Day 152: Improving Balance

Last Thursday I became a ninja.

Well, a Windy City Ninja.

Ok, so I took my first class at Windy City Ninja.

Soooooo, I'm pretty sure that makes my ninja status official.
Recorded.
On the books.

I was a little bit nervous but mostly excited leading up to class.

"It's a humbling experience," the instructor told me . . . and then the other two ppl who rounded out our class of three.

"Some things will be easy and others challenging. You'll see where your strengths lie."

She was right.
Balancing, I learned, is not my strongest skill.

Give me an 8 ft, 10 ft, or 14ft warped wall and I'll crush them all. But a stationary pipe, mere inches above the ground? Forget about it. And don't even think about the moving beam!

Could this real-life physical feat serve as symbolism for life in a broader sense?

You bet!

Oftentimes, it's the smallest, most basic-seeming things that require the most attention.  

How many times have you ever talked about a topic and uttered (or heard) the words 'that's just how it is' or 'they say you're supposed to...' when you don't have background information as to Why it is or know who They are?

 

It is statements like these that keep us off balance.

Why?

Because they fuel unconscious beliefs about how life should look. And if you are stepping onto the balance beam with beliefs that you don't agree with - and you don't even recognize you have - you are going to be carrying a LOT of extra, uneven weight.

 

Improving your balance in life starts with giving more attention to the thoughts you have.

By questioning where certain thoughts come from - most especially when they include (anything remotely close to) how someone or something "is suppose to be" - you'll reveal beliefs you likely didn't know you had.

 

With this new awareness, you have the power to keep the belief or leave it for something that suits you better. 

 

And with this deliberately given attention, your weight is redistributed for better balance - on and off the beam.

Day 151: Transformation in Progress

I admitted to a friend a secret I discovered about myself . . . Often, when I think jokes in my head, they are narrated in a Jerry Seinfeld voice.

Then I looked in my cupboard and saw how my cereal stock has grown from the usual, single box . . . 

The transformation has begun! 

Look-out world, the Seinfeld-version of Sarah is on the horizon!

Day 150: The ease of breaking

As a coach, I help clients break down their goals and challenges into smaller, more manageable pieces in order to conquer them.

As a human, this is something I struggle with. 

I've only recently learned the real ease that comes from breaking things down. Interestingly enough, this revelation firmly started to root when working on a challenge at work. A challenge I found incredibly frustrating and increasingly complicated the more I tried to solve it.

What made it so frustrating and complicated was trying to find a single solution for the entire thing. 

 

If something is complicated, that's a pretty good indicator that it involves different components. And if components are different, then it would make sense for them to be handled uniquely.

For the longest time, my focus was on finding a single solution to an entire problem. However, as I learned through my work challenge - and life in general - this approach isn't always helpful.

As I considered each component on it's own I noticed that my problem-solving felt . . . different. With each isolated component given its own attention, small steps of progress were visible. And rather than feeling frustrated that I didn't know the answer to the entire challenge, I felt motivated and encouraged by the small progress made. Confident that, with progress in each different area, the way to connect everything back together would become clearer as I went.

This approach feels light-years better than expecting to figure everything out all at once and putting pressure on yourself to do so.

I'm hopeful this was the experience needed to cement this breaking practice into habit. And at the very least, it will be a great framework to return to when faced with future challenges.

Day 149: Whys >Whats

I'd rather hear about the 'whys' than the 'whats'.

Especially when getting to know someone. To better understand what's important to them and directs their decision making.

Because we always base our decisions around what is most important to us in the moment. 

- Maybe that's getting acknowledged by others 

or

- being true to yourself

-It could be for finances

or

- travel

or

- family

It's different for everyone and it changes over time.

So, the more we can understand our 'whys' the more we can understand each other.

Day 148: Just keep swimming

This phrase was uttered during a recent coaching session.

Why?

As a way for my client to remind themself that things don't need to be perfect or clear in order to progress forward. 

This was a good reminder for me as well. 

I'll catch myself stalling with thoughts of "once I know how to solve this problem, things will get better" or "after I get clear on X, then I'll do this thing I feel intimidated by." 

But the reality is I don't need to wait for things to get better or for clarity before taking action. 

I just need to keep swimming. 

I just need to be willing to learn as I go.

It doesn't matter the direction. It doesn't matter the pace. Movement of any kind will always course correct to where we need to be when we are actively observing and learning from our experiences and the things around us.

Day 147: City Folk

Move out of the way, Babe. You're not the only farm animal in the city!
These ducks don't look like they're messing around.

They've straight up abandoned the pond and lakefront and are taking over the streets.

Who run the world? Ducks, apparently.

 

Day 146: Life Events

I recently attended a good friend's bachelorette party. It took place in Nashville, a town known for being a bachelorette destination.

I wasn't too familiar with the city, as I'd never been there before. Which makes sense because I'm not a big country music fan. But for this special party I figured it would be a good time. And so did the bride.

We later discovered however, that some life events come with built in expectations. Expectations that need to be examined prior to the event in order to avoid disappointment. 

 

This was one such occasion.

Too bad we made it to this realization after the fact.

What were the unexplored expectations?

- That bachelorette parties are a wild time. 

- That they're filled with a lot of drinking and shrieking and attention-grabbing. 

- That they facilitate mingling and excitement. That they're the best party ever.

Or something along those lines . . . 

Our celebration didn't really look like that. 

The bride confessed to me her disappointment.

"It's just not what I was expecting. I was wanting to talk to people and mingle with other brides, cheering them on. I wanted to go somewhere and dance. And I tried really hard to like the music, but I just can't get into it..."

It appeared our celebration caught a case of the "shoulds." Trying to live up to the criteria our society paints of what a celebration of such a life event 'should' look like. 

Expectations of this kind don't take into consideration any unique identifiers such as, say, personality, tastes and preferences, influencers of enjoyment and comfort. You know, the things that make us all different.

 

So what type of expectations don't lead to disappointment? None, really. But more realistically, the expectations we set for ourselves in terms of how we experience things.  

Rather the resting the weight of satisfaction or enjoyment on external factors outside of our control (ex- strangers, music venues, etc), we can reel it in a bit to focus on the things that actually make experiences pleasant - our perception and interpretation of them.

When we shift the focus from external to internal, (how we view situations and are present in the moment) it becomes much easier to enjoy ourselves and create memories we want to remember.