This is not a hard and fast rule.  But it is uncannily accurate.  We call it “the first 10 minutes” rule.  Here’s how it goes, you sit down to watch a movie and after the first few minutes your thinking, huh, not sure this is for me…after 10 minutes you are really starting to think it, but you are also thinking, “maybe it will get better, I just have to give it a chance.”  But it usually turns out you knew everything you needed to know in those first 10 minutes. 

Of course, at Workability, we are not happy to think of this as solely a rule to apply to movies.  We think about it holographically.  We learn a lot in those first ten minutes of meeting someone or experiencing a new situation.  And if we know how to ask ourselves the right questions we can sift through the data without our own biases getting in the way. 

The first ten minutes is often what people refer to as their gut reaction.  Gut reactions are incredibly useful, however, how we interpret our gut reactions can often be completely wrong.  This is why we are emphasizing the importance of asking yourself the right questions about the information you received in the first ten minutes.  Sometimes an initial negative reaction can be a signal that something you are perceiving is threatening a long held belief that you would be better off changing.  

What we aren’t saying is trust the initial interpretation in those first ten minutes.  But rather to use that initial ‘feeling’ as a starting point to explore and ask good questions.  

Our forte is asking questions.  If you think you need some help sorting through your thoughts and feelings about something, consider reaching out to us.  We know how to ask the right questions. 

To what you know in those first ten minutes

The post The Ten Minute Rule appeared first on Workability Inc..

The New York Times interviewed Joan Didion many years ago and she left us with a perfect piece of wisdom.

Interviewer:  There’s a certain aesthetic to the way you live.  You once talked about using good silver every day.

Didion: Well, every day is all there is.

Amen.  

Every day is all there is.  

We don’t live in any moment other than this one.  A second ago is history and a second from now doesn’t exist.  Only now exists.  This “one precious life” is actually only “one precious moment.”  We get moment after moment after moment until the moments come to an end.  But we don’t experience the culmination of moments or any future moments.  When we reflect on the past or imagine the future, the moment we are experiencing is not those other moments, it is THIS moment.  

There is nothing about this that contradicts making plans or saving money today to spend it tomorrow.  It is not an argument to live with absolute abandon.  It is simply shining a light on the reality that the only thing we actually experience is now.  

When something so perfect is said in such a pithy way it is a shame to damage it’s perfection by saying more. But we did nonetheless, because if we don’t say it today…. 

To using the good silver

The post The good silver appeared first on Workability Inc..

I was caught the other day singing the lyrics to the Rolling Stones song “You Can't Always Get What You Want,"  I say caught because I was singing it incorrectly.  I sang, “you can’t always want what you get.”  We rather love this little mistake.  At Workability, we spend a lot of time thinking about, and working with our clients on, increasing our experience of responsibility.  The conventional approach to life is to blame our circumstances for our happiness, sadness, well-being, any and all of our emotional states.  If something we don’t want happens, we feel sad.  If we get what we want we are happy.  

For us, the far more interesting, fruitful, and worthwhile endeavor in life is to spend time “wanting” (we would use the word accepting here) what it is that we already have.  It will always be true that “you can’t always get what you want.”  Getting what you want at every moment, day after day, is incredibly fickle.  It involves other people, the weather, world circumstances, and on and on.  Wanting what you get is not fickle at all!  It is completely in your domain to want what you get. In fact, as I write this newsletter, I am stuck at the airport due to a cancelled flight and I will be here for the next 9 hours.  I could kick and scream and pout about it (which I did for a minute), or I could decide to “want what I’ve got.”  What I’ve got is a lot of time to write newsletters.

To wanting what we’ve got

The post You CAN always want what you get appeared first on Workability Inc..

The other day we heard a friend describe what he termed a “reality tunnel.”  We had never heard the phrase before.  When we construct our own “reality tunnels,” we pick and choose the “facts” that make up the walls and ground and ceiling of that tunnel.  Once we are in the tunnel, nothing gets in or out other than things that confirm that particular  belief.  You know where we are going with this…it’s not good.  

Over the past few years, as we have learned about algorithms on social media, we have all become more cautious of this.  And, it is still really rare to find someone who acknowledges that they are already in a reality tunnel.  It is often discussed as something to ward against, not something to find your way out of.  We think it's the other people who are in them.

Our contribution to this issue is to say that this is not a new phenomenon of the social media era.  Reality tunnels have always been constructed.  Our parents, our upbringing, our friends and family, who we go to school with, etc. these all assist in the creation of our reality tunnels.  

Being aware of our reality tunnels helps dissolve the borders of them.  If, rather than taking your thoughts, feelings, and attitudes for granted, you thought, “I wonder how I would feel about this if I had been born elsewhere or had different parents, or at a different time,” you would be more equipped to see outside the tunnel.  

To knowing when you are in a tunnel

The post Reality Tunnel appeared first on Workability Inc..

Our expectations are a type of habit.  For example, every morning when you start your morning routine, you probably expect your faucet to run.  It is a habit that is ingrained in your mind, when you turn the handle, water comes out.  These expectations streamline our life, we can swiftly move through our morning because we can predict the running water will be there to aid us through our routine.  We don’t need to wake up early just in case we might need to fetch water from the river.  All that is very good and few of us would ever consider trading it.  Let’s also look at the downside.  The downside is diminished appreciation in those everyday moments when water comes out of the tap.  Our expectation, our habit of knowing water will be readily available can create a disconnect from our gratitude for it.  

If we want to experience life as a young child would, we would need very few expectations, perhaps none.  The wonder we so admire in them comes from a lack of habits, a lack of expectations.  They are experiencing life’s events for the first time and they pause and are amazed. 

Now, we are not recommending we all start walking around like ga-ga eyed babies gasping at each thing as we make our commute to work, but rather reminding ourselves that our expectations are ripping us off from moments of pure joy, happiness, and wonder.  What if every single day we could feel a tenth of the appreciation that we feel when lost electricity gets restored? 

To noticing our expectations

The post Expectations can be habits appeared first on Workability Inc..

What’s really happening when we “take something for granted”?  We stop noticing a person, a thing, an event or a situation.  We stop being in the moment and experiencing all that it has to offer.  Usually, we experience less of the intense emotion that it first elicited.  In some ways, that’s a good thing.  We wouldn’t want to experience the extreme high spike of emotion we feel on our wedding day, or birth of a child every day. What went up sooner or later, will come down.  It’s lovely to have peaceful non-peak moments with our loved ones. 

Continued exposure to something is the most common reason we first start doing what we call taking it for granted.  When you are crossing the street in a foreign city, you are likely to be acutely present and aware of everything that is going on.  You are not likely to be daydreaming or distracted thinking about what you have to do late in the day.  Back home, you can be balancing grocery bags, or walking the dog as you cross the street without paying much attention and you’re probably just fine.  If we translate that over to relationships, it is easy to see what often happens.  The people that we spend all of our time with are often the ones who get less of our undivided attention.  We basically know their routines and can predict what they think and feel about most things so we think that we don’t have to be fully attentive.  But, of course that is not true and the costs are huge.  

The attention we give to others is not only important because we learn new things but also because we are giving our attention to them.  Our attention, care, concern, and interest in the other is valuable to ourselves as well to the other. We risk losing this special bond and valuable and precious moments when we take it for granted that we already know what they are going to say.   

It’s useful to think of taking things for granted as not being present in the moment.  Our presence and attention is good for us and those around us.  

To being present!

The post Are you taking it for granted? appeared first on Workability Inc..

Have you ever had or do you currently have poor posture?  Have you ever had to rehab from an injury that made you need to change your normal posture or walking gait or something similar to that?  We’re hoping a good number of you have your hands raised, because this metaphor depends on it! 

Good posture actually feels wrong when you are habituated to bad posture.  If you physically adjust someone with a crooked posture to stand straight and balanced, they can almost fall over because it feels SO WRONG!  Their bodies and minds have gotten so used to the unaligned posture that it feels straight to them.  

This is an apt metaphor for the work we do.  Oftentimes when you are working on rediscovering your authentic voice, it can feel jarring or unnatural.  This is why it is so important to have a safe and free space to explore and try things on without consequences.  Our work provides that safe “playground” or “fitting room” to try on our ideas.  It’s a room, a space for our clients to explore themselves.  

Sometimes something feels wrong because it is wrong and other times it feels wrong because you are so used to doing, saying, feeling something else.  It is this latter category that really interests us.  There is a lot of undiscovered and beautiful “stuff” in those feelings, thoughts, and actions. 

To trying things on

The post Fix your posture appeared first on Workability Inc..

It’s pretty common these days for people to talk about sitting with a feeling or allowing “negative” thoughts without resisting them.  It is in the zeitgeist, whereas just 10-15 years ago you hardly ever heard it. 

It’s great that it is more common to hear the wisdom of “let it be” more universally spoken.  But, at times, things that are widespread also get diluted.  We think this might be one of them.  Letting things be is very different than just ignoring them.  It is our hunch that sometimes folks are using the wisdom of “allowing” and “letting be” as a way to avoid truly dealing with a challenging emotion or situation.

How can you tell the difference?  Letting things be does not mean that we start feeling good.  In fact, sitting with those challenging emotions sometimes can be quite unnerving.  However, when we let the feeling be, peace is the usual result.  One way to tell if you are suppressing something versus letting it be is how disturbed you become when you are reminded of it.  If you've been trying to keep it out of your consciousness (suppressing) then most likely being reminded of it will feel quite agitating.  On the other hand when we are letting something be, it can remain in our consciousness and we get more and more comfortable with the feelings it evokes.

It can be quite challenging to experience something uncomfortable and not think you should be doing something to change it or stop it entirely.  When we face something difficult, we quickly look for relief.  Which is why, letting it be, is such a challenge.  

Letting it be does not mean not doing something about it, it means not distracting yourself from the experience and feelings you are having.  It also means not picking at it, like a scab.  It means what it says it means…letting it just be, without doing anything to it.

Pay attention to yourself.  Can you start distinguishing the experience of letting something be versus suppressing how you feel?  The downstream effects are profound if you can start practicing letting things be more consistently.  

To letting it be,

The post Let it be or suppress it? appeared first on Workability Inc..

There are a lot of things that are simple but not easy.  The instructions can be simple, for example, eat less processed foods. It’s perhaps simple and probably not easy.  Place your attention on your breath. Again, simple, and probably not so easy.  Many of the best pieces of wisdom are simple; which is different from being easy.  

We bring this up because sometimes we get easily discouraged when we confuse simple for easy.  When you set off on a simple path but find you can’t do it, you might think some self- deprecating thoughts.  You might get discouraged.  You might become embarrassed to ask for help.  

All of these things get in the way of heading down a productive path.  It is helpful to remind yourself at these times that the endeavor might be simple, but is not easy.  Simple is not a synonym for easy.  Climbing a mountain is simple; it’s the same thing over and over, one foot in front of the next, but it is never easy.  In fact, it can be quite rewarding because it is not easy.  Some of the most satisfying experiences we have are succeeding at the simple tasks of life.  A lot of that is because they are not easy!

To simplicity, even when it’s not easy

The post Simple is different than easy appeared first on Workability Inc..

Artists who are looking to recreate life-like images of either landscapes, people or any kind of object that we see in reality, have to constantly battle with what is known as the “object mind”  The “object mind” is the concept that each of us has an image of what something looks like in our mind.  For example, if right now I told you to draw a mug, you would draw something that your mind has created as an image or concept of a mug.  The mug, assuming you are not trained in overriding the object mind, would probably look somewhat cartoonish.  It would likely not have the characteristics that we all know to be a real mug.  

However, if I showed you a mug and told you, draw this mug, you would probably  begin to notice a lot of details and new things about the mug.  You would notice how the handle relates and connects to the body of the mug, you would see shadows on the mug, you would see dimensionality of the mug and how it isn’t just floating in space.  

For artists, the object mind is a very real obstacle.  They must train themselves to see past their idea of what something looks like to see what it actually looks like.  The reason this is relevant for us is because there is a similarity to how we listen.  Sometimes, we listen to what we think is being said, instead of listening to hear what is actually being said.  

Our active listening can sometimes click off when we think we know where someone is going with an idea that they are sharing.  As Scooby-Doo would say, “ruh-roh.”  There is not much more we need to say here; the problem becomes quite evident.  

So, what is the solution?  As artists have learned to do, we need to constantly demand of ourselves to listen to what is in front of us, not what our minds are telling us should be in front of us.  This is not a task that you can check off a to-do list, but something that you have to attend to and work on daily and in the moment.  There is no shortcut, but like great artists, you can get better and better at it as you continue to practice.

To listening

The post What does it take to listen? appeared first on Workability Inc..