Back in the 90’s we were introduced to a metaphor circling in the business world that likened micromanaging your employees to getting your tie stuck in the gears of a machine.  Basically if you get too close to the problem, you end up completely enmeshed in it and essentially go down with the sinking ship rather than captaining it to safety.  

It’s a good metaphor for business and for life.  The hardest time to listen to this wisdom is when we care the most.  The more we are invested, the more we care for the people involved the closer our dangling tie gets to the whirring machinery and it only takes a second to get sucked in.  

Another nuance to this dynamic is that it is often hard to notice when you have gotten irreparably stuck in a problem.  And instead of wisely thinking “I need to cut this tie NOW” you begin negotiating with yourself about how you can still keep the tie, and maybe it’s not so bad…meanwhile your head inches closer and closer to the machine.  You need to know when the tie needs cutting!  No tie is worth your head.

So what does it take to prevent this from happening?  First, be aware that over participation/helping has pitfalls.  Second, once you are aware you are in a risky situation, slow down, don’t jump to act or give advice.  When you slow down you give yourself time to have a response instead of a reaction.  These precious moments can be the difference between losing your neck in the machine and being able to find the off switch.

To wearing a tie clip

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There’s a phenomenon in the investment world called anchor bias.  Basically, it means that an investor holds onto a stock because they initially thought it would perform very well and when it starts to go down they don’t want to admit they were wrong and so they continue hanging on to it.  The losses then compound turning a small loss into a huge loss.  Investors have not stumbled upon a new psychological wonder of the human mind, many of us have an anchor bias.   Basically, we don’t want to face the truth and accept an uncomfortable moment, admit we were wrong, think we are stupid, or feel ashamed, even though it would likely prevent a bigger calamity down the road.

This is dangerous!  It may seem obvious, but we all need to be reminded of this because we are all at risk of making this foolish deal.  This conversation came up over a dinner we were having recently with an investor friend of ours.  He was sharing that because of all his time spent investing (well) he had become better at avoiding the anchor bias.  He said he’s gotten good at forcing himself to listen to opposing views and changing his mind.   These are such important skills to cultivate! 

Surely there is another term that gamblers use to describe players who continue upping the ante on a bad hand because they can’t bear losing the money they have already invested or losing face by folding.  There are probably countless names and terms for this phenomenon, which should further cue us into the need to safeguard against it damaging our lives.

Can you identify anything in your life that you have been throwing good energy after bad?  Do you know in the back (or front!) of your mind that certain endeavors, projects, people, situations need to pivot or end?  It is not easy to face these things, but it is easier to face now then when there is more damage and loss.  A follow up question is what ways have you come up with to keep your mind flexible, open to new ideas, and eager to see your own errors.

These are the kinds of discussions and questions you can expect when you work with us.  We can help you sift through these challenging questions.  It’s not easy to do alone.  

To staying flexible!

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Let’s talk about the relationship between compliance and responsibility.  We often hide behind compliance to avoid responsibility.  "She told me to do it!"  "We were only following the rules!"  At times we may seek the seeming safety of compliance, but we also often rebel against it.  The safety being that the buck stops somewhere else, not with you, and the rebellion sounds like, "don’t tell me what to do."  

So how do you get out of this paradigm?  Try on responsibility.  Many people think responsibility and blame are synonymous.  How we define responsibility is "the ability to respond," which usually means we realize that we have a choice. When we own our ability to take action or not take action, we experience more freedom and power.  We stop feeling the need to hide behind someone else's decision or rule, but rather take responsibility for either signing on and agreeing to follow that rule, or finding another productive and satisfying way forward.  Responsibility connects us with our own voice while oftentimes compliance is motivated out of fear and has us lose our voice.  

So yes, with responsibility the buck will always stop with you, but it will also be because you completely own your life and your decisions.  That’s a pretty good trade off.

To choosing

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Have you ever tried to address an issue with your posture or perhaps how to perform an exercise, like a squat, using the proper form?  When you take your time, you can get yourself into the right position.  You can focus your attention and do the exercise very slowly and correctly, but it all starts to go a bit wonky when you start doing many reps and increase your speed.  Our mind thinks, "I’ve got this" after just a quick instruction session, but our bodies are not quite up to speed.  The pattern that we are trying to correct has been habituated, oftentimes, for years and years.  

One of the things our clients tell us is that they feel frustrated when endeavoring to change an unworkable pattern because out in the real world they struggle to apply what they have realized in their session with us.  The problem is the same as with the squat.  Our minds think, "oh, ok, I understand why I did that and now I know it doesn’t work, I won’t ever do that again."  But when we are met with the same stimulus, we often repeat the old pattern.  What just happened? 

Well, in essence, we’ve created a sort of rut in the ground for ourselves and everytime we meet that point of road, we slip down into it.  But with time and proper attention, you can fill back in that rut with fresh dirt so that you can walk right on top of it.  But that takes time and courage because oftentimes those ruts are filled with emotions and fear. 

What is often most helpful is a change of expectation so that you are able to put in the time and effort without feeling discouraged every time you slip.  You don’t need to never fall into that rut again.  That is too high an expectation.  It’s like doing the squat without ever having your knee be slightly misaligned.  It’s going to happen.  And when it does, you notice it and the next rep is a bit better. 

Changing an unworkable pattern takes awareness, attention, courage, and time.  And if you create the proper expectations around that, you can do that work in a satisfying and effective way. 

To awareness, attention, courage, and time

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We’ve been working on this newsletter for several months now.  Dropping it and then picking it back up again.  There is a really good idea in it, but we haven't quite been able to capture it in a simple email.  Which maybe is the perfect example of a the mythological Greek curse.  We have a piece of wisdom, something we think will help you, and we have been all tangled up in finding a useful way to express it.  

This is what we call a Greek curse (yes, we know the internet disagrees with this definition).  A Greek curse is when you are given a seeming advantage that ends up backfiring on you and becoming a greater liability than asset.  If you know the story of Cassandra, you understand our notion of a Greek curse.  Apollo gave her the ability to speak true prophecies, but when she rebuffed him he made it so that no one would ever believe her.  Can you imagine the frustration!?

So, in this case, our advantage is that we have your attention.  You opened this email amidst the hundreds that you get.  The curse is that we cannot express the simplicity of the idea we want to share in this format without risking overcomplicating it.

We believe that we all walk around with one or more of our own Greek curses.  What do you think?  Can you identify any of yours?  Much of our work is helping our clients identify where they are getting in their own way and where they are their own worst-enemy.  This is akin to the idea of the Greek curse.  Because oftentimes your greatest asset is the thing that causes the greatest challenge.  But, unlike in Greek mythology, we aren’t stuck.  With awareness and practice, we can change and stop repeating the same patterns.  Schedule a 20-minute exploratory session with us to see if together we can identify some areas where you might be making your life more challenging than it needs to be.

Well I think we finally cracked it!  When we started, we didn’t know we would get here by the end.

To undoing our Greek curses!

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A prolonged period of indecision can have a terribly draining effect on us.  We’re sure you’ve experienced being on the fence about something and feeling a great relief when you finally make your decision. It is frequent to even hear people say, "I’m just so happy to have finally decided!"  The emphasis is on being out of the indecision, NOT what was decided!  Don’t you find that curious?   

Have you ever wondered why it is so depleting to be on the fence?  To be neither here nor there?  Well, one reason is that it prevents us from bringing our whole self to our endeavor.  We put ourselves in a holding pattern, essentially living out in our minds the pros and cons of both options.  Let’s say you are undecided about moving.  In this case you are neither packing nor improving your current home.  When you don’t know which choice is "best," you are rightly hesitant to invest yourself into it.  And here lies the problem.  

Contrary to what seems logical, what exhausts us the most is when we are holding back.  Think of the last time you were fully "in" on a project or endeavor.  Do you remember being surprised by your increased energy level?  When we are sure of our direction and give ourselves fully to that direction, we can go further than we imagined possible.   

Although indecision is a dangerous place for us to live long-term, there are situations in life that require deliberation.  One thing that can be helpful when you are in a period of indecision about your next step is to make many decisions inside the larger decision.  For example, decide to "not decide" for the next 2 hours.  Or, decide that you need to speak with a particular person before committing.  There are thousands of these "little" decisions that can be helpful in protecting your energy whilst you are undecided about the larger issue.  If we only focus on the big decision "do it" or "don't do it," that is when we really start to feel drained.  

To the power of being fully invested!

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We’ve all heard, you can’t proofread your own work.  This month we have talked a lot about the distinction between consciousness and thinking (read more here and here).  We can’t reliably proofread  our own work because we are using our THINKING to do the proofing.  We see what we want to see.  We unconsciously insert the missing word.  Our thinking is notoriously unreliable because it is easily swayed by emotions, ego, what others think, and our histories.  

However, we can’t escape the fact that we are always the final editor in our life.  We always make the last decision.  We always have the last word. So we NEED to be able to know when we are deciding from our thinking or our consciousness.  If we used our consciousness to edit our work, we would do just fine.  And in fact, it is only when you decide from your consciousness that you will own your decisions and live the life that you intend.  

It is wonderful to have trusted allies around you to proofread your work…but what they really need to be helping you with is accessing YOUR consciousness.  It would be great if you could delegate all of your stressful decisions to a trusted ally, but it will be much more fruitful to strengthen your ability to be your own trusted ally.  The strengthening can come in the form of good, supportive relationships, but alas, the choices still need to come from you.  The ultimate goal is to have your thinking and your consciousness be the same…then you will really have hit your stride.

To proofreading our lives with our consciousness

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This is a continuation of our responses to the "Hit Reply" newsletter.  A number of you asked us for more newsletters about responsibility.   This thrilled us because it is one of the essential tenets of our work and we believe it is the key ingredient to living a fulfilling, joyful, and purposeful life.

It is also one of the hardest things to write about because we need to battle the conventional wisdom that says too much responsibility is a bad thing.

Increasing your sense of responsibility might seem like an added burden, but it is actually the path to more freedom.  If that seems magical and mystical, good.

So, how do you increase your sense of responsibility.  Pencils out! 

• Pay attention
• Listen
• Slow down
• Ask yourself questions (e.g.  How is my perspective coloring my response to this result?)
• Take ownership of your internal world (no one made you feel anything)
• End the blame-game towards yourself and others
• Stay forever curious (the antidote to self-righteousness)

Take these initial steps and see how your experience of life changes.

More to come!  Responsibility is like good baklava.  Many layers and the flavor is complex.  You won’t do it justice if you swallow it in one bite.

To ever increasing your experience of responsibility!

The post Why experiencing more responsibility is a good thing! appeared first on Workability Inc..

Let’s take a whack at what is meant when folks in the field of well-being talk about you being responsible for your experience.  A lot of it is seriously eye-roll worthy.  A lot of the folks peddling it, don't really understand the foundation.

The foundation is awareness and consciousness.

Without awareness and consciousness, forget about the idea of being responsible for your experience.  It’s essentially gibberish.  If you are not aware, you are reacting, not responding.  

When in a reaction state-of-mind, this thing made you happy, that thing made you sad, this thing made you angry, so you went and ate something, and now you feel relieved soon to be followed by feeling guilty.  Just one reaction after the next.  Reactions (as opposed to responses) come from a lack of consciousness.  The more aware you are (think slowing down) the more responsive (responsible) you realize you can be.

The challenge is to get sufficiently conscious and aware so that you actually experience having made a choice.  Don’t try to brainwash yourself into thinking that you are responsible (this is where blame tends to get confused with responsibility).  The only path to experiencing more responsibility comes from increasing your consciousness and awareness.  

Simply telling someone, or yourself, "it’s your choice to be angry" is a bit silly without talking about the foundation.  If you are stuck in a mode of reacting to the world, the idea of choice is nowhere on the board.  Reactions are not choices - They are habituated, cyclic behaviors.  Have you ever wondered, how do I keep ending up in the same situation, having the same experience, or in the same relationship challenge again and again?  

Most often it is because of reactions sourced by unconscious (and sometimes conscious) beliefs.  These beliefs could be from your early childhood.  If you apply awareness and consciousness, slowly, gradually, you will start to see that some of your behaviors are reactions not responses.  It is from this perspective that the idea of being responsible for your experience starts to become a reality.  

To understanding the foundation!

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Can you think back to a time when you were really annoyed?  Pull it up and keep it in your mind.  How did that affect your patience and your kindness towards others?  Did you have more patience or less patience?  Were you kinder or less kind?  I’m guessing most of you circled less kind and less patient.  

We all know our mood affects how we interact with the world.  You’ve probably said (or at least heard), "sorry, it’s not you, I’m just in a terrible mood."  Right?  Your internal state is influencing the response you have to the environment.

So, who is in control of your internal state?

The slow check-out person, the driver blocking traffic, the weather, the news??

Uh-oh.  

We like to blame it on the situation.  But when we look at it in the cold light of day, we don’t feel so confident blaming the poor check-out person for our terrible mood.  This is even more challenging to do with the people nearest and dearest to us.  If they would just not talk that way, then you wouldn’t react that way.  If they changed, everything would be fine.  Right??  Wrong.  Most of us know that.

There’s one person who controls your inner state.  YOU.  You might not know where the control knobs are.  You might have spilled coffee over the user manual.  But, truth be told, you know that your inner state is controlled by YOU.

You bring your emotional state with you into every moment.  When you’re stressed, everything and everyone is bothering you.  When you're joyful, everything and everyone is a gift.  You can argue with us that we are oversimplifying this.  And yes, we would agree this short letter does not give us the space to address some of the nuances here (brain chemistry, history, trauma, etc).  But you don’t need nuance to GET the point.

To You!

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