What happens when you do less?

Time to read:

Hydroponic herbs. A perfect example of more with less.

An amazing thing happened this week. I did less and got more.

Before you scream, "Not the phrase 'do more with less," read on. This isn't a ploy to cut your resources.

Here's the story: I do strategic planning sessions for each person in my Clarity U group program. To prepare for the session, participants answer a set of reflection questions, send me their answers, and I prepare before we talk. My preparation involves reading their reflections multiple times and crafting a series of questions to draw out the core of their goals. The prep takes 30 minutes to more than an hour.

I had two strategic sessions today, and both clients submitted their materials a minute before our call. So, I arrived unprepared. Both sessions were deep, meaningful, and revealed exactly what the clients needed in order to establish their purpose for a year in Clarity U.

Upon reflection later, the truth is, "unprepared" is incorrect. I had believed I needed to work hard, put in the effort in order to bring value and be "ready" to help my clients. Instead, something more powerful happened.

• I entered the conversation with no preconceived notions about the person from reading their materials. Everything I learned was in the moment and brought up directly in the session.
• We trusted our relationship and our shared wisdom.
• Because I didn't have any planned questions, the clients led the call. They started where they wanted and determined the course of the conversation.
• We got to the purpose of their reason for Clarity U swiftly and efficiently, and they left with exactly what they needed.

I'm a recovering over-performer and thought I had mitigated most, if not all, of my over-performing tendencies. Then here it was today, by necessity, I did less. And the end result was so much more.

I leave you with a challenge: Find a place in your life where you can do/prepare/perform/plan less and instead, trust/relate/listen/connect more.

I hope this helps.

Reach out anytime. I always love to hear from you. Email me here

The Secret to Destressing

Time to Read: Less than one minute. If you read all the way to the bottom, it will take you two minutes.

Greetings Rebels!

When I go to North Carolina to work at my children's summer camp, I have no car. We fly and it doesn't make sense to rent a car for three weeks for a few days off and a trip to the airport.

My first year, I worried about how I would get anywhere on those days off and how my children and I would get to the airport from a little town with no Uber. Somehow everything worked out. People let me join their plans. The camp directors loaned me cars. I got everywhere I needed to go with ease. The worry was a waste of energy.

This summer was my third year at camp, and I no longer worry about the car. At all. Another parent asked me how I possibly manage with no car. I told her, with no sense of irony at all...

The universe always provides a car.

It's true, both literally and metaphorically. The worry is unnecessary. You will always have a car. It may not look the way you expect, and you'll always get where you need to go.

The trick is to do these three things:

1. Trust.
2. Trust.
3. Trust.

As someone who needs constant reminders to trust, I know what a challenge this is.

• Trust requires you to believe that everything will turn out, even when you're stressed.
• Trust requires you to know that you're on the right path even when that path has headed in unexpected directions.
• Trust means you can't tell the good news from the bad news.
• Trust is relishing the journey of the unknown and mysterious.

If you feel like a dose of trust in your journey would help make your day-to-day calmer and more joyful, let's talk!

You can schedule a 30-minute spot here. We'll have a casual chat about what's going on, develop a strategy or two to help, and talk about if support (1:1 or The Corporate Rebel Clarity U coaching group) is a good next step for you.

Why does this matter to you?

• You react instead of actively making decisions which leaves you feeling depleted and second-guessing your choices.
• Life and work feel chaotic and disjointed. You find yourself running from place to place, slamming out emails, and feeling like you're not actually accomplishing anything.
• You fall into the same ineffective patterns that have held you back for years.
• Every year you think, "This is the year things are going to be different." Then they are not different and you keep going with the same old, same old.

What's in it for you? Starting in mid- October, you'll learn how to...

• Shake off negative patterns of thinking and behaving so you can stop holding yourself back. Your life will be calmer and work more fulfilling.
• Gracefully navigate transitions so you feel confident in the unknown and able to handle the changes that work and life throw at you.
• Ground yourself physically and spiritually to allow radical transformation. You will look back and wonder why you didn't address this stuff sooner.
• Wield your new, portable Toolbox of Skills so you're ready to take action, make choices, and be in control of your career and life.
• Get clear about what you want and bravely take action toward making your goals real.

The Corporate Rebel Clarity U coaching group will help you put work and life on your terms. This link will take you to Christina's personal calendar to schedule a casual 30-minute chat.

We start in mid-October. There's no time like now!

You can also hit reply to this email to set up a time in the next few weeks or reach out to me privately with questions or inquiries.

Life is too short for work to suck.

With Rebel Hugs,

Christina

P.S. Are you ready to take action in your life? Let's talk! Click this link to choose a 30-minute spot on Christina's calendar. We'll talk about what's going on and whether Corporate Rebel Clarity U is a good fit.

P.P.S. Wouldn't it be awesome to do this work with your friends? Invite them to explore the possibilities by forwarding this email to them. They can sign up to chat about the group here.

How to Get Out of Exhaustion and Overwhelm

Time to read: Less than one minute and fifteen seconds

Hello Rebels,

It's 6:00 am. Your feet are barely on the floor, and you're already behind. You stayed up after your children's bedtime to empty your stuffed inbox and get ahead on that presentation you couldn't finish during your back-to-back day. Then there is summer scheduling, end of school activities, and picking up the slack while your colleagues take spring vacation. Remember exercise? Ha!

You're exhausted before you've started, and although some days are more packed than others, they all mush together in one long string of busy-ness.

Feel familiar?

You think that if you find the right productivity strategy, you'll be able to fix this. You get creative with your company's insistence that you "do more with less." You only check email once or twice a day. You focus on the three most important things you need to get done. These strategies work to some extent, and nothing seems to change.

I love productivity tips as much as the next busy person. And, organizing your desk differently or making prioritized lists is only going to get you so far.

What will actually get you out of exhaustion and overwhelm, is a change in you.

To help you experiment with this idea, I turned to a process I use in my own life. I have this amazing set of cards full of empowering choices and beliefs. I pull one every day to anchor how I will be with whatever is happening that day.

Today, I pulled three cards for you. (See the photo above.) Your three cards are:

Willingness: This is one of my favorites. You have to be willing to do things differently today. To slow down. To stop worrying. To get into action. Even when things suck, we're often not actually willing to change it.

I am creative: Where can you lean into your wild creativity to bring more joy, new solutions, or less stress to your work?

I choose trust: I pull a card everyday, and I seriously trust 4 out of 5 times. Seems like this one might be kind of important. Where do you not trust yourself? Or others? Where can you lean into more trust to bring ease to your work and relationships?

Pick one of these cards and use it to navigate your day. Then hit reply to this email and tell me what happens.

I always love to hear from you.

With rebel love,

Christina

P.S. Please share these cards with a friend or colleague who needs a little more trust, creativity or willingness. They can join our merry band of rebels here.

I Hated It! 3 Things to Help You Do Things You Hate

Time to read: 1:07.89

I just returned from a 3-hour volunteer get out the vote shift for a local non-profit. My goal was to feel more involved in the upcoming election (now past when you read this) and to do my part to make the world a better place.

OMG, I hated it.

Even when I care about the cause and have respect for the passion of the person on my porch, I hate when people interrupt family dinner, and I hate getting solicitation phone calls. I became the person on the phone today.

People hung up on me, told me to stop calling, and offered me feedback. Thank goodness the majority of calls went to voicemail. (I did help two people find their polling place so that's something.) It was hard. It was discouraging. I did not like it one bit. While I was having this horrible experience, I was, as always, thinking of you and the world of work.

In any job or any life, you have to do things you hate sometimes. It's part of belonging to an organization and community.

So, when you have to do something you hate, here are 3 tips to get through it:

1. Trust that there are things you don't know. There may be very good reasons for why you are doing what you are doing. The political organizers of elections know a lot about how elections get won and lost. You and your actions are one small piece of a very big puzzle.


2. Do your best. Even if you don't like what you are doing, do it to the best of your ability. I was friendly and personable. I kept good notes on my calls. Find the ways you can do good work even when you don't like it.


3. Know your gifts and use them well. Making political phone calls is not my gift. Other people in my group were inspired by their calls, and the organizers have chosen this work as their job. As much as you can, recognize that someone else loves data entry when you hate it or someone else loves supervising people when people problems make you want to put a fork in your eye.

Oh, and vent to a friend. It will help you feel better. Thanks, Anne!

I hope that helps.

Christina

P.S. If you love this newsletter, please share it with your friends. They can join us by signing up here.

What To DoWhen You Feel Helpless to Make a Difference

When unspeakable, heartbreaking, and bewildering things like Las Vegas happen, it leaves people like me feeling inadequate to know what to say. Silence isn't acceptable nor do I want to respond with a pat or simplistic comment.

So, first of all, my heart and prayers go out to anyone who is touched by recent events in the world - Las Vegas, Canada, Puerto Rico, Syria (to name only a few) - and any of you who feel the pain of these events even if they don't directly affect your world.

As I've processed the shooting in Las Vegas, I keep coming back to one thing.

The power of an individual.

In this case, it is the power of an individual to wreak terrible destruction, and certainly there are despicable models throughout history to prove that point.

Which brings me to you.

You matter. What you do every day matters. The way you behave towards others matters as does the way you treat yourself. If one individual can send out the ripple effect of so much pain, one individual can also send out the ripple effect of so much joy, gratitude, goodness, and peace. You have the power to be all those things every day.

Here's challenge:

When you close this email, immediately do one thing to point humanity toward the light. Call an old friend. Send an email to express gratitude. Bring coffee to a colleague. Step into the next cube and express your appreciation. Donate to the Red Cross.

This quote from the Dalai Lama hung on the bulletin board of my children's school all last year:

“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.”

Be the rebel love today and always.

Christina

It's the Worst. I've Been Lying to Myself.

Man, oh, man, did I have a dark night of the soul on Saturday. Do you recognize this?

Have you ever had that productive conversation with your exhausted self at 3:00 am after many hours of lying awake feeling worried and ashamed? It's so helpful, isn't it? That's what happened to me.

I'm telling you this because we all go through painful moments of awakening - if you can get through the pain and onto the awakening.

Here's the precipitating event in summary. The subject I am about to bring up is so sensitive, my heart is pounding even to write about it.

Money. (And lying. And denial. What an attractive trinity.)

Here's the truth: I have not been a big girl about managing the finances for my business. For various reasons, looking at my income and expenses is terrifying to me. So, I did what I thought was the responsible thing. I stopped looking at it. I automated everything and outsourced the tracking to a bookkeeper. She watched it so I didn't have to.

I was lying to myself. I was giving myself an easy way to justify not looking at something that makes me very uncomfortable and some expenses got away from me. Some truth tellers in my life exposed my blind spot to me recently and although I've heard it all before, this time, I was ready to listen (after a shame spiral and some crying).

Here's what I learned about blind spots:

1. You can't deal them until you are ready to deal with them. And, you can tend them, nudge them, and pave the path to be ready for them even if you don't know they are there.
2. It is painful to stare your blind spot squarely in the face.
3. Be gentle and compassionate with yourself in the pain and recovery.
4. These dark nights of the soul are the moments when you awaken to a more mature, evolved, conscious version of yourself.
5. Know who your people are so you can reach out immediately. I would never recommend weathering a shame spiral alone.
6. These moments are the ones when things become crystal clear. They breed motivation to make changes and move forward.

As painful as Saturday night was, I am grateful. I am clear about what to do next, and I feel empowered and motivated, even excited, to become a grown up about my money.

Do you have a sense that there is something important that you're missing? Are there pieces of your life that you wish you could tackle and resolve - behaviors that seem to be working but perhaps really aren't, choices that might have been the wrong ones, or things in your life that need a good illumination so you can get clear, address them and move forward?

The fastest and easiest way to clarity is to talk with someone who gets you. I certainly don't have a magic formula to fix your blind spots. And, I've learned a thing or two in my 7 years as a coach and my almost 50 years as a human. 

If you think talking with me will help, let's talk! We'll explore your personal situation, and I'll share my best ideas and insights about what might be possible.

I've opened a few spots in my personal calendar to talk to YOU. Get insight and relief right here. 

I look forward to connecting!

Christina

P.S. Wouldn't you love some clarity and access to my best ideas and insights? You can get all kinds of ideas and insights by hopping on the phone with me. Get clarity here.

If you don't see a time that works, email me at christina@boydsmithcoaching.com and we'll find one!

P.P.S. Think very carefully about wanting to be a coach. It causes you to not only have your pain but while you are having it, start to consider how this experience is useful to your people. Seriously?!

The game-changing question I learned this week

You know those moments when you are trying to make a decision and you're wondering, "Should I? Shouldn't I?" "Leave my job or stay?" "Talk to my boss about a part-time schedule or not?" "Spend money on a vacation or save the money for a house project?"

Those moments of indecision can suck up an incredible amount of your headspace and energy leaving you with less energy for the activities you want to do. (Unless worrying is what you want to do. If that's the case, proceed.)

A coach friend of mine shared her favorite question with me. I immediately thought of you when I heard it and couldn't wait to share it. Here's the magic question:

What would you do if you trusted yourself?

Imagine a decision that's been in your headspace for a while. Then ask yourself, "What would I do if I trusted myself?"

You'll get fresh clarity and will probably be able to move forward to make that darn decision and move on to other things.

And when you get your flash of clarity, email me at christina@boydsmithcoaching.com and tell me all about it. I love hearing from you!

With love,

Christina