Personal Mission? What, Why and How.

What's so important about YOUR personal mission? It's the KEY to YOUR purpose. It's what's special about you. It's what really matters to you. It's what you bring to the world and that which draws people to you. It's what makes you feel natural, vital, energized. It provides resilience, focus and hope when things are tough, blurry or you're at a loss.

If you care where you're going and why, if you want to embrace and share

 your unique value,

 if you want satisfaction and joy, then a personal mission statement is for you. 

You can have a personal mission statement for your professional life, another for your private life. Or you can combine all components of your life into one. And not to complicate things, but such statements are not fixed. As your life changes, and as you want to change your life, so will your personal mission change. What's important is having one and making it front and center of what you commit to, spend your precious time and energy on. It's how you brand yourself. (We all brand ourselves by what we say and do, so why not make it conscious both for your own sake and for that of others?)

Identify your personal mission in 5 invaluably self-indulgent steps:

1.  Set aside an hour of uninterrupted 'it's all about me' time  (yep, calendar it). Go to a coffee shop where you won't see anyone you know; sit in a favorite place: a garden, your living room, a hilltop, the beach

2.  Take a journal and pen (re: not your phone or computer…this is your uninterrupted time!)

3.  Brainstorm - make 3 columns on a page

a. Great column: For 10 minutes write as many words as you can listing: What am I great at? What do I love to do? What personal talents inspire me? What makes me think, 'I'm proud of that quality in myself'?

b. Help Who column: For 10 minutes write about: Who and/or what do I want to help with my great attributes?
c. Outcome column: For 10 minutes list your expected outcomes: What do I hope to produce, enact, cause?
4. Circle key words in each column. Determine if your words reflect a professional, private or combo personal mission statement. Put the words together until you can see, hear and feel the essence of who you are -- at this point in your life. Look at list a. to determine whether you want one or more personal mission statements. Enjoy this 30 minutes of your journey.
5. Share your statement with friends, mentors, colleagues and family who can support you as you move forward with this vision leading the way!

This is 'don't be shy, don't hold back time. Go for it!'

Opening to YOUR personal mission,

Dana

p.s. Here's my combo personal mission statement: 'To use my enthusiastic, open-minded curiosity to elicit the best in people so that they recognize and celebrate their unique value and use it to positively impact the world.' 

Know What's Nudging You? Know What's Nudging You!

In last Sunday's New York Times Business section, there was an article on the power of nudging.  

Nudging builds on a series of trials to see what 'it' is that gets people 

inspired to change what they're doing or to do something new. 

The article sighted nudging to inspire people to job hunt, to pay taxes and to get their attics insulated, actions that promote individual and community prosperity. For job seekers, it, the nudge, is journaling about one's feelings of being unemployed, or whatever else comes up around job hunting. To get people to pay taxes, the nudge is messaging about how others in the community are paying their share. In trying to get people to insulate their attics, researches were surprised to find that financial incentives didn't work. However, providing a service to help clean up accumulated messes in people's attics was just the nudge needed. The results of such nudges --versus those who didn't receive nudges: jobs were found more quickly, more people paid their taxes (and on time) and there were communities of homeowners' whose cleaned and insulated attics resulted in significant reductions in their heating bills. 
Flipping through the Pink section of the SF Chronicle, I came upon the horoscope page. Mine (Capricorn) read something like: You will enjoy shopping this holiday season. As it turned out, I was planning to go shopping that afternoon. And, prior to reading my horoscope, I had had visions (nightmares) of too many cars on the road, stores jammed with people and products that I didn't want, and the doubt (dread) of not being able to find just the right gift for everyone on my list. 
However, something happened upon reading: You will enjoy shopping this holiday season. I said to myself in that moment: Wow. Really? I'm going to enjoy it? A switch went on, a bright, in-the-holiday-spirit kind of switch. At the same time, the switch of doom disappeared. I'd been nudged. 
And to my surprise, my positive attitude carried me through the crowds and ugly ties and towards just the right scarf and …given who might be reading this, I don't want to give any other my day's just-right finds away.
My nudge came about coincidentally. On further thought, it's possible that the nudge article primed my pump to be open to such nudges). And this got me thinking further. Nudging is not only for economists, governments, educators, parents, coaches... 

Why not build in personal nudges when we need them? 

Try some out, see what happens: inside and out. Start simply. Smile, laugh, breathe, give a hug… It takes being conscious of our feelings and thoughts and subsequent actions, those that make us anxious or frustrated, so that we may nudge them into a more beneficial, positive place, and those that energize and calm us so that we may access the appropriate nudge as needed.

Happy and Merry Nudging,

Dana

Solving the Priority Puzzle

"I've got so much on my plate that I care about. How can I do it all?" "I value this, I value that. How do I choose to say 'yes' to this and 'no' to that and not feel guilty in the process?" In a word, how can I be true to all my values including self-care, family, friends, career, community…?
It's true. We often live in a conflicting/conflicted state, particularly when everything seems essential 'right now'. This sense of urgency grows, as does an unnecessary stress level, every time we look at the clock tick-tocking the precious minutes away.  

Here are 5 how-tos about living from and for all your values with integrity 
in the long and short run.

1. Choose contextually  Rather than take a panoramic view of all your values all the time, narrow your lens to what is most important now. Not forever, just now. This now may require an hour, a day, a week or month. Focus primarily on that priority. You are not relinquishing your other values; you're honoring them, in turn. This brings us to...
2. Convert guilt into commitment You have assessed the myriad responsibilities and desires in front of you. With everything you know, you've prioritized and chosen where and how to devote yourself for now. As essential: assess what is enough (does it always need to be 'perfect' or will 'satisfactory' or 'cursory' suffice), then put in the energy, time and resources needed to each prioritized value as it reaches the front of your cue. 
3. Communicate Share your values and priorities. If gone unstated, others may feel shunned rather than enlightened by your thoughtfulness around what, why and when you're saying 'no' and 'yes' to commitments.
4. Ask for help/reprieve  Who can assist you? What might be renegotiated? As important, what can be put off or let go of all together? 
5. Take continual care of yourself  Like your breath (are you breathing?!), life is an ebb and flow of busyness, overwhelm and calm. Rather than victimized, you can choose how to be regardless of the circumstance. How? Through moment-by-moment practices. Smile when the phone rings. Breathe before answering an email. Schedule and take breaks - walk outside or take a nap for 10 revitalizing, centering minutes (particularly in the afternoon). Laugh!

Design your life's puzzle,

Dana

p.s. I invite you to sign up for my weekly blog.

Weeds or Wildflowers: Where Does Your Attention Land?

Experiences matter. 
Experiences of worry and anxiety or happiness and love can make real changes in your neural networks. Your attention is like a combination spotlight and vacuum cleaner: It highlights what it lands on and then sucks it into your brain—for better or worse.

There’s a traditional saying that the mind takes its shape from what it rests upon. Based on what we’ve learned about experience-dependent neuroplasticity, a modern version would be that the brain takes its shape from what the mind rests upon. 

Consider two mind-focused options & outcomes:

1. Self-criticism, worries, grumbling about others, hurts, and stress = a brain shaped into greater reactivity, vulnerability to anxiety and depressed mood, a narrow focus on threats and losses, and inclinations toward anger, sadness, and guilt.

OR,
2. Resting your mind on good events and conditions (someone was nice to you, there’s a roof over your head), pleasant feelings, the things you do get done, physical pleasures, and your good intentions and qualities = over time, a brain with a different shape, one with strength and resilience hard-wired into it, as well as a realistically optimistic outlook, positive mood, and a sense of worth.

Reflect back over the past hour, day, week. Where has your mind been resting? 
Are you creating, thus experiencing a life of weeds or wildflowers?

Living mindfully,

Dana

(excerpted -with my amendments- from Dr. Rick Hanson's, Hardwiring Happiness.) 

What's Worth Doing in Your Life? Is It Worth Dying For?

Sushmita Banerjee was committed to helping poor Afghani women receive medicine they would otherwise not have access to. She also wrote about and had a movie made about escaping the Taliban. Until they caught up with her. "They had heard of the dispensary I was running from my house. I am not a qualified doctor. But I knew a little about common ailments, and since there was no medical help in the vicinity, I thought I could support myself and keep myself busy by dispensing medicines. The members of the Taliban who called on us were aghast that I, a woman, could be running a business establishment. They ordered me to close down the dispensary and branded me a woman of poor morals.

"They also listed out do's and don'ts. The burkha was a necessity. Listening to the radio or playing a tape recorder was banned. Women were not allowed to go to shops. They were even prohibited from stepping out from their houses unless accompanied by their husbands. All women had to have the names of their husbands tattooed on their left hand. Virtually all interaction between men and women outside the confines of their own homes was banned."

She was gunned down this week. 

What's worth doing in your life, despite the odds? Are you doing it? 

Passion and purpose,

Dana