​One week ago, our son Greg married Cara.  This marked the ending of our ‘summer of weddings’.  Kaitlyn and Matt were married in July.  After all the planning and dreaming and phone calls and baking and cooking and entertaining of the past year, I find myself in an unusual position.  I’m a bit adrift.
It isn’t that our kids went from living with us to getting married.  In fact, they have both been living on their own for over a decade.  They are well established, independent and happy.  Even so, I sort of figured out that I knew what life looked like for me in that scenario.  In the past six or eight months, I very consciously decided to be fully present for the build up to, and for the moments of, these two very special events.  I have no regrets about doing that.  As such, it has been easy to not think about what would come after ‘wedding season’ for me.
 
Clearly in almost every visible way, nothing has changed.  Both kids still live where they did 6 months ago.  We still see them and talk to them just as regularly.  I still have my coaching practice and my work at the University.  I still dance. 
 
There has been, however, a fundamental shift in how I see myself and how I view my life.  I have such a huge value for family that I know I want to value each of our kids as they have become part of their own new little family.  I want to give them space and at the same time continue to create a place for all of us to celebrate our larger family.  What I think I am coming to notice (and I am still processing all of this), is that I have spent more than 30 years identifying as a mother.  That role informed every single decision I have made in that time.  I would do it all again in a heartbeat.  While I still identify as a mother, I find that a door has opened for me where I can now identify as some other things as well.  I feel like I have an opportunity to create whatever I want in my life.  I feel uncertain about what those new or new-to-me, things will be.
 
I recognize that I am someone who does not always love change.  Routine doesn’t bore me; it often gives me security.  Routine means I don’t have to think very hard about what I will do.  Routine means that I am confident in my ability to do familiar things.  I recognize that sitting on the edge of uncertainty can be a scary thing for me.  If I was coaching myself through this process, I would ask myself two questions:
 
 “What are the gifts that this uncertainty brings?”  
“What is it that I could do now, that would allow me to look back in a few years and say, ‘That was a wonderful turning point in my life’.
 
The answers to these two questions can hold the key to next steps for anyone who is facing an uncertain time in life.  What I know for sure is that there is always a gift in any situation and that sometimes the smallest step can be the start of a wonderful journey.
 
For my part right now, I am going to continue to live my ‘Summer of Welcome’.  But now, instead of welcoming guests and wedding preparations, I am going to welcome new ideas, new adventures, new confidence, new opportunities and new challenges.  I am going to welcome the chance to say yes, and to say no.  Most of all I am going to watch and listen carefully for the gifts that are presented to me as I face this undiscovered chapter in my life.
 
My inquiry for you this week is to ask yourself, “In this moment of uncertainty, what is the gift?”
 
Finding the tools you learn in these blogs to be helpful?  Contact me today to learn more about how we can work together to facilitate the change you want.
 

This past week, when we haven’t been planning Greg’s wedding and thoroughly enjoying all of the festivities accompanying it, we had our eyes and ears tuned to the events of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.  As always, sports give us an inside glimpse of what individual athletes are made of. 

Adam Van Koeverden is a Canadian kayaker. At 34, this 2016 Olympics is his fourth Olympics; a feat incredible on its own.  He has a storied Olympic career.  In 2004 he won a gold and bronze medal and was the flag bearer at the closing ceremony.  Then in Beijing in 2008 he was named opening ceremonies flag bearer and went on to win silver.  At that time, when many Canadians had expected him to win gold he said, “You shoot for the stars, sometimes you only make it to the moon.”  
In 2012 in London, after being a gold medal hopeful, he earned a silver medal, and he expressed his gratitude for being able to stand on the podium.  Then in 2016, this year in Rio, he placed 6th in the semi final, sending him to the B final where his time was so good that it would have earned him a silver medal in the actual final, had he been in it. 

Just as I have loved being a witness, along with all Canadians, to his incredible career, I think I love, even more, his ability to maintain a healthy perspective about it.  I absolutely loved his response this year when after his race a reporter asked how he felt about his result.  Adam’s reply was,

“Sometimes the best chapter of a book isn’t the last chapter.  I’m proud of my career and grateful for the support.  Never prouder to be Canadian.”

What an incredibly insightful comment.  And of course, it got me thinking.

So often in life, we are waiting for the best chapter.  We have an idea that while what we are doing might be good, there will be something much better waiting for us at a later point in our life.  It might be that our job is great, but when we just get to that next level, we will really enjoy it.  Or it might be that we enjoy the stage our children are at but we will really enjoy them when they are old enough to....  Or it might be that we are excited to go on a road trip but that we will be even happier when we head off to Europe in five years.  We do this so often; missing the moment while looking ahead.  It is as if we are waiting for later for our best chapter.

When I heard Adam Van Koeverden talk about his life as chapters in a book, it struck me that we never know which chapter will end up being our favourite.  We never know which will end up being our best.  What a shame that some of us will not even know when we have had our best chapter, because we forget to notice it. I don’t know Adam Van Koeverden.  However, it seems to me that he deserves a gold medal in the category of ‘appreciating life in the moment and making the most of each chapter’.  Of course I would also give him a gold medal in the categories of ‘humble Canadian’ and ‘most incredible sportsmanship’ too!

This summer has been filled to the brim with excitement in our house.  Yesterday was Greg and Cara’s wedding.  It was so incredibly wonderful, as were all of the activities leading up to it.  One thing they planned for us to do, along with their out of town guests was a mountain hike.  Two of their friends, Rob and Mary, flew into Calgary early on the morning of the hike, after getting up at what would have been about 3:00am Calgary time.  They knew that they would not make it to the trail head in time for our 10:30 start.  However, they chose to drive out, start up the trail and meet us at the top for lunch.  They had their 9 month old son in tow. If this is not incredible enough, they arrived with such a positive energy that it inspired most of the group to continue on to the final summit before we all made the descent home.  They then joined everyone for a barbeque and continued to bring their inspiring, positive, gratitude filled selves with them.  When they left late that evening, seemingly unaffected by the 15km hike and lack of sleep they thanked everyone for ‘their most amazing day’.  Rob and Mary seem to have mastered the art of making the most of each chapter of their lives.  They, like the rest of us have absolutely no idea which chapter will be best.  However, I suspect that they will have plenty of great ones to choose from.

Adam Van Koeverden’s comment about chapters came at the perfect time for me.  It caused me to ask myself, ‘What if this is my best chapter?  What am I doing to fully notice it, be in the moment with it and maximize it?’ 

My inquiry for you this week is to ask yourself, “What if this is my best chapter?”

Don’t wait for a great moment to make change; take this moment and make great change.

Finding the tools you learn in these blogs to be helpful?  Contact me today to learn more about how we can work together to facilitate the change you want.

My sister, Mary, and I were talking about making the most out of our lives.  She mentioned that she has noticed how some people lose some of their ‘agency’ as they age.  This was an interesting use of the word ‘agency’ and it got me thinking.  I used to think of an agency to be an organization – like the CIA or like the detective agency I was half owner in as a child when my brother and I played detective.

This different idea of agency has been rolling around in my head since our conversation.  I looked it up and discovered that one definition of agency is:  The capacity of a person to act or exert power in any given environment or situation.
Children start out with very little agency.  They develop it as they grow and mature.  In many ways teenagers fight the hardest of all demographics to develop their agency.  They want to know that they have the ability to make their own decision and in fact they are often known to exert their agency simply to prove that they can make their own decisions – even bad ones.

As we mature we develop more agency in our lives.  I have noticed that when we are not diligent and aware we can give away parts of our agency without realizing what we are doing.  This can happen in our professional lives as well as in our personal lives.  When we ‘settle’ or ‘go along’ (different from compromising) we relinquish some of our agency – our ability to act or exert power.  Some people on the other hand, over-exert their agency.  They spend an incredible amount of energy demonstrating and exerting their power – often with unintended consequences.  What then is the balance?  We all know people who couldn’t make a decision if their life depended on it and we know others who insist on making decisions even when they are not in the best position to do so.

The balance with having agency in your life is to first decide over what things you want to exert power.  What are the things you want to influence?  Once this is decided, the question becomes how to go about establishing your agency in these areas.  A further question to ask is what kind of agent you wish to be.

For instance, I do not need to be the ‘transportation agent’ in my family.  At the end of my life I will not measure my success by the kind of vehicle I drive.  On the other hand, I am hanging on pretty tight to being my own ‘health agent’.  I love choosing my fitness routine and I would have a very hard time turning this over to someone else.  I’m betting that there are people who would reverse the above examples.

The point is not so much about what we have agency over as it is about realizing that we make decisions affecting our agency often.  It is also about understanding that as agents, the power to achieve our results comes through us.   If we choose not to exert our power, our agency, we choose to not achieve the result.  It is critical to understand that we must exercise our agency if we wish to keep it. 

As I think about agency, I also understand that each of us has agency in many, many areas of our lives.   Sometimes we are forced to give up our agency in a particular area.  This does not mean that we lose our entire agency; it does not mean that we even lose all of our agency in that area.  To return to my example of my exercising, two years ago I was sidelined from running which had been my mainstay of fitness and good mental health.  I lost my agency here.  I was no longer an agent of running.  However, this did not mean that I could no longer be an agent of my fitness or health.  I simply had to think of new ways to exercise my agency (literally) in this area of my life.

It has been sobering for me to understand that by recognizing my agency, I am also acknowledging places where I have been careless; places where I have relinquished my agency without meaning to.   New thinking is how I grow.
As I have mentioned before, in our family this is the summer of weddings.  Our son, Greg, will get married in less than a week.  When I think about Greg, I think about someone who is very careful and deliberate with his many agencies.  Greg is an agent of kindness.  He is also an agent of encouragement.  When people tell him about their ideas, the power that he exerts is to listen well and to help them know that he believes in their abilities.  He does this thoughtfully, without lying and with kindness.  He also does it consistently.  He keeps this kindness in the fore when he sets goals for himself too.  He is thoughtful about how his dreams will affect others, and he is kind with himself as he approaches new learning curves.  Because he chooses to practice kindness and encouragement, he is an agent of kindness and encouragement.  What a wonderful way to approach a marriage.

For my part, over this next week I am choosing to be an agent of celebration.

My challenge for you this week is to identify one place where you want to have agency.  What is the smallest step you can take to achieve this that will give you the biggest result?

Don’t wait for a great moment to make change; take this moment and make great change.
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Finding the tools you learn in these blogs to be helpful?  Contact me today to learn more about how we can work together to facilitate the change you want.
 

As always, my blog comes to me from the events of the week.  This week, three, seemingly unrelated little things came my way.

The first is that I received a text from my one of my sisters, who was with us the week of the wedding.  Her husband, who has early onset Alzheimer’s, was also with us.  We had a fabulous time together both at the wedding and during the week after when my siblings and our significant others spent some very rare time together.  My sister’s text this week said that her husband has remembered an astonishing amount about the week we spent together.  He said to my sister, ‘I am so happy that I can remember it.  I hope I can remember it forever’.  He talks about it each day.

The second is that I talked to a friend this week who has become a foster parent for the first time.  The young child that they have welcomed into their home has been through more in her little lifetime than many people 20 times her age have been.  Think leukemia, crack houses and cocaine.  My friend and her husband are keeping her until she can be reunited with her family.  Meanwhile they are hoping to give her some memories of what a different life can be like.  If she can see something different, then maybe she can create something different when she is old enough to have some control over her own destiny.

The third is that Kaitlyn and Matt came home from their honeymoon in Ireland.  They had a fantastic time.  After recovering from their delayed flight for a day they headed out on a road trip to Winnipeg to see the Friday night concert of The Tragically Hip.  There is no doubt that this final tour of The Tragically Hip is special.  This band is not only celebrating their talents with the world, they are also celebrating their memories and their time left together as a band.

In my mind, these three  things, a family visit, a foster child and a rock concert by The Tragically Hip at first do not seem connected.  The link that I find with them is that they each tell the story of a special memory.  In the case of each, the people involved are very aware that they are trying to create memories that will last longer than the moment.  In each case, the planning to create the memories is conscious.  In each case, there is a deep caring involved and a reverence around the idea of trying to make the memories cherished ones.

It is impossible to live our lives so vigilantly that we are creating Hallmark memories every day.  I suspect that we forget many, many more days than we remember.  But each day, we do have the possibility that something that we might say or do will become a fixed memory for either ourselves or for someone else.  In the three cases described above there is a very deliberate effort made to create a memory.  In each of these cases, it is recognized that there is a special moment, or opportunity, that may not come again.

I often leave you with a challenge for the week.  This week I leave you with another tool that is a coaching favourite: an inquiry.  An inquiry is a question that I ask you to think about often in the upcoming week.  There will be many different answers to it.  None of them is correct and none of them is incorrect.  A good inquiry will cause you to think new thoughts.  A good inquiry will cause you to reflect on your actions and perhaps even make some necessary alterations.  A good inquiry helps you to recognize the power you have in your own life.  The inquiry that I have for you this week is:

What kind of memory am I creating?  

Don’t wait for a great moment to make change; take this moment and make great change.
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Finding the tools you learn in these blogs to be helpful?  Contact me today to learn more about how we can work together to facilitate the change you want.