Strategies for Personal Change

COVID Brain Part 3: Awesomeness

COVID Brain Part 3: Awesomeness One of my favorite writers has been posting daily bits of Pandemic Awesomeness. Inspired, I’ve been working on my own list. Discovering that I DO have the motivation to exercise even though the gyms are closed Having fresh baked bread twice a week for the past 20 weeks – because there’s no place to go …

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Strategies for Personal Change

COVID Brain Part 2

COVID Brain Part 2: Coaching Conversations I have a client who has struggled w/ depression in the past and is struggling with isolation now. In a recent coaching session (in which he wanted to “work through some of the negative shit”), I asked him this question: What are you learning about yourself as a result of having to live in …

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Strategies for Personal Change

COVID Brain Part 1

COVID-19-Affect-Brain

Part 1: From The Pandemic Lockdown, Day 159 How long have you been in lockdown, or working from home, or having to balance kids and job and worry about the return to school, or feeling separated from loved ones? Too long, right? I thought I was doing OK. Then two weeks ago (day 143, but who’s counting?) I had a …

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Leadership and Workplace

IT’S NOT YOU

WHAT JUST HAPPENED? Since mid-March, every conversation touches on the pandemic, at least for a second. But the topic’s been consistently held as a temporary situation. Then last week happened. Plans for return to work in July shifted to year-end 2020. Conferences in 1Q21 started getting the “let’s go virtual!” treatment. Three months is temporary. A full year is, “We gotta figure this out, …

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Strategies for Personal Change

A Few Resources For You-June 2020

Just For Fun A Few Resources For You You Can Do This Hard Thing. I really enjoy the “virtual choirs” that have existed in social media and on artist platforms for years. Physical distancing has encouraged more people to experiment with that art form, and I found this folk song by Carrie Newcomer hit just the right notes of collaboration, …

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Leadership and Workplace, Strategies for Personal Change

Lessons From The Muck

Muck [muhk], noun, moist farmyard dung, decaying vegetable matter, etc.; manure; a highly organic, dark or black soil; mire; mud. From 1200–50; Middle English muc, muk <<Old Norse myki cow dung Say WHAT?? When we moved to a new home in 2016, we inherited a large, reed-infested marshy pond that had been neglected for 30 years. We mostly avoided it because the area was …

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What Can You Control?

What Can I Control

Stress is Mostly Self-Created Happiness Principle** #7 says, Choose to Respond: What happens is going to happen, regardless. Accept constant, discontinuous change as reality and instead of reacting, respond with curiosity. Wow, when I created these principles, I had no idea how useful they’d be 17 years later during a pandemic! Let’s take a moment to go back to basics: what …

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A Few Resources For You – MAY 2020

Many thanks essential workers

Five Prescriptions for Happiness: Short notice, but if you’re up for a lunchtime (well, Cleveland lunch time) Happiness shot-in-the arm, I’m speaking in the Cleveland Society for HR Management series next Tuesday 26 May at 12 US ET, sharing some practical tips for nurturing resilience in Turbulent Times. Register here Happiness Practices: If you can’t make that program, here’s a three-minute …

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To What Are You Giving Your Attention?

Act Happy Week Spring Flowers

It’s been a wet winter here, so our yard is a reeking mud marsh dotted with swampy pools deep enough that we’ve attracted nomadic geese. We are in COVID-19 lockdown (Day 7). Our internet is spotty and overloaded, and my nine-year-old iMac chose today to fully embrace dementia. Our sump pump is blocked. A skunk has built a nest beneath …

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Social Distance is not Social Disconnection

Act-Happy-Happy-Feet

Doctors ask us to keep two meters apart to reduce transmission of COVID-19. But don’t let physical distance lead to emotional disconnection. We need each other more than ever right now. Whether you are passing people in a hallway, sitting a safe space away, or speaking via video or phone, Smile. When you smile on purpose, it will affect all …

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