Weekends Prove Who We Are

This weekend we got out. Starting with Friday night and ending Sunday morning, we reconnected with friends. Sounds like a fairly common behavior, doesn't it? Not usually for me.

What usually happens is driven by my "cave" mentality. Although I may be outdoors, time is usually spent in isolation, reflection, domestic tasks and low-key entertainment. Penny conscious and refueled by alone time, I usually spend the majority of my weekend reading, doing mindless work and resting.

It has dawned on me that our weekend time is our freedom to be ourselves, the time we have to do what all week long we have looked forward to doing. And yet, most times the weekend comes and goes with little thought. It is my time to take off the 8-5 weekday hat (or most often, the 10-hour day hat in whatever configuration works) and see who I really am - what most is important outside of my professional focus.

In looking at how I generally spend my time, I see a fairly selfish focus. It's all about me and my needs. Is this what I meant when I chose to live my past 49 years of weekends the way I have? Talk about communicating what's important to me. What I do with my free time proves what I value.

Goodness sakes. I could be reaching out to friends, volunteering in the community, reconnecting with family or taking on some other noble activity. Because it is why we are here. And yet I spend so much time, my free time, in thoughtless, mindless ways.

If weekends prove who we are, what will my upcoming weekend plans be? And who am I proving anything to?

Getting out of the Rut

This morning I saw a glimpse of a news story on the national news featuring four young guys who were traveling around the country to complete items on their Bucket List of things to do before they die. In so doing, each time they check off an item, they turn to the community around them to assist someone else in doing the same.

It occurs to me that most of us are buried alive (in their words) by our mindset. For instance, about 7 or 8 years ago I went through an extensive leadership training which forced us each to write out and share our dreams and desires in life. Almost simultaneously, my minister asked several of us the same question. In each case, I was at a loss.

I hadn't spent my life focusing on what I wanted. I spent my life focusing on how to make good where I was. Opening the lens to consider other options or extensions beyond me took a lot of effort. However, once there, the energies within began churning. Sure, I realized I was confined by several factors, yet much of the joy of life is in negotiating the challenges we face.

Through my coaching experiences of helping others become what they hope for, I constantly run into the expression, "But I can't." Excuses then roll out, either around money, time, priority, natural talents, etc. Just as how I felt back when I shifted gears from teaching to coaching.

"But Merri, you are half-way to retirment. It's not logical."
"What do you know about business, Merri?"

Logic and black and white circumstances work on paper. They simply don't fuel our motivation and sense of well-being.

The young boys in the morning broadcast seem to feel a vocation won't appeal to their purpose. Or perhaps it's just the reverse - a vocation may come out of it. Let's say that's the case. Nonetheless, they are taking a risk of being ridiculed for playing around with their life instead of growing up or disappointing someone for not entering the work force. What they are gaining is a sense of self. And until any of us has a sense of value, none of us will see our own purpose in life.

We may punch a time-clock, yet our attitude and spirit will stay in a rut, muddied by life and the negativity we attract.

Our hope is that instances of dreams we had early in life will resurface. My early dreams were of getting on a stage. Although I studied theatre, performed community and local college theatre, the biggest experiences of living my purpose come when helping others perform. Maybe that's when I make presentations on confidence building, on handling tough conversations, or on connecting well with others. Maybe it's when I'm face to face with someone who needs a boost, who is reconnecting to their spirit and is learning that logic isn't all that matters.

Define what you desire and then examine how important it is to OTHERS that you work towards it. Without that perspective, our appeal to self-sacrifice will talk us out of it, and our rut will deepen.

The day I put away the chalk and gradebook I felt fear, yet I never felt more spirit and support. It is so worth getting out of the rut, even if it takes letting others help us.

The Fun of the Seasaw

Remember the fun of the seesaw? Dig up those playground experiences for a moment and recall what it was like for you to sit on one end while someone else was on the other. For me the pleasure is in staying on while getting to go up and also getting to come back down and watching the other person hang on. And if you're more adventurous, enjoying the bumps.

It took a risk for me to get on, as I recall, trying to find balance with the person on the other end, getting ready when the "bumping" started and negotiating when to get off. It takes mental preparation to enjoy the seesaw.

Now I remind myself that someone who weighs more doesn't get the joy of being suspended in the air. Someone who weighs less doesn't get the thrill of control. Yet somehow, it's important to reach the ground and get back up, tottering back and forth.

Dealing with life's tough conversations is like getting on the seesaw. It requires mentally preparing to find the balance between two key things: intention and relationship.

Perhaps we want someone to know how their actions have affected us, or we want them to be informed of a decision we've come to. Quite often we plunge right into the talk, similar to hoisting them in the air without any advance notice. Worse yet, we resolve a change in plans as a result.

"You always leave the seat up." (startling them into a hoisted position)
"Use the kids' bathroom from now on."(plunking straight down)

The weight of that message leaves no room for negotiation, for a 2-way conversation. It seems the intent is to create pain. Even if it isn't, that's the message that comes across.

A testing of the balance between relationship and message would have helped.
"Honey, I know you aren't trying to anger me, but when you leave the seat up I get frustrated. Would you please pay attention to this habit for me?"
This gently lifts them off the ground and also gives them a safe landing.

I had a friend back on that playground that I trusted. When we seesawed, we would get to the point when our faces began to give away our willingness to get more adventurous. That's when we telegraphed our intention to bump. Our eyes would expand and our smiles would widen into grins. It was the signal to hang on and brace our behinds for impact.

In good fun, we saw how long we could withstand the pranks of jolting each other. Conversation is much the same. When we know each other well enough to distinguish between sarcasm and fun, we focus on agreed-upon areas for humor, not letting instances of the past become fair game for mockery.

Relationship and intention are the two focal points that keep conversation fun, adventurous and enjoyable. When we teeter around without focus on relationship, or before we have decided our intention, we heavily weight the moment for failure.

Surprised? Skeptical?

Introverts and people-focused people have a lot to learn - literally. While handling everyday conversation we tend to overlook one key step: Ask for more information.

Whether we want to appear thoughtful, intelligent or simply are at a loss for words, when conversation brings us to the point of frustration or shock, we tend to get silent. And this does us nor those we're talking with any good.

A book I'm currently reading, Negotiation Genius by Deepak Malhotra and Max H. Bazerman shares an example of this that I'll greatly paraphrase. It seems 2 companies were working on a deal to come to terms with placing a product in the marketplace. Company A wanted exclusive rights to it and was willing to pay the price. Yet Company B wouldn't deal in those terms. Negotiations came to a standstill.

In comes a genius negotiator to work on the relationships and outcome of the deal, and within 30 minutes, a contract was completely agreed upon by both parties. How did he do it? He simply asked Company B, "Why?" meaning, why won't you give Company A exclusive rights?

"My cousin wants 250 per month of the product, so I can't agree to this deal with Company A."

When Company A heard this, they knew they could work through it, allowed for a contingency clause of "...aside from (cousin), we get exclusive rights..." and the deal was signed.

Why didn't they ask the same question the genius asked? They, as many of us do, probably assumed Company B wouldn't share the answer. Yet unless we ask questions, we are fairly certain we won't get the information that is important to understand whatever has just made us surprised, skeptical or otherwise emotional.

Next time we feel shock, surprise, frustration or anger - we will benefit by asking questions.

Mistaken Identity

This morning James shared a provocative message he titled

Solidarity, Identity and Action

He focused on an excerpt from the book, The Patron Saint of Liars, a piece that sent me in a tailspin. It alludes to our desire to be set apart from others who behave in offensive ways, as though we don't.

I'm thinking of times someone walks in late to a meeting, runs a red light, drives too slowly in our lane ahead of us, piles on the groceries and then beats us to the 11 items or under lane. Not necessarily are these the offensive behaviors, yet they are things we will confess to eventhough when we see others do them, we are still peeved.

But those bigger issues, like not taking responsibility, shifting blame, avoiding conflict, or even causing pain or harm we usually isolate ourselves from. We claim our values (honesty, openness, respect, etc.) yet the demonstration of them suffers.

For instance, somebody we've delegated tasks to falls short. It is so easy to point out their flaws, to resolve next time to do the job ourselves. Yet we fail to remember the process we went through when taking on someone else's tasks and also falling short. We're too busy thinking about how well we historically have handled that particular task to relate to the other individual.

Our humanity has shifted from caring and weak to rigid and inhuman. Our true self, the one which can so easily communicate to someone who has made a mistake, is over-ruled. We mistakenly believe we are someone completely different.



Consider those moments of authority when we can really make a difference. Perhaps someone is making a mistake in how they are processing a task, or maybe they are hedging out of dislike or frustration of an action. Can we relate to these things in a broad sense? Without a doubt we can. Yet we claim another identity - one of perfection and inhuman nature. What we communicate to those who need assistance is unattractive. It isn't making a difference. It is aggravating and pointless. We are behaving from a mistaken identity - forgetting who we are and where we came from.

What can we, now in retrospect, do differently next time? What is the importance of doing things differently? For one, without identifying with someone, we don't connect. And without a connection we can never make a difference. Yet making a difference leads to actions and relationships beyond our comprehension.

Habits Determine Our Future

If I told you I could spend a week with you and at the end, prophecy your future, would you believe me?

Most people think that's a bit bold, maybe even unrealistic. Yet Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Les Hewitt can prove me right. (not that I need to be right) In their book The Power of Focus, they lay out strategies and techniques that help shape the course set before us in life. Simply put, they help us understand how our daily habits shape our future. Strategy 1, in their book, is called Your Habits Will Determine Your Future.

One of my short term goals is to have the material for a book. With that in mind, last October I started writing a blog, creating a pattern for putting thoughts on "paper", determining my tone, and discovering my subject matter. My goal was to have enough written within three months that I could simply review my posts and arrange them in a way that an overall message becomes clear.

It hasn't happened. Are you with me on this? You probably understand that to accomplish goals, sacrifice happens. Well, I haven't been sacrificing - only having fun. One of my favorite blog writers posts every day. And in one post she mentioned the toll it took on her to get to the laptap and follow through. At the time I thought, Why?

Now I understand. Just doing things when we're in the mood leaves nothing to be discovered. We can't tell how good we are at something until we're put to the test. And although I enjoy blogging, I haven't put myself to the test. Check out the most recent date (Dec. 24) and you'll find it's been over two weeks. Don't give me any breaks on this - my plan was to write 3 times a week. 3 times weekly in 3 months time would give me 36 posts.

How many do I have? 33. And 2 weeks have gone by. So that's 9 posts I'm behind. Had you followed me around for a week lately, knowing my desire to write a book, you'd notice my habits don't support it. Procrastination is the mother of all bad habits. That and avoidance. And lacking discipline.

There. You now know my goal for the next 3 months and can keep me accountable. Once we have accountability we have added motivation to follow through, even when it's a sacrifice. We know on the other end of our goal it will so be worth it.

I'm now on track. Keep me there. It will determine my future.

Passion. Rigor. Purpose.

We're sitting here watching the movie Julie Julia and it dawns on me so many of us don't have what it takes.

Or maybe it's just me.

There are days rigor is left by the wayside. By this I mean, the gym is skipped, planning is put aside and flexibility - when it's convenient - becomes the focus.

Managing self, that necessary ingredient to focusing on what's important, the key to not letting things get out of hand and putting the best light on the situation, begins with routine. Like setting the alarm for the same time daily, and getting up with it. Scooping the cat litter twice at regular times. Creating a system for putting the laundry through, ironing, polishing the shoes and routinely checking for cat hair on your clothes before leaving home.

Better yet, establishing routine, even rigor, with following through on small tasks leads us to accomplishing things that will make us proud. Especially the important things regarding family, values, career.

What ways do you establish and follow through on routines that support what is important to you? Let me know, really, because I need more insight into this. Part of my career focus is in helping individuals, professionals, create the boundaries that are important to them and break down those that hold them back.

I am very passionate about this. At the end of the day, when we have followed through on those things so important to us, we feel as though we exist.



It is a struggle, no question about it. Yet the energy that goes into anything of importance comes out the other end in multiples through our own feeling of accomplishment, through the recognition and support of others and through any other product that comes as a result.

Rent the movie Julie and Julia. Better yet, define your passion. From there your rigor and resolve will carry you into defining the importance of your struggle compared to the result.

Send me your insight. Really.