Coaching

How do you design your life well?

A well-designed life is a life that is generative - it is constantly creative, productive, changing, evolving, and there is always the possibility of surprise
— Bill Burnet & Dave Evans, Designing your Life

This is not my idea. Two design engineers at Stanford came up with this, and it is brilliant. If you want to learn more check out the two dudes quoted, and the wonderful work they do.

I will, however, share my own thoughts on this. So, designing your life well, finding your purpose, living up to your full potential, finding happiness, figuring out what to do when you grow up, these are all age-old quests. Questions, the answers to which have eluded many and continue to do so. And this is where that stops! We need not accept a life that's ho-hum. And to quote again:

...the only failure is settling for a life that makes you unhappy...
— Publishers Weekly review summarising the key message of Designing your Life

So how do we break the cycle, figure out what we want and get it? How do we design our life well? Depending on whose advise you take there are slight variations. Inevitably, there is a process involved (meaning you do it over and over, again and again), and it generally goes something like this:

  • Awareness of what is. If you do not know what you are dealing with, you cannot do much about it. It's as simple as that. How do you become aware of your thoughts, emotions, beliefs, behaviours? Well there are a number of tools that can assist you; from mindfulness practice, meditation, observation, using a log book to chart what happens and when, to using clever apps and engaging the help of a professional coach. Basically, it is about being curious and paying attention to what goes on in your head and your life. And remember it is not good or bad, it just is. That's where acceptance comes in. Accepting that we have these thoughts, emotions, etc. does not mean not doing anything about them, though.
  • Reframing your thinking, beliefs & behaviour. This means looking at the beliefs we hold and evaluating their usefulness. Again it is not about stuff being good or bad, of interest is its usefulness. How well are our beliefs serving us? Is our behaviour holding us back or is it enabling us. More often than not, we are the ones holding ourselves back because we hold on to unhelpful thoughts (or as psychologists say dysfunctional beliefs). Once we have recognised these thoughts as being unhelpful, we can start re-designing or re-framing them. For example 'I am too old to do...' into 'I can have an impact at any age' or 'I don't have enough time' into 'I am able to make time for what matters'. Often, unhelpful thoughts come in the disguise of excuses that we make to ourselves and others. Excuses that keep us 'safe' from having to put ourselves out there, take risks and possibly fail.
  • Figuring out which direction to head. This I believe is the hardest part. There are a few ways of getting a clue. Look at what in life works well. What energises you, who energises you, which situations energise you, which activities energise you? When are you fully engaged and submersed in what you do, when are things in flow? What makes your heart sing? What do you live for? It is generally when we can use our individual strengths, when we collaborate with 'good' people. These all are pointers that give you an indication of where you could head. If you still have no clue, perhaps a more effective way is to try different routes and see which one you like. Read on...
  • Generate ideas. This is the creative process, where you come up with different ideas or options to try. Generate at least three different approaches ranging from sensible to crazy. Make sure these ideas or paths align with your general blueprint or compass. In other words they need to align with your values, meaning what really matters to you in life and work. And then...
  • Test drive your ideas. Try it on for size. This is where small experiments come in. Experiments that are safe to fail. It is about the experience, what an idea feels like in real life. No matter how much you think about it, mull it over in your head, you won't really know if it works, let alone if you like it, until you leave the drawing board. Give yourself a little taste of what it would be like without burning all the bridges just yet. You've got to put yourself out there and gather data on how it works for you and others.
  • Decide which idea suits you best and action it. Once you've tested your best couple of ideas you will have data to work with, and you'll be able to make an informed (because tried and tested) decision. And as the dudes above would tell you, there is no one and only right choice, but there is a good decision making process. And making a decision means committing to one path, and closing the other doors.
  • Monitor, re-evaluate & tweak. This is the classic QA cycle. Always testing, always gathering information to base you next decisions on. Just because you've made one decision does not mean it is automatically a good idea to stick with that for ever after. Evolution, adaptation & improvement are the key words here. Wash, rinse, repeat...hence the ongoing process.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how it's done. In theory. If the practical part seems daunting, I can recommend reading the book & workbook 'Designing your Life', and / or perhaps better yet, getting yourself a good coach to help with the process.

Alas, that's what coaches are, they are process & change specialists!

Changing the culture of bad behaviour @ work

Bad behaviour in the workplace can run up high costs in terms of reduced productivity, wellbeing, mental health, missed days at work and loss of revenue. In other words, it affects the bottom line of business, not to mention perpetuating individual suffering. Therefore, it would seem organisations and industries would be well advised to address both ‘misbehaving’ individuals, and the broader issue of culture change, designed towards eradicating such behaviours as mobbing, bullying and some of the less obvious ones; i.e. selective exclusion of individuals from groups, stringing people along, or purposefully assigning tedious and meaningless tasks.

Recently, I’ve been involved in running immersive workshops on the subject of bullying, and developing strategies of how to manage a badly behaving colleague at work. Lively and often critical discussions arose amongst the participants; particularly, around the usefulness of the bullied person experimenting with and learning how to deal with a bully, versus having someone in the higher echelons come in, ‘sort out’ the bully and generally get bullies to behave better.

Now, of course much depends on the person being bullied and their relationship with the perpetrator. And, please keep in mind that I am exclusively speaking of adults, here, not children. Admittedly, however, often there will be a power differential or dependence that facilitates bullying in the first place, which can make it all the more difficult to call out and put a stop to. So, far from suggesting the bullied person should just ‘take’ the behaviour and get some form of support, later, I do firmly believe we can only control our own behaviour, not someone else’s. And, I also firmly believe if our aim is culture change at large, misbehaviour needs to addressed at all levels - from the top to the bottom of the totem pole. Let me explain.

If the aim is to change a bad culture in the workplace, I believe we all must change our own behaviour first. Much as I wish this for myself sometimes, we cannot count on someone else to put a stop to unpleasant things for us. And once again I am talking about adults, here. I will also briefly mention a bright and little-known researcher and psychiatrist by the name of W. Ross Ashby (also see Requisite Variety and Cybernetics), who described way back in the 1960ies that if you can’t change the system; the system changes you. And, I reckon the same goes for culture.

So, I’ve come to the following conclusions:

  1. Change our own behaviour we can, other’s behaviour we cannot.
  2. We can learn to stand up for ourselves, and sometimes this might mean losing a battle to win the war.
  3. We can respectfully insist on being treated by others with due respect.
  4. We can set a good example by treating people with more respect and kindness than they perhaps deserve. I believe cutting others some slack and treating them respectfully breeds kindness and respect in return… You know, the whole yelling into, and echo coming out of the woods thing….
  5. By all means, engage others such as colleagues, peers, trusted superiors, and friendly people at the HR department to assist in these matters. I am not suggesting this need be or should have to be shouldered alone, not at all.
  6. We can choose to speak up for those who don’t, won’t or can’t speak for themselves.
  7. Together we can continue the conversation, create awareness and speak to policy makers, CEO’s, directors, superiors and HR representatives, and thus start changing the culture - the system - which will in turn impact individual people within that system, both bullies and the bullied.

So, the workshops on dealing with bad behaviour in the workplace are not meant, nor could they ever be, the be all and end all, the one and only solution to this cultural and systemic issue. As all the workshops I run, they are meant to get people thinking, and talking to one another. They are meant to let people experiment with - in the safe workshop space - how they might choose to behave on an individual level when they find themselves in such a situation. And, perhaps most importantly these workshops are intended to challenge perspectives, to slightly rattle people to incentivise them to take action towards change. And, if we have only in a little part succeeded in doing that, then I would say ‘mission accomplished’.

If you are interested in learning more about these workshops please get in touch here for all workplaces and / or here for the health care sector. Thank you.

Finding your purpose

Finding one's purpose and acting on it, I believe, is one of the most important quests in life. It is correlated with happiness, resilience and wellbeing. People may have more than one purpose depending on the context. And, I suspect our purpose may change, at least slightly, throughout our life.

Finding my purpose certainly was, and still is an iterative process. Generally, I thought it was 'helping people', which no doubt led to my studying medicine half a lifetime ago. Over the years, I've realised I needed to slightly refine my purpose. Currently, I would define it as 'helping people help themselves'. My belief is that every one of us is essentially equipped with everything we need to help - and to an extent even to heal - ourselves. This may sound somewhat fantastical, however, I think there is something rather comforting in believing that people are, and can become empowered and enabled to act on their own behalf; for the benefit of their mind, body and spirit. The beauty of coaching is that the client is supported in (re-) discovering that agency, or in psychological terms the 'self-efficacy', to be able to improve their own situation and align their effort with what deeply matters to them.

Enough about me. So, where does that leave you and your purpose? Lucky you, if you know what it is and you are living accordingly. For those who have not figured this out yet, positive psychology researchers (Todd Kashdan and colleagues) have identified three main avenues to find purpose: 

  1. Proactive - This means you actively choose to search for, find and engage with your purpose. This can include self-reflection or enlisting a professional to help you with this process.
  2. Reactive - Something happens in your life that kicks you out of a deep sleep, forces your eyes open and makes you take a good hard look at yourself. This often can be a loss of some sort, for example your health, freedom, relationship or job. It may also be a positive event such as becoming a parent.
  3. Social learning - Observing and learning how others live their lives. It might include admiring someone for how they act and wanting to emulate that, or having a role model to aspire to.

And yes, sometimes it will be a combination of the above. If you still find this somewhat daunting, or you decide you want to engage with your purpose now, what are you waiting for? Get the support you need, and get to work!

Words on a gym bag

Don’t wish for it, work for it

Today, as I was going about training at my regular fitness joint, the words 'Don't wish for it, work for it' jumped out at me. They were printed in bold pink on a fellow gymgoer's bag. While this apparently is a much used quote in the fitness industry, as I later found out on Google, it was new to me. I think it is a great little quote, and it applies equally well to everything worth wishing for in life.

Don't we all at some point wish we were happier, healthier, more successful, in a better relationship, and the list goes on... While there is a lot of merit in wishing for things and imagining before our inner eye what that might look like, at some point we need to get down to business and start doing. Because it is the doing that gets us there. We hold more power to make our wishes real than anyone else does. Sometimes all we need is a gentle or maybe not so gentle nudge in the right direction. And guess who can give you that nudge, a good coach can:) And that goes for work-life coaching and for fitness training, alike. Loop closed.