by Caroline Leach | May 31, 2021 | Change, Work/Life
What’s on your mind as the unofficial start of summer arrives this Memorial Day weekend? As we emerge from 15 months of pandemic-induced staying at home?
As a coach, I’m often collecting interesting questions to ask people. One of my favorites came from someone in a coaching class through the Co-Active Training Institute. The question is: what’s an area where you consistently let yourself down?
On long weekends, we often have time and space to pause and reflect on our lives. What’s going well? What could be improved? And even more importantly, what’s an area where you consistently let yourself down?
The answer to this last question might hold the key to what you really, really want from your life. Your thoughts might surface wishes and dreams that often get forgotten and overlooked in the rush of our busy lives.
For me, where I let myself down is living too much in the future and not enjoying the present, in my rush and zeal to get stuff done. What’ I’d like to do is enjoy the present moment (now that I’ve finished a morning’s worth of work on this holiday … ha!). What is means is I’m going to go read a chapter or two in a new book I got from the library (which after a year of drive-through book pickups is now open to go inside!). Then a bike ride around the neighborhood. And some time with family tonight, reconnecting and and enjoying each other’s company.
What’s missing in your life? Where are you letting yourself down?
Right now is the perfect moment to put yourself first. Do what your heart is calling you to do.
by Caroline Leach | Apr 30, 2021 | Work/Life
As the pandemic wore on, I found myself working all the time. How about you?
It’s not a recipe for peak creativity. But I’m fortunate to have clients to coach, academic curriculum to develop, video scripts to write, marketing strategies to launch, and so on. The cognitive load kept growing.
What has helped? I’ve been taking purposeful breaks with completely different tasks. The restaurant my husband Kevin opened mid-pandemic needs fresh flowers every week (or maybe it doesn’t, but I’ve convinced myself they’re a necessity).
Every Tuesday, I absolutely love picking out freshly cut flowers and creating a new arrangement. I have little formal floral training, and that’s okay. The act of looking at beautiful colors, taking in the fragrant scents of fresh flowers, and trying different texture combinations is wonderfully relaxing.
What’s a creative pursuit for you?
by Caroline Leach | Mar 31, 2021 | Leadership, Work/Life
What do you really, really want?
Not what you think others want you to want. Not what you believe is socially acceptable to want. Not what you think you’re capable of achieving.
No, what do you really want?
This is one of the most important questions any of us can contemplate. It’s a question that’s often at the heart of a coaching journey.
You don’t have to know how to get what you want. Once you know what you want, you’ll figure out the how. Step by step and day by day.
You’ll become more attuned to opportunities that could help you move forward. You’ll become more discerning about what to decline, because it doesn’t serve your larger vision.
Now that we’re one quarter of the way through 2021, it’s a good time to pause and reflect. How is your year going so far? Is it what you intended? And what do you really want?
by Caroline Leach | Feb 28, 2021 | Social Media
We’re at about the one-year mark for our stay-at-home lives to stop Covid-19. There’s light of the end of the tunnel. People are wearing masks and socially distancing. Case positivity rates are dropping. More vaccine doses are becoming available.
And yet there’s also a sense of extreme fatigue. Time has taken on odd proportions. Days blend into nights. Days becomes weeks. Weeks become a year.
As I contemplated the month of March, a feeling of sameness crept in. All I saw on the calendar was work, work, and more work. Don’t get me wrong. I love the work. And I’m thankful to have it.
But life is not solely about work. It’s about people. It’s about enjoyment. It’s about the journey.
What was missing from my calendar were all of those times. Time with friends. Time for fun. Time to simply BE.
It’s time to take a break already. As humans we’re wired to work, play, and rest. When it gets out of balance, everything suffers.
What’s a fun break you will take today?
by Caroline Leach | Jan 31, 2021 | Leadership, Work/Life
Life can be endlessly complex, no? More technology, more commitments, and more goals and dreams. Layered over that is a global pandemic, climate change, social justice, and political polarization. It can make life feel especially heavy.
When overwhelm rears its head, as it often does, one question can help. It isn’t to imply that the challenges any of us faces are easy, or simple, or straightforward. But in any given moment, asking “what would made it simple?” can help you identify new ways to take action.
This blog is an example. I’ve posted to it each month for the last six years. There’s a phenomenon about “not breaking the chain.” Once you do something repeatedly, you accrue “check marks,” day after day, or month after month. As you rack up more check marks, it provides its own momentum to keep going. This is not my original idea, but it resonates with me.
So here it is, the last day of January. If I do not post to my blog by midnight, I will break the chain of 72 months of posting. Usually my posts are 500 or more words in length. But I don’t have 500 words to share right now. Life is busy and complex. So how can I make it easy? By sharing this question with you.
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