Before You Launch Into This Year (or its resolutions)... 2021 Edition

Our brains love clean beginnings and clean endings. As we’ve felt the fast-yet-agonizingly-slow weirdness of time passage during the pandemic, here we finally are, at the beginning of a new year universally anticipated and looked to for months– as the sweet escape from the endless craziness of 2020. While we rationally know that this week might not look or feel summarily different than yesterday or last week, and the calendar’s change to a new page isn’t going to practically solve things, it does hold a significance maybe unlike any other. While it's tempting to just forge ahead and focus forward as fast as possible, there’s an opportunity right here, actually. So before resolutions and new starts… let’s take a minute.

Of all the books on my shelf about how to view time (half a shelf), I’ve found it most useful in life to see it not as a linear (or zig-zagging meandering or stair-stepping) path, but as a spiral. Picture it– a spiral path of time that keeps corkscrew-moving forward (or up, if you’re picturing a person’s development). If we could stand on one fixed line next to that giant spiral, we can hold a vantage point to see the dimension of it; eventually it will come back around to the line we’re standing on, again and again. Fixed, consistent dates in our lives create these perspective-getting milestone points in the spiral, helpful to get our bearings, see our progress and growth, and step back from the moments to see patterns. Birthdays do that for us individually. A new year does it universally.

So, before we plow ahead, let’s for a few minutes just rewind this last year in your head, and think about it in a few different ways....

Where are you now vs. a year ago?

Where did you crush it, and where did you get challenged?

What did you learn about yourself this year?

...Now we’re getting to something much more useful and meaningful than just resolutions, which we know won’t last alone. The annual declaration of resolutions doesn’t really work for many people, because it has some structural flaws, and skips some really important pieces which cause us to end up later back in the very patterns we set out to change so enthusiastically just a few months prior. This year especially, we’ve formed new habits– many as reactions to circumstance, rather than growth choices, so let’s look and choose what to stay conscious about.

You can definitely set yourself up for different results and patterns this year, yet it has to start with that self-awareness. The clutch step most people miss in a normal year, yet especially this year (more because “I can’t even,” yet yes, you can)... Reflecting. Y'know... Reviewing. Stepping back to get perspective. Owning. Debriefing. Calling out what worked, and what didn’t, and fully seeing what’s there in order to set up what’s next in your story. Let's do that before you forge ahead.

There are so many angles to take on your past year, each showing a different, important facet, so check these out... and see what pops out, gets stirred, and speaks to you most (no need to take them all on- you’ll know the right few when you get to them).

The Most Important List

Right now, pause to really get where you are, so you can best set up where you're about to go. Imagine yourself one year ago, side by side with yourself right now, paying attention to what's occurred in, around and outside of you in that year between. From there, just finish each prompt:

• A moment from this year I’ll remember for a long, long time…

• A word that captures the year in total…

• I am proud of...

• I am not proud of...

• I want to change...

• I want to continue...

• I soared by...

• I missed the mark by...

• Challenges I rose to...

• I am no longer fazed by...

• I surpassed what I thought I could do in...

• I created...

• I have impacted...

• I have surprised myself by...

• I got in my own way by...

• Questions that have surfaced...

• An answer I found...

• A pattern through the year was…

• Realistic necessities of the year were...

• Aspirational dreams were...

• Scary to utter commitments...

• What I value, that another person did for me…

• What’s unresolved...

• What’s tough to admit, but totally true...

• Who appeared...

• Who went away...

• Who expanded me...

• What kept me small...

• What surprised me...

• What caused upset in me...

• What I lost…

• What I gained…

• What inspired me...

• What I set out to do...

• What I actually accomplished...

• What I learned about myself...

• What I want to carry forward from the year…

• I'm ready now to take on...

• I aspire to...

• If I were really going to take myself ON to get to my next level, I’d…

• It's about time I...

...and the layers under each of those.

Even reading that list stirred some reflection and thought just now, didn't it? That's the first important step, yet don't leave it there, just musing in your head. Write it all to yourself. The easiest, fastest, most effective approach is to cut and paste the list into your own doc, then just finish each sentence. Some may be just a few words, some may prompt a whole page! Doing this visually is powerful for the mind- the words on your screen or page bring a concrete reality to all that's occurred in this last year, which accelerates your ability to process and build from it. Allow yourself to go with it, answering without your inner editor, and watch your layers unfold. 

Many of those prompts are in service or relation to other people/forces in/out/around your life, and will spark a lot for your next year of growth, yet they can only take shape in reality by starting in your first-person voice from your own head. That’s where your power is, that’s where it all falls apart or takes flight, and that’s where last year has to end and a new one begin.

Timing: Do this now-ish. If not right now, make a date with yourself for time in this first week of the year to do it. It’ll be the best, most worthwhile date you’ve had in a long time. There are some great places to do this. And ways to clear space for it if you need an assist.

Savoring Version: Clear some space, some time, and some quiet in your head to do your huge, learning-filled year of 2020 justice. Take a bunch of minutes (or hours?) without talking about it to anyone else to just capture what’s there in your thinking and feeling... into writing. If you're up for a comprehensive annual personal review, I really love this one.

Quick&Dirty Version: Take even a few minutes to cut, paste, and finish those sentences with your first thoughts without mental editing. Either way, you'll surface things into your awareness which will inform the course you set for this year in a layered, powerful way. 

Then, with that clarity, watch how the resolutions (if still needed at all) will write themselves.   ;)

©SarahSinger&Co. 2021

*The original version of this post in 2016 has taken multiple versions, iterations. Interesting how even at the end of this historic year, the core questions haven’t had to change at all.

It's Okay- You're Actually Turning Into a Diamond

Team Under Pressure?

Disruption creates shift. Shift taken to a transformative, cellular level is different than a temporary “flavor of the month” change (which we all know doesn’t stick).  Consider the transformation of carbon in the earth into a diamond…. Now we get a picture of what true, permanent change to a stronger, different thing altogether really looks and feels like. You’re building a team to create that kind of change, right?  Chemist Ilya Prigogine won a Nobel Prize for capturing the irreversible process of transformation in nature, and it actually has everything to do with your disruptive team, causing and experiencing it every day. 

Prigogine looked first at the idea of Entropy-what happens when we leave something alone (opposite of your disruption) for long enough. He was looking at chemical reactions, but this applies human beings and teams, too. Entropy happens… left alone, things fall apart or scatter….

Leave a log alone in the woods for long enough, and it decomposes. 

Leave a person alone long enough (like solitary confinement), and they go crazy.

Leave a group alone for long enough, and it either splinters or it becomes Lord of the Flies.  

Prigogine also looked at the opposite; what happens when you add pressure or energy to something to disrupt it- perturbation.  As Perturbations happens to a system (or person or team), it can only hold so much pressure/energy, before something’s got to give, hitting a point of critical mass. This occurs in physics, and it applies to human development and group dynamics as well. 

When pressure continues or increases to its capacity, the heat rises, (temperature in physics and in a room of perturbed people) and things start to vibrate and shift. 

A log under the pressure of a fallen boulder, for long enough… will start to off-gas.  

An individual under increased pressure from a situation… might bail out of the situation. 

A team with increased pressure on it… might lose some people. 

In each of these^, that pressure increases, hits a threshold in it’s current form, and then… 

Everything transforms. Literally. Pushes through the heat of that threshold to transform into a stronger, more stable structure (which can withstand more pressure). 

The wood transforms into coal.. 

We’ve commonly thought that coal under sustained pressure over time transforms into a diamond. (fun fact: diamonds actually form out of similar form of carbon as coal, yet not coal itself)

Championship teams often become so in playoff situations, as they push through to that elite version of themselves.

Individuals pushed with enough pressure of challenge will also transform into new versions of themselves, which is the ultimate learning (can sound like "I'm just different now than before- I can't go back").  

And none of these, just like you, just like your team... will go back to their original form. 

You, your organization and your team will go through this. It is simply how transformative change occurs. You’ll know it’s happening when it gets hot with conflict on the team- metaphorically, yet also the temperature of the individuals and in the room literally goes up when the pressure of those dynamics rises. This can happen when they’ve been wrestling through an idea or process in search of a breakthrough, and have been at it a long time. It can happen when they’re being challenged by an outside force of pressure or time running out, and have to pull out a solution they haven’t discovered yet. It can happen through reorgs or major changes in leadership or the industry. You’ll see it in the organization as people bristle at, go into denial about, or push back against disruption that's brought (by change? maybe even by you?).  In these situations, they’re being perturbed, and that's really uncomfortable. If they can stand in the discomfort of that heat, they can push through the threshold of their own thinking and challenge to transformative, real change. 

Context holds the team.

For teams going through perturbation, this is where you come in as a leader. The way you hold and facilitate those dynamics makes all the difference in your team either being able to push through to transformative change or not. 

Teams either stay together through that perturbation or they don’t, depending on the agreements, trust and commitment they have in place with one another. In looking at any team that thrives through pressure (sports teams, partnerships, organizations), more and more research is showing up to define them from the rest. Key ingredients come down to psychological safety and dependability. Those are huge, so make sure you’ve got the context set…

Agreed-upon values, process, mission and commitment allow people to trust and weather the storm of change. Solid agreements about behavior and what people can count on, hold them all together when things get rough, and become the “true north” on the team’s internal compass, to which they can reset with one another and recalibrate.  These agreements keep everyone’s energy and reflexes in check under pressure, redirecting the players back to one another and the commitment they’ve made.  Examples:

“Never leave a teammate alone,” 

“Work through upset on the team directly, immediately and out of the public eye,”

Agreements like these call the team back to one another, build solidarity, and allow them to stand in the heat all the way through to the other side. If you don’t have those in place, pause your team, pull together and set it up…

• Create a context of unconditional agreements early in the team’s process, before they’re in the heat of the pressure. Help them clarify and articulate what they need to be able to count on without question from others in order to be all in, and create agreements to ensure and protect those things.

• Ask “What gets in the way of you being able to do your absolute best work on a team,” then create agreements to proactively guard against those.

Perspective holds you.

If it's you being perturbed, keep focusing on what's on the other side. There's power in picturing that wood turning into coal, that coal turning into a diamond, knowing that you're in the heat, but what you're going through is leading to a stronger, more structurally stable version of you, on the other side. 

You've got this. You're almost there, diamond!

---

This piece is adapted from Sarah's chapter on team dynamics in the book Disrupt Together: How Teams Consistently Innovate. Here's a link directly to that chapter, Your Team of Dynamics and the Dynamics of your Team, where you'll get even more perspective on leading a team through change. 

©SarahSinger&Co. 2016

You, Playing Big

#1   Let’s go back to a moment in your life...You’re about to take the step, and never have before. Nobody knows how huge this moment actually is except you, because you’re the one feeling your heart race, pores sweat, butterflies flapping in your stomach. Every fiber of your body is on red alert. It’s loud inside your head; your little voice is screaming at you, cajoling you, trying to reason with you... pulling out every trick it knows to get you to STOP. Decision time.

The last moment you had like that may have defined you. Because whether or not you took that step, whatever happened afterward either opened something up or shut something down, which is why you’ll remember it forever. 

#2    Try this:  Cross your arms, and then come back.  Great. Now do that again, except this time cross them the other way (other arm on top this time).  That felt weird, right? You wanted to cross them back the first way, didn’t you?

Welcome to your Comfort Zone.

Your comfort zone is drawn as a box, yet in reality is more like a big bubble that surrounds you, going with you wherever you go. But mentally, developmentally and metaphorically, it’s definitely a box that holds all the things you are used to, comfortable with, unconsciously competent at doing and generally unfazed by.

We already know that your little voice steers you through most decisions, and it’s either working for you, against you or in some other direction completely. While you might have a daredevil little voice, you definitely have another one, who's vested in you being consistently, solidly competent. It looks out into the unknown from inside your comfort zone, and says,  “You’re not going to do that. That is the danger zone! You could fail. You could get rejected. Worst of all, you’re going to look really bad!” That same little voice is very vested in you looking good all the time. Stepping out into that danger zone, you could definitely look pretty bad, even stupid. So we usually don’t. Unless we do.

So, with that, think for a moment about your own comfort zone, and how you protect it in the name of credibility and strength. One of my favorite researchers, Dr. Brene Brown (a vulnerability expert) digs into the conflict of how we view vulnerability in ourselves vs. how we view it in other people. Think about a leader who stands up and shares something personal, who admits a mistake, who visibly takes a step out there, owns it, and then carries on, strong. Universally, we’re inspired by that, yet we don’t want to do it ourselves, right? Brown points out that we tend to see vulnerability as “courage in you, but weakness in me.” A dilemma, right? Brown asserts that “Vulnerability may actually be our most accurate measure of courage. In 15,000 pieces of data, I could not find one instance of courage that wasn’t completely underpinned by vulnerability.”

SO... How could you step out, showing some human vulnerability (and therefore courage) to blaze the trail for your team to step out? It’s time. 

What have you been avoiding, working around or wishing you could do?  Where do you know you need to push yourself into the growth zone?  Where are you playing small? If you’re feeling a little discomfort thinking about it, you’re on the right track. So, it just depends on where your little voice pops up, and starting to challenge it in order to take on that box, and bust through.

This gets tricky as your "leadership position" gets more prominent. The stakes of your decisions get higher, the value of your expertise and mastery more focused. You've spent a lot (time, work, rungs) earning that credibility, so the tendency is to do what you can to stay solidly in that expertise. That’s very different from you in the growth zone, which feels squishier. Stepping out feels vulnerable, so you might stretch your CZ, but only on your own time, when nobody can see, so they don’t have to see you flail. Except if your people never see you stepping out, they never get the model or see you as human, and don’t feel permission to do it themselves. That's not good, and when I get called in later to a dysfunctional culture where people are hiding mistakes, trying to look perfect, imperfectly.

How to expand your zone...

Mark your territory.  What are some things that you know you already do well or comfortably as a leader? This list can be as comprehensive as you want it to be. If you want to write a volume on this subject, go for it, but take a few minutes to map them out; it’s important to get clear about what’s already inside your comfort zone and get your strengths so you can build from there. Next, call out where you need to step out. Own it. 

Look around.  A great way to identify areas to stretch outside your comfort zone is to look at other leaders and the moves they make which you don’t. Or recall situations in which you’ve thought, “Ugh, I wish I could do that,” or “This is not a strong area for me,” or even “Not my style.” ...All big red flags. Then pick one. Or a few.

Step out enough.  Make sure you’re actually stretching yourself to step out in a way that will challenge and stretch your ability to play life bigger, influence further, thrive more solidly. So, while putting my clothes away more often might be different from my norm, it’s not a comfort zone issue. I avoid putting my clothes away because I just don’t like to do it — not because it’s a stretch for me. Pick a true stretch. 

Hold the tension. So is bigger always better? Not necessarily. This isn’t about jumping into the unknown everywhere with reckless abandon—that’s volatile leadership, which you don’t want. Great leaders are strategic and focused, but not limited by their boundaries, which takes a delicate balance of agility. Holding that tension between playing to your strengths and stepping out of your Comfort Zone to expand it takes self-awareness, willingness to call oneself out, and ability to learn efficiently and voraciously. Flex.

Map it.  Write down what the benefit of doing this is for you—what might you have, which you don’t yet? A new confidence, ability to let it go, new domain in your wheelhouse? Then identify what you’ll need to do specifically and different than what you’ve been doing; Have the conversation instead of just thinking about it? Put the ideas out there instead of waiting to be asked? Try out what you know is possible instead of hoping someone else goes first? And finally, identify the key piece; for you to do this, what version of yourself will you need to be (brave? confident? strong? grounded? human?). 

Big yet not so big. Some of the steps you need to take are one-shot-deals; those tough conversations, moments, hurdles you just need to take on rather than waiting for "the right time" (which never appears). That's a whole other category, to check out HERE.

Push it.  You spent more time on the ground, falling than you did upright as you learned to walk. Don’t just step out one time. Do it as many times as you need to, making sure to tweak and refine each time, until you can say, “I can do this,” and can add it to your repertoire. The number one way people keep themselves from a bigger game is quitting too soon. It doesn’t work immediately and/or looks silly, so we do it a couple more times, and then say, “Yeah—that’s enough,” chalking it up to "that's not who I am." But maybe it was really too soon to tell! Keep going.

The bigger your comfort zone, the bigger your opportunity for uninhibited impact. That’s what we want for you—no situation that you come upon where you say, “I don’t think so” just because it’s new territory. You’re playing big and taking it on, as influencers do.

©SarahSinger&Co. 2016

Closer Than They Appear

My mom’s rear-view mirror always had etched onto it:

Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.

So it turns out that this standard-issue reminder about perception applies to our own psyche, as well.

When we get to the part of my training where I ask people to identify a spot in their lives where they need to step up or out or through something, many people find something BIG.  It’s often having to do with a person they need to confront or a thing they’ve needed to do for a long time, which they’ve been allowing to suck their energy and hold them back in their productivity or happiness for weeks, months or years.  Most people have a few of these things rattling around, sort of like extra weights they’ve been carrying around with them.

So, I help them to stand up to the BIG thing, and commit to busting through it to the elusive “other side” which is alot like those things in the rear-view mirror… much closer than it seems.

It often comes down to a conversation they need to have with someONE or a new behavior that they need to just DO or try.  I coach around it, sometimes even set up full plans of attack for getting their State just right, and all the support they need to hold that State, follow through and not bail at the last second.

In my work with thousands of people who have gone through this very process, I’ve found something in common which takes me back to the rear-view mirror…

Leading up to the actual breakthrough (which is often just a moment), people will actually spend hours of time thinking about it, obsessing about it, rehearsing it or just worrying about it before they actually do it.  The good news is that this is replacing the countless hours of stress, upset, distraction and worry that they had been spending regularly on it before they chose to break through it.

So finally, they get to the moment of truth.

They get into State (or not, which makes it more painful), they DO the big thing, and they’re through to the other side.  The act or conversation took minutes.  It’s over.  The energy suck that had been draining their will and focus is cut off, and there’s a proud mix of adrenaline, relief and newfound energy afterward.  Then the realization…

Obstacles are smaller than they appear.

It wasn’t that big of a deal in hindsight.  All of that worrying and prep, and they broke through it in moments.  To me as a coach, the most important thing is the equation of time spent that comes in the debrief:

Number of sucked hours of worry/upset/stress/energy you are losing in thinking, worrying, avoiding by not doing it

VS.

Moments it takes to just do it and be through to the other side

Simple equation of time investment.

Easy?  Not really, which is where Comfort Zone and coaching like mine come in.

But simple? ABSOLUTELY. For me, this math is what gets me to finally get out of my head and do the uncomfortable but liberating thing.

Maybe we should change what’s etched in our rear-view mirrors as a constant reminder, so we can save all that time and energy, and just step up and out in the first place?

©SarahSinger&Co. 2013

The Power of STATE, Part 1…

Ever fallen asleep while reading in bed?
Your body did that.                                                                                                            

Ever blush when you were trying hard to keep your cool? 
Your emotions did that.

Ever felt sort of sick, but powered through something pretty successfully anyhow?
Your mind did that.

These kinds of things happen to you all the time, right?

Well, they actually happen more than you even realize, and you can use what’s going on there to determine and choose how your moments, interactions and days go rather than just allowing them to happen to you.

It’s called State, and you’re in one right now. 

Not the geographic State like California, but your State as in where you are mentally, emotionally and physically at any given moment.  You could be curious, riveted, bored, excited, tired, irritated, focused, creative, playful… these are all States.

Often people refer to their moods, which is pet peeve of mine, since it implies emotion only, and is actually inaccurate.  There’s a lot more to where you are right now than just emotion, and you can actually manage it more easily than you’d think.

This is one of my favorite topics to coach, and a lot of fun to play with. It’s also one of the most important distinguishing factors between people who are “good” and people who are masters; think Michael Jordan vs. every other b-ball player (still), Peyton Manning vs. every other quarterback. Not only are they masters of their talent, they are also masters of their own State from second to second. Under tremendous pressure, they get and hold themselves perfectly aligned mentally, emotionally AND physically to outperform everyone else. This is key not only for them, but for you too. Why?

Performance is State-dependent.                                                                                   
Learning is State-dependent.                                                                                         
Attention is State-dependent.                                                                                          
Focus is State-dependent.

Whether or not you can perform, learn or focus as you want or need to completely depends on your State.

Here’s the piece people miss, which is the crucial…                                                         
State is always comprised of three interconnected parts:  thoughts (mental), feelings (emotional) and position/action (physical).  These are key, because every time one of these parts shift, the other two shift as well. Every time. 

Change one part, you change them all. Every time.                                               
Think about it…                                                                                                               
You’re working, start to get bored, so get up and walk around for a minute.  You sit back down, and you’re refocused. That’s a physical trigger shifting where you were mentally/emotionally. OR…                                                                                                
You’re tired, but talk yourself into working out anyhow.  You don’t even get winded, have energy that surprises you, and get into a great workout . That’s a mental trigger shifting where you were physically/emotionally.  OR…                                                                  
You’re feeling cranky, tired and distracted, then someone calls or texts who always makes you smile or laugh.  You come away from them on your phone happy, energized, and thinking more clearly. That’s an emotional trigger changing where you were emotionally/mentally/physically.

Every one of those is called a State Change, and you actually have lots of them all day long.

The question is this:  Are they just happening to you or are you choosing them deliberately?

States get triggered by all sorts of things. Situations, conversations, episodes.  Recurring triggers exist all over, too. These are called anchors, or associations to particular States.  Common anchors are certain people (just seeing that one person’s name come up on your email or voicemail list triggers a certain State),                                                                
smells (recently a waiter was a completely thrown by how much my perfume was an anchor to his ex-girlfriend… awkward!),                                                                           
music (that’s why your favorite show doesn’t change it’s theme song- it’s your trigger for an excited, anticipatory State to be ready for tuning in), and                                                 
places (that one spot where you… will always trigger the same memory and corresponding State…).

The mind-body connection has lots of research, and we’ve even come to reference “mind over matter” to explain how we performed despite ourselves or as a tactic to employ when we need to get “in the zone.”  That’s really State we’re referencing, in moments when we’ve deliberately managed it- changed, accessed, set it so well that we could perform beyond the circumstances or what we normally could.  Athletes and entertainers do this all the time pregame or preshow, in order to set themselves for their best performance.  Why not you?

You can learn it…

Master State Management, and you’re on your way to guaranteeing your own performance. 

The best examples to watch are in sports. To me, it’s a great fishbowl where I love to study moments, patterns and techniques of State management and mastery (or not).

Take basketball…                                                                                                                 
The foul shot in basketball is the ultimate test of State.  Technically, it’s the easiest shot there is- straight in front of the basket, nobody interfering, the same every time.  And yet… it’s not the easiest shot, because it’s really a test of being able to set and hold State. This is brilliant, in my opinion. Elite, uber-talented professional basketball players screw up this shot. Some chronically.  Why? Change one, you change them all.  There’s no question of whether they can physically make the shot- of course they can. They have and will nail thousands of foul shots, maybe even with their eyes closed.  Not the point. You put them on the foul line with pressure of the win in jeopardy, slow time down, and then it’s not about physical or technical ability.  It’s about being able to set and hold State.  It’s mental and emotional… and if these aren’t set it automatically, literally handicaps their physical ability in that moment to hit the shot or not. All connected, all the time. 

The difference between you and an NBA star…                                                     
Actually quite a few, right? So, you may not be a professional basketball player, but I’d wager that your performance may actually have more at stake to it than that player on the foul line for one shot in one game. Yours is about performing as a the right leader to your team, creator of the ground-breaking idea, or listener for another human being.  Your State matters.

Think of it as the glue that holds everything else (your talent, your ability, your knowledge) together. If you have those things and you can manage your State well, you’re set.  If you have all that, but can’t hold your State, you’re inconsistent at best.

So- let’s get you some State mastery, yes?                                                                
You can change your own and other people’s States in an instant, and it will make all the difference between good and great, control vs. none over the quality of your experiences and ultimately…what you can generate in your own performance.

I coach to this every day, so if you really want to dive in, let’s chat. Meanwhile, we’ll take a few posts to mess with it and build these critical new muscles for you. This is truly just Part 1.

For now…

•Wake up a new self-awareness… of your State. 

To get more out of your moments and mastery over your State, you have to first be able to call it in the moment. What State are you in right now? Hopefully it’s something like curious, focused, or intrigued as you’re reading this . If it’s not any of those, see if you can give it a name.  “Good” and “bad” don’t cut it for pinpointing a State.  Get more specific, like: Focused, energized, calm, anticipating, inspired, motivated, determined, enthusiastic, excited, curious, open, reflective, peaceful, etc.                                                                    
OR                                                                                                                                   
Doubting, restless, critical, frustrated, annoyed, grouchy, sad, angry, restless, anxious, distracted, defensive, judging…

If you find yourself thinking “I don’t know what State I’m in,” see if one of those listed fits, and your brain will usually work out the right answer from the contrast…  “No- that’s not it, it’s really….!”

•Pay close attention to WHAT, WHO and WHEN your States get triggered or are vulnerable.   

You’ll notice that your State might be a really good one like curious, creative, focused, open… but then it gets messed with by something, which spins you into an unproductive State like stressed, irritated, mad, complacent, crabby, taskmaster, or whatever.

For example, certain people trigger States for you. Who sets yours off every time?  Good or bad?                                                                                                                                      
Or, it could be a certain topic that does it.                                                                           
Or, it could be a certain time of day that does it to you.                                                        
Or it could be situational- like getting feedback.                                                                  
Or, it could be particular people, songs, places or smells that trigger certain States as anchors. Pay attention.

•Find your triggers and use them. 

Anchors for certain States are all around you- good and bad. It takes extra awareness to realize when your State is being triggered, in the moment. Try calling it, then use anchors to your advantage.

Place that stresses you?  Get out of there and avoid it if possible- switch it up.           
Favorite song that fires you up? Listen to it before the big presentation.                           
Shirt that makes you feel invincible?  Wear it for the big meeting.                                     
Scent that calms you? Wear it when you know you’re anxious.                                        
Photo that reminds you of a great/successful/peaceful/connected moment? Get it onto your wall or  phone where you can look at it when you’re off.

There’s a lot more to this. We’re just getting started. This is enough to mess with for a week.

Next time…

Deliberately setting or changing your State- in the moment and strategically.

Getting other people’s states and how to change those, too.

Meanwhile, stay tuned to yourself, and see how quickly you can call out your own State. You’ll be way ahead of most people around you.

NOTE: This is Part 1 of a 3-part series on the power of State. Check out 2 & 3 also!

©SarahSinger&Co. 2013

Talent vs. Strength

Strengths and Talent are two different things.  Strengths are what you do easily and regularly, without thinking about it.  These usually come from talent.  Yet we all have talent that isn’t necessarily manifesting as strength.  It may come out in moments or episodes of brilliance, but isn’t reliably consistent yet. While a lot of my work is in the former, what I’m most interested in is the latter.

Strengths.

In some ways, strengths are the low-hanging fruit of my coaching work.  Most people don’t truly realize what their strengths are, or why they’re so amazing.  We’re all too close to have any perspective on it.  Someone with a strength like being able to establish instant rapport and agreement with others doesn’t really acknowledge it as a strength, because it’s as instinctive as breathing for him or her, yet enviable, difficult and a mystery to another person watching. The groundbreaking work of Clifton and Buckingham in this realm has been a gamechanger for millions- so much so that I require groups and teams to take StrengthFinder as a prerequisite for any work I do with them.  We have to at least surface, understand and leverage what we all do well without effort before we start working on how we can grow in new ways.  Simply getting people to be more conscious of what they already do well as their unique and important contribution, and to confidently leverage it as such is groundbreaking for most people.  That’s also telling about our society-  that this initial work (which seems like it would be quick and easy) is huge all by itself for people.  For adults, some of this is from becoming desensitized to our own strengths. Our instinct, common sense and lens through which we see the world becomes as invisible to us as the air we breathe, and we accept it as “normal” (and therefore not anything worthy of leveraging). Meanwhile, our personal set of strengths is unique from everyone around us (and could be genius to them).  It also has a lot to do with our pre-occupation with what we’re not, and what we should be (“Yeah, but if only I were more X…”), rather than an ownership and confidence in what we are, and how we’re uniquely brilliant- and the value of either. The a-ha that people and teams have when they suddenly see their own talent-strength that’s been there all along under those layers is awesome and empowering.

I do love coaching strengths, yet secretly love and crave more, as all coaches do.

Talent.

Great movies love to depict the classic inspirational story of the semi-retired coach or trainer who comes back into the game to develop a wild, raw undeveloped talent into something solid, something strong.  Million Dollar Baby, The Karate Kid, Rocky, Any Given Sunday, Tin Cup, A League of Their Own, The Replacements, even Star Wars…

There’s something different there- much more intriguing, exciting and possible.  This is why my favorite work is with youth vs. adults- it’s much more about working with the talent itself and honing while exploding it vs. working to clear away the layers of stuff on top of it.

Raw talent all by itself is a different thing- it’s trickier.  It’s less predictable and a little rougher around the edges than a bona-fide strength.  Talents can absolutely develop into strengths through deliberate or naturally occurring practice and investment- think Tiger Woods spending more practice time than those with half his talent, because he gets the deliberate path.  How that talent gets developed is one of my favorite topics to think about, coach and experiment with.  Different personalities need to approach it different ways. An awesome article today powerfully shows how even at the top- among the best of the best of the best in a particular field of talent, this happens differently.

But it starts with one thing, which is the most important part… realizing that you have the talent, then deciding that you want more and are ready to explode it into a strength. Maybe it’s just manifesting as an unsettledness now- pay attention to that feeling, and dig into it a little further. Then find the coach, the environment, the team, the training to shape it.  You can do this, and you should, only because you know deep-down that you can, and if you don’t you’ll be forever haunted by “what if I had…”

There’s one more piece in the getting-your-own-talent puzzle, even though it deserves its own day and post.  Personally, I always come back to the most basic piece in developing talent and reaching mastery in any arena- surround yourself with those who ask more of you than you do of yourself.  That means people who challenge you to not just be happy with what you’ve always done, but pushing you to get better, go farther, dig deeper- all from a true commitment to what’s possible in you because they get your talent.  Of course having a good coach or mentor is important, but it’s just as important to look at who else you’re surrounding yourself with.

Pay attention to your unsettledness, consider your own level of talent and mastery, check out who you’re surrounding yourself with, and start building your strength. It’s time.

©SarahSinger&Co. 2012

Shower Moments

I actually don’t have “shower moments” in the shower.  You know- the ones where great insights come to you, and everything becomes clear.  I have those moments running.  Being as kinesthetic-visual (with a preference for horizons and tree-gazing) as I am, running is my very best way to synthesize, get perspective, work through something, or get a much needed connection I’ve been noodling over.  Runs like this morning- a brief 25 minutes on a sunny Saturday- are ideal for making sense and learning out of the week or, in this case getting clarity on a single piece of the week I needed to resolve.  While running isn’t for everyone, it’s pretty critical to know your most reliable, effective way to get there, and make it part of your routine.

Take a look at your patterns and what things you do to find that clarity on your own.  While I’m a big fan of talking with others to work through things (hello- my career), I think it’s clutch to have your own reflective way to get there, too.  Great leaders, performers, athletes and practitioners of all kinds keep honing their talents and skills with self-awareness, self-insights and change- otherwise known as personal learning.  While I absolutely subscribe to the imperative for mastery of needing to surround ourselves with great coaches and those who ask more of us than we do of ourselves, I think that only works best if we can also get to the best insights on our own, regularly. That’s best done when you create a space/practice in which it can occur.

I know it’s been a good run when I actually forget that I’m running.  When I’ve been so deep in thought that I look around and seem to have skipped a few blocks of my route.  Today was one of those, and as a result I’m much clearer on a challenge I’ve been working on all week.

That said, I think I’ll go have my version of a shower moment- a time to let the brain turn off, let the water block out the world, rinse out residual thoughts for a few minutes, and reset. We all need practices in which both these things can occur.

What are yours?

©SarahSinger&Co. 2012

Ripples and Focus

Single sculling on a glassy lake- meditative, challenging, peaceful.

I got hooked into it with my dad when I was a teenager, as we spent hours on Atwood Lake learning it, alternating between 2-man sculling together and single sculling on our own.  As I went off to college, he continued to row, solo on the lake every morning the northern Ohio weather would allow.

There’s no better place to contemplate choice, impact and the ripple effect than in the middle of a glassy lake.  When single sculling, your orientation is to where you’ve been and how you got there, rather than where you’re going. You’re on a sliding seat with two long oars fit into outriggers, the bow of the boat pointing through the water while you power it with long, full-body, full-blade strokes of the oars feathered into and over the water in perfect synchronicity. At least that’s the goal.  Therein lies the challenge.  To get both oars perfectly balanced, dipped into and pulled through the water at exactly the same depth, force and speed takes focus and control with constant motion.  To get each stroke evenly powered first by legs, then torso, then arms, then feathering the oars perfectly out of the water and skimmed back over it without nicking the surface takes a different kind of focus and coordination.  Like sailing (my other favorite), you can both lose yourself in it and spend your life hooked by the challenge of the nuance in it.  A thinking person’s sport, to be sure.

One of the coolest parts of sculling is that you see feedback and progress with every stroke.  Because you’re facing to the aft of the boat, your focus is on where you’ve been, watching the wake your boat is leaving behind, the pools of ripple left by each oar.  If your timing was off by half a second between oars, you see it in the ripples.  If you had a perfect stroke, you see it in perfect round pools on either side of your straight wake.  As you gain distance, the trail of pools down the lake chart your progress and path- straight, zig-zagging or meandering.  Each circle of ripples expands instantly, first in distinct circles of light and shadow, multiplying instantly and quickly, ultimately overlapping into the very texture of the lake.

Most people have a default time orientation- past, present or future.  I’m definitely a future-oriented person, sometimes challenged to stay in the moment, as I’m always thinking 5 minutes, 5 days, 5 years ahead of where I am now.  This makes me a good coach and consultant, as I’m great at quickly surveying past patterns (but restless in dwelling there too long), zooming in on the impact they’re having now, and then strategizing both the right path forward and endless possible scenarios forward with insight.  I love to reflect, yet sometimes need to remind myself to do so, often feeling afterward like it was an indulgence. I am big on feedback and learning, so I’ve learned how to strategically and quickly reflect enough to gather feedback when necessary- but always to learn forward.  I am continually striving to (and coaching others to) be more fully present in each moment.  The more I can master this, the more impact and fulfillment I make/get out of every moment.  Meditation is the extreme version of this. I’m intrigued by it, have gotten tremendous value out of the dabbling I’ve done in it,  and have a perpetual goal of making it a habit.  Sculling forces me to keep my focus backward, forcing reflection and in the present, adjusting each stroke and coordinated movement based on what I just did.  Focusing forward or to the future isn’t even possible without physically turning around.  Opposite of life for me- always focused forward, having to consciously stop and intentionally turn around to reflect backward.

One of my favorite parts of sculling is just coasting… After a few long, powerful strokes the boat glides smoothly and silently through the water.  I hold my oars up to rest as I glide, and watch the water drip from them into the water moving past.  The drops make tiny circles, which grow instantly to ripples, which multiply faster than I can track smoothly, beautifully and overlapping into the ripples of the drop before it. Every move we make, every conversation we have, every decision in life we conquer- intentionally or not makes these ripples, which expand into the texture of our lives.  How much are we tracking them, studying them, choosing our next moves based on them?

©SarahSinger&Co. 2011

Weeding My Brain

I actually love to weed.  Right after a big rain.  Even for five minutes, like I just did outside my office door.

The satisfaction that comes with pulling a giant weed out and getting the whole taproot at once is amazing.  It’s right up there with cracking open a crab’s leg and pulling all of the meat out in one piece, or tossing a grape into the air and actually catching it square in your mouth.

While I’m a person committed to challenge, big hairy projects to solve and change, intense feedback and keeping myself on a continuous learning curve, I also get that it has to be balanced by things in my life that are simple, visceral, concrete straightforward wins.  I’ve been known to disappear from a big intense question or a house full of unfinished projects for an hour outside of pulling weeds.  In that one hour, I can get so much that would take many hours in my office to accomplish…

Every square foot of earth I cover looks different than when I started- immediate feedback of concrete impact.

I soak up the saturated colors, smells and sounds of nature vs. the comparatively pale world inside- altered perspective on things.

I get completely out of my head full of thoughts and into my senses- smelling the dirt, feeling the resistance of the roots against my pull, watching the micro-world of the scurrying bugs among the plants- truly quieting the chatter in my head.

Quick wins, concrete impact, altered perspective, clearing one’s head.  The ultimate in State Change.

Where are your opportunities like these- 5 minute windows to step outside our normal path which can alter our reality, change our state enough to send us back into the game different, able to see new hues, catch new insights, tap different energy to make the difference?  Find them, seize them, use them as your fuel.

©SarahSinger&Co. 2010