It’s been several years since I wrote an article about mindfulness becoming the new yoga. Indeed, this has continued to be the trend; mindfulness meditation practices are now mainstream, whether used via one of the many popular apps or delivered through Zoom classes, YouTube videos or podcasts. So many of us, this year alone, have found mindfulness practices to be one of the most essential ‘vitamins’ for coping with the heaping pile of crises we’ve been living through.As a long-time mindfulness practitioner and instructor, sitting meditation feels like a connective tissue in my being. This doesn’t mean that I’m a better human being than you or anyone else. I do have this, and other practices, to readily call upon to help me look at my experience with a larger perspective that helps me to cope with challenges. But it would be wrong for me, or truly, any of us, excepting maybe the Dalai Lama… Read More
Life
The Danger of Living Up to My Potential Thoughts aka LUMPT (and other crazy-making thoughts)
Have you ever woken up, or laid awake at night, or sat at your desk with the thought ‘Ugh. What am I doing? I’m not living up to my potential like [fill in the blank with names of others you admire]. What am I doing with my life?’ This is one of the cruelest thought tunnels you can get lost in. Possibly, it’s worse if someone else you know – a parent, a friend or spouse – tells you, or alludes to, this belief about you. I know. I’ve been there – on all accounts. It’s awful. I’ve really wondered about this phrase because I’ve heard it so many times; what does ‘your potential’ mean? That because you’re educated, clever, funny, attractive, got a good mind and heart you should ‘be someone?’, ‘do something extra-ordinary?’, ‘make more than a million dollars?’ Your potential just seems like a loaded couple of… Read More
Your Burnout is Real: What It Feels Like, and What You Can Do About It
Burnout is real. Sometimes people don’t recognize what their burnout is. If you’re feeling cynical, bored, and exhausted, like you just can’t muster the creative mindset you once had, focus on anything for very long at all…you’re probably in the midst of experiencing burnout. This kind of exhaustion or dullness can be debilitating, and is usually kept secret from employers until the damage has been done. If this sounds like you, trust that you’re not alone. A Gallup poll of 7500 employees found that 23% of participants feel burnt out all the time, and 44% feel burnt out at least some of the time. Other studies cite that as much as 60% of workplace absenteeism is related to stress and burnout, with 40% of employees considering quitting their jobs because of these feelings. This is a BIG problem and if you’re avoiding looking at it, it’s only going to make… Read More
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
What Do You Want?Do you feel like you still don’t know what you want to do when you grow up? You’re not alone. While actual statistics of the number of career changers is hard to pin down, roughly 30% of adults 25-44 are looking to make a career change! This aligns with my recent client stats; the average age of my male client is 35, and it’s 37 years old for my female clients, with a 50/50 split male and female. This includes the 50-somethings who are ready for a wholesale life change, and the 25-year-old folks who think they’ve already fallen WAY behind. Some of us are just seekers, always looking for new ways of creating and delivering something of value, so the word career is somewhat amorphous for them. There’s Always a WayIt’s way too easy to believe there’s no way you’re ever going to get where you… Read More
How to Manage Up Without Being a Pushover
What Does It Mean to Manage Up?The concept of managing up can be a bit tricky. For a simple definition, we can look at it in two related ways: on the one hand, it’s taking action to make leadership’s jobs easier, and on the other, it’s about managing your manager with feedback and solutions. Both sides of this definition look pretty much the same. As a valuable team member, it’s important to be proactive, to follow through, and to adhere to organizational policies. The closer team members follow management’s vision, the more neatly they fit together like cogs in a machine…But is that always a good thing? Putting too much focus on managing up, and thereby satisfying the wishes of the leaders of your organization at any cost, can quickly turn you into a pushover – a proverbial “yes wo/man” who doesn’t resist against bad ideas, or speak up… Read More
The Wisdom of Depression
A client recently shared that she was working a lot of hours on the very work she wanted to get away from. ‘The projects just keep coming so I can’t get away from them’, she shared. I can’t walk away from the work. ‘I feel like I’m getting further away from my creativity,’ she sighed. ‘It’s making me depressed.’ Yep. That’s right. That’s exactly what happens when we aren’t being who we really are. Period. The best thing any of us can do when that feeling of dark dread shows up is to get curious, to pay attention and then get down to creating our real strategy for movement from what’s taking us down, towards what really motivates us. I’m very familiar with depression, and I’ve learned a lot from mine. Those days when I went to work feeling myself armored in clothing that didn’t feel like me, tucking my… Read More
Ready for a September Re-Set?
Ready or not, summer is officially over with the upcoming Labor-Day Weekend. I remember when I lived in NYC years ago, and had a share in a summer house on Shelter Island; I remember the slow, hot crawl of a bumper-to-bumper trafficky drive back into the city on Labor Day’s Monday night. We were all feeling the so-called Sunday night blues…knowing that we were going back to work the next day… those summer days behind us. Maybe you’ve had your pedal to the metal all summer long, but even so summer just has a different vibe. So now it’s time for that September re-set. How about a re-set that inspires you so that as September glides into place we come back to school (it always feels like school again, right?) and regular schedules feeling re-energized, with our sights set on ending this year with personal and professional goals accomplished?What’s Your… Read More
How Are You Resisting Change?
Nobody likes Change. Period.I’m pretty good with change. I think. But when I really, really think about it, I see that I’m pretty good with change that I initiate. Move the furniture, shift my eating habits, start a new exercise routine, buy and wear new glasses…all good! But what about the other stuff that makes up most of life? You know, the real stuff of life: anything from the tiny ‘papercuts’ we endure… those incessant schedule changes, delays in flights departures, or wacky changing weather patterns, to the more profound changes of loved ones changing ~ any part of growing up, moving away, dying. Maybe, for better or worse, someone enters your work or personal life who you didn’t see coming. In these cases, how do you move with, or against, the changes? Most of us are going to resist change…change is inevitable but we humans aren’t really wired for… Read More
What Stage of Mom Life are You In?
I’ve lived through many stages of life as a Mom. Right now I’m the Mom of a guy who’s almost 23 years old; he’s launched into a life he thrives in, doing work he finds challenging and rewarding after graduating from college a year ago. Luckily, I get to see him about every 6 weeks or so. And we text now and then. Believe me…I’ve had to adjust to this amount of contact, and this new stage of life as a Mom.The Mom Juggle Begins When my son was 4 I started my side-hustle…working with career coaching clients at home while I worked with MBA students during my day job. At that time, I wanted my own business so I’d have a flexible working life, and be available for my son’s day-to-day life. We all know that being a Mom is a full time gig – whether or not you… Read More
Managing Your Career Path: Use The Bridge Job to Take You Where You Really Want to Go
The Real Career PathIt’s so motivating to see yourself making it to your dream job—having that vision that propels you forward; it’s that inspiration that keeps driving you even when you have a bad day or week. But sometimes the path to get you where you want to go isn’t as straightforward as you might have thought. Maybe you think that path has a straight line trajectory, but reality tells you that things aren’t quite so simple. My experience with thousands of career transition and executive clients makes me certain that the uninterrupted upward, straight line to success isn’t what most people experience. Once you have a vision, think backwards. Life often doesn’t go as planned so I want you to think as flexibly and creatively as possible. If you become too fixated on what you expect the next job needs to be you may end up frustrated at a… Read More
