Life Tips – Page 3 – Debby Hallett

Setting boundaries

Someone asked my advice for learning to set personal boundaries.

Well, what’s appropriate is different for everyone. A basic (though not simple!) approach is to look at what you value, and determine what your response would be if or when those values are not respected. Some of them will be “deal-breakers” (in the words of Dr Phil). By that I mean that if those values aren’t respected, the relationship isn’t tolerable. Some women hold the value of non-violence, and if anyone in their life raises a hand to them, that’s a deal-breaker. Other women don’t feel that way.

Steve Pavlina posted on his blog a list of possible values, from which you can pick the ones most important to you, and then prioritise. (He’s listed 374 things, and lets you know you are free to add more!) Pick, say, 10 or 12, more if you like. But if you try this out with just a few values, you’ll get a good feel for how it is to think about this kind of thing. For example, here are the values I picked (in alphabetical order):

Agility (mental and situational, not physical)
Appreciation
Approachability
Courage
Consciousness
Excellence
Freedom
Gratitude
Honesty
Introversion
Mindfulness
Punctuality

Once you have your long list, now put your items in priority order. When I prioritise mine, here’s what I get:

Mindfulness
Gratitude
Appreciation
Introversion
Courage
Consciousness
Honesty
Freedom
Excellence
Punctuality
Agility
Approachability

Even in the 5 minutes it took me to do this, I’ve learned something about myself. Namely, that Approachability isn’t that important to me when I compare it to all the other things. Why not try this for yourself, and see what you find out about yourself.

For me, I need a sharper focus on fewer things, so I’ll concentrate on my top 5.

Mindfulness
Gratitude
Appreciation
Introversion
Courage

I want to consider how I can manifest those values in my life.

The boundary setting comes into play when I imagine someone or some situation asking me to behave in a way that violates my value system. Would I comply? If so, why? The answer to that question helps me understand the nuances of what I value.

For example, one of my high values is Introversion. To me, it’s essential that I have quiet, alone time in which I can re-charge. So I need to be in a work environment that supports that need. An open plan office next to the coffee break area, with a radio continually on, and loud telephone conversations at a fever pitch of excitement, are NOT the work environment in which I thrive. So I will work to minimise all those things in my workspace. That has meant requesting a desk move, or policy changes, or an office with a door that shuts, or more home-working. These are all different ways I can honour this value.

I think that we value our jobs or careers more than we might initially think. When our boundary is pushed at work, we often tolerate it, sometimes to an extent that will surprise us. It’s an opportunity to look more deeply at ourselves and our motivations.

I think that most of us try really hard to set appropriate boundaries. Some of are successful, others not so.

Ask yourself which action causes more discomfort: Setting firm and compassionate boundaries and helping others respect them? Or not setting boundaries and repeatedly trying to manage the resultant upset? I know what I prefer! 🙂

But admittedly, it’s not easy, and can be a long journey.

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing

Life is complicated. So many demands on our time and attention, and it’s too easy to get lost and forget what it is you were trying to do. Have you ever gone out to the kitchen, and once there, you can’t remember what you came out there for? Life can be like that at times. Only bigger. And more important.

Productivity experts have lots of advice about how to get things done. They also have advice about how to decide what’s the main thing, what’s the most important thing for you to be focused on.

But I think the biggest challenge is this: once you’ve decided, then you need to keep your focus on the main thing and not be distracted. You need to keep the main thing the main thing.

How can you do that? Here are 8 tips:

Print out some colourful, relevant posters and hang them strategically around your home of office.
Every day, the first thing, do something related to your main thing.
Every week, determine what actions you need to take on your main thing. Add these actions to your diary , so that you have the time scheduled to do them.
Ask a friend to remind you once in awhile. They can email, or IM you: Hey Debs! Hows that project going to get the ooompha off the ground? (I’d shared that my main thing at the moment is to get my ooompha off the ground.)
Every night, just as you turn off the light to go to sleep, ask yourself, “What was the best thing you accomplished today with regard to the main thing?”
Every morning, while you shower or shave or brush your teeth, ask yourself “What’s the most important thing for me to do today about my main thing?” (That colourful poster on the mirror should help remind you.)
Think of some object that’s related (in your mind’s eye) to the main thing. Set up a search for it in ebay. (When ebay finds it, ebay will email you! How brilliant is that?!)
List the top 7 things you do as distraction activities. Here are some examples: play solitaire, play sodoku, read Facebook, BBC news, watch TV, read DebbyHallet.com, read something in my pile of ‘things to be read’, answer un-urgent emails. You get the drift. Anything that you spend significant time doing when you really should be doing something else, is a distraction activity. Postpone them! Those dishes certainly need to be washed, but is is more important right now than the main thing?

Good luck. Let me know some of the things you do to keep the main thing the main thing.

Anger management – real life lessons

Recently I’ve been working on managing my anger.

This came about as a result of my losing it at the millionth person who blocked our drive with their car. A care worker who calls next door parked in front of my neighbour’s house, in a space that isn’t long enough to park a car without obstructing someone’s drive (usually ours). My husband tried to maneuver around her car, and misjudged it and scraped our car against the brick pillar at the entrance to the drive. I totally lost it. It’s somewhat out of character for me (I’m usually a moaner and complainer) and even though my personal trainer thought it was great that I’d got angry, I felt like this was something I definitely didn’t want to be doing.

So, following some of my own (sage) advice, I sought to focus on what I did want, rather than what I didn’t want.

I DO want to allow my feelings to be felt, and I want to express those feelings in a safe way, and then I want to reflect on a course of action that will go further to helping me get what I want than losing my temper will do. What I don’t want is to fly off the handle, shout and remonstrate with those who have offended, and feel regret my outburst afterwards.

So, focusing on expressing my feelings and getting the result I DO want…

Last night I was visiting a friend and a Tesco home delivery driver clipped my (legally) parked car, then denied having done it. He refused to give me his contact details, said I had his vehicle reg number and “Tesco” and that was good enough. He told me he drives past parked cars all the time and their alarms often go off. (But my alarm only goes off when the car is rocked — it’s a motion detector, and there’s a stabiliser system that prevents false alarms from drive-by incidents). No, my car’s gouged and crunched fender had nothing to do with him. No, those were old dents and scrapes on his lorry. No, you don’t need my name, cos I didn’t do it!

Only when I asked clearly, “Are you refusing to give me your contact details?” did he demur and give me a number to ring Tesco. I took photos with my Blackberry. (Whatever did we do before mobile phones with cameras?) I found the curled paint on the road beside my car. I brought my friend out to see the damage and say what they’d seen.

But I didn’t lose my temper. I was terribly upset, in tears at one point, especially when he accused me of opportunistically lying to make money out of Tesco. But I managed the littlest bit of compassion: I thought that he was doing the best he could with what personal resources he had. And I felt sort of sorry for him. He said someone last week accused him of running into his car. (No surprise there.) I wondered if he was in fear of losing his job from a pattern of carelessness, and then his family would be in trouble. Yes, a tiny bit of compassion.

So, today, I’m still sort of upset about my car, and the way he spoke to me and treated me. But the manager at the Tesco there in Cowley said their insurance department would contact me today and we’ll go from there.

Anger management success, of a sort.

Be calm, meditate

In the past few days I’ve encountered a few different people who say they’d like to meditate, but that their mind is too full of junk and chatter to allow them to settle down and meditate.

They’ve got this all backwards!

One of the benefits of regular meditation practice is that the mind begins to calm down. We sit, we focus on something (a mantra, a candle, our out-breath) and when we become aware that our mind has wandered, we label it ‘thinking’ and bring it back to the object of focus.

Over time, this training of our mind begins to have a positive effect in many areas of life: longer attention span, better focus on the main thing (whatever the main thing is for you) and a more generous attitude.

I sometimes wish I could sit with people who I hear saying this. Sit with me, here, hold my hand, close your eyes, and just, well, pause.

I saw this story yesterday: The Pause. (Well, they called it daydreaming, but it’s really meditation.) Think about how your life would change if you made the changes these school boys have made. Abandon the earplugs, which get you hyper-stimulated so that you can’t concentrate. Every time you change classes (or pick up a new task) take a few minutes to calm your mind, let go of what you were thinking about and make space for what you want to think about now.

A technique that’s powerful beyond expectation. Your mind responds hungrily to a call to calm.

How to motivate (not)

People sometimes envy me, and I think that’s a bummer. The times I’m aware of it, it has to do with some perceived accomplishment of mine, that a person interprets as meaning that they can’t achieve it too. This is wrong on so many levels that it makes my head spin, and mires me in muck so that I can’t move.

Here are three scenarios I’ve noticed:

I used to send out a newsy Christmas letter to friends and family. (I know, I know.) But I had moved from America to England, and there was a lot of interesting stuff to share about the differences in life in the two countries and my experience of the differences. One friend said this: “You write so well!! I LOVE to get your letters! I know I’ll never write this well, so I may as well give up. I’ll never write the great novel I’ve dreamed of, like, forever.” Or words to that effect.
In a support group I’m part of, I share about my successes and not-so-successes. The latter are handled fine, with much building up and positive talk to fight my tendencey to succumb to the inertia of discouragement. The former have been met with “Everytime I hear about your achievements, I feel SO bad about myself. Why can’t I have the success you’re having? I want to feel happy for you, and I do, really I do. But why am I such a messed up person?” Or words to that effect.
Once I was sharing with a friend my systematic approach to something I was tackling. I was telling how my strategies were intended to achieve an outcome that was in alignment with my purpose in life. (Yes, I really think like that. I know, I know.) And she listened politely for a minute, then said, “You should feel grateful for how much you have. You’re blessed with intelligence, health and positive outlook on life, which is much more than many people have. You should be satisfied with the abundance you have and not be so driven to get more.” Or words to that effect.

These examples are so much NOT the outcome I intended. They seem to indicate that:

I wanted to make them feel bad about their talents, to discourage them from trying to realise a dream.
I was ungrateful for what I have, and insensitive to other’s (self-perceived) sense of lack or not-good-enough inadequacy
their self-confidence was inversely related to mine: If I feel good about myself then they have to feel bad about themselves. What kind of backward thinking is that?
they believe life is a zero-sum game, where in order for me to win, you must lose. Or that there isn’t enough to go around, which means that what I get lots of, you won’t have enough of. How silly, really. Seriously.

In each of these cases, the message coming back to me from the world was that I had missed my mark. Where I meant to provide motvation, I de-motivated. Where I meant to bring a smile, I evoked pangs of defeat. Where I intended to be positive, I was felt to be insenstive.They compared themselves to me, and in their eyes, they came up short. I wrote not too long ago about No Comparison; I think it should be a rule for life.

I intend to look around me for instances where I am unintentionally feeding back something that’s not very useful to them, or that says everything about me and my personal hang-ups and very little (or nothing) about them or their way of being in the world.

Fail to Plan = Plan to Fail

If you fail to plan then you plan to fail.

My friend Alex mentors a group of people starting up their own businesses. This week he told them, “You either Plan or you Gamble”.

This is an important message. I meet people all the time who have Big Dreams, and no plan, so nothing ever happens.

What is it that you’ve talked about doing? You’ve talked about it a lot, maybe even for years. (I’m sure your friends and family still listen raptly to you when you do. Yes indeed.)

For me, it’s been writing. For awhile I knew I could write a bestselling novel. I started one or two of them. Then I told everyone about how I was going to write important non-fiction books that took incomprehensible material and ‘translated’ it into language that everyone could understand. It would change people’s lives; I was committed to a life of service. I took writing courses, read writing books, joined groups where we supported each other to write better, even became a lifetime member of an online writing university. Years of talking about it and making halfhearted attempts. In recent years (maybe 3) I’ve been talking about blogging. I bought every book, tried it 2 or three times and each time it lapsed.

NO plan = NO success.

Someone challenged me to fish or cut bait; he said that I needed to either DO it, or shut up about it.

So, here I am blogging 5 days of of the week, working from a plan, and DOING it! I feel good about it, AND optimistic that the next thing I decide I want, I can have.

All I need is a plan. (And then of course, to follow the plan.)

Let me know how your plans are going….

Mind Map your ideas until “aha!”

I have more ideas than I can follow, and sometimes I get jumbled up and everything slows to a crawl until I can get my ideas sorted out.

Mind mapping is amazing! Either with software such as Mind Manager or Free Mind, or just on a big piece of paper with a pencil and eraser, you can plot out your ideas, draw and re-draw connections until you reach that magical point of “Aha!” when things fall into place and you have a new insight.

I like the electronic versions because they are so easy to re-arrange. Just drag and drop and your ideas are clustered in new ways.

The next big thing for me to get my head around is the plethora of ideas and topics for this blog. I’ve been posting for three weeks now, and the shotgun approach is starting to get to me. (And if you’ve been reading my posts, it may very well be starting to get to you, too). Since this coming weekend is a bank holiday, I’m going to devote some of my free time to mind mapping my blog topics. I think that it will help me to focus on main topics, and also to spend a few days on one bigger topic, blogging on interesting related things. That will make my days more stress free. And I bet I’ll get more done too.