In The Flow Coaching

Imagination is like a muscle: if we exercise it, it will grow more powerful and agile. Being imaginative, however, is not just about being artistic or creative – it’s having the ability to see alternative possibilities beyond the current “reality” or what’s immediately apparent.

Actually, we all already have pretty lively imaginations. How often do we tell ourselves, or allow someone to convince us, that something is not possible? There’s no lack of creativity, it seems, when it comes to making excuses why we can’t do something.

No question, it’s difficult to resist years of conditioning, peer pressure and our immediate environment. Studies show that people’s bodies deteriorate as they get older not so much because of actual loss of capability but because they see their peers aging and complaining about their aches and pains.

Some people, however, are able to imagine a dramatic alternative. Take Sister Madonna Buder, for example. A 78-year-old Catholic nun, she has competed in 37 marathons, 300 triathlons and 31 Ironman Triathlons, all after the age of 50. Apparently, she didn’t get the “you’re too old to do that” memo.

So, how do you develop your imagination? By feeding your mind as regularly as you do your body. Just as advances in biotech and agriculture have provided us with a greater range of nutrition options – both natural and artificial – thanks to the Internet, we also have unprecedented access to information and opinions, both negative and positive. Used judiciously, you can find a wealth of material to fuel your goals and expand your belief of what’s possible.

Here are three ways to start:
1.     Activate your antenna. Be on the lookout for role models and examples for what’s possible. Reading a magazine, I ran across an ad for Keen shoes featuring Jessie Stone, a medical doctor who went to Africa to participate in an extreme kayaking competition; shocked by the malaria outbreaks she saw there, she now lives in Uganda and splits her time between kayak training and teaching malaria prevention. That led me to the Hybrid Lives community spotlighting dozens of people pursuing their dreams with inspiring and unconventional lives. Hey, you can join too.

2.     Watch what you put in your mind. At the same time, be vigilant about your information intake. Just like eating junk food, the effects of regular gossip sessions with friends or constant negativity will insidiously seep into your consciousness and contribute to – how far I can take this analogy? – flabby energy. (Tell me that watching the catty back-biting on some of those reality TV shows doesn’t feel pretty much the same as scarfing down a bag of Cheetos.)

3.     Stray from the beaten path. Most of us have a prescribed routine for what we eat, wear, read and watch. Why not develop the habit of exposing yourself to new influences on a regular basis: buy a magazine you’ve never read before, check out a provocative lecture at your local museum or author reading at the local book store, download TED talks by the most brilliant and innovative people in the world, branch out from your usual movie genre or even just take a different route to work. The only adventure sport I practice these days is jumping on the subway as the doors are closing but I pore over National Geographic Adventure magazine’s annual Best Trips list and start dreaming about the vast possibilities for exotic travel.

Creating an exceptional life starts with an active imagination: just as you nourish your body on a daily basis, feed your mind a steady diet of new ideas and inspiration, and you’ll learn to think differently – and bigger.

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When Shannon Bahrke won bronze in women’s moguls at the 2010 Winter Olympics, in her excitement she “hugged first-place winner Hannah Kearney so tightly that she almost knocked her U.S. teammate over.” Next to them on the podium, however, Canadian skier Jennifer Heil looked crestfallen after taking silver.

From our vantage point as a spectator, it might be hard to imagine feeling disappointed at “only” winning a silver medal. On the other hand, we can kind of understand how, after years of training and sacrifice, being so close to the gold — and falling seconds short — could feel like failure.

That crucial difference in perspective is why “on average, bronze medalists are happier than silver medalists,” says Victoria Medvec, a psychologist and professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in Illinois. Research shows a disconnect between performance and satisfaction, she says. “Those who perform objectively better can actually feel worse than those who they outperformed.”

Of course, there are high-performers in all arenas – business, medicine, performing arts – who are never quite satisfied with their impressive achievements. They zone in on the flaws, lament their missteps and don’t really seem to savor and enjoy the fruits of their labor. Makes you wonder, what’s the point of achievement again?

The secret to happy goal attainment comes down to focus. Here are five ways Happy High-Achievers – let’s call them HaHAs – play hard and stay content:

1. HaHAs keep their balance. Come on, there’s no glory in pushing to the edge, sacrificing proper nutrition, sufficient sleep and movie night, if it means you’re going to collapse, be out of commission and have disgruntled friends and family. HaHAs keep an ongoing cost-benefit analysis and remember their core values (that trophy isn’t going to come visit you in the hospital!) to make sure they don’t sacrifice what’s really important.

2. HaHAs enjoy the process. Yep, that ol’ chestnut. But isn’t most of the time we spend in pursuing a goal considered “process?” To focus on the fleeting moments on the podium (the stage, the finish line) and expect them to feel like sufficient reward for your hard work is a recipe for dissatisfaction. For HaHAs, the purpose of a goal is for what they’ll learn and the joy in striving for it – actually achieving the goal is just icing on the cake.

3. HaHAs pursue excellence, not perfection. Can we just agree already that perfection does not exist? And if it does, it’s subjective and a constantly moving target? HaHAs know this and refuse to hold themselves up to some impossible standard. They don’t compare themselves relentlessly to others or pay attention to the inner critic. Instead, they prefer to focus on the more satisfying challenge of simply doing better than they did the day before.

4. HaHAs focus on what they can control. And they spend minimal time focusing on what they can’t. When results fall short, HaHAs don’t blame the weather, their neighbor’s barking dog or the dry-cleaners. They don’t constantly look in the rear-view mirror and beat themselves up for a result that is past and done. Whatever happens, HaHAs forgive (themselves and others), show gratitude and find a way to reframe the situation so they can feel good and move forward.

5. HaHAs are doin’ it for themselves. That’s because working toward a goal solely to satisfy someone else’s expectations – whether your parents, fans or society – is destined to create a feeling of gnawing emptiness and “is this all there is?” Conversely, no matter how “unimpressive” or inadvisable a choice of action might seem to an outsider (“What do you mean you don’t want the promotion?!”), HaHAs have figured out which accomplishments give them the greatest satisfaction in practice – not just theory – and they stay true to themselves.

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Here we stand, on the threshold of a new decade: it’s a fresh start, a new beginning. This is it, your chance to really make a change, once and for all – it’s now or never. Yikes, talk about pressure.

Sure, the beginning of a new year provides fresh inspiration and impetus for your goals. The question is, how do you sustain your motivation and stay on the continuous improvement track when daily life and familiar temptations rear their head (did you really think chocolate or “Lost” reruns were just going to lose their allure?). The “all or nothing” approach – i.e. giving up when you get off track – doesn’t work. Here’s the checklist I return to (over and over) to bolster my resolve and keep moving forward.

1. Figure out your why. That’s what the human brain instinctively responds to. As Simon Sinek, author of Start With Why, points out, however, most people start with the “what.” Whether it’s at the macro level — living a life of purpose – or micro level – losing 10 pounds — sheer willpower only goes so far. Without a driving “why,” motivation falters, inspiration fades and change fails to take hold.

Let’s take a typical New Year’s resolution — losing weight — as an example. At a seminar on change by Martha Beck, the Harvard-trained sociologist and resident life coach at Oprah magazine, there was an older Indian woman in the audience who was very insistent that she wanted to lose weight but simply couldn’t. “Are you sure you really want to lose weight?” asked Martha. “Oh yes,” said the woman, “Since I came to America to live with my daughter and her family, I have gained so much weight and I want to get rid of it.”

Martha called the woman up to the stage to demonstrate an exercise where the body acts like a lie detector. She asked the woman to hold out her arm and say, “I like chocolate.” Her arm stayed firm when Martha pressed down on it. But when she said, “I want to lose weight,” her arm immediately gave way when pressed. “Hmmm,” said Martha, “I don’t think you really want to lose weight.” “But I do,” said the woman, “I want to be able to play with my grandchildren.” Ahhh,” said Martha. “So it’s not that you want to lose weight, you want to be healthy and have energy so you can keep up with your grandchildren. Now that you’ve identified what you really want, see if the weight doesn’t start to come off.” The woman walked back to her seat looking stunned but enlightened: she had replaced her what with a why.

2. Fast-forward past the excuses. Too old, too young, not enough time, not enough space, not enough energy, too early, too late…we’re so resourceful in coming up with excuses. And they’re always valid, of course. Except, as Nike pointed out in a recent ad, there’s someone out there who has a good excuse and they’re doing it anyway. So here’s a thought: You know how you can skip commercials when you TiVo a show? You’ve seen them all before, know exactly where they’re going and the featured program is what you really want to see anyway. Hmmm, kind of like your excuses – why not do the same and fast-forward past them right to the action?

3. Create positive rituals. We are creatures of habit. In fact, research suggests that as little as five percent – five! – of our behaviors are consciously self-directed. That means as much as 95 percent of what we do happens automatically. We use this principle to perpetuate our “bad” habits (having a cigarette when drinking with friends, for example), why not create positive rituals as well?

The key, say Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz in their book, The Power of Full Engagement, is to make the behavior precise and the time specific: meditating for 10 minutes before work, say, reading a novel for 20 minutes at lunchtime, or stretching during The Daily Show.

4. Ask a small question. Once we’ve asked the big question – what is my why? -  it’s time to ask a smaller one. Daniel Pink, who goes beyond carrots and sticks in his latest book, Drive: The  Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, suggests that at the end of each day, you ask yourself: “Was I better today than yesterday?” It’s not about critical judgment or self-flagellation: “Instead, look for small measures of improvement such as how long you practiced your saxophone or whether you held off on checking email until you finished that report.” There are days, says Pink, where his answer is, “No, I wasn’t better than the day before.” But, he says, it’s rare that he’ll answer “no” two days in a row. Asking the small question — and a healthy sense of competition with yourself – is subtly motivating and will help you raise the bar an inch at a time.

5. Measure and track. News flash: memory and conjecture are not an objective way to determine whether you’re sticking to the plan or making progress. Instead, come up with concrete, quantitative ways to measure your goals — e.g. how often you went to the gym, how many Spanish verbs you learned to conjugate, the number of sales calls you made – and keep track on a piece of paper or Excel spreadsheet. (Check out http://www.joesgoals.com for a simple online habits tracking system.)

Or you can use the technique that Jerry Seinfeld used to discipline himself to write jokes everyday. Get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page, and a red magic marker. For every day that you finish your goal task, put a big red X over that day. “After a few days,” says Seinfeld, “you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.”

If you can embrace the idea that change is a daily, iterative process — with reviewing and tweaking to be expected — you’ll find that, even if you’re taking two steps forward and one step back, you’re moving faster and forward.

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With all the books and magazines urging you to “follow your bliss,” it’s tempting to believe life would be a piece of cake — if only you had your “dream” job.

Mornings, you’d wake up bursting with energy, raring to go. Your work would be endlessly fascinating, your interactions with colleagues and clients energizing and, of course, you’d find yourself continuously and effortless in flow.

The truth is, no type of work inherently induces passion — and its natural companion, flow — or boredom. There are surgeons who are bored with their operating duties and machine operators who are enthralled with theirs.

As Alina Tugend points out in the New York Times, “If Not Passion for the Job, at Least Warm Feelings,” perhaps it is more important to be able to find flow — and a measure of passion — in whatever work you happen to be doing. Something that is wholly possible if you can achieve two of the major factors needed to feel good about a job according to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the principal arbiter on flow; 1) a sense of personal control over a situation or activity and 2) a balance between one’s ability and potential so the endeavor is neither too easy nor too hard.

Ultimately, suggests Peter Warr, an emeritus professor at the Institute of Work Psychology at the University of Sheffield in England, “it would be better to think less in terms of passion, and the inflated sense of drama that can go with that, and more in terms of job satisfaction or finding meaning in your work.”

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In the economic turbulence of recent weeks, each day drops a new bomb: historic slides in the market, unprecedented bank failures. Every other conversation seems to revolve around lay-offs, bankruptcies and pending economic disaster, intensifying the sense of anxiety and uncertainty.

All this on top of the stressful events that are already part of a typical high-pressure workweek: a client calling to say they’re pulling out of the deal on which you’ve been working long hours. An unpleasant exchange with a colleague. Or the sinking realization as you dial into a conference call with a client that you misspelled their company name in the letter you sent out late last night.
How do you prevent them from derailing your productivity and eating away at your confidence? What’s your recovery strategy?

In his book, Fight Your Fear and Win, sports psychologist Don Greene, Ph. D says: “The ability to move on – to put a poor judgment, a wrong answer, a weak moment, a physical lapse, behind you instantly – is the thing that makes winners out of the merely talented.” Whether an event was or wasn’t under your control, endless venting and rehashing are nothing but a waste of time and mental energy. Instead, here are five techniques for hitting your internal “reset” button so you can recover and move on in champion style:

1. Use your body as an anchor. When we’re “in our head,” we’re either ruminating about the past or worrying about the future. Our body, however, is always in the present – so use it to get grounded. In the aftermath of plans gone awry, stop and feel the soles of your feet on the floor, your fingertips on the computer keyboard. Then, see if you can locate where you’re feeling the impact – a tightness in your throat or chest, a gnawing in your stomach – and breathe into the sensation until it starts to subside.

2. Stick to the facts. Now, back to your head. Whenever an event triggers an emotionally charged response, our egos will hijack the facts and spin them into a dramatic story that incorporates all our negative self-talk and fears of inadequacy. First, parse out the facts in simple Dick-and-Jane language – “The deal did not go through,” or “The Dow is down” instead of “Why can’t I do anything right?” or “We’re heading for another depression.”

3. Set a time limit. Of course, separating fact from your own firmly entrenched fiction is easier said than done. Egos feed off drama and will try to convince you that, if only you go around in circles long enough, you will reach a solution. Don’t fall for that ol’ chestnut; you’re not going to “solve” an emotional response by thinking alone.

So determine a finite amount of time – ten minutes, say – to focus your attention solely on what just happened. Write some stream-of-consciousness thoughts or bullet points and then resolve to put it aside until the emotional heat has subsided.

4. Send in your inner coach. If you find yourself during the day constantly replaying a blunder or imagining a worrisome scenario, ask your inner critic if your inner coach can step in to pinch-hit for a moment. Then, speak to yourself in a kind voice, as if comforting a child, with your own version of: “You did your best,” or “This too will pass.”

5. Keep it in perspective. Yes, there will always be the office sharks waiting to pounce at the slightest sign of weakness but, in most cases, no-one is as hyper-aware of your mistake – much less the harsh soundtrack in your head – as you are. In any case, instead of fixating on what went “wrong,” your energy would be better spent recovering quickly and determining an action plan for damage control, if necessary.

The Bottom Line
What’s done is done. The only thing under your control is what you do next. As winners of every ilk know, the ability to remain poised, resilient and quickly regain their balance is a competitive edge more valuable than never dealing with mistakes or setbacks at all.

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