Which it nearly wasn’t, as reactive mode is not my preferred style.  I like planning and order and structure and process and knowing what’s happening and doing what I’ve planned and crossing things off a list.

And that’s not what’s been happening around here recently.  So, what are my choices?  Hide under the duvet and come out when order has been restored?  Impractical and unrealistic on so many levels.

Or accepting the way things are, being flexible and adaptable and open to the new ideas, opportunities, experiences that are likely to occur in a less ordered world.

It’s not been easy, as I am going against a lot of my own learned behaviours, but there is enjoyment to be had and excitement in the unknown.

Order is great for getting things done.  Being flexible is great for sanity.

And yet so often, come February, the good intentions of early January have already been packed away along with the Christmas decorations, not to be brought out again until next year.

What happens? One common reason is that we quickly go back to our ‘normal’ lives of work and school and the usual routines and along with them come the usual habits and ways of behaving. Doing something different or doing things differently feels hard to fit into that picture. It doesn’t feel like a conscious choice not to follow through on our resolutions but they slip to the back of our minds and out of sight we simply forget about them.

Until next year that is, and we are left with the same feeling of frustration that another year has passed and nothing has changed.

Sound familiar?

Or perhaps you have more resilience and keep them going a little longer. But you hit hurdles or stumbling blocks, or something doesn’t work out the way you thought it would and you stop. Momentum is lost and it can feel hard, if not impossible to get restarted. And there isn’t a convenient date to act as a catalyst to action. So again, the resolutions get forgotten about. Until next year, of course.

So how can it be different?

Follow these 10 steps to make this year different:

1. Be clear about what you want

• Don’t make it a list of what you don’t want and make sure you are specific about what you do want. For example, if you have written “lose weight”, write down how much you want to lose and by when

2. Know why you want it - or who wrote this list anyway?

• Writing down why you want something will give you a handy reminder to go back to when you’re feeling un motivated.
• Make sure the list is yours. Not someone else’s voice in your head telling you all the things you “should” do.

3. Be specific about what you will do

• It’s very hard to be in action around a vague list of “will do more of…” and “will do less of…”. If you gave your list to someone else would they know exactly what you were doing when?

4. Know what stops you

• There will be times when it feels hard to be in action or you simply won’t feel like it. Being honest with yourself about what will stop you now whilst you are feeling motivated will let you plan for these situations and not make them the end of your resolutions.

5. Create support structures

• When you know what stops you put support structures in place now that will keep you on track. Examples include other people - such as a buddy system - using your diary to schedule reminders, notes on your bathroom mirror, pictures in prominent places.

6. Be in action

• Sometimes the only thing that is required is to just do it! For no other reason that you said you would. One of the biggest enemies of keeping your new year resolutions is analysing them, yourself, the world. This is the time to look back at why you wanted to achieve this resolution in the first place and to be in action.

7. Embrace imperfection

• Sometimes things will not go to plan. It happens. Don’t let it throw you off track completely. Make adjustments, come up with new ways of doing things, create a new plan for the imperfect world you live in. It’s perfect.

8. When failing isn’t failing

• Feeling that you’ve failed at something can be a real kick in the teeth and the end to achieving goals. So think of failing differently. Failing means you are doing something different, possibly something new. Did you learn to walk without failing over a few times? I doubt it. Did you give up? I’m guessing not. Failing isn’t failing, it’s just not having done it yet.

9.Reward yourself

• Don’t hold out until the “big prize”. Create reward points along the way. Reward yourself for being in action. Be kind to yourself and use the carrot, or lots of carrots, and not the stick!

10. Enjoy!

• Most importantly, your new years resolutions are about being happier, more fulfilled, enjoying your life. If it is a punishment list put it in the bin right now!

For a more in-depth guide to keeping your new year resolutions in 2010 download the free eBook:

So what do you need to live a happy and fulfilled life? Self awareness, vision, a plan, being in action, knowing what you want to do and doing it. That sort of thing.

Along with all that you need systems in place to enable you to be out there doing whatever it is that makes you happy and fulfilled.

All very good so far. And if you have any or all of the above going on right now then you are in a great place. However, have you considered what would happen if there were to be a breakdown in the system?

There are many things that can cause a breakdown in our daily systems and they don’t have to be major events to have a big impact. They could include: car breaking down, being ill, your children or another relative being ill, alarm doesn’t go off in the morning, computer crashes, unexpected client meeting, trains delayed, and so on and so on. And they can occur in all areas of life – health & fitness, career, family, hobbies, money, physical environment to name but a few.

Let me give you a real example, my husband and I have childcare arrangements that allow us to follow our chosen career paths. Most of the time these work smoothly and everyone can easily go about their activities as planned. Today we experienced a breakdown – no childcare for our youngest during the day, various ferrying of children between after-school clubs to be done and us both with work commitments.

Before I explore further what happened in this particular instance let’s take a step back and consider three ways of working with breakdowns. The first two consider the pre-event situation and the third one deals with the moment of impact. The first two are great and can be used when creating a new system or conducting an audit of an existing one.

1. Prevent – think about what has caused a breakdown in the past, think about what you know are likely to be causes of breakdown. What steps can you take to prevent these happening?

2. Anticipate – some things you will not be able to prevent but they are also not entirely unexpected. Are there recurring events that cause a breakdown in your system? Do you know there are events outside of your control that could have an impact? What can you put in place now to minimise their impact? What contingencies can you set up?

The third is the one that has the greatest impact and so is the focus of the remainder of this article.

3. React – the unexpected has happened, it wasn’t prevented and there are no contingency plans in place. Two things happen: a practical reaction and an emotional reaction.

The emotional reaction kicks in as expectations are thrown off course and this causes an upset. And it isn’t necessarily directly about the situation. Upsets about other areas can be triggered by our own and others’ emotional responses to an event or situation. The practical reaction is problem solving, finding out what can be done to get things back on track.

So back to this morning and managing our day. From a practical perspective we were able to use the support network we have created to help in these situations to come up with a good, though not perfect, solution. All very good, breakdown largely dealt with.

However, the solution was not perfect in that it did not entirely replicate the usual system. This caused the emotional reaction to kick-in. When you are dealing with changing expectations or commitments there is a whole lot more going on than practicalities. Personal values such as integrity, reliability, service, self-worth, responsibility, relationships can all get put under pressure. When the honouring of our fundamental values are threatened it can be hard to step back and see the big picture.

So, what happens when the unexpected happens and what can you do about it?

1. Don’t spend time analysing the whys, hows and wherefores of why it happened. It’s happened, now deal with it.

2. Take a practical response – what needs to be done and what can you do. Include your support networks, other resources, what can you delegate, be creative in your thinking.

3. Don’t ignore the emotional response – it may be that you need to deal with this before turning to practical solutions. Think about what’s going on – what is the upset really about, which of your values are being threatened.

4. Learn – what can you learn for the future. What would you do differently? What can you put in place?

5. Don’t be attached to the new system looking exactly the same as the old one. It might or it might not. It may go back to the old one or the new one may be a permanent replacement – at least, until the next time it needs to reshape.

Most importantly, all parts of the system need to be flexible – and that means not only the practical elements but the personal ones too – i.e. you.

Download the LifeCheck Companion Guide for free for more information on LifeCheck and how you can best use it.

lifecheck_companionguide

Excerpt from the LifeCheck Companion Guide

1. Purpose of LifeCheck

LifeCheck was created to provide people with a simple way of looking at their lives to make choices about where to focus their attention for greatest happiness. The fundamental premise is that balance creates overall happiness and having any area in your life out of balance throws the whole thing off. This is a systems thinking approach which believes that looking at a system as a whole rather than individual elements brings about a better outcome. Imagine having a well oiled chain on your bike if your tyres are worn and flat.

2. Purpose of this Guide

The LifeCheck Companion Guide is intended as a companion document for those who like to explore a little deeper. There is some explanatory text about the different elements of LifeCheck and how it works but it is not intended as a help style document – hopefully the app is intuitive enough not to need one of those and what help is needed is provided by the info screens. If you do have those sort of questions please send them to coaching@emeraldcitycoaching.co.uk or if it’s a general usability issue please include in a review and modifications will be considered for the next version.

Today I wanted to write about labels – the various badges we give ourselves that inform what we do and what we don’t do. 

One of my most persistent labels is, “I’m not a runner” – I’m not exactly sure but I think it was created when I was about 12 and I’ve said it so many times in the more than 2 decades since that really it had to be true.  And yet, this Friday will find me doing my first official 5km run. 

It will not even mildly surprise the sports psychologists amongst you (amateur or professional) that I am able to do the run on Friday because of a shift in mindset.  For me, the hard part of even registering for the event, let alone actually going out running to train for it, has been 100% mental. 

Often we will use a label of what we are to say what we are not – mine was always, “I’m a swimmer, not a runner”, as if the two were mutually exclusive – no Venn diagrams here.  I’ve heard people being asked if they like dogs and replying, “no, I’m a cat person”. 

In the workplace I think there is a great deal of mutual exclusivity created – “I’m strategic so I can’t really do operational stuff”. 

Creating mutual exclusive categories seems to come very naturally to us and perhaps the Darwinists would argue that doing so encourages specialization and therefore greater productivity, success and all round better results.   And there may be something in this.

However, are you using your labels (either self created or bestowed upon you by colleagues, bosses, friends, family, society) to stop you doing what you really want to do? 

So, here’s my invitation: write down 10 labels you have about yourself. Don’t stop to worry about where they came from or even whether they’re true or not. And look hard – many of our labels are so insidious and hard-wired we don’t even know we are wearing them. 

Now consider how helpful they are to you.  And if they’re not – bin them.

Then enjoy creating some new ones. 

But how often have you listened to it?   And how often have you let your brain push the ‘over-ride’ button and pushed away any messages from anywhere from the neck down. 

I heard at the weekend that our heads are 15% of our body mass.  So why are we so quick to ignore the other 85%, to think that it is less use to us than what comes from our heads?  My gut instinct is that the answer lies somewhere in our love of the rational and our desire to understand things and make decisions from a logical place.  And I know from personal experience that my body has a lot to say - and is often much smarter and quicker than my head.

So how about having a little fun and spending a day listening to your body and not your head.   There might be some interesting results.

And if there are, I’d love to hear about them so please feel free to jump in and add your comments.

This isn’t a discussion around geographical cultures but rather individual ones and how they fit into our external environments.

Let me explain a little more. I think that we each have our own ‘culture’ and that in understanding what this is can help us to devise working strategies that we help us to be our most effective - and happiest.

Think about the culture of Spain - how would you describe it? You may think of words like: laid-back, family-oriented, vocal, personable, work early in the mornings, long lunches, siestas, work in the evening, late night socializing. Or you may think: long hours, unproductive, time wasting, impossible to get things done. It may fill you with dread or it may fill you with joy. It doesn’t matter. What matters is what works for you.

Now think about your own culture - how would you describe it?

For example, I like to plan a few days ahead and to build in flexibility to my working day. I know that I am best at making phone calls and doing creative work at the start of the day and to doing admin and less ‘thinking’ type work later. Mornings are my most productive time and so taking my lunch later means that I get more done.

Obviously, I don’t always get to control my time exactly as I would choose but knowing what works helps me get back to an even keel when things feel out of balance.

What suits you best? Take some time out to ask yourself the following questions:

When am I most creative?
When am I most productive?
What do I need in my day for it to be a good one?
When is the best time for me to call people?
Do I like to work with people face-to-face or remotely?
Am I most effective with individuals or groups?
Now there are always external constraints that may influence, or even dictate, when and how we work. But so often we can fall into a default operational mode of working certain hours, in certain environments and following certain rules. Now ask yourself, how many of these rules are ‘real’ and how many have I made up, or just adopted unquestioningly? Am I in an ‘email culture’ and do I default to this when actually phone calls are much more suited to my style. Do I work long hours because everyone else does, even though somedays I know I stopped being productive much earlier?

We all have a personal culture that may be supported or challenged by our current working environment. Having answered the above questions, are there small changes you can make to allow your own culture more space?

Going with what suits us best individually is likely to mean we are happier, more productive and achieve better results. Be kind to yourself and swim downstream.

Part of the success of pantomime is the rigidness and familiarity of the characters and their stories. But what would it be like if they were freed from the prescribed story arch. If they embraced a new perspective. Join me on a new pantomime journey…

Cinderella has a very fixed perspective on her place in the world. And if she is ever uncertain of it then she always has her step-mother and the ugly sisters to remind her of it. But what if instead of providing a horse and carriage her Fairy Godmother gives Cinderella access to some new perspectives, introduces the idea that “it doesn’t have to be this way”? What then for Cinderella? From this liberated position what perspective would Cinderella choose? Perhaps, I can choose my own life? What if Cinderella taps into her own resources, throws off her pinny and does just that. Perhaps she would choose to rescue herself rather than relying on the shoe-fitting skills of Prince Charming?

How about Jack and his mother? I have always been slightly uncomfortable with a tale where the hero is cheered for embracing a life of crime to solve his family’s financial woes. Imagine doing some creative brainstorming with Jack and his mother – what ideas would they generate? Maybe they could turn the giant beanstalk into a theme park? What else?
And finally, the hard-working Widow Twanky burdened with Aladdin – a dreamer for a son. When asked what they really want from life perhaps the tables would turn. Widow Twanky might start dreaming about romance and fun in her life and Aladdin might turn out to be very pragmatic about his dreams, driven by a desire for security from which to travel the world seeking adventures.
And who are the baddies in our pantomime? As ever, the saboteurs, or gremlins, the off stage voices who shout out, “you can’t do that”, “you’re just a lowly washer woman”, “you’re too stupid to ever make anything of your life”. Whilst the audience are giving them a good dose of boos and hisses wouldn’t it be great if our heroes and heroines stand up and shout, “Oh yes, I can!”

So I’m learning about asking. Harder than it sounds for someone like me who likes to spend a lot of time in her head and thinks that most (all?) of the answers will be found there. The curse of the logical mind? Or the curse of the afraid to be perceived as vulnerable? What is it in our society that has set so many of us up as independent isles who need to figure out our own problems and our own solutions? Is it the curse of human nature or is it something we have created? It would take more of an anthropological expert than me to answer that with any certainty. However, relying solely on my gut instinct I suspect it is more of the latter. Perhaps if we look to other societies the same is not true. Or perhaps if we look further back within our own it is not true. Yet today it does seems to be the prevailing wind. Or again, is that just me and my own personal fear of perceived vulnerability? The answer I think is certainly in part, yes. However, I don’t think that I’m alone. In this way, like in so many others, I dont think that I am anything special.

So what we can all learn from this? Well, firstly I think that there are no insurmountable problems. And I really do mean none. More than likely whatever we are facing someone, somewhere has faced before so there is already a ready source of experience and expertise to tap into. And we can all learn to ask.

And before I go, a perspective thing on asking. Often the thing we most fear others will think of us is the thing that we attract and like in them. For example, I love people to ask me stuff – my advice, my opinion, my thoughts on something. And do I perceive the asker as vulnerable? On the contrary, partly I am too busy being flattered and pleased about being asked and partly I am too distracted by how great it feels to be able to help people out. So what stops me from thinking that others feel the same way when I ask them?

Well, that’s my homework for the week sorted – ASK. What’s yours? Think about what you most fear others will think of you (that you’re stupid, that you’re a burden, whatever it is for you) and then think about how you react to others who ask of you - whether it’s your time, your help or your opinion. What do you get from that? And now be generous. Whatever you get from that is available for you to give to others. Go on, try it. You might be surprised by what you gain.