Stumbling & Stepping

Does your next step up have a downside?

By Diana Gardner Robinson Leave a Comment

It is much easier for most of us to keep our balance on a flat surface than on a slope but we don’t get to climb that way. Today I am not writing about fear of falling physically but about the need to be aware of the slippery slopes that we may encounter when we are trying to make positive changes via small steps along upward slopes.

I know that many of my readers are entrepreneurs, for whom slopes, both up and down, are almost the norm. However, unless we are on a plateau, which is rarely desirable for any length of time, most of us, entrepreneurs or not, are on slopes one way or another, particularly those of us who are developing – or changing – some aspect of our lives.

A major problem can arise when we decide to do “more of” in one area of life because, given that we all have the same 24 hours in a day, doing more usually involves doing less of something else. That in itself involves a balancing act. The more shallow the slope – and so the smaller the change – the less likely it is that we will even consider the effect of the “less” as we glory in the positive aspects of the “more.” However, small positive changes often become incremental – both the “more of” and the “less of.”

(This is the beginning of my most recent newsletter, “Work in Progress (Because we all are!),” If you would like to receive this issue in its entirety, please subscribe at the “envelope and pencil” form to the right of this page.)

Diana

I hope you find this blog interesting, useful, or amusing, depending on its topic. One way to keep track of my posts is to subscribe to my newsletter (see form on the right), which will always contain a link to recent blogs. Or, of course, you could bookmark this page and keep checking back. Either way, I hope that my work makes your life easier and more balanced. To explore my offer of the gift of a 30-40 minute coaching session on whatever issue is a stumbling block for you, please contact me via my Contact page.

What about Gratitude over a whole Thanksgiving year?

By Diana Gardner Robinson Leave a Comment

Yesterday was, in my country of adoption, a day for Thanksgiving for all that we have in our lives. Today is, apparently for many, a day for buying more stuff because, it seems, we do not have enough. There’s an irony there that I am not the first to see.

What if, for most of us, we do already have enough?

What if we don’t need more than we have? I am talking about those of us who are “first world” people. I am thinking about what most of the people who can read this have, as opposed to refugees who have given up everything – yes, everything that they cannot carry in their own two arms, walking on their own two feet, to get to some place of respite. I am not talking about homeless folk who carry what they own in plastic bags, or push it in “borrowed” grocery carts. (Although actually, there are some of these who are content with what they have and choose that rather than accommodating themselves to rules and regulations that many of us consider to be “normal behavior.”)

To each his/her own.

My point is that most of us have. We have to overflowing. And yet we want more.

In my coaching, I find that much unhappiness focuses on what one does not have, or what one has that one does not want. My first assignment to some new clients is often so simple as to be ridiculous, yet so life changing that some people will not take it on. It is simply to start a gratitude journal – naming, at the end of the day, five things for which one has been grateful at some point during that day. The trick is that it cannot be the same thing repeated. That is why it needs to be a journal, recorded, so that the writer can look back, and avoid repeating anything that was written in the previous seven days.

I remember a client from some years back who, one week after I had asked her to take on this assignment, positively bubbled at the start of our next phone call.

“When I leave for work, even as I’m driving, I remember to look for things to put in my journal. I see so much more that is lovely, or fun. I am thinking about finding good things all day – I did not know there was so much to enjoy in my life.”

I think of another client who had lost a dearly loved relative. Concerned that she might spiral into depression, I made an exception to my usual three-time-a-month coaching call, and asked her to keep a gratitude journal and send it to me daily. It made such a difference in her life (and needing to send it stopped her from dropping it from her routine) that she has continued with her journal long after her grief, while not disappearing, has certainly weakened its hold on her.

Have you tried writing a gratitude journal? Try it. Let it become a habit. Buy yourself a nice looking bound blank-page book, or use an old spiral-bound writing pad. It does not matter what it looks like so long as it is what you choose. Through the course of your day, focus on finding those five things that you find good, beautiful, or that make you happy so that you can write them down as you look back over your day. Then, when the bad days come – and they almost certainly will – you have it to look back on, to remind you that, indeed, life can be good, and if yours was good before, it can most certainly be good again.

Bonus: You will probably find that the majority of the things that you write down do NOT come into the category of “stuff.”

Try it – five things each day – from now until the end of next year – however you count your days and your years. It just may change your life.

I hope you find this blog interesting, useful, or amusing, depending on its topic. One way to keep track of my posts is to subscribe to my newsletter (see form on the right), which will always contain a note of recent blogs. Or, of course, you could bookmark this page and keep checking back. Either way, I hope that my work makes your life easier and more balanced.

To explore my offer of the gift of a 30 minute coaching session on whatever issue is a stumbling block for you, please see my Contact page.

Do You Hear what I Hear?

By Diana Gardner Robinson Leave a Comment

Is the sound that you hear the sound that I hear?

If we are to communicate well, we have to listen well, and most of us don’t listen as well as we think we do. However, no matter how carefully we listen, we may not always perceive exactly the same thing as anyone else. To show what I mean, here’s a true story that happened a few years ago…

The sounds of nature, particularly the ocean, are an effective background for relaxation for many of us. The roar of the waves gets louder as they approach, reaches a crescendo as they come closer, and then fades away as they retreat. To me, and to most people, it is very easy to visualize that one is relaxing peacefully as the nearby ocean waves advance and retreat in a soothing symphony of sound. Sometimes we may use such sounds when leading relaxation sessions. However, I encountered one individual who did not hear an ocean wave tape that way at all. He was noticeably not relaxed as the tape played. Later he asked why I would expect that the sound of trucks would help people to relax.

Trucks? TRUCKS? I wondered if we were speaking the same language.

However, he went on to explain that as a teenager he had been a frequent run-away, and between attempts at hitch-hiking had often tried to sleep under interstate bridges. Above him, throughout the night, the roar of the big trucks would gradually get louder as they approached, reach a crescendo as they passed overhead, and then fade away as they retreated into the distance. This was the scene that was re-created for him whenever he heard the tape that, for most people, created the peaceful sound of ocean waves.

What is real, what is interpreted?

The sound was the sound. What was actual was that the sound waves came from a piece of magnetic tape. What was real to me was that it was the sound of ocean waves, which led to relaxation. What was real to this man was the sound of interstate trucks, even after he became aware that the source of the sound on the tape was the ocean. And so that sound continued to remind him of his dangerous life as a runaway, which led to tension and a need for vigilance.

Our interpretation of most of the signals that we see and hear is subjective. How often have we discovered that another person’s interpretation of exactly the same events was quite different from ours?

What we perceive is real to us. We need to remind ourselves that it may not be exactly what actually happened, and it may not be what is real to another person. Do not assume, without checking, that you know what another person’s perceptions are.

To explore my offer of the gift of a 30 minute coaching session on whatever issue is a stumbling block for you, please see my Contact page.

I hope you find this blog interesting, useful, or amusing, depending on its topic. One way to keep track of my posts is to subscribe to my newsletter (see form on the right), which will always contain a note of recent blogs. Or, of course, you could bookmark this page and keep checking back. Either way, I hope that my work makes your life easier and more balanced.

Is Your Help a Hand-up or a Hand-out?

By Diana Gardner Robinson 2 Comments

Hand-up or Hand-out?

Or, to put it another way ”What you do for me without me, you do to me.” Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi had such a knack of saying a whole lot in very few words, and this is one example. It is a point that those of us in the self-help, personal growth and counseling fields need to take very seriously, but also applies to parents, teachers, and anyone who has skills that others need. It echoes, slightly more enigmatically, the old “Give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you teach him for the rest of his life.” Apart from my occasional rebellious question as to whether anyone ever considers whether to teach a woman to fish, each statement echoes the other.

Whether we are working with children, with those who are in need, or with people who do not have skills that we have mastered, most of us want to help people. We want to help people so that they can grow and become self-sufficient. Yet, all too often, the help that is given is a temporary fix rather than something that encourages growth. In fact, helping someone while they stand helplessly back and watch may well convey the message that they are helpless and need someone else to look after them. It can be unempowering. We want to provide stepping stones, but instead the message that they are helpless to help themselves may become a stumbling block.

People do not learn from watching nearly as well – if at all – as from doing. Of course it takes longer, and more effort, to tell someone how to do something, to guide their actions and give them feedback, than it does to do the darn thing ourselves! So, unfortunately, we tend to do for, rather than do with.

My neighbor is a brilliant “fix-it” person, and always willing to help. I have noticed that he “does it right.” He does what I, at five foot two inches, cannot do either for matters of height or of strength. When that is out of the way he hands things back to me and, if needed, tells me how to do it, but I have to be active in the process. When I installed a motion detector light over my garage door, part of what was needed was out of my reach. He promptly did what I could not, but then handed the tools back to me to continue the task. I’m not sure if I felt more empowered because I learned something, or because I had been an active part of the project rather than a helpless bystander. I think it was the latter.

Of course we have to have a balance. While I am saying that taking over and fixing everything can be un-empowering, on the other hand standing back and saying that people must do something for themselves when they are incapable of doing so is not helpful. Leaving me to install my own light over the garage door would not have helped me to grow a few more inches. I believe the balance lies right there – where the help offered is for what the individual cannot do, but that they are expected to participate as well.

Habitat for Humanity has that down pat, truly living out their slogan “A hand up not a hand out.” The organization organizes and leads, but the anticipated owners of the house must contribute many hours of work, under supervision where necessary and learning many skills as they go, in order to earn the right to move in.

I suspect that those of us who “do for” rather than “do with” may get a quiet charge of virtuosity when we consider how much we do for others – but then… are we doing it for them or for ourselves?

I also suspect that the one thing that people really need is to be empowered by our acknowledgement that they are capable of “doing with,” even if it only involves tightening a couple of screws, as with my garage light.

Do you do for? Or do you do with? If the former… would you consider bring your “helpees” on board, just a little? You will not be giving them less, but more.

I hope you find this blog interesting, useful, or amusing, depending on its topic. One way to keep track of my posts is to subscribe to my newsletter (see form on the right), which will always contain a note of recent blogs. Or, of course, you could bookmark this page and keep checking back. Either way, I hope that my work makes your life easier and more balanced. To explore my offer of the gift of a 30 minute coaching session on whatever issue is a stumbling block for you, please see my Contact page.

Diana

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