Beacon Coaching

As my children and I boarded the plane at SFO bound for Lake Michigan, the pilot invited the kids into the cockpit for a look. One by one they sat in the pilot’s seat while I took photos with my phone-cam. It was cramped but jolly, and then Matty informed the pilot, “I have lice.” Although I knew I shouldn’t, I felt a wave of embarrassment and shame. I snapped my last photo, thanked the pilot, and hustled the kids to our seats.

Lice carries a stigma of poor hygiene, poverty, bad grooming, and disease (all of which are unrelated to lice infestation).  And on top of that, people are afraid of catching it. Mention lice and watch people take a step back, and within seconds begin scratching their heads. Even our school’s well-intentioned policy that keeps the names of children with lice confidential while revealing the existence of the lice in the classroom, conveys the impression that having lice is shameful.

But I was determined that my children (all of whom, along with me, were infested) should not feel shame. So I told all the moms I met on the beach, brazened it out on my Facebook page, and asked for advice on a parents’ listserve. And instead of being shunned, I was showered with sympathy — and with advice from many friends who had been through this most inconvenient blight. Granted, the support was often in hushed tones (“My daughter would be mortified if she knew I was telling you that she had lice,” said one mom, when in fact her daughter has already told me) But many more families in my orbit had been through it than I ever would have known if I had kept our lice a secret. Thanks to all of you!

It was a good reminder for me that like many things that are a source of shame or private pain, there is a world out there of people who have been there, done that. And when you connect with them, they can be a great resource.

I remember finding such a community after I suffered a miscarriage nine years ago. Up until that time, I had only heard of one or two, always in whispers. But once I told my story, I found that nearly half of the women in my acquaintance had miscarried as well. I took comfort from their stories and listened to their advice and felt less isolated and alone.

The world of families who have experienced suicide is also a source of comfort to me, even thirty years since my own brother took his life. Despite our growing understanding of mental illness, there is still shame attached to suicide, and I am grateful to know that my family is not alone.

I don’t mean to equate the nuisance of lice with the pain of miscarriage or the profound loss of suicide. Rather I want simply to remind us all that keeping our troubles secret fosters the belief that there is something shameful about the truth. If instead we share, we find another way of connecting to one another and to our shared human condition — bugs and all.

FYI: If you are facing lice, I recommend this video by my  and science writer Beth Weise.

Now, back to my combing …..

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I have a client who is completely fed up with her job. She is spread too thin, underpaid, under-resourced, isolated, and dissatisfied. She has tried hard to make the job work better, but it has now become clear that the fundamental problems with this job are not going to change. She sees that it will never provide what she wants and needs from her job: financial reward, respect, teamwork, meaning, and balance. If this job were a boyfriend, her friends would all be urging her to dump him and find someone more worthy.

And yet she is finding it difficult to leave – in part because she feels trapped by a bad job market, and in part because she finds it painful to let go of the hopes and dreams she had when she took the job. Despite her disappointment, she can still see the potential that attracted her to the job in the first place. It feels like a loss and a failure to give up and move on.

We coaches often talk about having a vision and going for it. But sometimes you try as hard as you can to make something work and circumstances beyond your control make it impossible. So when do you quit and how can you overcome your feelings of disappointment and failure?

How do you break up with your job?

Step 1. Assess whether your needs are being met. A job, like a relationship, needs to align with your values. Identify the things that are most important to you and the things that you would like to have. If your current situation doesn’t meet all your “non-negotiables” and many of your “nice-to-haves,” then you know that it is not long-term viable and it’s just a matter of time until you leave.

Step 2. It takes two …. Just as you can’t fix a relationship single-handedly, you can’t hold yourself responsible for a poor work environment or bad management. If you have tried hard to make things work, acknowledge your effort and don’t blame yourself. Recognize what you have done to try to resolve the problems at your job. And also recognize the elements that are outside your control. Don’t blame yourself.

Step 3. Learn your lessons. Reflect on your experience and extract whatever lessons you can learn from it. What about this job works and doesn’t work, and what should you seek in your next position? What attracted you to it, and were there warning signs at the first date (interview) that you should have heeded? Are there things you would do differently next time?

Step 4. Allow yourself to mourn, but don’t wallow. Letting go of a dream, like breaking up, can be painful. So cry on a friend’s shoulder, write (but don’t send) a pissed-off letter to your boss, or do whatever you need to do to acknowledge the loss you feel.

Step 5. Move on. Just as the excitement of a new relationship can help heal the wounds of the old, the prospect of a fresh start at a new employer can help you get over the loss of the dream job that wasn’t. Once you have resolved to break up with your job, take your non-negotiables and nice-to-haves lists, and begin looking for your next position. While I wouldn’t advocate going on any first dates until you have ended a relationship, job interviewing is another matter. Especially in the current job market, unless you can afford an extended period of unemployment, it makes sense to find your next job while still employed.

Step 6. Be choosy. Don’t trade one dysfunctional relationship for another. Use what you have learned in Steps 1-3 and keep looking until you are confident in your choice. Depending on your situation and the job market, you might be looking for Mr. Right (your dream job) or Rebound Guy (a transitional step to ward your dream job). Either way, make sure your decision is grounded in your values and your lessons learned.

P.S. These steps are good for relationships, too!

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A good friend of mine recently asked me if being a coach makes me feel like I have to do everything perfectly. I told her that I don’t feel that way, but that I do feel an obligation to “walk my talk.”

But what does that really mean?

For me, it means that I need to do what I ask of my clients:

* Dream big
* Set specific goals
* Be accountable
* Take action
* Question assumptions
* Stretch
* Risk failure
* Celebrate success
* Care for myself
* Be grateful

The list goes on …. geez, that’s a lot! And of course there are many times when I am not walking my talk. Maybe I know what I should be doing but I don’t. Or maybe I don’t know what I want and am spinning unproductively. Or perhaps while I am caring for others I let my own needs go unmet. As anyone who knows me can testify, I am as susceptible to these lapses as any other mortal.

And perhaps that’s where being a coach serves me well. Yes, I do feel a responsibility to walk my talk and not linger too long in the not-doing. But I also try to treat myself compassionately – not to beat myself up. Thanks to the many clients who share their dilemmas, anxieties, and frustrations with me, I know I am in good company. All our lives are a work in progress.

And I know how to get back on track: I call my coach. That’s walking my talk, too.

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I am test-driving Jane Nelsen’s  “Positive Discipline.” As I read the book, I am trying the techniques, and I will share my experience with you.

Here’s the scene: I have just busted my daughter for some infraction, and she is defensive and angry. I begin to explain the limit I am setting — let’s be honest, I am lecturing — and she is not listening (the hands covering her ears are a giveaway).  “You need to listen to me,” I say, trying to contain my frustration and anger, but I might as well be an adult in a Charlie Brown cartoon: “Mwah, mwah, mwah-mwah-mwah.” My perfectly good lecture is going to waste. What do I do?

Positive Discipline suggests I give us both a time out. But it is not a punitive time out — it’s what Nelsen calls a “positive time out,” a cooling off period. So I say, “Boy, we’re both really upset. Let’s talk about this later when we have both calmed down.” Then I walk away.

It turns out that taking a break is an enormously effective tool. In this case, my daughter and I were getting nowhere. Even without the hands over her ears, she was incapable of hearing me because she was emotionally flooded — overwhelmed by her emotions and in a state of high stress. And if I’m honest with myself, I was also at the mercy of my emotions. We both needed to regroup.

That’s all well and good, but then what do I do when I come back to her later? This step is really important, or there will be no learning. First, I come back too soon and she is still mad; in fact, my return after only ten minutes seems to re-ignite her anger.  So I leave her alone and come back still later. This second time I approach softly; I do not lecture. Instead, I acknowledge her feelings and mine as well, I apologize for yelling, and I ask for her help solving the problem. Miraculously, she listens and begins making suggestions. We are working together.

Now, admittedly, I’m not crazy about all of her solutions (her first suggestion is basically that I let her do whatever she wants, but then she gets a little more reasonable), and she’s not crazy about mine. But we do both agree to be more respectful, so that is good. Nonetheless, I’m pretty sure we’ll have to confront the underlying issue again. But at the very least, the positive time out stopped us from getting further out of control and helped us practice healthier habits around conflict.

My conclusion after one test drive: positive time out is a good tool to add to my parenting tool belt. Actually, I and at least a few other mothers I know had discovered this tactic in a much less conscious way when in a moment of desperation we locked ourselves in the bathroom because everyone in the house was screaming. We felt like horrible mothers, but really we were instinctively seeking our own time out. So I am grateful to Nelsen for helping create a framework and a structure for cooling off and coming back together in a positive way.

By the way, this works when arguing with your spouse, too.

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