It’s a New Year.  What will 2010 bring for you personally and professionally?  At this time of year, we tend to think of making big changes in our lives and “fixing” the things that were unsatisfying about the previous year (or years), and these tend changes frequently take the form of “resolutions”.  New Year’s Resolutions are often large, well-intentioned, sweeping statements for change, that are, frankly for most of us mere mortals, impossible to keep for a variety of reasons.  For example, “Lose Weight” and “Quit Smoking” are 2 common resolutions which, although admirable goals for anyone, are certainly easier said than done.  This is not news to any of us, of course, as reflected in a  recent survey that indicated that 33% of Americans expect to have given up on their resolutions within a month, and fully 75% anticipate their best-laid plans heading down the drain by March of the New Year.  Why does this happen, and given that it does, why do we continue, as intelligent people, to make New Year’s Resolutions over and over again?  Clearly, it’s because we are seeking to better ourselves, improve quality of life for ourselves and for those around us, and are motivated to improve and change for the better.  So what’s the trick here?  How can the cycle of Resolution Failure be broken? 

A resolution, according to the Mirriam-Webster dictionary is, among other things, “the act of analyzing a complex notion into simpler ones.”  This definition is terrifically empowering, and can change Resolution Failure into Resolution Realization when carefully considered and applied.  At the core of this definition is the fact that most things we want to change are hard to change and take many steps.  For example, I am one of those “lose weight” resolvers every year, and happily, the application of this definition has helped me change an upward trend to a downward one over the last couple of years.  The key change in my thinking came when I applied this definition to my goal of losing weight and becoming healthier by resolving, not to just “lose weight” but to implement small, do-able changes through the years that will be sustainable and eventually get me to my goal.  For example, last year, I started wearing a pedometer, which has helped me increase my daily activity quite a bit and supported ongoing modest weight loss.  Thus, the resolution was not “Lose Weight”, but “Wear my Pedometer” which is, frankly, way easier, and still supports the larger goal.  So what’s the take-home message here?  Well, don’t give up on positive change, but re-frame it so at the end of 2010, it’s an accomplishment, not a failure.  Set smaller, achievable goals that you can readily implement and stick to, and before you know it, you’ll be on the road to making your larger goal a reality.  The January issue of my free eZine will address this in more detail.  Happy 2009, and be good to yourself this year!!

So you’ve decided to strike out and do something really different and really shake things up in your life.  Maybe you’re going to go back to school, or end a bad relationship, start a business of your own, or get serious about becoming more fit.  It feels good to make the decision, doesn’t it?  You feel empowered and motivated and proud.  You look forward to the benefits of these changes with anticipation.  You are ready to make the changes real. 

 But….

 “… maybe it would be better to just stay with things they way they are.  Things really aren’t that bad, and what if things don’t go the way I want them to?  You know, forget it.  I’ll just go back to doing what I was doing before.  I mean, what happens if I screw up?  If I fail I’ll never recover.”

 Ah, the lure of safety.  It’s scary to make changes, and it’s totally natural to have second thoughts.  It’s great to say “embrace the change and make it work for you”, but that’s easier said than done.  Change, whether for better or worse, is scary and produces lots of fear.  This may seem counterintuitive, that positive change is still fear-inducing, but we all know that it is.  Fear is the basic emotion of not knowing what to expect and dealing with uncertainty , which is what change is all about, either by choice or by force.  Change frequently triggers fear, and that fear can seriously stop your progress and keep you from realizing your dreams. 

 Here are some strategies for dealing with your fear of change and getting moving on your goals:

 1.Take Baby Steps

 Part of what is so scary about change is that when we look at it, it seems huge, amorphous, and overwhelming.  “How can I tackle such a huge thing!  I don’t know where to start!”.  A great example of this is the person who decides to make a career change and do something totally different, but unlike their “career” something they feel passionate about.  Even that passion gets thwarted by the “bigness” of the unknown of a new profession or vocation. 

 Breaking up the huge thing into smaller pieces is the way to deal with this and to get the fear out of the process.  For example, if I’ve left my job as a software engineer for a large company and want to start my own business, that is, on its face, a huge task.  If I break it down however, into steps, for example:

1.  Brainstorm ideas for focus of business
2. Research other businesses doing similar things and hone my idea
3. Write down the mission, vision, and values of my business
4. Develop a business plan
5. Examine the plan for places I need help
6. Ask for help and revise the plan
7. Develop timelines for aspects of the plan
8. Determine which aspect I need to accomplish first and begin to execute the steps on my timeline for that.
9. Etc…

You get the idea.  As you accomplish each step, cross it off the list and move on to the next one.  Breaking such a large change into smaller pieces is great, because it’s easy to look back from time to time and see, on paper, what you’ve done to reach your goals.

 2.  Squash Your Inner Critic

 Related to #1 above is finding ways to shut up the voice in your head that tells you that what you are doing is foolhardy, impractical, doomed to fail, and futile.  It’s the voice that says things like “What on earth are you thinking-  you don’t know anything about starting a business!  You’re SO going to regret this decision, and before you know it, you’ll be begging for your old, crappy job back again, so just give it up.”  This “negative self-talk” is really brutal, but you can stop it.  Basically, you need to tell your critic they are wrong.  Counter the negative thoughts with the facts that you are doing positive things.  Sometimes it’s helpful to write this down so when you are feeling fearful you can look at what you wrote that is affirming (when your critic is on your back, it may be hard to come up with the supportive affirmations in that moment, but if you’ve written them down, it’s easier). 

 3.  Figure out what you’re really afraid of and deal with it.

 When you have pangs of fear about a change, sit with that emotion and look at it.  What are you afraid of?  Is it really that you’ll fail, or is it that you just don’t quite know your way yet?  If it’s really fear of failure, ask yourself “What is the absolute worst thing that will happen?”  If you’re starting a business and you have a sound plan, about the worst thing that will happen is that the business will not succeed, you’ll have lost some money and time, and you’ll need to regroup.  What is not going to happen, if you’re being  thoughtful and deliberate, is that you’ll end up on the street and will be doomed to a life of misery.  Think through the possibilities, good, bad, and ugly, and the probabilities of each of them happening.  Even if the worst thing happened, you’d survive, and by thinking through it now, you can develop a plan, which helps make it less scary.  It really is true what they say about “Nothing ventured, noting gained”, so get some perspective on what the reality of “failing” may be to increase your chances of gaining.  Also, remember that “failure” teaches us.  Check out this blog post on that topic. 

 4.  Get help when you need it.

 Ask for help in the form of colleagues, web resources, business groups, counselors, friends, and professional coaches.  All these sources can help you create a support system for yourself that will help you celebrate your successes and find constructive ways through unexpected challenges.

So I was driving to work this week and I stopped at a light. As I looked around me I noticed a man in the car next to me crying. He was alone in his car, clearly talking to himself about something that was really upsetting. As I watched, he seemed to give himself a pep talk, dry his tears, pull himself together and look ahead at the road as the light changed to green. Although my watching him was a little voyeuristic, it did not seem so bad because I know others have watched me do the same thing from time to time. Maybe you’ve done it yourself- the car is a protected space in many ways, frequently the only bit of time we have alone all day. It can be a great decompression zone after work, after stress, when you’re sad, or when you’re thinking through a tough problem. For me and my companion at the light, drive time is a safe space for dealing with feelings without impacting others with our expressions of emotion. The important point here is not that it’s a great idea to cry in the car, but that it is important to create opportunities for yourself to process and deal with emotions when they come up. This not only helps you be emotionally healthier and to relieve stress, but it can help you manage conflict as well.

This may seem contrary, as we are often taught not to cry or show emotion and to just “gut it out”, but in reality, we all have feelings, and if we do not find a way to process them, they can get internalized and come back to bit us. What do I mean by that? Well, first, research shows that people who tend to suppress feelings and not show emotion may be more prone to stress-related illnesses. Also, I suspect most of us have had the experience that if you’re upset with someone and you try not to bring it up because you know it will produce conflict, that sooner or later, maybe even months or years later, that frustration and upset, all that emotion, will explode into a bigger conflagration that totally could have been avoided if the emotion, the feeling of being upset, had just been dealt with at the time it happened.

What happens in the case above is that an initial substantive disagreement grows into an emotional mess by being allowed to fester for a long time, and by the time it comes up, the original point is virtually obscured by the pent up emotion. By allowing yourself to process feelings when they come up, to see need to deal with. For example, if I have an argument with my spouse before work and I find myself really angry and upset, the best thing to do for me is to remove myself from the situation, process my anger (usually with a good cry), calm down, and think through whether or not there was really anything in the argument that we need to resolve of if we were just being cranky (yes, it even happens to life coaches). What I’ve found is that once I let my immediate emotional response dissipate after a cry or a little private “scream therapy” or a good round of kickboxing, I can see more clearly if there is a real conflict we need to resolve through “not a fight”, and then we can work on that rationally.

The key is to allow yourself to process the feelings and emotions freely so you can understand what your emotions are, process them, and then look at what’s left. It’s funny- there are folks who are “criers” for whom emotions are processed by having a good cry , often pretty short but intense, and then most emotions can be moved through (that’s me- a cry is my favorite way of dealing with being frustrated, mad, scared, etc.). For others, it’s going for a run, taking a hot bath, going for a long walk with the dogs, or taking a drive, provided you’re not too upset to do that. Whatever works for you, take the time to process your feelings- the thing about feelings is that they change, and as bad as they can be, over time, sometimes a long time in the case of grief and loss, they do dissipate and the view becomes clearer and hopefully, brighter.

I remember my first major grant rejection (long time ago, and many since then). I had led a blessed life in that regard; every grant I’d written had been funded and I expected this one to be no different. When I opened the envelope, however, and read the notice that I had not been funded, I was stunned. I cried. I smoked (having quit months before). I kicked my trashcan so hard it put a dent in my office wall. I was demoralized and felt like a failure.

However, when the tears dried and I un-crumpled my trashcan, I read the reviews, and they were actually really helpful. They pointed out some important stuff that I used to re-write the grant, which also was not funded, but on the 3rd try (the old days) it was funded. I learned that the “failure” was an opportunity to do better and that I had to reframe it as such. I learned to actually look forward (sort of) to failure, and that it can ultimately get me I want to go.

“There is no such thing as failure.”

When you read the quote above, what’s your reaction? Do you think it’s untrue? Silly glass-half-empty stuff? What if I told you that only you have the power to decide whether or not something is indeed, a “failure?” Obviously, I believe this is true as evidenced in the above vignette. In fact, I’ve come to believe that the word “failure” has no place in our vocabulary.

Why?

Remember when you played the “opposite day” game when you were a kid? You’d play practical jokes on your family and friends and release some passive aggression in the process of claiming “opposite day.” It was great—you could call the cutest boy in the class “ugly,” and then take it all back by simply exclaiming “opposite day!” But, the end result is the same; you still would have acknowledged his cuteness.

Well, let’s play the game. What if today, failure really means success?

How can you acknowledge your success, even as you utter the word “failure”? Well, you can point out:

a. everything that was learned in the process of getting to where you are now—surely not everything goes to the scrap heap

b. that simply being able to recognize everything hadn’t gone according to plan, or achieved the desired outcome (i.e. “failed”), is in itself a positive outcome

c. that the specific path you took this go round, clearly wasn’t the right one and so it has successfully been eliminated and will not be repeated

d. that you’ll know to do things differently in the future

e. that the experience has enabled you to grow in some way

“Failure” is feedback. “Failure” can simply be a great way to get us to pause in the midst of our process, and get some critical information to indicate that we may need to change direction, try something new, continue our learning, or shift our focus. Imagine what would happen if we didn’t get that feedback, and continued endlessly along the wrong path, toward the wrong goal, or without ever learning a new approach? The thought is pretty scary, isn’t it?

Failure then, can really be seen as positive feedback—information that gets us on the right track.
For, without it, we would surely be lost. The key then, is to identify it quickly, and change direction, try something new, or shift our focus.

Here are some tips:

 Always have a clear idea of where you want to go and continue to re-evaluate it as you move forward

 Identify specific milestones or markers along the way, to let you know you’re on the right track and celebrate each success

 If something doesn’t appear to be working, or working fast enough, don’t hesitate to try something new

 Continually learn—from others with whom you work, seek out experts, find others who may have traveled down a similar road before

And always remember:

“You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down”

“You NEVER fail until you stop trying”

“If you are not making any mistakes, you’re not really doing anything with your life”