“Resonance happens when your mind and heart come into sync.”
― Ravindra Shukla
Have you had that experience where time and your mind and body are in alignment and things just work? Life seems easy in that moment, balance, harmonic, filled with momentum and filled with peace at the same time. Have you had that happen to you?
What would it feel like to be able to step into that space where your head and heart and were at peace with each other? It could be an authentic creative space that may be able to suspend the past and the future for a moment and allow you to fully experience being in the present, in the moment, no worries, no fear, just a feeling of peace.
The idea is to find harmony within yourself and within nature and then let the two merge together so there is this resonance of life in that moment.
The words of Ed Viswanathan, “All matter, including you and I, has rhythmic movement within it and our quest should be to create a proper rhythmic harmony within ourselves…you feel happy when you sit near an ocean because your vibrations try to synchronize with the frequency of the waves.” , echo that resonate peace.
When do you feel at peace with you? When are you in harmony with nature?
When was the last time you felt a sense of serenity and joy?
“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”
Haruki Murakami
Yes, you do have a problem. The problem is being authentic and not pretending to be someone you are not. It happens at work, it happens at home, it happens almost everywhere you go. Being authentic, being who you really are is difficult to do when you are trying to meet the expectations of others. The lack of authenticity shows up at work as doing what you don’t really want to do and doing it because you have to. It rubs against the very nature of who you are and slowly you change the work to match your strengths.
Personal relationships can be ruined by the lack of authenticity as well. Marriages will fail if the partners hide behind inauthentic behaviors. Saying one thing and doing another or pretending to be a person you are not just to prevent loneliness creates a new set of problems that will need to be dealt with. It takes courage to be authentic and reveal the real issues that one faces to others.
For those who can be authentic is the reward of freedom and happiness. The amount of work that it requires to hide from your own reality creates a great deal of internal stress and unhappiness. Fear keeps people from being authentic and fear is what creates the masks of deception.
So, what are your problems? What masks are you hiding behind? What is it costing you?
“Be the one who nurtures and builds. Be the one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart one who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them.”
― Marvin J. Ashton
Do you work for an organization that would be characterized as a “best place to work”? Do you feel motivated to come to work? Do you feel like there is a clear path of advancement? Are your skills and talents being used? Is the company ethical in all aspects? How would you describe your place of work?
Great places to work don’t just happen, they are created, they require great leaders. Great companies have great cultures. Great cultures reflect great values. If your values are not in complete alignment with the values of the company there is going to be some cognitive dissonance that you’ll experience and that may impact your ability to thrive. Do you own the values of the company as your own? Do your values fully align with the company you work for?
Great places to work value people. Leaders recognize the value of relationships and nurture and foster opportunity for growth within the staff. People who can stretch and engage all the talents you bring. In a sense a great place to work is going to have an environment that is consistent with a coaching culture. A culture that enables the best out of each person on a consistent basis.
A coaching culture works by engaging the parasympathetic nervous system which leads to better performance. Imagine a culture which is committed to your success and developing and improving your social and emotional awareness so that you could develop professional and personally. In that type of environment employees would feel empowered to speak with honesty and candor about significant issues. Organizational transparency would exist and lead to less conflict, less withholding of information and better engagement.
In a sense the best place to work would be an environment of compassionate understanding with high performance objectives. It would be an environment with excellent performance objectives that challenge and require the best of everyone and with a culture of compassionate understanding people would want to perform. That is different from a culture that “needs” to perform.
What kind of culture does your place of work encourage or discourage? How do you feel about going to work each day? Are you working in a place you’d consider the best place to work?
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
― Apple Inc.
It starts when …
Maybe you need to look at yourself in a new way this coming year. Change is about seeing yourself as you want to be not as you are.
Perhaps you are getting tired of the way things are and have been and you’re ready to look at yourself in a new way and the only problem is taking that first step. For some taking that first necessary step is scary, take it anyway. Step across the boundary of fear and start seeing yourself in a new way.
You’ll smile on the inside when you make that step. When you commit to losing those extra pounds. When you commit to taking responsibility for your life. When you commit to doing work you love to do. When you commit to being authentic. When you make a choice to live fully. When you make a commitment and honor it change will come.
Start today. Look at the mirror and look deeply into the eyes looking back at you. What do you want those eyes to say? What do you want your life to mean? Honor the truth you have within.
“Often misconstrued, authenticity is not about being an open book, revealing every detail of yourself without rhyme or reason. It is simply the act of openly and courageously seeing what needs to be seen, saying what needs to be said, doing what needs to be done, and becoming that which you are intent on being.”
― Scott Edmund Miller
What does it mean to be authentic?
Just answer that question. What would need to change in order for you to be fully authentic? Being authentic means being honest with your talents, your strengths, your weaknesses and your assessment of yourself. Too often people focus on what they think is wrong with them to such a degree that they hide their strengths and abilities. Give yourself some time to do an assessment and find out what your authenticity score is. In fact take this assessment (Authenticity Assessment) and see how you are doing with your own personal authenticity.
Why be authentic?
What happens when you pretend to be someone you’re not? It usually results in an intense personal conflict that shows up in how you work with others, your quality of relationships, your career success and happiness and just about every other area of your life. People don’t want to be fakes and feel like they have to be fake in order for others to like them and inside they feel like something is really missing.
Living authentically means revealing your true self to the world around you. It means peeling away the layers that have been built over time to protect the ego. The authentic you can become the happy you.
What would happen if you could really enjoy the relationships you have with others and restore broken relationships from the past. How would that feel?
How would it feel to get the job that really matches your abilities and the way you want to work? For most people it would be a huge relief to do work that had meaning and made a real difference.
Go ahead, take the assessment and evaluate where you are. What do you want to change? Take the (Authenticity Assessment) today, it will just a few minutes.
Which work environment would get the most out of you? The first one or the second one?
What gets you engaged in the work you are doing?
– The work
– The people
– The culture
– The environment
– The purpose and mission of the organization
– The values of the organization
– The perks and benefits
When you have a new idea, how it is received? Does the culture bring in the voices of the introverts? Does the culture promote professional development? Does everyone contribute? Do non-performers seem to hang around forever? Are their systems in place to help employees perform at higher levels? Does the company move quickly or does it take forever to get a new idea or process in place? Is there a focus on being better?
A great organization is going to help you be successful. Your part is to make the organization successful through the skills you have. If the work is boring or isn’t adding value, why would you work there? If you aren’t using your skills to your best ability then find out how you can make a bigger contribution.
Does the company “reward” employees and celebrate successes? Are there reviews when things don’t work well to find out how to make things work better? That isn’t a witch hunt, it’s a sincere effort to improve processes and results. Business growth is based on learning and people learn through experimentation and finding out what doesn’t work (some would call that failure).
“Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what’s happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what’s happening, stories that get in the way of direct experience. Often such stories treat a fleeting state of mind as if it were our entire and permanent self.”
― Sharon Salzberg
Are you really the person you think you are? You might be thinking, this is a trick question, or of course I’m the person I think I am. It is interesting that studies show that American’s have an inflated view of their abilities and how they perform. This recent study about teacher’s shows that most teachers believe they are highly effective. College professors are at an amazingly high level of proficiency where 94% believe they are above average.
Teen drivers believe they too are above average. Startling statistics show that most people are above average drivers. So, are all drivers above average? Of course not. What is happening is that people want to feel better than average. Who can be an average driver? It’s the other person isn’t it?
Scientific American recently printed an article on the increased sense of optimism many people have. The optimistic self may have a better chance at advancing in society, career and life. After all who wants to hang out with a depressed person.
When you are looking around at other people, what do you see? Are they the ones that are above average or is it you that is above average? Who is this average person anyway? Is there such a person? When you look in the mirror who is looking back? Is it the above average person or is it someone else?
“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”
Paulo Coelho
The industrial age may be dead yet many are still living in that era. The industrial age lived by the notion of perfectionism. The industrial age perfected the art of manufacturing reducing defects so that there were the fewest defects possible. The age of no-defects infected our schools where achievement blocked the door to inspiration and innovation.
To grow is to fail. In the industrial age to grow meant to not make mistakes. When the predominant thought and action is to reduce mistakes, to stop mistakes from occurring we limit our ability to grow and learn.
The education system is based on mass production, minimal failure and following a prescribed set of instructions. The mass production mindset must shift to new consumer demands which is based on experience rather than massive quantities of stuff. The era where material goods were supposed to create happiness is coming to a close. What people are demanding now are enjoyable experiences (Look at FarmVille, World of Warcraft, or Angry Birds). It doesn’t mean that a whole life will be spent in the pursuit of entertainment, it means that the world of work will need to shift to work life of experience rather than mass production.
What does experience based work look like.
1. Life without cubicles
2. Work without command and control
3. Worth of people over worth of work
4. Flexibility to meet family demands
5. Gender equality
6. Dynamic work roles (as opposed to just one job a variety of interesting work)
7. Meaning in the experience
8. Collaborative contribution
9. Dynamic leadership
10. Work becomes play
What do you think the innovation age will bring? What will work look like? What will life really be like in a few years?
Look at this model as explained by one of Google’s employees, would it work in the age of innovation?
“We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness and affection.
Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them – we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.
Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare.” Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are
Give that title of the post some thought. What is the one thing that has stopped you from living out your life fully? Is it the inability to admit that you failed or that you could fail? Is it not being good enough and the fear of letting someone down is paralyzing?
Vulnerability is a key ingredient for trust. Trust in organizations hides because there isn’t a culture of vulnerability and why should there be vulnerability when you can’t be vulnerable. We stop short of being vulnerable because we fear what would happen if we were and even if we have permission there is a silent voice in our mind saying “Don’t say another word” and we hesitate and withdraw our voice and our contribution. “What if I am not good enough?” and that is what holds so many people at bay.
It is no wonder that 85% of people desire to do something other than what they are currently being paid to do. What would happen if everyone raised their voice and said, “This isn’t the right job for me … “. They won’t say it because they don’t have something better to go to and fear holds them back chained to work that sucks the life out of them. “Who am I … “, and that voice kills innovation, kills creativity, kills excitement and kills contribution, “who am I” to have a voice, to have an idea, to have a dream and to make a difference.
It comes across as “who am I to have a purpose”. The question “what is your purpose?” most often has a response of “I don’t know.” Living without purpose is like being a robot just “doing things” and hoping something good will come of it. Purpose is the foundation for living a meaningful life. What crumbles that foundation is the inability to be vulnerable to admit failure, to admit that it wasn’t perfect the first time and to believe that there was fault behind that failure that belonged to you.
Take a look at this video clip from Brene’ Brown, listen to her story, her explanation of what vulnerability is and isn’t and what shame is and how it leads down a path of personal destruction.
So much of what coaching is, is restoring that faith in the person that they are worthy of great things because they have greatness inside. That greatness has been swallowed up in shame and that keeps vulnerability from doing its work, bringing you to greatness.
Take a look!
And if the video spoke to you or if the words on this page spoke to you then … click on that purple thing just below these words … and vote for your favorite coaching blog.
“Don’t allow your mind to tell your heart what to do. The mind gives up easily”
― Paulo Coelho
Conviction – a strong belief in a cause. What are you convicted of? What are you doing that you believe in so deeply that nothing interferes with getting the result you want. It takes conviction to plow through difficult circumstances to achieve a noble goal. It is a quality that not a lot of people have. We live in a society where things should be easy, that we should be able to obtain things easily.
What does it take to live a life with conviction?
1. Clarity on what it is you want to do. Being crystal clear on what your purpose is, on what your goals are and how to realize those goals. Without clarity, without focus things are blurred and confusing. Clarity of purpose gives rise to direction. Seeing as we are goal seeking beings and that happiness flows from achieving goals big or small means that we should focus on “being” and “doing”.
2. Competence, the ability “to do”. Competence increases your self-esteem. If you believe you can do it, you probably can. It may take work and practice to develop the competence you need to get the results you want, so work on developing your skills. What one thing can you do today to improve your skills?
3. Making it real. What do you absolutely want to accomplish in your life? What is stopping you? What is holding you back from living full-out right now? List all those reasons, yes, write them all down. Now look at the list, is it true, is everything reason that you wrote down stopping you from living that life you want to live?
Living with conviction means that there is a way to achieve your goal even in the midst of all the stuff that happens. It means that it is important to realize that result, whether it is a special trip, a new college degree, a new career, a better relationship or making something better in your life. If you not convicted that life can be better for you than what will? It’s your life not someone else’s, it is your choice and it must be your conviction to make that life real for you.
What would you do if it really mattered?
What would it take for you to be convicted to take action for a cause you believed in … you?
In this video clip you’ll learn about a person who was convicted and about another person who was convicted to make a change. What passion, what energy, what goal can you focus on and achieve? The one that you totally believe in and one that you are willing to make the right sacrifices to achieve.
Coach with Heart 