Being difficult

This week I learnt a not-so-nice lesson about myself - I cannot stop myself from challenging solutions imposed. Unfortunately this is not an ideal quality considering the consulting space I operate in. Partly my rebellious nature of not just 'taking' a solution or plan, and partly my pressing need to HAVE to think about the issue myself forces me to start asking questions. I suppose often irritating, maybe even intimidating and uncomfortable questions. Of course this does not mean that I may come up with a better solution or idea, I just have this pressing need to understand, or okay then, challenge the solution. Test it, so to speak.

My 3 year old's mantra is "Don't tell me!" He also does not want to be told what to do. The people close to us found interesting ways to 'tell' us - to ensure our buy-in. My all-time favourite mommy-trick is giving the two (solutions) options: "Are you wearing the green or blue top?" Or my husband's 'question' most evenings: "Do you want to bath the kids or make dinner?" Very sly, but effective. We feel not only consulted, but as if we had a choice, we were not told what needs to happen.

Which brings me to my "a-ha" moment. I experienced one of the most frustrating, uncomfortable and embarrassing meetings earlier this week. In my consulting career I have experienced a variety of, let's call them 'uniquely challenging', clients and consulting colleagues. I suspect that this severe sense of dread was most likely only my experience, as the present management team and other consultants seemed quite used to the inappropriate, almost emotionally abusive behaviour of the client.

When reflecting on the meeting, I realised why it was such a horrible experience for me. I was not allowed the space to contribute, question, 'be difficult'. We were 'told'.

Without saying it, the client basically told all of us present to not think, or challenge the solutions given. I know in having to live your best life, one of the key skills to realise your unique personal vision is to be able to challenge solutions and think more. Your self-perception of this skill is also measured by the Motto Individual Assessment http://goo.gl/J4jfg on our website.

Feeling looked after

All of us want to feel 'looked after'.

I see this so often, especially in the consulting work that I do. Recently I sat in a meeting at a client where staff losses were discussed. The topic came up because a smart and talented, maybe a little arrogant, young man resigned.

I did not get the sense that management or any of his colleagues saw this coming. In the exit interview he suggested that he did not really have a future in the company and his interests or opinions were not valued. At this point you may think, "Ah yes, he is arrogant." The irony is, in all the research (with Motto Survey tool) that I do at various clients, this issue for staff comes up without fail. They do not feel 'looked after'. They want their voices to be heard in the organisation, and they want to know where they are going in their careers.

When I share this staff need with management they generally get very irritated - "What, so I have to stroke their ego's now?!" or "Nobody asks me 'Dear Mr MD, are you feeling stimulated, rewarded and valued?' Oh no, I just have to get on with it!"

In my opinion we have to take full responsibility for our own careers, sense of belonging and personal development, so I get the frustration of my MD friend completely. Unfortunately that does not take away that 'looked after' need.

Early on in my relationship with my husband we agreed that when I felt vulnerable and had the need to feel (extra!) adored, I would tell him. So every now and then I would ask, "Darling, so tell me how pretty am I?" and then I would enjoy being soaked with compliments. Arrogant? No way! Being looked after.

The same strategy could work in terms of this 'looked after' or support need. This concept of empowering ourselves with the necessary support systems in our lives is one of the elements of the Motto Model http://goo.gl/cNnpy  that we need to put in place in realising our personal vision.

Missing "L's" and 

other serious stuff

Lying awake last night after repeatedly singing Barney's "I love you, you love me" song in the middle of the night, (apologies to everyone that knows this song, and will now also be singing it the entire day...), I realised how I cannot take myself too seriously.

I had one of those moments where you watch the scene as if you are in your own movie. We are doing our own version of 'sleep training' and the only way we could calm our baby girl down, was to sing THAT song, over and over.

Earlier the day I had another "You must be kidding me"-moment.

I am running a public workshop with a friend and colleague, Jeremy Barty, later this month. A staff member had to post the flyer for this workshop on our website's social media backlink. This feeds into our Motto Facebook page, my LinkedIn network, my twitter account and my personal Facebook friends. Basically sending it to everyone I know.

The flyer post should have read "Join our public workshop.", but instead the critical "L" in "public" was not there...

The first phone call was from my husband, also receiving the social media feed. I was driving on my way to a client and had to pull over, laughing. Seriously?

In my line of work, consulting, we (the consultants, HR people, management) can take ourselves so seriously. When something like this happens, you have to re-assess your own positioning and how you see yourself. Will I be okay, regardless of what others will say or how embarrassing the moment might be?

This is the kind of self awareness creating questions that the Motto Individual Assessment tool looks at and one if the themes we will be tackling in our workshop. I hope you will be able to join us. I promise that the “L” will be solidly in place!

Link to the workshop flyer: http://goo.gl/BmFjo

Filling the bucket

I have a client that is currently dealing with difficult personal challenges. At the same time the business is also going through major change. Although these changes are all very positive and exciting it is never the less exceptionally taxing on the owner, my client.

As much as we like to think we can compartmentalize our lives, the reality is that all of our life 'compartments' tap into the same emotional energy source. I like to call it the emotion bucket.

We fill our buckets with good, positive, nurturing emotions. After throwing a little tantrum on our way to school, I had to explain the emotion bucket concept to my kids. Please note: I threw the tantrum, not the kids.

My bucket was empty. We had a 'challenging' morning, I had to cope with normal mommy morning stuff. The depletion of the bucket was accelerated by lack of sleep and being aware of the waiting workload. An insignificant thing like realising I forgot to return a rented DVD pushed me into an 'empty bucket state'.

During a session with the client I mentioned earlier, it became clear that this person was not allowing herself any opportunity to 'refill' her bucket. She was only focussing on working harder, doing more. Not making time for nurturing, resting, thinking, dreaming and all the other things that help fill our buckets.

Sometimes we only need to become aware of how we are coping (or not coping) to be able to start making life changes. Our self perception measurement tool would do this for you. It gives clear feedback on elements such as this that could be holding you back in life. Have a look on our website http://goo.gl/UhC7V.

To be or not to be

Today, when I was driving home with the kids in the car, I overheard a conversation between my Grade 1 and Grade 2 boys. The older brother was explaining to the younger (devastated!) brother why it is okay not to be chosen for the athletics team. "Some kids are fast and others are brainy".

I had to laugh. And for the record, that is not something we teach our kids, even though neither my husband nor I will call ourselves 'fast' or 'runners', and quite often I don't feel particularly 'brainy' either.

My son has figured out a way to be okay with what he has got to work with, whether his labelling is accurate or not.

Personally it took me a very long time to be okay with who I am, accepting what I have to work with. I remember how I struggled to conform and my 'otherwise' nature often caused me (or my parents) great frustration or discomfort.

Now, many years later, and lots of self-doubt moments in-between, I know that this questioning and even rebellious nature is part of who I am. And I like it. I am very comfortable with it, and I believe it is partly the reason why I know I am successful as a consultant.

Please allow me to put this "being okay-ness" in context to the Motto model I developed. Being proud of who you are forms part of what we call your 'Internal product' or 'Personal offering' construct. If you are not okay or not proud of yourself, this element will hold you back on your life journey of realising your personal vision. As I always mention, the Individual Assessment tool measures all of the elements that relates to this and you can find it on our website at http://goo.gl/UhC7V.

Speaking your mind

Some people struggle to say what they feel or think. They hold back. They do not share their emotions.

This is something my 3 year old son and I cannot do. We have to express ourselves. Our challenge lies in identifying the true feeling we need to express.

Recently I read that often the emotion 'anger' can be a mask for another underlying emotion, or true feeling. Initially when I read it I did not completely 'get' it until I woke up one morning being very angry with everyone and everything in my household. Dare I say irrational?! When I started talking to my husband about what was 'wrong', none of the issues were really issue-enough to be that angry.

Then I realised that I had anxiety and fear about something completely non-related to my reasons for my burst of 'anger'.

Similarly my 3 year old has also been very angry lately, and sometimes even aggressive. When we started looking at what the 'true feelings' were that he needed to recognise we realised that he was struggling to find the words or to see the emotions he is suppressing. We can see that my dear son feels excluded from the big brothers' play, he feels jealous of his incredibly cute baby sister and possibly a little anxious about starting at a new pre-school.

Both of us opted to express the 'angry' feeling, and not the true feeling. We can assert ourselves wonderfully (or not so wonderfully...) when we talk about the frustrations related to being angry. We really struggle to express our true feelings. And those are the ones all of us need to get out more often.

It is difficult to see when your perceptions about your own behaviour is not a reflexion of the reality. The mindset measurement tool we have on our website, http://goo.gl/UhC7V , can help you see where you might be holding yourself back on your journey to living your best life.

Killing God's creatures

Today my 6 year old was in tears, refraining to come to the lunch table. He was punishing himself for 'killing God's creatures'.

He killed a fly.

It took me some time to convince him that he can forgive himself, and just not do it again. He bought it quite easily. It could be that he was really hungry and the morality issue became a non-issue.

At the same lunch table a single mother and her baby girl was waiting. It was interesting to see how tough she was on herself and her daughter. I almost got the sense that she too was punishing herself, this time not for killing flies. The father of the little girl left them not long after her birth. Since then she has gained a lot of weight, and stopped making proper eye contact, hardly ever smiling or laughing.

In my view this young women has not only lost the father of her child, but also her self-worth.

Often we allow others to punish us, or we punish ourselves in self destructive ways. Either by withholding ourselves from something we yearn for, like my son and his terrible deed, or not allowing ourselves to be who we could be. Not allowing yourself to live your purpose, because somewhere in your psyche you believe you don't really deserve it, or are worth that much.

This of course could never be true, but you are so used to convincing yourself, that eventually your self-worth is almost non-existing and you are hating the life you have created for yourself.

There are ways to get out of this destructive cycle. A good start would be to do the Motto Individual Assessment in order to determine your current self perception of your self-worth and other relevant related elements. This self measurement tool is available on our website.