Coaching Heights

Category Archives: Motivation

Planting Flowers and Saving Starfish

Some of you may have seen this cartoon since I posted it on Facebook already (on my new business page!). It brings up so many profound truths for me: It’s up to us. Start small. We can create our own reality. Little things matter. Don’t give up. Expectations are everything. Be the change we want to see in the world. It’s always worth nurturing or creating something. Focus on the positive. And on and on.

Of course, it’s not always that easy to just plant flowers (literally or metaphorically). It’s very easy to get paralyzed by thinking that whatever we do it won’t be enough. I know I get caught up in that. I’m only one person, what can I do? Does it really matter? It reminds me of the story about a storm that has stranded thousands of starfish on the beach. There is a child walking along, picking up the starfish, and throwing them back into the sea, knowing they won’t otherwise survive. An adult walking by says, “There’s so many, you’ll hardly make a difference.” The child pauses for a minute, and then says, “But I’ll make a difference to this one.”  In some versions of the story, after hearing the child’s response, the adult also starts throwing starfish back into the sea. Other adults start helping, and eventually they are all saved. I especially like that version!

What I take away from the cartoon is how important it is to do whatever we feel called to do to make the world a better place, whether that is planting flowers, or saving starfish, or registering voters, or helping people find jobs that allow them to do things like plant flowers, save starfish, and register voters! And again, that reminder that no act of kindness or creation, or growth or nurturing, is ever too small for those that receive it.

I hope that 2018 is off to a good start in as many ways as possible for you and your loved ones. Here’s to planting flowers wherever we are, so that we shape the world around us into what we most want it to be. As you know, my passion is helping people plant flowers, so to speak, at work – especially when their “workbeds” are barren or full of weeds. Sadly, the number of people who are miserable at work is overwhelming – nearly 70% of American workers are disengaged. If you know someone who could use some seeds planted at their job, please let me know. I would be happy to gift them a Make a Leap Strategy Session so that they can get some things to shift!

Three C’s to Make Your Job Better

We all spend a LOT of time at work. And unfortunately, many of us don’t get much more out of that time other than a paycheck. But if we’re going to be at work for the majority of our waking hours every day, shouldn’t it be time well spent? I think it should.

Hopefully, you enjoy at least parts of your work. But if you’re feeling dissatisfied or bored, and want to make it more fulfilling, the 3 C’s for making the job you’re in better can help.

First of all, you need to Choose a mindset that will move you forward. Second, it’s important to Clarify what your job involves as well as what you have to give to it. And finally, you can start getting Crafty. Let me explain:

#1 – Choose: No matter what your individual circumstances are, you do have choices related to your job. I’m not saying it’s as simple as snapping your fingers and suddenly finding that you love your job, but your mindset is a huge part of whether or not you someday could. If you don’t choose to believe your job can get better, it probably can’t.

#2 – Clarify: When you’re trying to make your job better, it’s important to know what you’re starting with. For example, what tasks do you need to perform? What are you naturally good at? When you know what your job requires of you and what you have to offer, you can start to see where you and your job do and do not overlap. Then you can figure out where to make the changes that will have the most impact.

#3 – Craft: The final C comes from Job Crafting – a term coined by researchers Jane Dutton and Amy Wresniewski in 2001. You can craft your job in three main areas: tasks, relationships, and cognition. As you craft these aspects of your job to be more in line with your strengths and motivations, you’ll discover more satisfaction and meaning in your work.

To illustrate, there is a hospital custodian who viewed her job as integral to the hospital’s mission of helping sick children get healthy (cognition), spent extra time connecting with patients and their families (relationships), and added tasks that were meaningful, such as asking patients what they needed and finding some way to get it for them (tasks). She crafted her job into work that she loved to do, and through which she could make a meaningful difference in people’s lives.

Veterans Day is today, and I believe that we honor the sacrifices our servicemen and women have made by making the most of the opportunities they helped provide for us. This includes not spending our work days wishing we were somewhere else. Or even better, crafting our jobs into meaningful work that is both satisfying to us and makes a positive difference in other people’s lives.

Five Life Lessons from Tucker

It’s hard to believe, but my baby boy (for those of you who don’t know, that’s my miniature poodle, Tucker) turned 13 last week! He is doing well, with the exception of a little arthritis, and a good deal of hearing loss. That’s actually a bonus, because if he doesn’t hear the doorbell ring, he doesn’t bark! But he still gets super excited at all sorts of things, runs around like a puppy, chases after his toys, and his appetite is as healthy as ever. I’m hopeful we’ve got quite a few more years together, and I’m reflecting on all that I’ve gained by having him in my life.

 

Here are five lessons I’ve learned from Tucker that are worth sharing:

 

#1 – Showing affection: Anyone who has ever had a dog knows that one of the best things about them is the greeting you get when you come home. You don’t even have to have been gone that long! But when you come back, they’re right there to greet you (or, in Tucker’s case, when I wake him up to let him know I’m home), wagging not just their tail but literally their whole body, jumping for joy, making “I’m sooooo happy to see you” noises, and of course going to find their favorite toy so they can finish the greeting properly. Maybe we humans don’t need to show affection quite the same way, but it feels really good when someone is happy to see us! A hug or even a smile can have the same warm result. I think we often don’t let people know that we’re happy to see them, because doing so makes us vulnerable. What if they don’t respond in kind? What if they don’t return the hug or the smile? We’re afraid we’ll end up feeling stupid or awkward. But dogs don’t worry about what others might think – they just know they’re happy to see us, and they let it show.

 

#2 – Being in the moment: Another wonderful thing about dogs is that they spend a lot more time in the present than we do. For example, a few months ago I took Tucker to the vet, and he was so uncooperative that he had to be muzzled. A week later we had to go back, and you’d think he’d be very hesitant. But, no! He was super excited. Why? Because the vet had treats! He wasn’t wasting any energy on the fact that she’d poked and prodded him in the past, and was probably going to do so again. He was just happy to be right where he was, getting treats. We humans, on the other hand, would have been worrying so much about what had happened to us in the past, or what might happen in the future, that we would miss that moment in the middle where we get treats (metaphorically speaking, of course). I think the main point to take away from Tucker is that there’s no good reason to let our worries and fears about something that isn’t happening right now, spoil something that is happening right now. Right? Here he is sleeping with his toy after a visit to the vet.

#3 – Thinking positively: Over the years Tucker has become a horrible beggar. He’s really bad – he sits and stares at whoever has food and whoever he thinks might be most susceptible to his charms. “Aren’t I cute?” his eyes say. “Wouldn’t you like to give me a piece of whatever delightful human food it is you’re eating?” I do my best to discourage him from begging, and my human friends from feeding him, but it works for him enough of the time that he keeps at it. In more than one situation, as I’ve watched him eagerly try to work his magic on an unsuspecting human, I’ve been struck by how optimistic he is. He always seems to believe that eventually, he’ll get what he wants. And enough of the time, he does! While the “power of positive thinking” is almost a cliché these days, I think there’s definitely some truth in it (and Tucker would agree).

 

#4 – Taking action: Thinking positively is a great step, but it’s not enough. We also have to take action! Tucker doesn’t lie in the other room hoping someone will feed him. He very consciously places himself in the best location (where the people and the food are), sits up as straight as he can, and stares at people as longingly as he can. Lots of times we want things to be different, and we spend a lot of time thinking about it, but we don’t actually do what we need to do for things to change. Tucker doesn’t just dream about what he wants – he makes it happen. And we can, too.

 

#5 – Staying focused: Tucker also stays focused on his goals. One Thanksgiving, Tucker took up an attentive position in front of the buffet table. He stared intently at the turkey for at least an hour, until finally someone dropped a piece. Again, he was expecting the best (someone will drop a piece), and he had taken action to increase the odds of that happening (he was lying in front of the table with the food), but most importantly – he didn’t give up. He kept his focus on that bird, and he didn’t let himself get distracted by anything, or go back to lie in his bed where it was more comfortable. Now, when the temptations of modern life try to lure me away from what’s important, or things get challenging, I think of Tucker and his turkey!

 

There are many more things about Tucker that are worth emulating, and also plenty that aren’t (rolling in disgusting smelly stuff, anyone?). But I’m so grateful for everything Tucker has taught me, and especially grateful for his affection, his presence, his optimism, his action, and his tenacity – and how he reminds me to do the same. If you’d like to bring more of these characteristics into your own life, Tucker wants to you to know that his mom could help! Just go to https://coachingheights.acuityscheduling.com/ to sign up for a free “What Would Tucker Do?” strategy session (okay, really it’s called a “Make a Leap” strategy session, but can’t you just imagine the WWTD bracelets)?

 

P.S. –While you’re at it, Tucker would also like you to please remind his mom to give him more treats.

 

Making a Leap

Part of me can’t believe what happened in the recent Presidential election, and part of me isn’t surprised. Regardless of who you voted for, there are reasons to be relieved, happy, and grateful – and/or disappointed, fearful, and sad. If you were hoping to see the first female President of the United States, like me, then those latter emotions are probably coming much easier to you right now, while it’s harder to access the first set. But I think that this election presents us all with an amazing opportunity for growth, both individually and collectively.

My main focus right now is to recognize that while I could easily surround myself with news that brings up feelings of disappointment, sadness, and fear – those emotions aren’t doing me any good. Plus it feels horrible! Paralyzing, a pit in my stomach, jittery. That is not how I can give my best to the world, and I believe the world needs our best, now more than ever. So I am allowing myself to let those thoughts go as much as I can, and rally as many things that make me feel relieved, happy, and grateful to my side. And the more I look for it, the more I see:

  • So many posts on my Facebook feed about love!!
  • My friend Kate, who gathered us together the day after the election to light candles, share our intentions for moving forward, and bask in community
  • My coaching client, who shared with me and his family and friends that “the sun will continue to rise, the world will still spin, and we will still sing and dance and laugh”
  • People wearing safety pins to symbolize a safe space for anyone – anyone! – experiencing discrimination of any kind
  • The coaching consults I’ve given to several people since the election – I don’t know how they voted and it doesn’t matter – but they’re open to new ideas, motivation, and trying something different
  • My coaching clients, all of them, who are stretching to be and do more than they ever thought possible and who inspire me every day
  • My colleagues at Sac State, who are always doing the best they can to help others grow and develop professionally, while at the same time creating a wonderful work atmosphere that feeds us all
  • My fellow guides and office staff at Exum Mountain Guides, who provide people with the literal, physical opportunity to accomplish feats they never thought they could
  • My dog Tucker, who loves me just as much today as he did yesterday, and will continue to love me just as much tomorrow
  • My best friend, Suna – we were together almost as long as Obama was in office, and even now as we move away from being life partners we are communicating better than ever and supporting each other as much as we always have – and still dancing!

When I let myself focus on these things, I feel calmer, more peaceful, and empowered. I feel more able to listen and hear the pain and frustration that so many people expressed through their votes for the President-elect. I feel ready to be more, and do more, and share more – more of me, more of my gifts. Now is the time to do what we’re meant to do. And that’s different for all of us. For me, my gift is listening, and holding space for others to step into what is possible for them. So I’ve decided that between now and the inauguration on January 20, 2017, in recognition of the opportunities for growth and reflection that our 45th president will provide, I want to give 45 free “Make a Leap” strategy sessions. My hope is that by inspiring others to make a leap in their lives – whether that leap is big or small, about relationships or career, or even just about taking that first step – I’ll help to create positive energy that will ripple out even further than my immediate circle. Will you help me make this possible? I don’t care who you voted for (or if you did), and it doesn’t matter whether we’ve known each other for years, or never even met. I just want to share my gifts, and if that helps you or anyone else make a leap, that’s all the better! I hope you’ll help me meet this goal – just call (307-264-0764)  or email me (Kim@CoachingHeights.com) or use the contact form – and if someone else comes to mind for you, I hope you’ll share this post with them. The sessions will be over the phone, so no matter where you are, we can connect. And please make sure you keep noticing all the good in the world, because it’s just as real as anything else!

Start Looking Forward to Mondays

If you’re spending your weekdays wishing you could be just about anywhere else but at work, it’s time to change that. Life is too short to risk your health, relationships, and peace of mind on your career. You may think there’s nothing you can do about the things that make your job miserable, but that is NOT true. You have choices, and there are always things you can change!


I’m very excited to let you know that I am starting up a coaching group for people who are less than satisfied with their jobs (that’s approximately 70% of Americans, according to the Gallup Foundation). This group will introduce you to research-based tools and resources that you can immediately put into use, so you can start looking forward to Mondays again.

I have been lucky enough to have had lots of very interesting jobs throughout my life, and only a few that I didn’t enjoy. After watching my dad suffer through a career that was a particularly bad fit for him, I was determined not to do that to myself. I wish he’d had access to a group like this, with a supportive community that would have helped him make key changes to his work life. He didn’t have access, but you and your friends do! This group will help you apply research-based techniques so that you can adjust your work tasks, relationships, and attitudes. You spend so many of your waking hours at work; you owe it to yourself to do everything you can to make those hours meaningful and satisfying.

Our first session will be on Saturday, July 30th, at 9am PT/12pm ET. There will be five sessions (July 30, Aug 6, Aug 20, Aug 27, and Sep 10). All you need is access to a phone line. Each session will last one hour, and here is what we’ll cover and what we’ll be coaching on:

  • Session 1: What Do You Love and Hate Most About Your Job, and an introduction to the research on Job Crafting
  • Session 2: Task Crafting – what can you change about your day-to-day work?
  • Session 3: Relational Crafting – how can you enhance positive (or minimize negative) relationships in your work?
  • Session 4: Cognitive Crafting – what attitudes or perceptions can you change about your work?
  • Session 5: Where Do You Go From Here?

Interested? Let me know. The size is limited, and I’ll choose the folks who will get the most out of our time together. Even if this group is not for you, I’ll bet there are people in your circle for whom it would be a great fit. Please let them know!

7 Reasons I Almost Didn’t Make This Video

You’ll see that I’ve put up a two-minute video of me talking about what coaching is and how it can help people on my home page. Thanks to my ability to procrastinate, and more importantly all the fears I had to work through around this project, it took months to complete. But it’s finally out there!

 

I never had any intention of making a video. So how did it happen? Well, back in December my friend Cheryl had a contest in which she gave away sound branding packages (she’s an amazing musician, and she knows a thing or two about marketing – check out her work here: www.cbemusic.com). I entered, and won! After talking about my coaching and what I wanted to share with people about Coaching Heights, she came up with not only a sonic logo (think along the lines of a jingle) but also a visual logo for me. The visual logo I knew how to use, but what the heck was I going to use the sonic logo for? She suggested that perhaps it would be a good idea to have a personal video on my site so that people could get to know me. I told her, “No way! I can’t make a video!” I couldn’t imagine doing that.

 

The idea kept running through my head, though. It wouldn’t go away. But I had plenty of reasons why I shouldn’t make a video: 1) It’d be corny, 2) I wouldn’t know what to say, 3) I’d look silly, 4) I wouldn’t know how to make one, 5) It wouldn’t be professional, 6) I wouldn’t know how to put the video on my website, 7) I’d look stupid. Actually, I probably came up with even more reasons, but I realized they were mostly all related to the same fear: whatever I create won’t be good enough.

 

Anyone out there with perfectionist tendencies relate to that? I have learned that when I come up with a lot of reasons not to do something, it’s usually because I’m worried that if I try it, I’ll fail. And if I never attempt it, I can’t fail, right? Sure, if I don’t make a video for my website, no one will ever get the opportunity to judge it. But I wondered if I’d won the sound branding package for a reason – so Cheryl and I could have that conversation about making a video – so I could realize all the things I was afraid of – so I could see that my fears were stopping me from doing something that was probably a really good idea. After I had that conversation with myself, I decided I would just have to do it and see what happened. I knew that even if all my fears came true, I would still learn a lot about myself by pushing through to the other side.

 

So in February, I wrote up some ideas about what I wanted to say, and sent it to my dear friend Ute to see what she thought. Why Ute? Because she knows me really well, and wants nothing but the best for me, yet she’ll always be honest with me. So if it sucked, she’d tell me. But she didn’t think it sucked – in fact, she wrote back that she felt like I was speaking just to her, from my heart, about things we’ve all dealt with at some point in our lives.

 

Great! Now I knew what I wanted to say. By the end of March I actually got around to asking my partner Suna to film it for me. We got set up in the living room with the projector screen pulled down to provide a good background. At first, we tried filming it with me standing up. That didn’t work! I couldn’t stand still…kept shifting my weight back and forth. So we found a stool at the right height. But Suna couldn’t hold the iPhone still long enough, so then we had to find a tripod. We started filming again, but then we realized that when Suna was behind the phone, I wanted to make eye contact with her, and not the camera. Suna started the recording and moved out of the way (you can see her shadow at the beginning of the video if you look closely), and I tried to speak directly to the camera. The first time we did that I made it all the way through, and we called it good. I didn’t want to keep doing it, because I knew it would just start sounding more and more forced, and I’m no actress.

 

The video was done, and you would think I’d cleared the highest hurdle. Nope, because then I didn’t do anything with it again for months! Of course, all that time I could tell myself that I had made the video. Never mind that no one had seen it, other than a few folks who I knew would be supportive. But I knew I hadn’t really seen this process through until I actually wrote and sent this post.

 

Fast forward to July, when I finally got myself to sit down and write a rough draft of this post, and got the final version of the sonic logo from Cheryl. But then I got busy and didn’t pick it up again until almost the end of August, when I finally figured out how to put the video on my home page. You’ll notice that the sonic logo plays twice at the beginning. Maybe I’ll fix that someday. But I decided that for now, no more excuses. It’s time to put this baby out there!

 

After all, will it ever be perfect? No! The point is to give people the opportunity to get to know me a little, and to help them decide if I’d be a good coach for them. If they’re not going to work with me because I don’t have a slick, professional video, then they’re probably not a good match for me anyway. And sometimes, you just have to go for it. In the end, I just had to decide it was worth the risk to try something new even if it wasn’t going to be anywhere close to perfect, ask for help when I needed it, and lean on those who I knew would support me as I moved through my fears.

 

I hope you enjoy it, and that it gives you a better sense of how coaching works and how it can help all of us accomplish our goals.

 

P.S. – Apparently, I also procrastinate on sharing the good stuff! Back in April, my friend Val wrote up a little article about me for Sacramento CBS local news. Check it out!

Distracted by Multitasking?

How often have you had this happen…you’re at work, or doing homework, or doing something that requires your focus and attention. And it’s hard, or tedious, and you’re feeling frustrated or a little bored. And suddenly you think, “Hey, I wonder what’s new on Facebook?” or “I should see if so-and-so has replied to my email yet,” or you get a text, and then off you go to check Facebook or your email or your phone, and 10 minutes later you finally remember that you’re supposed to be working, and you drag yourself back to the task at hand? Or you get distracted because you’ve got music playing and you hear that song you really like and start singing along? Or you have the TV on in the background and you realize you’ve stopped chopping the vegetables to watch a particularly dramatic scene?

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Yep, I bet you’ve had some of these things happen…and probably more than once. I know I have! All of these situations are examples of multitasking (multitasking can either mean you are doing two or more things simultaneously, or switching back and forth between tasks). In American culture these days, it’s becoming very common to have music playing, email or Facebook open, your phone on, maybe even the TV, or be playing a computer game (or all of the above!). And it’s not really a big deal to stop what we’re doing to reply to a text or an email, or watch a few minutes of TV, right?

Depending on what you’re doing, it’s probably a bigger deal than most of us would like to think. A new study of middle school, high school, and college students1 found that on average, students doing homework at home only stayed on task for about 6 minutes before switching to some other activity (usually something else on their phone or computer). Overall, they only managed to stay on task for about 65% of the time. Activities like homework, studying, learning during a lecture, and GPA all appear to be negatively affected by multitasking with technology in particular (although these days that’s the most common way that we all multitask, and the younger you are, the more you do it). And if you don’t have homework on your plate these days, and think you’re off the hook – think again. Other researchers2 have suggested that our productivity might drop as much as 40% when we multitask. Our recall and understanding suffer, and tasks actually take us longer. Even though we think we’re functioning just fine and being efficient…we’re not.

When you really need to get something done, make it easier on yourself, not harder! Here are things you can do if you’d like to improve your productivity and decrease some of those multitasking distractions.

  • Turn off the TV and the music, or at least turn the volume down
  • Turn off your phone’s ringer, or put it in airplane mode. Or even better, put it in airplane mode and put it out of sight
  • Set your email program so that you don’t get an alert when a new message comes in (I did this at work last week and it is definitely helping me focus better)
  • Close any windows you’re not working on (Facebook, email, games, etc.) so that it’s harder to switch to something else when your attention wanders (Which it will! I can’t tell you how many times I checked my email while I was writing this, until I finally took my own advice and closed that window!)
  • Commit to focusing for a short amount of time (between 15-25 minutes) and putting off all distractions until the timer goes off. If it’s too much temptation to have your phone out as your timer, use a kitchen timer, and tell yourself that whatever text or notification you get on your phone, it can wait until the timer goes off!

 

1Carrier, Rosen, Cheever, and Lim. (2015) “Causes, Effects, and Practicalities of Everyday Multitasking,” Developmental Review.

Procrastinate? Who, Me?

So I finally got around to listening to a recording of an interview with Dr. Tim Pychyl, a professor of psychology at Carleton University, about his research on procrastination. It only took me two months! And now, about two months later, I’m finally writing about it!

Growing up, I was the queen of procrastination. I generally waited until the last minute to do schoolwork and other tasks, figuring that they would take less of my time that way. And if I didn’t feel like doing something, I told myself it would be better to wait until I did so that I would be “more efficient.”

This philosophy worked more or less just fine for me all the way through college and up until I attained ABD (All But Dissertation) status in grad school. Obviously, waiting until the last minute doesn’t fly very well with a dissertation. And because I rarely spent enough time on it to get excited, I didn’t feel like working on it very often. It was clear I was never going to finish if I went on like this. And I have to say, although I was getting a lot of other things done as I avoided the hard work of writing, the weight of that huge, unfinished project was getting heavier and heavier. Not to mention my self-esteem demons were whispering louder and louder: “Maybe you can’t do it. Maybe you’re not ever going to finish it.”

Fortunately, this story has a happy ending – I did finally finish my dissertation! But how? In listening to Tim’s interview, I realized that I made two critical changes that are borne out in the procrastination research. I stopped waiting until I felt like it, and I made a connection between my present and future self.

Stop Waiting Until You Feel Like It

One of the main points that Dr. Pychyl stressed in his interview was that it is really important to stop waiting until you feel like doing something. This is a surefire recipe to put a task off indefinitely. And the reality is, whether or not you feel like doing something has nothing to do with whether or not you need to do it. Good writers often report that they have to force themselves to sit down everyday and write, whether they are in the mood or not. And as Anne Lamott says, it’s “bird by bird” – one step at a time. But if you never get started, you’ll never get past that first step. For me, this meant sitting down to work on the dissertation even if I had a very long list of other things I would rather be doing! What made me decide it was worthwhile to sit down and do something I didn’t want to do? I think it had a lot to do with the connection I finally made to my future self.

Connect to Your Future Self

A second finding from Dr. Pychyl’s research is that we have to make a connection between what our present self does or doesn’t do, and what the consequences will be for our future self. In my case, after many years I realized (or maybe admitted is a better word) that if I didn’t do my dissertation now, in the future I would be very disappointed in myself, not to mention stressed. Making a connection to one’s future self is actually harder than it would seem, because we use completely different parts of our brain. When we think about our present self, we use certain areas of our prefrontal cortex, but when we think about our future self, we use completely different areas. The same areas, as a matter of fact, that we use when thinking about strangers. So literally, our brain views our future self as a stranger!

This means that we have to do some very conscious visualization, or “time travel,” to realize that someday, our future self will no longer be a stranger, but our present self. And if we don’t want our future self to feel the pain or stress that goes along with our procrastination, our present self needs to take action now! If you saw the most recent X-Men movie, “Days of Future Past,” you’ll recognize this concept in how difficult it was for Charles (the Patrick Stewart character) to convince his younger self to take action now to save his future self (and in his case, the world). Fortunately, most of us don’t have quite that level of pressure riding on our ability to befriend our future self.

So, the next time you have a task that you’re avoiding, maybe you can convince yourself to take that first step by viewing it as a gift you are giving to your future self!