I was paddling a new river a couple of weekends ago and came up behind a beaver. He didn't know I was there. I spoke up, trying to give him fair warning, but by the time I saw him, I was on top of the poor fellow. We were both pretty surprised. As we went down river together at about the same speed, I could hear and feel, th-thump, th-thump, th-thump, on the bottom of my canoe as he tried to maneuver his way out of the dilemma of only 8 inches of water between the bottom of my canoe and the bottom of the river. After a long 45 seconds, we finally reached deeper water. My paddling partner said, “That poor guy just ain’t got no wiggle room.”
But isn't that what happens to us when we play in the shallows, not daring to go deep? When a crisis happens, we don't have room to wiggle because we've limited ourselves. Getting “wiggle room” starts with creating space in our lives. Here are some of my favorite ways:
1. Let go. Avoid being overly attached to goals. Move toward your goals but don't, in your effort to accomplish the goal, miss a new emerging path. What attachments do you have now that are causing you problems?
“To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.” ~Robert Pirsig
2. Understand your fears. Know what's real and what's imagined. You are not alone and you are not powerless. Our egos serve no useful purpose except as a defense for what we fear. Having understood our fears, we can now let go of ego.
"Fear is static that prevents me from hearing my intuition." ~Hugh Prather
3. Trust your intuition and your dreams. Be open to possibility. Seek the unlikely. Think the unthinkable. Imagine the improbable. Life's biggest opportunities are often hidden to all but our intuition.
"I have heard it said that the first ingredient of success - the earliest spark in the dreaming youth - is this; dream a great dream." ~John A. Appleman
4. Give yourself permission. There WILL be opportunities. And these opportunities may ask you to become someone you are not right now. You'll want to be able to do that without guilt.
"When you take charge of your life, there is no longer need to ask permission of other people or society at large. When you ask permission, you give someone veto power over your life." ~Geoffrey F. Abert
That's it. Have a great Halloween. I've got my pumpkin. Now I'm off to buy candy corn.
On August 23-25th, Drew and I pulled together an impromptu 4th Annual Cool Coaching Campout. You may remember we were having trouble deciding between the Appalachian Trail and South Manitou Island for this year's campout. We asked you to vote and, interestingly, we still had a tie with half of you voting for the trail and the other half saying the island was the way to go. Only two of you were definitely coming to the campout if it was in your chosen area and you two were of opposite opinions, one for the trail and one for the island. That's what Drew and I get for not being able to make up our own minds. Anyway, we let the campout scheduled for the end of July pass.
And then, just a couple of weeks ago, Drew called to say he and Kerri were loading up the Land Cruiser and coming to Michigan. “Loading up the Land Cruiser” includes their three dogs, Thai, Tasha and Tucker. I was delighted. Tasha and my dog Styx are siblings and they were going to reunite for the first time in the two years since Drew and I found them in the woods on the 2nd Annual Cool Coaching Campout. I called a few friends at the last minute and invited them. My friend and fellow coach, Maggie, said she'd bring the banana bread, chocolate chip cookies, beer and limes. Yeah, Maggie!
On Saturday we loaded all five dogs and headed for one of my favorite hiking trails only 20 minutes away. It was a beautiful late August day with the air beginning to smell like fall. We unloaded the dogs and wandered to a high sandbank overlooking the river. The dogs were behind us enjoying a romp in the woods while waiting for us to start moving along the trail. So we're standing on the bank taking in the view and the day when Kerri asks me what that animal coming up the bank straight towards us might be. My poor brain wanted to deny what I was seeing. I knew what it was, but the words would just not come out of my mouth. I wanted to say bear, or coyote, or anything else that is more common to Michigan woodlands. Anything but Wild Boar!
August is the last big bash before school starts. It's the month that stirs contrary and wild notions in me. Now I've been out of school for a long time (not learning, just school). But the beginning of August with its cooler, crisper nights still triggers in me a need to rebel before it's too late. Discipline will begin all too soon.
Discipline, the thing we often initiate when we want to get more done, can, in fact, hinder progress. Letting go of discipline is a statement of faith in you. So as summer closes, try the month of August without discipline. Just trust yourself. It's only a month. It's okay. You can always go back. Here are some ideas. Pick two or three and go for it!
Ten Ways to Live August
Get Selfish. Get your needs met as quickly as possible and you have more time, energy and inclination to “be there” for the important people in your life. Over-discipline your own life and there's no room for the requests of others. If you don't have that room when someone you care about makes a request, you'll either say “yes” with resentment or “no” with guilt.
Quit Being Patient. If you can't have something you want, merely move on to something else you want. Eventually timing will work for you and you can have all you want. But disciplined patience is a waste of your time.
Be Extraordinary Curious. Curiosity is at the heart of everything I learn and know. When I try to be disciplined, I become less curious.
Quit Developing and Start Evolving. Discipline can help you “develop” yourself but it does not work well if you want to “evolve.” Self-development may make you a better person (good) but personal evolution will make you more of who you are (great!.
Hang Out with “Bad” People. Discipline tends to keep us in the company of like-minded people. Now, there are days when I'm feeling vulnerable and need that security. But rigid discipline will keep me away from those who are most apt to push all my buttons and that's where I learn the most about myself.
Stop Tolerating. Tolerations are the things we live with that remind us that our life is not quite right. They can be as small as the cabinet door that does not shut easily to as big as the actions of a person you live or work with. Think of tolerations as the things you carry around each day in your daypack. The cabinet toleration can weigh as little as an ounce. The relationship toleration may weigh as much as 10 pounds. But each toleration increases your load and slows you down. Discipline often encourages tolerations by asking us to behave contrary to the way we feel.
Integrate Everything. Do you want to enjoy your work as much as your play? It's possible. But if you rigidly hold on to discipline as something that makes you strong, you are then also holding on to the idea that suffering is necessary. Perhaps you believe in “paying your dues” because you grew up with the notion that only hard work is rewarded and suffering in is required. That may have worked for our parents and grandparents, bless them, but we have evolved and more and more people are making a great living doing exactly what they love.
Embrace Simplicity. Let's say you've got five goals you want to attain in the next year. If you're disciplined, you've probably broken each of those five goals down into at least five strategies. That's 25 strategies. And each strategy has at least five daily action steps. How are you going to handle 125 action steps a day? The disciplined person will have daily action charts pasted all over the house and office. And, they're less apt to recognize when a goal has changed because they've invested so much in it. Now what's simple about that?
Follow the Path of Least Resistance. Discipline creates resistance. We're living in an era where what we want today will change quickly because more options are opening up every day. If you don't reach your goals quickly, you'll be living a life of resistance and friction rather than celebrations and moving on.
Go for the Surprise! Discipline does not hold much surprise. Get over yourself and allow the surprises to crop up daily.
“’Discipline.’ What a thankless word that is—and how beside the point.” ~Julia Cameron
"Never destroy any aspect of personality, for what you think is the wild branch may be the heart of the tree." ~Mrs. Henry George
"If I am a gentleman and you are a gentleman, who will milk the cow?" ~Irish folk saying
"Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority." ~Thomas Huxley
"It is the studying that you do after your school days that really counts. Otherwise, you know only that which everyone else knows." ~Henry L. Doherty
Possibility—The state or fact of being possible.
Possible—May come about or take place.
Opportunity—An appropriate or favorable time or occasion. A situation or condition favorable for attainment of a goal. A good position, chance or prospect, as for advancement or success.
Sitting at the river's edge watching the powerful flow of water over rocks and around downed trees as it swirls in eddies and plunges from its headwaters can inspire me to think of a world of possibilities. Launching my canoe into that same river can create real opportunities.
When we just talk about possibilities it's often not with the agenda of taking action but merely of dreaming about those possibilities. But in the enjoyment of the dream, we can lose the incentive to turn what is possible into an opportunity. Possibilities are great fuel for conversation but they won't change your life. Only through recognizing a possibility and then taking an action, can we grab the opportunities. Now consider taking just one action, no matter how small, on a possibility. Then take another, and another, and another. Soon you'll notice that you're moving from the arena of possibilities to embracing the opportunities.
One thing I try to do is not separate the possibilities I see in my life from my life as a whole. Within each possibility is a small kernel of opportunity as it relates to my life. I sow that kernel and don't spend my time feeding the possibility dream. Talking about possibilities brings passion to the act of living. But finding opportunities in the possibility adds clarity and allows us to pursue the passion.
Yes, we can remain on the riverbank and discuss and wonder at the possibilities. But the river is going somewhere. There are trees, streams, rocks and trails on the other side waiting to be explored. There are fish to be caught! There are people along that river who have stories to tell about their own opportunities taken. Find the opportunity, the kernel, the essence, in the possibility.
“I learn by going where I have to go.” ~Theodore Roethke
“Wherever you are is the entry point.” ~Kabir
“Opportunity dances with those who are already on the dance floor.” ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
"Opportunity doesn't knock. You knock, opportunity answers." ~American Proverb
"Opportunity is often difficult to recognize; we usually expect it to beckon us with beepers and billboards." ~William Arthur Ward
I just joined Coachville’s Graduate School of Coaching (GSC). It was time to throw myself into a new learning environment. This environment is full of coaches with new ideas and lots of energy. Already, it's given me a new topic for this newsletter. The 14th of 15 Coaching Proficiencies at Coachville is "To Help the Client Design Supportive Environments." The GSC is one of my new supportive environments. I enrolled and paid the price. There is nothing more to do. I'm just along for the ride.
There are three ways to make a change or evolve yourself.
- Experiment. Keep trying new things until something fits. “Throw mud on the wall and see what sticks.”
- Willpower. Make a decision to change and use your willpower to push through, persist, sustain, and change. This one is hard work and has a high failure rate but can produce some cool adrenaline if you're into that.
- Environment. Create an environment that supports your change and let the environment pull you forward.
“Pulling you forward” is radically easier than accomplishing things via willpower, determination, and “pushing through.” Most often, we make change difficult because we have not designed an environment that supports the change. Easy change comes “because of” the supportive environment you design, not “in spite of” the draining environment you may be in. A supportive environment provides incentive, nourishment, enthusiasm and pulls you.
Look around you. You have a relationship with everything in your life and they are all environments. Environments are the books you read, the car you drive, the house you live in, the people you work with, the people you play with, your office, your pets, your computer, the art on your walls, the music you listen to, nature and all it has to offer….. Start thinking of these as environments and change becomes easy. Whether an environment drains you or energizes you is your choice.
Want to wake up in the morning feeling rested and eager to move into your day? What's your sleeping situation? Is your mattress old and worn out? Does the color of your bedroom and your bedding energize you? Do you have to plod to the kitchen to start the coffee or can you smell it already perking? They make machines for that, you know. I have a friend who sets her automatic bread machine to start baking early on Sunday morning.
When I want to learn more about something, I often put myself in an environment where I have to explain it to someone else. This newsletter is an example.
My dogs are an environment. I don't use willpower to get exercise and stay in shape. In fact, I never even think about it. Why? Because at least twice a day I have two wet noses in my lap and four eyes reminding me that it's time for a walk. While I could justify to myself that there's too much to do to take time to walk in the woods or the weather is just not good, maybe tomorrow, I can't say “no” to my dogs.
A few winters back we had a bad storm that bought down a lot of trees. I had a lot of cleanup work to do and was not looking forward to that chore. Until, we decided to throw a bonfire party. Same task, clean up the downed trees. Different environment, PARTY!
When properly designed, environments do all the work.
"The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself." ~Mark Caine
You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success - or are they holding you back? ~Clement Stone
"It's not unusual to learn more in the 5 minutes between classes than one learns during the 55 minutes of official class time.” ~Howard Lambert
“All gardeners live in beautiful places because they make them so.” ~Joseph Joubert
