The Calgary City Council is in the midst of making some new decisions around helping the city become more ‘green’.  Green like recycling.

There have been debates about whether residents should be able to choose their own size of black (garbage) bin, with less cost associated with smaller bins.   Over the past couple of years we have added blue and green bins, one for paper, one for food waste.

Part of me shakes my head.  It’s hard to believe this is even a discussion in 2019.  I grew up on a farm and we were reducing, reusing and recycling long before it was sexy.

All our food scraps went into a container that was carried to the barn each morning and shared with the chickens.  It was unheard of for us to use tinfoil only once.  We washed and dried it, folded it and saved it for next time.  We did the same with plastic bags.

Birthday and Christmas gifts were unwrapped carefully and the paper was saved for the following year. My mother took her own containers to the newly opened ‘health food store’, The Horn of Plenty, in Dundas.  It may or may not be true that she single-handedly kept it open with her purchases in those early days.  However, last summer when I was in Dundas, I did notice that it was still open, in its same location, forty years later.

As a teenager I was often mortified by all of this, even though at the same time it felt very normal to us.  I thought others might think we were poor, never realizing that in fact my mother was a very early adopter of environmental consciousness.

Of course, as I’ve grown older, I can appreciate those lessons modeled for us.  However, I’m wondering if it isn’t finally time to fully start a rebellion against these now common ideas of reduce, reuse and recycle.

Rest assured, I don’t want to get rid of my compost bin.  Or my blue bin.  But I have noticed some of the organizations I work with have become carried away with reduce, reuse and recycle. Not the environmental kind.  The personal kind.

How often when working with a client do I hear some version of an old, old story.  Something like, ‘I’ve tried everything.   I’m doing absolutely everything I possibly can.’  Really? Or is this simply a well-used, several times washed piece of tinfoil they have carefully tucked way and have brought out to use yet again?  This kind of recycling allows them to stay in their very comfortable, very unappealing situation.

Personally, I can find lots of situations where I have gone overboard with reduce, reuse and recycle.  I have reduced or minimized some of my character strengths to allow myself not to look show-offy and at the same time to allow others to look better than they are.  I’ve reduced some of my accomplishments to single sentences.  I’ve reduced myself to tears, convincing myself I don’t quite have what it takes.

I’ve reused excuses until even I have had to recognize their silliness.  When my kids were little and our staff was heading out together after work, I most often declined letting them know I was heading home.  One day, when both kids were away at university, this exact same scenario occurred. Exactly as I had always done, I headed home.  I was half-way home before it struck me, ‘What in the world am I rushing home for?  The house is empty!’  My recycled, reused story, once both useful and truthful, had become nothing more than a comfortable hiding place for me. 

Each of us is excellent at reducing, reusing and recycling.  Of course, we are.  By doing these we keep ourselves as the people we easily recognize.  We give ourselves permission to not grow or change.  By doing this we also miss out on incredible opportunities.

While I am continuing to embrace the reduce, reuse, recycle efforts of  the big city, I’ve decided that for the most part, I’m going to scrap many of them in my real life.  When I’m doing things, I’m asking myself to recognize when I am just doing it, or not doing it, because it is easy, familiar and recycled. I’m becoming braver.

I’m trying things I’ve never done.  I’m saying yes.  When I hear me telling myself a familiar story I pause and question whether it is the truth.  Or is it some old reused thinking.  Perhaps it is time to quit my recycling and treat myself to some shiny, non-bio-degradable, new ideas and adventures?  Perhaps even some of the one-use-only variety.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘Does this need reducing, reusing, recycling, or …. replacing?’
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Elizabeth is a certified, professional Life and Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is also the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership and personal coaching for individuals and teams.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. Contact Elizabeth and allow her to help you stop recycling!

This year, in a rare occurrence, the arrival of spring weather in Calgary coincided exactly with the calendar arrival of spring.  For five days we enjoyed above seasonal temperatures, an Alberta blue sky, the steady dwindling of snow piles and the inevitable puddles left behind.

For those with even an inkling of childlike wonder in their soul, the puddles call us, begging the quieter types to either gingerly walk through them or carefully place a twig boat and watch it sail away.  For the more adventuresome spirits there is a pull to jump straight in with the intention of creating a splash.   For both there is a lure to throw stones into them to watch the ripples.

On Wednesday, the warmest of the days, I had the chance to take little Benjamin for a walk in our nearby Provincial Park.  It too has seen its share of melting this week and it didn’t take long for me to find a puddle to show Ben.  At just fourteen months, Ben neither knows what a puddle or a stone is, and other than dropping a few vegetables onto the floor during dinner, he hasn’t got a clue how to throw.  I still thought he might appreciate the wonder of watching a stone hitting the water and creating first a splash, and then the seemingly endless rings of ripples.  We stood together at the edge of a puddle while I gently tossed a few stones.

Thinking that Ben stood very little chance of success with the stone throwing himself, I still felt the urge to place a rock in his hand to see what he might do.  He enjoyed the texture and I’m sure he would have loved the taste had I let him sample it.  It turns out that although Ben cannot quite throw, he did understand the idea that if he dropped the stone in the water, it did its part in making the tiny splash and then the ripples.  When he dropped his first little stone right at the edge of the puddle, it tugged at my heart to see the little ripples fan out.

It turns out that even the tiniest among us, using the tiniest stones, can have an effect on this world and her inhabitants.  Sometimes we don’t have to do much of anything at all; just show up, drop a stone and watch.

Ben, was, for the most part, blissfully unaware of the affect his stone throwing had on me.  In some ways, it’s how he travels through life these days.  He goes about his business of discovering his amazing, ever-expanding world with no awareness of the ripples he creates.  The rest of us are completely aware of his affect.

I’m guessing many of us, like Ben, travel through our own ever-changing lives dropping and throwing stones without recognizing their impact.  We throw and turn away before the ripples start.  No doubt, sometimes the stones we throw would have been better left on the path.  We can easily hurt others with our stones; I suppose this is why, as children, we were taught not to throw them.  But other times, throwing stones and creating ripples is exactly what we should do.  These stones are gifts.

We’re throwing stones when we smile at someone.

We’re throwing stones when we pay a genuine compliment.

We’re throwing stones when we acknowledge someone’s value in our life.

We’re throwing stones when we take time to listen.

This past week, not only was it stone throwing weather in my part of the world, it appears there were both ugly and beautiful stones being thrown around the globe.  Christchurch, New Zealand, had such a large stone thrown at it, it’s rippling impact will be seen and felt for years. 

So too, will the impact of the very direct stone of fierce resolve thrown by Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of that same country, as she fearlessly took steps to ban military style assault weapons, defining clearly the safe and compassionate kind of country she planned to lead.  And by all accounts, the citizens of New Zealand are all standing by ponds and puddles and oceans tossing stones of kindness as gently as they can, in hopes that these ripples too will have a lasting impact.

I wish we hadn’t been taught to not throw stones.  I wish instead we’d been encouraged to find as many gift-giving stones as we could, and to carry them carefully in our pockets as we travel this world past puddles and ponds and lakes and rivers and oceans.  Then when the world reveals one of her needs, we could stop and choose just the right stone to toss, to create ripples of the kind I felt when Benjamin dropped his little stone, and the kind the mourning citizens of Christchurch need to feel this week.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What stone am I throwing?’

Elizabeth is a certified, professional Life and Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is also the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership programs and personal coaching for individuals and teams.  Contact Elizabeth to find out how to choose the right stones to toss to create the ripples you long to make.

After far too many months of missing activities I love, as I’ve waited for the bones in my foot to mend, I’m finally resuming some of my favourites.  I’m having to make some modifications.  At dance, I’m easily spotted as the sole person sporting her supportive running shoes, setting me apart from the others so nicely decked out in their toe-tappers.

At yoga, I’m noticing I’ve lost some balance when standing on my left leg.  This reminds me that although clinically all the bones in the foot are now healed, the ligaments and muscles are weak and have ‘forgotten’ how to support me.  On top of that, I don’t have confidence in the strength of my foot…yet.

Tuesday at yoga, our instructor, the magnificent Mona Power, guided us into one of the warrior poses.  As we were doing it, she looked out over the class and noticed that some of us had shoulders that were creeping up toward our ears.  She gently reminded us, ‘Relax your shoulders.  Don’t place stress where it isn’t needed’.

A light bulb switched on in my head.  Don’t place stress where it isn’t needed.  I know I should have been completely focused on the breath, the very life-force of yoga, but my mind drifted to real life. 

Where have I been placing stress that I don’t need it?

In the warrior poses, strength is needed in the legs.  Our feet need to be firmly planted on the ground so there is stress involved in that part of our body.  We also need to ‘put some muscle in our arms’ as we try to hold them as parallel to the floor as possible.  We do not need to place stress in our faces or our necks, and we certainly don’t need to put stress in our shoulders by lifting them toward our ears.  Not only does it look kind of silly, it actually focuses our energy on a part of the body not meant to be activated in this pose.

I know there are almost always lessons about life to be learned from yoga.  This one was so obvious it should have been labelled, ‘Exhibit A’.  How often we place stress in our lives where it is not needed.

This past weekend we were lucky to have our son, Greg, home for a few days while he was interviewing in Calgary.  We love getting together as a family.  Knowing we only had a few days to enjoy his company I wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to see him for a visit.  And I wanted my own chance to visit with him.  And he had interview prep to complete.  It was a lot to squish in.  As I anticipated the dinner I was making for a group of us on Friday, and thinking about how to manage to try to get a bit of prep done ahead for the upcoming dinners on Sunday and Monday, Mona’s words arrived in my head. 

Don’t place stress where it isn’t needed.

I could envision two distinctly different scenes.  In Scene One, I was bustling around the kitchen in a hurry, trying to make sure everything was ready before people arrived.  In this scene anyone watching could figure out I was concentrating on the task at hand, not really taking time to visit or think about much else.  I didn’t engage in much conversation other than to assign tasks and I sent the clear signal that important conversations could be saved for later.

Scene Two, however, looked and felt different.  Though I was still moving quickly in the kitchen, making sure everything was ready, my energy did not have the feel of urgency to it. I had time to prep and visit.  I could place cut up vegetables in the salad rather than toss them in.  I could learn a bit about Greg’s thoughts on his potential jobs while we worked together.

Both scenes would have similar outcomes.  Either way, the meal prep would be complete.  Either way the people would arrive and we would have enough food.  Either way I would have spent a few hours with my son.  The difference would lie in whether I chose to have a visit with only my son, or if I wanted to invite Stress to join us. 

Mona’s words turned in my head, ‘Don’t place stress where it isn’t needed’.  I had to laugh; food does not taste better if it has been prepared with an extra dash of stress.  I think, thanks to Mona, I chose well this past weekend.  I have not always done so. 

I can recall an evening when Jim and I left home slightly late for an event.  We were not really speaking in the car.  We were not mad, but we were not speaking, thinking that every ounce of energy was needed to propel the car to our destination with as much efficiency as possible.  How much nicer it could have been if only we had placed the appropriate amount of stress on the car to get us where we were going, and saved the rest to be used if and when it was needed. We did not arrive at our destination any earlier because we were quiet.  We certainly did not arrive in a more relaxed state. 

Sometimes the needless stress we place on ourselves comes in the form of us trying to do more than time allows.  Most often this happens when we trick ourselves into thinking that time will stretch for us.  Most often, the unnecessary stress comes from the response our body has toward what we are trying to do.  The stress shows up in who we are being, rather than in what we are doing. 

It’s interesting that when I think of Jim and I driving on that evening, for the life of me I cannot remember where we were going, I cannot remember what we did once we arrived and I cannot remember our drive home.  I can clearly remember the needless passenger, Stress, we chose to place right in the front with us; exactly where she was not needed.
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My inquiry for you this week is, ‘Where am I placing stress?’

Elizabeth provides leadership and personal coaching for individuals and teams.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  Contact Elizabeth to help you learn how to chose where to place stress.

With March Madness just around the corner I, along with many others, have been wondering who will win the various basketball games and of course, who will win the coveted national title at the end.  Millions of dollars are at stake for these young college players; money in the form of potential draft contracts, sponsorships and signing bonuses.

Clearly, I have never been involved in such a high stakes game of anything.  I have, however, had plenty of experience in winning and losing and I’ve come to learn that a win is not always sweet, nor is it always a win.  And a loss is not always a bad thing, nor is it always a loss.  One of the ideas I’ve solidified over time is my actual definition of a win.

In a game like basketball, wins are easy to spot.  Careful structures have been put into place to record the progress of the game.  Common rules are followed by all players, from the little ones using lowered hoops to the ‘big guys’; the guys and girls on the college teams and those in the NBA and WNBA.  Time clocks measure not only the length of quarters but also things like time allowed to inbound the ball, time to make a shot and timeouts for strategizing.  By the time the buzzer sounds, there is a clear winner. 

In all sport we say, a win is a win.  And it is.  It does not matter whether we win by a single point or if one competitor completely dominates the other.  A win is a win.  This is because the score is the metric used to determine the win.  It is clear, it is clean and the rules apply to all competitors. 

Winning in life is not so clear. 

Some people have the idea that winning means getting what they are aiming for.  This could be a new job; they won a competition and were awarded the job.  It could be an argument; they won the argument meaning the other person conceded.  Getting your way when choosing a restaurant could be a win.  It can feel like winning when the traffic is light and we arrive at our destination on time.  Winning can mean waking up to sunshine on a day we hoped to get out for a walk.

For me, none of these is a clear win.  I have ‘won’ arguments and felt like a loser.  I know people who have ‘won’ the competition for a job and have accepted the job, only to discover it isn’t at all what they hoped for.  In statistics records, these would be recorded as wins.  I simply disagree.  To be clear, I like to win, and I need to win.  Every day.  So, I’ve redefined what it means to win. 

In my world, this is the key: a win cannot involve having to depend on someone else’s action or behaviour.  For instance, when I was raising kids, I would not have declared a win if my children remembered to make their beds.  I certainly would enjoy the fact the beds were made.  But this, for me, is not a win.  In this particular situation, a win might be that my response was one I could be proud of whether the beds were made or not.  The win, in this case, is all in my hands.  I can lay my head down and sleep well at night with this kind of win under my belt.

In my teaching career, a win was not that the students were well behaved or that they all performed well on a given assessment.  A win was that I modeled the behaviours I expected of them, I showed them dignity, I provided a safe place for them to learn, and I prepared them for success to the best of my ability.  Their behaviour and their results were in their hands; my win was in my own.

When I was doing a lot of running and competing, a win did not always look like a medal around my neck.  Sometimes it looked like a ‘good-for-me’ time.  Sometimes it looked like an ‘I finished’.  Others couldn’t tell if a win was a win for me because it rarely involved beating anyone else; the win was all in my goal-setting.

Last week I submitted a huge proposal for a contract I hope to land.  I spent over twenty hours getting it ready.  I did my research, I had several people look it over and I believe I represented myself with complete honesty in terms of who I am and what I can deliver.  I may or may not get the contract. I’m ok with that.  I already won by submitting my best work.

I set myself up for wins every single day.  My wins come in the form of things I accomplish that I just want off my list and in things that are bigger and more important to me.  Wins also come in the form of making and keeping commitments and connections with people I value.  A simple phone call can be a win.  My best wins are ones where I make myself proud by making sure my best self shows up to represent me no matter who I am with and no matter what I am doing.

No one else can define a win for us, nor can we define wins for others.  Nor should we try to.  And yet, winning is still important.  Each win gives us a deposit in our confidence and self-esteem account.  The secret is to understand that the tiny score on the basketball scoreboard, displayed after each of our ‘games’ isn’t the one that matters.   The one that matters is the big one; the great huge invisible scoreboard in our lives that no one can see or understand except ourselves.  We know it is there, and we clearly understand when we are winning.  This week I encourage you to look for places to win. 

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘Is this a win?’
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Elizabeth provides leadership and personal coaching for individuals and teams.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for corporate, public and private groups.  Contact Elizabeth to help you learn how set yourself up for the win.
 
 
 
 

A couple of weeks ago, I was breakfasting with some of my former colleagues.  A large group of us usually meet once per month but this past month, the weather was poor and many people were away, resulting in only a handful of us gathering around a table in a local restaurant.

During our conversation I mentioned an article I had read in the Calgary Herald about a single mother who had established a small food pantry in her neighbourhood, modeled after the popular mini-libraries often found on private lawns in the city.  It turned out the need for food was greater than even she had predicted.  The article outlined her incredible effort to help the people in her community, while simultaneously providing for her two daughters and saving for her own dream of a university education.

I told the others this had had a significant impact on me. It reminded me that there are people in each of our communities needing help.  I mused that I’d love to figure out a little project I could do.  Three of the other women at the breakfast volunteered to help and we agreed to have a meeting to ‘put our heads together’.

Not many days later, we, and a couple of other interested women, gathered in my dining room to discuss what we might do.  Cheryl had heard about a need in a local school that we felt might be a great place for us to start our project.  This school is not particularly ‘needy’.  From the outside it could be considered to be one of the ‘have’ schools.  But our group knows that even in the ‘have’ schools, stuff happens. When it does, it’s nice to have someone step up and make stuff happen.  With that in mind, we christened our group, ‘Stuff Happens’.

Over the last couple of weeks, with help from a couple of teachers at the school some specific needs were identified we could help with.   We set to work making a plan, soliciting donations, and setting up a program to provide a few students with daily, healthy lunches and with some much-needed clothing and school supplies.  It has felt incredibly good to be able to be able to address these needs so quickly and with complete confidentiality.

As we completed our first ‘drop off’ this week, we asked if the teachers could find out if the students had any other needs that may have gone unnoticed.  The teachers went to work and talked to the students.  We were provided with a little wish list.  It’s hard to describe our shared broken-hearted reaction when we read that one of the wishes was for one student to get some underwear. For herself and her younger brother. 

Underwear.

I was trying to remember being a young teenager.  I could recall how important it was to fit in, to not let others think that I was different.  I never once had to ask for food.  And I don’t know if I would have been brave enough to tell a teacher I needed underwear.  Actually, I do know – I would not have been.  My underwear, and my feelings, were kept carefully under wraps.

Not everyone hides their underwear.  In fact, in many schools both girls and boys display parts of their underwear publicly.  Parts that would have mortified me had mine ever slipped into the open when I was young: bra straps, lace, the top band of underpants etc.  These students have the confidence to show their underwear.  They are not hiding and they are not ashamed.  I’ve been trying to imagine what a relief it would be for this girl and her brother if they could show their underwear.  Because they had some.

Each of us has many layers of ‘underwear’.  When most of us were teenagers it was almost a full-time job making sure that no one recognized any insecurity in us.  We certainly did not go around telling others how inadequate we felt, what we were worried sick about, or how we hoped to be liked.  We kept our ‘underwear’ hidden.  When most teenagers look at each other, they see confident, put-together people. They think they are alone in their thoughts of inadequacy. If only they had the courage, and if only we, the adults, gave them the space to reveal their real underwear.

Now that the idea of people not having underwear has come into my mind, I can’t stop thinking about it.  And I can’t stop thinking about what other things we feel we might be lacking that we hide from our friends and family.  We bury our burdens under our clothing, under our skin, inside our minds, and deep in our hearts lest someone find out we are lacking.  Secretly of course, we wish someone would notice and help us.  Or listen to us. Or at least take us seriously.

I am so grateful that a couple of teachers at this school took the time to have a small talk with some students to find out about what they needed.  I’m betting the conversations didn’t take much more than 15 minutes.  I know for sure, that 15 minutes will change those children’s lives.  It’s very humbling to realize these needs are not new; they did not arise because we had an idea to help someone.  These needs were simply allowed to surface because a thoughtful, compassionate, skilled teacher provided a safe space to talk about ‘underwear’.

I’m travelling through my world this week recognizing that everyone needs help with their underwear.  Most of us own the physical stuff.  But all of us have the other kind of underwear issues.  I’m hoping I can find ways to spend a few minutes really listening to someone else who’s having trouble with their underwear.

My inquiry for you is, ‘What underwear issue is waiting for my help?’
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Elizabeth is a certified, professional Life and Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is also the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society and she is now a proud member of its affiliate, Stuff Happens.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership programs and personal coaching for individuals and teams.  Contact Elizabeth to find out how to deal with the ‘underwear’ needs in your organization.