Bev's Tips for a Better Work Life
Bev Jones' twice-monthly ezine offering you suggestions
for making your career more productive and more fun.

Dear Friends and Clients,

John was a university dean with the option for early retirement. He had a few months to decide whether to take it. After a decade of intense work, John was tired of the fund-raising trips that had become a big part of his job. And he believed the early retirement program to be his best financial move.

And yet John hesitated. Although he knew he didn’t want to start another big job or return to full-time teaching, he couldn’t imagine himself as unemployed. The specter of having nothing meaningful to do was so unsettling that John felt frozen. He thought he might reject the attractive buy-out package just because he couldn’t imagine an appealing next move.

During coaching, I encouraged John to worry less about the threat of feeling useless, and concentrate on building and implementing a process that would allow him to explore a range of options.

To start, John committed to visiting with old friends and new contacts to learn about opportunities for consulting or part-time work. Just as he would if he were raising funds for his college, he established the practice of doing a few things each day to work his network. At the same time, he began to regularly exercise again and he identified classes and activities that might help him to broaden his horizons.

John created a transition process likely to bring opportunities and help him get in shape for his next move. When he felt a tinge of panic about the future, he refocused on the process and concentrated on the tasks and practices due that day. As his research began to yield interesting suggestions, he increasingly relaxed and learned to trust the process. By the date of his retirement, John felt healthier and more centered than he had for years. And he had lined up several consulting projects to pursue as he continued to explore a growing list of interesting possibilities.

As I’ll discuss in this issue, if you want to change your life but don’t know where to go or how to begin, a good starting point might be to commit to a transition process.

Warm Wishes, Bev


Are You Seeking to Transform?
Want to Jumpstart A Transition?
Set Up the Right Process

May 17, 2011 * Number 148

Sport Psychiatrist Michael Lardon has worked with Olympic gold medalists, PGA tour golfers and other athletes seeking to understand and better achieve peak performance. In his book Finding Your Zone, Lardon offers suggestions that have helped athletes transform themselves from good performers to great ones. Much of his advice would be useful to anyone, whether they want to reach a higher level of performance or they want to manage a transition in some aspect of their life.

Of Lardon’s “10 Core Principles,” my favorite is Lesson Five: “Stay in the now and be in the process.” He says that excelling at an activity mandates that you resist giving into distractions, including anxiety or self-doubt.

To do that, he says, the trick is to stop obsessing about the score – your ultimate goal – and to concentrate instead on the process that is likely to help you play a great game today. Using PGA Tour golf as an example, he says that great players learn to shift their perspective from result goals, like beating a competitor, to process goals, like taking the steps that will allow them to do their best on each shot.

When working with golfers, Lardon asks them to stay in the process by keeping a scorecard that records three “yes” or “no” answers for every shot: (1) Did you visualize the shot before executing it? (2) Did you hit the shot without any doubt or ambivalence? And (3) if you incurred any negative or distracting thoughts, did you back away from the shot and clear your mind?

When a golfer can answer “yes” to these questions for most of his shots in a day, he has transformed himself into a winner, regardless of the score. By staying in the process, he has controlled those factors that are actually within his control and has not been distracted by bad breaks. And, says Lardon, when you stay more process-oriented and focus on mastering the controllable variables, you inevitably accomplish greater results over the long term.

Part of what happens with a process focus is that you pay more attention to what you are doing and stop wasting energy on mistakes or bad luck in the past, or possible future threats. The same process orientation that works for high performing athletes can help you navigate transitions or transformations in any sphere of your life.

To use a simple example, let’s say you want to lose weight. Programs like Weight Watchers Online can help you to shift your focus from the scale and remain engaged in the process of selecting healthy, low calorie food at each and every meal. By keeping within the Weight Watchers point system, and recording every bite of food you put in your mouth, you put your trust in the process, and your transformation – your weight loss – may come fairly easily.

A process orientation also can help to facilitate a more complicated life transition, like changing careers or creating a new life after a divorce or other trauma. Perhaps with a coach or friend, you can lay the groundwork of your successful transition by identifying processes that might help you explore and build toward your next phase.

The idea is to come up with daily or weekly tasks and practices that will support the change you want. For example, you might want to start routinely scheduling time to read about a new field, while at the same time you commit to a regular program of networking, and to fitness, financial or other routines to support your next move.

When in doubt, think about the factors that are within your control, identify processes that will allow you to address those factors, and commit your energy to sustaining those processes. Chances are you will reach your goals much faster once you stop obsessing about the longer term and remain more focused on the process steps that you can take today.

Want to hear about topics like this? Bev and her colleagues will be happy to create a workshop to meet your needs. Meanwhile, visit Bev’s website at www.ClearWaysConsulting.com. Check out brief book reviews, eZine archives and Bev’s blog. If you have questions email to Bev directly.
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Bevs Tips for a Better Work Life is published on the first and third Tuesday of each month by Beverly E. Jones of ClearWays Consulting, LLC. Bev is a lawyer and former executive who now coaches accomplished executives and other professionals to bring new direction, energy and enjoyment to their work lives.

Copyright ©2011, ClearWays Consulting, LLC Beverly E. Jones
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