Lazy Days and Thursdays

Ahhh, it's Thursday again, which means a lazy day of walking the dogs, catching up on email and errands, scheduling doctor's appointments, heading to the gym, curling up with a book, downloading podcasts or engaging in whatever strikes my fancy over the next hours. For several years now I have been taking Thursday off from my clinical practice to provide myself a recharge zone mid-week. It's a nice gift to myself for rejuvenation and catch up. Having a me-day midweek helps me to stay focused, energized and able to meet my clients' needs during the work-week, knowing that I will be able to take some time for myself long before the weekend rolls around with the usual to-dos that befall those two days.

When my daughter was young, weekends were spent shuttling between soccer games, horseback riding lessons, and birthday parties. When not serving as chauffeur, I scrambled to the grocery store and then scuttled around the house in a seemingly self-defeating effort to remain the victor over household chores. I greeted Monday mornings with bleary eyes and pumped my veins with a pot of Peets to jumpstart my day. Like many working mothers, I felt I was juggling as fast as I could to try to fulfill my obligations at the agency where I worked, attend to my clients' needs, plus keep my family happy and satisfied. I knew it was only a matter of time until I dropped a ball; and I also knew the one dropped would not be the one that represented my family. So prior to stepping away from the agency after 10 years of service and stepping toward private practice, I spent much time reviewing my values and countless hours talking it over with my husband about how, when I hung my shingle, I shaped it so that that my business and career honored and supported the things most important to me.

What are values are why are they important? Values are the principles one believes in and that define the core of one's identity. Values shape our behavior and help to motivate us toward self-improvement. Humanistic psychologists suggest that each of us possesses an innate sense of values that tend to become buried over time by social demands and expectations and it is our lifelong goal to rediscover our values in order to live more authentically. Sometimes the values are buried by circumstance, while other values may be buried by social pressures. Here's two examples of what I mean by this:

A new client sought treatment from me because he was extremely unhappy in his workplace due to years of continual exposure to a socially-toxic work environment. In our work together we began to explore his reasons for staying at his job for so long. As I asked him to identify his personal values, it became clear to him that his current job supported few of his values. In a recent session, he realized he had taken the job because he had learned his wife was seriously ill and he needed to obtain employment that offered him the best health benefits and highest pay. His decision to say "yes" to the position was fueled by acute fear of what the future might hold. When one is in "survival" mode, there is little room to wonder about values. His wife's health has now stabilized which allows my client to begin to consider his values and move toward securing employment that is a better value-match and one in which he most certainly will thrive.

Years ago I worked with a young woman who was unhappy in her position as an investment advisor. She entered the field due to social pressure; it was an unspoken expectation that she would join the family business upon graduation from college. She sought my help when she was desperate to leave the company but she did not know what she would do instead. After several sessions, she clarified her values and began exploring her interests. She determined that what she really wanted was a career in event planning. Within the year, she went on to obtain a certification as an event planer, discussed her plans with her family, moved to another city and opened her own business. This young woman's values had been buried by the social pressures of her family and it was not until she became more secure and confident to live her values, not those of her family, was she able to move toward living a more authentic life.

Identifying one's values does not necessarily spell out c-a-r-e-e-r c-h-a-n-g-e, but what it does mean is one becomes aware and conscious of the things that are most important. Once this happens one begins to make choices to ensure there is room in one's life to embrace, honor and cultivate them.

Thought for the Day: Take some time to identify your core values. Next, consider whether your values are being expressed and validated in your life. If not, what changes can you make to ensure that they are being expressed?

"Living with integrity means: Not settling for less than what you know you deserve in your relationships. Asking for what you want and need from others. Speaking your truth, even though it might create conflict or tension. Behaving in ways that are in harmony with your personal values. Making choices based on what you believe, and not what others believe.”
--Barbara De Angelis

Living by 10s and Other Amazing Things

Okay, I'm BACK to the blog-world after a lengthy hiatus! It feels good to be writing again and my hope is that I will be able to keep this up at least once a month. Since my last post, life has been hectic and exciting in a positive way. In August I took the plunge and opened my very own private practice where I see adults and adolescents, providing individual psychotherapy and biofeedback in addition to my coaching services, which I offer over the telephone. It has definitely been a thrilling and sometimes scary ride and thankfully I have the encouragement of my husband, family and fantastic office manager, Kay, to spur me on as I navigate the (for me) uncharted waters of small business ownership.

After a nine month gestational period, I feel I have given birth to a healthy and thriving small business and am ready to reconnect with my blog community once again.
With much of my creative energy consumed by the decisions and development inherent in the launching a small business, I felt I had little left to devote to writing. I am now beginning to come up for air with time available to put my thoughts down in "written" word once again and it feels good to be in a place to allow my thoughts to flow.

Besides the "I'm Ba-aack" shout-out, I'd also like to share with you some other exciting news and tell you about a book I think will help you in any decision-making dilemmas in which you may find yourself. A few years back I wrote about a process called 10-10-10 on the blog after reading an article by Suzy Welch in Oprah Magazine. About a year later I was surprised and delighted to be contacted by Ms. Welch for an interview about how I have applied the tool in my own life and how I have used it in my work with clients. She was in the process of writing a book about 10-10-10 and she sought contact with folks whose lives were impacted by the article. A couple of days ago I received my copy, hot off the presses, of her new book, "10-10-10, 10 Minutes, 10 Months, 10 Years, A Life-Transforming Idea" (complete with my interview on pg. 113!) and I encourage you to run out and purchase the book to learn how to apply the tool in your life and read the inspiring stories of how others have used it to live with greater satisfaction and authenticity. Below I offer the 10-10-10 concept to apply to your own life.

How often have you found yourself immobilized in a decision process, uncertain about which way to proceed? The questions you pose yourself may run from the easy:
Should I hit the snooze button or get up and head to the gym?
Eat the piece of chocolate cake or go for the yogurt parfait?
Stop at the grocery store today or tomorrow?
To the more challenging:
Should I accept the job offered across the country?
Should I start a family now?
Do I stay in this relationship?

10-10-10 refers to a way of considering the consequences of a decision and projecting the outcome into the near and distant future. Such consideration provides you with an opportunity for perspective and, quite possibly, transformation. 10-10-10is an easy to remember (and apply) life management tool that will help propel you out of murky indecision, toward clarity, personal fulfillment and living your life with authenticity.

Every 10-10-10 process involves three steps. The first is to identify the question or dilemma facing you. It is important to distill the question to its simplest form, that is, what is the issue you are trying to resolve? Once you are clear about the issue, the next step is to gather the information and apply the 10s. Given the issue, what are the consequences of the decision
10 minutes from now?
10 months from now?
10 years from now?

Next, think about all the options in response to your question and apply the 10s. You might find it helpful to enlist others in exploring and weighing your options. Ms. Welch writes in her book that the 10s assigned are not literal: 10 minutes could mean 1 minute or 10 hours and represents the “right now”. The second 10, could translate into 10 days, 10 weeks or 10 months and represents the nearer future. The last 10 represents 10 years or the future that is much further in the distance.

The last step in the process is the analysis stage in which you take the information you now have about your options, and apply what you know to your beliefs, goals, dreams and needs. Ms. Welch writes as instruction at this point in the process: “Knowing what I know now about all of my options and their consequences, which decision will help me create a life of my own making?” (p. 11). Your answer will be your result of the 10-10-10 process.

I have used this process in both my personal and professional life. It has helped me in decision making as well as in communication with others. I have taught my clients the process in the course of helping them in their decision-making as well as in improving communicating with their coworkers and loved ones. This process has helped couples in conflict management, for example, I ask them to consider the outcome if one gives voice to a thought 10 minutes, 10 months, 10 years will now--will the particular comment serve to help or hurt the relationship?

Thought for the Day: When faced with a quandary of your own this month, test out 10-10-10 and experience the positive consequences.

“Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different.” --Katherine Mansfield