Goals | Get There From Here | Philadelphia PA

Posts Tagged ‘goals’

When Goals Create Anxiety

Written by Jennifer on 23rd June 2011

You know how sometimes the stuff that really matters to you adds up to…too much stuff? There are only so many hours in the day and priorities can occasionally be in conflict. This seems to be especially true when we’re granted significant amounts of “free” time. We want to move forward with our big dreams, but it’s easy to get overwhelmed trying to pack everything in and, very often, we’re so burnt out by the day-to-day that free time feels like a call to rest and play.

A client of mine happens to be in education and is facing this exact conundrum this summer. How does she tackle the big chunks related to her deeper dreams that the academic year doesn’t allow for while honoring her deep need for fun? She expressed heightened anxiety related to this and so I offered her the following thoughts via email. You might find them useful, too.

See if you can release the outcome(s) at all. In other words, be responsible for putting in the effort to work toward your goals without being attached to whether or not they are reached.

Consider breaking down your goals into much smaller chunks so that they are manageable. Keep breaking down each goal/interest aread until it’s actually something you could check off a list in a day.

Experiment with creating a daily/weekly schedule. Perhaps Mondays and Fridays are play days. You can be flexible with it, but if it keeps you focused and keeps the anxiety at bay, it’s worth sticking with it.

Be willing to let some thing(s) go. Look at your list of goals/tasks and sit with it meditatively. Center in and ask your heart what experiences it is truly longing for. Only keep those items that naturally rise to the surface. If they all rise to the surface, ask your heart how you can honor those wishes.

As I wrapped up my email to this client, I added one final thought: Don’t forget that you can’t do life perfectly. You’ll always be experimenting and recalibrating and finding your way anew.

What measures do you put in place to keep moving forward with your dreams while practicing really solid self-care?

Tags: fear, focus, goals, imperfect, time management
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Lessons from the Feline Front

Written by Jennifer on 26th April 2011

If you have ever put a cat and a two year old in the same room, you know how well they go together, what with a child’s squawking and fur pulling and relentless chasing of any animal they are not afraid of. I can only imagine a cat’s deepest wish is for more two year olds in its life. Which is why I delight in watching my two year old niece interact with my cats, Malcolm and Niko. In addition to thinking that the house actually belongs to our cat, Niko (apparently Aunt Jen and Uncle Scott are mere footnotes on this matter), my niece has apparently adopted him as one of her best friends. In the case of this Sunday’s Easter dinner visit, that meant teaching the cat the ABCs.

Niko is on the left; Malcolm on the right.

But here’s the deal with cats: they have boundaries. Really, really good boundaries.

Exhibit A: As soon as the nieces and nephews arrive, Malcolm disappears. Hours later I discover him hiding in the dark basement, very willing to be pet by me but clearly asserting that he will not make any appearance on the main floor until the craziness is gone.

Exhibit B: Niko, a much more social cat, tolerates the attentions of all the children, especially the devoted affection of my two year old niece. But after learning his ABCs and retiring into his shoebox for a nap, he proffers a hiss at her smiling face as it moves within inches of his own. She gets the point.

As humans, our boundaries are often not so clear. We are very often much less persistent than cats in the face of internal or external pressures and often our boundaries become overly flexible or overly rigid.

If my cats could speak human, I have a feeling they might offer these few salient points on the topic:

Be clear on what you really want (e.g., breakfast at 8:00am)

Communicate that expectation clearly (meow at 7:45am)

If there is no favorable response, reassert yourself (meow obscenely for 20 minutes)

If continued roadblocks are encountered, remain clear on what you want, but seek out other avenues (find another being who is able to utilize the can opener or choose to eat tulips and then vomit them up on the dining room table)

I suppose it really boils down to knowing what you want, going after it and treating others who might be involved in loving and respectful ways, even if it means there might be disappointment or hurt (part of being an adult means trusting others to manage their own feelings). Without that, we run the risk of always operating at the whim of others or walling out the people closest to us. In either case, having poor boundaries prevents us from getting to the stuff that matters.

Are your boundaries clear and managed well enough that you’re getting to the important elements in your life?

Tags: boundaries, communication, goals, integrity
Posted in communication | 6 Comments »

Documenting Metamorphosis

Written by Jennifer on 17th March 2011

Change can be elusive when it comes to keeping track. Sure, there are those moments when something suddenly shifts in a big way – like the way priorities sink into place at times of illness or death or someone speaks a truth that we’ve never been able to hear before and it blows our mind. More often than not, it seems we awake suddenly realizing there’s been some massive alteration and are able to see, in retrospect, that we’ve been traveling toward such changes for quite some time. It’s just that we’d had no idea they were occurring or how significant the change was.

I recently received a surprising lesson in this process. At nearly five months pregnant, my body has been undergoing rapid changes from the get-go. It’s been the unseen physical changes that I’ve been tuned into the most: the fatigue, nausea, increased flexibility, shortness of breath, random cramping and the recent wiggling of the growing baby. Sure, the pile of clothes I can no longer fit into has grown larger with every passing week, and I’m fascinated by my changing shape, but when my husband snapped a recent photo of me (part of series to keep track of the physical progress), I was shocked at how “little” I looked pregnant compared to how pregnant I felt, and I said as much.

Week 19 – you’ll notice the “belly band” keeping these unbuttoned pants up, even though they are two sizes larger than my pre-pregnancy jeans.

Scott laughed at this and immediately scrolled back to the photo he took at five weeks pregnant, just days after I had gotten a positive pregnancy test, at a time when I was aware that my most comfortable jeans were already getting a tad tight.

Week 5 – just the beginning!

I almost fell over from shock. Even though none my pants have fit since the end of December and nearly all of my shirts are too short, I quite simply had no awareness of the degree to which my body had actually changed shape. I harbored no recollection of ever being so…skinny. Tiny. Straight. It seemed preposterous.

This got me thinking. If keeping track of the incredibly rapid changes to my very visible, physical body had proved elusive, what does that mean about the other, less visible ways we evolve? If we can’t remember where we started, how do we know how far we’ve traveled? Tangentially, is it even useful to have such knowledge?

I have little trouble answering that last question. I do believe it’s useful to be aware of our significant alterations and to pay moderate attention to our growth and development. It boosts us for the continuation of the journey. It helps us have compassion for those at different places along the path. It gives us a road map to hand off to others who might want or need one. It keeps us simultaneously grounded and keyed into the bigger story unfolding.

In regards to the “how” of documenting metamorphosis, I imagine that varies from person to person and the individual narrative that is undergoing transformation. Sometimes photographs work. Or examining one’s own creative output. Often, words do. A quick perusal through my own journals from 10 years ago reminds me of where I was and how much I’ve changed. For that reason in part, I often have my clients write their “current” story – be it a personal or business story. It provides a concrete record of where we started. Similarly, it always gives me great joy to look at a client’s evolution through the lens of my notes taken throughout a coaching engagement.

You have changed, too. It’s a requirement of life. So how do you know that you or your organization has undergone some transformation? Or how much has changed? How have you documented your own metamorphoses?

Tags: change, goals, story, writing
Posted in change | 2 Comments »

Pregnancy (Or How Wanting and Getting Something Are Two Very Different Things)

Written by Jennifer on 14th February 2011

My immediate reaction to the knowledge that I was, indeed, pregnant was one of shock. The next one involved that heavy, sinking feeling you get in your stomach when you realize you have made a wrong turn and there’s no easy way to fix it. I sat at my computer comparing my dollar store pregnancy test to googled images of other positive tests and burst into tears.

Women everywhere, since the beginning of time, have been shocked and dismayed at their wanted and unwanted pregnancies, I am certain. My pregnancy falls into the “wanted” category and after nine months of “trying” and one miscarriage, you’d think I’d have caught on to the fact that continued unprotected sex would almost assuredly result in pregnancy. I wasn’t born yesterday, after all.

But becoming a parent wasn’t a given for me. It’s been a careful process of evolution into an awareness that I would like to embark on this mysterious journey of life-altering significance. I looked deep into my soul. I considered the person I want to be and the life I want to live. I casually interviewed other parents and made studious observations. And at the end of the day, I realized that yes – yes! – I would very much like to throw my hat into this particular ring. But somehow wanting something and getting something are two very different things.

Hence the torrent of tears.

By now I’ve had several months to let the news sink in and the worst of the misnomered “morning” sickness pass. The shock and dismay are largely gone and I’ve allowed that, while this will undoubtedly change my life in ways too numerous to count, it will likely not ruin it. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact.

Or so I am led to believe by numerous things I’ve gotten but never even considered wanting: the wide-eyed wonder I saw in my husband’s eyes when we heard the baby’s heartbeat for the first time; the irrepressible shout of joy from my best friend upon first hearing the news; the encouragement from other men and women who have already traveled this road; the extra long hugs my father gives; my mother’s repeated requests for pictures of my growing belly; and mostly, my own inner sense of calm matched with a deep, abiding joy that overtakes me at the most surprising moments.

Tags: change, goals, pregnancy
Posted in change | 8 Comments »

Choose Your Friends Wisely

Written by Jennifer on 26th January 2011

This is Part Six in a Six-Part Series about getting to the stuff that matters this year. If you missed the other parts, start here.

We all know the people closest to us have a significant effect on our lives. You’ve likely been hearing about this since you were a child when your parents weighed in on your peer relationships. More recently, research has even shown that your choice in friends can make you fat.

Our relationships also effect what we believe is possible for us, what’s important to us and whether or not we’re likely to act on those possibilities and values.

Take the Olympic athlete I heard about recently who was coming out of retirement for one last contest. When her father didn’t believe she’d make it, she cut him out of her inner circle. In order to achieve this difficult goal, she knew she needed to weed out negative influences and, pain her as it might, her father was being a negative influence.

When you think about getting to the important stuff in your life, do you find that you are surrounded by the right people? Do they believe in you, support you, encourage you, challenge you, speak the truth to you? Do their own journeys inspire you?

Integral to the design of the upcoming 6-month coaching group, Jumpstart What Matters Most 2011, is community. Participants will benefit tremendously as they build an intimate creative support group that stays connected, in touch and as they serve as cheerleaders and fellow travelers on the journey. If you are looking for that kind of support, consider joining us for our start in one week! The group will stay small, but can accommodate one or two more people.

Isn’t it time you started getting to the stuff that really matters?

Tags: change, coaching, goals, relationships, story
Posted in coaching | 4 Comments »

Live a New Story

Written by Jennifer on 21st January 2011

This is Part Five in a Six-Part Series about getting to the stuff that really matters this year. If you missed the other parts, start here.

A few years ago, in the 40 or so days prior to Easter, I decided to participated in the age-old tradition of Lent. Now I don’t come from a family that ever even gave a nod to Lent and the bulk of my religious experience has been devoid of such strong connections to a church calendar. In my childhood memory, Lent was for Catholics who needed to fulfill their masochistic tendencies through self-deprivation, primarily by way of giving up soda, candy or ice cream. And we were not Catholic.

But I am a sucker for ritual in petite amounts, so when the idea to do something differently for this limited amount of time popped into my brain, I couldn’t shake it. I wasn’t, however, interested in deprivation. The mere thought of abstaining from anything made me feel depressed and full of cravings. I figured I’d be better off adding something in rather than taking something away.

My choice? Yoga. Everyday for the 40+ days leading up to Easter. Daily yoga was something I always meant to do, but never got around to actually doing. Something I knew would have a positive impact in my life, but easily got pushed to the back burner. (This was also before I had a yoga room.)

My Lenten experiment was successful. Amazingly, delightfully successful.

I’ve been sharing these last two weeks about a process to get to the stuff that really matters to you this year and actually living the new story is where the rubber meets the road. We can identify what matters, clarifying the narratives that are holding us back, map the gap between where we are and where we want to be and craft the elements of the new story we want to be living. But all of this comes in service of living and working differently.

My Lenten experiment provides some guideposts for successfully stepping into a new way of being that I’d like to share with you:

1. Forget about forever. If the mere idea of moving forward with something leaves you seeking out any other diversion, give yourself a time frame. Had I said I was now someone who does yoga everyday, I never would have started. Daily yoga for just 40 days? Done!

2. Focus on only meeting the minimum requirements. My only “rule” for Lenten Yoga was this: everyday you must get on your yoga mat. I didn’t commit to five minutes, 25 minutes or one hour. If I wanted to do five sun salutations and then get back to work, five sun salutations it was. If I wanted to lie in corpse pose until I’d drifted off to sleep, corpse pose it was. Giving myself this permission ensured I’d actually do what I wanted to do and more often than not five sun salutations turned into a full practice.

3. Tell other people. I didn’t tell a lot of people about my plans, but all I needed was a handful. I knew no one was affected one way or the other, but there’s something about speaking your intentions out loud to those who care about you and who will remember your goals that brings the motivation up a notch or two. I chalk it up to pride.

You are already aware that it’s not always easy to take your ideas – whether they are about our creativity, vocation, health, relationships, etc. – off the back burner and begin taking action on them. If you’re looking for a supportive environment in which to make that happen, I hope you’ll hop on over to Jumpstart What Matters Most 2011 and consider filling one of the final spots of this telephone coaching group. The series runs for six months and is going to empower you to get the stuff that matters. I promise!

Tags: coaching, goals, health, story, yoga
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Map the Gap

Written by Jennifer on 14th January 2011

This is Part Three in a Six-Part Series about getting to the stuff that really matters this year. If you missed the other parts, start here.

So we’ve talked about what really matters and about discovering your current story. All this to share more fully with you about how you can effect change in 2011. It will also help you better understand the process for the upcoming six month group coaching series, Jumpstart What Matters Most.

Here’s the third part: mapping the gap between the stuff that matters and your current story.

All coaching deals in part with “the gap.” After all, between where we are and where we want to be, there is space. If there wasn’t, we’d already have what we want, be doing what we want, be relating the way we want, be thinking the way we want, be living the way we want. We’d be there. But for most of us, there are important areas of our lives where the gap can feel pretty big, where the path to “getting there” appears long and full of travail.

Embarking on the journey to live our lives in line with what matters most to us is its own kind of hero’s journey, the archetypal pattern described by Joseph Campbell. It is an ancient, mythic, ubiquitous pattern. (Realizing and embracing the ubiquity of this narrative can ultimately prove helpful and provide fuel for the journey.) Even the most cursory glance reveals that the path to “getting there” is often a serious and challenging one:

Of course, as you already know, when something is truly worth going after, it is hardly as easy as stepping over a few pebbles in the road. Indeed, when we examine the “why” of being stuck, there are good reasons. We are often confronted with our own past, our limitations, our psychological hang-ups or habituated responses. The gap between where we are and where we want to be can feel insurmountable and undesirable. After all, I don’t know anyone who actively seeks out an abyss.

But there is tremendous good news! News that forms the foundation of my coaching philosophy: when you are truly ready for the journey, when you feel it is time, deep down, you will have what you need. And if you do not have every piece that you need before embarking, you will receive it just in time. This goes for both internal resources and external resources. You will discover you have the courage the moment you need courage. You will discover you have the life-changing question the moment it needs to be asked. You will discover that you have the community the moment you need relational support.

You are the hero in your own journey and, ultimately, moving through the entire process is a choice you get to make. Your journey may look like the archetypal narrative above, or it may follow a different arc. Regardless, you get to be an active participant in the creation of how you close the gap between your current story and a new one that reflects what matters most to you.

If you are feeling called to step into your own hero’s journey this year, I invite you to join Jumpstart What Matters Most 2011, a small coaching group starting February 2 designed to help you take those creative and entrepreneurial goals off the back burner. It will provide you with the resources you need to begin moving forward in a powerful, new way! Click here to reserve your spot today!

Tags: coaching, direction, fear, goals, story
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Discover and Understand Your Current Story

Written by Jennifer on 12th January 2011

This is Part Two in a Six-Part Series about getting to the stuff that really matters this year. If you missed Part One, start here.

At the very end of December, I blogged about orienting your life around its most important elements, whatever they are to you. I also invited you to take stock of 2010, exploring what did or did not align with your priorities. This was a prelude to the launch of an incredibly exciting group coaching series that starts on February 2. As I wrote in December, Identifying What Really Matters is the first step in the series.

Today I want to share more about Step 2 in the group coaching series: Discover and Understand Your Current Story. To do so, I’m going to start with a story you’ve heard before, the story of the half-mad, starving artist.

The half-mad, starving artist is talented in his work. He may have a primary way of expressing himself artistically or he may have several. His profession is very often in the creative economy, where he experiences success, but he frustrated because he’s not getting to his own projects. He can’t ever seem to get the right structures in place or develop the discipline to get things done. His self-esteem is low and dropping, a problem exacerbated by the fact that he is generally underpaid and overworked and has alienated those around him with erratic behavior and “forgetfulness.” He understands this to be part and parcel of being an artist.

As a coach, I am immediately drawn toward five or six different areas when presented with a client in a similar (though undoubtedly less archetypal!) situation; however, the most effective one rests in identity. Said another way, it’s all about the story he tells to himself about himself.

If this artist tells himself that being an artist = being irresponsible and impoverished, he is trapped in a perpetual cycle of disappointment. He can either be responsible and solvent OR he can be an artist. He can either get to the stuff that matters OR he can be an artist. But he cannot be both.

Each one of us faces this conundrum in myriad ways all over the fabric of our lives and work. While often less obvious, we naturally tell ourselves stories, many of which actually help us get to where we want to be, many of which don’t. Maybe yours sound like this:

I can’t make a difference and make money.
Since I’m so even-keeled, I must not be very creative.
Success is something that happens overnight or it doesn’t happen at all.
If my ideas were good, someone would have noticed by now.
No one makes a living doing what they really love.
What’s the point of starting; I’m never going to finish.
I can’t be an artist and be business-savvy.
If I were really devoted to my business, I’d be working 24/7.

On one hand, these are all just stories – a particular reality to a particular interpretation of the facts. Unfortunately, if what we want fits outside that interpretation, we cannot have it, do it, get to it, change it. End of story.

Understanding your own story might sound as difficult as reading ancient Mayan hieroglyphics, but it’s not – I promise.

Consider the stories you tell yourself. Where do you think they come from? Do they help you or hinder you? When it comes to getting to the most important stuff in your life, are they in the way?

It may be time to draft a new story so you can take those goals/dreams/projects off the back burner and finally breathe life into them. If you’re ready for that, I invite you to join Jumpstart What Matters Most 2011. Space is super limited (maxing out at 6 people) and it starts February 2. Reserve your spot today!

Tags: coaching, creativity, entrepreneur, goals, story
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What Really Matters

Written by Jennifer on 30th December 2010

You already know what’s important to you. Because you have been told what’s important to you. By the media. By your friends. By your partner. By your parents. By pundits. Maybe even by me.

There are so many voices competing for your mind share, particularly around the New Year, telling you what you should care about, change and go after that it can be hard to hear your own voice.

Last year around this time I blogged about New Year’s Resolutions and when it’s good not to make them. This year I want to encourage you to orient your life around what really matters.

Sounds kinda simple, right? Often, no.

The initial problem rests with all those other voices, with the competition we face in identifying what’s really important to us. How can you focus your energy on making time and space for your creative work or solidifying and growing your creative business or integrating your creative self into your life if the cultural narrative you are being peddled is one of short-term fixes and surface-level adjustments?

(Perhaps getting to more than the most important stuff can work if you are a Hindu god with multiple arms. Alas, you are not. Recommendation: stick the stuff that really matters.)

If you are truly ready to get to what’s important in 2011, step one is to actually identify the stuff that matters to you.

Next week I’ll be rolling out an offering for a group coaching program to equip you with a new story and strategic roadmap for getting to the deeply important creative, vocational and entrepreneurial goals you have for yourself, your business and your life in 2011. As a group, we’re going to start, here, too, with identifying what actually matters.

For now, I encourage you to take some quiet space to do a quick inventory of this last year as it relates to what’s important to you. Here are some guiding questions:

If every moment of your year had been calendered, would a review of that calendar reveal that your time had reflected those deep, creative and difference-making priorities you set out for yourself?

When did you feel most alive or creatively engaged over the last 12 months? What were you doing? What was the environment like? Were you alone or working on a team?

What dragged you down the most? Was there a project or work that was soul-sucking? Be specific and detail the context and environment.

What did you not do that you wish you had?

How did you change and grow in ways that prepare you for getting to the stuff that matters in 2011?

I invite you to use your answers as building blocks for crafting your own story that you submit at Tell A Story. It will be an inspiration to others, I am certain!

Finally, as we sit at the threshold of a new year, I want to thank you — all of you — who have followed and participated in the growth of Get There From here throughout 2010. I’m deeply privileged to be doing this work that you make possible. Happy New Year!

Tags: change, coaching, creativity, direction, goals, holidays
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Can you choose something you’ve never seen?

Written by Jennifer on 22nd December 2010

Around the time my then-boyfriend and I were deciding to get married, I found myself highly observant of couples everywhere. Coming from a family with myriad divisions and splits (read: divorce), I thirsted for examples of couples who’d “made it.” Couples who not only stayed together – because, let’s face it, the defining hallmark of a good marriage isn’t length – but couples who’d built resilient, generative relationships that stood the test of time. I was a bit afraid it might not be possible. I also wanted examples of feminist couples, which is to say examples of couples who didn’t let gender define the rules of engagement. To be honest, I felt like I was on a search for the holy grail.

I was reminded of this search today when I went hunting for an old New York Times article I’d read on shared parenting. I have a client who is seeking to figure out the right alchemy of child-rearing, career advancement, and financial sustainability and I thought this article might provide some new ideas. Twenty minutes later, I found I’d reread the entire piece. This paragraph stuck out to me:

The obstacles to equity are enmeshed and interwoven, almost impossible to separate from one another. Deutsch did a study of 150 couples who tried sharing to various degrees, and her results suggest that social norms play a large part in why so few marriages are truly equal. Choices are made in a context. It is rare that you choose something you have never seen.

With 2011 right around the corner, folks everywhere are looking to make different choices in their lives: the New Year tends to heighten our cultural obsession with self-improvement. I am convinced, however, that committing to those choices is exponentially harder if we do not have a picture of what’s possible that actually resonates with us. It’s one of the reasons I often ask my clients to identify characters in a movie who have faced similar obstacles – so there exists the tiniest bit of a narrative they can begin to weave into the construction of their own story.

My experience of marriage certainly bears this out. While no couple can mirror back to you the relationship you can or will have with your own partner, I believe I was wise to go on my search. In the early years, finding examples of the kind of relationship my husband and I were creating gave me hope and fuel, but mostly let me know that what I feared might be impossible was, in fact, possible. Today, my search is more about taking note of partnerships that have qualities I want to cultivate in my own. And every new example spurs me forward.

If you’re seeking to make big changes in 2011 or are knowingly facing a transition, I invite you to go on your own search. Find examples, role models, fictional characters. See as much of what’s possible so that you can truly create the most authentic path available to you.

Tags: authenticity, choice, direction, goals, holidays
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