The M.A.P. Maker

Positive change tool: The End-of-Day Review

If you've ever tried to make a positive change in your life - maybe shifting a negative habit or a limiting belief - you know that it can be easier said than done. It would be nice if we could just flip a switch and be New & Improved (with 30% fewer calories!), but life typically doesn't work that way.

Think of making a positive change in terms of creating a new habit. Maybe you want to stop being so self-critical, or stop being such a perfectionist, or stop being so argumentative (or any one of a bazillion other changes you might want to make).

Make change a process

Instead of expecting yourself to make that change all at once - both noticing when it happens and immediately swapping out the new for the old - think of it as happening in stages.

Notice: First things first. If what you're trying to change is such an ingrained thing that it's what you naturally do without even noticing it, your first task is to start noticing it every time it happens. A habit is mighty hard to change if you don't notice what you're doing.

See the alternative: Noticing it consistently is a good start, but it's not enough. You have to be conscious of the alternative. 

Implement the alternative: Ultimately your goal is to put the new alternative into action. But even if you do a) notice it and b) see the alternative, it can be a challenge to make that change on the fly. Especially if what you are trying to change is an ingrained knee-jerk reaction.

Do an End-of-Day Review

A great tool to facilitate that positive change process is the End-of-Day Review. It's a way to take your change out of real-time and give yourself more time with it. It's simple. Every day, at the end of the day, spend a few minutes looking back at your day and ask, "Where did the old habit pop up?"

If you're in the "noticing" phase, don't worry about anything else at first. Just start training your brain to recognize when it happens. The more you practice you have seeing it in your End-of-Day Review, the more readily you will recognize it when it actually happens.

If you're trying to get better at seeing the alternatives, The End-of-Day Review is a great place to explore that. Each time you see the old habit cropping up, ask yourself, "What would an alternative have been? How could I have reacted to that? What are some different ways of looking at that?"

The more practice your brain has running through positive optinos, the more readily it will be able to gravitate to those options when it really counts.

Thought replacement: Make the positive habit-forming

Yesterday I wrote about the value of noticing whether your thoughts are negative, wasteful, necessary, or positive. Today I want to share a simple exercise to help you start habitually moving your thoughts in a positive direction.

Each time you find yourself thinking a negative or wasteful thought, stop and find a positive thought to replace it with. The positive thought might be related ("OK, what's good about this situation?") or it might be a complete tangent.

When you do this, you're accomplishing multiple things...

Loop interruption: Negative thoughts have a funny way of taking on a life of their own, feeding on themselves in an endless loop. With this exercise, you stop them cold. You interrupt the loop and replace it with something beneficial.

Awareness: Nothing focuses your attention on what's really going on in your mind like having to take action when it's less than preferable.

Positive practice: Not only does this actively break the negative loop, it also gives you practice finding the positive.

Try this exercise for a day first. Journal about how it went. What did you notice? Was it easy? Was it hard? Are you more positive than you realized? More negative? Was it easy or challenging to find positive replacement thoughts?

If you find the exercise beneficial, commit to doing it for another day. If you find yourself wanting more, commit to it for a week.

Bit by bit, your positive habit will start to grow.

--

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

How to turn hope into reality

For the last few months, I have had two pairs of words written on my whiteboard:

• Hope & possibility
• Growth & transformation

Those four words are my guideposts for what I want to focus on in my life, both personally and professionally.

Last night, as I watched the election results, I was struck by how relevant those four words are for us as a society as well. Barack Obama has inspired millions with his message of hope and positive change. Now, as we turn our attention to what that hope might bring, it’s time to start building a bridge between that inspiration and the real world.

“We can what?”

The well-known catch phrase of Obama’s campaign is, “Yes we can!” Whether you’re an Obama supporter or not, I want to plant the follow-up question to that… “We can what?”

Today, as you turn your eyes to the future, ask yourself, “What can I do? How can I have a positive impact on the world? How can I make the world a better place? How can I make my world/country/city/neighborhood/home (take your pick) a better place to live? How can I plant the seeds for a better tomorrow?”

In short, how can you start building the bridge from hope & possibility to growth & transformation?

Change is up to you

Do you want real change? It’s not going to come from a politician. Politicians can help the process, to be sure, but real change happens when each of us steps up and says, “Yes, I can.” And more importantly, “Yes, I WILL.”

Every day when you get out of bed in the morning, remind yourself that you have the potential to make the world a better place by the time you go to bed.

It doesn’t have to be big and dramatic. It doesn’t have to be covered by the nightly news. It might be something as simple as remembering to tell your children you believe in them, or stopping and having a real conversation with a homeless person rather than hurrying on by and pretending they’re not there.

It might be stepping up and volunteering for a cause you care about. Or you might take it a step further and create something yourself.

It might mean getting involved in the political process in your community. That could be something as simple as regularly letting your elected officials at all levels know what you think, or as involved as running for office yourself. 

Whatever that positive change looks like, one thing is sure. It’s NOT going to come if we all sit and wait for someone else to do it. It’s not going to come from waiting for our politicians to come riding in and wave a magic wand. It happens one step at a time, one person at a time.

What will you do? How will you be the change?

Questions to ponder

Here are some questions to help prime the pump as you explore the potential for positive change...

• What difference do I want to make?
• Who do I want to help?
• How am I well-positioned to help (what skills, resources, etc. do I have)?
• What volunteer opportunities do I have?
• What choices am I making? How do they affect my family? My community? The environment? Others?
• If I had to pick a positive change theme for my life, what would it be? What would I focus on?
• What legacy do I want to leave?
• How do my interactions with others affect them?
• What am I ignoring that needs attention?
• What values do I want to live? How do I act if I’m living my values? What choices do I make?
• What small step can I take today?

The bridge from hope & possibility to growth & transformation is built one plank at a time.

And it is built by you.

--

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

5 questions to ask when a career change seems impossible

In response to an earlier post here, M.A.P. Maker reader Jeff noted that pursuing his passion seems out of reach. As he explains:

I know my passion is to start and run a business of my own. But I am supporting 2 small children and my wife cannot earn what I currently earn. In order for my children to eat and wear clean clothes, I cannot give up my salary and benefits and go back to school to learn an altogether new career path.

It brings up such a good question that I decided it needed its own post.

How do you make a change when your reality makes that change feel impossible?

I wish I had a magic wand I could wave that would make it easy. But I sat on it and the dang thing broke, so it looks like we'll have to settle for the hard way.

Here are five questions to ask as you consider a change (note that these are directed at a general audience, not specifically at Jeff).

1. Could I find what I want without a full-on change?
2. How could I make that change?
3. When could I make that change?
4. Am I addicted to staying stuck?
5. How badly do I really want it?

Could I find what I want without a full-on change?

If there's a way to get what you're looking for without going through the turmoil of a full-scale change, then it makes sense to do it. So to begin with, try this...

Make sure you know why you want to change

First, take a look at why you want to change. Is it because something essential is missing, or is it because your boss is a complete jerk? Is it because you have a burning desire to ________ (fill in the blank), or is it because you've been doing what you do for so long that you're bored with it?

The more you know about the source of your discontent, the better equipped you are to address it. For example, you might discover that you're actually happy with the work, but there are issues at play that drain your energy. In that case, addressing those issues would result in a net energy gain (see my thoughts on The Gain to Drain Ratio), possibly eliminating your desire to make a change altogether.

Take stock of what you're missing

Another spin on that is asking the question, "What am I missing?" What would the new career path give me that my current work doesn't? This needs to be specific, not a vague generalization like, "I'd enjoy my work more."

Let's say, like Jeff, you're interested in starting and running a business of your own. In asking what is currently missing that starting your own business would fulfill, you might - for example - realize that it's about taking an idea from concept to completion. You might see that it's not so much about being in business for yourself as it is having the opportunity to build something out of nothing, to take an idea, build it, own it, and see it succeed.

With that insight, you can start looking around your current path and asking, "Where are the opportunities to incorporate that into the picture?" It might be on a small scale, like lobbying to take on projects that would let you do that. Or it might be large scale, like a move to a path within the company that is more in line with that.

Ask what, then why

Make a list of things - work or play - that have lit you up over the course of your life. For each of those, ask, "Why? What is it about that that makes it so fun, so appealing?" Think of it as reverse engineering to find the underlying characteristics.

For example, when I reverse engineer my Passion Catalyst work, I find that some of the underlying factors in why I love it are a 1) sense of exploration and discovery, 2) helping people, 3) being a catalyst, and 4) being the expert.

When you understand why you love what you love, you can look for opportunities to incorporate more of them into your current path. For example, how can I build more exploration and discovery into what I'm doing? How can I make changes that bring more of that into the picture? What paths could I grow into that have more of that?

(If you'd like more guidance on this, there is an entire chapter devoted to it in my e-book The Occupational Adventure Guide.)

How could I?

Get ten people together in a room who want to make a career change to something they love, and nine of them will come up with what feel like very good reasons why they can't. "I don't have enough money. I have too many financial obligations. I've invested too much time into my current path. I'm too inexperienced. I'm too old."

The truth is, we all have reasons why we can't. Instead of shutting the door with "I can't because," focus on a question that has door-opening potential..."How could I?" As the saying goes, there's more than one way to skin a cat. Some ways to explore how you could include...

• Challenge yourself to think of as many ways as possible to get to your end result. Don't worry if they're not all realistic.
• Identify the obstacles standing in the way. For each obstacle, make it a habit to try to find a way around. Brainstorm ideas. Make it a habit to engage other people in the problem-solving to get their ideas (do it again and again with different people).
• Ask, "What do I need to know to make this happen?" Learn it.
• Ask, "What kinds of people do I need to know to make this happen?" Find ways to meet them.
• Ask, "How do I build reputation I need to make this happen?" Start putting it into action.
• Ask, "What factors need to be in place for me to successfully make a change?" Start putting them into place (e.g., saving for a change fund, learning the nuts and bolts of your new path, etc.).

Any big goal is a compilation of smaller components. Even if the big goal seems presently out of reach, you can still start working on the smaller components.

When could I?

Most of the time I hear someone say, "I can't make a change," what they really mean is, "I can't right now." And that may very well be true. But if you limit yourself only to the things you can accomplish with the flip of a switch...well, you're going to have a pretty sorry life.

If you want to make a change, but meet yourself with, "I can't" (and it might be a very solid reason why you can't), ask yourself, "When could I?"

Again, back to the example of wanting to start a business, you might say, "Well, I would love to do that right now, but I can't." On looking at it closer (this is where the "how could I" exploration above comes in handy), you might realize that you can't right now, but if you started taking consistent, persistent steps right now to prepare, it might be a realistic option in five years' time.

Ideal? No. But neither is just sighing and saying, "I guess I'm stuck here forever."

Am I addicted to staying stuck?

Occasionally, part of my role in my work with individual clients is calling them on their shit (for the record, I have people who regularly call me on mine as well, so it's definitely not a holier-than-thou thing).

And for some people, that shit amounts to an addiction to being stuck. For them, "I can't" becomes an immutable reality. If this is you, no amount of exploration for ways to make it happen will make a difference, because at the heart of it, you're committed to not moving.

Of course, this wouldn't apply to any of the enlightened people who read this blog, but it might apply to a friend of a friend, so I thought I should include it. ;-)

How badly do I really want it?

As much as I hate to say it, there's no guarantee that you'll find an easy way to reach your dream. Sometimes it's a matter of gritting your teeth and doing the hard work to get it done.

Ask yourself, "How much do I really want it?" The more you want it, the more willing you will be to do the hard work. I heard one of my favorite examples of this in an interview I did a few years back with J.A. Jance, a mystery novel writer with numerous best-selling books to her credit.

Jance wrote her first two novels as a single mom with two kids and no child support. This was her advice...

Don’t just talk about it, do it – and don’t make excuses. I wrote my first three books between 4 and 7 a.m. before getting my children up to go to school and getting me dressed to go sell life insurance.

Everybody has obstacles. Some big, some small. The key is to simply recognize those obstacles as part of the landscape, and then set out to find your way around them.

--

Need to re-energize your career?
Get started with 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work!

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

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?

--

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

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.

--

Need to re-energize your career?
Get started with 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work!

--

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.

--

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.

--

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.

--

 

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?

--

 

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM