It’s instinctive to harden towards those circumstances and people that are difficult, as a way to mask vulnerability, or keep yourself intact.  Meeting challenges head-on is a good instinct to have, facing the threat.  Yet, it may not be giving you what you actually need.  For many years I “armored up”, toughened myself to hold my limits in place against those who would trample them (and me in the process).  I hid my perceived weaknesses behind a well thought out argument, cutting off dialog before we got anywhere near compromise.  I made decisions from a place of fear.

And of judgement.  Judgement of myself foremost, but judgment of others as well.  I wielded it like a shield so I wouldn’t get hurt.  Not surprisingly, it didn’t have the intended effect.  It drove people away, making them wary of me (at work and at home) making me feel worse about myself (without understanding why).  As long as I was making decisions based on fear, I couldn’t see that I was experienced as being inconsistent, no one knew which Carleen they were going to get; reasonable rational Carleen or defensive/offensive Carleen.  I thought I was being resilient, when in fact I was being tough.  Hard on myself and hard on others.

Toughness was what I thought was called for, but when put in place to shore up fears and judgment it can only hurt, not help, and not heal.  How then to get to resilience, without becoming a door mat?  Judgement has many synonyms in the dictionary, one of them is discernment. Discernment is based on rational, objective thinking, while judgement is based on assumptions.  Healthy boundaries are created with discernment and put in place with compassion, first for yourself, and then for others.

This still requires you to face the threat head on, so there may already be something that is strong in you that can help.  The next “move” is to be open and curious about the threat, as that is how you get to discernment.  Doing so is also an act of compassion, for yourself and others, allowing you to access to more information, so you can more accurately assess what is being called for, and make your needs known to others in ways they understand (even if they don’t agree with you).

Resilience is facing the threat, knowing you will do so with compassion that leads to discernment.  Knowing that in discernment you have the tool to make healthy decisions, putting in place boundaries that work.  In so doing, giving yourself what you need to be respected, understood, helped and, sometimes, what you need to heal.

“People cry, not because they are weak. It is because they've been strong for too long.” – Johnny Depp

Loving your working life sounds like a great aspiration, but it can also feel distant and vague, like something you’ll achieve when you look back over your career.  I am a huge fan of perspective taking, but there are big implications to your well-being when you wait to love your working life (and then only enjoy it from the rear-view mirror).  Let’s take a practical look at what falling in love with your work means.

To start, the word love seems out of place in the context of work and career.  If we look at the definition of love, it is “an intense feeling of deep affection that nourishes your well-being.”  Given that many of us spend more than 40 hours a week preparing for, thinking about, commuting to, being at, and doing work, it needs to nourish us.  Your work needs to support life; yours, your loved ones and your community.

With a word like “love”, it’s easy to romanticize what our working life should look like, and often this is a version of perfection.   No stress, easy commute, pressure-free.  Check back in with the definition of love, there is no promise of perfection.  Love is complicated and, just as in relationships, something you don’t do once, but over and over again, recommitting to it each day.  You fall in love with your work one moment at a time, and it is this deep affection for what you do that sustains you through the mess that is competing demands and stress.

Can you remember the first moment you were able to find joy in something you did?  It was likely at school where you discovered you not only enjoyed doing something, but were good at it.  This is the moment where love at work begins, because that one moment becomes motivation to continue to curiously pursue more of what you enjoyed, taking the next step to explore what a subject was all about, and what you could do with it.

Then comes the point in time when you transferred your interest and acumen to the workplace, and here there were moments where you realized what a difference your work could make to both others and yourself.  You may have been recognized, possibly even valued, by a client, employer or team mate.  Or you connected the dots yourself and were hooked on that feeling of having something meaningful in your life that only you could do.

Falling in love with your work is not about promotions, raises, bonuses or awards.  While those things are nice, It’s the moments that give you energy to keep going, to get out of bed and pursue the work you enjoy doing in ways only you can.  The meaning comes from understanding that you are connected to both yourself, and something bigger than yourself through your work.  What moments give you that spark of understanding?  What moments sustain you, allowing you to love your working life?

Standing in my living room, I am completely confounded. I forgot the reason I came into this room.  I’m certain it isn’t to watch the dog hair dance with the dust in the sunbeam coming in from the window, but that is what I am doing in this moment, fascinated.
I am three voices all at once.  The voice that chastises the condition of my housekeeping (look at all the dog hair!).  Another that is urging me to remember what I came for (time doesn’t scale, get a move on!).  A third voice that marvels at how things like dog hair and dust can stay afloat…wondering if there is an air current in the room that holds them aloft…as curious as a three-year-old.

Voice three wins, I pull out my phone to “google” how dust can travel upwards against gravity.  Surprise; my inkling was correct, it’s a warm air current from the floor vent.  And then I remember what I came for, and my day continues.  Except that because voice three won out, I am a little happier and satisfied.  I have a smile on my lips.

Voice three doesn’t always win out, usually it is the loudest voice that gets my attention, cutting through the fugue of competing demands on my time.  However, I recognize that constantly yelling at myself (even mental yelling) is not a great way to live.  Sometimes you just have to rebel…against yourself.  Sometimes you have to take the moment.  Even when that moment is not “Instagram-able”, it still has immense value.

This brief moment of wonder gives me a feeling of well-being.  Later today, it will give me something to talk about at dinner with my family (other than work).  I am especially exciting to share it with my son, who is also curious and learning about air currents in science.  Later this week it will motivate me to dust and to brush the dog (probably not in that order).  Most of all, it breaks the rigidity of a demanding day with a moment of inquisitiveness.

Switching pace and focus, even just for a few moments, has so many benefits.  Clearly my body was signaling to me that I needed a break, short-term memory loss (like forgetting why you walked into a room) is often a sign we need to give ourselves a moment to let our brains catch up to where we are.  We are not living to work; we are working so we can truly live.  Being deeply curious about the world around us is a part of that living.

I am grateful for my ability to stop and enjoy this simple moment.  What simple moments are you experiencing today?

I was on a flight recently, where the voices seated in front of me became loud enough to hear.  Person One was telling Person Two all about his workplace, and it was grim (hence the loud voice).  There seemed to be nothing of redeeming value at his place of work, and when Person Two helpfully offered an alternative way to approach the concern, Person One launched into all the reasons why that couldn’t possibly benefit him either.  Then a heavy silence followed (and I put my headphones on to escape the awkwardness).

I contrast this to a different flight where a similar event took place, this conversation also began with negativity about work, but when the second person helpfully offered an option, the first person pursued it with curiosity.  Even though the turn of conversation began with a healthy amount of skepticism from Person One, she stayed open enough to the option offered to ask questions, allowing Person Two to share his own experience with making his job better and how it had benefited him.  This led to a constructive exchange where their voices became softer and those seated around them were no longer privy to their conversation.  At the conclusion of the flight, as we were all standing up to de-plane, they were shaking hands and exchanging business cards and commitments to keep in touch.

It’s a good reminder that opportunity doesn’t exactly knock, or announce itself.  If we are not paying attention, negativity can kill opportunity.  I’m not advocating perpetual positivity; there is enough misguided advice floating around to make positivity feel toxic (I’m talking to you “Hustle like you can’t lose” social media posts).  Healthy skepticism isn’t a bad thing.  However, only seeing the world through “wet-blanket” negativity ensures you remain stuck in whatever is creating negativity for you – it’s a paradox.

When you feel really negative about something at work, see if you can get curious enough to prevent building a story that reinforces your untested view (or try to build more than one story).  Talk to someone you trust who will explore alternatives to your perspective.  It could be you are right; good companies make bad decisions sometimes.  It could also be the beginning of a new opportunity (like my example of the women on the plane), or it may build resilience in the face of an unfortunate circumstance.  Life will never only be sunshine and roses, we know this.  Thankfully, it also isn’t always doom and gloom.

If you are stuck in a negative place (it happens to all of us, part of being beautiful human beings), give yourself compassion.  Take a break, disrupt your routine (go for a walk, etc.) and have faith that this too shall pass.  Opportunity will be there when you need it, if you remember it comes softly (and without announcement).

I’m sitting in my sunny kitchen, on a beautiful morning, basking in this moment of balance and “rightness”.  It is a good moment to soak in; I sip my coffee and stretch my legs into a sunbeam.  Moments like these are precious, they create access to gratitude and thankfulness, which are really important to well-being.  They can also create a “call to action”, to have life stay this way, an internal voice that demands “…if you made this happen today, you can make it happen every day!”

It would be easy to mistake that voice for self-confidence… it’s not.  Unless I control the universe (which I don’t), creating the conditions for my peace, outside of myself, is not within my power (influence, yes… power, no).  Making a commitment to have life always balanced and calm is a set up for failure because that call to action, sets out on a path to control things, so peace is defended.  Can you feel peace move out of possibility with the gear up to defend it?  Creating a condition where there is a threat and a forthcoming battle (even when none may exist).  This defense takes constant vigilance.  I have to remind myself; the goal is not to always have peace…peace only comes from knowing whatever life throws my way I will handle it and find my way back to well-being.  Peace comes from inside of me, not from the world around me.

There is a Zen saying “the obstacle is the path”, which means that if I am chasing peace as my goal, I’m vulnerable to every life hiccup and concern, because I’ll see them as in my way, I’ll be constantly guarding the “status quo”.  However, if I am open to the fact that there will always be obstacles (like excruciating moments of personal failure) as well as times of deep contentment, I am not taking a defensive position, but am open to whatever comes, knowing I’ve got this.

“I’ve got this” doesn’t mean I won’t screw it up, it means if I do, I’ll figure it out and learn something in the process.  This is not an easy thing to keep top of mind, but with self-compassion I accept that I am a work in progress.  So, I’m going to grab another cup of coffee and enjoy the calm I‘ve created within myself, and the fact that I have a moment to enjoy it.

You’ve also survived 100% of your worst days, how do you let that comfort and source you?

Boundaries are a necessary part of well-being.  They are also slippery little devils that are at risk of eroding with the pounding of each “wave” of life.  Most of us, and I include myself in this, have a difficult time defending our boundaries without feeling like we’ve failed at something (or failed someone).  It can be excruciating.

Boundaries are commitments we make that ensure we do not infringe on the well-being of others, or our self.  Simple enough.  Enter trade-offs.  Trade-offs are those mitigating circumstances we accommodate to keep the peace (with others or within ourselves).  As an example, I’ll sacrifice my yoga class to watch my son’s hockey practice because it’s important to him that I be there.  However, I’ll sacrifice kiddo’s hockey practice to an urgent deadline at work to meet a client’s needs.  So on, and so forth. 

Trade-off’s present themselves as the little lies we tell ourselves when confronted with competing demands.  They sound like this: “It’s just this Wednesday, the rest of the month I can get to that yoga class.”   “It’s just this one hockey practice, I won’t have urgent deadlines like this all the time…”  Boundaries are the 10,000-foot view, something that is good when looked at as part of the “big picture”, but difficult to practice once you get into the muck of life.

It’s important to pay attention to these rationalizations, because here is the thing; if that yoga class were so important to me, I would find the time.  I find/hold the time needed to get to my son’s hockey.  Notice the pattern?  If it is important to someone else, I’ll be there, so if I am paying attention, the element of sharing an experience with someone is what compels me to commit (and re-commit) to an established boundary. 

Seeing this pattern is key to understanding my own motivations for keeping boundaries in place.  I trade things off all the time, why?  Why do I let work-time over-ride family-time?  What does it give me when I flex that boundary?  What does it take away from me (and others)?  These are very important questions to consider, and a source of rich information.  Are you flexing boundaries out of love or out of fear? 

It is also the act of re-commitment that keeps healthy boundaries in place, because there will always be circumstances where we need to flex a boundary (especially the ones on our time).  What boundaries do you have that are well established and working for you?  Which ones get eroded?  Check in.  You may find the motivation you need to get a healthy boundary working for you more consistently.

As I write this, I’m sitting on my back deck, enjoying the last of the summer sunshine.  It’s the time of year when I savour the remaining days of our vacation, basking in newly made memories of beaches and hikes, while anticipating fall and a return to routine.  It’s bittersweet.  Already it is dark by 8:00, a sure reminder that summer’s languid days are coming to an end.

I love fall, it is my favourite time of year.  It’s always been a time of fresh starts, perhaps because of the way the school calendar works in North America… back to school means taking stock, readying yourself for what’s next… and replenishing what’s been outgrown over summer. 

I’m looking at what I may have “outgrown” this summer, feeling overwhelming gratitude for my readers, as well as a calling to make a deeper connection with you.  Our lives are infused with potential, and through that vein I want to explore more of what a working life has to give; so often our focus is pulled to deadlines, schedule and what is not working, yet working life has the potential to give back and to nourish, ensuring our lives benefit from the fruits of our labour.

Starting this fall you’ll see a continued focus on potential, career growth, and how to make it all work at work, but there will also be more blogs like this one, taking stock of what your working life offers your whole life, and pausing to enjoy it – celebrating work as a way to empower living (versus living to work).

I hope you enjoy the tweaks and find this new blog material compelling as you savour your summer and ready yourself for fall.

One of my past clients e-mailed me to let me know she had just closed a massive project at work, and she was really satisfied with the work she and her team had accomplished (her biggest project to date).  I love it when my clients reach out to let me know how they are doing, it’s a privilege to be invited back into their lives as a trusted colleague.  Ever the coach, I had a question: how she was going to celebrate?

Celebration is key to acknowledging that you did something meaningful.  Things like team meals and spot awards are great ways to have others acknowledge you (and you acknowledge them), but it’s also important for you to acknowledge yourself when you have milestone accomplishments (especially since only you will ever know the magnitude of the accomplishment for yourself, as others don’t witness private struggle).

A few years ago, I had a really challenging year, and having worked very hard to embrace the chaos and push forward I hit a wonderful milestone.  On vacation that summer I pick up a trinket that spoke to me; a tiny pewter sea urchin.  Its little nubby spikes remind me to persevere because not everything that looks difficult on the surface is actually difficult in the end.  It sits on my desk, and I’ve picked it up and held it so often its nubs have been burnished from dull pewter to light-catching sparkle.  An everyday reminder that when I chose to stay with a problem, I bring new light to it.

My client is going into vacation in the best way possible, on the high spirits of a great accomplishment.  Prompted by my question she’s thinking she may get herself something special as well; a new coffee mug.  Not just any coffee mug, one that she falls in love with from an artisan pottery shop somewhere on her travels along the coast.  One that will bring back great vacation memories AND remind her of her own unique awesomeness every time she holds it in her hands, feeling the warmth of both coffee and accomplishment.

We are worth this.  Celebrations should continue into every day; never turn away from reminding yourself what you have accomplished.  Let it sustain, and inform, your work going forward.  What milestones and accomplishments do you acknowledge for yourself?  How do you celebrate them every day?

We’ve all had those interpersonal interactions we wish we could take back.  Those moments when you were tongue-tied and at a loss for words, or when you had all the wrong words …and said them.  I’m as guilty as the next person of re-arguing my point in my head for days, trying to make sense of a vulnerable moment, or misguided exchange.  If I’m being honest with myself, sometimes I’m doing it to be right, justifying my words in my own mind, even when there is no hope that what I said ever could be “right”.  It’s hard reliving your worst moments over and over again in your mind, especially since you can’t go back in time and change what happened.

It’s a human thing to want to re-run the tape, erase the bits you don’t like, and record a better outcome.  That’s essentially what our brain is trying to give us when it won’t let something go.  So, how to get out of the loop?  When we are replaying things in our mind and having a hard time getting them to stop it’s usually because there is still something we need.  In most cases it’s a way to put it to rest, and the best way to do that is through intention.  Here are three simple and specific things you can do to stop the loop, allowing you to let go and move on (cue the nourishing deep breath).

• Stop Doing:  Acknowledge what you should consider not doing, with respect to this particular person, situation or issue.  Often looping happens out of a misguided sense that you can “fix it”.  You can’t …but you can celebrate what you learned.  Remember the wise words of this gentleman: “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” Thomas A. Edison
  
• Start Doing:  Along the way you probably noted something you could have done differently that would have worked better.  Make a note, it could be something you can apply in other circumstances or areas of your life - never underestimate the power of a learning mind.  “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s, there are few” Shunryu Suzuki
  
• Continue to Do:  You are a good person; you had a bad moment and that moment should not define you.  There was likely something you did in this interaction that was the right action, for the right reason at the right time.  What was it?  Even if the end result was far from desired, don’t throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water – what should you continue to pay attention to and to do?
  

These three steps are most valuable when you choose to look at them through the lens of deep self-compassion.  Doing these three things will get the incident out of your head and free you from the energy-sucking loop of replaying a painful moment.

There was a time when I became really frustrated, living the story I kept telling to myself in my head. It wasn’t a good story, I kept repeating the awful bits on a perpetual loop (like when I screwed up and missed significant business opportunities).  I became really sick of myself.  But I also found myself clinging to this cycle because I felt if I didn’t acknowledge my mistake in a meaningful way, I wouldn’t have learned anything and I would end up repeating it.  Pivot on the word “meaningful”, as repetition doesn’t actually guarantee meaning, but it did suck a lot of energy out of me and erode my confidence.  Not the definition I hold of meaningful, but then I was in a different place when this happened.

I love the outlook that time gives us, as if your whole life were unfolding on a spiral staircase; traveling upward we can see where we have come from, and look at it with 360 degrees of perspective.  The only time you are not traveling upwards is when you get stuck.  It is lonely on that circular stairway when you are trapped with only yourself and self-judgement for company.  The best ways to get un-stuck are to move differently.  Here are five approachable ways to do this:

• Challenge your routine.  Commute to work via a different route, sit in a different place at the dinner table, or in meetings.  Brush your teeth with your non-dominate hand.  Making these changes literally gives you new perspectives, which goes a long way to helping you access new perspectives in your mind and life.
• Move in new ways.  Put on some music and move to it; feeling punchy and aggressive?  Rock it out.  Feeling mired and heavy, put on slow classical and sway to it.  Then, change the tempo of the music from what you started with and move to it.  Moving your body in intentional, but new, ways helps you to think differently.
• Ask someone you don’t know out for coffee.  Use the time to get to know someone better.  Ask this person questions (you may need to think these up ahead of time).  Get out of your own head and start a conversation to intentionally spend your time focused on someone else, and make a new contact in the process.
• Take a class.  It doesn’t have to be work related.  There are on-line free tutorials for everything from watercolor painting to learning how to skateboard.  If you prefer live events, check your local community/recreation offerings for cost effective options that let you try new things without a big financial investment.  Do this not with the intention to master something, but to embrace being a beginner.
• Volunteer your time.  Run a food drive at work, help out at a hospital book fair or offer your time to a local soup kitchen.  There is nothing like giving back to others to help you see and feel the good in you, and to appreciate that your life is pretty awesome just the way it is right now.