nanandbags: My personal mantras or my secrets to being an adult

01/27/2012

My personal mantras or my secrets to being an adult

So I know my blog is mostly about Aine, my anglophile ways as well as all the crafting I do but I thought I would take a quick diversion from all that good stuff and fill you in on a blog post I did for work. Mantras rule my life - it is like having my own personal rule set. What are your life mantras? Xoxo Nan

There is one thing I have learned in my 14 years at the company: sometimes, life doesn’t always go to plan, no matter how many goals you make.   I think that might be the hardest thing for us to grasp at our company– basically learning from an unexpected event.   Believe it or not, those unexpected events, became some of my best coaching moments.

I am sure you all have heard of the 7 stages of grief?   Well sometimes I believe that there are stages of learning from an unexpected event.   One has to learn from an unexpected even in order to a) grow and b) move to your new goals. This can happen in your personal and /or your professional life. Also note, the 7 stages of grief do not go in order! Sometimes we get so goal orientated we want each step to move in order – but unfortunately – grief – and learning from an unexpected event – likes to take it’s time.

So here are just five of my personal coaching “mantras” with dealing with unexpected events or next chapters if you will:

1.      Keep your commitments – Life has to move on. Two months before I married, my Dad died unexpectedly. I was going to postpone the wedding(basically stop everything and lie in a foetal position) but my very wise sister said – “You know? You have to keep to your commitments. Life has to move on. Anyways, Dad will be there!” So I went about keeping my commitments. Getting the wedding in gear even though I felt like I rather just not. I was married in February and it started to snow on my wedding day. I thought, oh great. For a Bride, this could be a tragedy. But I said – you know what? I had two months of keeping to wedding commitments, a little “snow” was not going to deter me! During the wedding, when our vows were being exchanged the sunlight suddenly burst through the windows of the church. To this day I believe that sunshine was my Dad rewarding me. Maybe it is a coping mechanism – but you know? That sun melted all the snow and we had a lovely day. I learned that keeping commitments even though you’d rather not, will be rewarding, even if you don’t see it at that time.

2.      First day of change is the hardest. Every day after that, it does get a little bit better. Flash forward to 2004/2005. I swear this was a horrid year for me. I had the trifecta of bad stuff happen to me(hubby passed away/I survived a nasty condition/loss of beloved pet). Yes. That year was hell. Believe me, I didn’t want to make my commitments. The change was so fast and furious, I did want to roll up in a ball. But I recalled my sisters consul: keep your commitments, life has to move on. Everything you lost will be there, but you have to go forward. I learned something new after struggling to make my first commitment post my husband’s death: The first day of the bad news is the hardest day. HOWEVER every day after that gets a little bit better.   And it did. Believe it or not.

3.      Cake or Death. I am sure you all know who Eddie Izzard is? I know he is not the most politically correct comedian and my reference to this skit may not be what he meant, but this is what I gleaned from it: YOU do have choices even in the face of an unexpected event. Sometimes we think that there is only one answer, really there are many. Knowing that you have a choice, is sometimes a comfort.

4.      Making Lemons into Lemonade. Okay, so maybe the choices are not the most ideal. You could go straight to the fetal position but you have to move through it. This is where strategy comes in. How do you make the lemons into something you can live with? This is where I brainstorm on a piece of paper and put it down for a bit and then revisit it. Sometimes you may not know how to make the lemons into lemonade so you have to let it sit. At this time, I also reach out to mentors and people wiser than me to ask for their opinion and feedback.

5.     Ferris Bueller was right.: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”    That is so true. Life is way to short. You have to make your life fulfilled. That means you have to force yourself to have a work life balance. I do this by scheduling in time for my hobbies and family and focusing on them 100%. It is like my brain has gone on a mini vacation. I am more refreshed when I get back to work and focused on Monday. Heck. I never knew my hobby could get me into CNN, BBC and USA Today. If I didn’t force myself to have that work life balance? I wouldn’t have had the year that I have had.

Life changes on a daily basis. So learning how to work through the “unexpected” or next chapters of our lives both personally and professionally will become second nature to you all. Please know this is not a “look at me!” type of coaching moment, I just want to relate some advice that was provided to me to help you all work through any changes or unexpected events that comes your way.

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There is one thing I have learned in my 14 years at the company: sometimes, life doesn’t always go to plan, no matter how many goals you make.   I think that might be the hardest thing for us to grasp at our company– basically learning from an unexpected event.   Believe it or not, those unexpected events, became some of my best coaching moments.

I am sure you all have heard of the 7 stages of grief?   Well sometimes I believe that there are stages of learning from an unexpected event.   One has to learn from an unexpected even in order to a) grow and b) move to your new goals. This can happen in your personal and /or your professional life. Also note, the 7 stages of grief do not go in order! Sometimes we get so goal orientated we want each step to move in order – but unfortunately – grief – and learning from an unexpected event – likes to take it’s time.

So here are just five of my personal coaching “mantras” with dealing with unexpected events or next chapters if you will:

1.      Keep your commitments – Life has to move on. Two months before I married, my Dad died unexpectedly. I was going to postpone the wedding(basically stop everything and lie in a foetal position) but my very wise sister said – “You know? You have to keep to your commitments. Life has to move on. Anyways, Dad will be there!” So I went about keeping my commitments. Getting the wedding in gear even though I felt like I rather just not. I was married in February and it started to snow on my wedding day. I thought, oh great. For a Bride, this could be a tragedy. But I said – you know what? I had two months of keeping to wedding commitments, a little “snow” was not going to deter me! During the wedding, when our vows were being exchanged the sunlight suddenly burst through the windows of the church. To this day I believe that sunshine was my Dad rewarding me. Maybe it is a coping mechanism – but you know? That sun melted all the snow and we had a lovely day. I learned that keeping commitments even though you’d rather not, will be rewarding, even if you don’t see it at that time.

2.      First day of change is the hardest. Every day after that, it does get a little bit better. Flash forward to 2004/2005. I swear this was a horrid year for me. I had the trifecta of bad stuff happen to me(hubby passed away/I survived a nasty condition/loss of beloved pet). Yes. That year was hell. Believe me, I didn’t want to make my commitments. The change was so fast and furious, I did want to roll up in a ball. But I recalled my sisters consul: keep your commitments, life has to move on. Everything you lost will be there, but you have to go forward. I learned something new after struggling to make my first commitment post my husband’s death: The first day of the bad news is the hardest day. HOWEVER every day after that gets a little bit better.   And it did. Believe it or not.

3.      Cake or Death. I am sure you all know who Eddie Izzard is? I know he is not the most politically correct comedian and my reference to this skit may not be what he meant, but this is what I gleaned from it: YOU do have choices even in the face of an unexpected event. Sometimes we think that there is only one answer, really there are many. Knowing that you have a choice, is sometimes a comfort.

4.      Making Lemons into Lemonade. Okay, so maybe the choices are not the most ideal. You could go straight to the fetal position but you have to move through it. This is where strategy comes in. How do you make the lemons into something you can live with? This is where I brainstorm on a piece of paper and put it down for a bit and then revisit it. Sometimes you may not know how to make the lemons into lemonade so you have to let it sit. At this time, I also reach out to mentors and people wiser than me to ask for their opinion and feedback.

5.     Ferris Bueller was right.: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”    That is so true. Life is way to short. You have to make your life fulfilled. That means you have to force yourself to have a work life balance. I do this by scheduling in time for my hobbies and family and focusing on them 100%. It is like my brain has gone on a mini vacation. I am more refreshed when I get back to work and focused on Monday. Heck. I never knew my hobby could get me into CNN, BBC and USA Today. If I didn’t force myself to have that work life balance? I wouldn’t have had the year that I have had.

Life changes on a daily basis. So learning how to work through the “unexpected” or next chapters of our lives both personally and professionally will become second nature to you all. Please know this is not a “look at me!” type of coaching moment, I just want to relate some advice that was provided to me to help you all work through any changes or unexpected events that comes your way.