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layoffs

Tell Me, Who Are You?

March 30, 2014 By Michele Woodward Leave a Comment

 

Horse & CarriageThey were at the absolute top of their game. Masters of their craft, they knew exactly what their customers needed.

They knew how different materials created different results, and worked tirelessly to turn out quality products.

They started as boys, became apprentices, and then were masters of their own shops. Esteemed and valued, they were absolute experts in their field.

And it was a field that was dying.

Because these were the buggy whip manufacturers of 1900.

Oh, they knew exactly how to make a whip for you if you had a pony cart. And what to make if you were driving a team of eight. They knew the perfect supple leathers to use, and how to make the best grip for any kind of weather.

They were amazing artisans.

But by about 1930, cars had overtaken the horse and buggy, and fewer and fewer people needed a whip to drive their non-existent team of horses.  In the span of a just few years, the centuries-old whip making industry was dead.

And many people were out of a job.

I’ll bet there were plenty of old whip makers who sat around on porches and complained that the world was a hard place, and lamented that a way of life was gone – a way of life that was good, honest and simple.

I’ll also bet that there were some buggy whip makers who saw the writing on the wall and became leather workers in another field. They fashioned belts or jackets. Or sofas.

Or maybe went outside their trade and became chauffeurs of new-fangled automobiles.

Or started a real estate business. Or went to school.

They acted.

It seems to me that there are always some people who take loss – expected or unexpected – as a catalyst to shape a new identity. They drop an old way of being and exchange it for a new way of living, seemingly taking it all in stride.

And then there are those who don’t.

Isn’t that fascinating? Someone was really great – at the top of their game – as a… travel agent. And rather than say, “I was a great travel agent, and I’m sure I’m going to be a great at something new”, they spend their energy wishing that the entire world would change and everyone would start using paper tickets again. Maybe someone felt so in the zone as a journalist, or a record label executive, or a book publisher – and then technology forever changed those fields.

It seems like some of us bang our heads against the wall desperately trying to find another job just like the one that will never, ever exist again.

Likewise, maybe we’re stuck because we got such comfort and sense of place being someone’s… spouse, child, grandchild, loved one.

Yet we spend our days honoring the gap in our lives rather than honoring the lives that were lived.

It’s important to grieve loss. In fact, it’s vital to your overall health and well-being – you have to understand what happened, and try to find a why…if there is a why to be found.

But it’s what you do when you find yourself in one of these change points makes all the difference.

You need to fashion a new story of who you are – a new identity – which honors the past but allows you to be fully present in the here and now.

To even get started, you have to be brave.

To take the first steps, simply embrace even the saddest loss as an opportunity to create a new identity. Draw strength from how great you were with the person or thing you loved, but move forward fully open to the idea that something new can be something good, too.

Or, alternatively, you can sit on the porch with your complaints and cling to the past.

The choice is entirely yours.

 

Filed Under: Authenticity, Blog, Career Coaching, Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Managing Change, Uncategorized Tagged With: being stuck, career strategy, Finding a new job, grief, layoffs, loss

Centered Enthusiasm

March 29, 2009 By Michele Woodward Leave a Comment

I have a feeling. The baby buds of a feeling, if you want me to share the specifics. It’s an itty-bitty hint. A twinkling inkling.

Know what it is? I feel like a corner has been turned.

I feel like things are getting better.

Maybe it’s spring that’s doing it. There’s that moment in winter — some bitter Tuesday in February — when all the trees are bare and look dead, but you know within each dormant tree are all the hopeful buds of spring. All those potential leaves and blooms and fruits are inside that tree, just waiting for the right moment to unfurl.

And that’s what today feels like to me. The world is unfurling.

I am going to hold on to that feeling and let it take me past the anxiety, past the worry and past the relentless drumbeat of bad news.

Last Friday’s free class on dealing with anxiety around the roller coaster economy, vanishing jobs and the uncertain world touched on this subject. If you’d like to listen to the recording of the session, go to www.lifeframeworks.com and click the play button just below my photo.

In the call, I cover 10 Things You Can Do Right Now To Stop Freaking Out. Catchy, huh? Number 8 “Be with positive people” prompted a couple of questions — how do you deal with negative or toxic people?

First, you have to identify the negative people in your life. They may be so close to you that you’re not even aware of their negativity — because they’re your husband, your wife, your mom, your best friend. Who’s negative? If you walk away from an interchange with them and you feel depleted, discouraged and generally down — they’re likely negative. If you mention something positive and they immediately turn it toward the dark side — they’re likely negative. If they use a lot of words like “can’t”, “won’t” and “shouldn’t” — negative.

Once you know who the negative people are, you can do the second thing. Which is: limit your exposure to them. “My husband? Limit my exposure to him? Exactly how?” you ask. I like the technique I learned when my kids were in the Terrible Twos — simply say, “Gosh, sounds like you’re really upset and need some time to get a handle on things. I’m going to go into the next room, and when you’re ready to talk calmly, come get me.” Then you smile and give a virtual pat on the head and go fold laundry.

Negativity usually stems from fears. And some of those fears are real, and some are imagined. For instance, were I to stand face to face with a bear my heart rate would climb, my mind would race, I’d sweat buckets, I would panic, I might even whimper a teeny-tiny bit. Those would all be normal reactions to facing a bear. However, I can have pretty much the same physical reactions by simply imagining that I’m standing in front of a bear. Ain’t no bear in the neighborhood, but I’m behaving as if there is one. Why do that?

Some people imagine a charging bear because they like the adrenaline rush. Some people imagine something terrible because it reinforces the negative view they have of the world. And some people imagine the worst because it gives them something to focus on.

I’ll tell you one thing: when you focus on the negative, you generally find it. And if you’re surrounded on every side by negativity, all you’ll see is the bad. You’ll never see the happy buds of spring, you’ll just see dead, lifeless trees.

Dadgummit, I am going to see the buds. I’m going to be happy. Because I feel happy. Not wishful, magical-thinking happy, but what I call “centered enthusiasm” — I know what’s going on in my world, and I’m still eager, enthusiastic and positive. Feels really right.

Why don’t you try centered enthusiasm this week, and see if it doesn’t shift your mood from negative to positive, from dark to light, from dormant to joyful blossoming blooms?

Go ahead — allow the unfurling to begin.

The best in life coach tips and useful suggestions to help you get the life you want to live.

Filed Under: Clarity, Happier Living Tagged With: attitude shift, coach, economic crisis, financial crisis, happiness, layoffs, reframing thoughts, stress

The Absence Of Perfect – Part 2

March 1, 2009 By Michele Woodward Leave a Comment

Back in 2007, I wrote about what to do in the Absence Of Perfect. What do you do when the perfect solution you have in mind is just not gonna happen?

You can hold on to your idea of “perfect” or, as I suggest, you can ask yourself, “what’s my best option right now?”

There’s so much uncertainty in life these days, and just like you I’m feeling it. In my perfect world, everyone who wanted a job would have a good one. We’d all make our mortgage payments and guys like Bernie Madoff would be responsible stewards of other people’s money.

Yep, in my perfect world, you and I wouldn’t worry about paying for food, or juggling bills, or managing prescriptions, or getting shingles replaced on the roof because there would always be enough of everything for everyone.

A Michele-ian utopia.

But right now perfect is not happening.

So what’s our best option? Well, we could wallow, which is an oft-chosen yet quite unproductive option, or we could do something. I, as you regular readers can imagine, am taking the “do something” approach:

1. Honoring my priorities — which means mortgage, mortgage, mortgage. It’s my intention to pay it first, and attend to other obligations from there. Prioritizing my mortgage means that I am also watching refinancing opportunities like a hawk, and will jump just as soon as I possibly can. This works for me as I plan to stay in my house indefinitely. Well, at least until my kids can get in-state tuition at one of the great universities in Virginia. Or until the Redskins win another Super Bowl. Didn’t I say “indefinitely”?

2. Take on no new debt — which means no big spending. I’d been considering post-graduate studies, and that is now officially on hold. Here’s my rule of thumb: If I can pay for it fully in cash, or pay it off in three months, I will do it. If not, I’m shoving it to the back burner.

3. Pay down my debt — which may mean that I don’t have as much cash on hand as the so-called experts suggest but when I have less debt, I will have more cash flow, allowing me to build up my cash reserves quickly. Feels right to me.

4. Doing what I can to increase my income — which means I’ve developed some great new programs. I have The Results Club for job seekers with my colleague Christina Brandt — a phenomenally gifted Master Coach — and we’re working together on a useful e-book called Finding a Job 2.0. I’m also working with Pam Slim, an insightful and humorous writer and Master Coach, to launch Kick-Ass Mentoring this week, which will help coaches move from stuck to success. Both of these programs are so good that I get goose bumps. All these efforts will (cross your fingers) bring in revenue and more easily help me attend to numbers 1-3 above.

Oh, I hear you. You government employees, corporate citizens, teachers and other blokes who have steady employment — “How can I make more money? I’m on a salary.” Yes, you are. And you can be like the happy young teacher I met the other day, who is working as a waitress on the weekends, AND creating memorable art-themed birthday parties for kids in her spare time around classes. Quite the go-getter.

The question for you may be, How can you go get? What can you do? I’m telling you — I feel good that I’m doing something. I have a plan. I have priorities. Which is my best option, given that so much is beyond my control.

If you’re freaked out about what’s happening now — if your reality of layoffs and tight budgets doesn’t meet your idea of perfection — then take a little step back and ask yourself, “OK, what’s my best option here?” What can you do?

The best in life coach tips and useful suggestions to help you get the life you want to live.

Filed Under: Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Happier Living Tagged With: budget, career coach, economic crisis, Kick-Ass Mentoring, layoffs, life coach, Perfect, perfectionism, solution, The Results Club

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