What is My Why?

Heart Magazines is challenging my commitment to feel free to throw away unwanted gifts.  Over the last 10 days I've probably received a dozen unsolicited and unwanted magazines.  Most I have immediately taken to the recycling bin.  I passed some along to a friend.  Because a couple had articles about wellness, fitness, or nutrition, all topics of interest to me, I kept and mostly skimmed before contributing them to recycling.

This evening I skimmed an interview with Biggest Loser fitness icon Jillian Michaels in the current issue of Redbook.  In it she shared that if we wanted to stick to a healthy regime, how important it was to know "why" wanted it. She shared that now that she has children, instead of choosing between doughnuts and skinny jeans, her "why" has changed to choosing between doughnuts and seeing her great-grandchildren.

The concept of knowing our "why" is not a new one.  Management guru Simon Sinek has one of the most popular YouTube videos* describing that it is the "why" behind an action that really motivates people. As a long-time organizational consultant, I believe the failure to build shared commitment to why something should change is probably the biggest single shortcoming of senior leadership teams. So, Michaels' comments only reinforced what I already know to be true.  If we don't really understand why something is important to us, we aren't likely to stick to it.

I am doing so-so with my relationship with sugar recently.  As I read Michaels' words, I thought maybe that is it: I don't know why I want to avoid sugar.  Well, that isn't quite true.  I am badly addicted, and I don't want any substance to own me like sugar does.  But along with knowing why, it is important to know in positive terms what we want to move toward.  In Michaels' case, she wants to move toward seeing her great-grandchildren.

Not wanting a substance to own me is a negative.  Our brains aren't motivated by negatives. I stopped reading and sat quietly and ran through an exercise I use with coaching clients to ascertain their "why."  I struggled for a bit, and then finally it came to me.  I want to avoid sugar so that I am in spiritual integrity.  I made a commitment to myself to avoid sugar. The commitment has nothing to do with sugar and everything to do with my spiritual discipline to keep a promise I make to myself. When I indulge, and certainly when I overindulge as is so easy during the holidays, my lack of spiritual integrity sucks spiritual energy (and life) from me.  When I keep commitment to myself, I am in spiritual integrity, and I attract supportive, spiritual energy.

As anyone who has grappled with an addiction knows, winning those battles happens one day at a time.  I make no sweeping predictions about how I will do with my struggles with sugar. Now that I understand that, rather than avoiding a destructive substant, my commitment is one to spiritual integrity, I have a definite "why."





*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sioZd3AxmnE

Emotional Intelligence and Intention

Way back in graduate school, I remember studying the levels of learning: the next-to-highest level of learning was teaching. I intellectualized that concept, but it was much later, when I actually was teaching on a regular basis, that I really started to "get it."

Probably in my second year teaching at the university, I remember presenting something one day, and all of the sudden having a personal Aha! moment during which in an instant I connected content that I knew well in a whole new way.  It was like a jigsaw puzzle that suddenly rearranged its pieces and created a totally different picture.  It happens to me now and again, even with topics that I've written about significantly. If I say the new understanding out loud, it doesn't sound all that different than what I may have written, but on a gut level my understanding is quite different.

Spiritual teacher Carolyn Myss has said that her understanding of "energy anatomy" came to her while she was teaching a related class. I suspect that most of us who have taught material we know well have experienced something like this.

That is how one day I related "emotional intelligence" to "intention." Now I understand why I've enjoyed writing  and teaching about both.

Because I am an Organization Development consultant and not a trainer, I rarely stand at the front of a classroom and teach any more. Instead, my coaching and consulting often afford me "teachable moments." By far more frequently than any other topic, emotional intelligence presents itself as a teachable moment. One day when I was coaching someone and writing on the board in back of my desk about emotional intelligence, it just came to me that my words were similar to ones I'd used with intention.

A number of authors and researchers have written about emotional intelligence, so the language is slightly different depending on who is writing.  Five generally accepted elements comprise emotional intelligence:

1. Self-awareness
2. Self-management
3. Self-motivation
4. Empathy
5. Social Skills

Simply put, self-awareness underlies all of the others.  The next two are internally focused. Once we are aware of what we want and need, then are we able to manage and motivate ourselves to do what we want or need to do?  The last two are externally focused. Self-awareness feeds both.  Am I aware of how I react to others? Do I have the social skills to behave appropriately?  Of course, self-management and self-motivation are key to those last two as well.

My Aha! about emotional intelligence (EI) and intention came when I was talking about EI the day after I'd been writing about intention.  The self-awareness piece of intention is that in order to live my intention, I need to listen to my heart and to learn what is written on the back side of it. Then, can I manage and motivate myself to act in accordance with what I know in my heart?

As simple as that.  I say that tongue in cheek because I know full well how very difficult self-awareness, self-management, and self-motivation are.  I've written in blog posts as recently as yesterday about my struggle being able to do what I know I need to do. Slow down, rest, exercise, skip sugar...you've heard them all.

I believe that none of us ever gets those pieces 100%.  At least not in this world.  A coaching client once surmised that when people got close to the 100% they were "called home."  They had nothing more to learn.

What is important is that we have an awareness of what we want to create and, when we don't succeed, like falling off a horse, we climb back on and give it another try. I actually sat and ate lunch today.  For two nights in a row, I've left the office only 30 minutes late, and I walked for 30 minutes through the beautiful spring weather and abundant blossoms.  And, instead of preparing for a job interview I have tomorrow, I am doing what I love--writing.  For this moment, I am totally at peace, and this moment is the only one that really counts.



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