Now What?® Coaching

from Laura Berman Fortgang

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A Soul-Saving Move

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Karina Gentinetta says her career reinvention was a soul-saving move.  After Hurricane Katrina destroyed her home in 2005, she continued to work as an attorney and began restoring antiques as a therapeutic hobby.  Four years later in 2009, Karina gave up her law-firm partnership and turned that hobby into a business.  Having lost everything in the hurricane and having endured financial and family strains, Karina was no longer afraid of change.  Commenting on where she is now, Karina says: “I’m seizing moments more than I ever have – I jumped off the cliff, and everything started falling into place.”

Contemplating a soul-saving move of your own?   If so, taking up a therapeutic hobby may be just the thing that brings possibility into view.

“Second Acts: Designing a New Life.”

 

 

It’s True: You Are Free

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“Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.”
— Voltaire

By Ginny Kravitz, Deputy Editor

Being free has many meanings.  Today, let’s focus on how the truth can set you free. Truth, communication, and freedom — a correlation most definitely exists.

Speak the Truth

Madeline is a client and health care professional who is realizing the power of communicating more effectively with her patients, staff, and others. Recently she summed up the benefits of what she calls “communicating clearly while holding my peace”:

“I get to walk away unburdened and free in many ways. What I have found amazing is how the truth of a situation just kind of rises to the top like cream. I have also seen that some folks operate with smoke and mirrors quite a bit. My new way of communicating blows all that stuff away so there is really nothing to hide behind. Most things just lay bare and hopefully we can move on.”

Pick Up The Key

What is the truth of your situation or whatever is challenging you most at this time? Before any significant progress can be made, it is essential to get real and tell the truth to yourself. For example, you may have some valid gripes about your work environment, but aside from those, you know deep down that you’ve wanted to make a change for years. Likewise, the truth about a relationship that irritates you may be that it’s time for you to no longer allow what you’ve previously tolerated.

The whole truth encompasses much more than the factors that constrain you; it includes what is within your power to change. What’s the part you can do something about? Is it an attitude, a new way of seeing yourself, a better way of communicating, or an action plan to formulate? The key is within your reach.

Exercise Your Freedom

We often perceive ourselves to be more limited in our choices than in fact we are. Do not dwell on where you feel constrained. Instead, realize how you are free.

This Week’s Call to Action:

Where in your life have you been operating as if imprisoned or unduly limited by your choices?Does it involve your job, a relationship, your time, having a voice?

Decide to do something you have been meaning to do or have just realized you are free to do. Whether on a large scale or a more subtle one, it does not matter. Do this because you can. Notice where you are free, realize what might be possible, and take action.

Exercise your freedom, demonstrate that you value it, and freedom flourishes.

“It is not the fact of liberty but the way in which liberty is exercised
that ultimately determines whether liberty itself survives.”
— Dorothy Thompson

Performing With Purpose

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by Now What?® Coaching Founder, Laura Berman Fortgang

Why do you do what you do? 

Have you asked yourself that lately?  Does it matter?  If you want to wake up full of energy, ready to tackle your day and excited about    what’s waiting in the office, than yes, it matters.

Knowing why you do what you do and what it is that you uniquely contribute brings great satisfaction, clarity and direction.  It also helps you feel that you are ‘on purpose’. 

Ennui and frustration set in when there is no growth, no challenge and no meaning. Don’t let that happen to you.

The WHY?

Why do what you do?  For yourself?  For your family?  To further a cause or a mission?  To move the world to a better place?  To amass wealth?

The ‘why’ is a great motivator.  You’ve heard the expression ‘keep your eye on the prize’.  The ‘why’ is the prize.

Some people do things to make others proud or to provide or to cause change.  Others do things to appease, please or assuage guilt.  Others still act out of revenge, envy or to prove something. 

Whatever works for you will be fuel for your dreams, you’ll use, but it might be worth erring to the side of the more loving qualities if it’s purpose and meaning you want as the core of why you perform.

The WHO

Completing the picture of performing with purpose is understanding that what you do is not going to make you happy unless you can truly express who you are through it.

Each of us serves a function for the people we come across in our work and in our lives.  Our choice becomes if we want to serve that function in a positive way or in a way that leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths.  In other words, do you leave people better off or worse off after dealing with you over the course of a day? 

Performing with purpose means seeking out opportunities to share that ‘magic dust’ that you exude and making it more and more a part of your daily existence. 

How do you figure out what that is?  Start asking people.  Yes, seriously. Start asking people you trust and what positive effect, if any, you have on them.  See where the answers start sounding the same and you will find critical mass building towards understanding your purpose.

Years ago, I worked with a very successful woman in telecom sales who was not having a very positive effect on the people around her.  When made aware of her impact, she wanted to change.  She wanted to leave people feeling better after being in contact with her. She made it her business to be encouraging and curious about other people.  She continued to be successful in her sales numbers, but she also started being tapped for her marketing ideas.  Within a few months, she made a full change to the marketing function and within a couple of years, her focus on performing with purpose led her to enter training and development and eventually getting trained as a certified coach.  None of these changes were part of any career plan, but rather a plan to live from a sense of purpose.  Her career path took her beyond any one she had dreamed for herself.

She had to figure it out for herself, but you can ask the people in your life and start doing more of what’s working.  Performing with purpose will be satisfying, meaningful, fun and reap surprising rewards. 

So what will it be?  “Magic Dust” or everyday grind?  Your choice.