A Year to Change: Conversations with women on choice, connections, and clarity in midlife

The other objective is Big. It’s the RealLife vs. WorkLife balance issue. About setting and holding boundaries so that my job does not eat me alive.

This is a philosophy that I preach to colleagues and staff, but I fail to “walk the walk”. I get 3 weeks vacation each year; this is the 2nd year that I have failed to use it. And I think I’m ending 2006 with about 5-6 weeks of unused comp time. Just like last year.

Is my job really that important in my life? Am I really that important to the organization that I work for? Have I fallen into the trap of the Illusion of Indispensibility? (I worked for an opera company once, so I have observed this Illusion of Indispensibility firsthand, with a big musical soundtrack. It’s actually an occupational malady for arts administrators in all disciplines.)

What about you? Has your WorkLife chewed you up and spit you out so that your RealLife is a distant 2nd place on your To Do List?

Sometimes I think in extreme examples, so let me tell you that I’m trying to Think about this: what would happen to my Job if I died today?

What would happen to YOUR Job if You died today?

So maybe we shouldn’t let our Jobs kill us? Maybe it shouldn’t be a “Worklife” - only a job. What you do for a living shouldn’t be confused with your actual Life, right?

“Work is what you do for others, liebchen - art is what you do for yourself.” - Stephen Sondheim

More art, please. More artful Lives.

One should begin at the beginning, but I’m already well into the middle of my own story, so you’ll just have to figure it out as you come along. Or not, as you choose.

I’ll be “starting here, starting now.”

My Year To Change objectives focus around establishing and maintaining better heart-health habits. Important better habits such as:

1. The habit of not smoking.

2. The habit of daily exercise. (OK - let’s be real here - it will be the habit of mostly-daily exercise).

3. The habits of “Not Eating Stupid Every Day”. I have gained and lost probably 1,000 pounds in my lifetime, including (most recently) a loss of 40 lbs. on the Weight Watchers online program. Many of these 40 pounds have returned to their rightful home, since staying on the WW maintenance program was boring to me. So much counting of points. So much deprivation. So little actual reward after I had made my goal. None of this is WW fault; in fact, I tell friends who want to lose weight to “do” WW online. If you do it, it works; I simply stopped doing it.

There are a couple more, but it overwhelms me to think about them right now. So we’ll just begin with smoking. Not smoking.

Developing the habit of not smoking.

We’ll start tomorrow. I need to focus right at this moment on not going out and buying a pack of cigarettes.

We made our first podcast the other day. I’ve uploaded it to the server and hope you can get it into your iTunes or some other podcast reader? or listener? or aggregator? But for now, you can just listen to our first podcast here. It’s just under 20 minutes long.
Or you can get it into your iTunes by clicking, in the top navigation line, File | Import | and then fill in this whole link.. including the http:// part.

http://www.tagits.net/podcast/YTC1.mp3

And Hey.. leave us a comment if you can get it… or if you can’t for that matter.

Thanks

and enjoy!

 

 In the beginning: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Goals seem terribly elusive to me. I set a goal for myself but if I don’t reach it, what happens? Nothing. So what’s the big deal?

It’s probably a problem for many, if not most, women. When there is someone else involved in the project, then whatever gets done right on time… or maybe just a little late. But when it’s just for me, then it’s a big giant WHATEVER!

So I may have a goal to get my house and my stuff in order for Christmas. But the goal isn’t nearly as final as the deadline. My entire family is coming on Christmas eve. Some of them I haven’t seen in years. And although they are nieces and nephews I just KNOW they will be judging me wanting in the house keeping arena.

So there’s the deadline. I can make a list of everything that must be done between now and next week. I can figure out how to fit all the stuff that must be done into the schedule. And I can figure out what to chuck when the time grows short.

I have a client whose Christmas deadline has passed. If it wasn’t bought, put up or managed by December 12, it’s off the list! I can only bow to her determination. But she’s the one who told me that it’s not a goal to be ready, it’s a deadline.

People with ADHD like deadlines. The adrenaline rush that kicks in near the end that gives us the focus to do the thing. I think that may be what helped me get my list of exercise tunes posted — not the goal of it, but the deadline. I said I’d do it by Friday and I did.

So I’ll see how I do with what must be done by next week and then look for the next deadline.

Happy days to all!

It seems I’m just trying to think about getting control of stuff in my life, but not doing a very good job of actually DOING the things I think I think are important. Is that vague enough?

And maybe that’s just the first step.

Now — this is the part where my husband thinks I might be sharing too much information. But I’m gonna take my chances and hope you really want to make changes, too. We can’t do that if we’re not honest… so here goes:

A couple of facts:

• My habit in the morning is to get up, put on slippers and a robe, come downstairs, make coffee and then check my email. Who KNOWS what important life altering emails might show up in the night?! I definitely NEED to know that stuff! As I’m guessing you know, it sucks down a bit of time.

• I work for myself alone at home, so most of my work is either at the computer or on the phone — neither of which require makeup or Armani suits.

• I have ADHD so when I get into something, it’s often hard for me to switch to something else. Time can just go away while I sit here thinking of something to say here or in any of the other couple of blogs or websites I manage.

• AND, the reason this is important will be apparent next, we live in an old house with only one bathroom… upstairs.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to connect a new habit to an existing one. As a coach I know that’s when it’s easiest. So I figured at the point in the morning where I go back upstairs to that one bathroom, I could commit to getting dressed AND (Oh, my father would be horrified if he knew I wasn’t doing this already) make my bed!

I have to tell you that’s working pretty well, much better, in fact, than my deal with the mail man that he wouldn’t see me in my robe ever again. (He gets to our house around noon!)

So a week or 10 days ago I decided I could add 15 minutes of exercise to that morning routine. Once I had a Leslie Sansone video from the library. I had it for six weeks. Watched it once. But I figured based on that knowledge, this time I could sorta walk around my living room for 15 minutes and it would be better than nothing. One day I did about 10 minutes before a client called. I shoulda known there weren’t even 15 minutes free. Nevertheless …

I could be beating myself up over that. But what’s the point? I did 10 minutes once, and that’s surely better than nothing.

So what I have to find is a way to be successful more often and get used to the new routine.

So here’s what I’m trying next:
I’ll do all that morning stuff that’s working plus just five minutes of walking. Or maybe just one song on the radio or iPod.

Tell you what, in my best coaching accountability process and committing to the tiniest of steps: I promise that by Friday of this week I will have picked the songs I’ll walk to. I’ll post them here. It will be a tiny step.

I have committed to a year to change. But I have to take at least a tiny step or there’s no possibility of success.

Watch the comments link below for my tiny step.

I start where I am. It really is the only choice. Of course, I could wait to start – until I was thinner or richer. But in the words of the great Buckaroo Bonsai (who likely paraphrased them from someone else who I can’t remember) “Where ever you go, there you are.”

So here I am. At the beginning.

I am a 50 year old woman. In fact, I am somewhat older than that, but I can never remember the exact numbers. So I’ll say 50 until I am 60 and 60 til I am 70. It’s just easier that way. And I am all about easy. Perhaps that’s why I must start in my particular beginning.

My three children are grown, more or less, at least they are living on their own, more or less. My husband claims I didn’t raise them, but rather I let them grow up around me. They drop by to see us from time to time, sometimes for dinner, or a beer or just to say “hi.” Sometimes they move back in for a few months, between jobs or roommates. They’re sort of like “room mates with privileges” only in this case the privileges are free meals and a sporadic laundry service.

I manage my life and its many projects all in the same rather haphazard way. If something comes to the top of the pile, it gets attention. If something is “shiny: it gets my attention. Otherwise, the thing can probably wait. As for my children, I hope they’ll figure out for themselves what’s the next step and take it. Today there’s a newsletter and a sponsorship appeal to produce. There is also financial book work to do – my absolute least favorite job in the world expect perhaps raking leaves! Maybe what’s shiny is this post.
So the task of this post about me… and about my particular starting point … is the naming of the thing that should change this year.

I think I have to call it control.

I need control of my stuff. I do not hoard stuff. But I also do not complete the sorting process well. The final decision always seems so final. I think that sometimes that scares me a little. And so I wait. That leaves me with nearly-completed tasks under the heading of general household maintenance. The last of the dishes are clean but not away. In the bottom of the box of papers to be sorted and filed are a couple weird items like a head set for a cell phone, a couple clothes pins, and a glue stick. I’m not exactly sure where they go, so they continue to live with unfilled papers where they clearly do NOT go. And the file box does not ever completely empty.

I need control of my time. I go to the meetings I am supposed to attend. And I am generally prepared for them. Committees are glad to have me a member because I will keep that process moving to completion – unless, of course, the completion is my job and then it may take a bit longer. I do not THINK people see me as perseverating. (It’s a great word, look it up!)

I need control of my weight. I don’t binge. I pick. I should eat more healthy meals, generally choose more carefully what goes in my mouth. But mostly, the biggest problem is that I don’t exercise. When I had a dog, I got out twice a day for a walk, probably a half mile each time. Doctors always said, “Walking the dog doesn’t count. You need real exercise.” I have two things to say to that.. B… alloney! The great advantage of one of those roll up dog leashes is that the human can set a speed to walk and the dog can keep up or not. He can lag behind 20 feet and then run ahead 20 more. And I just keep walking. If he wants to sniff every tree, fine. But when he reaches the end of his rope, he just better pick it up. And now that the dog is gone, pretty much the only exercise I get is going upstairs to the bathroom; we only have one in this old house.

So here we are, my friend Leslie and I, at the beginning of the year making a pact to make a change – make a permanent change – for the better in our lives. Somewhere I read, and I WILL find the reference, that people who have friends who are doing something tend to do the same thing. If one friend exercises, the other will too. If one friend shops, the other will too.

So this must be about the connection. People generally want to be connected to other people. For me, I need to say stuff out loud to be sure I really mean it. Leslie and I have joked over the last 15 years or so that we share a brain. Sometimes it’s hard for the untrained eye to determine just who has it at the moment.

So what I want to be building in this blog is connection:

• to Leslie — for my own personal pleasure. If you follow along, you’ll be able to participate in some amazing conversations and figure out just how things in your world really work (BTW, I’m not talking about electricity. Some things you just have to take on faith!)
• to the commitments she and I have made about what we’ll change in the next year. I think I can only really make a commitment if I have a connection to the out come. It’s possible that that’s perhaps what makes a commitment personal and, therefore, possible.
• to be public in the process. I know, as a coach, that accountability makes a big difference in effecting change. So here, I have accountability to my friend, who in turn has accountability back to me — for the posts we make here and for how these changes manifest in our world. We hope to be modeling this behavior publicly so that perhaps you’ll find your own friend to connect and grow with. Or maybe, you’ll just pretend that WE’RE your friends, too.

I promise this will be an interesting process. Please come along with us.