Personal Development;Life Enhancement;Achievement
Posts tagged change
Illness, Recovery and Change
Nov 2nd
“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.” ~Alan Alda
I have been ill again – terribly ill and only able to function at the most trivial levels for nearly three weeks. This illness, this being unwell, has been a recurring event in my life, really for a significant portion of the last seven years. In many ways, it feels like being ill, or operating at well under my former energy levels, has been the defining state of the previous stage of my life. I say previous because I know that I am beginning the next stage of my life and this new stage, this stage that is being born now, is about very different things.
I am not completely sure what the stage of my life that is now ending was all about, but I do know some. I did lots of things. I learned lots of things. I had successes and I had lots of things that turned out very differently than I hoped. I know that during these years I learned what my calling is for the next stage of my life: I am, and am meant to be, a writer, a business and executive coach and a seminar leader. This wasn’t clear at the beginning of this stage – seven years ago I was returning to the working world after a nearly ten year retirement and I was very unclear about the next focus of my life’s work.
I had always been a big risk-taker. Following my intuition, leaping and then having faith that I could find a way to make it work – this had been my pattern and a driving force behind why I was able to be retired at such an early age. I had found the ways to make it work and my intuition is usually right. (It is sometimes hard to tell my intuition from fear or from unrealized dreams of my parents, but if I get quiet and honest, I can tell.) I had always been a very quick learner and I came into this world with a great toolbox of skills – although I have always achieved a great deal compared to many others – compared to my abilities – I have been in the past one of the great underachievers of the past fifty years.
I’m not going to go over at this time the details of how I learned my calling; that might be fun to talk about some other time though. I am going to talk just a bit more about being ill. Why was I ill so much?
- I didn’t make being vibrantly healthy a priority and
- being sick stopped me from taking too many risks and starting too many projects.
I think it is as simple as that. When I honestly look at the past seven years and ask myself:
- What could I have done differently that would have drastically increased my health?
- Did I gain anything by being sick or unwell so much of the time?
Then I get the answers from above. I didn’t make health a priority and I needed to learn focus and a bit of conservatism in my choices. So have I learned? Perhaps not quite, but I am close. If my calling, what I am supposed to be doing right now is to be a writer, a business and executive coach and a seminar leader and I leave it there, then I have not learned. My body is aging and needs to become a priority – every single day.
Now I will think of myself as:
- A Peak Performance Athlete
- A Writer
- A Business and Executive Coach
- A Seminar Leader
Will this change be en0ugh? As long as action follows intention then yes it will. Come along for the ride and let’s find out together. It’s not always easy being born – I may yell sometimes and make some messes; still my new life is out there and I want to live it!
For those of you waiting for me to finish talking about some great topics that I started and never finished, thank you for your patience! The rest is coming.
Till next time…Jack
“Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.” ~Buddha
Testing New WordPress Themes
Sep 14th
“Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” ~John F. Kennedy
My website got hacked again over the weekend – not once but twice – and you know what? I’m grateful. At first I was upset and angry at the hacker that had targeted me. Now I am actually grateful to the little online cockroach that attacked me – I was forced to learn and change – it has already been great!
What I Learned from Being Hacked
- I was forced to learn more about website security – this will certainly be critical in the future.
- I was forced to update my WordPress code – a great thing to update.
- I was forced to review and then select a new online security and anti-virus program – this was something I had always meant to do.
- I was forced to review and then select from a number of newer and more robust WordPress Themes – this is what I am doing now and I love all of the new options.
So, being hacked was actually a great learning experience for me, and all this learning happened in just the last few days. So thank you little online cockroach! In your desire to hurt me and feel in some pitiful way significant, you actually helped!
Testing WordPress Themes
I am taking this opportunity to completely revamp my website. I am going to make it more comprehensive, more viewer friendly, of course more secure, and I intend – more visually interesting. Come back often and see the changes.
Till next time faithful reader…Jack
“Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.” ~Niccolo Machiavelli
Change and the Structure Formerly Known as Sears Tower
Jul 16th
“All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.” ~Ellen Glasgow
In late July of 2009, a name that has in many ways defined Chicago for more than 30 years, since 1973 in fact, will disappear. The Sears Tower will become The Willis Tower. Now this is strictly about money and corporate ego – this was part of the deal for leasing some space in the building. Still, as a former long-term Chicago resident, I must say that this decision sucks – I will even go so far as to say that it is stupid. The backlash is already significant and growing. You can read more about this decision here at The Chicago Tribune Online.
Check This Before You Make a Change!
Now I am a big believer in change; there was a time that I even identified myself as “An Agent of Change”. My training in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and my many years of coaching have made me an expert in helping others to change – changing associations, changing limiting beliefs, changing whatever is stopping or slowing them from achieving their goals. Still, before I change anything, I always carefully explore the ecology of the change on the entire system. That system might be the life of an individual or the life of a corporation, but I am going to make sure that all of the repercussions (good and bad) of a change are explored in-depth before I make them. In the case of the property owner of the Sears Tower, I think they did a terrible job of checking and evaluating ecology.
I doubt that much can be done to stop this idiocy at this point. I am writing this blog entry and my readers, many of which are in the Chicago area, may take some action. There are websites devoted to protesting this decision and I am sure that the landlord and Mayor of Chicago receive negative correspondence daily. For me, I have done what it makes sense for me to do about this, at this time, and here is the lesson that I choose to keep with me: “Be very careful to fully check the complete ecology of a change before you make it. There are often significant unexpected consequences, commonly negative. Never change something just because you can – if something has been around for a significant period of time, it is likely to be doing lots of good somewhere/somehow or it would not still be around.”
Goodbye Sears Tower. I made a point of visiting the Sears Tower every time I traveled back to Chicago – looks the Hancock Tower is getting my business now.
Till next time…Jack
“As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever.” ~Clarence Darrow
So What is Holding You Back from Achieving Your Dreams?
Feb 25th
“God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it’s me.” ~Author Unknown
I was thinking today about change. My work mostly involves helping people to change some, or sometimes many, aspects of their lives. It is often easier for me to help someone else to change than it is for me to help myself to change. That may not be completely accurate – let me say this instead: “It is always easier to help someone else to change than it is to help myself to change. Even with all that I know, and the many thousands of successful coaching sessions that I have conducted, I consistently have difficulty in making major changes for myself and by myself. That is why I am such a big believer in coaching. I think virtually all the people that I know have the same issue – it is usually far easier to help someone else than it is to help yourself.
I was also thinking about the easiest way to change and I believe that the answer there is focus. If you focus your energy on just one thing, changing for the better just one thing at a time, I think you are virtually assured of success (as long as you have a coach to help you). What should that one thing be? I know for me there are many things that it would serve me to change about myself. Here is how I choose: What is the one thing that I could change it, about myself or my emotional responses, or my habits, or my income, or anything else, that would make the biggest difference in my life?
For me, for 2008, the answer is my health. I needed to change my health more than anything else and I knew that this would make the biggest difference. So I have focused on it. I have a coach working with me on it and I am not investing significant energy in changing other aspects of myself until this is complete. The results? So far this year, in just under 2 months I have lost 4o lbs. of bodyfat. For me, that is exciting. I can see and feel the difference and it has happened because I have focused my energy, my intention around this change and I have a coach working with me to make sure that I stay on track.
So, what is the change that would make the biggest difference for you?
Till next time…Jack
“It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.” ~W. Edwards Deming