Posts Tagged ‘Making Changes’

Making Changes

Saturday, January 30th, 2010

At  least once a week  I get an email promising fantastic changes in my life.   All I would have to do is sign up with the sender’s program.  Promises of financial success, no fail business ventures, finding the right partner, true happiness and so on, all by taking a brief course or program. Who wouldn’t want that?

However reality is that most of us  have to work diligently at the changes we want to have  happen in our life.

Change takes persistence, commitment and time.  Maintaining good health involves regular exercise and good eating habits. Being a loving partner is a life long undertaking.  It can not be achieved from  a weekend program or a course  regardless of what has been  promised.  True love comes by working on the relationship every day.

To be a parent  in a fair and caring takes a daily commitment.  Likewise, to be effective at work requires additional learning and trusting ones abilities. Most of all life requires us to keep growing and changing when necessary.

Making changes takes a serious  commitment to be the best person one can be.  And that in itself is a life long evolving  journey.

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Solutions Not Problems

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

If you think you have a problem what you really want is to find a solution.  I have found over the years of working with people that in many situation a problem solving approach does not work so well. Looking for solutions achieves good results.

Here is a good example.  The other day I coached Judy who had taken the huge step of leaving her secure job to go into business for herself.  Now that the initial excitement had worn off and the hard work of marketing and creating a product was in front of her Judy was feeling discouraged.   I explained to her that people who are embarking on making changes  find that their feelings oscillate until things evolve to a new equilibrium.   Instead we focused on finding solutions so she could get unstuck.

I reminded her that she knew best what the next steps needed to be.  As she explored her options  she came up with a clear plan on what to do next. My task was to ask questions that would lead her towards finding solutions.

Change occurs when we do something differently or look at things differently.  Judy shifted her thinking to looking for solutions and as she did that  she felt empowered and came up with clear steps as to what she wanted to do next.

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From Helpless to Taking Action

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

The last seven days have been filled with news of the devastating earthquake in Haiti.  I feel for all the people who are desperate to find food, medical care, a place to sleep,  and are looking for their  loved ones or grieving their loss. They are right now helpless to solve many of these concerns themselves and have to rely on the generosity of others to provide for them. Their  needs are overwhelming.   I would like to do more than give money and end feel helpless that there is so little I can do.

I have worked with  people who have felt helpless in their relationships. These have not been relationships where there is a genuine reason to be afraid.  Instead it has been a helplessness of their own making although they have not seen it as such.  Instead the  person who has felt helpless was deferring to the spouse when it came to making decisions.  Gradually that lead to an abdication of ones own power resulting in feeling powerless.

The way to change from feeling helpless is to take action.  The first action is to ask “what do I want”. That is the way to get back in touch with ones own essence.  I like the following quote by Galileo: “You can not teach a man anything, you have to help him find it within himself”.

Ultimately the people in Haiti will have to go inside themselves and find the strength to rebuild their lives. When they do that they will no longer be helpless.

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Rekindle Your Relationship

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

There is no magic answer to rekindling a relationship. There is no one thing that will quickly turn things around.  Yet many couples are able to achieve a new closeness in their relationship.  You may well ask ” how do they do it?”

After helping many couples rekindle their relationship I have found that there are three things that make a difference.

1. There is a willingness to put time and effort into making changes because each feels that preserving the relationship/marriage still matters.

2. Each is willing to confront  how he/she contributes to the relationship struggles

3. They are open  to learning  new relationship and communication skills.

Relationships that work well allow each person the freedom to be him/herself.  Together they decide how these individual needs can be incorporated into their relationship so it will strengthen togetherness.

We live in a quick fix culture.  Rekindling a relationship is not a quick fix. Instead it is a journey of new discovery about each other.  There has to be a recognition that people and their interests evolve over years and that these changes need to be dealt with.  What I see is that most couple’s lives are busy and have become routine. They do not take the time out to let each other know about their inner hopes, frustrations, unhappiness and desires.  When they talk about these inner matters with each other they are well on the road to rekindling their relationship.

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30 Day Challenge Good for Self-Growth

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

One of my mentors, Connie Ragen Green, has just presented a thirty day Power Blogging Challenge. That means making a blog entry daily until Jan. 7 when the challenge ends.  Not an easy assignment when it falls right during the holidays.

Yet many of us accomplish the most when we have a challenge.  I know that it motivates me.  Consistency is something that I have struggled with.  After an initial overwhelm feeling  as I think about the next thirty days I shifted my attitude to seeing this as a welcome challenge.

In my work with individuals and couples I frequently give assignments.  I talk about how it takes 21 days to change a habit.  I have never found out how this was determined but I do know that doing something daily makes all the difference.

I am coaching a woman right now who wants to change her  habit of keeping quiet when she knows she needs to speak up.  She chose as her assignment  the task to bring a concern  up daily with her partner.   She shared as to  how she had learned to silence her voice as a child.  This silencing  happens primarily in close relationships because she uses her voice effectively professionally  She realized that she was still repeating a habit form childhood that she no longer needed.  Instead it was limiting her authenticity  in this relationship.

Now 14 days into her assignment she told me today that speaking up is getting easier and she likes how she feels when she does it.

Over the next thirty days I would welcome questions from my readers.  In addition to writing about self growth and strengthening relationships I will also share  tips for dealing with holiday stress.

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What the “Biggest Loser” Discovered

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009

One of the previous winners of the “Biggest Loser” contest was on the Larry King Show last night. She talked about how hard it was to participate in the grueling fitness program. She recalled how she would argue with her trainer about her unreasonable demands. There were so many times when she almost gave up. The turning point for her came when she made the conscious decision to submit herself totally to following the program and to trust her trainer. That’s when she really started to lose the weight. Making that decision made all the difference. As the contestant discovered, the key was opening herself up to trusting that her trainer had her best interest at heart. Additionally, her trainer had the skills to teach her how to achieve weight loss. Yet it was up to her to make it happen.

How often do we spend time arguing with ourselves about things instead of opening ourselves up to learning from someone else? I know I have done it many times. Learning to trust someone else takes trusting oneself. My dentist in a very early appointment for some major dental work said “you need to trust me.” I could not do it immediately. I needed a little more time to get to know him and his work. Once I decided that I was in competent hands, I was able to relax and let him do what needed to be done.

The biggest loser contestant made her decision the same way. She learned to trust that her trainer knew what she was doing and she trusted herself to make that decision.

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