HSOL 209: DO YOU TRY OR DO YOU DO?

Published: Wed, 04/20/22

Edition 209: DO YOU TRY OR DO YOU DO?

APRIL 2022

1,979 words of content, including the “secrets” to powerful goals and tips to build resilience in your head, heart, and body. Approximate content reading time: 7.92 minutes. I know it’s long, but it’s important. Read it or unsubscribe, your choice. Isn’t your Happiness worth it?

This newsletter speaks to Leadership, Happiness, and Coaching in your life and work.

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I. LISTEN TO THE LANGUAGE OF YOUR GOALS

A side by side picture of Jim today and Jim in his twenties wearing a suit and smiling.

Twins separated at birth. Great Shoes!

When I was 28 years old, I was a wreck – overweight, out of shape, borderline high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and near-zero capacity for handling stress – and heart issues.

Shortly after being released from the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit where I was monitored and prodded to learn the reason for my heart attack, I wrote some new goals for my pathetic self.

One of them was aspirational, assuming I would live a long life (which was highly in doubt at that time). My doctor told me my waistline was heading in the wrong direction (bigger!) and that inspired me to write:

“I wear the same size suit at age 66 as I wore at age 22.”

In my mind, that was my peak physical age. I’d been a competitive swimmer in high school and university, so from when I was 18 till 22, I routinely swam 10-12 miles/day in double workouts.

I wrote many new intentions and goals at that time, but this was the only one that had an expiration date, a specific future birthday when I must declare success or failure.

In the above photo you see me in the first suit I ever owned, aged 18 and heading to my senior prom. Many suits later, you see the current version of me.

Same. Size. Suit. Success!

Mind you, I'm showing you the end point. There were ups and downs along the way as my commitment and attention wavered (+/- 23 pounds/ 10.5 kg).

What Made It Work?

I am powerfully aware of two factors that help me succeed: regular attention, and positive language.

My first success “secret” has been regular attention and monitoring. When I write a goal and let it sit in a folder for a year, guess what happens? Nothing happens. Nada.

I pay the most attention to what matters the most. My top four Core Values are Happiness, Love, Health, Creativity.

~To nurture Creativity, I read widely and often, travel to new places, experiment a lot, and regularly practice Yes, And… in my conversations -- every client learns this, eventually!

~To live the value of Love, I practiced by saying, “I love you” -- out loud, every day -- to my kids growing up. I still do that with Cheryl daily, my family when I can, and even with myself. Yes, Love is an emotion AND Love is a verb, it’s something to DO, every day.

~For Happiness, I regularly write down what I’m grateful for, I keep a Joy List, I journal something positive every day, and every time my Mindfulness Bell app chimes, I pause to sit/stand back and take a deep, deep breathe, so my mind/body/heart all know how to find calm and happy.

~Health. For nearly fifteen years I’ve tracked my daily activity time in four categories (cardio, weights, yoga, dancing) and every morning I weigh myself. Some consider me obsessive. I’m just leaning into how I work: major change is tough and tiny calibrations are way easier. If my weight pops up, I eat less or work out more for two days to rebalance. If I’m doing well, there’s room for extra chocolate. I’m just sayin’…

Listen to the Language of Your Goals

The second secret to my success is in the language. In my personal goals document, none of the following words appear: want, need, should, not, stop, try, or will. Instead, the document is filled with phrases like I am, I have, I feel, I make, and other action verbs.

When you say, “I want…” or “I need…” you are stating a Wish or Desire, not a goal. "I want to be a better communicator” feels noble, but so what? There’s nothing in that statement to move you forward. It’s no more powerful than saying, “I want to fly to Mars.”
When you say, “I should…” you name a standard to which you aspire, but that’s not a goal. “I should be a better listener.” How true. Shouldn’t we all?
When your goal statement includes Not or Stop, notice that what you really do is point your attention to the thing you seek to move away from, versus pointing to your goal. For example, “I will not eat cake!” What are you thinking about now? See my point?
When you say, “I will…” notice how you give yourself permission to put it off, e.g. “I will… sometime…. tomorrow… when I’m not busy or stressed or distracted.” Yeh, like that’s gonna happen!
The worst sort of self-deceiving goal starts with “I will try…” Yoda had the best comeback to that phrasing when he said, “No! Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no Try.” When you promise to ‘Try’ you assume failure and you sap your goal of its life force. If your goal is “I will try to save more money” and you get to year-end with zero in savings, you can always say, “Well, I tried!” ‘Try’ promises effort but not outcomes.

Give your Goals POWER!

When you declare a goal or intention, make it a statement -- as though it is already true. Follow the Three P’s in writing your goal:

Personal — write it in the first person, as an “I” statement, so when you say it out loud, you own it in your head, your heart, your body.
Positive — focus on what you DO want (versus what you’re wanting to stop or lose).
Present — use language that contains present-tense action verbs, as though the goal has already been attained

Then engage the fourth P: Practice. Imagine and enjoy the feeling of reaching your goal. Consciously engage in the action of the goal every day. Regularly review your intention, say it out loud, and notice how powerfully you feel the DISCONNECT when what you Say and what you Do are out of alignment.

Let that sense of disconnection drive you to behave according to your goal, versus behaving out of habit. NOTE: this is a slower process than a Makeover or a crash diet, but will in the end yield more permanent shifts in your patterns of thinking, feeling, acting, and leading.

To help your thinking, here are 9 examples from recent client conversations:

I listen fully to the other person when I am in a conversation.
I communicate—out loud—what I am thinking in meetings.
When an important decision must be made, I ask everyone on my team to share their thinking before we finalize.
I forgive myself. I forgive others.
I am what I eat. My body is a machine that I fuel properly so I can feel well and live fully.
I have at least three feedback conversations every day with someone on the team. I balance appreciative and growth.
I let go of the stuff I do not use.
I move my body every day.
Every day, I do something that makes me a little bit uncomfortable and stretches my limits.

Do This for Yourself

A) If you have no written goals/intentions, start with just one. Choose an area of your life or work where it will make a big impact if you show up differently. B) If you already have many goals (which are not working for you), revise them through the filter of the 3Ps.
Tweak the language until your goals read as Personal, Present, and Positive declarations.
Speak out loud your new goal declaration. Do it in front of a mirror or a witness. If it does not resonate within you, keep tweaking the language until it does.
Practice regularly—speak the declaration, take tiny actions every day, and make your intention part of what you do and who you are.

Following these guidelines is what helped me achieve a 38-year-old goal. That’s Powerful!

Remember, Leadership is not about a title: Anyone can be a leader who helps others create powerful, positive, personal, practical goals!

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II: Only Read This If You Want to Feel Better About Yourself

Do You Bounce?

My focus is helping you build awareness, strength, and resilience in the emotional domain. In that context, resilience is, “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.”

We often call that the ability or capacity to “bounce back” from adversity, however you define that.

The more physically focused meaning of resilience is, “the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.”

Last week (on my birthday, no less!) The Universe decided to test my capacity for the latter version. I did a Coach Walk with a colleague on a trail in our Cleveland Metroparks. We had a great conversation and a vigorous workout on a chilly spring morning. As we crossed the road returning to the parking area, a car appeared around a corner and we both hopped into a jog to move more quickly.

As we did so, my foot caught on the back of his heel. We both stumbled and I went down hard in the gravel on the side of the road, where I executed a perfect four-point landing: left hand, right hand, shoulder, and face. Ouch!

My favorite pair of Warby Parker glasses were destroyed, but not before saving my eye from harm, thankfully. (You can see my sad face here https://www.instagram.com/p/CcTUtlpJi8J/.)

I had bloody abrasions across my face, hands, knees, shoulder… and ego, I suppose. But no interior damage, and while I was shaken, with every passing second after the fall I felt more and more grateful that I was able to slam down that hard and still bounce back.

I remember learning from my work with elder care systems (aka nursing homes) that, while most people survive falls/falling down, the resulting broken bones or bruising often lead to strict bed rest for a time. Bed-ridden muscles atrophy, and many elders never recover the muscle strength or balance they had before, leading to a steep downward spiral in health and wellbeing.

You Can “Bounce” in All Domains

This leads to a Health and Wellness reminder this month: While you work on your Gratitude Journal and Joy List practices to nurture emotional resilience, give priority also to moving your body and balance and weight-bearing activities to keep your bones and muscles as strong as possible for as long as possible.

AND lest you sit smugly in your 30-40-or 50-something-year-old body thinking, “he’s not talking to me,” I want to assure you that I absolutely am!

Emotional, intellectual, and physical muscles all work the same way – Use It or Lose It.

Head: Working your brain (learning, reading, conversations, solving problems… even Wordle!) keeps your neurons popping and staves off all manner of brain afflictions
Heart: Practicing mindfulness, writing your joys and gratitudes, saying Thank You often, and deep breathing on purpose all strengthen your capacity to find light in the darkness and calm in the chaos of life.
Body: Keep it moving. Parking at the farthest point in the lot, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, squatting or sitting down on the floor to talk to kids or pets, or even pretending the curb is a balance beam you must negotiate on your way into the building are activities you can integrate into your daily chores to keep your body strong, flexible, and balanced.

What you do today, tomorrow, and next week will pay off down the road.

So, what’s next?

Now that I met my “same size suit” goal, what’s next? No worries. Last week a friend shared some “old people yoga” pictures, and I discovered Tao Porchon-Lynch, who, until just weeks before she died at age 100, was still teaching five yoga classes a week. She appeared in an Athleta ad at age 98 (watch the 2-min video – wow!).

That’s my new declaration. I can perform shoulder stand, plow, and crow (sarvangasana, halasana, kakasana) in my 90s. Woot!

What’s your aspirational goal?

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You can apply the 13 Principles of Happiness to all three domains to live a happier, stronger, more flexible life. Principles 1, 5, 7 & 12 feel especially relevant to this topic. Post a summary of The 13 Principles of Happiness on your reminder wall and apply one or two new ideas to your self-care this month!

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III. The Executive Happiness Coach ®

Hey, if you ever feel like you could use some support for getting where you’re going, give me a shout. Same applies if someone walks into your office and says, “hey, do you know a good coach?”

If you enjoy this message, forward or share with others. Thank you!

Jim Smith, PCC, is The Executive Happiness Coach®, a global player in the space of Executive Presence, Vitality, Team Coaching, Keynote speaking, and mentor coaching.

For more tips on Leadership, Coaching, and Happiness, visit JimSmith.Coach and download my report on "The Ten Terrible Habits That Undermine Leadership...and what to do about them before time runs out."
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