time.  A lot of moving parts, and moving people.  Gifts to get, food to prepare, people to be polite to (it’s that last part that’s the real challenge, huh?).

As Ricky Ricardo might say, “Ai, yi, yi, yi, yi”.

If you’re beginning to feel like all you have to do is endure the next week, take a deep breath.  This 4-Step Holiday Survival Guide will turn things around for you.

Oh, it’s possible.  Yes, I know your track record.  I heard about the year with drunk Uncle Ralph, well… ralphing.  I recall the Christmas of Misplaced Nuts and Bolts.  And, of course, the never to be forgotten Year of the Stomach Flu.

Four things.  That’s all you have to remember to not only get through this week, but to really enjoy it.

1. Have no expectations. This doesn’t have to be a Christmas to remember (great song, but sorry, Amy Grant).  The more you push to make it “magical” the less likely it is going to be magical.  You might have an expectation that the True Christmas Experience means handsome mother and father in matching Christmas sweaters sipping a hot toddy before the fire while their well-behaved children play quietly and reverently with their well-appreciated new toys.  Honey, unless you live in Stepford, I don’t think that’s going to happen. Everyone has wild cards in their families. A puppy. Or toddlers. Or teens. Or Uncle Ralph. I’m just sayin’.

If you’re single, or newly divorced, or newly partnered, or newly widowed, holding this unattainable expectation of the fabled True Christmas Experience in your heart and mind will only bring you suffering.  Drop it. Love what you’ve got. Oh, of course, recognize the learning in the yearning and work toward getting some of that – connection, belonging, love, perhaps – into your life another way.  Maybe by volunteering at the food bank or mentoring a struggling reader.  Remember: You can create what you want.

2. Be present. I mean:  when you’re with people, look them in the eye.  Participate in conversations.  Help with the dishes. When you’re checking your office email, or mentally checking off your to-do list, you’re not really “here”. You’re “there”.  When you find yourself with alone time during the holidays, be equally present. With yourself.  Feel how you feel.  Pay attention to the book you’re reading.  Really taste your food.  If you’re present to yourself, you’ll be a fuller person, and, voila!, much happier.

3. Find the fun. Let’s just say it out loud – the holidays are hilarious. You are making the stuff of family legends, folks. To tell you the truth, memories of the unintended humor inherent in Christmas gatherings can keep me going through the dark, cold days of February, like when Andrew ate potpourri, thinking it was a snack (priceless).  Or, like the time my friend Karen and her family woke to the sound of “Crash (tinkle, tinkle, tinkle)” to find the Christmas tree had toppled, the ornaments had all broken and sappy tree water had run all over the gifts (OK, they laugh about it now). Oh, and remember that spontaneity can be an instant fun creator.  Have a snowball fight.  Or a margarita party.  Dance.  Do the Wii with great-grandma (I bet the old girl could nail Beatles Rock Band).

4. Give generously, not reciprocally. Yes, this is the lesson Scrooge finally learned, and we all know it because we saw the Bill Murray movie. But times are still tough for a lot of people, and what matters most is that you be the kind of person you want to be this Christmas. Want to send something to your nieces and nephews? Go ahead, do it – even if their family can’t reciprocate.  And you don’t have to give Things – you can give time.  Trust me on this one, even teenagers appreciate it when someone makes time to listen to them.  Give because you want to be a giving person.

Oh, and don’t forget to give something to yourself this year.  I mean it – find a little something that will buoy your spirits, and give you joy.  Wrap it up and put it under the tree.  Or give it to yourself in a quiet moment of reflection.  It can be as low-cost as the gift of a nap.  Or as expensive as a new car.  Choose what feels right. Because taking care of yourself is just as important as taking care of others.

When you hold Christmas in a clenched fist of direction and control, or focus on the keeping and settling of scores, it’s a lose-lose-lose situation you’re setting up. And you’ll have a lousy week.  So, lighten up.  Relax.  Enjoy.  And sing along as great-grandma belts out “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.”

She’s gonna nail it.

 

 

When Life Meets The Fairy Tale

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bigstock-family-christmas-x-mas-wint-53829334

At this time of the year there are so many expectations. It’s as if we’ve bought into a collective fairy tale, and it goes something like this:

It’s Christmas morning. A large, happy, healthy, attractive, educated, polite, loving family gathers in tasteful bathrobes and slippers under a tastefully decorated tree in a tastefully decorated, expansive home. Beautiful little children are appropriately excited, and the well-behaved, well-groomed dog lazes nearby. A fire crackles in the hearth.

Let’s put you in the scene, now. Your handsome, loving spouse sits with you on the couch, your head on his shoulder, his arm around you. He pulls out the most beautifully wrapped box. You open it, eyes wide. It’s perfect. You kiss passionately. Your attractive and healthy parents link arms and smile in appreciation for such a wonderful son-in-law. His equally attractive and healthy parents beam smiles in their heroic son’s direction.

And everyone lives happily ever after, having had The Perfect Christmas.

Nice story, huh? But real life often fails to match up to this fairy tale, and we feel somehow cheated, disappointed, less than, or maybe even mad.

Because real life can be messy.

Maybe this is the first Christmas you’ve had to plan, organize and shop for — because your wife will be in Baghdad this year.

Maybe this year you won’t get a gift from your spouse — because his Alzheimer’s has robbed him of the ability to think of you as anything but that nice woman who visits him every day.

Maybe this year you’ll be alone on Christmas morning, because it’s your ex-spouse’s turn to have the kids.

Maybe there won’t be a perfect present under the tree because there’s not enough money for the tree, let alone gifts.

Maybe you’ll be missing your mother, who passed away in the spring. Maybe you’re, once again, the only single person in the room on Christmas morning. Maybe you’re in the middle of chemotherapy this Christmas.

There are plenty of ways your life is different from the fairy tale, huh? No wonder so many of us are snappish, moody and melancholy.

Because our lives don’t match the fairy tale.

And that, my friends, is OK.

Because if your wife is in Baghdad this Christmas, you can still give your kids the best Christmas you know how to. And your spouse with Alzheimer’s? His gentle wonder that such a nice lady is there with him is a precious gift. And when your kids spend Christmas morning with your ex-spouse, you are telling your kids that their own relationship with their dad is important — can you be more loving than that?

In all of our real lives, there are great challenges — and great gifts. When you feel angry or depressed or unhappy that your real life doesn’t measure up to the manufactured, unreal fairy tale — take heart. Just accept your own, unique life — messy, loud, fractured, silly, disorganized, untasteful. Because it’s all yours. And it’s perfect, just the way it is.

Honestly, would you have it any other way?

So, love it because it’s yours. Love it because it’s very real. Love it because love is what Christmas is all about.

Whelmed

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The other day a woman reported that she was feeling overwhelmed — she was trying to do so much that she felt she wasn’t doing anything well. Was multi-tasking the answer, she asked?

No, I answered, multi-tasking doesn’t really work. Try mono-tasking instead. Do one thing at a time. Do it thoroughly and do it well. Then move on to the next thing. Mono-tasking.

When you’re multi-tasking — trying to do two or three things simultaneously — you end up doing none of them well. Your stress level goes through the roof.

Face it, there’s just one you. You have the wondrous ability to give 100% of your attention to something. Multi-tasking asks you to divide your attention, and you end up with less than 100% on each task — and this is where errors occur… you end up spending more time fixing the resulting problems than you would if you gave the task all of your attention at the start.

Reading a memo while on a conference call when researching data and preparing a Power Point — you’re not truly engaged in any of these tasks and probably won’t have a great result. How much better to be truly present for the one minute it takes to read the memo, then participate fully in the conference call and make time later to do thorough, comprehensive research before you design the Power Point. That seems doable, manageable and calm, doesn’t it?

The opposite of overwhelmed, of course, is underwhelmed. Underwhelmed is what teachers generally feel about the work product of boys in their first year of high school. Wives are often underwhelmed by the anniversary gifts their husbands proffer — word to the wise: just because Hallmark says it’s the Paper Anniversary doesn’t mean paper towels are an appropriate gift. Hallmark is referring to the wrapping paper around the gift. Honey, every anniversary is the jewelry anniversary. That’s all you need to remember.

Underwhelm is often about our expectations of what others should be doing. And you know I have a deep dislike of the word ‘should’. In my life, I simply replace ‘should’ with ‘choose’ and feel so much happier. Rather than saying, “Charlie shouldn’t have shopped at 7-Eleven on Christmas Eve for my gift”, you can get to a level of acceptance when you realize Charlie chose to give you that box of frozen burritos — and you can ask him about that choice.

(By the way, Charlie, see above reference to The Jewelry Rule for Anniversaries. Same rule applies to Christmas. You’re welcome.)

Overwhelmed. Underwhelmed. It occurred to me this week that no one ever says, “I feel whelmed.” We’re always over or under.

Wouldn’t it be lovely to answer the question, “How you doing today?” with “I’m whelmed, thank you very much! And you?”

Whelmed — the point at which you are neither over nor under. You are not fruitlessly multi-tasking. You are balanced. You are paying appropriate attention and spending appropriate time on your tasks.

You are whelmed.

As the holidays approach with their attendant stressful opportunities for overwhelming tasks and underwhelming performance by others — reduce your stress by choosing to be whelmed. Whelmed one task at a time.

When Times Are Tough

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It’s been a tough couple of weeks for yours truly. I’ve faced a 3-D crisis: Death, Disease and Disappointment. A longtime friend died; a woman dear to me is ill; one of my readers has been given a scary diagnosis; and, someone didn’t do what he said he had done. All in all, a challenging time.

How do we get through crisis? How do we function when times are tough? How can we make the best of a bad situation?

Here are some tactics you can use when you face tough times:

First, don’t hurry through difficulties. I know, I know. Sounds counter-intuitive, huh? But finding a solution to a set of difficult problems may take time — and if you rush, you can find yourself applying the wrong solutions, which can completely compound the problem.

Second, accept the gifts difficulty has to offer. Another counter-intuitive thought? Not really. It’s only by fully experiencing the lows that we can fully experience the highs. I believe it’s impossible to live in bliss. Bliss is something that can be touched and savored in the moment — but it’s incredibly hard to sustain. Fully feeling sadness, hurt, vulnerability, disappointment and fear allows us to understand and learn. And to remember we’re only human.

Third, make sure you are surrounded by a team of people ready to help and support you. In my case, my team “floats” depending on what I need. Sometimes my team includes a lawyer (or two), an accountant, a teacher, a consultant or another coach. Sometimes my team consists of three wise women and two bottles of wine. The latter is infinitely more fun than the former, with no offense meant to lawyers and accountants who can be fun in their own special ways. In my “Thinking About Starting Your Own Business” and “Writing Your Own Personal Strategic Plan” workshops, I ask participants to inventory the folks they’ll need on their team to meet their objectives. It’s a good idea to identify your “crisis team” when times are good — so when times get tough, you know who to call. And, if you don’t know who to call, rely on friends, family and colleagues to give you good referrals.

Fourth, if your crisis takes you by complete surprise and you have that deer-in-the-headlights feeling — do this: think of someone you know who’s experienced your crisis before and pretend you’re her. “Carol would ask these questions,” you can tell yourself. Then proceed to ask all of Carol’s questions, which may prompt a few of your own. Our friends the mental health professionals call this “modeling” but you can also call it “surviving” — just until you have the information and strength to get going again.

Finally, remind yourself that you are a resilient person. You haven’t gotten this far without weathering a few storms, right? Reflect on other tough times you have faced– you made it through, didn’t you? You learned something. You made deeper connections with others. You grew stronger.

When times are tough, we are being challenged to our very core to dig deep and be the best people we can be in that moment. The good news is that tough times don’t last forever. And when they pass, our hearts are open to grateful living — and anticipation of the inevitable good times to come.

Accepting Gifts

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It’s all in how you receive.

Let’s say someone gives you a bouquet of flowers. You have a choice about how you will receive them. You could say, “Flowers, huh? What’s HE been up to?” Or, you could say, “Carnations? He only sprung for carnations? Cheapskate.” You might say, “He knows I hate Peruvian lilies — what’s he trying to tell me?” Or, you could merely accept the bouquet and say, “Thank you.”

It’s all in how you decide to receive a gift.

And that’s true whether you’re receiving a tangible gift, like we do here at Christmastime, or accepting your own inherent gifts. I am often amazed at the number of clients who can wax rhapsodic about their weaknesses and shortcomings, but when I task them with inventorying their strengths, they freeze up.

Perhaps we’ve been socialized away from “tooting our own horn” to the degree that we forget we’ve actually got a horn anyway. It does feel awkward to say, “You know, I am really good at (fill in the blank).” Try it. “I am really good at (insert your strength here).” Was that easy or hard? Did you struggle to find something to fill in the blank?

Performance reviews often focus on that which needs improvement (your weaknesses) without so much as a nod to what you’re consistently doing really well. Focusing on the negative puts people in a defensive, one-down position. What a shift it would be if corporations acknowledged employee strengths and let folks play to them!

So, how do you identify your strengths? Glad you asked.

1) What tasks are you often asked to do in your workplace, home or volunteer activities? Organize the Christmas party? Entertain clients? Write a business plan? Train the new guy? Serve on a committee?

2) What are you doing when you lose track of time? Reading actuarial tables? Talking with clients? Walking outside? Writing? Preparing meals? Thinking? Working on a project with others? Being physical?

3) What things have you consistently gravitated to throughout your career? Building teams? Starting businesses? Problem-solving? Big-picture thinking? Coordinating details? Serving others?

Answering these questions may lead you, for example, to understand that you are highly socially intelligent — great at reading other people and excellent at client service — yet you spend a great deal of time completing paperwork. That may lead you to determine you need an assistant to do the paperwork, freeing you up to spend more time with your clients, and increasing your sales revenue.

One of the keys to happiness and satisfaction is knowing what you’re good at and doing as much of it as possible. I often tell clients, “Do more of what you like and delegate the rest!”

When I work with clients to inventory their strengths, we’ll identify one and they will often say, “Well, of course, but anyone can do that!” Really? Everyone can plan and execute a Presidential event for 40,000 people in a week? Everyone can prepare corporate tax returns? Everyone can make a nutritious, tasty meal in 23 minutes? Everyone can manage a group of people to a positive end result? Everyone can raise a million dollars?

I don’t think so.

We tend to minimize that which comes easy to us and focus on that which comes with difficulty. We’ve heard this so many times: “If it’s worth anything, you’ve got to struggle for it.” My perspective is: “If you have to struggle for it, you may be trying to do the wrong thing.”

Accepting and working with your particular gifts shifts your way of thinking from “There’s plenty I’m not good at” to “Look at what I can do!” Which attitude, do you think, leads to greater happiness and satisfaction?