Doing the Next (Extraordinary) Thing

Over a lunch conversation with a dear friend, we discovered we were both feeling the same way about life:  tired, stressed, and pulled in many different directions.  The abundance of tasks in both our personal and professional lives had grown unwieldy.  We empathized with each other despite our very different places in life.  Somehow, the struggle was the same.

The conversation reminded me of a book I had read only a year ago.  Last year, I received a book recommendation called Present over Perfect by Shauna Niequist.  The book, without giving it away, was about the author’s battle to choose to be present in her life without giving into opportunities to constantly seek perfection instead of mindfulness.  I was going through a time in life where mindfulness techniques seemed to be the only way to help me categorize and prioritize my thoughts and feelings for all contexts.  At the time, the book was just what I needed:  courage to give myself permission to prioritize the things in my life that most interest me; to say no when I need (or want) to; and a sense of being enough in a world with endless demands that cause anxiety and overwhelm.  

While my friend and I shared our meal and exchanged recent challenges, I confessed to the feeling that seemed to be holding me back:  fear.  Fear of the unknown; fear of not having enough time or energy; fear of being afraid too long; fear of not growing; etc.  The list goes on.  Once we concluded explaining our lists of fears and anxieties to each other, I gave (us) the only advice I could think of.  I advised that we do the next right thing.

“What’s the next right thing?” she asked.  “That’s pretty vague.” 

I thought about it.  It could be drinking a cup of coffee, or it could be writing an important e-mail to a colleague.  It could be picking children up from school, or it could be making a call to schedule an overdue appointment with a therapist for the first time.  The range is incredible and unending.  The options are limitless.  I saw her point; doing the next right thing really could be anything.

As I recalled my own list of fears in my mind, my eyes filled with tears.  She was right.  How could I decide on the next right or best thing for myself when it wasn’t clear?  Again, I felt overwhelmed (and still afraid).

We talked about how we never wanted to become complacent and how we wanted to always encourage each other toward greatness.  We promised each other never to let ourselves become static professionals or people.  We talked about taking risks and how they make you feel most alive.  We talked about how the scariest times in our lives have also been some of the most worthwhile. 

She replied, “Perhaps it’s better to say ‘do the next extraordinary thing.’” 

I thought to myself.  What’s extraordinary?  It is definitely something more definable and specific than “right” or “best.”  To challenge myself to do the next extraordinary thing means confronting those fears that cause paralysis, and confronting them daily.  It seemed that asking this question, I couldn't get stuck in sameness or a multitude of demands (or the potential would at least decrease). 

Committing myself to asking the question about what next extraordinary thing I can do on a daily basis means constant re-evaluation.  It means, I hope, continual self-improvement.  It means using the best of my brain and my heart to pursue my personal and professional goals.  It means creating a string of extraordinary moments to create an extraordinary life.

I smiled.  I loved the way she had revised my advice.  My mind immediately began to think of the next extraordinary thing I could, should, or needed to do.  As I asked the question, so the answer came to me.  But the gift of implementing this advice was not in the reaction I received after completing my first extraordinary task.  The gift was watching myself go through the exercise of asking the question, and overcoming the fear of inaction.  My hope is that, over time, this question will become a pattern of behavior for me.

By asking yourself “what’s the next extraordinary thing” that you can do to further your professional or personal goals is a simple, mindful way to pursue self-growth and combat fear.  It is my hope that you, too, never stop asking the question. 

© 2017 Melanie Glover. All rights reserved.

First image above:  Shutterstock.

Dedication:  To my friend who helped inspire this post, thank you for your friendship and commitment to extraordinary living.

Mindful Meetings: How to Stay Engaged to Create Productive Interpersonal Interactions

I was running late to a meeting with a colleague.  I grabbed from my desk several piles of what I thought were relevant papers as well as my computer to take notes.  I had somewhat of an outline in my mind of what I wanted to discuss, but the demands of the day had left me with less time than I would have liked to prepare for our conversation.

When I arrived, I could tell right away that we were both distracted by other tasks that seemed to be taking over our day.  I thought, should we reschedule?  How productive can this meeting possibly be if neither one of us have had a chance to focus our attention on issues to discuss?

While the meeting was not as productive as I had hoped, it was still a valuable teaching tool to help generate awareness about how to stay mindful in a sometimes reactive environment.  Here are my best tips on how to stay mindfully engaged in interpersonal interactions in a professional environment.

Maintain Eye Contact

A simple way to stay engaged during interpersonal interactions is to maintain frequent eye contact.  This checking in with the other person helps reassure him or her that you are in fact listening to what he or she has to say.  Doing this helps the other person understand that he or she matters enough to look up from your busy note-taking (also important!).  To further increase your awareness while maintaining eye contact, try to remember the color or shape of the other person's eyes.  If you can recall this, then you must have been paying close attention and truly noticing the other person in the interaction.

Keep an Agenda

Keep an agenda, but don't necessarily stick to it.  Coming prepared to a meeting is always important to help ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of it, but consider creating an agenda beforehand to further help you stay on track and accomplish all that you need to in the limited time you have.  Keep the agenda fluid, however, and allow the other person flexibility to contribute to the conversation by adding his or her own topics for discussion.  This back and forth is a true respectful conversation that includes thoughtful points worth mentioning.

Create Next Steps

As you near the end of a meeting, move toward thinking about next steps considering the progress you have made in your communication.  In fact, you might even prepare your proposed next steps before the meeting.  Returning to next steps in your mind helps bring the meeting to a close while providing you with direction for the immediate or distant future.  Propose next steps to your counterpart, and gauge whether these next steps are appropriate.  Try to leave the meeting with at least one clear next step, referral, or recommendation for you to explore beyond the meeting.

The tips above help me make the most out of my meetings by ensuring I pay close attention to the person with whom I am conversing.  While productivity does depend on task-oriented communications, the human element of work requires us to fully use our senses to practice the empathy we seek to give and receive.

© 2016 Melanie Glover. All rights reserved.

First image above:  Shutterstock.

Mindful Perseverance for the Striving Professional: Naming Experience and Identifying Skills

Part of directed growth is focusing on the desired outcome.  When it is clear what you want, the “how to get it” somehow becomes easier to trust and process.

But what about those times when you have identified what you wanted, gone for it, and are suspicious of the outcome?  Not all of that hard work, you think, may achieve the goal.  Well, maybe not.  It is hard to tell until you get to the end.  But the lesson of perseverance begs us to recall that professional and personal development are not only about ultimate achievement.  In addition, and perhaps even more importantly, they are about the lessons we learn along the way.

A few years ago in private practice, I faced a challenging, complex set of facts through which I had to sift to best advocate on behalf of my client.  Examining these facts led me to delve into areas of the law and interpretations of it that I had never explored so deeply.  Despite small victories here and there, our contractual relationship ended at a point where we had advanced the arguments as far as we could.  The Court had not decided in our favor, and the client would have to decide whether to appeal.  We had persevered, and our expectations were not met.  While I did not understand at the time how the facts of this case would impact my understanding of this particular area of the law, it became clear to me only three weeks into a new job in a different context.  The same facts (although presented in a much different way) showed up in front of me once again, and I comfortably and confidently navigated my way toward answers and solutions that benefited my new client.  If I had not persevered through the disappointment of unmet expectations in the first instance, I would not have been prepared to handle the second very similar scenario so well.

To remain in pursuit of your goals, focus on the lessons you are learning along the way.  Name the experience you had, and consider the skill it helped you develop.

Examples:

• Have you become a better leader after dealing with a complicated work situation? 
• Have you improved your memorization skills after studying for a lengthy exam? 
• Have you developed your communication skills by taking charge of an unclear situation? 
• Have you confronted an adversarial situation by turning it into an opportunity? 

Lessons mean skills, and skills are transferable to other contexts.  Experience is a great teacher.  Whether you are trying to transition out of school and into the job market, change your career path, or take on a different role in a job you already have, consider the skills you have developed.  While your journey thus far may not have been what you expected, consider the skills you have developed to stay the course, know your worth, and remain confident for the next opportunity that may be more aligned with the direction you want to follow.

Our continued growth depends on our ability to persevere through disappointments or unmet expectations.  To keep thinking positively, we have to focus on the small yet substantive achievements in our lives even if they do not look like the ones we had anticipated.  Surely, we have learned something along our less-than-perfect paths.  Use those hard lessons to your advantage to keep going to prepare yourself for the next task, job, or adventure in your immediate or more distant future.  Perhaps the skills you have cultivated along the way are just the ones you may need to use in the next position in which you expectedly – or unexpectedly – find yourself.

© 2016 Melanie Glover.  All rights reserved.

How to Meditate: Just Breathe

When I tell my colleagues (who also strive to manage their personal and professional stress) that meditation and mindfulness saved me, they oftentimes give me puzzled looks.  The questions that follow include these:  how do you meditate?  Meditation -- what's that?

I admit that I, too, once felt perplexed by the subject.  I had heard the terms "mindfulness" and "meditation" used in the occasional yoga class that I had attended in the past, but I did not have a firm understanding of what the two terms meant.

I was curious, and so I attended a mindfulness-based stress reduction course.  My explanations for the terms are probably quite personal by now as my experiences with them have helped me define them.  Considering this general disclaimer, this is how I would define both:

Meditation:  Breathing into, through, and with the present moment.

Mindfulness:  Being aware of the present moment.

These basic, personal definitions are the ones that I share with my inquisitive colleagues, but their questions never end there.  The conversation always develops into storytelling, which leads to connection.  Their questions and experiences have led me to write about meditation and mindfulness so that perhaps by understanding it, they might practice it for themselves. 

My definitions are simple because the practices are simple, and I want people to know this:  you do not have to be good at meditation or practicing mindfulness.  Meditation involves watching the mind.  It means nothing more than breathing in and out, and focusing on the breath to remain in the present moment.  The result is minimizing future distractions or preoccupations as well as past fears or anxieties.  Mindfulness means practicing awareness of the action or inaction of the moment at hand.  For example, mindfulness means paying attention to the outline of the pine trees that you pass alongside the road as you drive to work.  It means acknowledging the beautiful interwoven colors of a summer sunset.  Or it could mean focusing on the squeezing of the bicep muscle during the contraction phase of a curl.  For me, meditation is breathing, and mindfulness is awareness and acceptance.

Mindfulness and meditation help me slow down, become aware of my tendency to react, and reassess what is in fact a proper response to whatever circumstances face me in a moment.  Simply being aware that a certain situation is causing you anxiety helps stop the racing thoughts and urges you to reexamine what the best response might be.  Usually, it is not the one you would have chosen had you not allowed mindfulness to interrupt your ingrained thought patterns.  A better response could await you.  If you simply pay attention and notice what your first thought was, a second, different thought might replace it if you practice this interruption of cascading, anxious thoughts to keep them from becoming a torrent of negativity. 

So how can you practice mindfulness and meditation?  I recommend starting with five deep breaths:  inhale and exhale five times slowly.  Notice the rise of your chest on each in breath and the fall of your chest on each out breath.  Or, become curious about the cool air passing through your nostrils on the in breath and the puff of air that escapes them on the out breath. 

Be curious.  Pay attention.  Notice your feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, and accept them just as they are.  Breathe through these feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, and repeat this process for as long as you desire.  Even five deep breaths can re-center you and set you up to experience a calmer next moment to increase mental and emotional clarity for any situation.

© 2016 Melanie Glover.  All rights reserved.

First image above:  Shutterstock