Fight the urge to buy a tie or just pass over the day. Instead, make it personal, special – build or live the memory. The holiday may have been created by some greeting card marketing department, but its purpose can make us all aware that though dads are only people, we can see that there were times when they were actually more super than just human.
As long as I can remember, I have noticed trees. They are living giants of redeeming attributes – strength, beauty, resilience, excellence and generosity. They teach me of how to be a better person – of developing values that add to life and to the world.
Your ride to work. Your time at the grocery store. Checking email. Making dinner. Your call with your mother. Your lunch with your colleagues. Your time in front of the television. Your time at an organization. There are so many places in our lives that we have accepted as bland, dull, tedious, normal – ordinary. Why? A lot of it has to do with our brain.
Stressed over the holidays – the shopping, the money, the lines, the pressure? It is indeed enough to take the happy out of Happy Holidays. So how do you relax…
I have learned that it is up to each of us to shift the negative to positive by better preparing how to approach and show up to the holidays. Remember, life just sends us information (opinionated family members, delayed flights, dry turkey, weird gifts, bad weather) – we choose how to respond to it – what effect it can have on us and how we feel about it. To offer some ways to be ready for the family holidays, I thought I would offer three “survive the holidays” mantras
What if you were able to instantly able to reframe any situation to something more positive, more optimistic, or more opportunity-focused?
What stops you from moving forward? What areas in work or life need you to be more flexible, resilient and more aware of progress over perfection?
If you listen, really listen, you can hear the voice inside you that gives great guidance. Jay Forte
One of the greatest things that has happened to me is my discovery of my late in life career of coach, speaker, professor and writer (goodbye CPA and CFO). I regularly tell my classes at the college and my audiences that it took me so many years to find my fit, that I now commit all of my time to helping others find theirs sooner in life. Not that any day of life is wasted, but think about the impact we each could make if we were more aware sooner of who we are, what we are good at, passionate about and what in today’s world fits us. So, it got me asking some questions (we overly analytical and philosophical people do this)…
Fear illuminates the things in us that need attention – because when attended – will open up possibilities and opportunities previously ignored or thought impossible. Jay Forte
Things only happen when we get out of “stuck” mode and move forward. Even one small step can be a step forward.
What calls to you? When you aren’t distracted by a world that tells you who and what you should be, what you should think and what you should notice, you create the space for your own voice to share its thoughts with you. It guides you wisely if you listen. But for that to happen, you must value its voice and create the quiet to hear it. As I share in my Life Possibilities workshops, “When we quite the chatter in our minds, we allow the meaningful things in life to find their voices.”
I regularly write about greatness – about discovering our unique abilities and finding ways to use them to make a difference in life and work. But just because we know what makes us great – we know our talents, strengths and passions – doesn’t mean we can put them in action. What stops us from being who we really are and living life the way we want? Fear.
You have what it takes to drive – you have talents, strengths and passions – all the right stuff to drive your life. It may take you on a different road than the ones your family and friends are on. It may take you on a road that is different than what these same people want for you. But as the driver, you decide the direction, the route, the speed and the road. That afterall, is the driver’s responsibility.
Our routines own most of us. We have the same schedule, shop in the same places, eat at the same places, vacation in the same places – we even drive to work the same way. What would happen if we changed something – if we just broke free and wandered to try something new – anything?
Whoa. Stop. Comparing ourselves to others never leads to a successful outcome. Either we think we are less, have less or do less than another and we feel inferior. Or, we think we are more, have more or do more than others and we feel superior. Feeling superior or inferior to another never helps us focus on what matters most –to focus inward on our potential. The only person we should compare ourselves to is the person we were yesterday – to commit to being better and truer to ourselves today.
What if instead of moving through life afraid of so many things, we actually looked at life as an adventure – one that changes each day and gives us the ability to direct how it goes? What if we could stop checking out, living small and limiting our dreams because we are afraid?
We seem to always struggle. We struggle with bosses who don’t respect us or our work. We struggle with trying to get more things done each day than are humanly possible. We struggle trying to get our kids to do their homework, get into bed, get into the car and stop bothering their siblings. Struggle, struggle, struggle.
There are people who show up with wisdom and grace, who inspire us to see the larger view – the focus on greatness, possibility and opportunity. Maya Angelou, the amazing American author and poet, was one of these great people.
So many times in life we sit back expecting things to happen. When they don’t, we get upset at others, our world or ourselves. We didn’t ask for the promotion and it was given to someone else. We didn’t share how we felt about someone, so they moved on. We didn’t define our dream so life passed us by without doing what mattered. We wait. Don’t.
We are truly creatures of habit – but not all habits serve us. We let our lizard brain – our brain that defaults to fight-or-flight reactions – take over in much of what we do. Though this is designed to help keep us safe by hightailing it out of there or defending ourselves, we also have a more developed section of our brain that allows us to respond instead of react.