Adjust the Focus

"You don’t have to know how you’re going to get there but you need to know where you want to go." – Price Pritchett

The next time you find yourself trying to move through a crowd of people try this experiment.  Stop avoiding the people and concentrate on the spaces between them. Then move through those spaces.

You’ll be amazed at what happens. The crowd seems to disappear and you get from Point A to Point B smoothly and with a lot less stress.

The crowd is still there.  Your circumstances didn’t change. What did change your focus.  By seeing the space rather than the obstacle you found your path.  By concentrating only on the space and taking action you forged ahead.

That’s so important that I want to repeat it – by taking action you achieved your goal. Focus and action must both be present in order to achieve your goal. If you stand still and let the crowd move around you, you may have less stress but when the crowd dissipates, you will still be in the same spot. 

Another important lesson from the crowd is this one – you can’t see your whole path as you move, only wha t is immediately in front of you. You can’t plot your whole course beforehand simply because the crowd’s movement is always changing. However, as you stay in motion, new opportunities open up.

Play with this metaphor in a real crowd.  See what other things you learn when you get out of your head and into a real world situation.

Here's your challenge — Shift your focus. Stop looking at the obstacles. Get into action.

 

See Your Podium

Athletes use visualizations in order to perform at their
peak. This isn’t a “woo-woo” thing or pop psychology. What your mind sees your
body will attempt to do.

As a golfer I know how true this is. When my self-talk is
“Don’t go in the water” I’m not surprised when I hear a splash. The reason this
happens is because your subconscious doesn’t process negatives. It heard “Go in
the water.” My focus was on the water, not on the green.

Keep your language positive and specific. Christine Nesbitt,
a gold medalist in speed skating said “I picture myself on the podium, winning
a gold medal.”

When you visualize your own podium moment include as much
detail as possible as well as when you will achieve it. Use all five senses when creating this vision. Ask yourself …

• 
  What do I see around me?
• Who is here with me?
• What is the quality of the light?
• 
  What can I hear?
• 
  What scents are in the air?
• 
  Is there a taste on my tongue at this moment?
• What am I wearing?
• What is the feel on my skin?
• Is my heart racing or am I perfectly calm?

Of course, the first
and foundational question always is  -
What do I feel in my heart in this moment? Connect to that feeling. That
detail will never change.

I encourage
you to spend some time this week to fashion this mental picture and nail it
down. Commit it to memory so you can recall it in an instant. Use it. Share it.
Speaking something out loud is one more way to make it real.

I'll close with one more quote from another 
Olympian, Shawn White, the American snowboarder who said, “I didn’t come all
this way to hold back.”

Give your
vision everything you’ve got to bring it to life. It’s that important.

 

 

More Olympics

Here
are a few more great things I learned from watching the Olympics that I want to
share with you:

At the end of the men's cross country races, each skier
approached the finish line holding nothing back. Mouths wide open, gasping for
every ounce of oxygen with a grimace of concentration, they never let up. As I
watched, not one skier stopped or even hesitated until AFTER he or she crossed
the finish line, THEN they collapsed to the ground.

Their focus was beyond the goal and that focus carried them over it.

During the women's snowboarding final there were four racers
coming down the track. Three of them were assured a medal position. Then one
fell. When she got up she withdrew from the race, probably assuming she now had
no chance. However, a few moments later a second boarder fell and I couldn't
help wondering — if that first woman had gotten up and kept going – would the
bronze medal have been hers after all?

Keep moving even if you fall.You don't know what lies ahead that may work in
your favour.

 

So how does this translate to your own life? Simply this -don't hold back anything. Give
it your best and give it all.

 

"Until
one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always
ineffectiveness…The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence
moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would otherwise never
have occurred." W.N. Murray

 

Your Olympic Support Team

I will admit that I am not a big sports fan. If the Maple Leafs ever win a Stanley Cup don't stop the bandwagon for me because I won’t be climbing aboard. However, I DO love the Olympics. In fact, I've watched more TV these past few days than I've watched in the last 12 months. Here's why I love the Olympics :
 
I learn something about leadership and commitment from these incredible people and their stories.

For instance, watch the Olympics for awhile and you quickly realize that the people accompanying each athlete hold one thing in common – their absolute belief in that athlete and an unwavering support of the dream. A skeptic just doesn’t have a chance around them.

That support didn’t begin with the Olympics. Over the years of training and competitions, each athlete surrounded themselves with carefully chosen allies as their journey progressed. It may have been only parents or a friend at first, but the circle grew as each positive addition was welcomed. Disbelievers and doubters were bade good-bye or left on their own accord.

When the going is tough, the athlete wants someone they can turn to and see their dream caught and reflected back to them.  Something as simple as a hug and the assurance “I know you can do it” may be the key to their next triumph. The energy of the athlete’s own belief becomes magnified, bigger than their own doubts and fears.

Who is your support team? Who are your biggest fans? Have you found your coach?  Ask them to help you hold the dream. When you run into that skeptical family member or the friend who is always pessimistic, don’t allow them to rain on your dream.  Be choosy about who you surround yourself with because you do have a choice. 

Here’s one more great thing about these Olympic supporters. All the athlete needs to do is go out there and give it their absolute best. Their family and friends still love and respect them even when they don’t stand on the podium.

So make a commitment to your vision and go for it, surrounded by your own Olympic Support Team.

 

Who Do You Want To Be?

 One statement I hear all the time as a coach is “I still don’t
know who I want to be when I grow up.” 

Without this basic understanding, how do you know if your
choices are taking you where you want to go?  Because you
are a human be-ing, not a human do-ing, the answer to “Who do I want to be?” is critical.

When we ask a child what they want to be when they grow up
they answer with choices like an astronaut, a doctor, a teacher, etc.  The child isn’t concerned about what salary is
attached to that profession or the status associated with it. They are drawn to
what the label represents to them.  An
astronaut is a fearless explorer, a doctor or nurse someone who offers comfort
and care. There is an inherent quality that attracts the child.

So time travel with me. When you were five years old, what
did you want to be when you grew up? What was the quality in that choice that
appealed to you? This is the first and important piece of your personal
puzzle.

Next, flash forward to the end of your life. If you could
attend your own funeral what do you want people to remember about you? What
would you want to hear in the eulogy?

I doubt if it would be about the size of your bank account
or the car you drove. Rather, most of want to be known for something like being
a good neighbour, a warm friend or a kind parent.  We all want a life well-lived that made a
difference to someone.  

Now come back to the present and ask for some honest
feedback from a person you trust. What words  would they use to describe you? Our uniqueness
is often invisible to us because it’s simply who we are. A trusted friend or family
member can let you know if you’re on track with your be-ing.

Spend some serious time with this question.  Once you
uncover who you want to be, you possess a reliable compass to guide you that will help you with every other choice in your life.

 

Break Out

Last spring, as our economy tanked, my coaching practice soon followed. As budgets tightened,  priorities shifted. I totally understood but over the course of just 4 weeks my practice almost disappeared until one afternoon I found myself with no foreseeable income and wondering what to do next.

I considered going back to corporate work but dismissed the idea almost as soon as it flitted through my brain. I know from experience how hard it is to get out of those golden handcuffs and the culture of Big Business was not one I wanted to support again. The nightly news of lost jobs, vanishing pensions and shattered lives convinced me of that.

I then thought seriously about working at the local coffee shop until the economic storm blew over. I knew I could leave that behind easily enough when my practice got busy again.

But when you KNOW you are doing what you're supposed to be doing (coaching in my case) how do you just stop? I absolutely knew coaching was what I was meant to be up to. I just needed to find someone to coach again.

I had to get my thinking out of that proverbial box and try something completely different.

First I got clear on WHO I wanted to BE – which is a "Support for people building their personal version of a successful life".

Next I visualized finding a way to do this without charging and still earn a living. (My husband, bless his heart, simply said was "Good luck with that.")

Two weeks later I found my answer in the most unexpected place.

With a clear intention (and such a crazy notion) my radar was on high alert looking for a solution. So when an opportunity appeared I didn't dismiss it out of hand as I might have done in the past. Instead I took time to explore it and educate myself. After all, how can you intelligently say no to something if you don't have the facts?

I found exactly what I'd imagined – a way to make a difference using
my skills as a coach and mentor as I earned an income that didn't have to come from my clients. Six months later and I still have to pinch myself to believe it.

As the economy recovers, my "normal" coaching practice is picking up again, for which I'm grateful. And now I have a whole new revenue stream in my business which I'm also grateful for. I'm proud of what I'm building and the difference it's making in people's lives.

On top of all that, I find myself living boldly again. I've finally got time for what feeds my spirit. I'm writing, painting and sculpting again. More on that to come.

WHAT I KNOW…

I first had to get clear on how I wanted to Be and then I had to let go of how it should look. If I'd been tied to my old ideas and ways of doing things I might have kept the door closed when opportunity dropped in.

So ask yourself this – "Who do I want to be?"

Then find your way to be that in the world.

 

A Real Coach

One of the few additional things I said yes to last fall was to serve on the board of IDEAL WAY. I am blown away by what this organization is doing. And their founder, Robert Pio Hajjar is a natural coach. I've shared this YouTube video on my Facebook account but I don't think it can be seen enough. Robert's message goes to the heart of coaching. Whatever you want to do, take action.

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can begin it — Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." 

W.N. Murray

http://www.youtube.com/v/ROWbyKVLYr8&fs=1

 

The Snowflake Effect

I was almost surprised this past week to speak with a number of people who have forgotten the importance of little things in a life or who outright dismiss the concept. Almost surprised but not quite because the sad truth is I run into these people all the time. Sometimes I'm even one of them.

Now I'm not advocating stressing over the small stuff but attention needs to be paid. After all, how much does a snowflake weigh? Hardly measurable, right? But get enough of them together and they are a force to be reckoned with.

Our lives are strung together from little moments. So why do we we sit back and wait for the grand gesture, the heroic act or a winning lottery ticket to change the course of our life? I see this everyday in people waiting for their 'big break' or envious
of a friend's "overnight success" while all the time they let opportunities melt away in their hands.

If you truly want your life to be different in the future you must start today, right where you are by making those small but important choices. Pile them up and before you know it, the obstacles are buried while you glide along smoothly on the surface, picking up speed!

That was one of my first lessons when I went "offline" last fall to build a new arm of my business. I knew it wasn't going to happen unless I showed up every day and took care of the little stuff.

Pick up the phone.

Learn a new skill.

Get supper on the table.

(The flip side of all this was not being attached to the outcome –which can make for an interesting balancing act. More than once I found myself headfirst in a drift, trying to get back on my feet.)

WHAT I KNOW…

We can waste a lot of time waiting for something big to happen. Or we can start small, with what we can handle right now and make something happen. Once you get into motion, momentum will take over. Kind of like downhill skiing.

What`s one small action you could take today?

 

Leaping Back In

Okay, okay. I know I disappeared for quite awhile but honestly, there was a good reason for it. Here I was writing and talking about life balance and time management while my own life was spinning faster and faster. In good conscience, I had to step back.I would have felt out of integrity with you to try and carry on.

After all, how could I write about taking time for self, keeping life in balance and all that other important "coach stuff " if I was trying to cram 36 hours of effort into 24. (Less if I wanted to eat and sleep.)

When I looked at what I wanted to accomplish last autumn, I knew I had drop some of the things I was up to but I did it with an eye to returning with some valuable things to share. I knew there would be some exciting and interesting changes during that time and I wasn't disappointed.  

SO – thank you to everyone who wrote or spoke to me to let me know how much you missed hearing from me. I appreciated your concern and apologize for the long silence. Thanks for the patience.

It was a deliberate choice but not an easy one.

One thing I learned is that the world doesn't fall apart when you let a few balls drop, even when you love juggling. I missed the introspection that my writing allows me. I missed hearing from my readers. I missed the discipline and creativity of blogging. The hardest choices are always between the good and the good. If it's between good and bad – no brainer. (Well, maybe not if I have to choose between brussel sprouts and chocolate… but you know what I mean.)

When was the last time you gave yourself permission to drop all but one ball and really pay attention to what was in your hand at that very moment? If you can't remember, maybe it's time. You can't create a bold life living in a distracted state. Success in life requires your presence and your attention.

But for now, I really just want to say "Hi" and let you know I'm back. I've got lots to share about the soul of success, living boldly and the power of paying it forward.

WHAT I KNOW…

Sometimes you have to take a few steps back to create momentum for your big leap forward.

 

Peak of Success

My daughter was once fascinated by all things Everest so we watched a lot of movies and read a lot of books. We can learn a lot from experienced mountain climbers.

For instance, I learned that those
who summit Mt. Everest do it in stages. Just getting to Base Camp is a big deal. From there they move on to other camps at gradually higher altitudes. The purpose is acclimate to the
thinner oxygen at each camp before climbing higher. They wait for their body to
catch up to their ambition.

Work hard, yes, but take some time to acclimate. Don't rush the process and don't de-value the quiet moments. They provide the fuel to carry you to your dreams.

Another thing I learned about Everest climbers is that not everyone who goes to Base Camp defines success in the same way. Many people go along as the support system. Their goal isn't to reach
the summit but to make sure the climbers get up and back safely. They succeed only when everyone is back off the mountain and the party begins.

Appreciate your support team in your own climb. Not only will they help you up the mountain, but they'll make sure you get back in one piece! And it's not as much fun celebrating without someone to share the moment.

From Everest I also learned it's all about where you put your focus. I attended a lecture by a young man who had summitted and the picture he showed of crossing an aluminum ladder over a crevasse with spiked boots made me shudder! When I asked how he did it, he said it all depended on where you focused. Looking past your feet was to invite paralyzing fear. See only your feet and you can ignore the gaping maw of ice below you. (Well, he could. I don't know if I could!)

Choose your challenges, define success for yourself and climb on. Let go of your excuses and focus on what you know to be true. Then celebrate.

It's a great recipe for success.