What Coaching Does for Me

TL;DR: I share here my personal experiences with being coached and how coaching has helped me personally. I explore what coaching can do for you, how it happens and how it feels to be coached.

I thought I would start off the year and get back to writing by sharing what my experience and journey through coaching has been like for me. I am officially outing my coaching practice this week, which is quite a vulnerable space for me, for many reasons. But I realized that for people new to this space, it might help to know how coaching has and continues to impact my life in hopes that it helps you understand what this truly is.

There are a lot of descriptors out there about how coaching is not therapy and is focused on the future, rather than the past, etc. And on this page, I explain the process itself, in detail. But it's hard to express the benefits without making it personal so I will share how this has been transformative for me.

My upbringing circumstances have made me very resourceful and resilient. While that's helped me grow immensely as a professional and has exposed me to many incredible experiences, it also makes me somewhat of a loner and I often try to address my problems alone.

My exposure to professional coaching outside of my career, which was focused on teams and organizational coaching, started when a friend and colleague was going through his own coaching certification journey and became my coach. I then started my own certification journey where I partnered with the most incredible mentor coach.

What exactly does coaching do for you?

For me personally, it provides a space for me to explore things that are important to me. Sometimes it's something that I am experiencing in the moment, like "I am feeling anxiety over presenting to this group of executives". Or it can be something that presents an ongoing challenge that I want to start looking at more deeply - "I continuously say Yes to people even when I don't want to do something and it's now making me feel run down".

What happens during coaching in both of these situations? I would typically just muscle through both of these situations and for the first one, end up shaming myself for doing a poor job and the second one, just keep on trying to please others at the expense of my own wellbeing and health.

But in coaching, I am offered the space and time to explore what is happening. And it can take many forms - maybe we explore what is making me feel anxious about presenting. Is it the people, the presenting, feeling unprepared, or something else that is causing this angst? In an amazing end to that story, I was able to realize that my fear was that I would be judged as incompetent but there was so much evidence to the contrary. With that self-reflection and gentle prompting, I've been able to move confidently forward and rarely get nervous now when presenting. By all standards, that is an enormous achievement.

In both of these situations, I did all the self-work. No one can make me feel less anxious. I had to look at myself to uncover what was happening to me that kept making me feel incompetent at times and unworthy at others. But we rarely get there alone and coaching helped me step into the space where I could ask those questions safely and nudge me toward healing.

How does that happen?

The qualities and behaviors that coaches possess to help you uncover insights that lead to action are heavily practiced by quality coaches. Here are just a few:

1. Coaches are compassionate and empathetic. Many coaches have experienced similar situations and can directly empathize with you. But really good coaches, don't have to have a similar history to empathize. Neither of my coaches can relate to my history at all but both showed enormous compassion and empathy for me. They did not question why I felt the way I did, they did not challenge my perceptions. As a minority and a female coming of age in the 80s and 90s, I am well accustomed to people negating my experiences or explaining to me their account of what happened and how I should feel. Without ever stepping foot in my shoes, they showed empathy and compassion and created a human connection for me that made it safe for me to share my experience.

2. Coaches create a trusting and safe space. No judgment. Let's face it, it's amazingly difficult if not close to impossible to support your friends and family without some judgement when you are close to the situation. Even if it's for all the best intentions - we want to protect those we care about, we want to help them out of a situation. But sometimes, that is not what we need. We need someone who can remain objective and not always look at our side of things. A coach creates a judgment-free zone where we can explore things through our own lens and not the lens of others, who are trying to help but are too connected to the outcome to be unbiased.

3. Coaches empower you toward personal growth. As part of our coaching sessions, I was prompted to think about how things could be different for me (that's why we are talking about this, isn't it? We want something to change!). What was in my power to change the situation? What could I do differently? Or specifically - what would support me to feel more confident in presenting?

4. Coaches help you uncover what's beneath the surface. What I love most about coaching is that it creates the space for us to go deeper. For many years, I've just suffered through public speaking and presenting. I literally become a giant ball of mush, then powered through the event and beat myself up after. I manage to get praise and positive feedback, but focus on the one word I said that didn't sound right. My issue was definitely not my presentation skills, nor the lack of expertise. My issues were much deeper than that and coaching allowed me to explore that more deeply and pulled me out of the cycle of extreme self-criticism when I present (which is often, by the way). We went a little deeper than fear of public speaking or speaking in front of executives to delving into my own feelings of self-worth, and objectively looking at evidence of what was really happening rather than the stories I was telling myself.

5. Coaching creates a human connection. With all of our inventions and the pace of technology to support our ever-expanding needs, we are moving away from fulfilling our need for connection. When I experience coaching, even on Zoom or on the phone, I can feel this field that is created between the coach and myself and there is nothing else there. Just humans supporting each other. Some of us call it witnessing. We all desire to be witnessed in our full glory. We don't need someone to give us answers and a coach can't take away your suffering, but coaches do celebrate your humanity. How many times did you just need someone to listen? Nothing else. Just listen.

So what does it feel like to be coached?

Until I experienced it myself, I could not explain this. I am told that I make other people feel this way during the course of my work and interactions with people, and I have experienced this at times with some people in casual conversations. Coaching surfaces feelings that I normally ignore. Sometimes, it's inspiration or excitement about getting past a challenge. Sometimes, it's joy and elation because I am reminded that I am whole and have great things to contribute. Sometimes, it's sadness or anger that is the right expression at the time. Some of us don't know how to express anger and sometimes that needs to come out.

A coach creates a space structured to make it OK for you to be present with what you are experiencing. I come out of most sessions excited that I either have more clarity, a path forward, or at least a little opening to explore more. Coaching isn’t necessarily work that ends up with a task list. This isn't a productivity challenge, in fact, it may be that you need permission to do less. It really depends on what you need and the right coach can help you connect what you do with what you personally need.

So what about both of my situations?

There's no magic bullet for a lot of these deeply engrained behaviors, some that are steeped in negative childhood experiences or maladaptive repetition. But over time, I've become more confident in presenting and the negative chatter has decreased to almost none. As for my other cited challenge, it's most definitely a work in progress for this people-pleaser. But I have managed to clear my calendar some and become more discerning about where I spend my time. And that is truly progress for me.

Feel free to comment below or ask questions. I thought it would be good to share what it feels like to be coached as we start the year and look for the things that are most meaningful and impactful for us. Would love to hear your thoughts.

I get in my head… a lot

Last year I embarked on a learning journey via a coaching program that is referred to as "presence-based" coaching. I remember sitting in a circle with a group of unknown people in Sonoma, California and we built an altar to represent our time together. My alter offering was a coin that read: The Obstacle is the Way, a quote from Marcus Aurelius. I admitted I had no idea what this meant for me and wasn't even sure why I had started this program, only that I knew I was supposed to be there. I had researched many programs over the years and finally chose this one just wasn't terribly sure why.

It's been almost a full year and what a ride this has been!  Not surprisingly, there have been ups and downs, new trials, and great wins. All in all, I am still one of the luckiest people alive to be able to experience the world the way I do. I left my job and am now offering services that align with my values to individuals and companies… and I get paid for it! I got to travel to some breathtaking places and take in the beauty of the world. I continue to fill what feels like a bottomless bucket of curiosity and am so grateful that my brain can still process so much.

I've also had the single most painful year of my life. After gall-bladder attacks years ago, I didn’t think that was possible but alas, all of you poor souls that deal with sciatica and pinched nerves will agree that this can be a doozie. I never knew what so many people suffer through daily and probably mostly silent (since I never knew so many of my own friends and acquaintances suffered from this and were then sharing how horribly long this can go on for) and for that, I say to anyone with chronic and debilitating pain and illness -- I am so sorry and literally feel your pain.

But this excruciating pain ended up being a beautiful gift. A gift I never knew I wanted but so desperately needed. No mud, no lotus, I guess? You see, I have admitted to many that I am a walking head. Sometimes I don't even know I have a body. I am a thinker, an observer rather than a doer, a deep thinker who seeks to unravel meaning in so many things. I even took pride in that, thinking that I was so bright, that I knew so many things, and that my observations of humans are what made me a good coach and leader. When I travel, I go to places where I can experience deeply and think. I even take frequent meditation retreats, although the point here is to not think :-). But I think about not thinking too.

But this pain stopped me from doing everything I loved and I couldn't even sleep. I could barely move my leg for 2 weeks and then couldn't walk and we happen to be staying where we do every December — 2 blocks away from beautiful beach and I was trapped indoors! I couldn't stand to cook and everything seemed to be moving in slow motion.

One of the actors in the Netflix show "Unstable" said this the other day and resonated so strongly with me…

“Pain grounds me and makes me live in the now.”

— Jackson Dragon character (John Owen Lowe)

That was the gift that pain brought me, it forced me to stop and be here now. I had no choice but to be in my body, and listen. It forced me to be curious about the other 90% of me that had been making space for me since I was born but I had completely ignored for the majority of my life.

Back to my program from a year ago. I joined the program in part because I felt that I was missing the academic understanding of coaching and the structure that would make me a better coach. In the program, we practiced coaching each other as part of our learning journey and the feedback I got at the end was essentially that I needed to "forget all the structure stuff." But that's why I came!!!!  I doubt that anyone ever questioned my ability to learn the structure and the context behind the program, but I was so concerned with those things, that I could not be present and was missing some key signals that you can only catch when you are fully there in the presence of someone else. And you can only do that when you are present for yourself. And thus, the pain brought me the gift of presence and noticing how much I live outside of presence regularly.

I've escaped presence as a survival and coping mechanism throughout my life. I grew up in harsh surroundings and missed out on essential parental affection. And as an adult, I've had to overcome all of what comes with being a Latin woman who doesn't always fit perfectly this society's norms, nor that of my own heritage. Getting into my head and stepping out of presence to deal with a lot of emotional pain, has been what has helped me stay hopeful and find ways around obstacles before me. Many of us live this way every day, almost creating a separate reality for ourselves because what is really happening is not something we know how to handle at the time. 

I think now I understand now what The obstacle is the way means for me. It's time to live more in presence. My body is calling to me and telling me that it’s safe for me to inhabit it again. That I can slow down and take up this space for myself. It's time to come back to what is our nature and essence and live for today.

This is no easy lesson to learn and I am sure I have many, many lessons before me. Just a few weeks ago, I facilitated a leadership workshop that didn't go how I planned. My good friend shared an observation — you got in your head too much. Getting in my head is very much a default behavior of mine when I am stressed. And a pattern that I am learning to sense now because I can recognize signals from my body. Admittedly, I am still surprised by what my body is telling me.

I am forever grateful for this lesson and the physical pain has allowed in so much beauty. I look forward to getting out of my head to experience life as it is, rather than all the stories my brain is making up. And I sit in awe of the body’s ability to heal itself when we listen to what it asks for.

A friend shared this with me and it seems fitting from @ceciliamoonart…

When You Can't see Your Shadow

I was cutting sweet red peppers for my favorite meal and finally figured out what was wrong. I’d been wondering why I am this hurt and this sad lately. We had just put our Maggie down after a short fight with cancer. We’d put down 4 dogs before so I am no stranger to losing pets. For some, the pain went a little deeper, like with Emma, our very first and Louie, he was only 6 years old, gone way too early.

I had just experienced other very recent loses – 2 family members in a fire the week before Christmas and we had put down one of our old guys right before Thanksgiving. It’s been a sh*t show, I won’t lie.

But this is still different. I can’t seem to shake this deep pain. I can’t get away from it. I even ended up at the hospital due to my blood pressure being through the roof.

As I was cutting the peppers, I realized that Maggie was my shadow. And as I write this, the tears stream down my face. She followed me everywhere, she was with me always. When I was cutting peppers for dinner, I always cut some for her. When I was in the bathroom, she sat with me. When I was doing schoolwork or work, she was there.

She went on trips with me, just the two of us. She went on trips with Steve and I, just the three of us. She was special. The constant in my life for 8 years. My mini-me. I even said that she was just like me – round and fast, smart and always on the go.

My job is to teach others about adapting to change. I even change jobs without much commotion, I actually expect to every few years. But this will be the hardest change for me. As I pick up her things around the house and set up her memorials, I realize that this one’s a little different and so much harder.

I know I will be OK. And it doesn’t stop me from being grateful and happy for the good things that continue to come. I know it’s been a really rough three months and quite frankly, a rough two years with the loss of several to cancer, mostly.

Loving pets, it seems, is one of our last traces of unconditional love. They are our companions without fault. We care for them when they are weak and dying and are more merciful than we are for our human companions at times. And we are lost without them when they leave us.

Some people are afraid of shadows. The problem with shadows is that they are cast by light. We can’t have shadows without light. Right now, it feels like a lot of darkness without our little nugget. No light, no shadow.

When Everything Changes

The new year is here and the air is crisp of good intentions and goals.  As we all dream up of what we want to do this year, I have a challenge that I wasn't quite expecting.  All my plans have changed!

Fortunately, the changes are not bad.  Meaning that they are not due to disease or a death in the family. But they are drastic changes in what I visualized myself doing this year and where I visualized myself going.

It's been a little difficult to adjust, I have to say.  Just the mindset shift alone has been a little painful.

For a planner, who actually set goals a few years ago and worked towards those goals, this is a complete mind f*ck.

A couple of years ago, I was very intentional about leaving my job at some point in the near future and going independent to offer consulting services to companies.  I am an agile coach and trainer and with the world becoming more agile and technology disrupting everything, I knew I had a space in consulting that I could fill. I worked at it, continuing to hone in on my craft, learning smooth delivery, even working on my finances so that I could work a few months with delayed pay that so often happens at the beginning of a consulting career.  I visualized myself in this role.  I knew what services I would offer and I set a daily rate.  I even had a projected date for the departure from my company to kick off my new gig and even some prospective clients.

And then it all changed.  I changed it.  It didn't happen to me.  Luckily, it wasn't due to illness or financial ruin or some big event. I took a permanent job!

I took a heart job.  A job at a cancer hospital. A job at a place where I had said years before, if I could work there, I would.  But it didn't seem feasible because what would I do there? They don't need agile at a hospital!

But then it happened.  An old colleague reached out and we got to talking. He seemed to love his job at the hospital and we met for lunch.  After a three hour lunch, I was pumped up.  Ready to join the cause to help cure cancer. Cancer hospital + agile.  I saw it.  It made sense.  I jumped in.

Months later, I got an offer and accepted immediately. This is what my heart wanted. I wanted a greater purpose.  I wanted to help people in a more meaningful way. My mom was a cancer survivor, I had just lost a friend to cancer. I was ready.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was nervous for many reasons.  Less money, demotion, permanence! 

And now the new year is here and we are past the holiday fog.  This is where most of us do new year's resolutions. This is where I review my goals and determine where I am at and what I want to do to align with my passions and life's work.  I looked at my mind map and my roadmap and now it's completely different.  Actually, I need to revisit the whole thing because it's changed.

The feelings are weird.  Does this mean I failed? Did I chicken out?  I feel like I am completely out of sync with that I planned.

The truth is that this happens to all of us and probably for much worst reasons than I have.  How many of us have not lost jobs and it's lasted a long time and ended up with a career change because of it? Possibly one we weren't happy with or had to settle for. Many of us have ended up in a much different place due to illness, either ourselves or a loved one.  Or worst yet, the sudden or not so sudden death of a close loved one, like a child or husband. 

I am so incredibly lucky that I opted for something different and am now in the best of situations to question it.  But it's still a bit challenging and disorienting when I felt I had a plan and have to now shift completely. 

I received an email this week from Marc and Angel Hack Life titled How to Start Changing Your Thoughts This Year (When You Can't Change Anything Else).  It reminded me that sometimes you can't change your situation but you can adjust how you think about it. 

And I am the Agile Copilot, I live on change.  It feeds my soul. But it just goes to show that change is hard for all of us and big changes and shifts cause stress even for people who thrive on life's changes.

So it's time to shift my thinking.  After all, I am one of the lucky ones who actually made an intentional effort to choose this over the plan. I did spend hours working through the front of my Dream Book and remapped my new reality and with it, my hopes and dreams. 

I will be working on a new vision board for myself.  I think where I am struggling is that I can't see myself in this new role and in this new place.  I can't see what that looks like for me and how I feel about it so it's time to work on my vision board and see where I see myself fitting.

What have you done to adjust your attitude when everything changed on you?

A Greater Purpose

Today I started a new job at a cancer hospital. I’ve never worked at a place with such clear and focused purpose and I have been really curious about how things would be. Having read Daniel Pink’s book Drive, I am all in to the three factors that motivate us - autonomy, mastery and purpose. I have experienced the first two mostly and always have a sense of purpose in serving customers but never really experienced a place with a higher purpose.

I took a sizable pay cut and a lower title and was super scared that I might regret this. I also left a lot of amazing people who I loved working with. Over the past few weeks, I’ve definitely wondered to myself and out loud at times - “what did I do?”

I was also nervous about the environment. Could I do my job of building healthy teams, cultivating autonomy and being the champion for risk-taking at a hospital whose clear focus had to be clinical compliance and avoiding errors and infections? How do those things come together?

But what an amazing day it turned out to be! Within the first hour, I wrote down the following notes from what the presenter was saying:

• break the rules

• take risks

• be bold

• the spirit here is indescribable

I was floored. A hospital with whole departments focused on safety and compliance and this is where we started?

As the day went on, I learned that they look at everything through the lens of the patient and their family. Nothing was what I expected. No canned training modules, no heavy regulatory talks.

Everything was what they called patient and family centered care. We talked about the growing parking issue as the hospital and university grew in size. And we were reminded of how important it was that patients could park as close as possible and that we not take up the provided valet parking so that they could serve patients better. OK, so parking is about our patients…

I expected the diversity talk to be as boring as ever — we care about diversity, yada, yada. But they shared that diversity was not just about having representation for employees. African Americans still have a 25% higher chance of dying of the same cancer of equal occurrence as white Americans. We were reminded to constantly look at our own biases in patient care and that it was the hospital’s goal to change those numbers as part of our diversity goals. OK, so diversity is about our patients…

The patient identification talk had its own slant too. Of course if we made identification mistakes we could erroneously give a patient incorrect medicine and cause them harm for sure. But what if we sent a patient the wrong bill? Seems harmless, doesn’t it? Unless that patient didn’t win the fight and their grieving family now had to fight the hospital on erroneous bills. Imagine being that family member. Or the patient was returning from particularly harsh treatment and now had to think through billing errors. OK, billing too is about our patients…

Everything focused on helping the patient and their family and every employee’s part in it. Every piece of the puzzle could ease someone’s burden or make it so much worst. We were reminded at every step of the way that all of our jobs were to help the patient and their family, no matter how removed our job seemed from patient care.

Almost everything was clearly focused around the folks who directly care for patients. It felt a little alienating to be so far removed from what seemed important to the hospital, the researchers, clinicians, nurses, etc. But we finally made it to my part. And digital care is identified as one of the three pillars for our 10 year impact strategy. They understand the need to innovate around data for direct patient care. And I too understand the need for me to help enable those capabilities through my work with technology teams.

I was left in tears as the last employee spoke about his journey. He had once been a news reporter whose wife got cancer 12 plus years ago. They came to to the hospital for care. She didn’t make it but because of the care they received, he left his chosen field to come work for the hospital and continue the work in her name. His hope was that we’d all be sitting around a table together in some years talking about how we’d have to find a new purpose because we’d found a cure.

I hope he is right. For now, I will bask in the awe of working with so many people who have a greater calling and do my best to take care of them so that they can care for our patients.

I don’t know how my work will manifest. I am curious and fascinated. There’s a strong will to innovate and take risks to find cures and treatments. It must be balanced with patient safety and care. My role will further evolve, I can’t wait to see what it looks like a year from now.

In honor of my friend, Annette who last month lost her battle with cancer but won the hearts of many. This year I’ve personally lost several to cancer - Miguel, my cousins’ father and Robert, my best friend’s husband. May they all gaze down and know that we are still fighting the good fight.

I am walking in the Miles for Moffitt 2018 walk in December. If you’d like to donate to the cause, please visit my page here. Thank you!

How I Discovered Consistent Personal Health Through Iterating

Ah, childhood memories... 

I grew up eating quarts of ice cream with my dad while watching hockey games on the couch. I remember after playing sports, my mom would take me to the Taco Bell drive through and I'd order ten tacos. TEN! I MEAN, COME ON! (Love you, Mom.)

As you can imagine, I really didn't learn the basics of personal health growing up. Of course, being involved with many sports, playing on the playground, and having a metabolism the speed of a cheetah, it didn't seem to matter at the time. 

I started working in Corporate America in 2013. Enter desk job, sitting for many hours, sedentary life style. Yep, you guessed it - I kept eating tacos and blew up like a balloon. 50 pounds later, I was no longer the fit athlete, I was struggling to put on my size 10 jeans; I was in trouble.

So I turned to what any sensible person would do, I looked to diet and exercise. What I found was "Lose ten pounds in your first week!" with Nutrisystem, and "Cut all carbs!" with South Beach. I found articles about "booty-buster" workouts and saw my friends posting about the half-marathons they ran over the weekend. To an unsuspecting and immature ice cream eater, this is what healthy is... right? 

Pumped and motivated, with pictures of a flat belly and a perfect butt dancing in my head, I bought kale, lean meats, and hit the pavement. DUN DUN DUN.

After two weeks of intense dieting (mostly starving), and running 5+ miles a day (okay, let's be real I was walking most of it), I was still 50 pounds overweight. I was exhausted. I gave all I could give. Bewildered, I adjusted my original thought: "This is what healthy is?!" *sigh*

I couldn't stay. I went back to my old behaviors.

I'll be honest, this cycle continued for a good three years. It pains me to write that. Ugh.

Okay, enough of the sappy stuff. Here's the cool part: I found something that works. I feel like shouting it from a roof-top because I know there are, probably millions, of people out here like me who just need to start somewhere. CORRECTION: STAY SOMEWHERE. 

The secret is iterating. 

See the map below? That's my neighborhood. My hood, if you will. The red route is the path I chose to run during those first two weeks of weight-loss inspiration. It was 5+ miles, and it would take me over an hour to complete. I dreaded the thought of coming home after a full work day to this. I loathed how it took another precious hour away from my day. 

Somewhere in the past year, I put the ideas I practice with teams at work, into my personal life. You see, I'm a scrum master. I help software development teams split huge projects into smaller, bite-sized, pieces that we iterate on. For example, instead of a team delivering a software program at the end of a year, they would deliver working pieces of it every two weeks. 

I made the connection that my endeavors to be a half-marathon runner in two weeks was just not reasonable for me. That 5-mile loop was not something I could really commit to. It was too big. 

What wasn't too big though, was that smaller blue route on the map (look again). It's .75 miles around, and takes me 15 minutes to complete at a walk-run pace. I still work up a sweat by the end, and I'm in a fat burn mode for an hour afterwards. The difference between the blue and red route, was that the blue one is reasonable for me - every single day. 

Mentally, I find it so reasonable that it's not worth skipping. Dare I say I even look forward to it?! It's become another routine like brushing my teeth or taking a shower. I complete it even when I'm sick, by just walking it. Sometimes, I feel extra motivated and run it twice! 

It's been three months since I started iterating my workouts. I've lost five pounds and have toned my legs and flattened my stomach (yeah, I'm working on eating less tacos too). It feels so good to finally be consistent with my personal health. Over time, I plan on making the distance longer to match what my next "reasonable" means. 

My hope is that you can use this tool to make exhausting challenges more possible for you. Is there something in your life that you can iterate?

What Irma Taught Me About the Passage of Time

The past week has been surreal. About a week before, we were on vacation and I saw that a huge hurricane could be coming our way.  I calmly made reservations at a La Quinta because they took pets… just in case.

Over the week, things kept shifting.  I worried every day that we should leave but it was getting later and later.  I was fighting a lot with my fiancé over the decision to leave.  Over the weekend, it became real. We were in Irma's path and it was such a large and powerful storm that I was sure we had a 50/50 chance of surviving.

Things got crazier and crazier. My fiancé, who has previously not been worried became anxious.  Then there was nothing else to do.  We had prepared as much as we could. There was nothing else to put up and nothing else to buy. The stores had run out of supplies.  We had a ton of food, great led lanterns, a grill, hotdogs, go-bags packed, dog crates, etc. At this point, I would normally start reading or writing, doing my thing. Why not make it productive time, right?

But I couldn't. What I couldn’t do was focus on anything else.  I wanted to catch up on my saved articles but I couldn't. I now had time to work on my business but I couldn't bring myself to doing any work. I realized that much of what I do is based on the future and assumptions.  Business planning, travel planning, wedding planning.  All things that are based on a good and predictable future. 

I couldn't do any of these things because I wasn't sure what kind of future I had after the storm.  Would we survive?  If we did survive, would our lives change drastically after the storm?  Would we have a home?  Would our friends and family be OK?

Earlier that day, I had received a package of wooden flowers that I am using for our wedding that I wanted to spend some time arranging. But that felt like a useless activity considering that the next day, we might be holding a mattress over our heads to save our lives. What if we couldn’t even get married?

Over the past few years, I've been working a lot on mindfulness and calming the mind.  It's been a journey of learning to be at peace and enjoying the quiet.  But I realized that I still very much live for the future.  And I wonder how much I actually enjoy the current moment, ever. I know I have my moments but I realized I have a lot of work to do still to truly be in the moment. 

I remembered an article that as stuck with me, How We Spend Our Days Is How We Spend Our Lives. I recall thinking that I don't spend my days doing anything that I love.  That I look to the few times a year that I travel to enjoy myself. It was a sad discovery.  So I sought to spend more time taking care of myself.

I am still working on my morning routine and doing Yoga a little more consistently. It's a great achievement for me. My business is moving along nicely and I am productive at work and in my business.  I have low stress most of the time. But am I doing something I love each day? 

During the storm, the only thing I could bring myself to do was write down the things that I do love (in no particular order):

• Be in nature

• Be at peace - meditate

• Learn, read, write

• Teach others

• Travel

• Be with friends and family

• Be with fiance

• Spend time loving my dogs

How much of my day do I spend doing any of this?

I recently told my niece that if I am lucky, I have about another 40 years to live.  And she says -- wow, that's a lot of time! She's 24 :-)   And then I tell her, that is nothing. It'll go by before I know it!  But it actually is a lifetime, isn't it? It reminded me that it wasn't whether it was 2, 5, 10, 20 or 40 years that was important. What was important was HOW I lived my years.

A few days of fear of dying reminded me that I really need to start living. We were lucky, extremely lucky. The hurricane only caused minimal damage around us and we never even lost power. But I will take the gift of Irma as a reminder that I need to do the things that I love daily in order to have a life that I love.

Do you spend your days doing what you love?

"The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet." - Annie Dillard

What do I desire?

Do you ever wonder -- Is this all there is?  Am I living my best life? Do I have goals that I am not fulfilling?

We have become so busy with living that we've forgotten how to live.  Our minds are busy worrying, trying to fit it all in -- the kids, work, church, parents, "leisure" activities.  We work hard to climb the corporate ladder and make more money, only to spend more to keep up.

I follow several writers and speakers who have created great lives for themselves, businesses that can sustain healthier, happier lives. Most of them have suffered great losses.  Some have lost it all - their lives to horrible illnesses.  They all made lifestyle changes, all in time to enjoy parts of their lives. For some, it was short-lived but wonderful.

We can learn from these lessons and make our lives better now.  What gives your life purpose? What fulfills you?  What makes you happy?  Do you even know?

I am not very sick, yet. I have pre-hypertension, am overweight and stressed at work.  I decided I did not want to wait to get cancer or some other disease to learn how to live.  I realized I wasn't living.  I was worried all the time, stressed, running from one commitment to another.

I ate and spent to get pleasure because everything else was a commitment.  I even rushed at events and occasions with friends. I had learned to rush through everything.

But I decided I didn't want to keep living this way.  I'd made it out of poverty and a dangerous ghetto only to feel trapped by a middle-class existence that lulled me into believing that this was a good life.  But no more.  I knew I didn’t have to.  I didn't want to die with regrets. 

This video really spoke to me.  I wanted to live a life with intent.  I wanted to get up every morning and know myself and focus on the things that were important to me.  I was lucky enough to earn a good living and I worked hard for that. Now I deserved a good life.  I didn’t want to work for 65 years to pay bills and then be too old or too ill to enjoy anything.

So I set off to a better life.  For me, it started with calming my anxieties through meditation.  It's been an amazing journey so far.  But I had lost any sense of what made me happy.  I knew I liked to travel but that was it.  That's it.  I had no idea what I wanted to do or how I wanted to live. So it was time to find out…

You don't have to live through terrible illness or loss to find yourself.  You just need to open your mind to what's possible.

Most of us have so much clutter in our heads that we can't even think about what a fulfilling life looks like.  We're already programmed to do what we're supposed to do.  To have the perfect job, perfect kids, perfect house but our lives aren't even close to being perfect or even happy.

How do you even think about this when you have so much going on?

Clear Your Mind

Before we can come up with goals, we need room to think.  We need space for creativity.  That creativity that we lost somewhere between college and careers.  You need to give yourself permission to stop being perfect.  I had to learn how to breathe again.

Breath…less

Are you taking full breath? I started noticing that I was gasping for air.  I was going so fast that I wasn't even breathing deeply.  I couldn't believe it but I needed to learn to breathe!  I started meditating and through meditation, I learned about something called Pranayama.

As yogis have known for centuries—and as medical science is beginning to discover—the breath has amazing recuperative powers. By controlling the breath (a practice called Pranayama), the yogis found, they could alter their state of mind.

I've used Pranayama at times when I am really nervous to calm my nerves.  At times when I could not meditate because I was too nervous, like before having to speak publically, I practiced pranayama to calm down.  The deep breaths help calm your entire body and clear your mind. Most times, it allows me to center myself again. Learn more about Pranayama here.

A Practical Guide to Getting Started

So you've cleared time and you are ready to start dreaming about your future life.  But where do you start?  I thought I was "ready" and I sat down to start writing down my goals.  …But nothing came out.  I kept trying to think about the things that I thought I'd want to do but I wasn't inspired. I kept thinking about the things within my current box.  It was hard to think outside of that box.

So I turned to mind mapping.  I never thought I would do a mind map, I hated them.  Mind-maps in the Information Technology world is this giant messy maze of connections that never seemed to make any sense to me.  But I saw this video (1.03 minutes) by a former Google career coach who talks through using a mind map to brainstorm on what you want to do. She talks about breaking out of linear thinking, which is where I was stuck.

What I found was that it allowed me to think freely about things, just things that were circulating in my head.  It was amazing.  At first I was a little blocked, thinking about the things that I thought were right.  But I heard what the coach said about experimenting.  And I remembered one of the tenets of agile and the frameworks that I train and coach on - I am referencing a software development framework called Scrum that is defined as an empirical process based on inspection and adaption.   Stay with me here.

Innovation is based on experimenting - trying things, observing results and adapting.  So I decided to do the same.  What I didn't know, I left open to experiment.  I opened myself to try things. 

I used the mind map to identify some areas that I knew I wanted to work on, finances, health, etc.  But I left open some of the areas of work and how I wanted to work and play.  I didn't know how I liked to play.  Meaning that I didn't know what I enjoyed doing.   So one spoke said Fun.  And I put some ideas but left it open to see what that might become for me.

A few things that I learned doing mind maps.  

1. It's great to put it down on paper.  My thoughts were just random things in my head but I was able to dump those thoughts onto paper and then put a plan around them.
2. There were things that I wasn't conscious about that manifested themselves once I started writing.  I did know some things, I just wasn't aware.  I believe that we know in our hearts and mind, it's just that our brains are so cluttered, we can't see clearly.
3. I started using mind maps any time I was stuck.  I even did it at work for a project I had that I didn't know how to put my thoughts together for.  It immediately provided clarity and I was able to plan out the themes of the project.

So now what?  I know this is a lot.  And when you are feeling overwhelmed, it's impossible to think that you can just start thinking about the future.

A few words of caution

I will warn you that you'll need some patience.  You'll need patience with yourself and with the time it takes.  It's slow moving at times.  Sometimes clarity of mind takes time.  Connecting the dots takes time.

All of this requires a mindset shift if you have been programmed to go, go, go.  If you are like me, you adapted to the speed of life and just became more efficient at managing it all.  You might even claim to be a good multi-tasker and you are proud of it.  Maybe being busy is a badge of honor.  You'll have to move away from some of these behaviors that are validated with things of value. 

The hardest part of giving yourself permission to slow down is to take back time for yourself. You may have grown to accept that this is the life you deserve.  If you are like me and believe that you are lucky and should be grateful to be where you are, it's particularly hard to give yourself permission to slow down and let the unessential fall by the wayside. But you know why you are here reading this. You already know that this can't be all there is.

And while technology threatens to invade our spaces, our relationships, and our sanity, we're also living during amazing times. We have more options than ever to create things or connect to people and places.  There's a world out there where your life can become what you want and it's all at your fingertips.

Try your mind map today. Watch the videos or check out my mind map. Take a few moments to breathe deeply and let yourself imagine again. Dream a little. 

My next post in the series comes out in 2 weeks. Sign up here to get alerts when the next post comes out.

If you need help figuring out how to get the clarity of mind to even get started or if you would like some resources to help you find your interests, how to open up to creativity, or even how to declutter your brain, join me on Patreon. Once you join, you can read my first extended post with some resources to get started when you are lost. 

Patreon allows supporters to donate to creators for content produced.  I will be making extended content available to Patrons that will contain additional techniques, templates, references and tools.

Taking the Leap to Find Your Bliss

This post is originally from Melissa Gray Design's blog, found here.

This post speaks directly to me. How many times have you been afraid to try something only to realize that you loved it after you tried it?  How many times have you avoided a situation - a party, an event, a speaking engagement and then realized that you were in your element and had a great time? But it's the moments when you don't take the leap or skip the event because you were avoiding an uncomfortable situation, that stand out for me.  Or those chances I didn't take in business and in life because I was afraid.

I read a lot about people at the end of their lives and their regrets.  So many are about the things they didn't do.  I want to learn from them how to have a better life. I've challenged myself a lot in the past couple of years.  I've grown immensely and mostly from experiences that have forced me out of my comfort zone.

So read on about Hope's first experience dock diving. We should all be jumping off docks and learning from this brave puppy.

---

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Melissa Gray

NOTE: This post is written from the viewpoint of Hope, my one year old rescued black Lab.

I woke up on Saturday and just knew it was gonna be a great day!   Mommy had my beach bag packed and ready to go with my favorite rubber sharky for retrieving, water bottles and my travel bowl along with a towel.  We were going to the beach, Saturday morning bliss!  But then when my pawrents left Daisy at home I wasn’t so sure, my big sis always comes to the beach with us.  Hmmmm … wonder what’s going on?  Mommy snapped my seatbelt in to secure me in the back seat – kinda bummed me out cuz I like to ride shot gun.  First stop, the yummy place cuz mommy says that daddy has some sort of addiction to something called a latte.  I think that’s a good thing cuz I got a puppuccino! I knew it was gonna be a great day!

Hope, ready for fun!

And then we were off … but wait, this wasn’t the way to the beach.  Maybe mommy needed to tell daddy how to get there, he seemed lost!  I was trying to nudge mommy’s hand but the darn seat belt was a pain and I couldn’t reach her – why wasn’t she telling daddy that we were going the wrong way?  She’s usually good about pointing out when he makes a mistake!  I could see lots of trees out the window and then I realized I was smelling Lowcountry marsh.

We slowed down and made a turn onto a long curving road and I saw horsies!  They looked so happy, frolicking in the grass, not sad like the ones I see downtown pulling carriages with the lazy hoomans.   Finally, daddy stopped the car and I jumped out ready for an adventure!  As I looked around I saw a big field with lots of trees and a bunch of other dogs and their pawrents.  We walked in the gate and joined them – I was excited and a little anxious to figure out why we were all standing around.  Where was the fun stuff?  The hoomans kept talking, blahblahblah.  And then I spotted it, a big pond!  Woohoo, we were going swimming!

As I was straining on my leash trying to get a better view of the pond, we walked over a little closer and this super pawesome yellow Labby, named Donny, went running down the dock and he flew into the air and dove into the water!  Oh wow, way coooool!!!!  I was so excited I could barely stand still and I started making a high pitch squealing noise!  Mommy told me to settle down and be a good girl (like she had to tell me all the time at agility class), but the nice lady who was in charge told her, “that’s what you want in a dock dog, she’s excited and enthusiastic!”  Wait, what?  Really?  I’m gonna get to be a dock dog?  I got even more excited as I waited for my turn, I just knew I was gonna nail it on the first try!

There were two other ‘newbies’ like me – Annnie Jo and Beacon.  Annie Jo, a beautiful Golden Retriever, got to go first.  I think she might have been nervous cuz she kinda snarked at me when I was looking at her duckie, but that’s ok, I know I can win her over, everyone loves me!  She went down to the end of the dock and her daddy threw duckie in the water, everyone was cheering and clapping and shouting “Go Annie Jo!” … I was getting more excited by the minute!  Annie Jo was too scared to jump in the water, so she ran down the dock and waded into the pond to retrieve her duckie.  Next up was Beacon, a really cute Boykin Spaniel, and he did the same thing as Annie Jo.  I really couldn’t understand why they weren’t jumping in the water – it looked so fun!  Finally, it was my turn!  YES!  I got this!

I almost dragged mommy off her feet while I was trying to get down the dock!  Then mommy backed me up a little and threw my sharky into the water!  I was off running and then I came to a screeching halt … that’s a pretty big jump – it must be like 20 feet or something (mommy said it’s only 2 feet but daddy says she isn’t always good with measuring distances!), the water was so far down below.  I paced back and forth across the dock, leaning over and peering into the water as I screamed with excitement and frustration.  How was I gonna get in that water to retrieve sharky?

And then Donny came to my rescue!  He raced down the dock and whispered, “follow me kid, you’re gonna be fine, just jump” – and I did it!  I sailed off that dock – ok, more like plopped – and landed in the water!  I swam like crazy to get sharky and then I scrambled back up the bank of the pond, ready to do it again!  This was the coolest thing ever and I was hooked!  The next time I jumped off the dock all by myself and I raced back to the dock – mommy said we had to let the others have a turn, so I stood there watching, as I quivered and squealed with anticipation.

Annie Jo had another turn and she was still scared.  I knew what I had to do – she just needed a friend to help her take the leap!  Mommy was having a hard time holding onto my leash and all of a sudden, snap – I pulled so hard that I ripped the ring right off my harness and I was free!  I dashed down the dock to show Annie Jo how to jump in – and splash, I was in the water again!  Annie Jo didn’t follow so I brought her duckie back to her.

The next hour went by in a blur of pure bliss!  I had found my true calling, I was going to be a dock diving dog.  Although to start, I was more of a dock plopper than a dock diver, but at least I was jumping into the water!  This is what I was meant to do – I might not be a purebred Labby, nobody knows who my daddy is but my birth momma is a chocolate Lab and I definitely got her genes.  Mommy signed us up for a membership with Palmetto Dock Dogs and I got to stay and practice with Duchess and Donny.  They’re both super amazing dock divers and I wanna be just like them when I grow up.  I watched them sailing off the dock, they jumped so high!  Then we had play time, mommy threw sharky off the dock and we all jumped in after it – Donny always got it first, but that’s ok, I had fun playing and swimming with my new friends!

I wasn’t ready to go home but mommy promised we’d go dock diving again soon.  She and daddy were talking on the way home and I heard her say we needed a pool – my paws are crossed!  There’s nothing like finding your bliss.  I had fun going to agility class, most of all I loved racing through the tunnels and jumping over the bars, but I also got in trouble – as I didn’t always focus and I just wanted to run around and play.  With dock diving, my unbridled enthusiasm is a good thing and I was never even tempted to run off and do zoomies.  I was so focused on getting back on that dock!   All of us are unique, and we each have our own special gifts and talents.  Keep chasing your dreams – if you don’t take a leap of faith you might miss out on finding your bliss, the one thing that brings you the most joy and makes your heart sing!

Eat, Play, Luv, Hope

What this is really all about.

I like to talk a lot about productivity and getting things done. There's lots of talk of setting goals and accountability. But what is this really all about? None of that is the point. These are tools for what we're really after.

All of this is about living with intentionality. Having goals and working towards them help us design a purposeful life. 

Man's mission, according to Viktor Frankl (Nazi prison camp survivor and Psychiatrist) is to find the meaning of life. When we live without purpose or intent, we flounder. We chase a life defined by others. We chase meaningless things and we fill our lives with things that aren't important. And we feel rushed and tired all the time and we ask - is this all there is? Without intention, we can spend our lives just paying the bills.

The principles and practices that I follow and use support setting goals and then creating a plan that allows for discovery and action. So while we are doing, we are learning, we are evolving. We explore.

We focus and fine tune. And while we're at it, we're removing what we don't need. What I love about the books Essentialism and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck  is that they talk as much about removing the non-essentials (or not giving a f*ck) as much as they do about how to focus on the essentials. To focus on the essential and live with intentionality, we have to remove what is not important. It's all noise and reduces focus.

I love the quote from Prince EA in his video EVERYBODY DIES, BUT NOT EVERYBODY LIVES, "It is not death that most people are afraid of, it is getting to the end of life only to realize that you never truly lived." 

It's my biggest fear to get to the end of life having not lived, especially in today's world where we have access to everything.  When I finally realized I was on that exact path, I decided it was time to get off that train and direct my energies towards filling my life with the things I want. I am working on goals that align with the life I want and a way to get there that makes it fun and exciting and open to the surprises that come along the way.

What are your life goals and do you have a plan for getting there?  

Join our 4-part email series on achieving your goals. Find Part 1 here.

Check out our first post about our new pilot program on setting and reaching life goals - Why Can't I Achieve my Life Goals?

And take a quick look at our program information.