Now What?® Coaching

from Laura Berman Fortgang

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COMMITMENT In A WORLD OF FAST CHANGE

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by Now What?® Coaching Founder, Laura Berman Fortgang

In our short-attention-span, instant-gratification, electronic world, it gets increasingly harder for people to stick with something.  Everything changes so quickly—our amazing new gizmo will become obsolete in two years or less, as will our initiatives in the workplace or at home. So many changes, at ever increasing speeds, makes it hard to commit to anything!

Why bother?

Well, there’s the obvious.  Commitment will get you where you want to go. Put on blinders, see nothing else, stay put and don’t wander.  Stay on task, stay focused.  The tougher part of commitment, however, is settling in on why one should commit—to anything.  If it’s going to change next month, isn’t it futile?

How does one commit in a hailstorm of change?  There are two ways: know where you’re headed and be loyal to a way of being instead of an actual task.  When you have a big picture of what you want to accomplish, it is easier to commit despite setbacks and changes.  Is it a 50-year marriage?  An income amount?  A certain company or college you want to get in to?  Stay loyal to that picture and be willing to do whatever it takes and change as many times as you have to to get there.

Secondly, decide (latin root: cut off all other options) WHO you want to be on this journey to the big picture.  Stressed and harried or collected and determined?  Choose a way of being that will fuel the journey to the big picture.  How you behave is much more in your control than all the circumstances are.  So choose carefully, and live that way of being the way a sailboat would catch the wind to get where it wants to go.

This reminds me of the Harry Potter series.  Harry’s big picture—make the most of his gifts of wizardry.  Harry’s way of being—take the high road, use his magic for good.  It doesn’t mean he didn’t have to pull a few punches, because he did.  However, he prevailed to conquer evil.  He had no idea of how he’d get there.  He had to change at every turn and be agile and quick.  He could not stay the same.  Only become better and better versions of himself.

That is what is being asked of you now.  To keep fine tuning the best of what you have to give and use it to it’s greatest advantage. For then and only then, will we make any sense of the unpredictability of change.

Five Women, Five Wake-Up Calls, Five Dreams Pursued

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An attorney who tapped her childhood roots to incorporate more creativity.

A reporter who learned how to say “no thank you” and returned to school for a degree in social work.

A publicist who decided it was time to start taking risks in her life.

A food editor who was drawn to the field of acupuncture.

A Wall Street sales trader who realized she “needed” to be a yoga instructor.

While each is unique, these five stories contain the common thread of listening to what’s calling you and taking a risk to do something different.  It’s interesting, too, that the work involved with making these changes –going back to school or figuring out how to make the numbers work– didn’t dissuade them from taking action.  That’s what happens when the passion is strong enough and the work is meaningful.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

“Career Transformations: How 5 Women Found Their Dream Jobs.”

How Good Are You At Asking For Help?

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By Ginny Kravitz, Deputy Editor

72 Thank-You Notes

After months of networking and doing all the right things that a professional does when laid off from a 30-year career, Genevieve hit a low point. During two painfully quiet weeks waiting for the phone to ring, all she felt was discouraged. Then it happened. In a matter of a few days, six invitations for interviews streamed in along with a solid job offer. Marveling at how things could change so quickly, Genevieve was grateful to see the seeds she had planted finally sprouting.

The very first thing she did after accepting an offer was make a list of people to thank. That list had 72 names on it — that’s 72 people who helped her in some way during her job search. As she set to work writing thank-you notes, Genevieve told me she had “writer’s cramp for a great reason”.

Picturing Genevieve writing all those notes got me thinking about my own list of 11 people who —just within these past two weeks— have helped me in some way with a current project I’m working on.  Considering that this list would be longer if the snapshot was of a month vs. two weeks, I’d say I’m not shy about asking for help!

Opening Up To Accepting Help

Rebecca, who completed the Now What?® program earlier this year, recently called to tell me how happy she is with the direction she is pursuing and that after going through a period of uncertainty, she has recently made great progress. I asked her what had made the difference in creating this new momentum and without hesitation she answered: “Opening up to accepting help. Accepting that we can’t do it all. You work it out by letting go. Piece by piece, you learn to let go of many things. Opportunities show up. Things fall into place once you start moving.”

My niece Mary Grace, now a sophomore at Villanova University, wrote about this issue in one of her college application essays. Acknowledging that she previously viewed needing help to be an admission of inferiority, Mary Grace states, “Now I consider the art of asking for help not as a sign of weakness, but of self-assurance, maturity, and courage. So at the risk of appearing imperfect, I ask for help anyway.”

Who Can Help You With That?

Rebecca cites opening up to accepting help as the breakthrough from uncertainty to momentum. Mary Grace now considers asking for help an “art”. How good are you at asking for help? If your answer is “not so good,” make it a point to get better.

This Week’s Call to Action:

Within the last 30 days, who has given you some kind of help? Whether it was in large or small ways, appreciate the value of what was offered and apply it well.

Name three people who can help you with a current problem or endeavor. Reach out to them now.

“…I eventually realized that learning comes at least as much
through exposure to and interaction with others’ gifts and knowledge
as it does through individual effort.”
— Mary Grace Mangano