A job you’re “good at” does not equate to a job you love.

If I followed all of the tests and assessments of my personality and my skill set, I’d still be sitting in a fabric-covered cubicle doing things I don’t enjoy, talking with people (I do enjoy) about things I don’t give a rat’s ass about.

A job you love is not about what you’re good at. Yes, you’ll likely be good at a job you love, but don’t start your search there.

Start by checking in with your heart. What does it long to do?

Check in with your gut. What lights you on fire?

Ask the child you used to be. What did you want to be before anyone told you it wasn’t possible or that being an engineer was a practical career choice?

Start asking these questions in the quiet, soft places of your heart. You don’t have to share the answers with anyone. But if you don’t ask them, you’ll never know the answers. And that would be a very, very sad thing.
 

I talk with clients all the time about listening to inner directives, those little voices that tell us the right way to our best lives.

My inner directive is telling me to REST. And I’m going to listen.

My blogging for the remainder of the summer will be sporadic. Check back now and then to see if I’ve posted anything. You can also subscribe in a reader or by email, so you can have the blog posts delivered directly to you.

I’ll keep sending out newsletters (subscribe over there to the left), and I’m still coaching.

In the mean time, how are you doing listening to your inner directives?
 

I am!

I had the pleasure of being at the Martha Beck Coaches Summit in Keystone, Colorado, for the past 4 days. What fun!

Today is my chill day. Four days of "work" (a.k.a. crazy fun), and now a day of rest.

How about you? Can you cut out of work early, take a day off, play hooky, and rejuvenate. You deserve it!
 

A wise coach once told me that our thought patterns are like a china plate. It’s difficult to break our core issues, the center of the plate, but if we chip around the edges at the little nagging stuff of every day life, the plate will eventually fall apart.

I work with very wise individuals. They know that their fear originates from a few particular events from their childhood. They know that their low self-confidence comes from being incessantly teased in 6th grade. (Oh, that’s me.) They know that their hesitance to trust their intuition comes from one decision they made a few years ago. So when something big comes up, these clients dive in and want to tackle that one big thing.

It’s difficult to break a plate in the center. It’s easier to chip the edges.

So we look at the fear they face today about a workshop they plan to attend. We look at trusting one small hunch they have. We work the day-to-day stuff.

Then we circle back to the big stuff, because it’s all connected.

Chipping the edges of the plate is easier, and it gets you to the same place in the end. Why not go with easy?
 

I learned a great new trick a few weeks ago: If I want to relax, I just ask my body to do it for me.

Try this: Ask your breath to deepen for you. Don’t you do it--ask your breath to do it for you.

Stop reading for a minute and notice what happens.

Seriously, try it. Ask your breath to deepen for you.

What happens is almost magical, isn’t it?

I’m now starting to practice it on my tight muscles and with falling asleep, with some success. When I get into bed and feel situated, I ask my mind to turn off and my body to sleep. Most nights it works quickly.

If you encounter a stressful moment in your day, pause and ask your breath to deepen for you--you don’t have to do anything else. Your body is infinitely wise and knows exactly what to do. You and your mind are the only thing stopping it. Pause and let your breath deepen and your body relax.

Isn’t that fantastic?
 

When is the last time you played hooky? For me, it was yesterday.

Hooky is a great way to shift your attitude and feel good. Taking a day to play helps you feel happier and more relaxed. It decreases your stress levels, keeps your immune system in check, and helps you approach life in a more even-keeled manner.

Whether you work for The Man, work for yourself, or take care of your family each day, you can always find a day here and there to play hooky.

Here are four clues that it’s time for you to play hooky.

1. Your schedule unexpectedly opens up for part or all of one day.
2. Your boss is on vacation or out sick for a few days.
3. The house is clean (enough), and the neighbors said they’d love to have Johnny over for a few hours to play in the leaves.
4. You can’t remember the last time you took a “you” day.

Is it time for you to play hooky? Pick a day. Put it in the calendar. No buts about it.

Now, you’ve got the day picked out. What are you going to do with it?

Here’s the best part: You get to decide. Do anything you want, as long as it makes you happy. Stop thinking of everyone else just for one day, or even a few hours. Savor the selfishness--it’s good for you now and then.

Here’s what I did yesterday: I slept in. I read a book. I took a bath. I ate a yummy lunch. I watched the Michael Jackson movie. I went to the farmers’ market. I enjoyed a late afternoon cup of delicious coffee. I went mountain biking. I took a long, hot shower. I cooked a delicious dinner with my market produce. I watched television. I went to bed with a smile.

Every minute of it was for me. No guilt. (Guilt over stuff like this is a waste of time, anyway.)

Your turn. Start planning your “you” day off. You deserve it. Drop the guilt and go have fun.

What are you going to do for you?

It’s so easy to get caught up in daily life that we often go through it without thinking. I find this rather funny. So much of life can just run on auto-pilot. When our lives are running on auto-pilot, where’s our mind?

When I began to pay attention to what was going through my mind, I was fascinated... and a little freaked out. I noticed that when I felt anxious, I was thinking some terrible, nasty thoughts. I was thinking thoughts like, “they must think I’m crazy,” and “there’s no way I’m going to be able to do that.” I found it scary that I had been thinking these thoughts without even realizing it.

Although first encountering our thoughts can be scary, it’s a freeing practice. Once we know what we are actually thinking, we can do something about it.

Facing the truth about what is going on in your mind is an absolutely necessary step on the path to happiness.

If you are in the habit of watching your thoughts already, then I’m sure you know what the mind-watching experience is like. If you are new to thought-watching, let me suggest some tips to get started.

First, notice times when you feel anything less than happy and relaxed. Our natural state is happy and relaxed. If you feel anything less than that, it’s likely that there is a thought stopping you from feeling good.

Second, become a detective in your own mind. What thoughts are going through your mind when you’re not feeling good? See if you can find some things along these lines:

They must think I’m [something not positive].
What if they don’t like me?
I always screw up.
I can’t do that.
What if I get fired?
She’s never nice to me.

There are endless possibilities to what the thoughts are behind your feelings. Start seeing if you can find the thoughts.

Once you become aware of the thoughts in your head, you have the ability to choose whether or not to believe them. As I like to say, “they are just thoughts.” It is possible that the thoughts you are thinking, such as “I always screw up” just might not be true. Would you be willing to consider that possibility?

What have you found yourself thinking that might not be true?

In a recent post, I discussed the idea of acceptance. I received a great question from one reader:

Could you talk more about acceptance? What happens after I accept that my boss is passive-aggressive? I'm just OK with it?

I thought this question was worthy of a follow-up post.

Accepting reality is knowing you can not change it. It does not mean that the reality you experienced is your preference or that you will not take subsequent action. Acceptance is about finding peace within yourself.

Accept a situation first. This creates peace within yourself. Then take the appropriate action for yourself from that place of peace.

There are two things from my original post that I think could be better worded.

“When we accept something, we have no limit to our patience.” This may be better worded as

When we accept something, it no longer tries our patience. We recognize it as reality, and we can then choose what to do about it.

“Acceptance leads us to peace. Tolerance is holding back a fight.” I think a better way to say this is

Acceptance is what creates peace inside of us. When we accept something, we are no longer fighting reality. The fighting prevents us from experiencing peace.

As I said above, accepting reality does not mean that reality is our preference. By nature, we have preferences. I am going to use a simple example to illustrate the idea of reaching acceptance when reality does not meet our personal preferences.

I like coffee ice cream. Let’s say that I go to the store wanting to buy coffee ice cream, but they are out. If I stand in the store and get upset about not being able to buy coffee ice cream, I have no mental space left to make a decision about what to do. I am stuck being upset about reality not matching my preference. I can argue all I want about it not being “right” that a store does not have it, but the reality will not change.

If I can accept that there is no coffee ice cream at this store, I am making peace with reality. Then I can decide what I want to do next. I can buy another flavor, look for it elsewhere, or skip ice cream altogether. Action from a peaceful place is productive and allows me to move forward in life.

Without acceptance, I may lash out at the other patrons or even call the store manager for a chat about the absence of coffee ice cream. This is not productive and it does not allow me to move forward in life. This keeps me stuck.

You likely understand this simple example. Where some people get confused is when we start talking about a more emotionally-charged topic, such as the people in our lives and how they impact us.

Even in dealing with the people in our lives, it is still not possible for us to change reality. The people in our lives are who they are. I can not change my boss or my spouse, but I can decide what I want to do about my relationship with them once I accept them for who they are. Once I accept reality, I can choose to leave a situation or a relationship if that is what is best for me, or I can have a conversation with the other person about what displeases me. With acceptance, my action comes from a peaceful place instead of a place of frustration, which may cause me to lash out or make inappropriate comments in the heat of the moment.

I could keep debating whether or not it is “fair” that the store does not have coffee ice cream or that my boss is passive-aggressive, but as long as I debate with reality, then I have no room left to effectively decide what I want to do about it. This keeps me stuck in a situation that I do not want. Once I stop the debate and the struggle, I can take action for my own well-being.

What are your thoughts on acceptance? What other questions do you have?

I often hear clients say, “Well I guess I just have to put up with it.” This could be in reference to a situation at work or at home. The details do not really matter.

Putting up with anything doesn’t sound like fun to me. It’s definitely not on my road to happiness.

I would like to ask that you think about your difficult situations and decide if you want to tolerate them or accept them. Tolerance and acceptance are two distinctly different things. Let’s look at two definitions from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary.

Tolerate
1 : to endure or resist the action of (as a drug or food) without serious side effects or discomfort 

2 a : to allow to be or to be done without prohibition, hindrance, or contradiction b : to put up with

Accept
1 a : to receive willingly b : to be able or designed to take or hold (something applied or added)
2 : to give admittance or approval to
3 a : to endure without protest or reaction b : to regard as proper, normal, or inevitable c : to recognize as true : believe

Acceptance leads us to peace. Tolerance is holding back a fight.

Can you feel the difference in the energy between tolerating and accepting?

In my pursuit of happiness, I would rather seek peace through acceptance. Enduring and resisting sound difficult, and they eventually cave in under their own weight.

We can only tolerate something for so long before we can’t take it any more. We have a limit on our patience and willingness to endure.

When we accept something, we have no limit to our patience. I choose to recognize a situation as reality, and I allow it into my life, warts and all. Acceptance is easier than tolerance.

What are you tolerating in your life that you could consider accepting?

Here are some situations I struggled to tolerate and eventually found peace through acceptance.

1. a passive-aggressive boss
2. my limited ability to understand physics
3. differing expectations of household cleanliness
4. cellulite

Here are 5 steps to find peace through acceptance.

1. Recognize your struggle.

2. In your body, feel “tolerance” and your physical resistance to it.

3. In your body, feel “acceptance” and the freedom in it.

4. Ask yourself if you are ready to release the resistance and find acceptance.

5. Accept reality for what it is. End the struggle.

Sometimes releasing the struggle is more complicated than this. There are some situations where we deeply believe that there is something “not fair” or “wrong” with reality.

Releasing a difficult struggle like this can take time and patience. My preferred method to find acceptance in difficult situations is The Work by Byron Katie. The Work has helped me find so much peace in my life.

There are many other releasing techniques available, such as Self-Coaching 101 by Brooke Castillo, The Sedona Method, and Psych-K.

What are your thoughts on tolerance and acceptance?