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

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

 

15 tips for developing flexible stability (tips 6 - 10)

Developing flexible stability can help you reduce stress, minimize fear, and increase the potential that you will reach out for the dream instead of feeling trapped by an over-developed need to "play it safe."

Yesterday I shared the first five tips out of fifteen on how to build that sense of flexible stability in your own life. Here are tips six through ten.

6. Take an outside perspective

One of the things my clients are looking for in my Passion Catalyst coaching is an outside, objective perspective. It's really easy to get so caught up in our own lives that we can't see what's really going on. 

As a friend of mine describes it, "Not only can I not see the forest for the trees, I have my nose so far in a knot hole that I can't even tell what kind of tree it is."

An outside point-of-view helps sort through the clutter. Try stepping back from your situation on a regular basis and look at it from a third party perspective. Describe it as though you were on the sidelines observing somebody else's life. Step out of your journey and take an objective look at what's happening.

7. Get grounded

Create an internal stability by finding ways to get grounded. Meditation, yoga, or exercise for example. Anything that lets you come from a  calm and centered place is going to have a positive impact on the way you perceive what's happening in your world.

 8. Build positive beliefs

Just like getting grounded can affect the way you experience your life, your beliefs play an enormous role as well.

If, for example, you believe something something  is possible, you're a lot more likely to give it a shot than if you believe that failure is inevitable. If you believe that change is bound to be difficult and painful, guess how you're going to respond to any change you encounter?

Spend some time exploring your beliefs. What do you believe is possible in your life? What do you believe about change? What do you believe about your abilities?

When you encounter self-limiting beliefs, ask yourself, "Is this true? Might there be another way of looking at it? Is there any proof to the contrary?" Explore alternative positive beliefs, then start looking for ways to reinforce that positive view.

9. Develop healthy habits

Have you ever had your energy sag to the point where things that were typically no problem to deal with suddenly took on monumental proportions? Maybe you reacted to a small setback with a disproportionate level of fear. Or responded to a minor irritation with a level of anger that surprised you. 

Part of developing a flexible stability in your life is having the energy to cope and thrive. One of the big sources of that energy comes from how you fuel and maintain your body.

If you fuel your body with crappy food, train rigorously for months for the couch-to-refrigerator relay, and smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, your energy is going to dwindle and your health is going to suffer. That means you have less energy to fluidly flow with life's changes and challenges.

Healthy habits have a direct impact on the amount of energy you have to put towards thriving. The healthier you eat, and the more consistently physically active you are, the more energy your body and your mind have to navigate your life. 

10. Practice succeeding

Nothing succeeds like success, as the saying goes. The more confident you feel in your your ability to succeed in any given effort, the more likely you are to find workable options and alternatives, and the less likely you are to feel trapped by life's circumstances.

Wherever you are in life right now, however you currently feel about your potential to succeed, you can build your belief in your ability. How? Practice succeeding.

If your confidence is a bit on the shaky side, start small and build on that. If your confidence is already riding hich, aim higher.

Pick something you'd like to try, something that's doable but a little bit of a reach. If it's too easy, you'll get the same boost to your confidence that you would, say, flipping on a light switch. You certainly get a result, but so what?  On the other hand, if it's too hard, it might end up in frustration or, worse yet, a feeling of confirmation that you can't succeed.

When you do succeed, stop and acknowledge it. Write about it in your journal. Explore why you succeeded. Learn from it. Ask yourself how you might apply what you learned in the future. Use it as proof that successful efforts are within reach. Then pick something a little more challenging and repeat the process.

Coming next...

11. Learn to fail

12. Check your assumptions

13. Eliminate black & white thinking

14. Coach yourself

15. Celebrate yourself

 

Check out 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

15 tips for developing flexible stability (tips 1 - 5)

In today's ever-changing world, the static picture of stability and security that people used to find in their work is increasingly non-existent. What's needed now is a different kind of stability, one based on the ability to flow with change rather than white-knuckling a rigid state of existence.

I call that flexible stability.

Much of the quest for stability boils down to one thing: a desire to know that the future is going to be OK. With flexible stability, your sense of security in the future comes not from knowing that everything will stay the same, but that you can navigate fluidly through whatever change comes your way.

Whether you are a natural risk taker or someone who needs a sense of safety and security in your life, developing that flexible stability can only be beneficial. In the next few posts, I'm going to outline fifteen tips for fostering that flexible stability in your own life. Here are tips one through five.

1. Understand your core

Part of a sense of instability comes from feeling like life has you spinning ass over teakettle with no solid ground in sight. Understanding who you are at the core gives you a fixed frame of reference, helping reduce the feeling of vertigo.

You may be spinning, but at least there's one solid point you can focus on that's not moving. Who you are - what energizes you, what drives you, what you value, etc. - is the one thing that remains constant amidst all the change the world throws your way. Understanding that core gives you something concrete to base your direction and decisions on. 

If you don't know what's at the core, the winds of change can blow you all over the place. And because you don't know where you really belong, you're likely to feel a sense of uncertainty wherever you land.

2. Take a H.O.T. Wheel approach

As you head down the road, remember to keep your Hands On The Wheel. Too many people take their hands off the wheel, yielding power over their lives to circumstance. The result is a resigned sense of helplessness.

But in reality, you are in control of where you're going and how you're going to get there. Sure, you have constraints. We all do. The key is to look at those constraints and say, "OK, given these constraints, how do I get there?" Resist the urge to play the victim.

2. Exercise your change muscle

Part of the pain of change comes simply because we're not used to it. We grow attached to having things a certain way, and it throws us off when we're thrown into something new.

Try exercising your change muscle. Incorporate variety into your life. Put yourself in new situations where you have to adapt. Ask yourself, "Where am I in a rut," and brainstorm alternatives.

3. Build & nurture relationships

Of all the people I've interviewed over the years who have successfully pursued their passions in their careers, almost every single one said some variation of, "I couldn't have done it without ______." The blank was filled in by people who had been significant to their success.

The relationships in your life - whether personal or professional - can make all the difference in navigating through both  ideal sailing conditions and stormy weather.

In various guises those relationships can offer insights, objective perspectives, and ideas. They can open doors. And they can be a source of both emotional support and inspiration.   

4. Accumulate knowledge & skills

The more tools you have to work with, the more readily you can engage and adapt to any given situation. Take stock of the knowledge and skills you currently have, and be on a constant quest for more. 

Spend some time exploring how you might apply them if you were in a situation where change was either desired or simply necessary. Do dress rehearsals in your head so when the time for change comes (and it will, in some form), you're not scrambling to figure it out.

5. Develop a solutions focus

When you're  going along and discover an obstacle blocking the path, you have two choices. You can either stand and focus on the obstacle, wailing and gnashing your teeth that you can't go any farther, or you can start looking for a way around it. The bypass is often there, if you look hard enough.

When you make a habit of looking for the solution, obstacles lose some of their power. Rather than being something that proves that your goal can't be achieved, they become just a part of the landscape. A hindrance or irritation, perhaps, but not a show stopper.

Coming up next: Tips 6 - 10...

6. Take an outside perspective

7. Get grounded

8. Build positive beliefs

9. Develop healthy habits

10. Practice succeeding

 

 

Check out 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

Navigating change: 3 questions you need to ask

Yesterday I posted about navigating change more smoothly by allowing change to unfold incrementally and organically. Today I want to offer some ideas on how to do that. Like so many things, it starts with a fundamentally simple idea...Pay attention.

How?

Start with a simple question: "What change do I currently see in my life?" It could be big change, or it could be little change. It could be blatantly obvious, or it could be something you'll only see if you're completely honest with yourself.

Then ask yourself a trickier question: "What change wants to happen in my life?" What change are you seeing but not paying attention to? What change are you pointedly ignoring, or missing completely?

Finally, ask yourself, "What does this mean in my current reality?" What do you need to start doing differently? What new directions can you see taking shape? Are there different decisions you need to start making?

Check in with yourself on a regular basis. Trying keeping an ongoing "change journal" to keep track of your thoughts as you go.

Check out The Occupational Adventure Guide

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

Are you stuck in a snapshot?

Is your approach to change a journey along an ever-evolving continuum, or is it a series of whiplash-inducing leaps from one place to another?

For many people, the answer would be, "Whiplash! Most decidedly whiplash!" Part of the reason for that is a mistaken perception that life as they know it is a static and unchanging state.

The reality is that change in our lives is constant and ongoing. Little changes - internal and external - add up to bigger changes. When we pay attention to those small changes and incorporate them into how we see the world, we slowly move along the continuum of change. But when get attached to the permanence of today's state of being, it's like a rubber band being stretched until it finally has no choice but to shoot us towards change like a slingshot.  

This blog is the outcome of my own change process. It reflects an evolution of my ideas (and correspondingly, the focus of my work) that started about two years ago. Over the course of that time I have felt alternately frustrated at feeling stuck and excited about where it all was taking me.

Today I'm more amped than ever about the potential of the path that lies in front of me. I have a lot more clarity about where I am and where I want to take it. At the same time, I realize that it is still "under construction." The supporting pillars are in place with the M.A.P. Maker idea, but how the details will unfold remains to be seen.

In one of the conversations in my 30-in-30 experiment, Arnie Herz and I got to talking about the fact that the evolution I had been experiencing was still a work in progress. "I love the fact that you recognize that you're in a process, and that you're OK with that," said Arnie. "You're not stuck in a snapshot."

I liked that idea so much I jumped up and wrote it down on my whiteboard so i could blog about it later.

Being OK with being in a process is about being OK with the continuum of change. No matter how defined and structured you make your life, there will always be that continuum of change fraying it around the edges.

Life is a moving picture. If you pay attention, you can incorporate the continuum of change as you go and minimize the slingshot effect. But if you insist on staying stuck in a snapshot, at some point the picture has to change.

Check out The Occupational Adventure Guide

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM