JOY IS: Making a New Beginning

I am in a coaching session with a client. My client is an intelligent, mature, controlled and analytical man. Although I have known him for a while, this is our first coaching session. The weight of the many responsibilities he is carrying is evident from his drooped shoulders. He is a computer engineer and a mid-level manager. In private life, he is the father of a young family. He is striving to do best on all fronts.

He is going over different areas of his life, from the “Wheel of Life”. It is hard to tell his emotions, he is almost poker-faced, only a flicker in the eye, now and then. He is talking slowly and in an even voice, carefully selecting words in describing areas of his life that are less satisfying than the others. While talking about Fun and Hobbies area, which he has scored the lowest. He looks away a few of seconds trying to conceal the longing for putting yourself first.

In the city, daylight hours are spent working in demanding corporate jobs. Mid-level managers are the most stressed, sandwiched between the pressure of executive management with the demands of their teams. This is a trying time of life, usually the kids are small, chores are split between spouses, parents are aging and requiring more support. There is no time to just “be” or do things only for yourself. Days end lying stretched out like a log on the couch, beaten with exhaustion. That is, if you can go offline. Most companies now expect you to read and respond to your e-mails out of office as well. As an attempt to numb the brain from the endless rambling of the over-worked mind, TV is watched or more so “stared at”. Family conversations are heard, but not listened to. The day feels unlived. The mind does not shup up. So the tendency is to stay up late. The next sleep-deprived day starts with pale skin and under-eye circles, only to repeat like “The Groundhog Day”. Each day is the repetition of roughly the same scenario.

Thus day after day, week after week, month after month and year after year life passes by mostly in “auto-pilot” mode. Literally! Routines and repetitive behaviors are stored and automated by our brain so that during these activities there is very little activity overall in our brain. An ancient part of the brain called the basal ganglia is responsible of these habits or repeating routines. Our brains are wired to constantly look for ways to save effort, so when we start repeating same behavior it stores the routine and later uses it when necessary, without involving “thinking” parts of the brain much. Of course, this mechanism is very useful, otherwise we would have to learn to do basic things over and over again, such as tying your shoelaces. However, there are two downsides.

Firstly, whatever your life style is, when you look back, life is a series of memories. Long standing memories are created from experiences that stand out somehow either emotionally or because the experience is different from ordinary. Several months later what do you remember from the uneventful work days at the office or from weekends that you did nothing special or days you spent doing only house-work? Memory-wise they are empty, unlived, they have disappeared in an infinite dark well.

Secondly, letting the “auto-pilot” run your life, deprives you from living your life intentionally, which is the only way to live in way that is deeply meaningful to you, to evolve towards your best self, to make necessary changes timely and to enrich your life by learning new things! Simply, because you are not driving! Considering the way technology is evolving, maybe even you are in a self-driving car!

I have always felt like September is the beginning of a new year, rather than January. With the summer ending, most vacations are finished, schools are starting, business starts picking up, most courses and seminars start the new season and corporations initiate works for next year’s budget.

I take advantage of this time of new beginnings to intentionally plan my year according to the bigger picture I want. For example, it was in the last September’s planning period that I decided to reject corporate job offers and work freelance in a totally new area for me.

I do the planning in writing, because I truly believe in the power of written words. Writing your plans make them more concrete. They become a commitment to yourself and give a clear direction to your brain to work towards. Do I complete everything I have planned? No. But I certainly get done much more and I move much closer to my vision, compared to a life in “stand-by”!

The process I follow goes like this:

1. What are my key targets / objectives for this year?

Key targets or objectives are the focus areas arising from the vision of the year. They should be maximum 3 to 5 in number, because each key target will require a multitude of actions and the brain has the capacity to focus and track only a limited number of major things. This does not mean you will not do anything else, but it means these are the larger pebbles to put in the container, so that you make sure they get in. Otherwise, when the year is over, all you will have is a jar of little pebbles! Key targets are what you will write on your board and that you look at every day. They are like the theme of your year!

In determining the vision for key targets, ask yourself:

     a) Reflect on the macro view of your life. Some questions that help:

What is most important for you and what are you willing to take off your plate for that?

If your life was a book, what would be title of the book? Which chapter are you at?

What are your values and what are ways to live them more fully?

What do you want your legacy to be?

Who do you want to become?

b) Reflect on the macro view of the year. Some questions that help:

What is the next chapter for you?

When it is the end of this year and if you had a great, satisfying year in almost every way, what will have happened, what will have you accomplished? (These should be of course things you have control over!)

           Then go back and ask: For these to happen by the end of the year, what should I be focusing on between now and the end of the year?

Key targets for me last year were:

• Setting up my business
• Completing my coach training and certification and adapting to a new way of working
• Developing my knowledge in Sufism.

2. What NEW things do I want to learn or do?

In order to activate different parts of our brain and generate new neural pathways, we need to learn and do new things. Especially learning things that are quite different from our strengths, is transformational! An engineer learning to paint or play an instrument or a musician learning creative writing are examples of targeting to work “weaker brain muscles”! Learning a new language is of course always great for our brain.

Variety in style is also an important consideration, i.e. mental versus physical, artistic versus analytical, individual versus social. For example, if you work at a bank and sit and crunch numbers all day, how about going to a cooking school to learn cooking or taking a dancing class? The important thing is not to be a perfectionist. While learning and trying new things, enjoy the journey rather than expecting perfect results from yourself and getting stressed.

Start your planning list by writing down new things you want to learn or do this year, so that you make sure “new” stuff is already in there before you further drill down to goals. Last year, getting trained in NLP, learning how to make croissants, learning how to make fresh pasta from scratch were among the items in my list that I enjoyed.

3. Where do I want to go?

Next, I add the trips (abroad and domestic) I want to take and specific places I want to visit in the city I live in, to the planning list. Travelling and visiting new places creates wonderful memories, stretches the imagination and expands knowledge. If we do not have the budget to travel to other cities or abroad, there are always places waiting to be discovered close by or that can be reached via a short bus ride.

To tell you the truth, I add places I want to go to the list at this stage, because it really motivates me for the upcoming year! Last year, spending a day at the Grand Bazaar, discovering the flourishing Tophane area and going to the Amalfi Coast were places in my list, that I loved visiting.

4. What are my goals?

The next step would be to set goals in different aspects of life and add them to your planning list. You can determine the different aspects of life you want to set goals in. For goals to be effective they famously should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely). The categories I use are:

·      Career/Work

·      Relationships

o   Romantic,

o   Core Family

o   Extended Family

o   Friends & Social

·      Home and Other Locations

·      Financial

·      Health and Personal Care

·      Personal Development

·      Entertainment/Fun

·      Spiritual

• Firstly, make sure goals that will make your key targets/objects happen, get into the list.
• Some goals are just activities that need to be scheduled, such as your yearly check ups, doctor/dental appointments, birthdays, special days to be celebrated, etc.
• Other goals may require you to research and enroll into some courses/seminars.
• Maybe you have some relationship goals, such as spending more time with your mother, for which you need to schedule a regular time to visit her.
• Some goals may require a concentrated effort for a specific time period, such as remodeling your living room.
• A personal development goal of reading 2 books a month, requires being flexible in actual timing, but tracking that you accomplish it within a time period.

5. Work on the timing and the calendar

Then I open the e-calendar and start putting in all things that can already be scheduled.

• Mark the school breaks, national holidays, birthdays, other special days.
• Mark events that I want to follow, such as festivals.
• I discuss with my husband family vacations and trips.
• We discuss with friends about joint trips and mark the exact or likely time and place.
• Note activities that should occur in a certain month or enter reminders for them, at the beginning of the month. Later when the time comes, I actually make the appointments.
• Enter reminders for regular activities, such as a monthly facial, children’s school meetings, etc.

For items that can’t be placed on the calendar, I maintain the planning list grouped in categories and try to putdown an approximate time, such as a month or quarter, beside each item.

Finally, the outputs of the yearly planning activity are

• Key targets / objectives that will serve to focus and guide you through out the year,
• Your calendar already filled with a lot of information and planning, so that you are already organized,
• A list of categorized goals with approximate timings.

As you are going through the year, use the key targets and planning list in your daily, weekly, monthly planning and keep updating the calendar and your list.

My trainer in coach certification program was Alex Verlek van Tienhoven. Alex is a wonderful human being, who perfectly embodies being a great coach. He is a Dutch man, who is now living in southeastern France. One of the many nuggets of wisdom that remains from Alex is that he uncovers the vision of his customers in three pillars: What they want

1. their perception by the environment,

2. their impact,

3. their legacy

to be. Alex posts gorgeous pictures in Facebook almost daily and an attached comment starting with “JOY IS:”. In his post on September 15, 2017, he stated that joy is celebrating his 10 years in coaching. This has inspired the heading and ending to this blog post.

JOY IS: Living life intentionally on your own terms. Whatever the circumstances are are!

Again, we are back to CHOICE. Dear reader, “What do you choose for yourself this year?”.