The M.A.P. Maker [Meaning, Abundance & Passion]

Create a better life with 30-day experiments

Do you ever read about a self-development idea and think, "Yeah! That's a great idea/technique/approach. I'll definitely make that a part of my life...ummmm...maybe tomorrow."

I know I do. Despite my best intentions, I just can't overcome inertia and bridge the gap between the nonexistent and the consistent. 

To counter that, I have started creating 30-day containers in which I experiment with a new idea. Rather than steadfastly incorporating something new into my life for all eternity, I turn it into an experiment with a finite time-frame.

Instead of going into it with a rigid expectation that it will have a massively positive impact, I go into it with a sense of curiosity. "What will happen if I do this for thirty days? What results will I get? How will this affect me?" I leave the door open to a positive result. I also leave the door open to being surprised and discovering something I hadn't expected.

If there's something valuable there, I can continue incorporating some or all of it into my life. If there's not, I can leave it by the side of the road.

The 30-day container does two things. First, it makes it short enough to feel doable, and second, it creates a sense of focus and commitment. "I'm going to do this every day for 30 days" is a lot more likely to yield consistent action than, "I'm going to do this from now on."

What 30-day experiment could you start today?

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Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

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by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Going through hell in the hallway

There's a saying that when one door closes, another door opens. I happen to believe that. I also believe that, like many sayings, it's probably a bit simplistic.

I heard what feels like a more accurate version as I was flipping through radio stations in the car yesterday. I came across what sounded like a charismatic black preacher giving a sermon. The speaker in me was caught by his delivery style, so I stayed and listened a while, admiring his oratorical skill.

"When one door closes, God opens another door," he preached. "When one door closes," he repeated, "God opens another door...But," he said with a hint of humor, "it's hell in the hallway!" 

As I cracked up at the image, I thought, "How very true." I do believe that another door is going to open when one gets shut. But I have also seen enough people go through change - and been through enough change myself - to know that actually making through that door isn't always a cakewalk.

Maybe that hell comes from that limbo space where someone doesn't know what's next. Maybe it comes when they start moving towards the open door, experience a little hellfire, and think, "Ouch! Hey, wait a minute. I don't like this! Never mind. That door must not be open after all." And they give up. Or it makes them think that they don't have what it takes (the fact that they're struggling must prove it, right?).

But the reality is that with any change - especially substantial changes - struggle, fear, and doubt can come with the territory (not always, but often). Feeling the flames tickling your butt doesn't necessarily mean you should stop.

It's just a reminder to ask yourself, "Is that really the opportunity I think it is? (A little healthy questioning is never a bad thing.) Is there any way to move through this hallway faster? Is there anything that can help shield me from these flames while I make the transition?"

Next time you decide to step through a new door and you feel a little heat, remind yourself that it's just the hallway, not the whole house.

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Get started with 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work!

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by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

The world-changing power of awareness and small steps

I love a good dramatic change story as much as the next guy. But when it comes to making positive change in our lives (and in the world), sometimes it’s the more subtle variety that ends up being most effective.

The process goes a little something like this:

• Awareness
• Action
• Additional inputs
• Additional action
• Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

In the description below, I use the example of my choices about food as an example, but it applies to any change you feel called to make.

Awareness

Here, the seeds of change are planted and the door to change is opened. A need is seen. A reason for doing something is learned. You see that something isn’t working, or recognize a better way of doing things.

Wherever it comes from, that awareness starts to create a framework, a new way of looking at the world. A paradigm shift – maybe big, maybe small – is underway.

For example:

One example of the potential for positive change through evolution is the food I eat. Five years ago I may have eaten organic food occasionally, but for the most part it just wasn’t on my radar screen.

Enter awareness. Several years ago I started an alternative energy blog because I wanted to learn more about the issues. That in turn spawned a blog on sustainability.

The more I read about the issues, the more aware I was, not just of the positive health impact of organic food, but also of the negative environmental impacts of a lot of factory-farming. I started to feel a need to make different choices.

Action

As you see the need or opportunity for change, you feel compelled to take action. It might not be big and dramatic action. It could be just a small step; sometimes change comes by way of consistent, persistent action on what feels doable and within reach.

As you take action, you start to develop new ways of doing things. New habits form, and what once felt like a stretch way outside your comfort zone gradually becomes “doable and within reach.”

For example:

That awareness didn’t immediately shift my consumption – organic food was more expensive, and I still hadn’t overcome the mental hurdle of paying more than I needed to. But it did make me think every time I went to the store.

Over time, bit-by-bit, I started buying more organic food. By now, I don’t even pay attention to the non-organic produce section. 

My migration to organic food happened slowly and naturally, and ultimately it became a new way of doing things. It became part of a new paradigm.

Additional inputs

Part of the magic of having a new framework is that it gives you a place to put new insights that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. Maybe you hear a new piece of information that’s relevant to the change you have underway. Or perhaps you have an experience that plants a seed for something more you need to do.

Without the framework, it might simply bounce in and out of your field of view. Like only one half of a strip of Velcro, there’s nothing for it to latch onto. But the framework gives it a place. 

For example:

My friend Sara has an organic farm (she is also a marketing consultant, so she’s incredibly busy). A few weeks ago she had several dozen duck eggs that she hadn’t had time to sell. She didn’t want them to go bad. Looking at how jammed her schedule was at the time, and the relatively small return for the effort of selling the eggs (compared to the time it would take), I thought she should just chalk it up as a loss.

She would have none of it, and made a comment that stuck in my mind. “Those ducks worked hard on those eggs. I don’t want to just waste them.” To her, it was about more than money and time management (she ultimately donated them to a food bank).

Ever since then, I have been increasingly aware of waste. I think of all the food that has become a science experiment in my refrigerator, molding and turning to goo until I finally throw it out. Sara’s comment personalized it a bit for me. It wasn’t just throwing out eggs that randomly showed up in the refrigerator. It was throwing out something that ducks I “knew” had put their life force into creating.

Unknowingly, she connected some dots for me. It got me thinking about waste in the bigger picture. How much energy goes into what we consume and what we waste.

Additional action

Those additional inputs, in turn, both add to the framework and spark more action you can take in pursuit of positive change.

Over time, the framework morphs and grows. The actions you take create new habits and (hopefully) better results.

For example:

Does waste still happen in my refrigerator? Yeah, unfortunately. But I’m starting to be much more conscious of it. I'm also more conscious of it in terms of my consumption overall, not just as it relates to food.

My paradigm is morphing and growing.

The big picture

The point of this post isn’t that you should eat organic food. It’s that awareness followed by action – even slowly unfolding action – can have a world-changing effect. Maybe the world that gets changed is your own personal world. Or the world of the people around you. Or maybe it’s something more far-reaching.

Whatever it is, never underestimate the world-changing power of awareness and small steps.

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Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Adapting to Change

Ask anyone who is on the wrong path in their career, and they'll probably tell you they would welcome a change to a career they love. Ask them how they feel about actually making that change, and most likely the response won't be quite so glowing.

In my work, one of the most common obstacles I have encountered is the fear and uncertainty that so often goes along with the idea of making a wholesale change.

With that in mind, I'm always interested in resources to help people through that process. I recently ran across an pdf version of a short booklet from Axzo Press called Adapting to Change. They also put out this workbook on managing personal change.

Whether a career change is looming in your life, or you simply want to find a way to thrive in the ever-changing pace of the world we live in, the books have some great food for thought.

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Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

Want positive change? Apply the 30% rule

Everything I talk about in this blog, and everything I focus on in my work, is ultimately aimed at one thing - catalyzing positive change. For me, that positive change starts at the individual level and ripples out.

An awareness of the issues is important, but too often the quest for awareness turns into little more than "bad news porn." This is wrong, and that is screwed up, and those people over there are doing such stupid things! We can get so caught up in what's wrong that we never focus our attention to what's really important - how to take the steps to create what's right.

I spent yesterday at the GreenFestival in Seattle. One of the speakers I caught was Sharif Abdullah, author of The Power of One and Creating a World That Works for All. In his talk, he described what he called the 30% rule.

In a nutshell, the 30% rule says we should spend no more than 30% of our time talking about what's wrong, and focus the remaining 70% on exploring, strategizing, and taking action.

On his blog recently, he described how it plays out in his own life:

• I only spend 30% of my time talking about problems – any more than that is disempowering (which is not my intention). The other 70% of my time I focus on visions and solutions.

• I refuse to pay attention to sources that spend 100% of their time talking about problems (the negative energy stream). This includes highly credible, well researched, fact-filled sources like Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn. We simply don’t have the time to bathe in a constant stream of negativity.

• I am encouraging others to follow the “30% Rule”. WE SIMPLY DON’T HAVE TIME TO RUN AROUND TALKING ABOUT PROBLEMS INSTEAD OF SOLUTIONS. It’s like running into a crowded theater yelling “Fire!”. Instead of showing people to the exits, instead of coming in with a fire hose or a fire extinguisher, you just keep yelling “Fire!”. Very quickly, that becomes counterproductive. Someone said, “You don’t get points for just predicting rain; you get points for building an ark.”

I love this mindset, whether we are thinking about positive change that needs to be made in the world around us, or changes we need to make in our own lives. Nothing happens by focusing entirely on the problem. Positive change happens when we ask ourselves, OK, so what do I do about it? And then start taking action.

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Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

The positive change cycle

Have you ever made a positive change you're really excited about, only to have your momentum and enthusiasm start to flag as you discover that it's harder than you think? Well, rather than throw your hands up and ask, "What's the point," keep in mind that it just might be a natural part of the positive change progression.

Here's a page that outlines the positive change cycle, from the heady first rush of a positive change through to a version that will stick for the long term. It describes four stages of positive change:

Uninformed optimism: This is the rose-colored glasses honeymoon stage.

Informed pessimism: You reach this stage when you realize, "Hang on, this is harder than I thought! As the article puts it, "the rose-tinted glasses start to fade as the untidiness of reality starts to bite."

Informed optimism: You start to adapt and adjust to the fact that the reality of change isn't as neat and tidy as the fantasy of change, and you start to get a more realistic sense of optimism.

Completion: You've incorporated the change into your life in a long-term, sustainable way.

Too often, people step out into a positive change and get discouraged when they get blindsided by the informed pessimism stage. But when you realize that often that is part of a cycle that takes it from the realm of fantasy to the realm of reality, it can be easier to stick with it and not get discouraged.

Next time you find yourself getting frustrated that a change isn't as smooth and easy as anticipated, ask yourself, is this just reaching a state of informed pessimism? What am I learning here? How can I incorporate that and move into the informed optimism stage?

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Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

Career change tip: Weigh the discomfort of change vs. no-change

Have you ever known you needed to make a change in your life, but dragged your heels because the idea of actually making that change felt even more uncomfortable than whatever needed changing?

It's something I often encounter in my work helping people find careers that energize and inspire them. So many people out there who are unhappy with their current careers look at the idea of making a change and think "Yikes!" They decide that however uncomfortable their current situation, at least it's a discomfort they know and are familiar with.

They put the two options on a scale, weighing the discomfort of change vs. the discomfort of staying put. Often the discomfort of change seems much heavier, so they stay where they are.

The trouble with that is people frequently don't weigh the right things. The discomfort of change is a short-term discomfort, so they compare that to the short-term discomfort of staying put. They put a day, or a week, or maybe a month's worth of their current situation on the scale and think, "Well, I don't like it, but at least I'm familiar with it. And compared to the pain of wholesale change, this is really just a low-grade ache." The discomfort of change seems clearly heavier than the discomfort of staying put.

Except that's not the full picture. The pain of staying put in a situation that is wrong for them isn't just the pain of showing up to work again tomorrow and doing something that doesn't fit. It's showing up the day after that, and the month after that, and the year after that...

When they're weighing the discomfort of change vs. the discomfort of no-change, they need to look at the cumulative effect of days and months of years of doing what's not right for them, not just how it feels to show up for work tomorrow. Because that's what they're committing to by deciding not to change.

Next time you find yourself avoiding change because the discomfort of staying put seems easier to tolerate, ask yourself, "Am I weighing the right things?"

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Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

The power and potential of patient change

My Passion Catalyst work is all about change and transformation. Over the years I have had the chance to see a lot of people make changes in their lives. While there are many factors that contribute to successful, sustainable change, one of the biggest I have seen is a decidedly unsexy word you hardly ever hear in our culture of immediate gratification...

Patience.

It's not a word that gets the blood pumping or inspires action, but time and again I've talked to people who look back and say that it was a key component of their successful change. Or conversely, that a lack of it was a key obstacle.

Impatience = Frustration = Obstacle

Lately I've been talking to former clients to get insights based on their personal experience on what can help a client maintain the momentum of the work we've done together once they wrap up their time with me.

This post was prompted by a piece of feedback from someone I worked with two years ago, who is now working part time and going to school in pursuit of his new path. "I did lose momentum for a while," he said, referring to the time following our work together. "The biggest obstacle was frustration. Looking back, I can see that it needed to take the time it took, but at the time it felt like nothing was happening." That frustration slowed him down.

While I'm a big fan of sweeping, stupendous change when it's feasible, the fact is that most of the successful change I have seen has come piece by piece, step by step. When people are able to set their expectations accordingly and stay in the process, their potential for success goes up immensely.

A patient change approach to life

It's not just our careers where the patient change idea applies. It's everywhere in our lives. For example, compared to five years ago, my "sustainable living" habits have changed dramatically, but that didn't happen all at once. The changes came into my life in drips and drops.

First, I started  gaining awareness about sustainability issues (primarily through the reading I did for both my alternative energy and sustainability blogs). Once I started understanding the issues more, I couldn't put the genie back in the bottle. Ignorance was bliss, but now I had some knowledge.

I started being more aware of my energy consumption. I started being more conscious about not leaving the lights on. I started being more aware of how far the food I bought traveled to get to the store (how much fossil fuel did it take to transport these bananas 5,000 miles to get here?). I didn't always choose to forego the bananas, but at least I was aware that there were consequences to consider.

Slowly, I started buying organic fruits and vegetables. Just occasionally at first, but more and more over time. Today, organic produce is such a habit that I don't even pay attention to the non-organic section of the store.

Then came an awareness of the importance of supporting local business. I started shopping at a locally owned grocery store, rather than the big chain. I started paying even more attention to where the food was from.

My most recent shift has been buying canvas bags for my groceries rather than using plastic bag after plastic bag. A small thing, but another step towards a substantial cumulative change.

There are still a lot more changes that I could make, and no doubt many more that I will. The important part is that the changes I have made have stuck. Slowly but surely, they have become an ingrained part of my life. 

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Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

12 months = 12 new opportunities to stimulate my brain

Want to keep your mind flexible and sharp and feeling stimulated by life? Give it a healthy dose of the new, interesting, and unusual.

It's easy to get so focused on whatever it is we're trying to achieve, or whatever obligations we need to meet, that our experience of the world becomes a little monochromatic.

Not only can this lead to boredom, but it can also make it challenging to adjust and adapt to new situations. Because at the same time as we have to put energy into adapting to the new situation (or creating it), we also have to put energy into busting out of the inertia of the same ol' same ol'.

Yesterday, I started a wood shop class at one of the local community colleges. I took a couple shop classes as a young pup in my teens, which I loved, but I haven't done anything with it since. The class will definitely be something "new and unusual" for me.

Though it wasn't my intention when I signed up, that class is going to be the beginning of my grand experiment for 2008. Every month I'm going to take a class or a workshop on something new and unfamiliar that has nothing to do with my day-to-day world.

The idea came while browsing the local classes listed on craigslist. There are so many interesting things that I could dabble in and learn about. I feel like a kid in a candy store.

I could take a silversmithing class, or a workshop on a native plants. I could learn to do the lindy hop, take a pottery class, or cook up a mean Thai dish. The possibilities are nearly endless.

And everything I learn about expands my worldview, stimulates my brain, and keeps my perspective fresh. Not a bad deal, eh?

How about you? What would you do? What would you learn?

 

Check out 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

15 tips for developing flexible stability (tips 11 - 15)

And now for the final installment of my 15 tips for developing flexible stability. Here are tips eleven through fifteen...

11. Learn to fail successfully

As any entrepreneur will tell you, failure of some sort is almost inevitably a part of the road to success. Unfortunately, most of us have a tendency to take failure far too seriously.

If you put any given failure in the big picture perspective, you can see that most often it is a step along the way, not a final cataclysmic destination. Nobody enjoys failing, but you can choose how you respond to it. By seeing it as a step along the way and an opportunity for learning, you take some of the ultra-negative energy out of it and it has less of a tendency to paint your world with drama and trauma.

Failure can be a huge investment in our future success, but most people are more inclined to pretend it didn't happen than to learn from it. Next time you fail, ask yourself some questions to get the most out of the experience. "What happened here? What can I learn from this? What did I do right? What did I do wrong? How would I do things differently in the future? What do I know now that I didn't know then?"

12. Check your assumptions

We all make assumptions. They're short cuts, and serve to make life easier.

Sometimes though, the assumptions we make get in our way. And when we look at them, we realize that they don't really have any grounding in reality. The result is a set of limitations that don't actually exist! We simply created them.

Any time you find yourself thinking that something isn't possible, ask yourself what kinds of assumptions you are making. For each of those, ask yourself, "Is that valid? Do I have enough information to confidently say that is true, or is it actually just conjecture? Why do I assume that? What are some different possibilities?"

13. Eliminate black & white thinking

As comfortable is it might be to have the certainty that comes with painting the world in black and white (things are either this way, or they're that way), in reality there are typically a whole range of colors in between the extremes.

And that's good news when it comes to creating flexible stability. Black and white thinking limits you. It gives you only two options. Multi-chromatic thinking on the other hand (I couldn't bring myself to write "rainbow thinking") gives you a wide range of options.

Say you want to change careers, but it's clear that making a change isn't possible right now. With black and white thinking you shrug your shoulders and sigh, saying, "I guess it wasn't meant to be."

On the other hand, with multi-chromatic thinking, you think, "OK, when could I make that transition? What are the steps I could take that would move me closer? Are there any other more easily reachable options that would give me a similar sense of satisfaction?" It's inherently about looking at the options and possibilities.

14. Coach yourself

Clarity can go a long way towards creating a sense of flexible stability. Much of the benefit my coaching clients get out of their work with me centers around creating clarity - about what energizes them, what they value, what direction they should take and how to get there, what their goals are, what's getting in the way and how to move past it, etc.

Of course much of that benefit comes from my experience guiding people through the process and recognizing the questions that need asking. But even if you don't work with me you can still benefit from a do-it-yourself approach to coaching.

All you need is a journal and an ample supply of question marks. A journal is a way to get your thoughts out of your brain and out into the open. Asking a question launches the exploration, and journaling captures the results.

To get the most of your self-coaching efforts, go back through what you've written occasionally and pull out the key points that feel important. Maybe you see similar trends coming up as you explore what lights you up. Perhaps you see ways you consistently get in your way. You might see opportunities that you can leverage, or recognize questions you need to ask yourself on a consistent basis.

Harvesting the key insights from your journaling gives you an at-a-glance perspective on what you've learned.

15. Celebrate yourself

In the first post in this series, I noted that, "Much of the quest for stability boils down to one thing: a desire to know that the future is going to be OK."

Developing flexible stability is about creating a belief that you can navigate fluidly through whatever comes along. A big part of the belief has to do with how you see yourself and your ability.

With that in mind, anything you can do to support a positive view of what you bring to the table helps develop that sense of flexible stability.

Make a habit of celebrating yourself. Make a list of gifts and skills you have. Write about why each of those is important. Start celebrating your successes. Too often we dwell on our failures and skim over our successes as we turn our eyes to what's next. Linger on what you've done well so it has a chance to become part of your world view.

 

Check out 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM