Michele Woodward

Powerful Coaching. Powerful Results.

limiting beliefs

Believe Your Way Forward

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Slack line in the city park.

Time after time, a huge truth is revealed to me:

Whatever you believe becomes your reality.

About six months ago, a woman came to me for coaching. A Vice President in a Fortune 50 company, she was worried because someone was promoted over her.

Someone younger.

Someone male.

And, in her late 50s, she wondered if she was getting sent a message. Perhaps she was getting sunsetted. Maybe they were getting ready to let her go. Maybe this was her terminal job and she’d never ever get hired again.

After all, who hires someone who’s 57 years old?

As a result of these assumptions, she worked extremely hard and went above and beyond to deliver results. Early mornings, late evenings, travel, conference calls, meetings and paperwork. She did it all.

And it felt like no one noticed. And it was never enough.

When we first met, her stress level was through the roof. I mean, stratospheric.

I knew what she needed – she needed  to rebuild her confidence and develop a strategy to manage the worry. She also had to figure out what was true about her work situation.

Because what you believe becomes your reality.

And she surely believed things were pretty terrible.

Long story short, among the things we did was to create a strategy for her to become more visible – in the office and out of the office. So, when offered a speaking role at a big conference, she said yes.

No, wait a minute. She said, “Yes!!”

Afterwards, people gave her amazing feedback about her presentation and she felt really good about how the whole conference went.

Then, one day, her phone rang. It was the CEO of a boutique-y company that excels in her area of expertise. In fact, they are more highly regarded than her company in this particular area.

The CEO said, “I’ve had my eye on you. Will you come work for me?”

Would she? Let’s see – more money, better title, solid-line reporting to the CEO.

And suddenly the assumption that no one hires a 57-year old woman went out the door.

And a new truth was unveiled:

“I am appreciated for what I do.”

Which is something pretty wonderful to believe.

So let me ask you: What reality are you believing into existence?

 

Your (Dis)Comfort Zone

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bigstock-Football-Goal-line-Marker-26211734

 

Here’s our comfort zone:

I know what I’m doing.

I look cool.

I don’t have to do anything really icky.

Here’s our discomfort zone:

I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

I look like an idiot.

Ewww, that’s icky.

That’s really all it boils down to.

And yet, so many well-meaning, self-help people exhort us to, “Get out of your comfort zone”. Yeah, right – inside our noggin it’s impossible to not hear their words as “Quick! Fail, and look like an idiot doing something that sucks!”

No wonder we struggle with comfort zones.

Now, you long time readers will remember that I don’t advocate “getting out of your comfort zone” because I think sometimes having a comfort zone means you are staying in your integrity. I wrote about it back in 2010. See, I think you have a comfort zone for a reason and it’s ok to stay put in it – but that doesn’t mean you can’t enlarge your comfort zone and make it roomier.

How do you enlarge your comfort zone? Well, you start by looking at uncomfortable things and ask why they cause your skin to crawl – really look long and hard, and understand what’s causing the perfect storm of fear rising up in your throat.

It might be that you’re afraid that if you do something uncomfortable, you’ll look like the aforementioned idiot – so here’s an idea: Maybe you practice your twerking in the privacy of your own home before you debut on national TV.

Just sayin’.

OK, you need another example, don’t you? Let me bring up two things which are in many people’s discomfort zones:

Having difficult conversations about money; and,

Eating stewed, fermented eels.

One of these things can be mastered so your life becomes easier and much fuller, rich and flowing.

The other one is just icky.

And let me tell you this – you don’t need to enlarge your comfort zone to include things that are truly icky. Anyone who suggests that does not have your best interests at heart.

But maybe you can spread a little and learn how to do something you don’t know how to do right now. Maybe you can grow into a way of doing something differently which will be important to your overall life, your sense of accomplishment and general happiness.

Like looking someone straight in the eye and asking for the money that’s due you. Doing that will make a difference in your life and the lives of those you love.

If you ask me, that’s worth taking a hard look at your (dis)comfort zone, and getting as comfortable as you can with what’s in there.

Grow, learn, enlarge. It’s all you have to do to make the hard things easier.

Challenge Assumptions

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Grocery shopping cart“So, Michele, it must be nice to be paid to tell people what to do,” says the friend I ran into at the grocery store. I noted the raised eyebrows and head shake, and sensed that he was…amused at my livelihood. “Well, the sad news is that I don’t get to boss anyone – not even my kids, it seems, unless I’m holding their car keys and my wallet. Coaching is more about guiding a client to find the right answers for them.”

As I rolled on down the aisle, I was sort of wincing, wishing I had thrown out a better comeback. C’mon, Michele – What is executive coaching and why does it matter?

Thankfully, the folks at Harvard Business blogs posted something this week that really helped. In Before Working with a Coach, Challenge Your Self-Assumptions, author John Boldoni says to those  thinking about getting a coach:

“Effective coaching is often a matter of challenging assumptions, and the biggest assumptions often reside in the mind of the person being coached.”

Yes! That’s it! I help people challenge their assumptions so they can get extremely clear. And working from that clarity, take the steps necessary to get the results they need.

[Now I am fully prepared for the produce aisle, thankyouverymuch.]

Case in point: my client Joe. Now, of course his name isn’t Joe, but we’ll call him that to preserve his confidentiality. Joe came to me a couple of years ago to reinvigorate his career. See, after a divorce he’d made a decision to throttle back a little on the career front so he could be a custodial parent. Once one kid was in college and the others nearly finished with high school, he decided to throttle his career back up. He wanted to get promoted, use his leadership skills more and do something more meaningful.

But he had a few assumptions about what was really possible, all tied up in confidence, self-esteem, and comfort with risk-taking – key elements required for effectively putting himself back in the mix. We had to tackle those assumptions and plenty of others as they came up before we could construct the plan that he would execute. And day by day, over about eighteen months, Joe executed on the plan.

And just this week, he said to me, “Michele, this coaching thing has really paid off. I wasn’t so sure there for a bit, but everything we’ve covered has put me where I am.” And the place he’s in is this – the candidate for a new big position internally and being recruited for a big position externally.

A few weeks ago, I sat down and crunched some numbers about my executive coaching practice. Who are my clients, and why do they come to me? How do they come to me? Anyone who’s in business for themselves can benefit from this sort of analysis. I learned:

Since January 1st, I have coached 10 men and 21 women in one-on-one, hour-long sessions. This excludes the laser coaching I do in The Club program, which has 44 members.

Of those 31 individuals, nine were senior executives, and seven were lawyers. Six were senior-level job seekers. Five owned their own businesses. Three were mid-level professionals and one was a coach. The bulk of them came to me by referral from past clients or professional colleagues.

With the exception of the job seekers, everyone wanted pretty much the same thing – “how can I be better at my job? How can I lead better? Communicate better? Manage crisis better? Create a strategy? Build?”

And every single client needed to challenge assumptions. Like the assumption that they are too old. Or too young. Or that the gap on their resume is too large. Or that Charlie won’t change. Or that Charlotte is their mortal enemy. That their lack of a specific degree is a deal-breaker.

That this isn’t the path I thought I’d be taking at this point in my life.

Oh, man, I love my work. I truly do. Because all day long, I’m challenging assumptions. All day long, I’m helping people find a new way.

Each day, with every session that concludes, I see minds opening and possibilities born.

I gotta tell you – it’s so much more fulfilling than bossing.

 

The $6.30 Solution

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Somewhere along the line, I acquired a cheap little eyebrow pencil sharpener. Wasn’t much – a gimcrack drugstore model – and I used it every so often when needed.

OK, every so often for several years.

And after how many ever years, the thing started losing its edge. Every time I tried to draw an almost straight line across the rim of my eyelashes there would be sharp, pointy slivers of wood at the tip and I’d have to position the pencil just so to avoid cutting my eye.

Did you read that? I am telling you that day after day, I stuck a pointy stick in my eye.

It is, in fact, reasonable to ask: What was I thinking? I’ll tell you exactly what I was thinking. I was thinking the thought chanted by successive generations of my forebears:

“You paid for it, you own it, you better use it.”

Or its equivalent (which my cousins will shout with me):

“You can reuse plastic forks! Wash the Solo cups! Rinse out your Ziploc bags! I remember when six of us would share one banana!”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, I know, I know.

So use it I did, grumbling and anxious (the daily sharp stick in the eye worry). But did I ever consider tossing it in the trash and buying a new one?

Nope.

Until I came home from a recent trip and found that I’d lost Old Ophthalmologist’s Nightmare.

Did I rush out and buy a new one? No, the words of my ancestors ringing in my ears, I used my semi-sharpened, splintery pencils sequentially until there weren’t even any nubs left. Which, naturally, prompted an Eyebrow Pencil Crisis.

Which might have pushed some women – and a few guys – to rush out to the store and pick up a replacement.

Not me.

No, yours truly just went without makeup for a few days – wouldn’t any new sharpener ultimately produce splinters? – until I noticed that a new cosmetics store had opened up on the same block as the yogurt shop where my daughter is now working. Huh.

Dropped the kid off and strolled into the riot of scents and girlyness and asked, as nonchalantly as my non-made up self could muster, “Do you carry eyebrow pencil sharpeners?” The woman squinted as if she was thinking hard and said, “Yes, we have a great one from Nars, right here.”

I didn’t even look at it. Just eased over to the register and paid… $6.30.

OK, there is a punchline, but you’ll have to wait for it.

That evening, I decided to try it out. I was not optimistic, I have to tell you. What could a $6.30 pencil sharpener possibly do but poke me in the eye? Alone in my bathroom, I inserted the first pencil. And twisted.

Once. Twice. Three times.

And pulled out a perfectly sharpened eyebrow pencil. I’m talking from the factory perfect. Like it had never been used perfect.

No splinters.

I was amazed. I got a little zealous and sharpened every pencil in the makeup drawer – even ones I don’t use.

And I thought:

“What else in my life am I putting up with – that’s causing me stress – when there’s a new, simple solution out there?”

The next few days, I inventoried and remedied those vexing little things around my house that I was living with because they were “good enough” and “paid for.” I replaced a cracking and peeling toilet seat. I got new towels. I hauled out a screwdriver and fixed a kitchen cabinet. I threw out three tee-shirts that really were ratty.

How’d it feel?

Lighter. Freer. Simpler. Less stress. More gratitude.

Gratitude because I have the means and ability to address the things that were in my way.

And guess what? You, too, have the exact same means and ability.

You can change whatever you’re simply putting up with because it’s already in place.

A horrendous commute? A rattle-trap car? A bully boss? A dead-end job?

A situation that’s just not going to change?

You might think there’s nothing you can do. Any solution is going to be expensive. And hard.

And maybe poke you in the eye.

But.

$6.30.

That’s all it took for me. And you? Your solution might even be easier.

And it’ll be better than a poke in the eye.

 

 

What If vs. What If

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The absolutely best, most creative question ever asked is:  “What if?”

This little question has generated countless books, movies and plays.  What if a Danish prince discovers that his mother’s new husband is his father’s murderer?  What if a young girl falls down a rabbit hole and finds another world?  What if boy meets girl, boy loses girl and then boy finds girl again?

“What if?” has also spawned greatness in other ways.  Like peach salsa.  Like penicillin.  Like new roses. Like Impressionist paintings. Like iPads.

And yet at the very same time “what if?” is our biggest stumbling block to success.

“What if I make a mistake?”

“What if I don’t like it?”

“What if it’s not really possible?”

“What if I’m wrong?”

The stewing and fretting so many of us devote to the potentiality of every single possible “what if?” scenario keeps us completely stuck.

“What if?” we ask.  “What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if?”

Exhausting.

Yet the irony is, like the proverbial two-edged sword, it’s only by asking “what if?” that we can be free to move forward.

What if you don’t like it?  Well, what if you do?  You will never know until you try, so why not just try?

What if you fail?  Well, have you failed before?  Bet you have. I sure have – recently.  And, look: you and I are still above ground and breathing, so that means we are probably stronger and more resilient than we give ourselves credit for.  Failure proves it.

What if it’s not really possible?  Or if you’re wrong?  Well, then, at least you have collected data which shows you what’s not going to work.  Which only makes it more possible for you to figure out what will work.

Pollyanna-ish?  Unrealistic?  Are you thinking that perhaps I don’t understand the stakes involved?  How pressured your situation is?  How overwhelmed you are?

Oh, I understand quite well.  Believe me.  

I hear it every day. And lived it myself.

But there’s one thing I know.  You can make it easier on yourself by simply choosing to use the creative “what if?” rather than the limiting “what if?”

That’s all.  Once choice.  One little choice to come at your overwhelm and pressure and deadlines and stuff from a slightly different angle.

And create something wonderful.

 

Ya Gotta Wanna

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Considering making some changes here at the end of one year and the start of a brand spanking new one? Gonna lose weight? Stick to your budget? Change jobs? Travel to Bali? Find yourself that elusive soul mate?

Sure every year you make resolutions; but this year, by golly, you’re really gonna do it.

Well, all I’m gonna say is, “Ya gotta wanna.”

How many times have you found yourself in late December writing down the New Year’s Resolution to Get Into Better Shape, and by February you find yourself couch potato sluggish — not going to the gym you paid for, or even using those getting-dusty weights in the back of the closet?

My guess? You didn’t really wanna get into shape.

Because if you did really wanna, you woulda.

The sneaky sabotage comes into play when we say one thing yet do another. We say we want to pay off our credit card debt yet we continually splurge on something we “deserve”, or that makes us “feel better”. Result? We end the year with two additional credit cards, and everything maxed out.

And we feel like a failure.

Which is, of course, why we didn’t pay off the credit card in the first place.

When you feel like a failure, you create opportunities to remind yourself that you are, indeed, a failure. What does a failure do? Why, fail! So, you fail to pay your bills on time — and the nastygrams from your creditors reinforce your idea about yourself… that you’re a loser. You fail to eat healthy food and moderately exercise, and what happens? Why, you gain weight, lose muscle tone and feel… bleah. But isn’t that how a failure is supposed to feel?

To turn this around, there is only one thing you can do. And you gotta wanna. You gotta wanna move from failure to success. Really, really wanna. Ready?

Take out a piece of paper. Oh, and a pen. Or pencil. Or fat crayon. Something handy. OK. List the following categories and leave enough space between them to write four or five things under each. The categories are: Career; Money; Health; Physical Environment (your living conditions); Family/Friends; Significant Other/Romance; Personal Growth (continuing education, spiritual growth, etc.); and, Fun & Recreation.

Focus on what you did, rather than what you didn’t. That’s a switch, huh?

When you’re finished, look at your list of accomplishments for the year. Any patterns? Anything interesting? What’s that tell you about your year?

This was a tough year for a client of mine, Susan. A year ago, she lost her senior executive position due to an industry shake-up. Then both parents got ill, and she became their legal custodian. She arranged for their care, took responsibility for finances, coordinated with the extended family. A full-time job — while she was looking for a full-time job. In the last three months, her father died and her sister unexpectedly died — and her mother remains ill.

But.

In the last year, she rekindled friendships. She moved to her dream city. She put lovely things into her new home. She made smart financial decisions. She exercised. She traveled. She continued to expand her professional network. She sought support when she needed it. She took care of herself.

Although Susan might say, “2007 was a lost year”, her list would indicate that she actually made some important steps. Sure, she did what she had to. But the things she really, really wanted to do? She got those done, too.

When you shift your thoughts from “look at what a mess I am” to “look at what I’ve done”, you shift your perspective from perpetual loser to resilient achiever. Even if your achievements are small, they are still yours.

“Michele”, you say.”What’s the point? I only made accomplishments in areas that really don’t matter. I still don’t have (a partner, a great job, a million dollars).” I, in my most wise Yoda-like way will ask, “Why are you afraid of leaving Loserville and moving into Successville? What’s keeping you from claiming all of your power and accomplishments? What benefit do you get from believing that what you do doesn’t matter?”

Getting rid of your negative beliefs about yourself is the key to making progress on any New Year’s resolutions you may make. Shifting from a sense of limitation and lack to an awareness of opportunities and abundance completely changes your life. Things become more effortless, you become happier. Believe me, it can be done and you can get there.

But ya really gotta wanna.

What Do You Expect?

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I have come to believe that expectations are at the root of the world’s ills.

Expectations put us in a rut. Israeli expects Palestinian to hate Israeli, Palestinian expects the same from Israeli. Each acts proactively on those expectations and, boom, we have war. War that lasts for years and years.

Husband expects wife will be angry when he comes home late, wife expects he has no good excuse and, bang, we have an argument.

Woman expects she will fail because she always has, and, anyway, she’s not really good enough — who does she think she’s kidding? — and, pow, she doesn’t get the promotion. Again.

All these foregone conclusions are based on expectations which may or may not be true. An Israeli might actually want to give compassionate medical care to a Palestinian. A Palestinian may wish to teach an Israeli child calculus — but because of their underlying limiting expectations, neither do.

Author Byron Katie tells a story about a walk in the desert she once took. Katie, a woman of a certain age, was out walking alone in the desert near her home. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed a snake. She froze.

A snake. A poisonous snake. The snake was going to bite her. She was going to be bitten by a poisonous snake and die a horrible, slow death in the desert. She’d die and no one would know what happened to her. She’d die alone, painfully, in the desert. Searchers would come eventually and find a pile of bones. She’d be all alone out there in the desert — dead. Nothing but a pile of bones!

She opened one eye to see the demon snake who was going to kill her, and…it was a rope. Not a poisonous, ruinous snake. Just an old rope. Laughing, she stepped over it and continued her walk.

Expectations are like this. Expect to see a snake, and you will. Even if it’s just a rope. You’ll react to the rope as if it were a snake, when all you need to do is treat it as a rope and keep walking.

What if you lived your life if it were just an experiment? In the scientific method, there are no expectations of outcome. We do the experiment and see what happens. If it works, we keep doing it. If it doesn’t, we stop. We try something new. And, there are no mistakes. What a lovely way to live!

Either/Or

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“I can stay in my job and have enough money, or I can do what I love and be broke.”

“I can’t be happy as long as I’m married to Clyde.”

“Since I have been a full-time parent for the last ten years, the only job I can possibly get won’t pay very much.”

All statements I have heard in the last month — that’s true.

But they’re not true statements. Sure, they feel true to the folks saying them, but they’re really either/or, black/white statements. They’re what’s called “limiting beliefs”. Either/or statements like this serve a great purpose — they keep us pretty well stuck.

Because… is it true that you have to be broke to do what you love? Hmmmn. Oprah looks like she loves what she does and she’s doing all right. Bill Gates? He seems pretty happy. Steve Jobs is passionate about what he does, and he gets all the IStuff he can use. Bono gets to be a multi-millionaire rock star AND do good while wearing cool sunglasses.

Either/or statements serve as fear-based predictors of what’s going to happen. If you go into a job interview with the mindset, “Since I’ve been a full-time parent for 10 years, I can’t ask for too much” — guess what? You won’t. Confidence in your own self-worth is reflected in that thought, and you telegraph it to everyone you meet. How much stronger to say, “Even though I’ve been out of the workforce for 10 years, I bring great skills and excellent contacts — I’m worth what they’ve budgeted for this position’s salary.”

Living in black/white, either/or land is one way to make sure you’re always right. “I can’t be happy if I’m married to Clyde” — a popular kind of statement. Saying this, you will discard any experience that might show that you could be happy, or, heaven forbid, that you actually like Clyde. You will pursue, or maybe even create, opportunities to be unhappy with Clyde. What if you turned it around and figured ways to see if you could be happy with Clyde, oh, like, let’s see: counseling, mutual hobbies, actually talking to him…

Often when we “can’t be happy” it’s not because of someone else, but because of something within ourselves. And we owe it to the Clydes of the world to work on that before laying our own dissatisfaction at their feet.

Living in the gray between black/white is the challenge, and the gift. It’s saying, “I can lose weight while eating fewer carbs.” It’s saying, “I may have to start the work I love on the side or as a volunteer, while I keep my job for the income.” It’s “I can be happy with or without Clyde — it’s up to me.”

There are “motivational speakers” out there who tout the idea “You CAN have it all.” Which is, poppets, yet another black/white statement. The beauty of living in the gray is replacing “either/or” with “and”. It’s so much more balanced to believe, “I can have some of this and some of that,” or, even more true, “I can have whatever I need.”

Contrary to popular belief, life is not all or nothing. The key to getting unstuck is getting un-attached to the either/or thoughts that immobilize us, and recognizing them for the limiting beliefs they are.

In fashion, it’s often said that this color or that color is the “new black”. In life, the key to happiness is replacing black/white with the best of both — to live in the shades of gray that are truly flattering.