NEW BLOG ADDRESS!

Please adjust your bookmarks-we are now at a new and improved blog:

http://emptyspaceblog.net/

Come over and visit!

How to Stop Ruining Your Best Ideas

Ever have a great idea-an idea so big and grand that, for a split second, it makes the universe feel full of possibility? Maybe it’s an idea for a business you could start, or a dream to spend a year traveling around the world, or a vision that you could be an artist or writer.  For just a moment, all limits and rules drop away and it feels as though anything can happen.

 I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked a question like this to someone:  “what do you REALLY want to do?” or “if money were no object, how would you spend your time?”  And I can’t tell you how many of those times, what follows, in a spontaneous moment of unguarded clarity is an answer that is so brilliant, so natural, and makes so much SENSE.

And just as soon as the idea pops into your mind-BAM!!! The dreaded voice of reason rears its ugly head.  It starts to tell you why this won’t work.  Maybe it gives you a litany of reasons why the economy is bad, or you’re not talented enough.  Perhaps the critical voice that lives in your head is well versed in statistics (mine is)-it will start to recite all the names of people you know who have tried and failed.  Maybe the critical voice can’t think of anyone who has even tried-so it tells you that that is proof why it can’t work.

We’ve been taught to believe that the voice of reason is the objective one.  We trust it.  We think it’s rational.  So we quiet our big dream, and it scurries away into the recesses of our mind, never to heard from again, except in quiet moments, in the empty space (which is sometimes why we avoid the quiet, empty space, but that’s another blog posting for another day).

When we don’t allow ourselves the opportunity to linger in possibility, we miss finding out what might happen.  Most of the time, there are ways to make it happen.  Most of the time, when people stay in that empty space long enough, open to exploring the idea, they see that there are resources and helpful people all around them-the fear just blinded them to realizing it.  Once this happens, the idea starts to seem more feasible.  In fact, things start aligning into place.  A plan can be created.  The idea no longer seems so unfeasible.

 How can we do this?

•  Pay attention  Sometimes when we get insight about something, it starts to dissolve immediately.  When you notice the rational voice come in to throw cold water on your big ideas, just notice it and think, without judgement,  “ok, that’s what’s happening.  I'm scared and I'm shutting myself down."  
• Take notes Carry a notebook with you everywhere you go.  Write down anything that makes you excited-ideas, visuals, objects.  Review the list when you’re feeling confident, safe and happy.
• Music  Listen to music that emboldens you as you spend time daydreaming about what you want most.  One of my clients always listens to the theme song to Rocky when he’s psyching himself up for something.
• Give yourself permission  Create a sense of safety for yourself.  For instance, tell yourself, “I don’t have to act on any of this.  I’m just giving myself permission to explore.  I’ll figure out the how later.”  Sometimes it allows you to take enough pressure off yourself long enough to explore these ideas.
• ##$% Fear!  Just decide that you can feel scared and explore your ideas anyway.  Who says you can’t survive discomfort?
• Challenge that fear.  Talk back to it.  When you notice it, get rebellious.  Think to yourself:  “I don’t care.  I can think about anything I want to.” 

Think about it-what’s the worst thing that could happen?  You could fail.  So what?  People fail all the time.  To me, it’s better to stick your neck out and risk failure than it is to stay safe, bored, and unchallenged.  In the far lovelier words of Anais Nin:

 “Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.”

 

How to Make Space Pt. 2: Speak Nicely When You Talk to Yourself

When I was a kid, it was always so thrilling to catch people talking to themselves.  I remember on road trips, my sisters and I would always spot solitary people in cars who were deep in conversation.  Of course, when that happens now, people are talking on their cell phones.

Whether we do it out loud, in the privacy of our cars, or silently, all of us are talking to ourselves.  We’re often judging ourselves, parroting the critical voices we’ve heard in our lives.  Or we’re worrying about the future, using our past stories to tell us why we won’t measure up.  We speak to ourselves harshly, in ways in which we would never speak to others.  

Self-talk isn’t harmless.  Every time we repeat an incrimination (“you were so stupid to do that!”), a judgment (“you’re so fat!”),  or bind ourselves into a fixed story (“you’ll never get a better job because you can’t follow through on anything!”), a few things happen.  First of all, we have an emotional response, and the words hurt.  We react to these thoughts all day, and that wears us out.   It’s fatiguing. 

We also limit our sense of possibility.  When we get a big idea or an exciting prospect, we rush in to shut it down fast, based on these stories.   We never give ourselves the chance to change and flourish, and to disprove these stories.  The negative stuff takes up so much space that there’s no room for us to change.  We get stuck.

Here is one solution to changing the way you talk to yourself, in present tense.  Just work on this one and it can change things dramatically.

Skill set vs. character weakness.

I believe that human beings have this incredible ability to cultivate any quality we want to have. Here's an example:  a number of years ago, I noticed that my friend, Anne, always, always looked me in the eyes and never interrupted when I talked to her.  It felt so amazing to be treated that way, because so few people do it.  I decided that I wanted to make people feel the way that Anne made me feel.  I deliberately looked people in the eyes and forced myself to wait until people finished speaking before I talked.  It was hard, but I changed the habit over time.  

Often we assume that if we don't do something, it's because we have a weak character, or we're just "born" that way, and we'll never change (an example of being fixed in old stories about ourselves).    Actually, it's that we just haven't cultivated that skill yet.   If we start reframing our "weaknesses" into skills we haven't learned yet, a spaciousness, a kindness emerges in our thinking.  Every time you catch yourself speaking to yourself in a critical way, back up and speak to yourself differently.  Over time, it will become automatic.  I'll give you some real life examples of how this translates to self talk.

Money

Old talk:  "I'm just SO terrible with money!  I'll never get ahead!"

New story: "I haven't yet learned to make and follow a budget.  I'm going to set goals to learn to do that."

Setting boundaries

Old talk: "I'm so weak-I always give in!"

New story:  "I haven't learned how to say no.  I'm strengthening those muscles."

You get the idea.  The point here is to take away the idea that you are fixed in an old identity, and to remind yourself that if you want to be able to do something new, you can just set goals and make it happen.  It's as simple as that.  You don't have to be perfect.  You don't have to have everything figured out.  You just have to have an intention to try, and to cut yourself some slack.  Give yourself some space, and things will start to change.   We have an amazing ability to transform ourselves.

Making space pt. 1: Forgive yourself

I think a lot about ways we can make more space in our lives.  You know the kind of space I mean: room to breathe, room to think big and to dwell in possibility, room to be alone with ourselves, freedom to do more of what sustains and enriches us.  

I often give tips to help you change the circumstances of your life to create more space by paring down, becoming more productive, saying no, etc.   This can really help.  Economizing how you spend your time and energy frees up a lot of space.

Now I'm going to shift the focus to thoughts, which take up a whole lot of space too.  If you tune into your thoughts for very long, you'll notice that your mind is probably working overtime.   What's taking up so much space in there?  Most likely it's chatter about the future and the past, or a voice that's telling what you "should" be doing or feeling (I call this "shoulding" on yourself).  Maybe it's a critical voice that offers cruel judgments of you.  

In future posts, I'll address the others, but for today,  I'd like to focus on thoughts of the past and how to clear them.  Why?  Because they take up a whole lot of space and they can cause anxiety, self-doubt, and affect our future decisions.

Think about it.  Do you have something you have done that you really regret?  A terrible decision you made?  Think about it right now.  Ouch.  What happens in your body when you think of it?  (I'm thinking of mine-I'm feeling all hot and my shoulders hurt.  And like I just got slimed.)  Now, what thoughts are coming up for you?  Write them down.  Odds are, they read something like this (these are mine):

1) How could I have been so stupid?

2) That really made my life difficult

3) I'd be so much further along if I hadn't done that-such a setback.

Now, here's the problem.  If we're really stuck in this thinking, then every time any of these thoughts come up, we beat ourselves up again.  We replay these stories.  We tell ourselves how much we suck.  We experience those feelings of tension and anxiety, both physically and emotionally.  And the worst part is that they hold us back-because when we think about taking a risk or doing something new, we reference these stories.  We think, "oh, s^%#, I'm going to screw up again."  We don't trust our instincts.  We get fearful.  We stop moving forward because we're stuck in the past.

So here are my suggestions on how to work with this.  Make a list of your hall of shame decisions-your top ten biggest regrets.  And then pick one or two of the following ways to work with your list.

1) Lean into it.  Yeah, that's what I mean.  Think about every stupid thing you've ever done.  Make a list.  Revel in it.  Feel the shame.  Own it.   Don't worry-it's uncomfortable, but you'll survive.  Now, next to your list, write down what you learned from each experience.   You might see that some of those mistakes were pretty necessary, or that what you learned from them changed your life.

2) Refute it.    Make a list of great decisions you've made, and accomplishments that make you proud.  When your mind focuses on the other stuff, challenge it.  Say to yourself, "oh yeah?  What about all the great stuff I've done?  Who says I have to do everything perfectly, 100% of the time?"

3) Be your own best friend.  As in, someone you love a whole lot-if they came to you and told you about something dumb they did, and how they were having trouble forgiving themselves, what would you say to them?  Now, say that to yourself, in your gentlest tone of voice, with all the love you can muster.

4)  Start over.   Odds are, you aren't the biggest screw up of all time.  The good news is that even if you are, or have been up to now, it's not too late for you.  You get to start over every day.   None of us it beyond repair.   If everything is awful, make the decision to not let things get any worse.  You can improve a little bit every day.  Tell yourself this.

5) "I forgive myself."   Yeah, it sounds corny, but saying it to yourself, out loud, can have magical effects.  Look for a variation of this that works for you.  If I ever start to beat myself up about a bad decision, I say to myself 'I did the best I could with what I knew about myself at the time."  I relax immediately.

As you start to forgive yourself, and free yourself of more and more guilt, shame, and embarrassment, you will find that there is a lot more space for joy, happiness, and new versions of the story of you, just waiting to be written.

10 Ways to Reduce Stress in 10 Minutes or Less

Sometimes we assume that changes have to be epic, and that we have to overhaul our entire lives in order to reduce our stress.  I disagree.  I believe that small changes add up to big changes over time, and that doing less can actually help us accomplish more.   Think of stress as weeds in a garden-if you get rid of them as soon as they pop up, they don’t get out of control.  Here are some quick ways to reduce stress-try one or two a day and notice how things can change:

 

1.  If you’re at home and you’re working on the computer, take a 5-10 minute break every hour.  Dance to one song or play with your dog. 

 2.  If you feel yourself becoming anxious or stressed, get grounded.  Pay attention to the feeling of your feet on the floor.  Listen to the sound of your breath.

 3.  Make a list of 5 things you stress about that you can't control.  Read the list, close your eyes and imagine putting those things into a red balloon and releasing it.  Mentally watch it fly away.  Decide you're not going to worry about stuff you can't control.

 4.  Mindfulness meditation is about nothing more than breathing and being present by clearing all the anxious thoughts.  It’s transformational.  7 minutes of meditation a day can do wonders.  Here’s a free meditation track to help you if you need it.

 5.  Make a list of everything you have going for you.  Things you’re grateful for, strengths, resources and accomplishments.

 6.  Stop working and hug your kids.

 7.  Step outside.  Stand and observe and look for something beautiful.

8.  Do something ridiculous-think of the funniest thing you’ve ever seen and giggle.  It has an amazing way of putting things in perspective.

 9.  Make a list of all the people who love you no matter what.  And then call one of them.

 10.   Listen to a song you love.  Close your eyes and stop thinking.  Enjoy the music.

How to Choose the Right Job or Career

I talk to so many people who are unhappy with where they are and who got there by thinking too much.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Many people are in careers that they chose because the forecasts were good for that industry, or their strengths or skill sets fit with the requirements.  This stuff isn’t bad, but in my opinion it’s not enough.   We're not really taught that there is any other way to go about it-but there is.

The gift (if there is one) of this new economic climate is that a lot of people are making a lot less money, and now feel liberated to take the risk of following a new career path.  The money and the busyness have, up to now, provided a buffer against feeling those nagging doubts that said, “is this IT?”  It’s actually exhilarating to start asking these questions-and discovering the answers.

The wonderful psychologist Carl Rogers said that if we get too concerned with the outside world and what society wants of us, we lose sight of what we truly, authentically want, and it can become difficult to access that information when we need it.   Here’s my quick and dirty list for getting back to basics and starting this exploration.

 

1)    Start a meditation/mindfulness practice.  Meditation is a daily practice in getting quiet with yourself and figuring out what you want most.  You’ll be shocked at the ideas and insights that pop up when you’re trying not to think.  Here's a free one I made to help my clients--feel free to use it.

 

2)    Go back over your resume and look at past jobs.  Which parts of each job did you enjoy the most?  Compile all these parts into a comprehensive list.  Put all these pieces together and you start to get a clearer version of what you like.

 

3)    Carry a journal or notebook with you every day.  Write down any ideas or insights that get you excited.  You’re not trying to figure out HOW-you’re just getting excited.

 

4)    Give yourself permission to think big.  Too often we shoot down our good ideas before they even have a chance to breathe and develop.  If you notice yourself being critical of yourself, and telling yourself why it can’t or won’t happen, say to yourself:  “I’m just brainstorming.”

 

5)    Here’s the most important thing:  look for the feeling of “rightness.”  You know the feeling:  everything in your body relaxes and you feel relieved.  The opposite of this feeling is when you think of something and you feel tense, tight, uncomfortable or, to use my academic word, yucky.  When you have ideas that feel right, write them down.

 

6)    Hang out with supportive, positive people.  Don’t hang out with the friends who tell you why your ideas will never work.  Odds are, they are unhappy and have a lot of thwarted dreams.  But that’s not your problem.

 

As a coach and therapist, I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t have something, deep down, that makes them really, really happy.  It validates my belief in our inner goodness, every day.  I wish you the pleasure of discovering yours.  Remember, give yourself permission to believe that the universe is conspiring for good all around you, and to always, always trust your gut instinct.

Revolutionize Your Life, Change Your Schedule

My last blog entry was about accomplishing more by doing less (if you'd like to read that one first, click here). I'd like to focus on one aspect of this by talking a bit more about scheduling and time blocking.

Now, I want to preface all this by saying one thing: we are not trying to make you more efficient so that you can get 40 hours of work done in 16 hours a day. The whole point of this is to help you get more done so that you can spend less time working, and spend more time painting, writing poetry, snowboarding, cooking, or whatever it is that makes your heart sing. It may seem counter-intuitive, but the more time you spend doing stuff you love, the more effective you will be. Ever had a trainer tell you that your rest days are when your muscles change? It's the same with the brain. You're packing tons of information in there all week, but it's when you relax, unwind and completely shift your focus to something fun and compelling that your brain has the breathing space to sort it all out. You'll gain a broader perspective and get a whole lot more creative. You'll get great ideas. You'll be a visionary, not a drone. And the most important part is that you'll be a whole lot happier.

I can't tell you how many times a day people describe this cat herding scenario to me: going all day from task to task, responding to phone calls and email as they come in, starting one task, then remembering, mid-stream, that something else needs to be done, changing tasks, never going back to the first one. Exhausting-and it leaves one with a sense of frustration. I feel tired just typing it.

I try to base my work principles on a passage from the Tao te Ching that I'd like to share with you:

Express yourself completely,

then keep quiet.

Be like the forces of nature:

when it blows, there is only wind;

when it rains, there is only rain;

when the clouds pass, the sun shines through.

I see a few principles in here: a) speak the truth and the truth only b) do what you're doing, fully, without distraction and c)if you do that, the difficulty will pass. I interpret the last line as this: when you are willing to focus completely on something, even an unpleasant task, it will pass.

So this is lovely, esoteric stuff-how do we put it into play on a practical level? The first two may be familiar, as I included them in last's week's blog.

1) Meditation, yoga, or prayer. Start the day with it, even if it's for 5 minutes. Here's a free meditation track I made for my clients-feel free to use it if you need extra support.

2) Top three priorities. Each day, write them down and do them first, before anything else.

3) Time blocking. I am a huge, huge fan of time blocking, and recommend it to all my clients. Here's my quick and dirty system:

-Pick your main three categories of work per day, and put them in order of importance

-Decide how much time you want to spend on each over the course of the day (be realistic)

-Make a schedule-here's a hypothetical example of how it may look:
1 hour potential clients: return calls, mail introductory packages
3 hours current clients: correspondence, answering questions, etc.
3 hours marketing: social networking, answering email, brainstorming, calls

-Block off the schedule in your book, with a longish break in between blocks. For instance, after the first hour, you take a stretch break, after the second block, you take lunch, and after the third, you take a walk. Every hour, take short (5 minute) breaks-play with your dog, put on a song and dance, call someone you love, stretch. Breathe. Whatever resets you.

Here are the rules:

During each block, you are only allowed to work on those tasks. That means no social networking while you're dealing with potential clients. If you do all your potential client work in 30 minutes, you spend another 30 minutes creating better systems for dealing with potential clients. You stay fully in whatever you're doing. No excuses. It's going to take discipline at the beginning, and then it's going to get a lot easier.

No email during each time block, unless it's related to the task at hand. That means that if you are writing email to potential clients, and your email is ringing with new mail from Facebook, or current clients, you must ignore it and stay focused on the task at hand.

Here's a caveat, if you are in a profession where you must give IMMEDIATE responses, you can check email for 10 minutes on the hour, or some other system like that. I say this very reluctantly, because I have a difficult time imagining a situation where email can't wait for 2 hours. Sitting and responding to each email (or Facebook comment or Twitter update) that comes in, as it comes in, is a complete and utter waste of time. It also creates the expectation with your friends, clients, and colleagues that you are always available to them, without limits. I do not consider this to be a healthy expectation.

Try the time blocking-practice being fully present in whatever you're doing. It's revolutionary. You'll likely find you have a lot more time-and a greater sense of accomplishment when you leave work earlier and go play your guitar outside in the sunshine (that's what I'm going to do as soon as I finish writing this blog posting).

If you get stuck, send me an email or comment-I'm happy to help. And keep me posted on your progress!

Do One Thing...Really Well.

I’ve recently been reading Power of Less, The: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential...in Business and in Life by Leo Babauta, and I think it’s a great book. Babuta is the author of the Zen Habits blog (http://zenhabits.net/). Power of Less is all about how to do fewer things in a more directed and clear way in order to achieve more balance and happiness in the meantime.

How do we do this? Well, according to Babuta, we focus on one thing at a time. He discovered this process when he was an overweight smoker with piles of debt. Rather than get overwhelmed by the number of changes that he needed to make, he decided to focus on one: quitting smoking. It was his entire focus. After he mastered that, he felt so encouraged by his success that he moved on to the next goal: his health. He broke each goal down into manageable components, and accomplished each one slowly and steadily-and thoroughly. This kind of change lasts.

It’s exactly the opposite of what I call “New Year’s Resolutions Syndrome,” which is when someone (it might be you) goes into a flurry of activity for about three weeks, determined to completely overhaul everything about one’s life-all at once. Of course, this pace is not sustainable, and once the first wave of excitement wanes, the hopefulness turns to hopelessness-or, at the least, inertia. Giving up. The worst part of the syndrome is that it creates a story that we use to inform our future decisions. In this case, the story becomes “well, I’d like to make changes, but I never follow through.” We pull out these old stories every time we’re thinking about taking a risk or making changes, and they shame us into giving up. It's an extreme example, but I think that it's a metaphor for how a lot of people live on a daily basis.

Well, what if you’re not weak in character or determination, but you’ve just been using the wrong approach? Putting too much pressure on yourself? What if this is just about having an open mind and facing this in a different way? Just take a deep breath, and let's go at this from another angle.

So here are your choices: you can a) multi-task franticly, rushing around and getting a lot of things a little bit done, or you could b)be calm and grounded and do a few things well and deliberately and with greater success. Ok, so assuming you choose the latter, here are some tips:

1) Instead of starting your day by checking your email, start by meditating, praying, or doing yoga. You’ll start the day centered, instead of reactive.
2) Write down your most important goal for your life. Read it every day before you start work.
3) Schedule work related to your goal FIRST and build the rest of your day around it. For instance, if learning to paint is your top priority, schedule time every day to do it. Maybe on certain busy days, you’ll have time to paint and you won’t have time to do housework. So what? Your world won’t collapse. And it may be that you only have 10 minutes a day to work toward your goal. So what? Little steps turn into big changes over time.
4) Every day when you start work, write down the 3 most important things that you want to accomplish that day. Do them first.
5) If you’re working hard on a project and feel stuck, step away and take a walk. You’ll clear your head and figure out the solution with less effort.
6) Ask yourself several times during the day, “Is this really necessary?” In other words, are you spending all your time, energy and money on people, things and activities that deplete you, instead of enhance your life?
7) Only answer email once or twice a day. Don’t react to each email as it comes in. Remember, you have choices.

I think it comes down to this: paring down to what is absolutely necessary in life. When we take away the chaos, the frenzy, the busyness, we are left with what we love most. And, suddenly, there is a spaciousness of time and energy that can be used in ways that make our lives better.

Finding and Keeping a Job, Grocery-Store Style

The summer after freshman year of college, I worked for three excruciatingly long months as a checkout person at a grocery store. As a counselor and a coach, I remind my clients of these lessons on a daily basis, but I’m going to translate them to you here, grocery-store style.

Here’s the first one: don’t procrastinate too long or you end up having to take what’s left over. In my case, the procrastination involved a long-distance boyfriend and far too many trips to Athens, Georgia, waiting too long to look for a summer job, and having to work at Delmonico’s in Birmingham (may it RIP). My friends were heading to great internships and working in music stores and I was getting verbally abused and wearing a uniform every day. Enough said. Lesson: don’t wait until you’re desperate to start looking. You’ll limit your choices.

Here’s an important one: don’t cater to bizarre demands. Ever. You’ll get trapped repeating them over the long haul. Example: On my second day of work, a co-worker pointed at a sour-looking customer in a red fedora, looked at me grimly, and said, “You better hope that HE is never in your line!” When I pressed her on the topic, she told me that he was exceedingly picky about how his groceries got handled. As in, he complained to the manager if he perceived that you were “too rough” with his stuff. Three days later, he was in my line. I tried to be as careful as I could. He glared at me menacingly as I took 15 minutes to scan his groceries, hands trembling, placing the Metamucil in the bag as if it were a newborn. With two hands, I placed the orange in it’s own bag so that it wouldn’t be bruised. By the time I finished, he was the only person left in line, and he was quivering. He snatched the bags from my hands and walked over the manager, and started speaking, gesturing wildly and pointing at me repeatedly. I was terrified. After he left, the manager walked over to me, a wide smile on his face. He said, ‘he told me, "that red-haired girl is the only person in this store who KNOWS how to handle groceries, and I won’t go to anyone else again, ever!"” And he didn’t. For the rest of the summer, he lined up every two days to watch me like a hawk and rattle my nerves. Lesson: don't do stuff you feel uncomfortable with just to make people happy in the short run. You're just setting up bad habits that you will have to undo later.

Here’s a good one: be nice to people, for a couple of reasons. First and primarily, everyone you meet is a person too, and it’s crappy to treat people badly, from a karmic perspective. People in service jobs see the worst aspects of humanity on a daily basis, and you have to have worked in retail to truly appreciate this. The nice people stand out in a sea of impatience and intolerance. So get off your high horse, if you are on one, and be nice.

And here’s why you should be nice to people, part 2:when you are kind to people, not in an Eddie Haskell sort of way, but in a genuine way, people want to do nice things for you. They want to help you. One of the nicest people I remember from that summer was Carole Griffin, who I only knew as one of the few customers who looked me in the eye, remembered my name, and was patient and kind. Years later, I met her again, remembered her, and when I learned she owned a local business (Continental Bakery/Chez Lulu), I spent my money there, because I remembered her as someone who has goodness flowing out of her. How this translates to a job search: be really nice to everyone you encounter during your search; you never know who you will meet and how it may help you later.

Conversely, don’t treat people like crap. This is a different rule from “be nice.” Being nice is taking the time to really see people. It’s active. But treating people like crap is a whole other beast, and it’s bad. If you treat people badly, they will remember, and you will get yours later. I’ve worked in enough coffee shops and restaurants to know that the abusive customers get served sneezers (if you don’t know what that is, trust me, you don’t want one). In the rest of the world, here’s how it translates: don’t miss appointments, badmouth people, be disrespectful to assistants or anyone you consider “beneath” you, be disrespectful of people’s time, or take stuff for free without saying “thank you.” It’s rude, and it WILL bite you in the butt, because people do remember.

These lessons don’t just apply in Delmonico’s: they apply in the rest of the world too. Mind your P’s and Q’s, and remember, there is opportunity everywhere you go.

Only You Know What's Best for You

When I meet clients for the first time, they typically say that they want to work with me because they know that something is missing, but they aren't exactly sure what that "something" is, or how to go about getting it. Many of my blog entries are about HOW to change or how to create a vision for your life, because it's a starting point. It's the beginning.

But what happens next? Often when we start advocating for what we want, the unhealthy people in our lives start pushing back, and it's not fun. I'll give you some examples. A client of mine was in an unhappy job for several years. It was a situation where she was set up to fail: her job description was vague, at best, and she was expected to have mastery over many different areas of a company, each requiring completely different skill sets. She had little administrative support at work. The more she did, the less support she received. She had tremendous responsibility, but no authority. And to add insult to injury, she wasn't making nearly as much as she deserved. She stayed for a long time, mainly because she liked her co-workers (well, and because her self-esteem had taken such a pummeling that she thought she couldn't get another job). The one bright spot in an otherwise bleak job was her community of friends at work. They went out for drinks after work on many nights, and bonded over their mutual miserable situation. They supported one another in their shared dislike of their unsupportive boss. They commiserated over how terrible it felt to be so stuck, and to feel as though one was doomed to unhappiness.

So guess what happened when this person decided that she was tired of being unhappy, and feeling stuck and miserable, and decided to go pursue a different career path that made her happy (and landed an amazing job, might I add)? Do you think that these same co-workers were thrilled for her, that they rejoiced for her success? If you haven't guessed, I'll give you the answer: No. They tried to talk her out of taking the new job. They tried to tell her why it wouldn't work out for her, they tried to dash her dreams by convincing her to stay.

I've seen this happen over and over, both in my life and in the lives of friends and clients. You get ready take a bold, dramatic, gutsy step in your life, one that requires lots of willingness to step outside your comfort zone-and sometimes you are met with a lot of resistance. I've seen this play out in other situations, and in none so strongly as when I teach women how to say "no" to people and situations that drain them (I've often said that my favorite part of my job is teaching women how to be selfish!). Inevitably, after people start getting more assertive, the unhealthy people around them (you know, the ones who have relied upon their good graces) start pushing harder. It is not in their best interest for you to say "no" to them-it is far better for you to be a doormat. A lot of women I know are surprised by how much of the push back comes from other women, friends or other mothers-people that they assume would be supportive and understanding of their efforts to grow.

Now, I'm not implying that any of these people are bad or mean people. I have a theory about why this happens. If we believe that we are totally trapped or don't have any choices, than we relieve ourselves of taking responsibility for our lives. When one person steps out of that trap and makes a choice, takes a stand, chooses something courageous, it implies that perhaps we have a lot more choices than we think. If you feel stuck in a miserable job, and think that there is nothing you can do to leave it, you don't have to do anything. But if you suddenly realize that it is, in fact, possible, to leave that job, to get a better job, or to become a chef or fashion designer (or whatever it is that makes your heart sing) things can get a lot more scary. If we feel that we have to say "yes" to every single obligation around us, we feel trapped in our lives. If someone we know starts saying "no" to whatever it is that they don't want to do, and the world doesn't fall apart, we realize that we have choices too. Because that can imply that we might have to start making some painful changes, human beings often tend to try to suppress that instinct in others. That is to say that I believe there is a direct correlation between the speed at which someone rushes to throw cold water on your dream and the extent to which they feel trapped in their own life.

The good news about all this is that we DO have choice in our lives. Many of us have a lot more options than others, but I will argue that each of us has some small space where we can assert ourselves and make deliberate decisions about how we want to live. The other helpful thing to remember is the second of the four agreements, from the book of the same name by Don Ruiz: “Everything people do is not about you, it is about them. Take nothing personally.”

Saying “no” helps you make space in your life for the people who support you. These are the people who say, “that’s great,” instead of “it will never happen,” when you tell them what you want to do. You can’t choose whether others decide to stay stuck and unhappy, but you do have choices about your own life. In the words of Henry David Thoreau, “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.”