Escape from Cubicle Nation

8 Strategies to get the most from painful or awkward life transitions

Given my current state of flux (4 days till baby is due and counting!), in this month's ezine,  I thought I would share some tips for getting through the rough, uncomfortable part of major life transitions.  It can be a disorienting time, but it has its upsides too!

Here is the article:

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These days, life doesn't stay static for very long.  It seems like as soon as you get comfortable with where you are that things change and you are forced to adapt your schedule, your finances or your emotions.

 

But there are some life transitions that are truly life-altering, and put you in a state of extended discomfort, unease, awkwardness or even depression.  These can be things like:

• Losing your job
• Getting married
• Having a baby
• Moving
  
• Retiring
• Death of a loved one
  
• Leaving a long-term relationship
  
• Seeing your last kid off to college
  
• Going from employee to entrepreneur

Some of you may have chuckled as you saw I included "positive" events like marriage and the birth of children as having awkward, painful or even depressive emotional side effects.  The interesting thing is that no matter what the ultimate benefit of a change, going from "what was" to "what will be" can be very unsettling.

 

One of the utmost authorities on change and transition, William Bridges, in his book Transitions:  Making Sense of Life's Changes refers to the period between "endings" (your old life) and "beginnings" (your new life) as The Neutral Zone.  This term was first coined over 75 years ago by Dutch anthropologist Arnold van Gennep who noticed that in most traditional societies, all ceremonies marking change involved separation, transition (which he called the neutral zone) and incorporation.

 

If you find yourself in this transition period, or neutral zone, you may notice the following symptoms:

 

Physical:

• Low energy
• Increased awareness of aches and pains
• Heaviness in chest or pit in stomach
• Light headedness
  
• Inability to concentrate

Emotional:

• Sadness
• Anxiety
  
• Restlessness
• Fluctuating emotions:  happy and positive one day, negative and depressed the next
• "Spaciness"
  
• Crankiness (just ask my husband about this, when the transition is pregnancy, and you have the added benefit of raging hormones in a time of great personal transition) 

To this day, many traditional societies mark significant changes with rituals that help with the transition process.  In my husband's Navajo culture, for example, male and female puberty ceremonies are marked by four days of isolated reflection, sharing of wisdom between the young and elderly, time in nature, and disconnection from "modern conveniences" including electronics and all forms of media.

 

In today's society, if we get slowed down by a significant life transition and can't keep up a frantic level of activity and output, we ask ourselves:

 

• What is wrong with me?
• Why can't I just get it together and move on?
• Why is it so hard to get things done right now?
• Will I ever go back to feeling like my "old self?"

The reality is, being in this awkward state of transition is an extremely creative and ripe period.  Here are eight strategies for getting the most out of this juicy time:

1. Embrace it.  Instead of asking yourself "When am I going to get back to normal?",  be thankful that you are given an opportunity to reflect on your life and possibly come out with a new, improved, emotionally healthier you.  You may not want to do this in public, but repeat the mantra "uncertainty is powerful and liberating!" as often as you can, and you may just begin to believe it.
   
2. Carve out quiet, reflective time.  I find that people who are in the midst of a career change feel extremely guilty for taking any time off between the "old gig" and the new.  But in fact, if you don't take some time off between endeavors, you are much more likely to either choose the wrong vocation, or find yourself just as frustrated in your new situation as you were in your old one.  So don't beat yourself up if you feel the need to just space out, take long walks, or cook good meals.
   
3. Do something creative.  If you are a frustrated artist, now is the perfect time to break out your paints, or clay, or camera, and engage your creative senses.  You want to be more in a state of feeling rather than thinking, and creative pursuits are great for that.
   
4. Ask yourself "What am I afraid of?"  Your fears hold lots of  information which can shape your new life.  If you are getting married, you may fear losing your independence, or your prized Hot Car collection, or your sense of spontaneous passion.  Don't choke down these fears, look at them closely and use them as the basis for good, healthy discussion with your spouse-to-be about how you can design a life to incorporate the things that are important to both of you.
   
5. "Try on" different scenarios that don't fit the "old" you.  When you are working full-time as an employee, or raising teenagers, or whatever your "old life" consisted of, you can get set in a certain persona.  As you leave your familiar role ("I am the ultimate mother figure to my kids whose primary goal is to support and nurture") and move towards your uncertain future role, try on some new, totally different scenarios  ("I am a wanderlust-filled traveller whose only thought is how to indulge my every whim, dance on tabletops and eat exotic food.")  You may just find that the person you once were, or always wanted to be, is just waiting for you to step into her shoes.
   
6. Tune up your health.  When I went through a slow period in my consulting business a couple of years ago, I used the free time as a way to get back into working out.  I took up yoga, pilates and kickboxing, dropped 20 pounds and found that my overall emotional well-being skyrocketed.  A time of great personal transition is NOT the time to indulge in drugs or alcohol as it will only drown out your creative voice and reinforce feelings of fear and anxiety when you wake up next to your empty tequila bottle.  Instead, eat healthily, exercise and breathe in as much clean air as you can and you will find that peace and clarity emerges from deep within.
7. Cut back on obligations to ensure alone time.  You want to reduce as many obligations as you can so that your primary focus is yourself.  So just because you don't have a "day job" anymore, don't volunteer to chair the holiday food drive at your local shelter, or to watch the neighbor's 3-year old quadruplets.  Once you are clear and moving in your new life, you can train for sainthood on earth again.  For now, clean out the lint from your own bellybutton.
   
8. Clear out clutter.  A period of transition is a great time to clear out junk, boxes, papers, pictures, old clothes, moldy food from the back of your refrigerator and expired cans from the pantry.  A clean environment really does contribute to a clean mind.  I am also a big fan of rearranging furniture since it will get you comfortable with seeing familiar things in a new and different way.

The last thought I want to leave you with is don't rush through the neutral zone.  If you utilize some of these strategies and engage your creativity, you will know when it is time to stop navel-gazing and get busy with your new plans.  Your "new improved you" will thank yourself for it!

Please share what you have learned about slowing down and savoring your changes!

 

The power of hard deadlines to get things done

I love to blame my Dad for my propensity to finish my work just-in-time for a deadline, since I have memories of him hunched over a typewriter late at night, furiously finishing a story the night before it was due.

But since I am 41 years old, that is a bit of a cop-out since I have had plenty of time to establish my own habits.  Not to mention that my sister saw the same thing and is always on time or early with everything she does.   So much for unproven genetic theories. (It doesn't mean I don't tease my Dad about it whenever I get the chance)

Despite the patterns of procrastination you grew up around, there is a wonderful benefit in establishing clear, specific, real deadlines as a way to get things done.  When you have a real deadline:

• Priorities become instantly clear.  That which absolutely doesn't have to get done won't.
• You get a rush of creative energy since your focus is not distracted by ten other things.
• You reign in expectations for perfection, since you don't have endless time to tweak and edit your work.

Establishing real deadlines as an entrepreneur can be tricky, since some things you have to complete are not related to a client deliverable or reporting requirement.  How can you create deadlines for "improvement" or "enhancement" activities such as:

• Updating or upgrading your website or blog
• Creating new products or programs
• Writing articles or other marketing activities

Here are some suggestions:

1. Participate in a class or group coaching program which includes a specific deadline for a specific deliverable.  Right now, I am enrolled in The Product Factory, which is a 3-month program that gives guidance and structure for creating information products.  After procrastinating to create a product for about 2 years, I am actually a hair away from releasing my first product, an audio program.  (I will announce it here soon - can't wait!)  I was motivated by the promise of getting extra exposure for the product by a mailing to 50,000 people from the course instructors Michael Port and Mitch Meyerson, but perhaps more importantly, out of loyalty to my working group of 25 peers that are doing the same thing as I am.  There is a healthy competitive spirit that emerges in me when I see peers getting things done, and done well.
   
2. Hire someone to work with you to complete the task.  If you are paying someone else to work with you, you will feel more accountable to get it done. You are also more likely to define specific tasks, responsibilities and sub-deadlines, which will move things along quicker.
   
3. Announce your intentions in a public forum.  Tell your blog or ezine readers when you are launching your new product, or overhauling your website.  If you really want to freak yourself out, send a press release to someplace like PRWeb announcing big changes at a specific date.  (We all know that PR folks hate "product announcement" press releases, so make it a good, newsworthy one)
4. Work with a mastermind buddy.  If you don't want to invest the time or money in a program, identify a peer that has a similar goal of project completion who is willing to check in once a week to keep progress going.  If you are an indie software developer type, you could look at something like the Business of Software Forum for good peers, and if you are a coach or consultant type, look for something like  The Coaching Forum (which I just found by doing a quick google on "coaching forums")  I recommend choosing a mastermind buddy who is motivated and who you know has gotten things done in the past.  I also recommend choosing someone you respect, as once again, a bit of healthy competition is good for the energy level.  I started working with my friend Philippa Kennealy as a mastermind partner, and was really impressed with her level of supportiveness and productivity (she totally blew me out of the water).
5. Enter a contest.  There are a lot of cool contests like "best blog," "most innovative product" or "best  marketing campaign."  Look for one related to your enhancement project, and this can give you great incentive to do good work.  I entered a website design contest with Robert Middleton a couple of years ago, which was instrumental in helping me complete an overhaul to my website (and I won second place -- not bad!).
6. Get pregnant.  I'm telling you, I have finished more things in this last month of pregnancy than in the prior 8 months combined.  The great thing about a pregnancy deadline is that it is totally unpredictable, so you can't screech right up to the last minute since it could come a month early or a week late.  You may all laugh at me, but in the next week, I aim to: wrap and launch my product, write a delectable secret guest post (can't wait to tell you who for, but that will come soon), complete and record a podcast, write a review of my buddy Ramit's latest book, write and send my monthly ezine (which is 2 weeks late - I am combining Aug and Sept) and write a "static blog post" that will sit at the top of my blog for the couple of weeks or however long it takes that I will be indisposed with new motherhood (I would like to say that I will take 6 months off of all work including blogging to devote all my energy to my family, but I would be lying.  Blogging is like therapy for me, so you can bet that after a few weeks of diapers and round-the-clock-feedings, I will want to focus on something else for an hour or two a day.  No promises, just a prediction!).  I realize that for some of you, due to your gender, biological clock or lack of fondness for children that pregnancy may be out.  But for the eager and fertile among you, get busy!  ;)

I suppose that there are a group of you who are totally motivated, hard-working and productive and don't need to play tricks on yourself to get things done.  But for the rest of you perfection-challenged folks (like me), try these tips and see if they help. 

And please add your own in the comments below!

Are you hiding behind the curtain of a powerful mentor?

When you are just starting out in business, it makes sense to search out those that are more experienced, successful and connected than you, right?  I have said as much when talking about finding a mentor to guide your entrepreneurial efforts.  You may even find yourself working with these bright stars, helping to grow their businesses and public profiles.  One of the best ways to learn about a new business is to work with someone who already has a great track record.

But if you don't watch it, something might happen to you that happened to me:  you become stuck behind the curtain.

Let me explain.

For years, I enjoyed my role as a consultant, where I worked with a lot of successful business owners and executives.  I helped them grow their businesses and become better leaders, coached them through difficult decisions, and sometimes delivered training representing their companies.  And I dealt with a whole bunch of crap that they didn't want to deal with, as it was part and parcel of "making things happen behind the curtain."

Watching their companies get stronger and revenues increase was always very exciting, and I prided myself on my knack for intuitively knowing how to help them address interpersonal issues while growing their business in a healthy way.

But after a number of years, I realized that all of my effort was being used to further their business goals. I don't know why that came as a surprise, since that is what they were paying me for. I started to see myself as that character from the terribly crude and sophomoric but strangely entertaining movie American Pie who started every other sentence with "and in band camp ..."  My "band camp" was parroting the philosophy or theory from my circle of expert mentors and clients.

I hungered to create my own body of work, to speak in my own voice and to make my own views known in a more public setting.  But preparing to do it scared the crap out of me for the following reasons:

• I wondered if I had anything useful to say.  After so many years of spouting others' ideas, I wasn't quite sure what my own were, or if anyone would care about them.
• I feared criticism.  If someone didn't like the materials, presentation or approach of my clients in my "behind the curtain" days, I didn't take it personally - they got the big bucks and fame, so they could take the heat.  But if I were the one front and center, I worried that I would be called out as intellectually inferior, fake or "not good enough" (symptoms of "impostor syndrome" which affects a lot of people, apparently women in particular).
  
• I wondered if I had "it."  Acting in a supporting role for so long made me wonder if I even wanted to step out in a more public way with my work and my views.  What if I couldn't take the heat? 
• I felt unprepared.  Although I had been coaching people for a long time, had launched my own successful ventures and had studied and worked in the world of business for many years, I didn't have specific experience helping people leave corporate jobs to start their own business.  I wondered if I should spend a lot of time studying or reading before hanging out my shingle.
• I feared the fate of politicians, where all of the dirt about how I stole someone's boyfriend in high school, paid my credit card late or "inhaled" in my youth would be dug up and splashed across an imaginary newspaper headline.
• I wondered if I would regret leaving the "easy big bucks" behind.  After so many years in an established consulting practice, I didn't have to work hard at all to make very good money.  My network was deep and reputation good, so I didn't have to prove my competence to anyone.

The funny thing is, most of the highly successful, famous and charismatic people I had worked with were not perfect moral specimens, nor were they totally secure in their subject matter expertise.  Most made things up along the way.  Some had more skeletons in their closet than a Halloween supply store in October.

So despite my own emotional baggage, I did step out from behind the curtain, thank God, in great part due to  my son Josh, who was just 3 months old when I launched this blog.  I was holding him right before a client call that I was dreading, to talk about a deathly boring corporate project that I cared nothing about.  As I tensed, I could feel him tense along with me.  I got a chill through my body as I realized that I was transmitting feelings about work to him directly, and through osmosis.  If I was unhappy about work, he would see that, and, from what I know about kids, that is what would shape his own experience with work.  My love for him and desire for him to live a free and happy life was the final boot in my reticent behind.

The irony of it all is that as soon as I got started, I realized that most of my fears were unfounded.  Not because I was brilliant or bulletproof, but because no one really cared!  There was no governing academic body checking the facts on my posts, mostly because my only readers were my best friend, sister and father.  Most importantly, I found that finally being able to speak my truth was so much more important than being perfect.

Brenda Ueland, who wrote my favorite writing book of all time in 1938, If You Want to Write:  A Book About Art, Independence and Spirit describes it perfectly in the chapter where she sums up her advice to her female writing students:

"In fact, that is why the lives of most women are so vaguely unsatisfactory.  They are always doing secondary and menial things (that do not require all their gifts and ability) for others and never anything for themselves.  Society and husbands praise them for it (when they get too miserable or have nervous breakdowns) though always a little perplexedly and half-heartedly and just to be consoling.  The poor wives are reminded that that is just why women are so splendid - because they are so unselfish and self-sacrificing and that is the wonderful thing about them!

But inwardly women know something is wrong.  They sense that if you are always doing something for others, like a servant or a nurse, and never anything for yourself, you cannot do others any good.  You make them physically more comfortable.  But you cannot affect them spiritually in any way at all.  For to teach, encourage, cheer up, console, amuse, stimulate or advise a husband or children or friends, you have to be something yourself.  And how to be something yourself?  Only by working hard and with gumption at something you love and care for and think is important.

(...)

And that is what I would say to to worn and hectored mothers in the class who longed to write and could not find a minute for it:

'If you would shut your door against the children for an hour a day and say:  'Mother is working on her five-act tragedy in blank verse!' you would be surprised how they would respect you.  They would probably all become playwrights."

I now notice the "behind the curtain" syndrome with some of my coaching clients and encourage them to develop their own bold, audacious, quirky, imperfect and inherently flawed public selves.  Because all of us deserve to have our place in the sun, even if we are standing on a milk crate in a public square, passionately sharing our views with an audience of one. 

If you are stuck behind the curtain, come on out.  We can't wait to hear what you have to say.

Looking for rigid Phoenix, AZ work environments willing to get more flexible on national tv!

Tory Johnson, CEO of  Women for Hire and Good Morning America Workplace Correspondent just sent over a special request for Phoenix-based businesses:

"Right now we're looking for women in the Phoenix area to participate in a special GMA segment focused on workplace flexibility.  Specifically, we're looking for women who work fulltime and are in great need of some form of flexibility, but don't have such benefits and perks with their current employer. Instead of driving yourself crazy or looking for a new position, we want to help you by approaching the top decision makers at your company with a challenge to step up to the plate and offer some form of flexibility to employees. The company would have the opportunity to receive exposure on national television if it's willing to accept our challenge of adapting its policies to the new realities of the American workforce.  We're NOT looking to sabotage a company; quite the contrary.  We're looking to partner with that company to help develop programs and benefits that work for the company and its employees while staying true to the core business needs as well as the realities of today's workforce. 

In addition, we're looking for companies of all sizes -- at least 25 employees -- that have challenges with recruitment or retention which may be due to their rigid work schedules.  We'd like to partner with such employers on simple ways to improve their retention by implementing basic flexible work options.  In both cases, we'd work with the employer and employees in advance -- starting ASAP -- to get to know the needs and culture, and we'd work together to prepare a solution that would be broadcast live from Phoenix at the end of the month. If this is you or someone you know -- exclusively in the Phoenix area -- please contact us immediately at [email protected]. Please put Phoenix in the subject line."

I firmly believe what I said in point 8 of my Open Letter to CXO's rant awhile back:

Focus on the work people do, not how or when they do it.  Some positions require people to be at their desk at an appointed hour to answer customer calls or to participate in live meetings.  But others can do their work from home, early in the morning, late in the evening or dialing in from the local Starbucks.  The turnover magnet you have for losing great employees is not the competitor down the street, it is the idea of freedom and flexibility for the self-employed.  Your employees have different biorhythms and working styles and activities going on in their lives.  If you provide flexible work options and don't make people sit unnecessarily at their desk, you will keep some great employees who would otherwise leave.  A manager who is afraid to offer telecommuting to her employees because she thinks they will slack off is just showing her own weakness. Great managers build accountability into flexible work plans and manage performance aggressively.

So if you are not quite ready to leave your job behind, or find you might not be cut out for entrepreneurship and would rather make your current situation more bearable, I encourage you to get this ball rolling and twist the arm of a senior manager at your Phoenix-based company to jump at this story.  Have fun with it!  Our love for reality TV could extend to your workplace, and who knows what could happen as a result.  If you end up making people mad and getting fired, you will have a great story for the launch of your new business.

 

Questions about leaving your corporate job and starting your business?

As I get ready to take a little time off when the baby comes (due at the end of this month), I am holding my last monthly free-for-all Escape from Cubicle Nation call tomorrow, Wednesday September 5 at 3pm Eastern time.

To register, go to this page.

I will most likely pick these up again (I do have one scheduled for November, but will see how life is at that point!) but will need to take a little hiatus so that you aren't subjected to either my sleep-deprived rants or a screaming newborn baby on the calls.

In these conversations, we talk about whatever is on your mind as it relates to leaving your corporate job and starting your own business.  If we have a lot of people on the call, we may not get to every question, but I will do my best to make sure we cover a lot of topics.

If you can't make the call time but want to listen in to the conversation, sign up anyway and I will send you a link to the recording.

Hope to talk to you tomorrow!