So many people I talk to are overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by choices, by information, by an endless stream of "shoulds" and "coulds." We can get caught up in this fire hydrant spray, finding it difficult to get our bearings.  Sometimes the way forward is by releasing and letting go, rather than grabbing on and holding harder.  The "Stop Doing List" We all have a "To Do" list and for many of us, this list never ends. It only grows until it's a sucking hole that reminds us of our inability to keep up. It's not your fault though. It's the list.  This week, starting today, try writing a "Stop Doing" list for yourself--things that you will no longer do.  Look at your "To Do" list--are there things that really don't add value to your life, that you could get away with not doing? Remove them. And release the worry. If you need help deciding what items to remove, check out this article from the Harvard Business Review.  What bad habits do you have that keep you stuck? Mine are time-wasters like going down research rabbit holes ("just one more article . . . ) and getting caught up in worrying about things I can't control. Whatever yours are, put them on your "stop doing" list.  Are you doing work that doesn't play to your gifts and talents? Let go of what you aren't passionate about doing. Just because you're skilled at it doesn't mean it's something you should be doing. If it isn't a gift and it doesn't create flow for you, stop it. Are you investing in people and situations that are all pain and no gain? Either find a way to turn things around or start finding ways to disconnect. Either way, stop engaging in the same old ways.  What thought patterns are getting in your way? Vow to stop feeding them. Find ways to change your frame so you can change the stories you're telling yourself.  We can make room for the things that count, for creating a life that feels right for us, when we stop doing all the things that leave us with no emotional or mental space. Our "stop doing" lists can help us find our way back to hope, inspiration and passion.  So what's on your "stop doing" list?  

  Found an interesting article on Fast Company this morning about how the team at productivity app Any.do analyzed what happened with people's "Someday" tasks on their To Do lists: Regardless of the task Any.do discovered that if a "Someday" task hadn’t been moved up to a Today, Tomorrow, or Upcoming list within six weeks, the probability of it ever happening dropped off drastically. What’s so special about six weeks? Says Perchik: "We think six weeks is the window where people are the most enthusiastic about doing something. The sense of novelty and excitement are great catalysts for getting things done. Planning a trip or fixing something around the house might be projects you feel up to today, but after six weeks they may have lost their original luster." That realization can provide you with valuable insight. "Once the initial inspiration has had a chance to wear off, you’re left with your true intentions and that can be a very powerful piece of information," says Perchik. In other words, if you put "take skiing lessons" on your Someday list, and six weeks later you still haven’t researched the lessons (much less signed up for them), that’s a good sign that skiing isn’t a big priority in your life right now. All of us have that "someday" list of projects or tasks we know we want to do. But what can be disturbing is to find that there are many items that can languish there for a good long time. Putting off a trip to Bali is one thing, but having "find a better job" on indefinite Someday status will be problematic.  I think it's worth keeping track of your Someday goals and looking at how long they stay on the list. If you don't do anything about them for 6 weeks or more, then maybe it's time to take a closer look at why that is. Are they really not priorities for you or is there something deeper going on?  For me, I've found, that many items that stay in the Someday category remain there because of my own fear of doing them. I'm challenged and inspired by them, but at the same time, moving into actual action can scare the hell out of me. My recent decision to "do something" with my art is an example of the kind of risky business that I'm talking about here.  I've talked to other people who have "Someday" goals to start a business, learn something new or go on a retreat. They may say that it doesn't fit with their priorities right now, but if you dig deeper, these tasks are in Someday mode because of the fear.  I get it. I really do. It's hard to take the risks. But we need to at least be honest with ourselves about why we keep putting things in the "Someday" category so that we can start to deal with what is blocking us from doing more with something we really want.  Today, take a look at those goals you find yourself talking about doing "someday." Do they stay on that list because they really don't fit into your life right now--or because your own fears are holding you back from moving them into action?  

  One thing we don't talk about much when people lose their jobs is the pain of that loss. We are quick to point people toward action--Network! Brand yourself!--but we shy away from helping people grieve what amounts to a death in their immediate family.  I thought about this today after a call with someone who was suddenly let go from her job. Although she'd been thinking for awhile about getting away from her employer, it was still a shock to be told that her services were no longer needed. It's a blow to the ego and to our professional identities to learn that our employers feel like they could somehow do better without us, even if we were thinking of breaking up with them ourselves. Plus, being laid off removes leaving a job from our control--never a good place to be.  Finding ways to let go of our previous job is critical, though. Failure to grieve has powerful mental and emotional consequences that impact both our personal well-being as well as our ability to seek out new opportunities. One thing I hear from employers all the time is that job seekers are "depressed" and "angry" when they come in for interviews. Guess what?  Depressed, angry people don't get hired. Nor do they start up their own businesses or pursue the kinds of relationships and experiences that will help them recover and thrive.  So how do we grieve when we lose our jobs? What can help us with that loss?  How to Grieve Your Job Loss There are several things I think we can do to engage in some healthy grieving. . .  1. Recognize what you're experiencing.  It starts with the recognition that you ARE going through a grieving process. This is a "death" of sorts and that means you have to give yourself some time and space to go through the experience of letting go and saying goodbye. Trying to pretend like it's "business as usual" or putting a totally bright face on things is to deny the emotional reality of what is happening.  2. Experience your feelings, without judgement.  As with any death, you are going to experience a range of emotional responses. Sometimes you will be depressed. Sometimes you will be afraid. Sometimes you will be angry. You may also feel relief (especially if you hated the job) and a sense of hope, possibility and opportunity. You may find yourself crying, snapping at people or laughing for no reason at odd moments, all of which may make you feel a little out of control.  All of these feelings are normal and natural. They will come and go, depending on the day and what else is going on in your life. Let yourself just have these feelings. Recognize that they are a part of the grieving process. Don't rush yourself to stop having them and don't judge yourself for feeling a little crazy right now. It goes with the territory.   3. Do the Pennebaker Expressive Writing Exercise Dr. James Pennebaker has found that writing for 3-4 days about a traumatic topic can be a powerful way to work through the emotions we're experiencing. For our purposes, you would commit to writing for 15-20 minutes, 3-4 days in a row about your job loss. This is just for you (unless you choose to share with someone) and can be a powerful way to release some of your emotions.  There are more complete instructions on the method here.  I highly recommend it, especially if you're the sort of person who tends to resist these kinds of things. In my experience, you need it the most.  4. Have a funeral for your job.  One of the main reasons we have funerals is to help the living deal with death, helping them find closure and meaning. You can give yourself some of those same benefits by creating your own funeral for your job.  How you structure this ritual is up to you, but some things to consider: If you did the Pennebaker exercise I described above, burn the pages you wrote as a symbolic release of those emotions and a willingness to move on.  Try writing an obituary for the job, recognizing both the great parts of the experience, as well as some of those things that were less than wonderful. This can help you get perspective and also help you identify what you are sad to leave behind and where you may feel some relief.  If you weren't the only one caught in a layoff, have a gathering with the other people who were let go. Part of what makes funerals comforting is the opportunity to gather with people we care about and to feel that solidarity and support in our grieving. Don't isolate yourself. Reach out to the other people who are hurting too so you can support and care for each other.  5. Find ways to be kind to yourself and to support your own thriving. When we have a death in the family, we recognize that this is a time for compassion for ourselves and for taking care of our hearts. In some ways, supporting your own thriving becomes even more important when you are mourning the death of a job in part because as a society, we simply don't provide the structure and opportunities to make this happen. People will bring casseroles to your house if a loved one passes on, but if you lose your job, we don't tend to get this same kind of support.  Here's a list of 79 ways to nurture yourself and here's a list of 50 lists you can make that will lift your spirits. Find ways to be kind and to love yourself. Also, find ways to laugh every day. Laughter is hugely healing.   6. Go public. Many people I know hide the fact that they have been laid off. They feel ashamed of their job loss and go into isolation mode. This is one of the worst things you can do for yourself, both emotionally and practically. It only increases your sense of shame and sadness and it deprives people of the opportunity to help you.  Don't be afraid to tell people what you're going through. You wouldn't hide your grieving for someone who died, so don't feel like you have to hide the fact that you're grieving for your job.  7. Get support. A huge part of grieving is knowing that you aren't alone. We tend to do better in releasing and saying goodbye if we feel connected to supportive, loving community. We thrive on connection, not on isolation, and the caring of people around us can help us get perspective and feel better about what we are experiencing.  I think it helps to connect with people who are having the same experiences we are. This is why support groups for people who have lost loved ones can be so powerful.  It's also good to connect with people who just make you feel good--people who remind you that you are more than your job and who can inspire you to find your inner strength and resilience.  8. Re-Frame the experience. Many people I know have lost jobs they hated. If this is you, then find ways to focus on the opportunities that lie ahead now that you've been relieved of the burden of this job. It's easy for your ego to hold on to the anger you may feel ("How DARE they lay ME off!") or the blow to your self-esteem ("Why me?!"). But the reality is, if you hated the job, then the universe has just given you the kick in the pants you needed to find something new and better. Seize that opportunity and don't let your ego hold on to what you didn't want anyway. It's like when we wanted to get out of a relationship, but then the other person breaks up with or divorces us first. We wanted to leave ourselves, so why get hung up on them doing the leaving before we could? Just be grateful that now you can move on in good conscience.  9. Respect the process.  Many of us are quick to want to move through grieving. We'll give ourselves a day or two, but then we want to get moving again. Let's FIX things. That's fine and I certainly support taking action sooner rather than later, but we also need to respect the fact that grief isn't always going to be on our timetable. And emotions have a pesky way of rearing their ugly heads at the most inconvenient times, especially when we don't give them their due.  10. Move on.  On the other side of the coin, some of us can have a tendency to dwell. It's months later and we are still sad or angry. This is often the case if we weren't able to find a new opportunity or our next job isn't as good as the one we had previously.  I get this. I do. But at some point we really do need to let go and move on. If you've been in a funk or have been angry and irritable for months, this is when it may be a good time to seek professional help. Grieving may have sunk into depression and you may need some guidance to find your way back out.  Final Thoughts The tips I've shared above have largely focused on what individuals can do for themselves to mourn a job loss.  But as a society, I think we also have a responsibility to help each other. How are we supporting the people in our lives who are laid off in moving through the grieving process?  We are quick to tell people what they should do to move on, but we are less able to work with them on feeling and processing their sadness, anger and fear at their sudden unemployment.  How can we more effectively be with people who are hurting in this way, helping them to acknowledge and deal with their grief? How can we help create rituals and communities that honor this process and that recognize not only the practical need for people to move forward and find new work, but also the real emotional and spiritual need they have to grieve their loss and make sense of what's happened to them?  There's much that we as individuals can do for ourselves, but we also need the help and support of our communities. How do we all help each other in this process?  UPDATE--I've published a follow-up post on interrupted grieving with a link to a great No-Nonsense Guide to Grieving that you can find here. 

A few days ago I posted on the need for us to allow ourselves time and space to grieve when we lose our jobs. Reader Tony Cannata left a fantastic comment on that post about how grieving for a lost job can be interrupted. He said: I was fired last October, but because a former employer snatched me back up 2 weeks later I didn't have a chance to grieve. I was in a safe & familiar place. It ended up distracting me from a grieving process that I should have started. Here I am now, a year later in another new job (which happens to be with a FANTASTIC tech educator) feeling unsure and stuck.I know I will be a rockstar at this new post, however I had better mourn for my past. Otherwise appear to be just another dud salesman who happens to interview well.  I think this can happen to a lot of people. We feel fortunate for having found something quickly and move into our new roles without properly mourning what has happened to us. But what we don't recognize is that we may have some residual anger or sadness to deal with about the loss of our previous jobs or about how things were handled in that loss. Our failure to acknowledge and grieve can come back later to haunt us, as Tony mentions in his comment above.  What I've found is that our emotions won't be denied. They come back to us in ways that can be disruptive to the new life we are trying to build. As Avigail Abarbinal points out in this fantastic no-nonsense approach to grief: The implications of un-grieved or blocked grief can be serious. I see a lot of that in my practice. People who do not grieve properly after one or several life changes, are blocking a vital process of adjustment and therefore do not acclimatise properly to their new reality. In other words, their mental ‘landscape’ does not keep up with their real life circumstances and their mind is out of step with the actual reality they live in. Such individuals can end up suffering from ongoing crippling anxiety, and they can subsequently develop real depression. The quality of their life can be greatly diminished and quite often they will suffer from physical symptoms, disturbances in their close relationships and in other areas of their life. Grieving, as Avigail points out, is an important "bridge that our brain builds to help us move from the world as we knew it before the change to the world as it is now." These are physical changes--new neural connections and pathways that our brains must build to move us from Reality A to Reality B as in the image above. We must honor this work that needs to take place in ourselves if we hope to reach a healthier place on the other side.  To complicate the grieving process, I've found that most people carry within them a sense that losing their jobs was somehow their fault. Even if they were laid off for economic reasons, they question "Why ME?" There's shame, loss of self-esteem and loss of identity as a professional that goes with that. Intellectually we may understand that losing our jobs is not a reflection of our competence or worth, but emotionally, most people I know still carry within them the sense that losing their job means that they are on some level "not good enough."  So the grieving isn't just about loss. It's also about a blow to the ego and to our identity that can leave us feeling uncertain in our next role. We may find ourselves questioning our abilities and second-guessing the quality of our work.  It's important that we take some time to acknowledge these issues within ourselves, to heal the wound that comes with job loss. For most of us, what we do for a living is a major part of our identity and losing our jobs is a blow to that sense of self. Again, intellectually we may recognize that being laid off has nothing to do with our qualifications or competence, but emotionally there is usually work to do.  As I advised Tony, at a minimum, I would suggest going through the Pennebaker writing exercise I mentioned in my earlier post, as well as some of the other activities. Also, be sure to read Avigail's guide to grieving as it provides a much more comprehensive picture of symptoms to look out for and ideas for grieving in a healthy way. I suspect that much of the dysfunction we feel at work and in our lives is a result of unresolved grief over not only the loss of our individual jobs, but also the loss of an economic world as we once knew it. What would happen if we recognized the need for us to grieve and began to move through that in healthier ways? 

  This morning I ran across this post from Jen Louden who is on a 19-day roadtrip to stay, as she puts it, "life-limber." She says: I’ve noticed that aging + the cosseted hush of business travel + marrying a very competent traveler named Bob has edged me into a zone of fear around heading out on my own. Unless every element is planned and unless I have a purpose, my mind comes up with a thousand reasons to stay put. Now this might make me sound silly and if so, fine. It’s certainly a first world problem. And yet here is what I observe: the older I get, the more I need to be on the lookout for all the ways wanting to be comfortable imprisons me.  Being an introvert who gets overwhelmed easily, needing gluten-free healthy food to feel good, getting easily tired are all true but they can also be excuses to hide behind. Of course, it’s not just around travel. It’s around reading challenging books or having a difficult conversation or making a new friend - it all gets to be "too much effort" and into the comfort zone I go.    I think this is what happens to many of us in our careers. We reach a place where we are "comfortable"--in our habits, our skills, our relationships, and the work we do on a daily basis--and rocking that boat becomes too much effort.  Comfort can be good. We don't want to live our lives in a constant state of anxiety or chronic hardship. But comfort can also be the enemy.  Comfort breeds complacency. It makes us believe that change will not come to us. It encourages habits of preservation and constriction that can, in turn, lead to lives that are small and in many ways, less alive. Comfort also makes us less resilient, less adaptable to change. We lose our capacity to care for ourselves in different circumstances and find that our skills and relationships are more brittle than we'd realized. Stress and challenge can be good things for the human animal. They test our mettle and keep us sharp.  Reading Jen's post made me think about my own comfort-seeking habits and how they end up confining me on narrow paths. Too often I choose the known and the easy because everything else feels like too much effort. And then I'm surprised when I'm bored or irritated by the restrictive nature of this life I've built.  Comfortable work also means I'm not stretching myself, not growing and learning and making the kinds of connections that bring energy and vitality to what I do. As much as I seek comfort, it can also be a force that deadens my sense of purpose and delight in the world.  How have you become too comfortable in your life and work? How might your comfort-seeking be holding you back and keeping you from achieving your dreams? What comfortable habits do you need to release in order to keep growing? What adventures do you need to seek to shake things up for yourself? 

A career coaching client shared this fantastic video with me on moving out of your comfort zone. It very nicely highlights the key issues we face as we deal with taking risks. On October 30, I'll be doing a presentation for the Women on the Edge (of Greatness) virtual conference on how to use career experiments to move out of your comfort zone and into your dreams. We'll be exploring some of the themes discussed in this video, particularly how to be in the learning zone to move into the magic zone.  I'm also personally experimenting with this idea, as I prepare to hang my first tiny art show in November. Believe me, I get how scary it can be to move into an uncertain future where you can so easily convince yourself that disaster awaits you. But I'm also learning that the more you take the leap, the better things will be. As Whitney Johnson points out in this Harvard Business Review blog post, you must always, always show up: We all dream about winning, but it’s the showing up that counts. Even though we can’t necessarily control the outcome.  Sarah Ban Breathnach said, "When you use expectations to measure a dream’s success, you tie stones around your soul.  Dreams may call for a leap of faith, but they set the soul soaring." There are no regrets when we invest ourselves fully and show up to ourselves. Happily, we get lots of chances. . .  Dreaming is at the heart of disruption.  Whether we want to disrupt an industry or our personal status quo, in order to make that terrifying leap from one learning curve to the next, we must dream.  The good news is that the causal mechanism for achieving our dreams is always, always, always showing up:  and as we show up, our future will too. So how are you taking risks and showing up for your life? 

  Long-time readers of this blog know that I've been focusing on how we can develop our career resilience skills in order to deal with a very uncertain world. In trying to practice what I preach, these are skills and habits I've been working to develop for myself, in addition to facilitating them with clients.  Lately, I'm grappling with the Clarity part of career resilience, looking at the intersection between my gifts and passions and what the world needs from me. As part of this,  I've been doing a lot of reading and reflection and having conversations with my Mastermind group and others in my life about the various possibilities to explore. I'm also planning some experiments, some ways of trying out different possibilities that I think will help me reach greater understanding of where I need to go next.  Why am I doing this now? A few reasons.  First, I find that certain seasons tend to encourage me in this direction--fall and winter tend to be "soul-searching" times for me in general where I'm more likely to be journaling and thinking about my goals and next steps. Spring and summer tend to be times for execution. I also know that turning 50 in September was a milestone birthday and that I'm thinking much more about legacy and how I want to spend my time in this next phase of my working life. It's become even more important to me to feel like I'm making a difference, having impact. I have much less patience for work that seems to go nowhere once I'm gone. Not sure if this means changing what I do, who I do it with or what, but I know that there are places in my work life that will need to be transformed.  I'm also acutely aware of how certain income streams are drying up for me. On a very practical level, some of my organizational clients don't have the money to contract with me for services that they once did. But there's also a "drying up" that's happening in terms of the work I've been doing. It's less juicy and engaging than it once was, which for me is a recipe for becoming stale and stagnant. Not where I do my best work.  As a self-employed solopreneur, I find that this issue of clarity is something that is thrust upon me, whether I want to explore it or not. When I'm clear, work comes to me. When I'm not, it doesn't. So built into my work life is the need to always be getting clear about what I'm selling, who is buying and how all that fits together.  For people who have a job, though, I think it's much easier to avoid the need to get clear. You begin to believe that if you just keep your head down and do what you're told at work, then this clarity thing is taken care of.  Big mistake. Clarity is for all of us. It's what helps us grow and develop and keep work engaging. It also is the way that we are able to anticipate changes coming our way so we can adapt our own career plans to meet upcoming challenges. It's tempting to keep our heads down and just keep plowing ahead, but in the end, we may be sorry.  Although I find this process of reconfiguring and realigning my work and identity to be frustrating and frightening at times, I also know that it's a necessary part of growth. I'm working to give myself the space and time to make these shifts and to explore new possibilities, trusting that in this process I will ultimately emerge into a clearing where the way ahead is revealed to me.  Conversations help. Planning experiments helps. Giving myself permission to be uncertain and to be in the soup REALLY helps.  It's a process and a journey and you have to trust that eventually the messiness will give way to order. It always does. 

Each day in December, I'm asking a juicy question to help you plan for a healthy, resilient 2014. The questions are in no particular order--just meant to provoke some thinking and get you moving in fresh directions. You can see previous questions here.    Many of us have lives that are filled to overflowing--with people, with tasks and responsibilities, with STUFF!  We only have so much physical, mental, emotional and spiritual capacity though. Our ability to manage things reaches a tipping point and we must ask what needs to go.  This question prompts us to consider where and how we need to empty our cups. How can we clean out our physical space and give stuff away to people who may need it more than we do?  What emotional and spiritual clutter can we clear away? Are there relationships or situations we need to let go of? What tasks can we permanently cross off of our never-ending "To Do" lists by simply saying they are no longer important to us?  This question is somewhat related to our earlier question on what good things need to fall apart to make room for even better, but it's more about the daily types of things that keep our cups too full, rather than larger situations that need to fall apart.  How do we create more space in our daily lives by clearing away the clutter?  Please share your answers in comments or over on The Bamboo Project Facebook page. I'd love to hear from you! And if you want to try out the VisualsSpeak Image Center to explore one of these Juicy Questions, check out my free holiday gift to you!  

Each day in December, I'm asking a juicy question to help you plan for a healthy, resilient 2014. The questions are in no particular order--just meant to provoke some thinking and get you moving in fresh directions. You can see previous questions here.    I'm a big believer in experiments. I think that being experimental in your approach to life keeps curiosity and growth alive and gives you a different way of engaging with change.  This question asks you to think about the ways you could experiment with your life. How can you approach change as something you are "trying out" rather than something more permanent.  Experimenting can allow you to tinker with things, giving you space to see what does and and doesn't work for you.  For more on the experimental approach, check out some of the resources I've compiled here. They might give you some big ideas about how to construct an experimental life for yourself.  As always, feel free to share your answers in comments or over on The Bamboo Project Facebook page. I'd love to hear from you! And if you want to try out the VisualsSpeak Image Center to explore one of these Juicy Questions, check out my free holiday gift to you!

Each day in December, I'm asking a juicy question to help you plan for a healthy, resilient 2014. The questions are in no particular order--just meant to provoke some thinking and get you moving in fresh directions. You can see previous questions here.    One thing that can hold us back from change in our lives is thinking that we just aren't ready for it. We have to get more education or training. We need someone else to change first. We need for the situation to be JUST RIGHT. This question asks you to think about the things you feel you aren't ready for in your life. Write them down using this structure: "I am not ready for. . ." Then sit with that for a minute, with that list of all the things you aren't ready for.  Now it's time to flip it. Get rid of "not" and for each of the things you've listed, try saying "I am ready for. . . "  The results might surprise you. . .  Feel free to share your answers in comments or over on The Bamboo Project Facebook page. I'd love to hear from you! And if you want to try out the VisualsSpeak Image Center to explore one of these Juicy Questions, check out my free holiday gift to you!