One of the most powerful strategies I learned pertained to hill climbing.  Here’s what I learned.  While riding up a steep hill, don’t look at the top of the hill: it will overwhelm, frighten, and discourage you.  Stay focused on the immediate challenge: this pedal stroke, followed by the next pedal stroke, and so forth.  And notice the very local scenery: “Huh, that looks like wild Morning Glories growing there” or “Looks like gravel up ahead.”

This Hilltop Rule applies off the road as well.

When you’re working your way out of a demoralizing work backlog, stay focused on the tasks and goals for this week.  Don’t keep looking at the whole heartbraking list - ignore that hilltop - and stay focused on the immediate work at hand. 

If you’re managing a project that has 3000 moving parts and you become paralyzed every time you think about all that still lies ahead, stop thinking about all that lies ahead: think about this week’s work.  

This is not to say don’t step back regularly and survey the big picture.  You certainly want to be sure you’re going up the right hill.  You also need to revisit your time line and resource projections on a regular basis. But not every hour.  Not even every day. 

Some people need to view the hilltop regularly to get re-inspired: “It’s not about doing the (lengthy and ho-hum) calculations for this proposal, it’s about landing this contract and taking the kids to Disney World this year!”  “Yeah, the road is rough but this reasearch is making a difference in how  lymphoma is treated.”

But mostly, stick with the pedal strikes.  That’s how work gets done.   Cumulatively, the pedal strokes add up.  Miles are covered.  And every now and then there’s a downhill segment - enjoy it when you get one! 

The downhill road can be very bumpy, and the dappled sunlight makes it hard to see the potholes too far ahead.  So slow down enough to stay safe.  Keep your wits about you.  Don’t stop doing your due diligence.  You can still enjoy a downhill ride even with your brakes lightly engaged. 

• When riding up a steep hill, ignore the hilltop.
• Stay focused on the road immediately in front of you.

He writes:
“I finally realized I was investing myself in people and activities that are incapable of repaying me. Hell, they couldn’t even acknowledge my contribution. I embraced this insight and put all that thankless stuff on the proverbial back burner. That burner is now on a tiny Sterno stove located in a thicket not yet mapped by Google.”

Focusing time and attention ONLY where there is positive payback is a powerful idea.  Even just paying attention to what does and does not deliver can be a game-changer.  I’m not suggesting you jettison every relationship and project that doesn’t  “adequately” pay you back; this is not an organizing principle for every corner of your life. 

But even just asking the question, “Is this a good investment of my time and energy?” can support you in being more intentional and effective with your time, that most precious of resources.     

Eliminating even one non-productive focus can provide a powerful boost. 
One arena where this can be extremely powerful is in how you manage your thoughts: what you allow yourself to dwell on.  Here are some examples.

• One of my clients was stuck in the mindset of “I haven’t accomplished enough in my life.” She felt so flattened by this all-pervasive, self-imposed verdict that she was unable to work effectively or to enjoy doing any of the other activities that nourish her.   When she temporarily allowed herself to focus on her next step as an amateur musician, deciding what to play in an upcoming group concert, the very act of engagement dispelled the black cloud and she was once again an active participant in her life.  She had unhooked, for now, from this particular negativity.
• Recently, I did something that inadvertently offended someone and made her angry with me.  I was horrified and appalled.  I apologized and did the best I could to clean it up.  I made mental notes about what I’d learned.  My old pattern would have been to obsess over this for days and weeks, to berate myself for my bad judgment, and so on.  Or to use Jeff’s terms, to invest emotional energy where no good would come of it.   But this time I handled myself differently.  I asked myself if there was anything else I needed to do to make it right with this person.  The answer: no.   SO . . . I worked with myself to focus elsewhere whenever my mind brought me back to the topic.  It wasn’t perfect, but I suffered less than I usually do in similar situations.  Which gave me more energy and opportunity to focus in more positive directions and be more effective in my life. 

Looking for a way to apply this idea?  Try this: 

1. Notice when you are investing emotional energy in a project, person, or thought  that drains you rather than energizes you or leaves you neutral.  How would you recognize it?  When engaged with this project, person, or thought, you might feel sluggish, paralyzed,  discouraged, or angry, as distinct from how you feel with other projects/people/thoughts.

2.  Ask yourself is there’s any action you need to take.  If so, take the action as soon as you can.  If not, go directly to step 3.

3. As soon as possible, make yourself focus elsewhere.  If it’s an obsessive thought, find something else just as intense but not so negative.  If it’s a project or person, tear yourself away asap and engage with another person or project that’s more positive. 

Don’t expect yourself to have world-class skills in this arena right away.  Be patient with your own learning curve.  Small victories are the way to go.  

If this is an entrenched pattern for you that you would like some help with, consider a short round of focused coaching.   Contact me to investigate this option.

For me, much about this experience was remarkable.  First, I had cleared my plate completely and was able to be undivided in my attention to him.  My clients knew I was checking email and phone only in the evening, and I was otherwise on vacation from my professional life.  I had no meals to prepare, no errands to run, no one really expecting anything from me.  Life was very simple: it was just about the baby.  And there was no rush.

When my own children were little, even when I was working part-time, even when I knew enough with my second baby to take some maternity leave, there were always competing demands for my attention: my work, the house, meals, my husband, the other child, etc.  

Spending this time with my grandbaby, I had no competing demands, and there was no need to be in a hurry.

What a joyful experience — to be fully present, in the present, with this new little guy.   Granted, being with one’s own first grandchild is a very special, off-the-charts experience.

But so was being undivided and in the present.

It reminded me how much there is to be gained by being fully present to whatever I’m doing, whenever possible.  It reminded me how stressful it is to multi-task– even to just mentally multi-task.  And how in contrast, just being here now, wherever and whatever “here” is, is actually a qualitatively different experience.  And a better one. 

Since returning from Philly I’ve been able to bring some of this consciousness with me.  It’s helped me be in less of a hurry all the time.  It’s also helped me be more singleminded about what I’m doing.  When writing this post, for example, I’ve been able to just work on the post, rather than also feeling pulled in other directions.  

Sometime today or this week or this month, I encourage you to give yourself the gift of just doing one thing at a time.  Have a taste of being here now.  Even if you’re just clearing your desk or composing a simple email, I suspect it will feel better than it usually does.  If you try this while being in conversation with someone, I suspect the shift will be even more palpable.   

Moments of being here now and not rushing can serve as little oases where you can refresh.

Recently, I thought back to what I learned from Sharon’s coaching as I re-committed myself to living what I’d learned.  Several years ago, I worked with her to make more disciplined headway on the progress of a book manuscript during a sabbatical.  Two months in, I was afraid that I was going to re-write the same chapter for a year.  In the years leading up to that moment, I’d plotted a course for myself from widow and expectant mom to a single, working parent with a child in elementary school and a new partner.  Reacting to what was at hand had worked well as a survival strategy, until it didn’t.  As I reframed my life, I’d recommitted myself to the book project, and I knew I needed to get somewhere, but even after all I knew about how to weather sea changes, I wasn’t sure how. 

As simple as it sounds now, I had to learn how to make myself and my project a priority.  I had to make a choice; I had to say yes to some things and learn how to say no to others.  I needed to plot my project, and stay the course, so that logging time over time would shift the project.  And it did.  Part of what I learned that year was that what I wanted to do was going to take (still) more time than I thought it was, but that I wanted to and could do it. I had to treat my work like an endurance sport (the ultra triathalon of parenting, teaching and writing).   Very basic things that had been part of me for a long time—cooking well, exercise, friends—were foundational to that discipline.

Recently, I did a one-month brusher-upper with Sharon to accelerate my progress—while my son was at sleep-away camp, I completed a full draft of the manuscript–the final arc of the project had emerged and only did so with twelve days of uninterrupted writing, thinking (and yoga breaks).  I found that all the work up to that point had been my training–I had gained focus, confidence and stamina.  I loved having Sharon on my team but I also learned that those resources were now part of me.  This year, as I’ve plotted out my final revisions between teaching and nurturing my blended-family-in-the-making, I’ve started to see the ways in which I coach myself:

• I have a master vision of what’s important to me: family, friends, exercise, writing.  Of all those, exercise is probably the wellspring for everything else.  I actually plan most of my work commitments around my schedule at the gym and yoga studio (”I’m sorry, I can’t meet then, have a ‘meeting’ to go to…”).  I know that when I sacrifice what sustains me, I lose what grounds me.

• I am always trying to better at setting limits.  The support of friends has been so essential to me, it’s hard to limit my social calendar.  But I’ve held myself to my tried and true inner circle as other priorities—family and writing—have come into focus.

• I don’t multi-task.  For a long time, I worried that I had ADD—but then I realized it was just single parenting (and one time or another, we are all single parenting.)   Now, as much as can, I do one thing at a time; I write when I have time to write,  I run when I have time to run, I play Parchesi when I play Parchesi.   And more gets done.   I love this!

• I reward myself. These aren’t, in the post-recession world, necessarily large or visible luxuries.  I might just really appreciate getting to spinning, or I might sneak in a manicure while my son is at karate, or I might buy a new cookbook and plan a great dinner.

• I know what energizes me.   I know that cooking good meals for myself and my family is restorative and always worth the time. I stopped drinking coffee and switched to green tea.

• I plan.  I plan menus and shop from them, always on Saturday afternoons; I plan a budget and reassess it every year, me and my partner plan our family’s calendar in (at least) 6 month increments. 

• When things crumble or buckle, I re-evaluate and problem-solve and remind myself of my foundational resources.  Recently, I wanted to get a block of work done but not sacrifice the quality of our meals—I knew I needed something to sustain me at the end of a writing day that wasn’t from Trader Joe’s.  So  I became my own personal chef.  I did a little research, dug into my favorite cook books, bought some Pyrex and started cooking for the freezer.  If you cook three meals at once, you can bank almost a week’s worth of meals.  I wrote the chapter, and we ate well: I took care of myself.

Read more of Andrea L. Volpe’s writing here.   Andrea consults on all aspects of writing, from development to to publication.  You can reach her at  alvolpe@verizon.net. 

I recently had a string of body mechanical problems, resulting in 3 different sets of physical therapy exercises I was supposed to do twice daily.  These are slow, boring moves.   I don’t do them during a class, with music pumping and a teacher urging me onward, a setting that feels, to me, more “fun.” 

In fact, one of the injuries happened during a class with the music pumping and a teacher urging me onward: I over-reached, lifted too much weight during a weight training class and injured a muscle or tendon in my upper arm.  No big surprise.

But PT felt like a punishment, at least at first.  I couldn’t go to class with the other boys and girls.  I had to be home alone in my living room with therabands, counting 30-second intervals.  Ida wanna hafta do this.   Poor me. 

But truly, as I learned the PT routines and began to see some results, I started doing the exercises the way I’m learning to do yoga with my excellent teacher, Victoria.   Instead of counting or timing thirty seconds, I could now just breathe deeply into the exercise for the right amount of time, which I had internalized.  And by just breathing into the moves,  being in the moment, I entered a more meditative space, good for my head.

Victoria tells us, ”Don’t get greedy on the mat.”  What she means is,  don’t be overly focused on the external look of the yoga pose at the expense of your well-being.   Don’t be so greedy that you don’t honor your body’s limits today.  Instead, she teaches, at some point, go for the inner pose, be ok with what is, be willing to stop fixing, perfecting, trying to make it perfect.

It was greediness in my weight training class that got me injured.  I was greedy for the achievement of  lifting more weight than I was really capable of lifting without injury.

I’ve healed two of the three injuries.  My challenge now is to stick with the exercises for the third one.   And to resist greed.

I don’t mean to sound facile about these solutions.  The details are always unique to the individual and difficult for her to see from within the experience.  Moving forward generally happens very slowly.  I don’t believe in a happily-ever-after kind of unconscious happiness, but I passionately believe that some kinds of suffering can be alleviated. 

Here are two patterns of imbalance — experienced as unhappiness — I’ve witnessed with my clients, my friends, and myself, and the course corrections that can make a difference.

1. Feeling out of control, overwhelmed, powerless.  The solution for this  generally involves:  

·     naming it as such, and thereby differentiating it from the feelings of despair, failure, and self-loathing that often accompany it

·     taking back control, increment by increment, wherever possible, by renegotiating agreements, selectively jettisoning obligations, re-prioritizing, and whatever else it takes

As a result, the individual regains firmer ground and some level of control in her life, and feels back in her own power again.  

2. Feeling drained, exhausted, depleted, even sick. 

·     Here too, the place to start is with awareness: name it for what it is, and separate it out from the sense of shame, emptiness, and failure that people often feel as a result of no longer having enthusiasm or passion FOR ANYTHING.  The no-enthusiasm-for-anything syndrome often shows up in people who are very drained and exhausted.

·     Generally what’s also called for is serious rest, recovery, and replenishment which often means cutting back somewhere in order to make room for this. 

In my experience, once people GET that this is what’s going on, that it’s not about personal failure but rather about personal depletion, the reframe is very empowering and they quickly figure out what to do.  They often need support thinking through the pragmatics of it and then implementing it.  Cutting back is particularly difficult for women with a habitual pattern of pleasing others.

As the depletion and exhaustion are replaced with a sense of being nourished and re-charged, at least some of the unhappiness recedes, leaving a generally happier camper.   And a more effective one.

Adequate self-care often results in greater effectiveness, across the board.  This ripple-out effect often surprises the individual, who may feel ”selfish” in administering the self care (often as a last resort).  But it does make sense.  Who’s likely to be the more effective manager, parent, or creative problem-solver: the person who’s exhausted, frazzled, and running on empty or the one whose batteries are charged and whose focus is unambivalent?

If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for your work or your kids.

Recent findings in brain research reveal that multi-tasking is not an efficient way to work.    Being preoccupied with one thing while doing another is a kind of  multi-tasking.  

While I’m writing this blog post, I’m also thinking about an extended conversation I’m having with my husband.   The background noise of the conversation clogs my writing process and slows me down.  I would be well served to either finish the conversation with him or table it until some specific future time.   If I were to do that, all the energy currently tied up in it would become available to me.  I certainly could use it.

Since finishing the conversation is not an option right NOW, I’m going to plan to do so (or at least resume it ) this evening when we’ll both be home and not working.   Making this decision should open up some bandwidth for me.  I’ll report in at the end of writing this post.

Meanwhile, I want to offer some anecdotal evidence for the point I’m making.  

The nagging, unfinished business under the surface for an accounting consultant I know was that three people on her team were not performing their jobs to the standard she thought was appropriate.  She wasn’t addressing it in any way other than fretting about it. 

Once she articulated it as a problem, she could address it proactively. For each of these employees, she drafted the specifics of what needed to change and initiated conversations with them in which she made it very clear to them what she expected and that this was not optional in any way. 

While she had had prior conversations with them about performance, she felt she had been too vague and general.  This time around, she was absolutely clear. 

The result was that two of the employees immediately started performing to the standard and have been doing so ever since: problem solved.   The third one required training and supervision to perform to the standard, and this training and supervision is currently underway in a structured, scheduled, and monitored configuration.

The secondary results are that the consultant: 
1. no longer feels preoccupied with this issue and has more focus and energy to do her work
2. is pleased with the work she did as a manager
3. is thrilled with the better work that her two employees are doing
4. will have an easier time doing this the next time it comes up in her professional life (and alas, it will)

My bottom line advice is to NOTICE what’s sapping your energy, what’s rolling around under the surface, what’s stressing you.  And then deal with it. 

And yes, I have to say that my own experience of writing this post improved once I decided I would resume my extended conversation tonight.  That allowed me to essentially drop it for now, and that was a good move.