Momentum LifeWorks Blog

I was working with a client who was very focused on work and unhappy. So I gave her what seemed to be a simple homework assignment, add more joy to her life. When we talked the next week, she confessed that this assignment stressed her out—at first. She spent a bunch of time wracking her brain for things that might bring her joy: a new class she might enjoy, a hobby she could take up, an enriching experience she could seek out. Then all of the sudden it hit her as she was driving to the Office Depot in the city she was visiting—she felt joyful in that moment. Why? Because one of the things that brings her joy is discovering familiar things in an unfamiliar place.

My client hit on the crux of finding joy. So often we think finding more joy in our lives is about creating some kind of big-deal new experience. “Adding” joy to your life is a misnomer, it’s really about noticing when you feel joyful in your life right now. It could be as simple as driving to Office Depot, snuggling with your pet/child/significant other, laughing with a friend, walking along a familiar stretch and noticing the truly beautiful scenery, your favorite song coming on the radio at just the right moment, or colored pens (a personal favorite). When my client noticed how this simple activity brought her joy, she started noticing more and more things that caused her to feel joyful and by the time we talked, she was just about giddy with all this newfound joy. No classes, brain-wracking or bungee jumping required.

What brings you joy? Comment and share.

I want you to like me. Really. I want everyone to like me and not only that, to tell me how much they like me. On a regular basis—effusively would be fantastic. Adulation, compliments, atta-girls, gold stars (oooh, how I love gold stars), recognition, attention, love—I love approval in all its sundry forms. I love approval like Carrie loves shoes. I can’t get enough. And that’s the problem.

When I look for approval in others, I only suffer. They just aren’t good enough at it. They don’t give me enough, they don’t say what I want when I want, or I just plain don’t believe them. People suck at giving me approval. I’m really the only one that’s good at it. When I give myself approval, I always get more than enough at just the right time in precisely the way I want. And, if I’m doing my work, I always believe it. Funny thing happens when I count on me for approval—it starts coming from everywhere. I can’t imagine people not approving of me. And if they do, they must not know me—because if they knew me, of course they would adore me.

How do I give myself approval? Basically, I clean up thoughts that get in the way of me approving of myself such as, “I’m not good enough.” and “I need others to validate me.” I call this process of finding all the thoughts on a given topic Clearing My Mental Cluster*&$%. The next step in clearing my approval-seeking cluster is to replace the thoughts that don’t serve me with ones that feel better and importantly, also feel true. I’m not talking about Stewart Smalley positive affirmations here; I’m talking about doing the work to really find thoughts that create a positive mental shift for me. (Thoughts are just the stories we choose to tell ourselves, so why not find better stories to tell?) Could “I am not only good enough, I’m freakin’ awesome!” be as true or more true than not being good enough? Definitely. Could “Others never really validate me, only I can be in charge of that.” be as true as the original? Works for me.

I used to think self-esteem was something I had to seek, that it was something I had to add to myself. Now I know that my esteem is inherent and all I need to do is subtract my crappy cluster thoughts and all that remains is self-respect, love, approval and a giant gold star.

I used to sit in a lot of meetings. Meetings, meetings, meetings—meetings about meetings, meetings to follow up on meetings, you get the idea. Sometimes meetings would make me crazy. I finally figured out why. I have a high propensity toward deciding and moving, to go for it. I discovered not everyone has this quality. Here’s how a typical meeting would go:

Me: Here’s the data about project XYZ, essentially it’s not meeting our revenue targets (yes, I used to say things like “revenue targets”). Here are two tests we could run and a third crazy idea we could try. My team is ready to roll on this, we just need you to give us the green light (yeah, I said that too).

Project Approver: Thanks Bridgette, but I see here in cell A32 of your spreadsheet that you have rounded to 3 decimal places when the other cells show 4 decimal places, can you provide all the backup data and include some charts to further illustrate the implications of cell A32? And while you’re at it, can you please build a detailed revenue model for your crazy idea? And please don’t call it a crazy idea.

Me: (mentally) AAAAGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!! Why can’t we just decide and GO?
(verbally) Ummm, sure, I’ll get right on that. (I probably did say the long ummm, I was mildly insubordinate.)

Customer Service Manager: And also Bridgette, if we did your crazy idea, what would be the system for handling customer service inquiries?

Me: Oh, I hadn’t thought about that. I have no idea what the system would be, it was a test in my mind. I figured we would just try it and see what happens. Can’t we just roll with it?

Web Developer: Can we white board out this crazy idea? I need to see it to understand what you’re talking about and to figure out how to build it.

Me: Sure, although you’re going to have to draw it, I have a hard time seeing in pictures.

This meeting usually ended with me feeling defeated, demoralized and trying to lobotomize myself with my pen in my office. Why couldn’t they just try my idea and see if it worked? We can always adjust on the fly after all. Jeez. These people are SO annoying.

Here’s what other people likely said after leaving this meeting. “Bridgette is always flying by the seat of her pants, she expects us to make a decision right there and doesn’t always think things through. She wants to move way too fast. Jeez. She is SO annoying.”

I wish I would’ve known then what I know now about conative styles. Conation is an underexplored aspect of the mind. We’re very familiar with the other two parts of the mind, how we know (cognition) and how we feel/personality (affect). Conation is the third aspect of the mind, and governs how we get things done, our modus operandi (MO) if you will. You Fact-Finders (explained below) can read more here for the scientific lowdown.

There are four distinct conative styles that describe how we get things done. When you operate against your MO, you are likely to feel frustrated or even incompetent. However, when you operate in harmony with your MO, tasks flow and you’ll probably find yourself having a lot of energy and enthusiasm for what you’re doing.

Conative Style Breakdown

The meeting story above illustrates the four conative MO’s, while everyone has aspects of all the styles within them, there are normally one or two in which you favor. There will also be at least one which will feel like the antithesis of how you prefer to operate. 

Quick Start: I am the Quick Start in the above story. Quick Starts like to ad lib, think on their feet and frankly, wing it. They are also great at initiating innovation.
The downside: may go off half-cocked and are not inclined to think through all the details.

Fact Finder: The Project Approver is the Fact Finder in our above tale. He is focused on details and wants all the information before making a decision. Fact Finders are thorough information gatherers; they want to know a topic inside and out before venturing into it.
The downside: may get “stuck” in info-gathering mode and have trouble moving into action mode.

Follow-Through: The Customer Service Manager is our Follow-Through. She wants to have a system for managing customer inquiries in this particular example. Follow-Throughs love to create structure and order, they like to have a plan and work the plan. The more systematic, thought out and detailed the plan is, the better.
The downside: may feel frustrated and out-of-sorts in a disorganized or chaotic environment (e.g. startups).

Implementor: The Web Developer is an Implementor. He wants to create physical objects (or a facsimile thereof) to help him understand the proposed crazy idea. You can recognize Implementors by their need to create things—they are the ones who are always white boarding concepts, using various items on your desk to illustrate an idea or even using hand gestures to help explain their point.
The downside: Long meetings can make Implementors feel very edgy. They need to move and create. If you see someone doodling in a meeting, don’t assume they aren’t listening. Implementors listen better when they are creating at the same time.

There is a great test you can take to determine your own conative style at www.kolbe.com. The test results include all kinds of great info on how to work best with your style. That said, you probably have a decent idea of your conative style just by reading the above. Understanding your own and others’ conative styles can help you greatly in the workplace. For me, conative styles helped me understand that my former co-workers were not out to annoy me to death, but rather were simply operating from their conative styles which were very different from my own. I would still operate from my own Quick Start place, but I can also work to meet others’ stylistic needs.

Here’s how that typical meeting could go with me having an understanding of conative styles:

Me: Here’s the data about project XYZ. Project Approver, I’ve included more details and a few charts that provide a more in-depth understanding of the data. I would like to roll on my recommendation; can you review the data and give me a green light by the end of the day?

Project Approver: Thanks Bridgette, I’ll consider all your information and I can get back to you by the end of the day. 

Customer Service Manager: And also Bridgette, if we did your crazy idea, what would be the system for handling customer service inquiries?

Me: Oh, I hadn’t thought about it. Can you help me brainstorm a solution for that? You’re so great at figuring that stuff out.

Web Developer: Can we white board out this crazy idea? I need to see it to understand what you’re talking about and to figure out how to build it.

Me: Absolutely, I’ll be interested to see what you sketch out.

The main thing missing from this meeting is my frustration. I still probably wouldn’t think everything through or draw out the idea in advance, because that’s just not the way I get things done.

The next time someone bugs you at work, take a step back and see if there’s a conative style clash going on. If so, see if there’s a way you can better accommodate their style without compromising your own. You might even want to team with those people, making your project more well-rounded and thought out. At the very least, they may stop bugging you so much.

Check out this podcast (click and scroll to the bottom) I did with Martha Beck on conative styles. We are two Quick Starts trying to stay on topic, very funny.

I’ll admit it, I thought twitter was dumb. I’ve heard about people “tweeting” and prominent bloggers all over the place gushing about this new social network for probably a year now, but I just didn’t get it. Why would anyone want to post little 140 character lines about what they’re doing at any given moment? How can this possibly be interesting or a good use of time?

Turns out it’s fascinating and in fact is a terrible use of time. I have become addicted to twitter. A friend and I were IM’ing about twitter the other day (meta-twittering?) and she said it’s like little verbal snapshots you get of people throughout the day (then she went and twittered that thought). That’s exactly it. I feel more connected to the people I follow on twitter even if I don’t talk with them. And, since I work from home, I miss that feeling of moment-to-moment connection with others that I used to get at the office. Reading their random thoughts fills some of that void and many times just cracks me up. Plus, I can twitter my cheeky quips right as I think of them, that way they don’t go to waste–bonus!

So, if you’re down, you can follow my on twitter, my handle is bridgetteb.

I was at an event the other night and struck up a conversation with “Michelle” who was looking stressed and a little exhausted. She told me she’s been regularly working 65+ hours per week—she was not happy about it.

When I asked her why she was working so many hours, she said they just keep giving her more work. I could tell right away that Michelle was the glue person at work. The one who stays late, gets things done, doesn’t complain too loudly and generally holds everything together. The problem with the glue person is that they tend to fall apart (pun intended).  

I have this theory. Humans won’t substantially change their behavior unless they feel some degree of pain. I explained to her that while she’s in “pain” in terms of how many hours she’s working, no one else at her work is feeling that pain. Even though she is telling her superiors she’s too busy, they are not directly feeling the pain of her workload. Hence, they aren’t highly motivated to act. This doesn’t make Michelle’s superiors evil, they simply aren’t uncomfortable enough to make alleviating Michelle’s workload a priority. Simple human nature.

Instead of continuing to absorb an unsustainable workload (or burn out, or quit) Michelle’s new mission is to share the pain. Once her bosses feel some of the pain—which could come in the form of missed deadlines, customer complaints, or simply having to spend more time helping her prioritize—they will become more motivated to make a change. Her pain will now be their pain. My favorite tool for doing this is called—well, I don’t have a fancy name for it, but here’s how it works. The next time Michelle’s bosses assign her a new project, she says:

“Sure, I’m happy to work on that. I have these 6 other projects I’m working on, so if I take this one, two others will need to move out of my queue. Which ones would you like to move?”

This strategy is brilliant on so many levels:

• Michelle still appears to be a team player by demonstrating willingness to take on new projects.
• She now can decide how many projects she can do within reasonable working hours.
• Her bosses get to choose what they want her to be working on making it hard for them to argue with the line she’s drawn.
• Michelle’s bosses now clearly understand what will not get done (feeling her pain!) and are placed in the position to have to deal it.
• By the same token, if something slips through the cracks, Michelle is not to blame because everyone has agreed upon the priorities.
• Michelle is no longer resentful because she’s now actively managing her workload (and her superiors).

The key to making this work is to stop working so much. If you try this, you might have thoughts come up like I should be handling all this or I’m letting people down. Question the truth of these thoughts—who are you really letting down if you keep working like this? How much longer will you last? How is the quality of your work? How’s the rest of your life going? Exactly. Work through those thoughts and hold the line. Then enjoy your newfound free time and plucky attitude.

I just had to share this awesome post from Martha Beck’s blog. Pam Slim (Martha’s lead blogger and prominent blogger in her own right) breaks down what Martha calls our “lizard” fears. These are the tapes we constantly play in our minds. The greatest hits of our lizard fears go something like this:

“I’ll never fall in love.”
“I’m going to be a bag lady.”
“I’ll never succeed.”
“I never get what I really want.”
“I’m not good enough.”

Any of these sound familiar? Pam does a great job of explaining where these fears come from and how to quiet your own inner lizard. Be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the post and check out the hilarious vintage Saturday Night Live video of Chris Farley playing Matt Foley, Motivational Speaker. Priceless.

Read the post >

My mom (my original life coach) is, to state it plainly, badass. She taught me what it is to be a strong, loving woman in this world. Even though I’m a “grown-up”, I freely admit that when the chips are down, I call Mom. Here’s a story about one of those times.

I was working for a startup on a shoestring budget and my job was to spend this treasured budget to acquire new customers. I came to dread the Tuesday marketing meetings where I would be relentlessly questioned by the CEO about the latest numbers, strategies and tactics. I would stammer answers and feel incredibly defensive and victimized by his “attacks.” I wanted to quit, but since I didn’t have another job to go to, I felt stuck.

I called Mom. I told her my tale of woe and mistreatment over lunch. I noticed she was looking at me like, “who are you?” She was frankly a little mystified that her strong, talented and extremely capable daughter was allowing herself to feel attacked by anyone. It was then that she looked me right in the eye and from a place of complete love and belief in me, delivered a message from the core of her being right into mine:

Remember who you ARE.

Whoa. I felt like I snapped back into myself. My response was, “Oh YEAH.” I immediately calmed down and was able to see the situation from a completely different perspective.

I hadn’t been speaking up because I was afraid of getting in trouble or getting fired. I realized that by not speaking, I was creating a worse-feeling situation than getting fired. I had nothing to lose by not speaking up and that I certainly was not going to allow someone to bully me in a meeting. I also realized the CEO was stressed because he was on the hook for the company’s success and I just happened to be in charge of one of the major outgoing expenses. His intensity on the topic was a reflection of his level of stress; it had nothing to do with me.

Tuesday rolled around and I was much calmer. The intensity ramped up as the CEO leaned toward me and asked the usual questions. Then, I did something different. I leaned toward him and appropriately but strongly reminded him of the importance of keeping a civil tone in meetings. (The body language of the other meeting attendees would’ve been hilarious if the situation wasn’t so charged—they all looked like they wanted to bail out through a trapdoor in the floor.) An amazing thing happened—he immediately sat back and calmed down. It seemed as if he too had forgotten who he was. Later we met privately and were able to have a very open conversation about how to better communicate.

I still left that job—this was the beginning of my own career transition—but I was able to leave on very amicable terms with the CEO and more importantly, with my self esteem intact.

On this Mother’s Day, I would like to say thanks Mom for making sure that I remember who I am and for providing a loving reminder when I seem to forget.

Your job is the worst. You have to work way too much, your boss thinks you’re stupid, you hate the commute, and the latest corporate initiative du jour makes you want to commit hara-kiri in your cube.

I’m going to introduce a dramatic concept—YOU are the problem. This is actually great news. This means that you have the complete power to change your workday experience without one thing around you changing. By the same token, if you wait for everything and everyone at work to behave perfectly before you decide to be happy, you’re in for one hell of a long wait.

Here are 3 tips for taking control of you—and your career.

Judge your co-worker, judge yourself
Notice how many times a day you judge your co-workers—it could be anything from thinking that Fred eats too many doughnuts, to being annoyed by Missy the brown-noser, to chafing at your CEO’s indecisiveness.

Ever heard of “spot it, you got it?” It means that when you spot an annoying quality in someone else, it’s because that quality is acting as a mirror to something you dislike within yourself. It could be Fred’s doughnut-feasting abandon annoys because you don’t allow yourself any treats without feeling incredibly guilty. Perhaps Missy makes you wish you were as outgoing and friendly. And maybe you use the CEO’s indecisiveness to talk yourself out of acting on your own bold ideas. The best way to prevent your co-workers from annoying you? Spot their behavior and figure out what it’s telling you about yourself. You’ll realize it’s not your co-workers’ mission in life to annoy you and you may even treat them with more compassion. (Which may change the way they interact with you—I’m just saying.)

Who are you trying to please?
Why are you working so many hours? Why do you always have to do an A+ job? What if all your emails and voice mails don’t get answered? What happens if the project isn’t done on time? If you are attempting to please someone other than yourself, then these questions have your heart hammering.

These questions may trigger thoughts like:

• I have to respond to all of these emails so people think I’m on top of it.
• I need to be online at 10 p.m. because my boss is.
• I’m the only one who can herd all the cats to keep this project going. If it fails, it’s my fault.
• If I do less than an A+ job, others won’t view me as an outstanding achiever.

While these thoughts may feel like absolute fact, they are not. These are subjective thoughts about a given situation, and you can change them. Want to reduce your stress and aggravation? Change how you’re thinking about work. This doesn’t mean just think “happy thoughts” no matter what; it means thinking about your job in a way that puts you firmly in control.

Here are some new thoughts you could try on:

• Responding to emails or not bears no reflection on my capabilities.
• Just because my boss is a workaholic doesn’t require me to be.
• Am I really the only one that is keeping this project afloat? What does that say about everyone else involved? Am I really that important? Is everyone else really that incapable? Does the project have to be done 100% my way?
• If I do a B- job, most people won’t even notice and I’ll be much happier and have more quality time to spend with my family.
• Doing a B- job at work means doing an A+ job in my life.

Do you really HAVE to do that?
Pay attention to how many times a day you tell yourself you “have to” do something. This is a lie. Every task without exception is a choice (ok, except breathing and other autonomic body functions). You may do some tasks because you don’t want to get fired, have your car repossessed, or have your lights turned off, but the fact remains these are choices you’re making. Instead of feeling victimized by your have-to’s, take back your power and actively choose what you will and won’t do. Ask yourself what the consequences of not doing that action would be and if you can live with them; don’t do it. Test the boundaries at work—what could you really get away with not doing?

Each of these three tips requires you to step back and examine your thoughts and assumptions about who you work with, why you’re working the way you do, and what you really want to accomplish. The beauty is that all of these things can be controlled and changed solely by you without anything else at work changing. This may not be your ultimate job and your workplace may be truly toxic, but that doesn’t mean you have to feel like a victim. Employing these three tips consistently will make you feel better no matter what the circumstances—and isn’t that what it’s all about?

I was going to write a big, wordy review of Tim Ferriss’ book, “The 4-Hour Workweek,” but honestly, that’s not my thing. I do however want to tell you about this book because I love books that blow my mind wide open and make me think differently.

Here’s why I liked it:

• Ferriss debunks the myth you have to be rich to live the life you want.
• Why wait for some undefined future retirement to start enjoying life? Life is happening now and he offers specific ways to get the most out of it.
• I won’t lie; I waste time during the day: checking email too much, surfing the web, whatever. You probably do too. This book challenges the 8-hours-plus-a-day-butt-in-the-chair rule and made me have big new thoughts about how I could really be using my time.
• He acknowledges that you will have fears when considering your dreams and proposes a sound plan for working through them. It’s very similar to how I coach people so of course I like it.
• The book gives detailed information on how to dream—creating “Dreamlines” which are exciting things you want to do coupled with timelines, costs and plans for doing them.
• Ferriss offers great questions such as “What excites me?” vs. “What do I want?” Can you feel the difference when you ask yourself the former?

Even if you’re not ready to chuck it all and travel the world, this book is filled with thought-provoking and practical advice about how to take charge of your worklife in order to have a life. Four-hour workweek aside, wouldn’t be worth it if you could go from a 60-hour workweek to a 40-hour workweek? Worth checking out.

When I was a corporate citizen one of my favorite and most-used words was cluster&*#$ (rhymes with fustercluck). I, along with many co-workers (with much credit to Justin Foster), developed a colorful vocabulary to describe the escalation of problems and associated emails, meetings and actions one experiences in the corporate world when it all goes bad.

FYI
FYIs usually come in the form of emails and are used to inform a superior or other relevant party that a problem (such as a Minor Cluster) may be brewing. They usually do not require further action, but in some cases the recipient may choose to respond with a Little Sit-Down.

Little Sit-Down
Describes the conversation that happens between two professionals when there are issues to be addressed. It’s not usually an acrimonious meeting, but is a bit stronger than a FYI. You might say something like, “I need to have a Little Sit-Down with Jones in advertising to get on the same page vis-à-vis the Widgets-R-Us account.” (It’s my sincere hope you don’t really talk this way, but you get the idea.)

Minor Cluster
A Minor Cluster may follow on the heels of an FYI or come out of the blue.  Somewhere, someone screwed up enough to cause a ripple of angst within the company. A Minor Cluster may result in a Swirl, various Sit-Downs, another FYI, or all of the above (common).

Swirl
A Swirl is the frenetic-but-unproductive activity that usually follows a Cluster of any type. Swirls may include some or all of the following: executive requests for impossible-to-gather information, 5 p.m. meetings, quickly implementing Cluster fixes only to pull them 30 minutes later, multimedia finger-pointing, crazy idea generation, breathless emails, closed-door office meetings and my favorite, being asked to do something that takes 3 months in less than an hour (i.e. magical thinking).

Total Cluster
A Total Cluster has an especially strong correlation to a Come-to-Jesus (see below). When a Total Cluster happens, the proverbial crapola has hit the fan. A Total Cluster is always followed by a mad flurry of activity to fix the problem, much Swirling and usually more than a little CYA activity as well. There will be some kind of unpleasant fallout from a Total Cluster. You know you’ve hit the cluster hall-of-fame when someone says, “We don’t want this to turn out like another <insert name of cluster event here> again.”

Come-to-Jesus
The conversation that happens with the responsible party after a Total Cluster. If this is a client/vendor relationship, the vendor will be put on notice to not do this again or else. There will be a high degree of mea culpa-ing and talk of “make goods.” If the talk is between internal groups, there will likely be blaming and finger-pointing, which may include evidence presented via Excel or PowerPoint. The ideal outcome of a CTJ is that the parties can get past the anger to have a true meeting of the minds (MOM) to resolve the issue and ensure it doesn’t happen again. Sadly, this does not always happen.

Heart-to-Heart
Smart corporate denizens will arrange to have a Heart-to-Heart (H2H) with one key person from the “other side” after a Come-to-Jesus (or even before). This is where the two individuals privately air any grievances and attempt to repair the relationship in order to move forward. The Heart-to-Heart is not used nearly enough and can be very effective in heading off future Sit-Downs, Clusters and Come-to-Jesus events. The key to the H2H is to be honest and forthright and willing to see the situation from your compatriot’s point of view.

Tips for Staying Sane in the Face of a Cluster

1. Stay Calm
Do not buy into the hysteria around you. A good rule of thumb is the more intense people get, the calmer you should strive to be. If you need to, take a moment to step outside, have a momentary freak out and then take a deep breath and calm yourself. Not only is this just good for your state of mind, but you’ll be much better equipped to come up with viable solutions to the problem at hand. Plus people will think you’re amazing under pressure.

2. You are not the cluster.
Even if you are unfortunate enough to be at the center of the latest tempest, remember that these events do not define you. This is simply a bump in the road, and no matter how big the bump, it will pass. 

3. Fall on your sword.
Mistakes happen, do your best to clean up the mess, fall on your sword as needed, and move on. Taking responsibility is a much better tactic than denial. You might still be in hot water, but people will respect you for taking responsibility. Just don’t overdo it, martyrdom is going too far and makes others uncomfortable.

4. It’s just clothes.
This is what one of my mentors used to say to remind me to have perspective. We worked for an apparel retailer and ultimately no matter how important we thought our work was, we were just selling clothes. This may not work if you’re an emergency room doc, but it does the trick for most gigs.

5. Remember that you’ll have a funny story later.
Clusters are almost always hilarious in hindsight. It could take a couple of years, but at some point this is going to make a great story.

Have your own cluster or vocabulary word to contribute? Comment and share.