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Going scorecard-free
Posted: Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:23:35 +0000
I took my six-year-old niece miniature golfing during school break. My childhood memories of miniature golf are conflicted: It’s one of those activities that always looks like it will be fun (all those turrets and railroad cars and gnarled fake trees with moving trap doors in their trunks), but I’ve always been been bad at it, and having the worst score in the group was painful for a high achiever like me.
The attendant handed us our mini-clubs, balls and a scorecard. I asked my niece whether she or I should be the scorekeeper.
“Let’s not keep score,” she said.
Wait—was this even an option? Since it was her date with Aunt Janet, I let her set the rules. No scorecard.
We ambled along, taking as many strokes as we needed to get the ball through moving doors, up anthills, and into 18 holes. We helped each other out, standing in front of water traps so the other person’s ball wouldn’t go too far astray.
Miniature golf is a lot more fun when you don’t keep score.
Where else am I keeping score, when I don’t need to be?
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A simple solution for meltdown
Posted: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 23:22:14 +0000
Often when I travel, it’s to give speeches and workshops. Last week, I was in the audience for a change, attending a conference by speakers for speakers.
I like going to conferences—the stimulation, the connection. But it’s also exhausting and draining. All those ideas crammed into my head for days in a row. All that intensive notetaking. All the small talk. After a couple of days I melt down—hyper and spacy at the same time, overcaffeinated, overstuffed, worried about whether I’m getting everything I came for, and incapable of articulating a coherent sentence.
I tried something different this time, something I took away from the Wisdom 2.0 Conference last February. At that conference last winter, I was surprised that I didn’t go into Conference Burnout, and that I was able to relax and enjoy the experience more than I typically do. One reason is that, every day, everyone in the general sessions spent a few minutes sitting in silence. OK, this was unusual! — maybe not for the mindfulness community, but certainly for a conference setting. I found myself letting go a bit of my standard fretting over what semi-famous people I must try to connect with, what action points I must act on. I was able to let things unfold. I even offered, and led, a spontaneous breakout session on one of my workshop topics.
Hitting “pause”
So a few times at last week’s conference, when I felt meltdown approaching, I just paused. Wherever I was—standing by the coffee bar, sitting in a meeting room waiting for the next speaker—I closed my eyes and took a few slow breaths.
It worked. I got my brain and body back.
I had some minor concerns about whether this looked weird. It seemed like the majority of people didn’t notice—they were too busy running around being hyperstimulated themselves. Invariably, though, after a minute or two, somebody would come over and say, “Oh, meditating, eh?” or “Having a quiet moment?” At that point, part of my mind would wonder, “Huh, what would make a person interpret closed eyes as an invitation to come over and chat?” A bigger part of me was receptive and found it kind of cute. Maybe they were looking for a little vicarious calmness. Maybe they were just curious about this unexpected behavior. I rolled with it and had some pleasant, quiet conversations—more testament to the benefits of breathing.
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Inner Demons and Mental Habits
Posted: Fri, 01 Jul 2011 04:15:23 +0000
I’ve been buried in a couple of big projects the past few months, developing and/or learning new presentations for tough audiences with rigorous standards. I needed a particularly strong and simple way to deal with the demons that drag me off task and threaten to sink my confidence.
Inspired by the book You Are Not Your Brain, about how to separate impulse from action, I’ve been experimenting with labeling my doubts and stumbling blocks as “mental habits”—noting them as habits when they rear their ugly heads.
In contrast to the split-screen strategy (which I still endorse!), this technique isn’t concerned with the content of the thoughts. I simply acknowledge them as habits. Labeling creates distance; distance breaks the downward spiral.
Hm, just spent 20 minutes massaging one phrase…Habit! Imagining myself failing publicly…Habit! Heart racing, skin prickling, as I try to focus…Habit!
I remembered to identify habits as habits some of the time. Although I’d have worked more efficiently if I’d noticed habits more often, remembering some of the time is real progress. I moved forward and met my deadlines without sacrificing too much sleep.
And the projects, um, succeeded beyond my wildest imaginings. Being afraid to trust past success? Worried that confidence will jinx future success? Habit!
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Letting go of the garden
Posted: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 00:46:16 +0000
After years (seriously, years) of thinking I would somehow get to like gardening, I finally gave up my community garden plot.
I made the decision on one of the most beautiful days I’ve ever experienced in the garden. It was foggy yet a little warm, with a misty beginning-of-the-world feeling, birdsong stirring the stillness. Ah, I thought, this is why I keep coming here. This is why I can’t let go.
And then it occurred to me: But I only feel this way a couple of times a year. The rest of the time, even thinking about the garden makes me feel pressured, discouraged, resentful. Something that’s supposed to be a pleasure is for me a burden.
As if to support this revelation, the free compost I’d applied a few weeks earlier had turned the plot into an oxalis bed. (Lesson: Never accept free compost!!) That merely confirmed the decision I’d just made the moment clarity dawned.
For a few days after sending in my resignation, I had pangs of regret. What if I’d torn out the flowers and grown more vegetables—maybe vegetables would have made me happier? Couldn’t I have learned to be less of a perfectionist, mulching the weeds instead of pulling them out by the roots, accepting that pests are part of life, recognizing that nothing is ever finished?
But mostly, I’m relieved.
So what kept me hanging on for so long?
One big reason was the sheer length of time it took to get the plot in the first place. I was on that waiting list for six years! No doubt the behavioral economists have a name for this phenomenon—overvaluing something because it’s hard to get.
But I also loved the blueberries (a love tinged with frustration, as I had to fight the birds for them). I loved the “volunteers”: wild arugula, tiny wild strawberries sweeter than any strawberries I’ve ever tasted, tomatilloes, johnny jump-ups, poppies. Those volunteers were easy to like because they were hardy and came with no expectations—they were delightful surprises from nature.
I guess I’m talking about tradeoffs, and the emotions and hopes that kept me from seeing the tradeoffs clearly. I was clinging to what I thought gardening would give me—satisfaction, fun, community—and not acknowledging what I was actually getting (not much of any of those things), or the cost.
My neighborhood farmers’ market sells blueberries all summer long. I transplanted a few wild arugula seedlings to Mom’s backyard. (Thanks, Mom!) I can still visit the garden on misty mornings, free of the responsibility to make it turn out a certain way.
Worth asking: When have you held onto something because of how you thought it was going to be, rather than how it actually was?
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Say the obvious thing: Life lessons from improv
Posted: Fri, 18 Feb 2011 03:03:23 +0000
I attended my first improvisational theater workshop last week. Improv is all about staying present and quieting the inner doomsayer and playing with what shows up in each moment, even when it isn’t what you planned. Improv is the opposite of planning. That’s helpful for an uber-planner like me.
Some useful life skills I got to practice during the three-hour workshop:
• Be average. Don’t worry about whether your idea is funny or sufficiently creative. Say the obvious thing. Stories need the obvious to move forward. Also, what’s obvious to you may not be obvious to others. Jump in!
That means if a scene calls for a car, go ahead and be a car. You don’t have to think up a submarine or giraffe. (Although if you thought of a submarine or giraffe instead of a car, that’s cool too.)
• Let go of control. Your partner might have a different idea than you do of where the story is going. Together, you can take it in completely unexpected directions.
If you pretend to hand your partner a baby, and they say “Thank you for the cat,” and you say “No, but it’s a baby,” one of you then has to spend a lot of time explaining why it’s a (baby) and not a (cat) and the scene spirals down from there. You’ll have a lot more fun if you just go with it. (A humanoid cat?) It’s fun to share control. Seriously!
• Take a Circus Bow. When something doesn’t work, do a Ta-Da: “Yay, I failed! Yay, I let go of the trapeze! Missed the other trapeze and fell into the net! Applause for me!”
• Remember you don’t have to do it alone. Other people will step in when you’re stumped. You’re looking out for each other. You’re in good hands.
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What it takes to take a break
Posted: Fri, 04 Feb 2011 00:24:25 +0000
I spent a week away from the keyboard last month, and my neck and shoulders eased up a lot. But now I’m back to my bad old ways—I’m not taking enough breaks.
My bodyworker, Roy—who got me to exhale to such good effect last summer—recommends roll-away breaks every half hour or so. Roll chair back from computer; turn away from screen; take three breaths, focusing on the exhale (the inhale will take care of itself); and let your eyes be non-engaged for a few moments, either by closing them or gazing into the distance. Optional: stand up. He also recommends resting by lying back over a bolster (or rolled-up blanket) at least once a day.
I have to make these breaks super-simple and inviting, or I won’t take them. The elements and what I need to make them work:
• Every half hour. Every 40 minutes might work better. I’ll experiment. But in any case, I need regular reminders that don’t annoy me. A screen-interrupter would be annoying. So would an alarm. How about a meditation bell? One that I don’t have to download? I’ll try this one.
• Turn away from the screen. The optional standing up will help with this. I could walk over to the window, which has a decent view. That would be a good incentive.
• Take three breaths. Roy says these should be through the mouth, not the nose, because opening your mouth relaxes the jaw (and by extension, the neck). So it’s more like a sigh. OK, sighing I can get behind! I used to sigh a lot, just naturally, until an irritable boyfriend complained about it. This was, um, decades ago. I miss sighing! Incentive! Wait, but ex-BF memory is disincentive. Don’t want that baggage mucking up my nice break. Seriously, it’s decades old, can we let it go? Time to reclaim sighing! Will experiment. If sighing feels great, I’ll sigh. If not, just call it an exhale.
• Close eyes or gaze into the distance: Gazing (non-engagedly) at the view is definitely an incentive.
Funny how much prep I need for something as basic as taking breaks. That’s habits for you.
The resting over a bolster part could be a way to mark the transition between work time and done-with-work time. I work late, so that’s going to be tougher. I’ll start with the breaks.
To review The Plan for Happy Breaks:
Set online chime to go off every 30 to 40 minutes. When it chimes:
1. Stand up.
2. Walk over to window.
3. Sigh three times.P.S. Got any non-annoying timers to recommend? Let me know in the comments!
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More ways to use the yuck-o-meter
Posted: Sun, 30 Jan 2011 02:47:08 +0000
This yuck-o-meter is versatile. It estimates time, too! Some yuck-o-meter time estimates in action:
•Straighten work area: FIVE BILLION HOURS
Alternate estimate: 1/2 hour
Time it actually took: 2 hours (hm, I’m way ahead of five billion)
Yuck factor: Medium•Check email: ONE HOUR, and I’ll feel guilty about spending time on it
•Send 3 particular emails: ONE HOUR, but it would take “other people” less time
Alternate estimate: 1/2 hour for both tasks together
Time it actually took: 2 hours
Yuck factor: Well, I didn’t feel guilty, but I did feel kind of hassled.•Prep for workshop: TWENTY BILLION HOURS total, FIVE HOURS today and it won’t feel like enough
Alternate estimate: 1.5 hours today
Time it actually took: 1.5 hours (but that still leaves twenty billion minus 1.5 hours to go, sigh)
Yuck factor: Tolerable•Lunch and dinner: FOUR HOURS AND DON’T YOU RUSH ME!
Alternate estimate: 20 minutes (huh? who was I kidding?)
Time it actually took: 45 minutes
Yuck factor: None. Eating is fun!Hm, that was a decent day. Thanks, yuck-o-meter!
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Some thoughts about starting
Posted: Sun, 23 Jan 2011 23:11:16 +0000
The water isn’t going to get any warmer.
You can step into the pool slowly, or dive in, or jump in, or sit at the edge and splash yourself for a while—all fine. (Splashing first—my favorite.)
But if you want to go in—today, this week, this month—know that the water won’t get any warmer while you’re waiting.
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Lost and found on the Web
Posted: Sat, 01 Jan 2011 03:45:11 +0000
One of my intentions for the coming year is to be a little more conscious of the time I spend online. Those hours and hours that go by as I’m mindlessly consumed by my inbox, or following links, or scanning Twitter—my colleague Nannette calls this “getting lost.” I’d like to be less lost…or lost less.
A delightful book, Wisdom 2.0, offers practical ways of dealing with this phenomenon. The author, Soren Gordhamer, presents conferences on using technology for genuine connection rather than distraction—the second annual Wisdom 2.0 Conference is coming up in February, in Silicon Valley.
The book’s chapters are short and pithy, with lots of simple and useful exercises.
I’m working with the very first exercise. When I’m at the computer and feeling scattered or overly focused, the idea is to do three things (actually, Soren frames this as two things—he combines the first two steps below into one—but it’s helpful for me to separate them):
• Notice my state of mind. Bored? Excited? Connected? Lonely? Am I feeling constricted? Expansive?
• Notice what’s going on in my body. Shoulders tight? Breathing shallow? Relaxed anywhere?
• Explore my options by asking, “What would be best for me right now?”
What I find, in my experiments with this practice, is that the last question sometimes scares me off. I mean, it’s a wonderful question, but I’m someone who has trouble taking a stretch break even when my shoulders are crying out for one. “What would be best for me right now?” feels momentous—it implies that I might need to do something different. If I know this question is coming up, I might skip the earlier questions so I can stay lost in cyberland.
But to ask just the first two questions, on a semi-regular basis—that would be enormous progress. Not asking in order to change anything, just to notice. Even that bit of awareness could start to bring me back from the land of the lost.
Maybe I could follow the two questions with two conscious breaths. Ahhh.
I’ll keep it simple and start with:
• What’s my state of mind right now? (Hm. A little impatient. Feeling a little behind.)
• What’s going on in my body? (Back of my neck is tight. Ankles crossed. I’m uncrossing them. I think I will stand up and stretch.)
Happy New Year!
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How the yuck-o-meter got my to-do list back on track
Posted: Wed, 27 Oct 2010 22:51:47 +0000
A couple of projects have been stalled lately because my Inner Toddler has refused to settle down and work. One look at the to-do list, and the Inner Toddler screams! she kicks! she pounds her fists on the floor! Then she runs off to read still more recaps of Mad Men and Project Runway.
From my experience as an aunt (and more distant experience as a babysitter), I recall that neither scolding nor pleading gets you very far with toddlers. Empathy, on the other hand, will nearly always steer you right.
So that’s the tack I took this week. I looked at my to-do list. My Inner Toddler stamped her feet. “You really, really don’t want to work on this!” said I, the Kindly Rational Grownup. Inner Toddler glared, arms folded. “You really think it’s going to be tedious and hard,” I said. She’s still glaring, lips pressed together tight. “I don’t think it’s going to be as tedious as you think. But let’s find out. We’re going to work on this project for an hour, and you can operate the yuck-o-meter. At the end, you tell me what the yuck-o-meter says.”
So she kept busy with the yuck-o-meter while I made headway on the task list. It wasn’t tedious, exactly, but there was a lot of frustration. Oh, right—it usually takes a lot more time than I hope to get past the second-guessing-every-decision phase, until I feel some momentum. No wonder she didn’t want to settle down! Yuck-o-meter reading: Medium High.
I’ve also observed that once past the first-however-many unpleasant hours of uncertainty and frustration, things start (slowly) to get easier and more interesting. The Inner Toddler has trouble with that concept, not being so skilled at delayed gratification.
But she does like running the yuck-o-meter. So she’s getting to do that all week.
Note: Predicting how difficult/satisfying a task will be, and comparing that prediction to reality, also happens to be a technique from cognitive behavioral therapy. The Inner Toddler prefers the yuck-o-meter.
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