Pivotal Choices Coaching

Taking Small Steps toward Responsibility to Gain Acknowledgment

While working with my career coaching clients, I’ve heard the same words being spoken by people who are in very different settings. . . . Low-person on the totem pole. . . . .Lack of acknowledgment by the supervisor. . . .Manipulation/ emotional abuse/ unethical actions. . . .

Let me describe the situations of three people in very different settings whose experiences have striking parallels.

The three people, though in very different settings, have similar predicaments—their talents are going unrecognized. 

Jim is a young man working with a research group.  He’s finishing his dissertation and has been with the group only a few months, while the other 3 people have been in the group for some time.  Jim is bright, ambitious, and frustrated.  He doesn’t think the others on the group recognize his talents in research and writing, and furthermore he thinks the others in the group have made some mistakes that may cost the group time and perhaps prestige. 

Another of my clients, June, is a middle-aged woman who feels that she is not being acknowledged adequately in her place of work.  She works in a small company but finds that her talents are frequently ignored.  She call herself a potted plant—people look through her, never thinking of including her in any of the more interesting projects.

The 3rd person, Joy, is a thoughtful person, a good writer, and also very analytic. Her company is quite large, and the division where she works is fast-paced and demanding.  Joy recently was on sick leave, but before she took sick leave she was on the track for promotion.  Part of the reason that a promotion appeared to be in her future was because the supervisor appeared to be impressed with Joy’s work.  And Joy had a good attitude, worked hard, and made a point of being a team player, both in terms of  working well with her colleagues and also in working well with her supervisor.

When Joy took sick leave, the supervisor did not seem to realize that Joy would be out for some time and that Joy did not have a choice.  When Joy returned to the office, it appeared that the supervisor begrudged Joy the time away and was going to make her pay for being out of the office.  Joy was bowled over at the unfairness of the unexpected turn of events. 

All three people seem dismayed, but only two are disgruntled- Jim and June.  Both Jim and June seem to think that they are entitled to a higher position by virtue of their being bright.  However, neither has used their intuition or social intelligence to improve communication or to show what they could add to the group.  Both may be low person on the totem pole in their particular group, but they could make things more equal by stepping out of their isolation to communicate more, to contribute more, and to recognize the gifts of others in their group.

Joy, on the other hand, has been dealt a raw deal.  She has choices, but it appears that her supervisor is holding a grudge and Joy may be right not to trust her.  If Joy has other reasons for staying in her current position and if she can work hard and well and avoid becoming disgruntled, she may eventually win the supervisor over.  Or the supervisor may move or be removed.  Joy seems to have the strength of character to work through the difficult situation. 

What has been striking to me is that the person whose situation is truly unfair seems to be bravely rising to the occasion.  She has grace as well as courage.  She continues to look for ways to contribute to the group and does not gossip about the unfair situation she found upon returning from sick leave.

Joy needs my support, but Jim and June need to be challenged. 

I am challenging Jim and June to make small steps toward assuming more responsibility for their situations. 

Until they emerge from entitlement and do whatever needs to be done, they will remain unhappy and unfulfilled.

I have faith… Potted Plans can bloom.

If you would like to share your story with me, I’d love to hear from you..

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Small Steps Lead to Pivotal Changes

Many people seem to think that a new year heralds a fresh start.

Not necessarily.

What are you doing now that you’d like to do more of?

It doesn’t take a major change; choosing small, but important steps, lead to pivotal changes.

What is a small step you can take?  Many people would say exercise more. 

If that’s a focus you would like to increase, how much do you exercise now?  How many times a week?  What if you raised that level just one notch for the next month?

Making this pivotal choice starts with your writing it down. 

Small, incremental steps amount to big, pivotal changes.  They’re realistic and easy to maintain.

What’s the small step that you’re willing to take?  And when will you that step? Write it in your calendar.

You can do this! 

Go my website (www.nwcoaching.com) and sign up for my Smart Tips newsletter. You will get the support you need and tips that you can use.  I'll also send you a bonus gift.

Happy New Year and thanks so much for reading my Pivotal Choices Coaching blog in 2007.

If you have a goal that you would like to work toward, contact me.  I look forward to hearing from you in 2008. 

I want 2008 to be a year of productivity and greater life satisfaction for you.

Warmly,

Nancy Whichard
Your Coach for Pivotal Choices and Change
nancy@nancywhichard.com
www.nwcoaching.com

What Is the Most Important Choice You Can Make in Preparing a Presentation?

Unless you’re a natural-born extrovert or super salesperson, what comes to most people’s mind at the thought of giving a presentation is fear.

The clients I have worked with as they prepare for these events feel as if they are going to face a firing squad. 

The most important thing to remember is ….

This isn’t about you!

Of course you have to have expertise in an area and have information that you want to deliver.  You’ve brought all of that to the table. 

You have many anecdotes, factoids, helpful information to share, but all of that information has to be focused on one perspective.  And until you make the choice to shift the focus to your audience, your project will never get off the ground.

Once you make this choice, then you’re ready to get to work.

In my next posting, read about what is the most important thing that you need to know about your audience.

If you are preparing for a presentation, I’d love to hear from you.  What is the challenge you’re facing?

I have something that will be of help.  Go to www.nwcoaching.com and get a free sign-up bonus when you subscribe to my Smart Tips for Writers e-newsletter.

Until next time,
Nancy
www.nwcoaching.com

How to Act like an Extrovert and Put Yourself Out There; or, Business Calls Can Lead to Happiness

Are you paralyzed at the thought of making a call to market your services or to ask something of another person?

How about calling a contact, someone you’ve met at some point? 

Or do you do whatever you can to avoid all marketing calls?

I’m an introvert, and in the past I would rather do about anything than make a call. 

When I was training to be a coach, I was told to make cold calls to market my services.

The trainer told our class that the individual goal for each of us was to get x number (say 5) of “no” responses.

The assignment was just to make the call and had nothing to do with outcome.  That made the process easier. 

Positive Psychologist researcher Chris Peterson tells us that extroverted people are happier than introverted people.

Introverted people should be asked to do extroverted things. 

What this means for you is
     •   If you are asked to make calls, then you should find a way to do that.
     •   Ask the same of yourself.
     •   In a nutshell -- Ask yourself to do extroverted things.

Even if making calls is difficult for you, once you have done this extroverted task of reaching out to others, you will be glad that you did it.

See if this approach works for you:
1.  Take the pressure off—you’re not invested in outcomes.  Tell yourself that your goal is to receive 5 “no” responses to your marketing calls.
2.  Then ask yourself 2 questions
     a. “What does this person need?”
     b. “What do I have to offer that will solve a problem for this person?”
3.  Write a script for yourself.
4.  Tape yourself reading your script.
5. Listen to the tape and jot down key points that you are making; add missing points.
6.  Practice talking (not reading).
7.  Make the first call no matter how nervous you feel.  No dilly-dallying.
8.  Remember that this call will bring you one call closer to your goal of 5 no’s.
If you get a yes, what a gift!  That’s the prize in the Happy Meal box.
9.  Begin every call with a smile on your face.

When you finish, take note of how satisfied you feel.

According to Chris, you’ll be just as satisfied as if you were extroverted. 

"Beautiful": You’ve Got To Get Up Every Morning With A Smile On Your Face

Serendipity strikes! 

This morning as I was looking for the weather report on TV, I happened upon Carole King singing “You’ve got to get up every morning with a smile on your face and show the world all the love in your heart . . . “

What a lovely way to start a day— seeing Carole King singing was like seeing an old friend.  She doesn’t know me, of course, but it’s hard for me to hear that song and hear her imperfect voice and not relax into a smile.

It reminded me of what a career coaching client had said to me recently.  Commuting to work one day, she was overcome with what had become an increasingly familiar feeling of dissatisfaction.  She had been wanting to quit her current job, but for various reasons, she felt she could not. 

Instead, she was actively working on identifying changes she could make in her work and in her life that might increase her job satisfaction. 

This particular day had not started out well—she was caught up in heavy traffic and was going to be late to work. Feeling tense, she was mentally sorting through self-calming strategies.  What came to mind was her recent resolve to smile more-- at random moments but especially when she was feeling low. 

So she smiled. 

And she was incredulous at how her spirits lifted. Surprised, she said that she laughed out loud.

Smiles have long been praised, in song and in adage, but only recently has the science of positive psychology offered studies that suggest the mood-altering power of a smile. 

Studies have produced some interesting results.  One study followed the lives of women who had a crinkly-eyed, happy smile in a particular group photograph.  It turned out that the smile had been a strong predictor of the individual’s future happiness. 

While it seems reasonable that one often shows happiness by smiling, what is surprising, at least to me, is that smiling can affect one’s mood and allow a person to feel happier. 

I write today just to tell you that my client was better able to face her day with a smile on her face.

And that Carole King had it right. 

Three Steps for Making-Do with a Job Even If Change Is on the Horizon

Sometimes we are so eager to move on from our current job to what is coming next that we burn our bridges.

If you haven’t landed the next job beyond a doubt, then you probably want to make sure there’s a paycheck coming in.  You also may need references from your supervisor or employer at some point in the future.

If you have to remain at your current job for the foreseeable future, how can you make this time of uncertainty or transition easy on yourself?  Even better, how can you make this time count for something?

What opportunities are there for learning?

Here are three ways to use this time to your advantage:

1.  How can you increase your social intelligence?  Without engaging in office gossip, what can you learn about how others act wisely in office relationships and how they use social information to get others to cooperate?  What can you learn about leadership by observing how others use their social intelligence?

2.  What can you learn about your character strengths?  How are you using your top strengths and where could you have been using them more on this job?

3.  What would you do if you were the CEO of this organization? What changes would you make?  How would you change the corporate or office culture?

I'd love to hear what you might add to this list.

If you're interested in hearing more about using your strengths, please sign up for my free newsletter at my website:  www.nwcoaching.com.

Small Changes Can Add Up to A Big Life

A brilliant, creative client has been working toward a long-term goal.  It’s been challenging for her, but she has kept going.  She thinks of herself as a tortoise, slow and steady.

Being focused on a goal for a long period has had the effect of blinding her to the pleasures that await her.  She has started to forget the possibilities that can be ahead for her.

Recently, she made a change from one fairly staid locality to a lively area, and it has made all the difference.  She refers to her previous area as “mini-van city.” She is quick to say that people who move there and live there have made good choices—for them.  She, however, had forgotten her cosmopolitan side and all of the choices that are available to her because of her strengths and interests.

Interestingly, she had resisted this move, and finally gave in after much prodding from her partner.

This relatively small shift has reawakened her.  She’s still the tortoise, moving toward her goal, but she now sees the good life that’s ahead for her.

Making changes, making mistakes, making small choices can all add up to the life that she had meant to live. 

Getting Out of My Own Way with One Small Step

A small step, one that you’ve overlooked or maybe just didn’t want to see, may be pivotal in making a change for the good.

Ever since we had some of our upstairs floors re-done, our basement has been overflowing with boxes of books, clothes, and odd accumulations that we had moved out of the way of the workers.

These boxes joined all of the other items from the past that had found their way to our basement.

I’ve wanted to rid the basement of much of this stuff and could imagine the area with only the essentials—the ping pong table, the couch, the bookshelves, the treadmill. 

But the reality has been that I’m hesitant to throw much of anything away , from my kids' elementary-school board games to their high school notebooks.

Today when I asked myself where could I take one easy first step, I knew what I hadn't wanted to see.  At issue were not my kids' things.  Nearly blocking the path into the basement are boxes filled with drafts from one of my long-ago writing projects, replete with Xeroxed copies of relevant and irrelevant articles.  What would it take to pull those boxes out to the street for the garbage collector?  Very little. 

So what has been stopping me from doing this before?  I suppose I have been thinking I would get to work on publishing something based on one of these drafts, but I don't need this physical reminder of unfinished business. It’s time to take this one small step to see where it leads me.

Giant, Oversized XL Choices

In this Pivotal Choices Coaching blog, I will shine a light on choices that seem to mean so much and also on those choices that, at the time, seem to be fairly insignificant.

Pivotal Choices are fertile fields. 

Huge, oversized choices look like turning points even when we’re far afield.  Those are the big ones that are right in the middle of our path.  We struggle with those, worrying about the best way to proceed, and sometimes we get really stuck and mired down. 

When we’re sweaty and muddy from wrestling with the Big Turning Point,  we often overlook the small choices that are important for so many reasons.

Taking any kind of action can help us break out of that stuck place.  You never know what small action could set you loose.