A New Set of Eyes
Sometimes we all need a thinking partner, “You give me a new set of eyes. You call me on my crap, cry with me, share my joy, celebrate me within my triumphs and help me see what is often right in front of my eyes and heart that I am not yet able to see.”
One of my coaching clients sent me this in a long beautiful card. I feel honored to walk beside her through what has been a very difficult year, personally and professionally.
As we talk each week, she sheds her pervasive feelings of guilt, shame and frustration and begins to see the new possibilities, access her real potentials, and feel her natural joy. We laugh a lot. Her feminine wisdom comes back into focus. She feels motivated again! It’s amazing. She remembers just how competent she really is and all the ways her wise leadership is needed and invited in the world. Then she’s back on track and able to take action in ways that are important to her in her work and life.
Consider reaching out this week. Find someone who can give you a new set of eyes.
Success without Guilt: 4 steps to Standing Tall
Guilt-tripping plays a movie in our brains and bodies over and over again of wrong doing. Are you willing to take that DVD out of the player and insert a new movie that gives you images of all the ways you are talented, blameless, well-intentioned and good?
It’s a virtuous cycle. The more you think about and appreciate what is good, right, beautiful in your life and work, the more you’ll ensure those kind of moments happen again and again. Once you start thinking this way – you’ll engage and inspire your creativity and increase your feelings of satisfaction day by day. You’ll be amazed how easily you become a wise leader at home and work.
Old repetitive cycles of guilt take you DOWN! See last Monday’s blog to read about a study in Spain on women and guilt. You can work hard in therapy to discover where your guilt comes from – but that might not make a change. The other option is to build a new and stronger way of thinking. It’s like building a new muscle – takes some time but sure feels good when you accomplish something more than ever before!
When you feel stuck on the merry-go-round of guilt – try these 4 steps:
1. Notice “I feel guilty (again!). Name the guilt – write it down. “I feel guilty that I didn’t respond to that critical email immediately.”
2.Rate how guilty you feel on a scale of 1-5. (with 5 being off the chart, ready to take a dive into the morass of confusion, big-time guilt and 1 being a little guilt).
3. Ask yourself: What can I do right now to bring myself back in integrity with this situation?
4. Take that action or schedule it sometime soon.
Let your guilt slide away and feel your excitement and satisfaction at taking action on something that matters to you! Then, you flourish as a wise leader and begin to thrive in your life.
Does guilt ever run you over like a big semi-truck? What do you do to stand tall again? I’d love to know.
Guilt is More Expensive than Armani
The amount of time women spend feeling guilty can be measured in hours, not seconds. Their guilt distracts them from both kids and work.
In the time it takes to go down the sinkhole of guilt, a beautiful moment with the kids can disappear. In the time it takes to worry whether you prepared enough, a sales opportunity at work goes to someone else. It’s like putting one foot on the gas and one on the brake and trying to drive.
And, guilt seems to be a woman’s disease. It’s certainly a source of dis-ease! We take guilt to a whole new level when we feel bad that we aren’t super moms, successful career professionals, community leaders and gorgeous wives with buff bodies – all at once!
Instead of noticing and celebrating what we do that is good we criticize ourselves for what we did not do. Instead of valuing the choices we’ve made – we beat ourselves up for what we left out of our days.
It’s the 80/20 rule. When you put 80% of your attention on negative thoughts you decrease effectiveness and joy! When you put 80% of your attention in appreciative thoughts you feel happy and capable.
Here’s a tip for shifting the balance:
Tip #1: Answer the question: How were you wise this week? Look for and and trust that you are a wisewoman. Make a list of the small and large ways you bountifully give to your kids as well as how smart and strategic you are in business.
It’s likely that you make good and wise choices in work and home. But guilt can stop you from tapping into your Wise Self and asking the kind of smart questions that get you going again. If you worry about not enough time on your business – sit down and assess your break even point. Get objective information to make a choice that you can live with.
If you are consumed with guilt about the amount you travel right now for work and the effect on the kids, figure out what is in integrity for you. Once you know that – find ways to get more support both at home (someone to do your laundry?) and at work (someone to do the grunt work preparing for the quarterly report?).
As women we don’t ask for support nearly enough. I recommend asking, it’s not as costly as guilt.
Guilt is more expensive than Armani! Everyday I hear stories. Whether coaching a senior executive or an investment advisor, women tell me about how guilt scatters their focus, undermines their choices, confuses their priorities and decreases their sense of enjoyment in everything.
Guilt puts on blinders that keep us from seeing the pleasure in our lives. Guilt messes with timing too – it can keep us from responding to hi-leverage opportunities in a timely way.
It’s hard to admit, but guilt can keep us from being the wise leader we are ready to be and the world needs us!
Let’s share how we overcome guilt. Let’s give it up so we feel happy in ourselves naturally “go for it!” like we did as kids.
How does your guilt cost you? What do you do to step aside from guilt so your natural enthusiasm returns? I’d love to know.
Success without Guilt!
Last month a coaching client called me in guilty tears. Caught between being a good enough mom and giving enough to the business she hit “tilt.”
No wonder! Her small business recently exploded with all kinds of new opportunities and the kids are out of school for the summer. While excited about her potential success she felt guilty that she was messing up her kid’s lives.
Through her tears she spoke, “Am I giving enough to my kids? Will I ruin their lives by working so hard on my business?”
Frantically, her thoughts flipped to work, “Am I giving enough to work? Will I lose this new fantastic opportunity because I can’t give 100% of my time?”
I said, “It’s ok. You are not alone. Many businesswomen/moms feel this kind of conflict.” In fact, studies show that women feel equally guilty at home and at work.
A group of researchers in Spain queried 360 men and women from three different age groups, asking questions designed to measure level of guilt in certain situations, such as “You have forgotten that today is one of your friends’ or relations’ birthday and you know that this type of thing is very important to him/her and that he/she likes people to remember.”
What the research team found is that women in all three age groups (adolescent, 25-33, and 40-50) experienced significantly higher feelings of habitual guilt than men, with the 40-50 year-old women experiencing the most.
After coaching hundreds of businesswomen to develop their leadership and increase their success at work and fulfillment at home, I’m convinced that guilt sits on or near the top rung of our Big Time Ugly Limiters to success. Can you relate?
Here’s one tip you can use to wake up your wise self and lessen the poisonous effects of guilt:
Tip #1: Change your habits: turn your attention from guilt to appreciation. Guilt is a habit of mind. When you obsess in remorse or over emphasize guilt you give it disproportionate weight and power. It’s easy to hear a woman say 8 guilty comments to 2 positive comments. Just listen to yourself or other women around you!
When guilt takes up 80% of your thinking and feeling, it diminishes the remaining 20% of your joy. Guilt is a success-stopper! It takes you off track and detracts from your effectiveness. It stifles your wise inner knowing and shrinks your personal power.
Instead, try this! Recognize those moments that you genuinely appreciate, when you acted in integrity both at home and at work. Perhaps it’s three seconds of grace when your smile lit up a client’s troubled face. Or maybe it’s a hug you extended to a tearful child or a smart half hour when you completed this quarter’s income and expense. Appreciation expands your feminine wisdom and you’ll be surprised how much smarter you start to feel.
Here’s the assignment I give for coaching “homework:” Come to the next session ready to:
- Describe 5 times when you recently gave the kids/your family/friends exactly what they needed. (a warm bowl of soup after a chilly day at the pool, a long hug after a scraped knee, an afternoon when you hung out and played on the playground, or sat on the grass and told stories back and forth)
- Describe 5 times when you felt competent and effective at work. (handling a crisis, presenting a new product, dealing with a difficult employee, coming up with a creative slogan for a new offer)
We do this week after week. My clients begin to return with a different perception! They start to value their lives and affirm their judgments about where to invest their time, energy, and talents. Remembering, repeating, and speaking positive moments out loud begins to change how they organize their time for the next week.
How about you? What percentage of your thoughts and comments circle around guilt? What percentage are appreciative? I’d love to know what you discover.
I’ll return to this topic with more strategies later this week. Make your list of “the good” in your work and life every day this week. See if you can start to recognize and appreciate positive moments at work and home so that they become 80% of your habitual thoughts.
Stretching the Limits of my Old Self Image
Like each of you, I want to go for it, stretch outside the limits of my old self image. Jump past my preconceived notions about what I can and can’t do. When I forget my feminine wisdom is right there inside me and guiding me into change I feel tethered in the past. I shrink and feel too small to grow into a new me.
Cramped in my old self image sometimes I feel like I want to explode. Too often suppression leads to anger. This building pressure comes out in strident directives to my team at work or crabby reactions to an unexpected change.
When I shove my inner wisdom down my confidence wobbles and my head swims in confusion. My leadership suffers. Anyone else ever feel this way?
What does your inner wisdom most want in order to flourish?
Savvy Leadership Strategies for Women is available!
Top experts share how to take the lead and achieve the kind of effectiveness and results you most want in your work and life. Fay Freed and I were selected to be in this exciting book with our chapter Women Leading Change.
You’ll enjoy dipping into this rich collection. Buy your copy today!
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Awaken the Leader in You: How to Clarify, Communicate and Bring Your Vision to Life By Carla Wellington
The Secret to Savvy Leadership: Developing a Strong Inner Core By Kim Zilliox
The Leadership Mindset: Transform Your Life from the Inside Out By Jane Morrison
Authentic Leadership and Self-Awareness: Making the Connection—Leadership Lessons I Learned from Mom and Dad By Terry Barton
Leadership Is a Growth Process By LaNell Silverstein
Reinvention with Intention: By Karen Baez
Leadership Requires Vitality By Carolyn Phillips, ACE
Using Intuition and Insight to Become a Better Leader By Marci Nemhauser, PsyD, PCC
Success Appeal: Show Up as the Leader You Are By Karen Solomon
The Savvy Woman’s Guide to a Polished Image By Laura Rubeli
Playing Win-Win: How Women Can Pave the Way for More Collaborative Leadership By Elizabeth Agnew, MS, ACC
Maximizing Your Everyday Moments of Truth : Savvy Strategies for Verbal Communication By Ann Kelley
Influence—How to Create It, How to Keep It By Caterina Rando, MA, MCC
Media Training—Pay Now or Pay Later What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You! By Malena Cunningham
Women Leading Change By Karen Wilhelm Buckley with Fay Freed
Lead Change and Empower Success By Jan McDonough
Leadership Is in the Palm of Your Hand By Carole Sacino
Becoming an International Leader By Lindsay Shields
Everyday Leadership: Lead . . . Wherever You Are By Christina Dyer, MS, LCPC
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The Promise of Life
“One of the most beautiful things that we love about our children is their ability to simply be who they are, come at you with all they have and put their little hearts and souls into everything they attempt to do without any expectations one way or another.” SOAR! blog
Charisse Rhodes is a wise woman from Sacramento California. She homeschools her children, creates art with her photographs and leads change in her community. Charisse is a 2011 recipient of the SOAR! Scholarship program developed by Me Ra Koh.
I love this! What if we woke each morning with a fresh zest for life? This kind of passion would propel us out of bed!
Who might you be? What would you most want to do?
I’d love to know.
Karen
Why Feminine Wisdom Matters
To me it matters right now that each and every one of us trust and use our wise feminine approaches in our leadership. Why? Given the current decline of our economy and all major life systems around the world, it sure doesn’t seem like business as usual is the way through.
Yet, there is indeed good news. Daily I speak with women around the world. As they embrace their familiar, yet sometimes less known, feminine ways, they jump into more influential ways of doing what is theirs to do. It’s so exciting! They begin to speak candidly and directly because so much depends on it. They figure out new ways to make more of a difference in their family, community or business.
What is feminine wisdom? In true women’s style – it’s not a definition we need. It’s a personal thing! We all know our own feminine wisdom – that essential place inside where we really trust ourselves.
Or we know other women who we consider feminine and wise. Try it! Think of a woman who you consider especially wise. Perhaps someone from the past or someone you know today. How would you describe her?
I remember my grandmother Fern. She was a compassionate, articulate woman who lived her feminine wisdom each and every day. The first to drive a car in Burien, WA.. A writer in the local newspaper. An organizer when the community had a need. In addition, she cared for an invalid sister with grace, put up a mammoth garden of produce and orchard of apple trees. Taught me to bake applesauce bread and looked me in the eye more than once with such direct love and trust that I became more myself because of her.
Who do you know who is a wise woman? How would you describe her? How do you feel when you are with her? Experience teaches us more about feminine wisdom than any well researched definition.If you can’t feel your own inner strength, ask another wife to be a mirror and reflect your beauty back to you!
Cultivating Change Readiness
Finding stillness in the tumult, real connection in the swirl, depth in the fast pace – these matter!
Increasingly everything seems so unpredictable. Some days, do you find it’s tough to stay steady through all the changes that come your way? That’s what I hear.
As the rate of change increases, we all need to get smarter and wiser about how to lead change. (BTW: click here and download 3 keys to developing change readiness.)
Most transitions include the mess, reordering, dismantling, reorganizing and hidden surprises that sometimes throw everything to the wind. Design this into your change plan for more resilience through the ups and downs whether you are responding to change at home or in the office.
With the following 7 questions you can guide the kind of good conversations that take a team through the chaos of questioning and help them let go of the way things used to be. These questions also surface the tender hopes and bold aspirations that move everyone toward a new future.
- What is working that we’ll build on in making any change?What’s the new that we are looking for? What problem do we want to solve?
- What do we most hope to change?
- What do we want to not change? What do we want to remain steady?
- What concerns us? What do we fear might happen if we make this change?
- What do we most want (in our heart of hearts) to come out of this change?
- What’s the best that could happen? What’s the worst? What’s most likely to happen if we make this change?
- Who else needs to be included in this conversation?
I’ve used these hundreds of times over the years in consulting with teams and leaders ready to make a change. Simple but powerful, they can take a person or a system from reluctance to commitment.
What additional questions do you use to cultivate readiness for change? I’d love to know.
Karen
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The latest Wise Leadership through Change report is all about Cultivating Readiness. Download it by clicking here.
Run the World (Girls)
Beyonce’s performance is full out, no holds barred, ecstasy. Watch her smile at the end of the performance. This is a woman who is happy with her life and work, inspired and inspiring others to be more. This is a wise woman leading change.
And, she’s 29 years old with 15 years wowing the crowds with wildly wonderful feminine wisdom!
I’m touched by Michele Obama, Barbara Streisand, Bono, Stevie Wonder and Beyonce’s mom, Tina Knowles, celebrating her as a role model inspiring others to be more.
“A lot of people will live because she fulfilled her destiny.” Bono
Wishing you wildly wonderfully wisdom today!
Karen
Karen Wilhelm Buckley 