You have really great days and you have tough days. I think that if you’re participating in a sport for the right reasons..., when you have those tough days and those trying moments, your love for what you do is going to get you through it.

I was watching some Olympic recaps and heard gold medalists Evan Lysacek say that to Oprah when she asked him “What would you say to the young skaters out there?”

I choose to believe that each one of us can have as much love for what we do in our lives as this man has for his sport. I don’t believe that this love is reserved for Olympic and professional athletes, actors, singers, and Oprah. I think we can all feel this love.

If you’re in a job you don’t love, why are you there? I’m sure you have plenty of logical reasons. How does your heart feel when you spend your days doing something that doesn’t fill you up?

Just for a moment, consider that it is possible to feel the same way Evan does about his “job.” What could you do to make that your reality? Are you willing to take even a tiny step in that direction?

Photo courtesy of dev null via Flickr

... but it does.

I hear this from clients: “Grrr. I’m so mad at her. I can’t believe she did that! She does this all the time. Why do I let it get to me so much?!” Or something along those lines anyway.

Sound familiar?

I’m sure you can think of a time where (1) you were frustrated with someone about something and (2) you were also frustrated with yourself for being irritated in the first place. I know it happened to me a few times just last week!

Recall the last time you were irritated about being irritated. Could it have taken you longer to get over the situation than if you had been okay with your frustration? When we judge ourselves for our reactions, we often double the effort required to regain our balance.

Next time you find yourself mad for being mad, try these steps to get past it.

1. Acknowledge how you feel about the situation. [I’m mad at her for what she did, and I’m mad at myself for being mad about it.]

2. Allow yourself to feel how you feel. Safely and privately express your emotions. [If you’re angry, allow yourself to be angry. Get it out by writing it down, by yelling--some place where it’s safe and private--or by going for a walk or run.]

3. Ask yourself what story you are telling about why you shouldn’t be angry about what happened. [I shouldn’t be mad because she does this all of the time--I should expect it.]

4. Ask yourself what story you are telling about why you feel irritated about the incident. [She always talks down to me, and it’s so rude.]

5. Tell new stories. [I can choose to stay calm even when others are uppity. She is who she is, and oh, well.]

If you want a little more help, refer to Monday’s post for some finer details.

I recently walked through a similar scenario with a client. She found the most relief once she stopped being upset with herself about being upset. We are the hardest on ourselves. When she found peace with her reaction, it was easy to change the story about the crazy woman she was facing.

Be gentle with yourself when someone is acting crazy. Being mad about being mad only doubles the madness!

What new stories can you tell? Share your ideas here!

How do you feel on Mondays? Does your day begin with dread, overwhelm and heaviness? Or does your Monday start with excitement, enthusiasm and eagerness?

I will not deny that some people face tough work environments, challenging coworkers, and frustrating projects. You could likely find a roomful of people to commiserate with you about any difficult work situation. Does commiseration make you feel any better? In my experience, commiseration made work feel worse.

When you focus on the challenging and frustrating aspects of your day, you will likely encounter more of the same. Can you recall a day when things grew worse and worse as the hours went by? The more we focus on what we don’t want, the more of it we get.

Start your Monday with an attitude adjustment. Here’s how to do it.

1. Identify the feeling that comes up on Monday. [Maybe you feel dread.]

2. Ask yourself, “What story am I telling myself as to why I feel this way on Mondays?” [The story could be that you dread another long week of working without recognition for your effort.]

3. Determine how you would rather feel about work. [Excitement is a possibility, but if you’re starting from a feeling of dread, it could be easier to seek a feeling of indifference.]

4. Ask yourself, “What new story could I tell myself about Mondays that would make me feel the way I would rather feel?” This requires a little brainstorming. Write down some new stories and try them out. Here are some examples.

* Even though my boss doesn’t show it, I know she appreciates my hard work.
* I have the ability to make my day better if I want to.
* There is only so much time in the day, and I will get done what I can and then I will take care of myself and leave at 5:00.
* Even though this isn’t my dream job, it’s a great stepping stone to what I really want to do.

I often facilitate client attitude adjustments for tough work situations during coaching sessions. I estimate that ninety percent of my clients show up wanting an attitude adjustment about work at some point while we work together. As a coach, I love helping clients adjust their attitude; it makes their work life better, and their friends and family take notice, too!

After one attitude adjustment, a client said to me, “Wow! Imagine if I showed up with this attitude every morning!” She saw the power that she had to change her attitude and shift her entire day by telling a new story on her way to work.

Your attitude determines how you experience the world.
-- Sanaya Roman

Adopt a new mindset, even if you do it for a few minutes during your commute on Monday. Start your work week on a positive note. The rest of the week will thank you for it.

What are your “new stories” to adjust your attitude on Mondays?

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?

This is the final post in a series of three that explore the idea of loving your job.
- The first post suggested that you can love your job.
- The second post offered some ideas on how to be happy in your current job.
- This post will provide tips on how to find a career that you truly love.

I believe that the purpose of life is to be as happy as possible.

For me, if happiness is the purpose of life, then I choose to not spend my energy doing something that drains me.

1. You have to figure it out.

There is no magic career fairy that will bless you with a new career idea. I used to think that I would one day be struck with inspiration and know exactly what I needed to do to have a job I loved. However, my current career only made itself known to me after lots of hard work and introspection.

Research Some Options. (Check out my Books page for some suggestions). Google whatever thoughts come to mind when you think about having a career you love. Interview people who have interesting jobs.

Dream big. This isn’t the time to limit yourself to practical solutions. Practicality possibly got you where you are now. Remember that dreaming doesn’t mean you have to take action. Dreaming is just imagining possibilities. Have fun with it.

Ask yourself: What did I want to be, before anyone told me what I should be when I grew up?

2. Try out some new things in your spare time.

One of the greatest ways to explore new career ideas is to try them out.

Volunteer. Do you like working with children? Volunteer at the library, or at a school. Interested in going into medicine? Volunteer at the hospital, for Meals on Wheels, or with Hospice.

Do more of what you enjoy. Think about what you enjoy doing. Do you like to hike or paint or garden? Find other people who like to do those things, too. Engaging in activities you enjoy will spark some inspiration and ideas for what direction to take your career.

Enjoy yourself now. This is a minimum requirement. The search for a new career should be fun, and it’s hard to find a career that makes you happy if you aren’t happy first. Be happy now.

3. Hire a coach.

What can I say? As a coach, I’m biased and think that coaches are a great way to find a new career. I’ve helped clients find a new path and discover their passions. I had a coach help me along the way to my new career, too.

Coaches can help you find your blind spots, the places where you’re limiting your possibilities. Coaches can help you dream bigger and explore new ideas. Using a coach to find a new career will also help you be confident in your move.

You can find a job that makes you happy. Making changes in your career will mean that your life does not look exactly as it does today. Your life will change when you change your career. If your career change is for the purpose of greater happiness, isn’t it worth it?

What have you done or can you do to find a new career?

This is the second in a series of three posts that explore the idea of loving your job.
- The first post suggested that you can love your job.
- This post will offer some ideas on how to be happy in your current job.
- The third post will provide tips on how to find a career that you truly love.
 
I believe that the purpose of life is to be as happy as possible.

For me, if happiness is the purpose of life, then I choose to not spend my energy doing something that drains me.

Here are three ideas on being happy in your current job.

1. Change your mindset.

What’s bothering you about your current job? Do you have a bad boss? By allowing your boss to make you miserable, you are giving your boss power over your happiness. Don’t give away your right to happiness.

Try these tips to change your mindset.

Ask Why? First, given the example above, ask yourself why your boss is making you unhappy. Keep asking why until you get some really clear answers. (Hint: It usually takes about five why’s to get to something juicy.)

Recognize your own reaction. Next, recognize that your unhappiness is caused by your reaction to what your boss is doing, because you think that your boss doing something wrong. You can’t change your boss. (I sure have tried!)

Change your point of view. Lastly, change how you look at the situation. One way I have changed my reaction to difficult boss situations was to think, “They don’t know any better.” And I leave it at that. Trying to change a boss is nearly impossible. Changing your mindset is quite possible.

2. Add some fun into your day.

What can you do to make work a bit more tolerable?

I recently met a woman who told me that she got away with adding hot pink to her work. It was marginally acceptable at work, but she was able to do it and it made her happier.

In my previous job, I liked to go out for lunch or coffee with friends or go for a walk in the middle of the afternoon on a rough day.

Try these tips to add some fun into your day:

Spice it up. What’s marginally acceptable (like hot pink) that would be a fun way to make your work more interesting?

Add in a little play. What little playful thing can you add into your day to make it a bit more fun? I talked about play in my August 16 newsletter. (Didn’t get it? Email me for a copy and subscribe in the box in the upper left of this page so you can get the next one, due out September 1.)

Take a break. Five minutes or 15 minutes or your whole lunch hour can be a great way to take a break and have fun. Hang out with people you enjoy--not your grouchy cube mate. Keep good company, even if it’s just you!

3. Hire a coach.

Coaches are great at helping clients find happiness in their current life, even if the clients dream of something bigger and better. Finding happiness today before creating a new life for tomorrow always makes transitions stronger and longer-lasting.

You can be happier in your current job. Actually, I highly recommend to clients to find peace in their current job before moving somewhere new. Until we find peace in the chaos, we’re likely to encounter the same problem in a future job.

What have you done to be happier in your job? What could you do to be happier?

I love talking with clients about having a career doing something they love. They get excited, their energy goes up, they smile, and they feel good. They light up. They can’t imagine their life any other way.

Then they say, “But I could never really do that.” The energy and the excitement and the smile quickly fade. They sound forlorn, depressed, and tired.

We love to dream about the possibilities, and then we scare ourselves off with practicalities.

Here are my questions to you:

Why do you stay in a job you don’t love?

Why do you spend your life doing things that make you feel depressed and tired?

This is the first in a series of three posts that explore the idea that you can love your job.
- This post will suggest that you can love your job.
- The second post will offer some ideas on how to be happy in your current job.
- The third post will provide tips on how to find a career that you truly love.

There are lists of excuses people make about not being able to have a career they love. It could be money, time, effort, health insurance, whatever. There’s a lot of great excuses. I used them, too!

For me, excuses are just the roadblocks I put up that stop me from being happy.

I believe that the purpose of life is to be as happy as possible. If happiness is the purpose of life, I choose to not spend my energy doing something that drains me.

Maybe you believe that the purpose in life is to have as much money as possible. That’s okay, but then this blog isn’t for you :-)

Are you happy with your career? Do you want to be happy?

There are two ways to solve this problem:
1. learn to be happy in your current job, and
2. find a job that makes you happy.

It is possible to love your job, if that's what you want. If you want to stay stuck somewhere because you like your excuses, that's your choice.

Stay tuned for my upcoming posts (8/24/09 and 8/27/09) on how to make this happen.

Do you love your job? Share your thoughts here.

I am working on my first downloadable coaching product, and I’m learning so many great lessons along the way. Last week I learned that it’s better for everyone when I put my well-being ahead of everything else. Maybe you think this sounds selfish, but I learned that everyone benefits when we take care of ourselves first.

The product I’m working on is a collaborative project with my coaching friend Alison Horner. We’re creating a companion guide to Martha Beck’s Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live. It’s an audio and workbook set which covers each chapter in the book. Ali and I have been putting a good effort into it and having fun along the way. We both found this book useful for setting our lives on our “right” path and are excited to share it with our clients.

We were making audio recordings one morning recently, and after forty-five minutes, I was toast. I felt flustered and was ready to take a break. We had planned to work for another hour that day, but I didn’t have it in me. I was honest with Ali and said that I needed a break. I knew that we scheduled more time to work that day, but I feared that the quality would suffer if I kept at it. So we quit, and I worked on easier tasks that afternoon.

The next week, after Ali and I put more time into a recording, she said she needed a break. So we quit, and we both worked on other things for the rest of the day. No hard feelings either time.

By being honest about how we were feeling, we honored ourselves, each other, and our product. If we had pushed through despite our feelings, we would have felt drained and the quality of our product would have suffered. No one would have benefited from this.

Often I find it easy to just push through one more thing, ignoring how I feel and focusing on achieving a sense of completion. In the end, everyone suffers with that method. I suffer for pushing myself hard, and others suffer by dealing with an outcome that is less than perfect and was created with some negative energy.

Do you have a tendency to push yourself too hard? Can you call it quits a little sooner, and put yourself first?

I had a great realization the other day, thanks to one of my coaching friends.

There will always be too much to do.

This may sound like a funny realization, but it completely changed my perspective.

I was fretting about my to-do list, which was growing faster than I was tackling it. I also had plenty of things I wanted to do that I was too afraid to write down, fearful of making my list even longer. I was feeling quite overwhelmed!

For some reason, I thought that when I left my corporate job to coach full-time, I would have excess time on my hands. In addition to coaching, I was going to read the books that were piling up on my shelf, spend more time working in the yard, clean the garage, put together the photo album from two summers ago, among a dozen other things. After a few weeks of not working my 8-5 job, I had barely dented this list.

As I was talking through this with my coaching friend, I began to recall all of the times I thought, “When [insert future goal here], then I’ll have more time.”

"When I graduate from college, I’ll have lots of time because I won’t be in class and working all day and having homework to do at night."

"When summer’s here, I can tackle all of those outdoor projects that have been accumulating over the winter."

"When I finally finish reading and completing the exercises in that business development book, then I can take a breath of fresh air and spend more time painting."

"When I get all of the cleaning and laundry done, then I can go play outside."

After I finished sharing the list of my “I will have more time when” experiences with this coach, I had to just laugh out loud. I am never going to tackle everything on my to-do list!

“So, what do I do?” you ask.

Take a few items off the list and commit to not doing them.

Here’s what I took off of my list:
- putting together the photo album from the sabbatical Paul and I took during the summer of 2007
- cleaning the garage
- figuring out how to make the back yard look decent

Realizing that there is always too much to do means you can decide to not do things. They're never going to all get done anyway. So do something fun instead!

I stopped thinking about the to-do list for the rest of the day, and I painted. I felt calm and relaxed.
 
The day after, when I sat down to work, I felt focused. I no longer felt like I had a looming to-do list. As a result, I accomplished a lot in one day. It amazed me that small things that I had been procrastinating practically did themselves! I felt like Superwoman. And at the end of the work day, Paul and I headed out with friends for a bike ride, and I felt fantastic.
 
What can you take off your to-do list?

What fun thing do you want to do instead? Do it!

I recently left my full-time corporate job to follow my heart and join the ranks of the self-employed, turning my coaching practice into a full-time venture. During my final weeks in the office, I remembered how important it is to truly connect with other people.

As word got around that I was leaving the company, many coworkers asked about my future plans. What was I going to do? Was I leaving town?

We discussed things like pursuing our dreams, being in jobs where we can make a difference in the world, families, and finding purpose and meaning in life.

As my final weeks went by, people came by my desk or stopped me in the hallway to tell me that they appreciated me, that they enjoyed working with me, and how I positively impacted them when we were working together. I’ve never been good at accepting compliments, but I decided it was time to learn to say “thank you” to their kind words. My coworkers taught me that I made a difference in their lives, and I wanted to acknowledge what they were saying.

On my final day, two people shared some memorable sentiments with me.

One man said, “I’ve always appreciated that when you walk by people in the hallway you smile and say ‘hello.’” I thought to myself, "Of course I try to smile and say hello. Doesn’t everyone?" I guess not.

The second person, someone with whom I worked closely nine years ago, said this: “You know what I’ve always liked about you, Jenny? You ask about things that matter. You would say to me, ‘How’s your family?’ You wanted to know about the important things.” The man who told me that is just about the nicest person I know on this planet. I do not know one person who has ever said a negative thing about him. He is a truly amazing individual. To hear those words from him was very meaningful to me.

The typical employee departure from this company has been marked with a mass email saying "good-bye" to everyone the employee knew during their tenure. For me, sending a mass email felt forced and inauthentic. I wanted to let people know that I valued working with them and that I enjoyed my time with them over the previous 10 years. I decided to hand-write personalized notes to the 60 people who most positively impacted me over my previous ten years. I told them how they affected me. Here are some of the things I told them:

“I appreciated your patience with me when I was new to my job.”

“You always have such a positive attitude, and you are so great to work with.”

“I am so grateful for all of the support you gave me when I first moved into management. It was as if you had endless time to listen to my woes and offer me advice.”

“I had fun working with you when that project was just starting. I learned so much from you.”

“I am glad that I got to know you over the last several months. Thank you for telling me about your family.” 

Why did I wait until I was leaving to thank these people for the great times we had working together? I could have done more of this over the past 10 years. I did not necessarily need to give them hand written notes every day, but kind words about why I was grateful to know them could have been shared more regularly.

We all have it in us to live a life where we connect to others. This is something that everyone can do with just a simple conversation about what is important to us in life.

Can you bring more meaningful and authentic connections with others into your everyday life?

Here are a few ideas on creating and enhancing connections. I thank my coworkers for teaching me this.

1. Smile. Over the years, many people have told me that I smile a lot. Honestly, I didn’t think I smiled much! Apparently I smile enough that it was noticed at work. Try it out some time, either at work or at the grocery store. Who cares if the person you’re smiling at doesn’t smile back?!

2. Tell others that you appreciate them and why. It felt great to have my coworkers say such wonderful things about how I affected them. I returned the sentiments. It was such a feel-good exchange that I plan to do it more!

3. Listen when others talk about what is important in their lives. I know I can be so quick to think about the next thing that I forget to stop and really listen to other people. When I pay attention and listen, I feel connected to the other person, and the connection feels authentic and meaningful.

4. Share with others what is important to you in your life. Talk about your family, your pets, your hobbies, and how you spent the weekend. I always feel most connected to people who tell me about their lives. Connecting with others is what makes life worthwhile, and it’s a two-way street. Share yourself with others--they want to know about you. Ask about them in return.

5. Repeat daily. If I had just smiled one day, or asked one person about their family, I bet I wouldn’t be writing this post. Something prompted me to do these things regularly, and by showing up at work interested in other people, my coworkers took notice.

My challenge is to now take my own advice into the rest of my life. I love to smile at people I know and ask them questions about what matters to them in their lives. Now that I no longer work in a building with 80 other people, it is time for me to start bringing my curiosity about other people with me into the rest of the world, such as the grocery store, the library, and the local coffee shop.

How can you create more meaningful and authentic connections with others in your life?