Are You Moving Forward?

According to Thomas Delong, a Harvard Business School Professor, if we’re not moving forward, we’re regressing.  The only way that individuals change is to do something new, which by definition means you’ll do it poorly…  Delong believes people can change at any age.

Sometimes it’s difficult to move forward.  We get complacent.  As Jeffrey Rubin, psychotherapist and author, says: When all is going well… we feel good. And we continue to do what works. But success is a barrier to creativity. We often coast during those times. And as a result, we don't learn anything new, and we don't grow.

How do you keep moving ahead when you’re not in crisis?  Think about the times in your life you were really moving forward.  What got you going?  You probably had a specific goal or purpose in mind.  You wanted to get a job and needed a degree or training.  You wanted to play a concerto and needed to practice.  You got an idea that you wanted to run a marathon and it kept sticking around.

There are many ways to be in stay in action.  Possibilities include:

*Keeping a running list of ideas about things you’d like to accomplish, adding to it and modifying it on a regular basis

*Journaling routinely about the goals you’re working on and would like to work on

*Challenging yourself to be better in something daily by, setting a daily intention

*Inspiring yourself to take on something new by writing it down and getting specific

*Creating more inner space to give yourself an opportunity to consider a new direction

*Jumping in and trying something different, just because it seems fun or interesting

My challenge to you:  pick one of these, or create your own, and work it

Takes time, you pick a place to go, and just keep truckin on.  Truckin’, Grateful Dead

Parenting Resilient Kids

In How to Land Your Kid in Therapy, Lori Gottlieb talks about how privileged kids grow up to have self-esteem and coping problems.  The problem?  You guessed it.  Parenting.

Gottlieb isn’t talking about parents being abusive or neglectful, she’s talking about a kind of emotional overindulgence.  It’s about the idea that we have to make our kids happy.  All the time.  And we have to make sure they’re never unhappy.  Ever.

What’s the problem with this?  If we protect kids from any type of emotional upset, how do they learn to cope with discomfort?  If we protect them from anything that doesn’t go their way, how do they respond when things don’t go their way as adults?  How to they develop resilience?

I’m recalling a friend telling me, totally calmly, that she’d have to call me back.  Her son was calling her from college.  She was at her job in New York.  He wanted her to give him directions to a job interview…in Colorado.  Seriously?  She thought it was totally fine.

I’m also recalling the time I had my son, 4 years old or so, in a time out in the post office and was told by a woman, You should be ashamed.  Of what?  Parenting authoritatively?  It’s on such occasions I’m tempted to give a stranger my card and suggest they get in touch about any parenting problems they may have in the future.

Gottlieb references Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of theTiger Mother on how we try to protect our kids from the pain of competition and pretend that average achievement is superior.  Who are we helping with that?

My suggestions:

*Let your child make their own apologies, whether it’s to the shopkeeper after they’ve taken a candy bar or their friend, after they’ve hurt them.

*Let your child negotiate their own issues with teachers, whether it’s about a grade they didn't like or an assignment they need more time on.

*Be honest about their weaknesses, and their strengths.

*Use rewards appropriately, i.e., when they’ve done something worthy, not just because you don’t want them to feel bad.

*Be a good coach, i.e., work on how your child might do and say things, but don’t do or say it for them.

You’re going to watch your child go through all manner of losses, failures and hurts.  It’s all going to make them stronger.

House in the Country, Blood Sweat & Tears

When Did You Mysteriously Stop Doing…?

 I used to love reading mysteries.  At some point, I decided I didn’t have the time and it wasn’t really productive reading.  I just finished The Private Patient, by PD James and really enjoyed it. I even got some ideas from it (like this blog).

I’ve heard the same refrain, wistfully, from a number of people in the last week:

I used to [paint, write poetry, play music, etc], but…

Is there something you used to do?  I don’t mean something you’re happy not to do, like get drunk on Friday night, drive too fast or, well, you get the idea.  But is there something you used to enjoy doing that you’ve given up?  Was it something that renewed your energy and gave you a little more zest?

Reasons people give for giving up things they love include, but are not limited to:

*I don’t have time

*It makes my bf, gf, mother, spouse, etc., nervous, competitive, etc.

*I’m not that good at it

*It seems stupid

*I don’t make money doing it

*It’s not important

I see way too many people these days with no hobbies, interests or activities that they engage in just for fun.  They work, take care of kids or other family members and maintain households.   They do things like plant gardens that will look nice but they have no time to enjoy them.  They go out to lunch with people they don’t like that much because they ought to.  They paint rooms in their homes because they think they should.

Stop for a moment and consider if there are things you used to enjoy doing that have mysteriously slipped out of your life.  Consider whether you’d like to have them back.  I know it takes a little time, but does that spare room really need to be straightened out this week?  Can you leave work behind for the 30 minutes it would take to listen to a little music?  Go crazy and cook that fantastic dish that’s going to take an extra hour to make, just for the fun of it.  Or just pick up your favorite mystery writer’s latest.

Just for fun: Mysterious Ways, U2

Create Inner Space

One of Jeffrey Rubin’s suggestions for flourishing is creating more inner space.  He calls it “the capacity we all have to sit with and reflect on thoughts and feelings at our own pace.”  You can access inner space anywhere by doing a variety of things.  Meditation, yoga, reading, music writing and being in nature are some of the ways he identifies.  Anything that cultivates “clarity and equanimity” expands inner space.

The task for you is to consider what helps you think more clearly and what enables you to create more acceptance in your life. These are the things that help create more inner space.

In Poser, My Life in23 Yoga Poses, Claire Dederer says, about one type of yoga:

It’s a quality of inwardness, of contemplation…Try to feel from within, rather than judging and looking at what’s on the outside.

This sounds a lot like creating inner space.  Poser is also a great read.

I’m unable to locate any scholarly work addressing inner space.  That’s my euphemistic way of saying I don’t know if there’s any research to support this.  But it sounds a lot like, but not quite the same as, cultivating mindfulness, which does have a great deal of research support.

My suggestion:  think about how much time (or how little time) you spend in quiet reflection.  Ask yourself if you’d like to take steps to increase that time.  If that’s a yes, identify a couple of things you can do to expand your inner space.

My other suggestion:  Time, Pink Floyd.

Inspiration for a Boomer Birthday

Several days before my birthday I heard about a 61 year old about to swim from Cuba to Miami.  Diana Nyad isn’t just anybody.  She’s one of my public radio “friends.” After 30 years of retirement from competitive swimming, she decided to try it again (she’d tried it before in 1978).  Talk about grit, optimism and high performance.  It’s a great story.

When my birthday came and I was about to go on my morning run, I decided to make it count.  Instead of the usual pre-work 4 miles right from my house through the neighborhood, I was inspired by Diana’s story.  I went to my favorite running place and ran the 5 I really felt like running.  I was rewarded with a white heron, some deer and a fawn, the wind on my face and a feeling of freedom.  I got to that sweet spot of running where your legs, arm and breath are all in perfect synchrony.  I was grateful that at my age I can still do an easy 5 miles in a beautiful, serene setting and that I was able to take the time to make it a little more special that day.

There are so many small ways to make life a little sweeter.  You don’t have to swim 104 miles.  How can you turn something routine into something just a little more special?  Be inspired.

From Diana’s story, AHorse With No Name, America

Sex Selection And Other Parental Control Issues

When I read about parents in India and China selecting forthe sex of their children, at first I thought it had nothing to do with the parenting issues I address with clients.  Then I started to wonder.  Sex selection is a choice you can make in utero that is not based on the medical status of your fetus. One physician suggested that you can choose whether to be a parent, but you can’t choose whether to have a boy or girl, or a tall or short child.  Obviously ne never saw My Sister’s Keeper (which raised some similar and fascinating issues).   Of course when it comes to gender, it’s not whether you can choose, it’s whether you ought to choose.

My interest is more about what happens later.  Say you choose a boy, does he then have to go to medical school?  Play the piano?  Marry a woman of the same class and race?  Where does it end?

As the article states, regardless of the reason…sex selection prioritizes the needs of one generation over another, making having children more about bringing parents satisfaction than about responsibly creating an independent human being.

Think about that.  Then ask yourself how much your decisions, vis-à-vis your children, are about meeting your needs, and how much they’re about creating an independent human being?  An independent human being would be one you would accept (as in accept their preferences), trust (as in trust them to do the right thing) and respect (as in listen when their opinions or choices differ from your own.  Raising an independent human being might mean that this human’s choices would not be the same as your choices, that the right thing for you might not be the right thing for them. 

I think the whole selection issue raises some very important and interesting ideas to contemplate as parents of children any age.  Most adults I know can still feel the disapproval from their own parents from just a glance or a sigh, and continue to live with that burden as parents and grandparents themselves.  That’s definitely not the kind of future relationship I’m hoping for with my child.  Consider where you fall on this issue, and how it affects your relationships with your kids and parents.  It’s never too late to make a change.

Daughters, John Mayer

Is Your Goal to Be Good, or Get Better?

Having just written about getting healthy, I’m struck by the relevance of be good vs get better goals in the pursuit of health.  Actually, they’re relevant in the pursuit of many things, perhaps most things.  Check out Heidi Halvorson’s book, Succeed, for more on these issues.

A be good goal is one in which you are trying to show how, well, how good you are.  Getting the A, the promotion or the win is usually a be good goal.  Get better goals are those in which, you guessed it, you’re trying to get better in some way.  Learning the material that goes into getting the A, getting your skills to the next level because it’s exciting and fun and that gets you the promotion, winning the game because you know you’ve trained hard, played your absolute best and the win is just the icing on the cake, these are about getting better.

If being good is about success, getting better is about the journey.

What does this have to do with getting healthy?  You can see how it works.  A be good goal for health is to lose 50 pounds.  Look folks, I lost 50 pounds.  How cool is that!  A get better goal is to work on healthy, mindful eating by selecting a healthy eating plan and asking the mindful questions every time you want to eat something.  You know that you’re learning something, mastering something and growing as you put this get better plan into place.

It’s the same with going to the gym.  I’m going to lift 50 pounds by September vs I’m going to find some things at the gym, in the park or in my house, that I can do 3 times a week  that I enjoy enough to do week in and week out unless I’m sick or dead.  And maybe an exercise buddy would help, something you can do if you’re getting better, but is more difficult to do when you’re trying to prove you can be good. 

Consider your goals in any area.  It’s all about how you think about things.  In most cases, a reframe to a get better mentality, much like a growth mindset, will keep you moving and give you a much happier ride.

GettingBetter.  The Beatles.