Ready or Not When I was in my twenties and working at my first corporate assignment, a manager shared a rule of thumb for planning your career: Aim for advancing to the next level once you have mastered 80% of your current job. While I considered this idea interesting, it went against my natural inclination which was […]
What You Say Gives You Away Has anyone ever asked you to do something and you reluctantly replied “I’ll try”? That person may have walked away wondering whether you were really going to make the effort. Perhaps you’ve been on the receiving end of a compliment that went something like this: “You did a nice […]
It Was Supposed To Be Easy “Let’s go hike Camelback Mountain,” I suggested enthusiastically to my friend, Monica. She had traveled from Connecticut to visit me and an outdoor excursion into the Arizona landscape seemed like a great idea. After all, Camelback was listed in the book: Best Easy Day Hikes. Little did I know that […]
Let Your Passions Simmer Two years ago, after writing an article entitled What Are You Waiting For? I heard from many of you who were eager to share your “Want To Do In My Lifetime” lists. My father also called me with his list. A few months later, my husband and I found ourselves spending some beautiful […]
“…I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower Is Planning Worth It? “The best-laid plans… often go awry.”¹ What looks good on paper doesn’t always work out as envisioned. So why bother planning at all? I used to think that the point of planning was the satisfaction […]
Degree of Difficulty When beginning to work toward a challenging goal, there is a common tendency to dwell on the degree of difficulty. Sometimes this scares us into believing that what we are setting out to achieve is not really possible. Sure, we can describe the goal easily enough, but two minutes later we’re talking […]
Wipe The Slate Clean January 1 brings up mixed feelings. We want that clean slate, yet as we switch out of the holiday rhythm and head back to work, we also face the lingering issues and unfinished tasks of the prior year. Is the New Year really a fresh start? Despite the legitimate work that […]
Peace and Quiet When I was younger, my siblings and I would ask my father what he wanted for Christmas. His answer was always the same, “Peace and quiet is all I need.” I’d look at him curiously and say, “But, Dad, you ask for the same thing every year.” Now I tell my father […]
“To keep a lamp burning we have to keep putting oil in it.” – Mother Teresa To Keep a Lamp Burning Imagine living in a time when oil lamps were prevalent? To keep the rooms lit, you would have to frequently check the oil level in each lamp throughout the house. The oil lamp is […]
An Exercise In Gratitude At a recent chapter meeting of the International Coach Federation (ICF), a professional association to which I belong, we conducted a networking exercise to get to know each other better. In rotating groups of two, each of us took turns sharing the following with a partner: 1) something we are very […]