TOOLS FOR CHANGE

How many of you have ever made a New Year resolution? I’m just going to go ahead and guess . . . every one of you. I’m also going to assume that not one of you has kept every resolution you ever made. Likely you make the same pledges over and over again.

~This year I will lose weight and get in shape.
~This Year I will get a raise or find a better paying job
~This year I will finally get organized.

We’ve all been told which road is paved with good intentions, and it’s not a place any of us want to go (I hope!). Yet the fact is every single success grows from the seed of good intentions. So why aren’t all of us, always successful? Because intention alone is not enough; to be successful you need the tools of CAN DO.

What in heaven’s name are the tools of Can Do?

Clarity
Assessment
Necessary Changes
Designed Environments
Outcomes (Or rewards)

Oh sure, your probably thinking, just another clever acronym with little substance behind it. Look! She even had to cheat on that last one to make it spell out a word. Before you click outta here, let me tell you how it works.

The first thing you need to know when making changes in or about your life is exactly what it is you want to change. Clarity means forming a precise picture OF what your success will look like, feel like, sound like – maybe even what it smells and tastes like. Believe it or not, this can often be the most difficult step of all. If you’re thinking that’s ridiculous Remember the caveat, “Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.” What we think we want isn’t always necessarily the case.

An almost universal New Year’s resolution is to lose weight and get in shape. I’ve uttered it more than once myself. When I started asking why I wanted to lose weight, I was quite surprised by what my answers revealed. Turns out I don’t give a hoot what the scale says, or even too much how I look. For me, it’s all about how I feel, physically and mentally. Knowing what you really want to achieve changes your motivation, your actions and maybe even the way by which you measure your success.

Next we have Assessment. To move forward successfully you should know where you’ve already been – so you don’t go back there again. Get honest with yourself about how and why you’ve failed in the past. Ask yourself what is different about your approach or commitment to change this time, and plan for the obstacles you will likely encounter.

Have you tried repeatedly to stick to a budget and failed? Maybe this time the need is more apparent or success more desirable because of what you’ll do with the savings. Was your biggest obstacle in the past impulse shopping? Formulate a definite strategy for overcoming potential failure, whether it means never buying anything the first time you see it, or leaving your checkbook and credit cards at home, taking just enough cash for what you need that day. I once promised myself that I would not purchase anything for an entire month except life’s necessities – food and shelter. When I saw something I wanted, I wrote it down. I was amazed when, at the end of the month, I reviewed my list and realized that I no longer felt the desire to buy any of the items. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t want the next thing I saw, but it taught me that my impulses filled some immediate desire but probably not a long term need.

Assessing your behaviors and beliefs carries over to making necessary changes. If your goal is to lose 20 pounds and you eat 3 donuts for breakfast every day, either you have to stop eating the donuts or start exercising – a lot. When resolving to change something in or about your life, YOU are the one who has to make the changes. Seems pretty simple when you hear it that way doesn’t it?

Maybe not. Maybe you’re thinking, “I’ve been this far before. I’ve known what I want, where I’ve been and where I’m going, and I’ve even made the changes. Somehow, I lose motivation, it gets too hard, and pretty soon I’m right back where I started.” That’s where Designing Environment comes in; supportive environments to be exact.

My preferred mode of physical activity is walking. If I can get myself going, get out the door and take those first few steps, I thoroughly enjoy every minute of it. Still, I just can’t seem to get out the door. So I found a few friends who also like to walk and whether they come to my house, or I agree to meet them, it gets me out the door.

Get creative in designing your supportive environments. Write down the perfect situation even if you think it’s never going to happen. Is your goal is to improve your appearance and dress for success? The ideal would be to hire an image consultant and a personal shopper to come clean out your closets, advise you on the best styles to wear and then go shopping with you to make sure you get it right. If that isn’t feasible, start to whittle it down to size. Is there a close friend whose style you’d admire? Ask him or her to be your closet-cleaning, wardrobe-shopping buddy.

Last we have Outcomes – but not just any outcomes; they have to be rewarding. Let’s go back to my discovery about the desire to lose weight. Since it really wasn’t about the numbers on the scale, using that scale as a measure of my success wasn’t motivating me. The numbers weren’t going down significantly and I really didn’t care (too much) when they went up – as long as I still felt good. To motivate myself, I have to stay more in tune with how I felt on a daily basis. Energized and light, or tired and weighed down? It’s probably a no-brainer but I’ll tell you anyway. The more days that I can chalk up to feeling energized and light, the more the numbers on the scale have gone down when I bother to check.

Make a list of what the rewards of your success will be. Write down everything you can think of and continue adding to the list any time you think of something new. Prioritize your list and make copies of it. Post the copies where you will see them often. Staying focused on the rewards of your success will keep your motivation strong.

The first step, knowing what you really want and this last step, knowing why you really want it may seem very much the same. They are, which is why using these tools for change keeps you moving in a vicious circle of success. Clarity, Assessment, Necessary changes, Designing supportive environments, Outcomes that are rewarding – You Can Do it!

The Spirit of A Woman ~ by Penny Tupy

Musing on Marriage ™
She “does for” everyone else.

She stumbles out of bed every two hours to sit in the rocker with the nursing infant, heavy eyed and hollow with sleep deprivation. In the morning she juggles corn flakes and juice while packing lunches, signing permission slips, and writing notes to the teacher. During her lunch hour she runs errands for the household. Husband needs fresh razor blades, daughter has a project at school requiring poster board and special markers, and the cat can only eat a certain food found only in one store which is, of course, inconveniently located. Lunch hour is a misnomer – she doesn't really stop to eat lunch.

She works at a job she may or may not love. Her dream of making a splash in the world has become more tied up with caring for family than with being a superstar or Nobel Prize winner. Not that she doesn't still dream, she does, but the sparks of her passion are now tied up with her desire to uphold and nurture the dreams of those she loves so deeply.

In the evening, she pulls together a meal from remnants of leftovers, a little pasta, and a can of fruit cocktail. Because she retains a hint of yesterday's values she insists the children put their napkins on their laps and learn to hold their forks in ways that seem foreign to their little hands. It's a nightly battle whose wages are whining and excuses. She smiles through gritted teeth and pounding head and distracts them from the whining with a question about their day.

On autopilot she averts disaster constantly scanning the horizon for looming threats. "Is there enough money in the school milk account? Do the boots from last year still fit? – It's going to snow this weekend. We need to make a special stop for a birthday gift for the child's friend – do you know what he likes?" She schedules dental appointments, well child visits, eye appointments, and keeps the immunization records up to date. She finds missing library books in the final rushed moments before the bus comes so her daughter can exchange it for a new one today at school. She knows the shoe, shirt, pant, and hat size of every member of the family – and she has internal radar that reminds her to keep everyone in clothes that fit.

When she signed up for this thing called marriage and family she believed she was joining a team. She had a dream, a vision, of partnering with this man for life in a venture they would carve out together. Certainly she knew that each of them would play different roles at different times but always she thought of it as a team. A team where both players and all their parts would be honored for its importance and value. A team where the weight was shifted and distributed as conditions and situations warranted.

If it was a second marriage that dream vision was tinged all at once with loss and renewal, death and rebirth. She'd dreamed the dream once before and watched it wither. But hope was strong and took root once again with a new love, a new life. In his eyes she saw the promise of being cared for in the way she cared for everyone else.

But she forgot, or never knew, that love and caring, nurturing and guiding don't have a spot on the bottom line. They don't get counted in the same way when the conversation about the "good of the family" is used to deny her the sustenance needed to feed her spirit. Her giving is a shadow presence – demanded of her without words –unrewarded and overlooked in the urgency of doing what is "for the good of the family."

And so as the years unfold and she finds herself alone and pregnant, alone in the middle of the night with a sick child, alone with the worry about the mundane trials of life, alone with her lost dreams, conversations never spoken, and empty hopes, she begins to grieve the loss of the dream.

Once she'd been young and vital staring with anticipation at all that life could offer. Smart, talented, passionate, witty, quiet, outrageous, brilliant, tentative and confident all at once she could have been anything she wanted. She chose love. She chose to give of herself to those who held the essence of her heart. Her husband, her children, her parents, her friends, and even those far removed whose cause she cared about. She volunteers, she works, she mothers, and she does her best to support her husband. She gives of herself and she gives herself.

She puts aside her thoughts of fame and fortune knowing the deeper mystery. That fortunes in gold cannot compare to fortunes of the heart. That fame and acclaim of celebrityhood pale next to being Known by the loves of your life. That the deepest satisfaction of life comes of sharing most intimately all that you are with another person.

As a child she wished this from her parents and as she grew she came to see that she must leave their embrace and pursue the dream elsewhere. When she held her babies in her arms she knew that she held them for only a brief moment in time and they too would leave the nest – as she had done. With her friends and other loved ones she gave of herself knowing that it was gift. She understands at the deepest level that this is What Women Do – they give. And in their giving they manifest the force that gives life to the planet.

All she asks in return for this gift of nurturance and life is that she be loved and cherished, honored and held safe by one person. Her husband. She doesn't ask that he sacrifice his dreams or aspirations, she stands ready to support him in all those things. She only asks that he look into her eyes, take the time and energy to know her deeply, and that he engage with her as a partner in this life they build together. She asks that her contribution be given a place of honor and that he participate with her in crafting a home. This is the food that keeps alive the Spirit of a woman.

But now her youth is faded, the fine lines show on her face, her waist has thickened. She's tired and she's sad inside. She still gives to family and home and she still wishes for knowing and intimacy. But she is contemptuously told she's "unbelievable" when she asks for engagement or support. Her pleas for partnership die on her lips. She wonders if she made the wrong choice all those years ago – if what she saw as the mystery of love was nothing but a cruel trick of the light.

Until at last she finds herself one chilly morning in the darkest time of the year sitting across from him in a coffee shop. The walls painted in colors of earth, wood tables and mismatched chairs filled with students and couples and families. Clattering and chattering fill the air while the sound and aroma of grinding coffee make up the background. And he says to her, this man who insists her desire for teamship, for engagement, for true partnering is outrageous, too much to expect of anyone, that he is excited to be back at work this week. That not only did he do an exceedingly good job leading his colleagues over the past two years but that he is motivated to do even more this year. That he revels in his reputation as the powerhouse who gets things done. That his participation and engagement on several teams have made a positive and lasting impact. And in that moment time stands still. The sounds and aromas colors and textures of the little coffee house become flat and empty – silent as if all life was suddenly sucked away. In the silent emptiness that remains she hears it, the final dying sigh of her spirit as it falls slowly, forgotten and alone, in the abyss.
© Penny R. Tupy 2005

Girls ~ And Women ~ Just Wanna Have Fun

Over the past two weeks I’ve seen a total of 3 news stories on children and physical fitness (or lack thereof) in our schools, 1 on complications of obesity, 2 on the federal nutrition guidelines, and too many too count on prescription drugs and their side-effects. Right now, I’m watching a young girl perform what I can only call a combination of cheerleading and gymnastics while jumping rope (more on that later).

The U.S. waistline continues to expand, with 61 percent of adults now considered overweight, and 26 % considered obese. More than 15% of children are dangerously overweight while shrinking educational budgets are forcing physical education programs out of our schools.

Common sense would tell us we’d better starting making some lifestyle changes. Sadly, common sense seems to be underrated these days. To illustrate this, one story explained that a significant number of overweight Americans suffering shortness of breath and significant difficulty breathing have been diagnosed and treated for asthma, when the underlying cause for the diminished lung capacity and function was obesity. I personally know individuals who have undergone several knee operations, complain that “it didn’t help at all” but shrug off any mention of being more than 100 pounds over-weight for their frame.

Further, special interest groups in certain food industries are complaining because new government guidelines for nutrition are for the first time recommending that we consume as little added salt and sugar as possible. One representative went so far as to claim there was no scientific research supporting claims that there is any link between sugar consumption and obesity or the increase of type-II diabetes among adult Americans.

I promised that I’d get back to the athletic girl with the jump rope. She brought a tear to my eye. Her smile lit up her face. Her frame was robust and muscular. When she finished her performance, the interviewer commented that she wasn’t even out of breath.
She is probably clueless that she is performing an extreme physical feat because, in her mind, she's just having fun. Like the kids at An Achievable Dream Academy, where any games they play as part of their rigorous phys-ed program are played for fun – with little, if any, concern about who is winning. They are all winners in the game of life.

Most of us grew up eating the high-fat comfort foods our stay-at-home mom’s served up three times a day. Only 4% of kids were significantly overweight in those Harriet Nelson and June Cleaver days. Physical activity was built into our days. From gym class, to riding bikes or walking everywhere we went. From playing sand-lot baseball to unstructured pick-up games of basketball, touch football and others, with names like kick-the-can, red light—green light and plain old tag.

The world we live in has changed. Neighborhoods aren’t the safe place they were back then. Parents struggle with the knowledge that their kids might be couch potatoes but at least they are safe. Working adults are working harder than ever in less physically demanding jobs. Levels of stress increase, along with the so-called stress hormones that are only depleted by physical activity. We lament that the pace of life is hectic but we’re getting nowhere fast.

With the glut of FDA approved drugs being pulled off the market, we have to consider the fact that there is no quick cure, no magic pill for all that ails us. We’re being forced to look at the underlying cause of disease in America. We want a solution , but we’re overlooking that which is right in front of us – it’s plain common sense.

Get up off the couch. Get out from in front of the computer or television. Push yourself away from the table and get your body moving. Forget the gym or the fitness club. Forget the in-and-out in 30 minutes circuit training, the latest diet, or celebrity endorsed method or machine for getting that Hollywood body. If you want to stay in shape, go out and play. If you want to make a difference in America’s future – play with a kid. Jump rope, play tag, ride a bike, bounce a ball. Teach your kids, or the kids in your neighborhood or at your playground, the games you played when you were a kid. Have some fun. You, and the world, will be better for it.