Hold, Raise or Fold?
Last month I discussed how to decide whether to persevere and continue to pursue your goals even in the face of setbacks. This month’s article is basically part two. If you decided that your goals ARE worth pursing, how do you decide if you should stay the course or if you should revise your plan? Here are some of the questions to ask yourself:
Are you following a coherent plan? Can you look at your plan objectively and say, “yup, that is a good plan”? It doesn’t have to be perfect, but if it is reasonable, then you should stick with it, at least for a while. What do I mean by reasonable? Would an extraordinary degree of luck be necessary to make this happen, or would old fashioned hard work and persistence likely be sufficient? Do all the intermediate steps build toward the final goal, or do they conflict in some way? You don’t have to do something perfectly to achieve fantastic results. However, you do have to work at it consistently, and second guessing your choices is likely to be counterproductive.
Does the plan make sense based on YOUR talents, YOUR team, resources, and values? Sometimes we create plans based on expert advice. The problem is that plans are like clothes. They might be perfect for someone else, but we are not all made the same way. You need a plan that will fit your strengths and preferences, and those of your team (if you are working with other people).
Is there an inherent time lag? Some things take time. Actually, lots of things take time. If you are building a reputation in a new market, changing the work culture in your organization, or simply making new friends, these things don’t get handled all at once. People need time to learn, absorb, change their default behaviors, etc. If you are feeling impatient with the pace of your results, just think through the situation logically and see if there are any built in time lags that could explain your current outcomes. If that is your main problem, just keep going.
Are lousy circumstances getting in your way? Your idea could be way ahead of its day. If you were trying to teach yoga in the United States in the 1950s, I’m guessing you wouldn’t get very far. You could also be teamed up with the wrong people, or in the wrong location, or the macroeconomic forces could be lowering your chances of success. Once you get clear about these sorts of external factors, it should be pretty clear whether you should put your plan on hold or revise it in some way.
Good luck and enjoy the process!!
Recently, I was walking by a wedding “center” with a friend and we saw big crowds of people outside. She suggested that we go in, watch a wedding and see if we can get some candy. This seemed odd to me, but I’m generally up for anything, so in we went. It turns out that this is the Turkish equivalent to getting married at a courthouse, except that couple brings along three or four hundred friends and family and the whole thing is even less romantic. A loudspeaker announced the couples’ names and told everyone to file into the auditorium. It also said that once you have “celebrated” with the couple that you should leave as soon as possible to make room for others. We watched the ceremony, which took about five minutes, and consisted of the couple stating their identities, their parents’ names, and confirming that they were freely entering into this agreement. Not a word about love, commitment, ‘till death do us part, etc. It was purely contractual. Then everyone filed out of the room and lined up to congratulate the couple, give them money (or gold) and get pictures taken with them. The guests all received a little sashet of lavender with little candies attached, and then they left. There were three couples being congratulated at the same time in different corners of a very large room. The only thing that bore any resemblance to what I think of as a wedding was that the brides were wearing white dresses. This in not the only option for marrying couples, but clearly it is an inexpensive and popular choice.
“They all said it was a stupid title, that nobody bought collections of short stories, that there was no edge — no s**, no violence. Why would anyone read it?” Jack Canfield, talking about the publishers who rejected Chicken Soup for the Soul. The book was by rejected by over 100 publishers but went on to sell over 130 million copies.
Ode to Persistence
As we enter the new year, it is a time when many people want to try something new, make changes, start over. Of course, as a coach, I’m generally a big fan of this sort of thing, but its also important to remember that just because you have not yet doubled your client base, or lost that weight, or created the kind of relationship that you want with your staff, doesn’t mean that you are doing anything wrong. You may just need more time for the results of your efforts to start manifesting. So, when is persistence worth it and when should you just go home and eat ice cream?
You first need to identify whether you are experiencing temporary setbacks or if there is a fatal flaw in your goal.
Fatal Flaws
Do you lack the requisite talent? This is not asking if you are the smartest or most talented, but rather do you pass the basic threshold of talent required to be successful? If the answer is yes, then stop torturing yourself, your family and friends and give up already. Your talents clearly lie elsewhere, and you can always sing or play basketball as a hobby.
Are you lacking passion? If you achieve this goal will you be overjoyed? Will you feel like you are being who you are meant to be in the world? If the answers to these questions are “no” then it is probably not worth it for you to continue to in the face of multiple setbacks. This could be the universe’s way of saying “Dude, stop wasting your time. Do something you actually care about.”
Temporary Setbacks
Are you offering something new and different? I went to an entrepreneurs conference a few years ago and the research and development director of a huge technology company gave the keynote address. He said that the products and ideas that actually make a difference, change the market, are the ones that on first glance most people would dismiss as stupid. So if you are offering something unique or unconventional you may just have to knock on enough doors until you find someone who can appreciate what you have to offer.
Is there a knowledge or experience gap? Making mistakes when you are learning something new is not really failure, though it sure does feel like it sometimes. When you learned to walk you fell down a lot. When taking on a new role or acquiring a new skill it is natural and inevitable to make mistakes. Frankly, it would be kind of spooky if you didn’t. So, if you are just learning, give yourself a break, keep going and consider finding a mentor, or reading more books on the subject to speed up the learning curve.
Assuming you decided that you are just dealing with temporary setbacks, you are probably thinking, “fine, but am I going about this the right way?” “Should I revise my game plan?” I’ll address that issue in more depth next month, but in the meantime, I’ll just say this. If you can look at your plan objectively and say, “yup, that is a good plan” — maybe not perfect, maybe not the best, but solid, reasonable and appropriate for YOU, then you should stick with it. 99% of the time, consistency is more effective than perfection.
The Dangers of Fresh Air
With the aversion Turks have to cool air, you would think that Turkey were a desert. But no, the season’s here are “normal” by U.S. East Coast standards. In Istanbul, winter is mostly cold and rainy but there is also some snow. Most Turks believe that cool air will make them sick. In many cases, what they call “cold air” most American’s would call “fresh air.” Dangerous activities include sitting in front of a fan, regardless of how hot the weather is; opening a window to allow a breeze to enter when exercising; and going into an air conditioned area when hot and sweaty. In the fall you will see little kids all bundled up in winter coats when it is 70 degrees out. My foreign friends with children have ongoing battles over this with their Turkish mother-in-laws, teachers, and other well-meaning members of the community. Some friends have resorted to saying that although Turkish children get sick from cold air, half-foreign children do not. Remarkably, people actually accept this explanation. As you can imagine, many fewer places here are air conditioned, and where it does exist the setting is quite moderate. This is one of the main reasons that I continue to frequent Starbucks.
How to Design a Powerful Project
Whether you are trying to lose weight, write that novel, or increase revenue, one simple way to help yourself achieve the intention quickly is to write out a project plan. The following are ten steps to create an effective plan.
- Set a specific and measurable goal, with a clear time frame. – Many of us aspire to “lose weight” which is vague and, therefore, less powerful than a specific target like “lose 10 pounds by February 28th”. Even an abstract objective like “improve my relationship with staff” can be translated into a measurable goal. For example, “have three staff members share personal information with me by January 30th,” or “have three staff members voluntarily stay late to complete their work by February 15th.”
- Set a goal that inspires you. – Ask yourself if you are excited and energized. Have you “dumbed down” the objective to make it seem more realistic or acceptable? If running a marathon inspires you, but running a ten mile race does not, you should aim for the marathon. Is the goal about you and what you want in life? Or is it about what someone else thinks you should achieve?
- Set a realistic time frame for implementation. – If you have never written a screenplay and don’t know anyone in the business, selling a screenplay may be perfectly achievable. However, aiming to do so within one month, may be setting yourself up for failure.
- Create a clear vision to keep yourself motivated and inspired. – What will your life be like when you have achieved this objective? How will you be relating to yourself and others? Write at least one paragraph in the present tense describing your experience after having achieved this goal. You can also create a collage or other visual representation. The visioning process makes the end result seem more real and, therefore, more achievable. Look at it regularly to remind yourself what you have at stake and why you are bothering to do all this work.
- Make lists of the skills and resources you already have. You probably already have much of what you will need to be successful with the project. Making these lists will create positive forward momentum by reminding you of what you already have going for you. If you get frustrated later on, you can refer to these lists to help you decide how to move forward.
- Figure out what skills or resources, if any, you are missing. – If you see something missing, consider what skills or resources (including people) you have which you can use to address the gap.
- Get the support of your community. – You have friends, family and colleagues who are on your side and would love to support you in achieving your goals. Tell them what you are doing, get their support, and ask for their help. Having ten people ask you periodically about that book you are writing will help keep you on track and may lead to unforeseen resources or connections.
- Set clear and achievable milestones for implementation. – Setting intermediate deadlines will help you maintain course and stay focused on your objective.
- Create rewards which motivate you. – Some people are hesitant to reward themselves, believing that they shouldn’t need extra motivation or that achieving their goal would be reward enough. In any endeavor there are times when it will be difficult, you won’t want to persevere, or obligations will get in the way. These are the times when it is most valuable to have a little extra motivation. Try designating a reward for each significant milestone. Rewards don’t have to be expensive, but they should be something that you actually want which will help when the going gets tough.
- Revise the project. – Over time the project plan will become outdated. Results will be achieved faster or slower or simply move in a different direction than you anticipated. Change is natural, but an outdated project plan loses its power. So refer to the plan regularly and revise as needed.
A Simple Trick for Brilliant People
Have you noticed that smart people can be really ineffective and stupid people can be surprisingly wise? Intelligence only gets you so far. And sometimes it actually makes navigating life’s challenges more difficult. My clients are brilliant. My friends are brilliant. I surround myself with clever, innovative and creative people. I have noticed that intelligent people generally want to use their brains to figure out solutions (preferably innovative and unique) even when their mothers told them the answers thirty years ago or when the directions are clearly written right in front of them.
Just as ninety percent of success in life comes from simply showing up, ninety percent of what we should do in life is pretty darn obvious. The dog poops on the floor, you clean it up. Your boss wants a report, just do the bloody report. Your spouse asks you to pick up your socks, just pick up the socks already. Seriously, can you imagine how much easier life would be if we didn’t fight it so much?
If you are feeling grumpy or dissatisfied, rather than trying to figure out why, or blaming yourself or others, try getting some exercise, breathing fresh air, eating some vegetables, or getting more sleep. If your physical well-being is already good, what about your spiritual or emotional well-being? When is the last time you spent time with friends? Are you praying, meditating or reading poetry? (Regardless of your belief systems, we all need something that helps us feel connected to the big picture.)
Taking care of ourselves is not rocket science. (Apparently even rocket science is not rocket science, but that is another issue.) It’s a choice. Sometimes we would rather be crabby or strung out and exhausted. Somehow we confuse being busy with being a valuable, worthwhile person. We are so important that we are constantly in demand, and because we are always in demand we are overworked and exhausted. Next time you feel like injuring a coworker, family member or total stranger, consider that the reasons are irrelevant and just take some steps to take better care of yourself.
Chicken for Dessert – My Two Cents on Food in Istanbul
Turks are very proud of their cuisine. Now I like Turkish food. I really do. I eat it almost every day, but the degree of passion Turks have for Turkish food truly confuses me. If a Turk suggests that we have a Turkish meal, it means we will either go for a casual meal of some sort of kebab/ meatball-type thing or we will have grilled fish with various mezes. Fish restaurants are particularly lovely, as many are right on the water, have a nice view, etc. But as an American, I am accustomed to having lots of variety. I love Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Ethiopian, Indian, Cuban, Mexican, etc. Like every other culture in the world Turks have developed a fondness for pizza and hamburgers, but most people here don’t eat what I think of as real foreign foods. There are foreign restaurants in Istanbul, but for a major international city that prides itself on being a cross roads between civilizations, there are surprisingly few, they are mostly overpriced and not very good.
On the bright side, from my perspective anyway, Turks seem very fond of dessert. In addition to traditional foods like baklava, Turkish delight, and all sorts of milk-based desserts the Turks eat cake, cheesecake, ice cream and other traditionally western desserts. The most interesting of the traditional Turkish desserts is called tavuk göğsü which is in the pudding family, but thicker, and it is made with chicken. I assume it was originally included in the recipe as a thickening agent. To a western ear it sounds gross, but the reality is quite nice. The chicken is ground up so finely that you don’t really notice it unless you are looking for it.
Relentless Positivity – friend or foe?
Have you noticed that some “positive” people seem smarmy, condescending and basically you just want to punch them? Meanwhile, others are magnetic and just being around them makes you feel more joyful, connected and alive. Small children are almost always in this category. This article is my two cents on relentlessly positive attitudes and what people don’t tell you about the law of attraction.
I often meet people who say things like, “it’s important to always be positive because then you attract good things into your life.” This worries me. I get the value of being positive AND there is something insidious about the “always.” The problem is that human beings are emotional creatures and feelings are not always positive, often not even logical. Sometimes I REALLY wish we could simply turn off our emotions. Life would be so much simpler and there would only be a tenth as much war, family conflict, etc. But actually there is a lot to be said for passion, love, and the energy and enthusiasm they produce. It’s a bummer, but we simply can’t experience positive emotions without the negative ones.
There are two ways to generate a positive attitude, one is to repress any negative energy. You have seen people like this. The smile is pasted on their faces and they attempt to exclude completely any negative thoughts, negative people, etc. from their lives. I have heard this described as icing on a mud pie. It may look good from the outside, and parts may even taste good, but there is something simply deceptive, unhealthy and even slightly repulsive about it.
The second approach is to process the emotions when they arise. Since negative emotions are often either caused or perpetuated by unhelpful interpretations and intellectual constructs, it’s important to address those as well. (There are many ways to do this, coaching is just one of them.) HOW to do this is rather too complex to address in a newsletter, but one of the key points here is to actually let yourself feel the emotions. Emotions don’t last as long if you actually allow yourself to feel them rather than just ignore or push them away. The road to authentic positivity is arguably more work, but also a MUCH more powerful and enjoyable place to come from.
The law of attraction is the idea that holding positive (or negative) beliefs actually brings those things into physical reality. Even putting aside energetic or spiritual beliefs, this certainly has some validity. (After all, believing in a positive future is a lot more motivating than the alternative.) However, if a person’s “positive” attitude is actually masking a deep dark swamp of unexamined ideas, insecurities and emotions he will create a very mixed, inauthentic reality. Pasting on a fake smile may be necessary now and then, but if you really want to attract great people, experiences, and goods into your life, the key is to access the positive side of yourself but in an authentic way.
If you want to learn more about how to access the AUTHENTICALLY POSITIVE side of yourself just send me an email and I would be happy to talk with you.
Nosy Neighbors and Safe Streets
One of the first things I noticed about Istanbul was that it felt surprisingly safe. As a tourist, I felt fine walking back to my hotel at 2:00 in the morning. There were always people on the street and though it was often groups of men, somehow it didn’t feel threatening. Some might be leering but others had a more protective demeanor. If groups of men are hanging out on the street in America I would think they are up to no good, but here its generally groups of taxi drivers waiting for business or men sitting around drinking tea. I’m told its really easy to get guns here and Turks are known to be hot blooded, so at first it seemed very counterintuitive that rates of street crime were so low. I finally decided that it must be because of the nosy neighbors. Like many traditional societies, there is a ton of social pressure from the community, family, etc. If you have not yet purchased a carpet for your new apartment, the neighbors will be wondering why and discussing it. They may ask you about why you have been getting home so late, why you are not married, etc. If you decide to get divorced, neighbors you hardly know will invite you for dinner and try to act as marital counselors. People take an excessive interest in one another’s lives. The up side of this, however, is that they are paying attention to everything that is happening in the neighborhood. So everyone knows they are being watched and the last thing a nice (or even not so nice) Turkish boy wants is for someone to tell his mother and for her to be disappointed in him.
Are Vacations Overrated?
A number of years ago I was horribly ill all by myself in a national park in China, where I didn’t see a single other foreigner for three days and couldn’t communicate with anyone. NOT fun! Am I the only one who gets myself into this sort of mess? I was taking to a friend recently who did not enjoy his vacation and was feeling like the only person in the world who doesn’t have fabulous holidays. Just as most human beings live under the illusion that everyone else is more emotionally secure, well-organized and has a better love life, similarly we tend to assume that others also have better vacations. For anyone who is feeling dissatisfied in this area, or who has ever felt that way in the past, this month’s article is for you.
Have you ever wondered why vacations sometimes suck? Sure, we can blame it on the mosquitos or the lousy hotel or the protests that shut down the airport, but those little details are not the real issue. As with many things in life, some holidays may SEEM like a really good idea, but the rules for making a good vacation choice are basically the same standards that apply for making any other decision. Here are top three things to consider when planing your next trip.
1. Would the vacation help to meet your mental, physical, emotional or spiritual needs? If you work eighty hours a week, don’t get enough sleep and don’t eat properly, any vacation where you can rest and eat healthy food will seem like heaven. Likewise, if you adore your family but don’t get to see your children very much, any holiday where you get to spend time with them will be satisfying. On the other hand, if your life is already pretty balanced it may not be immediately obvious what kind of trip would meet your needs. (The plus side of this, of course, is that your life is awesome.)
2. Are the planned activities aligned with your values? I realize that vacation and values do not often appear in the same sentence, but I’m not referring to right and wrong, black and white morality. I am talking about what is important to you. If your top values are adventure, self-sufficiency and nature you may want to go camping by yourself in Colorado or climb Mount Everest. Whereas if your top values are human connection, making a difference and learning you might want to build a house with Habitat for Humanity or teach refugees. This may seem super obvious, but how many times have you or someone you know gone on a vacation that that wasn’t a fit for their personality? You go and lay on the beach when your personality yearns for adventure, or you spend lots of time in museums when you don’t really care about art or history.
3. Are you likely to have the quality and quantity of human connection that you desire?
Have you ever traveled with someone who drove you nuts or bored you silly? Have you ever taken a trip alone in a place where everyone else was in couples or on family vacations? Both are good recipes for having a lousy time. Of course this is the trickiest criteria. No matter how well you plan, there is no guarantee that you will meet people you will like, or that the friend you have known for years won’t drive you batty once you stuck together 24/7. That said, there are ways to travel that increase your likelihood of meeting like-minded people, for example, doing activities that you enjoy. (This sounds like dating advice, doesn’t it, but the same principle applies.) Also, if you go to places that cater to people like you, families, couples, singles, long-term travelers, etc. you will be more likely to make friends.
The nice thing about a holiday, even a lousy one, is that you do come back with a new perspective; you understand yourself and your world better. And if all else fails you can just show your friends your beautiful pictures and make them jealous. 
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