by Caroline Leach | Dec 30, 2015 | Change, Learning, Work/Life
Do habits make us who we are?
Habits inform how we live our lives each day. And over time that adds up to who we are.
Habits underpin the goals we set, often at the start of a new year or season.
Whether it’s exercising more, working better or spending time with loved ones, goals are achieved bit by bit, in the smaller tasks we repeat on a regular basis.
And don’t underestimate how small changes add up. Small Move, Big Change by Caroline Arnold shows the power of “micro resolutions.”
As part of my own year-end rituals, I’m starting a new tradition. It’s called a Daily Dozen, for 12 key habits I’m committed to doing each day.
Some of them are well established, like walking 10,000 steps each day. Others are newer, like power posing for 2 minutes every morning.
The daily dozen concept came from Walter Chauncey Camp. Known as “the father of American football,” Camp devised a set of 12 exercises called the daily dozen while he worked for the U.S. military.
Here’s my daily dozen – 12 exercises for body, mind and spirit:
3 morning pages. Thank you, Julia Cameron, for the brilliant idea of writing 3 long-hand pages every morning, about anything, in a stream of consciousness.
The practice of morning pages clears your minds, helps you solve problems and sets the stage for a highly creative day. Completion time: 20 minutes.
1 power pose. Thank you, Amy Cuddy, for the research-based practice of standing in a power pose for 2 minutes. Your body language really does shape who you are and how you think about yourelf.
But why wait for a stressful situation to try power posing? Pre-emptively, I’m doing a power pose every morning. Arms stretched out, excited about what I’ll do each day and what each one will bring. Completion time: 2 minutes.
2 sets of arm weights. While I understand why weight training should be done every other day to rest tested muscles, it’s hard to remember to do something every other day. It’s easier to do something daily, because it doesn’t require a lot of thought.
So I’ll split up my arm weight regimen. One day I’ll do 2 sets of weights, followed by a different 2 sets the next day. That way it’s daily, but different each day. Completion time: 5 minutes.
2 vitamins. This one’s easy. I’ve been taking vitamins for years. It takes seconds, it’s good for me and it gives me a small sense of accomplishment. This fuels the ability to meet other goals.
Have you ever added a task to your list after you completed it, just for the satisfaction of crossing it off as done? This goal is a similar concept. Completion time: 1 minute.
1 reasonable to-do list. Too often my master list of everything that needs to be done serves as my daily to-do list. Instead, I’ll make a daily list, the night before, of my top 5 priorities for the following day.
Taking inspiration from Tony Schwartz, 1 of the 5 will be a top-of-the-day key project to devote my first focused 90 minutes. Completion time (for the list): 10 minutes.
5 fruits and veggies. This comes from Michael Pollan’s mantra to “eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” In my case that’s berries with breakfast, salads for lunch and fruits and veggies for snacks.
This is how I lost weight a few years ago. It is painfully true that the really hard part is not losing weight, but maintaining the new weight. Completion time: negligible.
30 active minutes. Successful weight maintenance is easier with daily exercise. That’s been a habit of mine for quite some time. And I’ve upped the ante with my green-day challenge to reach 10,000 steps every day.
It’s also fun to mix it up and try new forms of exercise. This year I’m looking forward to more stand up paddle boarding and yoga. Completion time: 30 minutes.
3 family member time. Life is full with a spouse and 2 teens in high school plus 1 rescue dog. Sometimes it feels like group texts are our most often used means of communication and connection.
So I sit in the dining room in the evenings, to connect with everyone during homework and dinner time. Besides chatting for a few minutes about everyone’s day, I can do my “homework” from the office while they do theirs. Completion time: variable.
1 blog post. Initially I considered posting daily. But this would not be sustainable with my family and work commitments. What I can do is devote 30 minutes daily to blog-related activities: ideating, reading, researching, writing, posting or publicizing. Completion time: 30 minutes.
30 minutes of reading. Reading helps you relax, focus and learn – whether it’s my daily news ritual or reading to write a blog post. A great idea in Stretch co-authored by Karie Willyerd is to read from 3 different continents, to develop a global perspective. Does The Economist count for multiple continents?
When pressed for time, I can read on my iPad while on the treadmill (see “30 active minutes” above). And reading time counts as blog time (see above) if I’m researching a post. Completion time: 30 minutes.
3 things to be grateful for. Inspired by happiness and habits guru Gretchen Rubin, I end each day by writing down 3 things I’m grateful for. The list goes at the end of my morning pages (see above), hopefully creating a continuous loop of positive thoughts and actions. Completion time: 10 minutes.
7 hours of sleep. This may contribute the most to my well being. Life often feels like a trade-off between being close to caught up on the to-do list and caught up on sleep. But I can accomplish so much more when I’m well rested.
Sleep Cycle to the rescue, here. This app wakes you up at your lightest sleep point during a 30-minute interval that you specify. And it doesn’t subtract restless time, like another tracker I tried, which makes me happier. Completion time: 7 hours.
What’s your daily dozen?
____________
This is my 50th post since launching this blog on New Year’s Day 2015.
While I didn’t hit my goal of 2 posts a week, I’m proud of maintaining this blog during a busy and transformative year.
With 2016’s theme of leaping, I’ll post and publicize twice a week for a total of 100. Game on!
by Caroline Leach | Dec 29, 2015 | Leadership, Learning
What are your learning goals for the new year?
If you need data-driven ideas and inspiration, check out Stretch: How to Future-Proof Yourself for Tomorrow’s Workplace.
Co-authored by Karie Willyerd and Barbara Mistick, this new book is packed full of strategies to ramp up your learning, your career and your life.
At DIRECTV we had the good fortune to have Karie speak on a number of occasions – at our annual leadership meeting, at large department conferences and to our employee resource group for young professionals.
Karie shared insights from another book she co-authored, with Jeanne C. Meister, called Workplace 2020: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop and Keep Tomorrow’s Employees Today.
She was always a hit – sparking dialogue, stoking debate and seeding positive changes in the workplace and the culture.
It was a pleasant surprise to get a friendly email from Karie this fall, asking how things were going. Doing a quick Google search before I responded to see what Karie had been up to lately, I was thrilled to see she had a new book in the works.
Since I recently pivoted into a new role, the Kindle version of Stretch zoomed to the top of my list for winter holiday reading.
It starts by asking “who do you want to be tomorrow?”
And it outlines the megatrends that will impact the future of your career – globalization, demographics shifts, data explosion, emerging technologies, climate change, redefined jobs and complexity.
How should today’s professional respond?
By stretching your skills and abilities, the authors say. And by taking into account your dreams for yourself and your family in the future.
There are 5 key practices, each with several supporting strategies. Here are the 4 strategies, preceded by the key practice area, that most resonated with me. They’ll help inform my learning journey.
Learn on the fly: cultivate curiosity. This strategy is about constantly asking “why?”
Why ask why? You’ll question assumptions and unconscious rules, which may lead to new insights and ideas.
The authors provide some good questions in a “curiosity stimulator checklist” –
- “What is the most interesting project or idea you are working on now, or wish you were working on?”
- “What is valid about the dissenting viewpoint in this discussion?”
- “What assumptions or models am I using that causes me to agree or disagree in this situation?”
Be open: seek feedback. This is the strategy I most wanted to ignore, so I knew I needed to include it.
The authors aptly described why: “As researchers of vulnerability understand, our self-confidence takes a plunge when we feel we are being criticized.”
Yet plunge into seeking feedback, I must, to grow and improve. And to do so, the authors describe good ways to create a safe environment in asking others for candid feedback:
- “If you could imagine the perfect person doing the perfect job in the role I’m in, what do you think they might be doing differently than I am?”
- “What 2 or 3 pieces of advice do you have for me that you think would have made this project better?”
Build a diverse network: strive for five to thrive. Strong and diverse networks stretch you, the authors say, reminding me of Roselinde Torres‘ TED talk on What Makes a Great Leader?
The strategic question that spoke to me? “Who are the 5 people who can help you be a better person, especially when it comes to your work?”
They could be people in your network who “inspired you, stretched your thinking, left you feeling it’s possible to change, introduced you to new knowledge in different fields and demonstrated being an expert in ways you aren’t.”
My diverse list of 5 is taking shape. During January I’ll be connecting with them to meet for coffee and talk virtually during the year.
Be greedy about experiences: approach targeted work with a development stance. This is where “you care about getting the task done really well and using what you learn to do even better work in the future.”
The development stance, as opposed to a completion or performance stance, could include doing research, talking to people with expertise, observing processes that work well or taking an online course or a MOOC.
The book has a template to identify your major projects and tasks, skills that can be developed in each one and how you’ll approach each project – with a completion, performance or development stance.
As I work through the template and choose areas of focus for development, I’ll share some of my learning experiences in future posts.
How will you stretch in the coming year?
by Caroline Leach | Dec 28, 2015 | Change, Work/Life
Do you want to achieve more focus in the new year?
Then pick a theme for 2016 – one word that sums up your goals.
Five years ago I chose my first annual theme.
I’d just wrapped up an intense time at work, designing and delivering our company’s first leadership development program for our CEO and CHRO. This labor of love involving long hours was all made worthwhile on the final day as the 30 participants shared how the program changed their lives.
In the community I was involved with our local education foundation, leading a refresh of our strategic plan to raise money for local schools. There was also a grade-level job for my daughter’s cotillion. And co-leading my son’s Cub Scout den. Plus a bevy of youth basketball, baseball and soccer games.
Not to mention all the related parenting responsibilities for elementary- and middle-school-aged children. (And here I’m bucking a trend the Wall Street Journal reported on, about people hiding their children’s ages. Why be that coy when our own ages, addresses and more are just a few clicks away?)
Life was full. Life was good. And life was a bit too much. Too many things to do and not enough time to do them in. Not enough time to enjoy life as it happened.
That’s why my theme for 2011 became thinning.
First was thinning my calendar. The clock ran out on some of my community commitments. No new volunteer roles made it onto my calendar for a while.
Second was thinning my surroundings. Well before Marie Kondo‘s fabulous The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, I pared down possessions. Gave away things that were no longer needed. Said farewell to items that were no longer valuable.
Third was thinning my body. I started eating healthier foods and exercising more. Several months later, I was 50 pounds lighter. That called for more thinning of my wardrobe.
And it also created space for the new in my life. New clothes. New experiences. New perspectives. All by focusing on thinning and having less in my life so I could truly enjoy what I had.
From Thinning, I moved on to Building. Shining. Reinventing. Transforming.
Yes, this year’s theme was transforming. Having led so many change projects in my career, I’m fascinated by reinvention, revitalization and renewal.
My company was being acquired in an exciting, transformative deal. So I looked forward to how that would transform my career. And it did, opening up new opportunities in marketing.
Our family had transformational moments with our youngest child starting high school and our oldest teen visiting colleges, taking standardized tests and applying to schools.
We finally transformed our mid-century (e.g., outdated 1950s) kitchen with new cabinets, counters, appliances and flooring. And we’re installing more water-conscious bathroom appliances, here in drought-resilient Southern California.
My exercise routine was transformed with forays into stand up paddle boarding, cardio barre and yoga. Now if I can combine paddle boarding with yoga in the new year, I’ll be all set.
My community involvement transformed with leading inspiration for my chapter of National Charity League and serving on a mayor-appointed committee in my city.
And I wanted to transform my writing and social media presence by launching this blog on New Year’s Day 2015.
Did I transform as much as I wanted? Of course not. There’s always more to be done. But as I reflect on the last year, I’m happy to see progress. And that is what life is all about.
The theme for 2016?
Leaping.
Leaping into what exactly?
For starters, leaping into a new and exciting role at work. It melds skills I honed in corporate communications with newer skills in the areas of measuring brand health, advertising effectiveness and customer experience.
Next is helping my daughter prepare to go to college in the fall. To become more independent and make her own decision. To figure out how to create a good life.
And then there’s this blog. It’s still a work in progress. My focus is changing and evolving, along with my professional and personal life.
Writing this blog grounds me and gives me tremendous joy. It brings more flow into my life, where I lose myself in the ever-engaging process of thinking and writing.
My leaping theme is inspired by Tara Sophia Mohr and her book Playing Big.
Mohr writes, “A leap has you playing bigger right now, is simple, and can be completed in one to two weeks, gets your adrenaline flowing, and puts you in contact with the people/audience/customers/stakeholders you want to reach through your playing bigger.”
My first leap is posting to this blog twice a week, sharing it on social media and getting feedback. My other leaps? Those will be the subjects of future posts.
What’s your theme for 2016?
by Caroline Leach | Dec 26, 2015 | Corporate Communications, Learning
What’s an upside to waking up in the middle of the night?
Here’s one: when a pre-ordered book from Amazon downloads after midnight on the publishing date.
A Christmas gift arrived early this week with Amy Cuddy‘s new book, Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges.
You may have been among the 30 million views of her TED talk, Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are.
If so, you know about “power posing.”
When you’re facing a challenge – whether it’s a big presentation or a job interview or an everyday interaction – strike a powerful pose for 2 minutes. Making your body big will make your mind feel more confident.
Two years ago I tried this for the first time. I was planning our Chairman’s annual leadership meeting. As I was meeting with my boss to finalize the agenda, he suggested I should speak at the meeting.
WH-A-A-A-T?
The terror and excitement of speaking before 200 of my leadership peers fought a valiant duel. In my mind. In seconds. And then I said, “Sure, I’d be glad to speak.”
The opportunity won out over the fear. But now I had to perform. And it had better be good.
I began with the usual speaking preparation I would bring to any C-suite leader in my role at the time leading corporate communications.
The topic? Leading Communications.
Or, how my fellow leaders could lead communications among their teams, cascading leadership meeting messages across the enterprise.
And perhaps not so coincidentally, it’s also the original title of this blog.
The brainstorming, writing and practicing began. The weekend before the event I set up my iPhone to record myself giving the presentation in the meeting room.
Two days before the event, I did a dry run for a few colleagues and team members.
And it it fell painfully flat. No connection. No spark. No magic.
They were nice about it. But their body language spoke louder than any words of encouragement ever could.
There were still 48 hours to redeem myself.
I remembered the time Mark Cuban came to speak at our company in the early 2000s. He drove all night to get there. He was friendly and engaging with our employees.
Most memorable were his words about client meetings and commitments. A client would ask for something, and the group would agree it would be delivered the next day.
Later, Mark and his colleagues would look at each other and say they had no idea how to do what they’d just committed to. But they had all night to figure it out. And figure it out, they did. Time and time again.
If they could do it, so could I.
Picking myself up off the metaphorical floor, I got to work. I revised my speech so it focused more on the audience. And what was in it for them.
But what made the most difference on the day of my speech was the simple, yet powerful advice of Amy Cuddy in her TED talk.
It was to adopt the Wonder Woman pose for 2 minutes, before my speech.
The only problem?
My talk was right after a few other speakers, so I couldn’t power pose in private, as Cuddy recommends. So I did the next best thing. I took up as much space as I could, without violating too many social norms.
I sat up straight. I stretched out one of my arms across an adjoining chair. I put another hand on my hip. I planted my feet solidly on the floor. I took deep breaths.
The audience body language post speech? Smiles. Applause. Fist bumps.
Yes, power posing really works.
Two of my work colleagues screened Cuddy’s TED talk at a Lean In circle last year. It was a great session, with ideas like jumping into group conversations one beat after the current speaker’s last word.
So I couldn’t wait for Presence when it came out this week. I wanted to know more secrets to bringing my best self to the challenges of life.
What is presence? Cuddy defines it as “the state of being attuned to and able to comfortably express our true thoughts, feelings, value and potential.”
And what did I find? A well-researched, highly entertaining, inspiring and actionable book. Most of all, it reminded me to do the following:
- Start each day with a power pose
- Stand up straight
- Take up space
- Breathe deeply
- Share the power of presence with others.
The book also underscores the importance of personal power – an infinite resource that’s always available to you. It’s yours for the taking.
As Cuddy describes personal power, “it’s about access to and control of limitless inner resources, such as our skills and abilities, our deeply held values, our true personalities and our boldest selves.”
As a new year dawns, I hope you’ll bring your boldest self.
by Caroline Leach | Dec 20, 2015 | Change, Learning, Work/Life
One of my favorite year-end rituals is to take stock of the last 12 months.
How did I do on my goals? What am I proud of? What am I grateful for?
It’s something I write free form and by hand, as a numbered list. It’s roughly chronological, but several items inevitably creep in out of order. That’s okay. It could be a metaphor for how life plays out.
My camera roll, calendar and to-do lists all provide digital breadcrumbs to capture the highlights of the last year.
When I started to reflect on this year’s goals, I didn’t feel I’d achieved as much as I set out to do. The year started with a few big question marks.
What was going to happen when the company I work for was acquired by another company? Where was my son going to go to high school? Where was my daughter going to apply to college?
For the last 5 years, I’ve chosen a theme for each year. It’s a personal rallying cry, and all of my goals for the year fit in with it in some way. This will be the subject of another year-end blog post.
Then comes my life vision statement, as a reminder of why I’m on the planet and how my theme keeps me focused on that reason for being.
And then there are goals in the categories of health, family, career, finances, spirituality and social/community.
Health. Everything starts with good health – for me and my family. I did pretty well with near-daily exercise. And it was fun trying new activities, like standup paddle boarding, yoga and cardio barre.
My green day challenge with Fitbit is ramping it up to a daily action. And the new exercise shoes I break out every Jan. 1 are in my closet, ready to go for my 2016 workouts.
This reflection makes me thankful for good health. It always makes me think about what I could do better next year. My biggest opportunity is sleep. That is, getting more of it. My goal was at least 7 hours a night.
It was frustrating to see minutes subtracted for restlessness on my Fitbit, so I stopped tracking sleep. I wanted credit for every last minute in bed.
It’s time to try Sleep Cycle over the holiday break. I’m eager to see what it feels like to be awakened during the lightest phase of sleep, within a 30 minute period of my choosing.
Family. This has been a year of transitions. Our son finished 8th grade and needed to choose where to attend high school. He decided to continue at his same K-12 school and increase his academic commitment. Happily, heading into winter break he’s on a better path, scholastically speaking.
Our daughter started her senior year in high school. She made her list of colleges, finished most of the apps over Thanksgiving weekend and is wrapping up the few due in January. Much to our surprise, she already received a letter of admission. But for the most part, it’s a waiting game until March.
It’s like anything in life. You do your best. You focus on what you can control. And then you do your best not to worry about what you can’t control.
It’s time for her to finish her first semester strong, enjoy experiences with her friends and keep up with her job and other activities.
Also in the family arena was doing fun activities with my spouse. We worked through the NY Times-inspired 36 Hours book with weekends ranging from Malibu to Hollywood to Dallas.
We visited colleges in Seattle over spring break, went to our nephew’s graduation from college in San Francisco and returned to our alma mater for a UCLA football game at the Rose Bowl.
On New Year’s Day 2015 while I watched the Rose Parade, I decided I wanted to go the following year. That’s where we’ll be on Jan. 1, 2016.
For this, thanks go to author Laura Vanderkam and her advice to create a list of 100 dreams – or activities within a few hours of your home that you can do on weekends to make them more special.
Career. On New Year’s Day of this year, I launched this blog. My purpose was to explore the field, the function and the future of corporate communications, against the backdrop of our rapidly changing world.
Part of that change was a pending acquisition of the company I worked for. The deal closed in July. The goal I set at the beginning of the year was to contribute to the success of the merger of the two companies. Beyond that, I wasn’t sure exactly how the rest of the year would take shape.
But I’ve been surprised and delighted to find myself in a new role this fall, doing new things and working with new people. What a tribute to the company I’ve joined and the focus on developing people.
Finances. While I did save the max for retirement, I now need to focus on diversifying my investments for better performance. I’m looking forward to a financial planning day over the holiday break.
Refinance our house before interest rates rise? Check. And my goal to buy a new car? Well, let’s just say that some goals come to fruition, but not in the way that was initially intended. We got my daughter a car this summer, so she can drive to school and work. It makes all of our lives better.
Spirituality, social and community. A few highlights here are that I enjoyed my involvement with a mother-daughter charitable organization, a city committee on traffic safety and leadership of the women’s employee resource group at my company.
There were a few other community and civic involvement activities I pursued but that didn’t come to fruition. They became learning experiences in what I’d do differently next time.
Looking ahead. This year-end wrap up had many benefits. It made me smile to remember good times with family, friends and colleagues. It made me proud of several accomplishments. It reminded me that I can bounce back from adversity. And it highlighted how much there is to be grateful for.
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