Diane Bolden’s Synchronistically Speaking

One day a few months ago, I went to go pick up my youngest son from his friend’s house.  As we were leaving, I mindlessly threw the car into reverse, took a quick glance behind me to make sure no one was walking there, and stepped on the gas.  While the car lurched backward, I was jabbering away to my son about all the things we needed to get done that day when suddenly the car came to an abrupt stop, accompanied by the sound of crunching metal. 

What I failed to take in with my cursory glance was the fact that another car was parked directly across the street from the driveway that I was backing out of.  And since it didn’t register, I neglected to turn the wheel at the angle that would have allowed me to avoid the collision we had just experienced.  I felt a flame of frustration mixed with anger flare up inside of me.  “Why did this have to happen?  Why couldn’t I have just slowed down long enough to realize there was a car behind me? And why the he*! would anyone park directly behind someone else’s driveway?”

I breathed a heavy sigh as I realized that all the things I was eager to hurry up and get done would now have to wait.  We parked the car and walked up the path to the neighbor’s house to let them know what happened.  The car, it turned out, belonged to a sixteen year old boy who was studying at his friend’s house.  I asked him for his information, gave him mine, and assured him that I would pay for the damages his car incurred because of my negligence.  Being sixteen, he insisted on calling his parents, who insisted on getting the police involved.   

Realizing that none of the things I wanted to accomplish would now get done that day, I resigned myself to sitting and waiting.  My son’s friend’s parents laughed as they recounted their own story of having done the same thing I just did a few weeks earlier, complete with the same frustration and the same question of why someone would choose to park in such a precarious place.  I was completely engulfed with pity, anger and self absorption. 

As the time continued to pass, I gradually moved outside my little world and realized that though I may have believed I was inconvenienced by this whole series of events, my tribulations were minute compared to what this poor boy and his family now had to endure because of my thoughtless and frenzied pace, not to mention the police who surely had more important things to tend to. 

The kid, it turns out, had only recently gotten his license, and only recently been allowed the privilege of driving his parents’ car.  He was worried that in some way his actions would compromise their trust in him.  His mother, who most certainly had other ideas of how she wanted to use her time that day, had to forfeit everything to drive over and wait for the police to come fill out a report.  And the parents of my son’s friend had to put up with me hanging around in their driveway for who knew how long until closure was obtained with the whole ordeal.

A wave of humility and embarrassment came over me as I realized how selfish I had been with my thoughts and my time.  And once I started seeing the situation through the eyes of others, my own frustration became replaced with a desire to make the situation more endurable for everyone involved. 

That simple shift in my frame of reference made all the difference in the quality of the day I was having, and I think (or at least hope) it prevented the quality of everyone else’s day from further deteriorating due to my previous attitude and the actions that it was resulting in.  Our conversations transitioned from being strained to somewhat enjoyable, and the more I empathized with the other people involved in the unfortunate incident, the more they empathized with me.  Before long, everyone’s agenda shifted to making the best of things – which we actually ended up doing.

When life’s little disturbances throw a monkey wrench in things, we cannot help but feel frustration.  And of course we tend to see things from our own frame of reference most of the time.  But we need to be wary of getting so wrapped up in our own little worlds that we neglect to realize the impact situations (especially those we directly contributed to) have on others. 

Allowing others to become the center of our frame of reference allows us to see things we previously missed, and connect with them in ways that enrich everyone.  Our universes expand, and the gifts that comes out of situations like that are often greater than anyone could ever anticipate.  I am convinced that every situation, no matter how annoying it may seem at the time, brings with it a gift.  The question is – will we be able to get to the place where we can see it, and to what degree will we allow it to work its magic?

As a result of that little experience, I try (though I don’t always succeed) to dedicate myself to the habit of really looking around me to take in a bigger picture – not just when I’m driving, but everywhere I go and with everything I do.  I have learned that when I make myself the center of my own universe, I tend to overlook important details and even more important, people.  And that at any point I can turn that all around – even when things don’t go the way I would have liked.   Sometimes I don’t remember that until after the fact, but thankfully life is rich with opportunities for practice.

In any conflict – whether self imposed or unexpectedly encountered, we have the choice of what frame of reference we can view things from.  And that decision will make all the difference in the world.   

Copyright Synchronistics Coaching & Consulting 2010.  All rights reserved.

If you liked this post, you may enjoy other articles written about Navigating Through Change, Challenge & Uncertainty .  Download these and others for free at www.DianeBolden.com/solutions.  While you are there, you can subscribe to receive a new feature article each month.  You will also receive my free report on 10 Traps Leaders Unwittingly Create for Themselves – and How to Avoid Them.

The other day, my youngest son came home from summer camp with a riddle he wanted me to hear:

“Mom, pretend you are in a box that is sealed shut – air tight – with no doors and no windows.”  OK,” I replied, picturing walls on all sides of me. 

“How do you get out?” he asked.

I offered some lame solutions, each of which compelled him to roll his eyes and shake his head.  When I saw that he could no longer take it I said, “I give up.  How do you get out?”

“You stop pretending!”  he said with a wide grin spreading across his face.

This little riddle has profound implications for all of us.  Because we have a way of creating our own boxes every day of our lives.  Sometimes we do it when we wake up with preconceived ideas of how our day is going to be.  We do it when we make a judgment of whether or not we believe people will come through for us, or whether we will be able to come through for ourselves or others.  We create boxes that keep us walled off from our greatest potential and the myriad of possibilities that exist all around us when we believe that the chances of achieving something are less than optimal. 

We are often told that being truly creative requires that we “think outside of the box.”  And I believe this is true.  Perhaps we can also increase our creativity and effectiveness  by recognizing the ways in which we create our own boxes to begin with so that we can prevent them from reigning us in altogether.

Anytime we believe an assumption, we tend to act in ways that validate it.  If we believe we are not capable of doing something – speaking in public, taking a stand, initiating a conversation with someone, pursuing some kind of opportunity -  we behave in ways that make that assumption true.  As the saying goes, “you can’t win if you don’t play.”  We may believe we cannot succeed in some area because there is no evidence that suggests we can.  But the lack of evidence is often a direct result of believing something about ourselves that is largely based in conjecture; our self limiting beliefs can keep us from trying at all.  Many times the only real evidence we have is actually a lack of evidence. 

When we believe an assumption about others that suggests they are not capable of achieving something, we act in ways that can bring out their insecurities and doubts, thus inhibiting their performance.  It is not uncommon for people to accomplish amazing feats in front of some audiences and become all thumbs in front of others. 

When we find ourselves being intimidated by others who may have doubts about our abilities, we need to be aware of the fact that their doubts are not what is inhibiting us at all.  Their doubts are only triggering the stories of inadequacy we have about ourselves – and that is what gets in the way of our ability to do any given task.

When we begin to pay attention to what it is we are believing, we can question the validity of our assumptions and take steps to disengage ourselves from beliefs that keep us reigned in.   The key is not to try to get rid of our assumptions, but rather to replace our limiting beliefs with empowering truths.  Rather than focusing on what’s going wrong, we can focus on what’s going right and build on that.  Instead of beating ourselves and others up for our seeming shortcomings, we can appreciate our strengths and the progress we have made and go from there.   We can move from the improbable to the possible and look to the talent we and others possess that will help us to achieve it.   

Action follows thought – and our doubts are like the walls of a box that keep us from seeing and acting on the array of possibilities all around us.   The truth about who we are and what we are capable of dissolves those walls and allows us to bust out of our boxes so that we can experience life as it is truly meant to be lived – unencumbered, limitless, and free.

So, if you find yourself in a box, take my eight year old son’s advice – and  STOP PRETENDING.

Copyright Synchronistics Coaching & Consulting 2010.  All rights reserved.

If you liked this post, you may enjoy other articles written about Navigating Through Change, Challenge & Uncertainty .  Download these and others for free at www.DianeBolden.com/solutions.  While you are there, you can subscribe to receive a new feature article each month.  You will also receive my free report on 10 Traps Leaders Unwittingly Create for Themselves – and How to Avoid Them.

I often conduct 360 feedback interviews for my coaching clients, which entail interviewing an assortment of people including their bosses, employees, customers, and peers to find out what the client’s perceived strengths and areas of opportunity are.  It almost never fails that the areas that get in the way of people’s effectiveness and continued success are in some way strengths overdone.  

The best listeners often get so wrapped up in passively listening to others that they forget to talk or to bring their views to the forefront.  Those who have the admirable quality of being direct and letting others know where they stand can fall prey to delivering messages with a little too much force and not enough tact.  Optimism can become naiveté, and realism can become pessimism.  Thinking big can lead to overlooking the details, and those who are known for their precision are often criticized for missing the bigger picture. 

Think about your unique strengths.  What happens when you turn the volume level on them up too high?  A big part of sidestepping our pitfalls is simply becoming aware of them.  Without that, you will never know what you do not know and your strengths overdone will become your blind spots.  But when you observe yourself with awareness, you can recognize the areas that can be fine tuned and take action to keep yourself from falling into patterns that are unproductive and ineffective. 

I believe it is important to lead with our strengths.  They are an essential part of our leadership and the uniqueness we bring to it.  It is important for us to find work that is aligned with these strengths (and to do the same for our people).  But we cannot allow our strengths to become crutches.  When we over rely on them, we are blocking other parts of ourselves that need expression. 

We can begin to balance this out by recognizing others who have strengths that compliment our own and appreciating what we can learn from them.  And we can stretch ourselves beyond our comfort zone in an effort to explore parts of ourselves that do not regularly come to the table.  The more we practice these new behaviors, the better we will be able to employ them.

Copyright Synchronistics Coaching & Consulting 2010.  All rights reserved.

If you liked this post, you may enjoy other articles written about Boosting Creativity, Productivity & Effectiveness.  Download these and others for free at www.DianeBolden.com/solutions.  While you are there, you can subscribe to receive a new feature article each month.  You will also receive my free report on 10 Traps Leaders Unwittingly Create for Themselves – and How to Avoid Them.

I have always been amazed by the number of people who seem to think of work as something of a necessary evil – simply what must be done in order to earn a paycheck.  For so many who toil through their workday, the primary goal is to make it to the weekend so they can really live.  Going through the motions, working side by side with others whose hearts and minds they seldom truly connect with, they withhold the very parts of themselves that make them come alive. 

For some it wasn’t always this way.  Many began their careers ignited with passion and optimism, only to find that their flames began to flicker as they encountered obstacle after obstacle that kept them from achieving what they believed would be success.  Succumbing to the unwritten rules of the organizations and other environments they found themselves in, which suggested they needed to act or think in a certain way to get ahead, they may have slowly sold out on their dreams and relegated themselves to quiet complacency. 

Many of us were not brought up to expect that work would be fun or gratifying in any way – nor should it be.  That’s why they call it work, we may have been told.  As a result, we may have never really expected much from our careers or professional lives.  And as the saying goes, life has a way of living up to our expectations.  In just about every corporation, nonprofit or other organization, you will find people in jobs that do not ignite their talents and passions.  Some remain dormant in those jobs because they fear that if they pursue their hearts’ desires, they won’t be able to put food on their tables.  Many do not realize that there might be a better alternative.

Most of us have learned how to turn ourselves on and off at will, in an effort to spare ourselves the pain of disappointment or frustration – or to maintain what we have come to believe is a professional demeanor.  It is not uncommon to hear people say that they are very different at work than they are at home.  Those golden parts of ourselves that we think we are protecting suffer when we do not let them breathe and interact in the very realms that provide us opportunities to learn more about who we are and what we are here to do in the world.  We miss the chance to become a part of something greater than ourselves.  And the organizations and communities we are a part of miss out on the unique contribution each of us has the potential to make.

We can no longer afford to fragment ourselves in this way, denying the fulfillment of our secret dreams and downplaying the insights we have about what we can do to make life better – for ourselves and everyone around us.  As more and more of us feel the pain that accompanies the denial of our spirits, we start to realize that the time has come for us to bring the totality of who we are to what we do, no matter our vocation, title or role.

We are beginning to awaken to our unique calls to service, creativity and innovation.  As we find ways to unleash our distinctive talents and passions at work, we will significantly increase the quality of our own lives, as well as those of everyone around us.   Corporations that take steps to create environments that allow people to thrive will be met with rich rewards as ingenuity pours forth in ways that lead to increased profit and market share, as well as the creation of self-sustaining cultures that inspire people to achieve ongoing success by doing what they do best.

There are people among us who have the ability to snap us out of our trances – our states of quiet desperation – and help us bring more of who we truly are to everything that we do.  They can do this for others because they have done it for themselves.  They are called leaders. 

You may be one of them.

Copyright Synchronistics Coaching & Consulting 2010.  All rights reserved.

If you liked this post, you may enjoy other articles written about Boosting Creativity, Productivity & Effectiveness.  Download these and others for free at www.DianeBolden.com/solutions.  While you are there, you can subscribe to receive a new feature article each month.  You will also receive my free report on 10 Traps Leaders Unwittingly Create for Themselves – and How to Avoid Them.