by Caroline Leach | Apr 23, 2016 | Change, Learning
Is it possible to change in an instant?
Conventional wisdom says no. Change involves multiple steps. Change takes time. Change is hard.
Yet there is one thing you can change in a moment. What is it? Your mind.
You don’t need more than a moment to decide you will think in a different way. You will act in a different way. You will see the world in a different way.
Endlessly inspiring in this area is one of author Gretchen Rubin‘s “twelve commandments of happiness.”
Here it is . . .
“Act the way you want to feel.”
Not feeling so good, physically, emotionally or spiritually? Start acting the way you’d rather feel.
If you want to feel happy, start acting that way. If you want to feel energetic, bring a bounce to your step. If you want to feel valued, start by appreciating someone else.
And if changing your life in an instant seems too far fetched, try these tips from Nicolas Cole for how you can improve your life the most in a single day.
His best advice?
“Be today who you want to be tomorrow.”
Who do you want to be tomorrow?
Just start acting as if you already are that person.
by Caroline Leach | Apr 21, 2016 | Change, Learning
Could there be anything new about the growth mindset, first articulated by Stanford’s Carol Dweck?
As it turns out, yes.
People Won’t Grow If You Think They Can’t Change was a great post today in Harvard Business Review.
Written by Monique Valcour, the piece applies a growth mindset to how leaders view, interact with and influence the learning potential of their team members.
Did you ever work with a leader who saw more potential in you than you did at the time? Did you ever have have a team member with more potential than they saw in themselves? How did those scenarios turn out?
A good way to think about new frontiers or challenges is Dweck’s TED talk, The power of believing you can improve.
She opened with a story about a Chicago high school where students who didn’t pass a class got a mark of “not yet.” What did that do? It placed people on a learning curve into the future.
What’s your “not yet”?
by Caroline Leach | Apr 14, 2016 | Learning, Work/Life
This post is based on my inspiration at the April meeting of the Palos Verdes Chapter of National Charity League.
As parents, we spend a lot of time saying no. Right? Especially to our kids.
- No, you can’t stay up all night.
- No, you can’t miss school today because you didn’t finish your homework.
- No, you can’t have friends over while I’m not home.
And we often say no to ourselves.
- No, I can’t take time for myself.
- No, I’d never be good at painting, dancing or other fill-in-the-blank activity
- No, I can’t pursue my dreams while my kids are growing up.
But what if we paused and asked ourselves if there was a way we could say yes?
In my daughter’s freshman year in high school, she texted me the day before Halloween.
“Mom,” it read, “can I dye my hair for Halloween?”
Whaaaat? Visions of neon colors flashed across my eyes. And not in a good way.
I took a deep breath. And another. Then I responded. “What color?” I asked. The reply? “Brown. And it’s semi-permanent, so it’ll rinse out.”
What a relief. This was something I could say “yes” to. In these high school years, I’ve looked for times I can say yes. Then when I have to say no, my daughter won’t be able to say, “but you always say no.” Or, “you never say yes.”
In fact, “You never say yes to anything” was the catalyst for BIG changes in the life of Shonda Rhimes. She’s the creator, writer and producer of hit TV shows including Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal.
One Thanksgiving, as Shonda mentioned yet another invitation she’d declined, her sister muttered, “you never say yes to anything.”
Thus began Shonda’s “year of yes.” She decided for a whole year, she would say yes to anything that scared her.
Some of her invitations aren’t things that would happen to us – or at least not to me. Being the commencement speaker at Dartmouth. Going on the Jimmy Kimmel show. Joining Oprah for Super Soul Sunday. Losing 127 pounds!
But others very much speak to our lives. She decided whenever one of her 3 daughters asked her to play, she’d stop whatever she was doing and she would play.
She says after 15 minutes, your kids have had enough playtime, so you can go back to what you were doing. When she had this epiphany, she was in a ball gown about to head to a TV awards show. But she sat down, and she played.
Her TED talk explores the life-changing experience of play in her “year of yes.”
Here’s what she wrote about happiness.
“We believe happiness lies in following the same list of rules. In being more like everyone else. That? Is wrong. There is no list of rules. There is one rule. The rule is: there are no rules.
Happiness comes from living as you need to, as you want to. As your inner voice tells you to. Happiness comes from being who you actually are instead of who you think you are supposed to be. Don’t apologize. Don’t explain. Don’t ever feel less than.
When you feel the need to apologize or explain who you are, it means the voice in your head is telling you the wrong story. Wipe the slate clean. And rewrite it.
No fairy tales. Be your own narrator. And go for a happy ending. One foot in front of the other. You will make it.”
In closing, what will you say yes to today?
by Caroline Leach | Apr 10, 2016 | Change, Learning, Work/Life
Driving across the Golden Gate Bridge this week got me thinking about how small steps add up to big things over time.
Was it really true that the bridge has to be painted 365 days a year? Turns out the answer is no. It’s an urban legend.
Of course, touch ups are required. Just as they are in our own lives.
And spending a few minutes each day on important goals can make it easier to achieve them. That’s what I’m attempting with my Spanish studies. If I can’t consistently devote a half hour every day, how about 10 minutes?
Technology makes this even easier than when I made my first attempt to learn Spanish a few years ago. Now I have a Rosetta Stone app on my phone and my tablet. It’s available anytime and anywhere. The only start-up time required is plugging in my earbuds and tapping on the app. Easy and effortless.
My daughter was amused last night at the airport when I squeezed in my 10 minutes of Spanish. But if I keep this up for a year, it will equal 60 hours of study. That’s better than zero. And perhaps as the days and months go by I’ll find that I can double and triple the time.
After all, it’s easier to ramp up the momentum on something already underway.
The photo above was taken in spring 2014 when my sister, Katie, and I walked across the Golden Gate Bridge and back from Marin County. Small steps added up to a beautiful and invigorating 3-mile walk that morning.
by Caroline Leach | Apr 8, 2016 | Change, Learning, Work/Life
Once habits become part of a daily routine, they become a catalyst for other changes and function as the calm in the midst of a storm.
Habits can be a grounding a comforting force that enable you to navigate the really big changes in life. Maybe it’s a new career, evolving family relationships or a change in your health.
This became clear to me during this week’s road trip visiting colleges with my daughter. Although we’re in a place where in theory I should be right at home, I feel a bit out of my element.
Last night we took a dusk-to-dark drive along a beautiful yet desolate stretch of California’s Highway 1. We thought it would be fun to experience it. Even after a Google search surfaced something about a “devil’s slide,” we decided to go for it.
Yet the experience felt felt cold and foreboding at that time of day. The Pacific Ocean was more grey and angry looking than I’m used to seeing.
Maybe it was the absence of many other people and the familiarity of city life and civilization that felt different. If something happened to our car or if nature really asserted herself, could we handle it?
Surely we could. We know we can handle anything that comes our way. We can figure it out.
And seemingly a few minutes later we were steps from Union Square, checking into a boutique hotel. Being there re-energized us.
Yet as lovely (and trendy) as it was, I didn’t feel comfortable. I didn’t feel at home. That pushed me to remember that there are things to be discovered, learned and observed everywhere you go. You don’t have to be in your comfort zone to do it.
Part of that realization came from finding solace in the familiarity of my daily dozen. Writing my morning pages, getting some exercise and doing 10 minutes of Spanish calmed me down.
These are things I do each day, regardless of where I am or what else is happening. Doing them made me forget my unfamiliar surroundings. And even better, it moved me closer to my goals.
When it feels like everything around you is changing, it’s easier to be flexible and agile by staying grounded in a set of daily habits. Not to mention feeling healthier, more rested and better able to not only navigate change but to reap the benefits of it.
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