This article was originally published by Brien Dunphy on LinkedIn.
“𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘲𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺.” - 𝘑𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘺 𝘉𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘮
Every year around this time a new class of freshmen enters colleges and universities around the world. Young, bright-eyed and full of promise, a new crop of students is excited for what’s to come. Some enter college with a goal and a major ready to be declared, while others see possibilities but haven’t quite yet landed on “the one.” It’s an exciting time full of promise and dreams.
Think back to your own young adulthood, were you excited for your future? Were you in awe of the possibilities on the horizon; all those hopes and dreams in your heart of what you could become? Now fast forward to today. Are you where you thought you would be? If not, why not?
It’s normal for dreams to change over time. As we grow and gain life experience, goals transform and some dreams are left behind. We also need to account for life’s unexpected twists and turns. Some dreams are meant to stay in childhood. But if you have unfulfilled dreams, let’s consider one possible reason why you haven’t achieved them.
For some, the answer lies in a lack of consistent action towards a goal.
Not achieving a career goal we set in our college years is one example, but what about the everyday smaller goals that we miss: those last 5 pounds, the promotion that you were passed over for, the side hustle you know will transform your career, the invention that you sketch out continually in your mind, the book idea that is within you, or the entrepreneurial dream you would pursue if only you had time? If there are unfulfilled dreams that you would still like to pursue, lack of consistency may be to blame for why many of your goals seem out of reach.
𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗹𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀
It is not enough to “be talented.” You need more than talent to sustain success. Talent must meet consistency, discipline and self-leadership to create success. We tend to equate talent and potential and think that is enough to accomplish goals and we discount the value of consistency.
There are plenty of examples in life of wasted potential and ideas without action. Having vision without action, without consistent effort in a value direction, will not get you to your goals.
What you need to bridge the gap between talent and accomplishment is consistency. Consistency is both a mindset and a way of life. It is a way of being and according to 18th century English philosopher Jeremy Bentham, consistency is also “the rarest of all human qualities.”
𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘀𝗼𝗼𝗻
How can you become more consistent? The big thing is starting. What gets in the way of people being consistent is waiting for an internal energy and feelings to align with duty. We wait for motivation that never comes. 𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁. Momentum kicks in when you start. Take the first step and grow from there.
It may be unpleasant at first. Early steps often are. But like Mike Tyson said, “Do what you hate, like you love it.” Each step you take in the direction of your dreams gets you one step closer to your goals.
An important aspect about consistency is that it’s similar to compound interest, it grows exponentially. Leverage the mathematical reality of compound interest with consistency. It is only by plowing little by little that we are able to grow. It is by taking step after step that we move forward.
𝗕𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹
The key to being consistent is to have forethought and plan ahead for things to be consistent. Organize your life around consistency. Anticipate and eliminate distractions from what’s most important.
We each have limited bandwidth. There is great utility in auditing our lives (personally and professionally) to intentionally determine what we are investing in presently, and what investments we want to make consistently. It’s unreasonable to believe we can be consistent in everything at all times. Make a realistic appraisal assessment and determine what is important for you to be consistent with.
We need to vet our good intentions and prioritize what we are going to be consistent with and where we will be inconsistent. As grandma would often say, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
Finally, another important aspect of being consistent is to have the right cadence in what we assume daily. To achieve a goal we must do the right thing, in the right way, with the right cadence. Consider not just ‘“how often” but also the speed in which you do it. Anything worth doing takes time. Like the famous choreographer and dancer André De Shields once said “Slowly is the fastest way to get to where you want to be.” Begin now, go slow and start making progress towards those dreams.
This article was originally published by Brien Dunphy on LinkedIn.
"𝐼 𝑎𝑚 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑒, 𝐼 𝑎𝑚 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐼 𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒." - 𝐶𝑎𝑟𝑙 𝐽𝑢𝑛𝑔
Several weeks ago, I met with a client facing a difficult situation. The company he had worked tirelessly for the last ten years, was recently acquired and he was being asked to move cross-country or lose his job.
With two kids only a few years away from college, less than 5 years to retirement and deep community connections, it was an impossible decision. On the one hand, he would keep his position and high salary as long as he moved, on the other he would be uprooting his life and that of his family just as he was hoping to take his foot off the gas pedal and start winding down.
He had dreamed of retiring from this company, but the recent dips in the stock market left him unsure if he would ever be able to retire at all. To top it off, his wife was unhappy in their marriage and this could be the trigger that would push her over the edge.
After working countless nights and weekends, his health suffering, and missing so many of his kids’ events that they stopped expecting him to attend, he was now at risk of losing it all. In despair, with both his work life and family life hanging in the balance, he was paralyzed with fear.
As a coach, I’m often there at the most painful moments in my client’s lives. With over 20,000 hours of coaching under my belt, I have witnessed the highs and lows of many professional and personal lives. We all face difficulties in life and business. It’s inevitable. We lose our jobs, face divorce, businesses fail, that promotion we worked so hard for didn’t materialize.
We have ALL been knocked down and have a story about the way things didn’t turn out. Read the news and you can see that money, power, or fame do not insulate you from pain. Even the richest and most powerful people have lives littered with problems. 𝐓𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐬.
We are all alike in that none of us is immune to suffering. We are, however, different in the way we react to problems. Some of us quickly brush ourselves off, tackle the issues head on and find solutions, many times coming out better than before. We use adverse situations to propel our growth forward; learning valuable lessons and rising to the challenge. While the solutions may not have been part of the original plan, they now guide us to the next steps in our journey.
Others are paralyzed by the situation before them. When faced with adverse situations, the natural thing, the easy thing, is to complain and feel overcome by our situation. Sure, we can take a moment to be upset and grieve the situation and what we’ve lost. But we can’t do that for long and we definitely can’t stay mired in despair. The longer we ruminate, the more time we are taking away from working towards solutions and from finding the silver lining in our situation.
Instead of perseverating in the pain, choose to adapt to the situation. You may not be able to control the situation, but you can adapt. Adaptability is stronger and more effective than control. We are more successful when we adapt to our landscapes and environments rather than when we try to control them.
There are simply just too many variables for us to even comprehend, let alone control. And even if we “can” control them, we quickly discover we have far less power than we originally thought. Also, 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑙 𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑢𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑐𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑑𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑝𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑝𝑒𝑠.
It is better for us to be more like a literal bridge. Bridges are built with gaps purposely designed into them to allow for changes in temperature to create expansion and contraction of the very molecules of which the bridge consists. It also allots for the reality that the land masses being connected will likely NOT consistently shift in unison.
We will be stronger if we build in allowances for the varying temperatures and shifting land masses in our teams, relationships, and professional lives. There is always a choice in how we respond. When we deliberately and authentically focus our mind on the solutions to our problems, and not the problems themselves, we create the fuel that propels us forward.
Regardless of the situation we are facing, our response is what matters. Focusing on solutions fuels us to do better, gives us vision of what could be, and moves us closer to our potential.
And remember to keep perspective. Just because you got knocked down today doesn’t mean you won’t get up tomorrow. Choose the direction you want to head in, take the first step and start building momentum. “Plan A” may no longer be an option, but who knows where “Plan B” or even “C” will take you. As for my client facing the cross-country move, it took a mindset shift but he is now confidently pursuing “Plan B” and doing well.
This article was originally published by Brien Dunphy on LinkedIn.
As an Executive Coach I am intimately familiar with stress – both my own and that of many of my clients. The pandemic has certainly heightened the amount of stress in our lives, adding to the everyday work, family, and interpersonal load that we carry. Recently, a client came to me stressed and overwhelmed, she was running on empty, having little energy for the demands of work and life. As an incredibly successful professional, she knew there was more she could be doing but she was spending her day running from crisis to crisis with little left to give her team, her family, or even herself. Stress is inevitable, but there are ways to minimize its effects. Here are three practices that have helped my clients mitigate the effects of stress.
1.Work to Maintain a Positive Story
It is important to keep a full perspective and work to maintain a positive story. Slow down and quiet yourself to hear the story you are telling in your own head. Focus on the positive aspects of your situation and find some part of your story to appreciate. Many of us jump right to the negative when we encounter stress. We replay the situation in our minds over and over, seeing only the negative and minimizing the positive. We think we are strategizing but in actuality we are catastrophizing.
There is a distinct difference between strategizing and catastrophizing. People mistake one for the other. Working out unwanted scenarios is part of strategizing; assuming worst scenarios are inevitable is catastrophizing.
Strategizing has a solution-focused, hopeful outlook where you look to maximize resources to overcome obstacles. Catastrophizing is a problem-focused, despairing outlook with little belief success is possible. This is important to look out for because it often is sadly disguised or received as being prudent or wise.
To accurately assess your situation, practice “Thinking Fast and Slow.” When you practice this type of thinking you are considering a situation from two viewpoints: an intuitive viewpoint and a careful, considered viewpoint.
“Thinking Fast” is an automatic, intuitive way of thinking. “Thinking Slow” is deliberate and active. Listen to your intuition and then slow down to look at the situation from every angle. Focus on thinking deliberately about a situation, keeping perspective, and considering your options and only then making complex decisions.
A useful question to guide your thinking is: What is perfect about this situation?
2. Practice Mindfulness
Start your day intentionally settling and organizing your mind. Take time to be still and breathe. When under stress our brains reactively speed up. It is at precisely this moment that you must intentionally slow it down. While this can be accomplished through simple interventions such as briefly stepping away to go for a walk or taking a drink of water, engaging in controlled breathing or mindfulness techniques also facilitates this goal.
Mindfulness helps to eliminate the noise our brains are riddled with. While our brains work to “make sense” of our world, they do not instinctually pursue objective reality, that is something we need to do intentionally. Deliberately and carefully separating noise from signal, and eliminating that noise, will result in better decision making under stress.
Mindfulness exercises not only help you eliminate the noise, but they also help slow your mental pace, creating positive momentum internally and externally. Practicing mindfulness triggers your Parasympathetic Nervous System to help you relax, making you feel more peaceful and able to see with more clarity. Seeing more clearly, you are now able to recognize externally where you have momentum from which to launch your next best decision.
One method of practicing mindfulness is what I call “the 55-minute hour.” Leaders tend to rush from meeting to meeting and crisis to crisis. Instead of scrambling to the next appointment, take each one-hour appointment and reduce it to 55 minutes. Take those extra 5 minutes and make it a mindfulness break. Shut your eyes and settle your breath. This simple exercise of self-care will help you to focus, concentrate, and come in sharp for the next meeting. You will show up as your best self instead of scrambling in preparation. Your body keeps score and rushing into the next meeting creates incremental stress. Being incredibly present with yourself will help minimize the stress and set you up for success.
3. Carve Out Time for Deep Thinking
Block time on your calendar for “Deep Thinking.” As a leader, your main asset is your intellectual and thought contribution. There is an old story that illustrates this point. Henry Ford the famed industrialist, once hired an efficiency expert to find inefficiencies at his company and root out unproductive employees. As the expert walked around the office every day, he saw the same employee sitting with his feet on his desk doing nothing. Since this expert was hired to find inefficiencies, he quickly suggested that Ford fire this employee. Ford was curious about who this “unproductive” employee was that would sit there blatantly doing nothing. But upon further inspection and learning who the expert was describing, Ford’s immediate response was “That guy! I can’t fire him. I pay him to think!”
As leaders we are paid to think and often hear the adage “work on your business not in your business.” Deep thinking time allows for this to emerge. The best creativity happens when we put ourselves in a position to be creative. Set aside time for quiet, protracted, deliberate thinking time. Just you, your mind and a white board or blank pad. Eliminate all distractions. Turn off all alerts on your phone and email. When you answer that one call or hear that one alert your brain shifts gears, and it takes time to get back on task. Giving yourself time for deep thinking will enable you to find the most elegant and creative solutions. Practice deep thinking and your stress will diminish as you will be more aligned with your purpose. Many professionals know that they have greater potential that they are not tapping into. They know they have more under the hood, and they can’t throttle the engine while moving from crisis to crisis.
Working hard to maintain a positive story, practicing mindfulness, and taking time for deep thinking are ways to mitigate the stress leaders face day in and day out. While these practices seem simple, they are counterintuitive and are immensely effective in alleviating the stress leaders must contend with on a daily basis.