Managing your irritation

How often do you find that you are irritated at work?

More importantly what do you do to manage or mask your irritation?

Do you know how you show up when you are irritated?

Do you even care?

As a leader you are on show all of the time. People are constantly making assessments about how you are, whether you like it or not. If you are thinking one thing and saying another people pick up on this. Therefore you need to make every action and interaction count to have the exact impact that you intended.

Easy right?

WRONG!

After all you are human and we all have our idiosyncrasies. However, as a leader you set the tone for your team and organisation so you do have to model the behaviour you expect from others.

You need to be clearer than most about your intentions and mindful as to whether the impact you are creating matched those intentions. In my experience this is usually easier when things are going well than when they are not. And when they are not you have to be a master of self-management

Managing your state

Managing your own state is an art and far easier when things are going well and you are feeling fresh.

When you’re tired you’re more likely to be reactive – less considered.

When you’re in a new environment you’re likely to be hyper alert or stressed – looking for cues to ‘feel’ safe.

So what can you do to manage your state when you are irritated?

1. What happens to you physically? Notice if your head tilts in any way, what happens to your shoulders? My guess is your breathing is shallower too.
2. What’s the emotional tone? Name it and then identify what you want it to be instead. For example instead of being irritated you may want to feel calm, patient or relaxed.
3. Now, make the physical changes that will allow you to ‘take on’ that state. We all know what it feels like to be calm and you’ll notice that you take on a different physical shape to being irritated.
4. And finally, practice, practice, practice... The way to learn is through practice and one that interrupts old behavioural patterns is going to be longer lasting and sustainable.

 

Observing others

Leadership is about connection and taking others with you. You have to work at establishing good connections to create great collaboration.

Do you adapt your style to your audience?

Are you clear about what you want to achieve with the various people you work with?

Are their reactions and responses what you expected? 

If not what can you do to adapt and create a greater connection and understanding?

If your message isn’t getting across there is something you have to change to get people on board, to put it across in a way that helps them.

As a leader your job is about changing the experience of life at work - making the difficult easy and the uncomfortable comfortable, to create an engaged workforce. Being irritated doesn’t allow you to operate at your best to achieve this. So next time you feel irritated, even if it’s only a little try out what I’ve suggested and let me know what happens.

Don’t let people; places and things determine your moods. Take charge of how you feel each and every day.

Michael Barbarulo

The problem with goal setting… 3 common mistakes

We are at that stage in the year where most of the organisations I work with are

coming towards the end of their financial year and starting to get their heads around next year’s goals.

Whether you are an individual considering your own goals for the coming year, or a leader considering the team or organisational goals, you have the opportunity to set yourself up for a positive or negative spiral.

If the goal involves a positive reward the expectation of a reward can have an impact on your mood and the way you think about things, building momentum and motivation as you progress.

Whereas if the goal involves you moving away from a problem you will spend a lot of time focussing on the problem itself rather than solutions. This can draw you into a negative spiral facing all the reasons why it exists in the first place and all the things that are place that help create it. It can sometimes feel overwhelming and difficult before you even get started!

Setting the right goal is like a gift that keeps on giving – you continue to get positive benefits all the while you head towards it. This is easier said than done. Being able to establish simple, motivational goals takes practice.

In my experience many people make the following mistakes:

Time

The first mistake is that not enough time is given to the process. It’s seen as a task, or worse still a chore that has to be done. It’s either put off until the last minute to the exercise, or squeezed in to your diary to get it done and out of the way. In both of these circumstances not a lot of thought is given to really consider what the focus will be and how to language the goal appropriately.

 

Set some quality time aside to consider what it is you really want to achieve. What will make a difference to your strategy and is it achievable?

What is missing in your activities that will take you further towards your vision?

Take some time to really craft how you word your goal(s) using positive language and meaningful measures (see below).

 

Problem Focussed

The second mistake is that often goals are structured around solving a problem rather than creating a solution.

For example we’re not hitting or profit targets, or a drop in customer numbers, or  a system problem. This is no surprise as our brains are wired to find and fix problems. Problems are easier to find and identify with so we get side tracked and drawn in to looking for them. We are often really clear about what the problem is whereas we don’t always know what the solution could be.

This causes us to use more negative language, or language focussed on fixing the problem. On a personal level we use language such as; lose weight, don’t smoke, don’t fight, stop drinking…. This simply encourages us to focus on the problem.

The way around this is to focus on the solution you are trying to create. A question I often ask is what do you want instead of the problem? This way you build a world around the solution you want to create – even if you’re not sure what this will be exactly. Using the above examples you might focus on a particular dress size, level of fitness, the type of relationship you want…

A goal written this way allows you to visualise what you want and connect with it. You brain will then register what you’re aiming towards and you’ll start o feel good as you make progress towards it.

        

Results Focussed

Mistake number three is that we often establish measures for the end result. This is great and certainly better than no measures at all. However, if we want a ‘gift that keeps on giving’ it’s worth setting up some measure that let you know you are making progress.

• What would be the first sign that you are on track?
• What small achievements do you notice along the way?
• How do you see people responding?
• What are people saying?
• How do you feel?

These may be tangible (qualitative) results or more quantitative - how people are responding and behaving or the general mood.

So before you start to consider your goals set aside some quality time and focus on the solution you want to create. If you’ve already started the process go back and review what you’ve written.

Remember it takes practice to write positive motivational goals.

Good luck and let me know how you get on.

‘Whatever the mind can conceive and believe the mind will achieve.’

Napoleon Hill

The secret to creating new habits

As humans it’s very easy for us all to stick with our normal pattern of behaviour and forget to do something new.

The way we respond to situations is often habitual.

The patterns we all have of reacting to the external world have become ingrained and automatic to us.

It’s only through conscious practice we can change this.  

Through conscious practice we’re aiming to create a new habit. We’re training our mind and body to do something different, so you’re undoing 20/30 or 40 years of an old habits.

How many times have you been on a training course or leadership programme and walked away with lots of new ‘stuff’ to put into practice?

How many times have you actually followed through with this?

In my experience many people go back into the workplace with great intentions only to find these good intentions fall by the wayside.

I have been coaching now for over 15 years and one of the many things I have learned is that you can’t bring about new ways of being with out practice.

It takes time.

Think about how you learned to ride a bike, drive a car, learned to swim or any other activity that requires your co-ordination. It took practice, and I’m sure you made some mistakes along the way AND you still learned. You made adjustments and kept practicing.

Changing anything you do is no different. This may be the way you respond to a situation, a way of thinking, or trying out something new, it takes practice and adjustments.

To build mastery as a leader, you need to be more than just our automatic self.

So now is the time for you to consider what you want to practice on a regular basis in the New Year.

I’ve put together some simple steps to help you develop this. I hope you find them useful.

There are six steps in total, so let me talk you through them: 

1. Focus on one thing: Consider one thing, and only one thing that you want to change.
2. Make it manageable: Break it down into bite size chunks. What will be enough to take you out of your comfort zone and not stress you out?
3. Practice: Determine how often you are going to practice. Do you want to practice several times a day, or once a day? Whatever you decide do it as regularly as you can.
4. Review: After each practice reflect. How is it going? What worked and what still needs practice?
5. Adapt: What do you need to adjust? What will help you get a better result? Do you need to change the frequency of your practice?
6. Celebrate: Acknowledge the progress you have made. If you forget to practice be kind to yourself. Your aiming to do something you haven’t done before so take it one step at a time. Imperfect action is better than no action at all. 

We all work better when we have someone who will support us and hold us accountable to do what we have committed to.

If you know someone who will play this role ask them to check in with you regularly and celebrate with them.

If you know you want to create some change in 2016 and you are ready to move to the next level email me at Dawn @aurora4success.co.uk. I would be more than happy to explore with you how you can become and even better version of yourself.

Let me be the one to hold you accountable for your practices!

In the meantime good luck and have fun becoming the leader you were born to be.

Have lots of success.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit." 

Aristotle 

Are you Setting Yourself up for Success?

How would you describe your typical day at work?

You spend most of the day doing things you don’t really enjoy, going through the motions because that’s your job.

OR

You spend your day doing the things you love, being highly productive and feeling satisfied with your achievements?

If you answered yes to the second question than there is no need to read any further. You are probably setting goals based on your strengths and talents and building your personal and professional life on your assets. Congratulations!

You’ve learned to recognise and develop your talents and find roles that best suit you finding ways to apply them when necessary.

If you answered yes to the first question then here are some tips on turning this around so that you can enjoy the work you do even more by playing to your strengths.

What are your signature strengths?

The first step to making this happen is to identify your strengths.

Strength is something that you exercise frequently and with ease. You may not even recognise it as a strength because it is so easy.

There are a couple of ways to do this one way is to ask people for feedback: 

• What are you the go to person for?
• What adjectives would people use to describe you?
• If I were to ask someone who worked for you to describe you, what would they say?

Another is to take some simple on line questionnaires:

•  Values in Action (VIA)
•  StrengthsFinder           

You can use either of these approaches or a combination – the choice is yours. Whichever you choose I would recommend that you take some time to really get to know what they are and how you currently display them.

Then… ask yourself:

How can you apply your strengths more to achieve your outcomes?

How can you build a bridge using each of your signature strengths to develop your road map to get you where you want to?

This is not about ignoring weaknesses or development areas that warrant attention it’s just that the intention is not to dwell there.

Then…apply a strategy for one week:

Day one = Identify one of your strengths and notice where is this strength in action.

Day two = Brainstorm new ideas, novel approaches to applying this strength. How can you apply this to make the most of a situation?

Day three to five = Put this into practice and review your results.

Then…Review how things have gone and adapt as necessary making sure you play to your strengths.

Top performers have very specific goal setting habits. They know their capabilities and set goals slightly above their current levels, whereas low achievers are unaware of their ability levels and often set goals that are unrealistically ambitious.

Knowledge of your strengths can be used to re-craft jobs, negotiate development challenges, construct teams on the basis of complimentary strengths and build better relationships with colleagues and superiors.

So what is your next step in being seen and acknowledged as the talented individual that you are?

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."

Steve Jobs

Five Leadership Benefits of Stopping and Reflecting

As a leader we are all busy and constantly bombarded with emails, meetings, requests, ideas, projects, change of plans, budget constraints…

I often hear my clients talk about how they seem to spend their day going from one meeting to the next with very little time to think. Any thinking that has to be done is either in the moment, or at either end of the day that may be on the way to and from work or at home. I know I’ve been there! 

As a coach a conversation I have with potential clients is how we do not give ourselves the space to think things through to either develop a way forward or solve or problem, or consider how we could do things differently. Having a coach actually allows you to create this space and have someone support you in your own process.

I recognise that not everyone is ready to have a coach so an alternative is to create some space for yourself on a regular basis to do your best thinking – even if it’s just fifteen minutes.

If you are wondering why here are the top 5 benefits you will gain:

Five Leadership Benefits of Reflecting:

Clarity about where you are: Taking some time out either at the end of the day, week or month gives you the opportunity to see the big picture and where you are against your goals. You can’t do this when your head is down in the ‘thick of things’.

Increased likelihood of revised action: If you are off track, taking regular reflective periods will allow you to spot this earlier and potentially save time by taking corrective actions early. Even if you are on track it allows you to spot opportunities that may save time in the future and increase your opportunities for success.

New ideas have the chance to emerge: If you a struggling with a particular situation or feel as though you are ‘stuck’ giving yourself some time to think about it will allow some space for new options and ideas to emerge.

Develop a higher level of thinking and problem solving: Think of this as a way to train your brain. By making a habit of having some reflective time your brain will get used to thinking differently – see my points later on possible questions to ask your self in this space.

You can be more effective: You can be more on the front foot and by reflecting on your own practice you can identify where you could be more effective through either adapting your approach or your style in a given situation.

Possible Reflective Questions to ask Yourself:

• What have been my successes over the last week/month?
• What are my current challenges?
• What will help me move this forward?
• What is my job in this team/company really about?
• What s getting in the way of me making progress?
• What is my most important goal right now?
• What assumptions am I making on this topic?
• What patterns do I see emerging?

These are only suggestions to get you started – feel free to come up with and share your own.

Some tips to get started

1. Find a time that works best for you. Is it daily or weekly? Is it morning, afternoon or evening? Be prepared to play with this until you find when you can commit and do your best thinking.
2. Stop any interruptions, including those you may create for yourself such as grabbing a coffee, doing this one email…
3. Find a place where you can do your best thinking. Get out of the office if necessary.
4. Identify clear actions you will take as a result, bearing in mind this may mean you stop doing something. 

If you are a leader who recognises that having a coach for a period of time will help you be even more effective email me to set up a discovery call so we can discuss your needs further: dawn@aurora4success.co.uk

“Be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.”

Henry David Thoreau

Sitting with Stress

It's the start of Summer. A time when most people take some well earned time off to slow down and rest. However, in the modern day we'd be lucky to slow down for a season and not feel the internal bubbling of stress and daily demands. We all know the spacious experience of days that flow as we move from one task to another, and yet other times the pressure lands when jobs are stacked breathlessly.

You may have heard the saying that you should ‘sit silently’ for at least an hour a day, unless you are too busy, in which case you should sit for two. Well the irony of stress is that it does not enjoy considering its antidote. But it is much simpler than we could think.

Whether you're sitting at an office desk, commuting or even standing in a queue what I'd like to offer you here is a simple technique to feel more physical space and hence restore and relax. If you allow five minutes it may feel timeless. Over years of facilitating physical embodiment I notice the most simple techniques can shift a person from doing, to being. My invitation is to read and try - closing your eyes after each instruction - and taking time to feel before opening eyes and progressing to the next. So when you're ready let's start.

With a breath, in or out, form a gentle fist. Notice the touch of your fingers against your palm. 

On another breath, open the fist slowly, fully, and pause to notice the space between your fingers. 

We're going to repeat with simple attention, so again with breath, take time to gently close the fist and feel the sensations of the full journey from open hand to closed fist.

When you next open your hand try a breath through your mouth and notice how your jaw hinge releases a little. 

Try this again, a breath through your mouth while the hand opens and notice your jaw.

Now you know what we're doing, continue to offer you attention, closed eyes if you're comfortable and notice how your opening and closing hand fits with the rhythm of your breath for you. See what changes. 

When you feel complete, I encourage you to stand and take a walk around, with attention to breath and an increased sense of space. 

You'll see for yourself that this exercise can apply to any movement that opens or closes body parts, even say, raising your toes up from the ground while sitting. Simple encouragement to breath is what many stressed bodies are crying out for in our society. So if this exercise is relaxing for you I encourage you to try it through your day. And seeing as it takes only five minutes, not an hour, it really is possible to include double on stressed days.

Leela Fisk is a conscious movement practitioner who teaches Soul Motion™ dance practice to adults and children interested in embodiment practice www.leeladance.com

The Growth Cycle

How often do you stop and think about the process of personal growth?

If you are like I was when I was in a corporate role probably never! You’re way to busy and just get on with what you have to do. Your development actions become part of your task list and you may do some reflection on the way home.

 If you follow any process you use Kolb’s learning cycle. Whilst this is a great process to get your head around learning it doesn’t quite address some of the deeper things you need to consider as a leader if you want to grow. So, I thought I’d share this process that I have taken from the work I do with archetypes.

There are basically 3 stages:

·       Preparation

·       Learning and Growth

·       Application and Celebration

Preparation

Here you get clarity on what it is you want to learn or how you want to develop. You may set a goal, an intention or outcomes and identify any tools or support you need on the way. This includes your own mental preparation and readiness to start.

Learning and Growth

This is almost a cycle on it’s own with four parts to it:

1. Exploration: To experiment, study, understand, and discover the topic you set out to achieve.
2.  Commitment: Determine what it is you will commit to. What will you do differently?
3. Let Go: Having made the commitment let go of anything that no longer serves you. This may be an old habit, a belief, people or tools and techniques. There may also be more than one thing!
4. Create: Start doing, being and or thinking differently.

You may go around this several times before you move on to the last stage.

Application and Celebration

The final stage is to practice and practice and practice and celebrate your achievements. This may sound easy and it’s the one most people do less consciously or give up if something doesn’t work.

To get good at something we have to continually fine tune and we may also need to adapt for differing situations. So always recognise your progress and celebrate!

“The voyage of discovery is not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

Marcel Proust

You are what you practice. What are you practicing??

How many of you have been on a training course or leadership programme and walked away with lots of new ‘stuff’ to put into practice?

How many of you actually then follow through with this?

In my experience many people go back into the workplace with good intentions and for many reasons these good intentions fall by the wayside.

I have been coaching now for over 11 years professionally and one of the many things I have learned is that you can’t bring about new ways of being with out practice. In fact we are all practicing things everyday – we are what we practice; how we walk into the office, how we answer our phone, how we take our coffee, how we read emails, how we organise our work. These are all practices we do largely unconsciously.

So, as a leader what are you practicing day in day out?

Do these practices support your own goals and ambitions?

Are there new things you need to practice to develop some different behaviours or to take new actions?

Hardwiring

Many of the things we do are unconscious and have been hardwired in our brains and our body through repetition over x number of years. They are therefore automatic.

Consider the first time you learned to ride a bike vs. now (assuming you learned to ride a bike). It may have been years since you last rode a bike and if you were to get on one now you probably wouldn’t have to think about it much.

From a leadership perspective what practices do you need to be more conscious of to best support your goals? This may be looking at what you are already good at and taking it to the next level. It may be a behaviour that you know currently gets in the way; such as becoming irritated when you are interrupted.

it may be something new that you need to start doing and haven’t done before such as lead a strategic change programme.

Whatever it is you decide to practice you are building a new ‘habit’ that requires new wiring, so it will take time.

Starting a Practice

I’ve put together some simple steps for you to follow to develop your own practices that I hope you find useful:

1.    Focus on one thing: Consider just one thing that you want to adapt. This may simply be stopping something you say or do, changing your internal dialogue, focussing on how you breath, giving yourself 5 minutes at the start of everyday to be clear on your priorities.

2.    Bite size chunks: Whatever you choose make it manageable. What will be enough to take you out of your comfort zone and not stress you out. What exactly are you going to adapt?

3.    Practice: Determine how often you are going to practice. What you choose will depend on your given ‘topic’ so it may be something you do several times a day for example: slowing down the speed at which you speak; or once a day - giving yourself 5 minutes at the start of every day to set very clear priorities for the day. Whatever you do COMMIT and be comfortable with taking imperfect action. After all this is a learning process.

4.    Reflect: After each practice reflect. how is it going/ What was easy? What was less easy? What was the outcome? Is the outcome what you wanted?

5.    Adjust: What if anything do you need to adapt? What will help you get a better result? Do you need to change the frequency of your practice? What can you do to make it a new ‘habit’?

6.    Celebrate: Acknowledge the progress you have made. If you forget to practice be kind to yourself. Your aiming to do something you haven’t done before so take it one step at a time.

Continuous Improvement 

The whole idea of practice is that you become the best version of you that you are and go on to achieve your aspirations. My advice is always to practice when you don’t need it. All the best performers be they athletes, musicians, dancers, actors, practice outside of the ‘main event’ so they can be at there best when they need to.

By engaging in regular practices yourself you will continue to make improvements and be the best that you can be.

"I’ve always considered myself to be just average talent and what I have is a ridiculous insane obsessiveness for practice and preparation."

Will Smith

What are you putting off? How ready are you to take action?

What if anything are you putting off doing?

It may be at work or at home. As I write this I have identified at least 2 things. I could come up with a longer (wish) list and I have refocused on what am I not doing that I know I need to do that will help me achieve my goals this year. 

So what is it for you?

What pattern, of avoidance, are you repeating?

Fear

Often, when we stop and think, the thing that holds us back and stops us taking action is FEAR! 

It may be a fear of failure, fear of looking stupid, fear of success, fear of being visible, fear of being rejected………..… and the list goes on. This fear is often disguised by some very good reasons we make up to justify our inaction – better know as excuses. 

It may result in what I call displacement activity, something that is easy to do such as searching the Internet, doing the washing, calling a friend, going for a coffee………. And deep down you know you are avoiding doing the thing you keep promising you’ll do. What excuses do you find you use?

One step at a time

Change happens one step at a time, one day at a time. We can often fall into being a perfectionist and wanting to know/learn how to do something perfectly before actually doing it. Yet that’s not how we learn to drive a car, or ride a bike.

Admittedly you have an instructor next to you when you are learning to drive and you are put in the driving seat from day one, moment one. When you learn to swim you are put straight into the water and then given instruction and when you learn to cook you are put into a kitchen with ingredients. We take action and it’s often far from perfect! Yet we learn. We overcome our fear and learn from our mistakes.

Mistakes are a gift

In business I find many people are afraid of making mistakes and yet it is by making mistakes we learn. Ideally we want to make them in a safe environment where we have the support around to help us move forward, and sometimes it doesn’t work out that way – believe me I know. I’ve had a few ‘disasters’ – aka great learning experiences!!

So, what action do you need to take to move forward on your goals? Be courageous and be ready to take imperfect action and then ask yourself:

·       What result did I get? Is this what I wanted?

·       What worked? What did I do well?

·       What didn’t work?

·       What do I need to do instead? What can I do differently?

And have another go…………. And repeat. None of us are perfect, sorry to break that to you in a rather unsubtle way, but we are not. We are all unique. We all have our own learning to undertake and it’s continuous!!

Where you do have the opportunity to practice in a safe environment? Do it and ask the same questions above. Who can you rely on to give you honest feedback?

What do you want feedback on? What are your goals? Share this with them, it will help them give feedback.

Learning and achieving our ambitions or aspirations takes courage and the way to see/hear/ get a sense of how you are doing is to get feedback.

Be prepared to take imperfect action and learn! Be prepared to get feedback even though you know what you have done is not perfect.

No situation is perfect and therefore no action is perfect.

"One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again."

Abraham Maslow