Meridian Coaching & Consulting Blog

Over the course of your life, you probably have received an enormous amount of advice and much of it unsolicited.  Even worse is the paradoxical advice, “an unexamined life is not worth living” or “too much information is a dangerous thing.”  Life is full of these experiences; with all this input, how do you best decide what’s right for your life?   

Step One – Recognize that the opinions and advice of others—is merely information for making your own decisions—even the well-meaning advice from people we respect, fear or love.  The essential thing is to remember is that while others love to give advice—it’s not their life—it’s yours.  Accepting this requires clear thought; a mindset that that cuts through the competing voices so that you can listen to your own.

Step Two – Know that you have within you everything you need to make the best decision for yourself; it starts with an integrated approach.  Examine the options through your three centers of intelligence: Head, Heart and Gut, with each center furnishing you with unique perspectives.  Think of a decision you want to make, big or small, and ask yourself the following questions and write down your initial thoughts; don’t ponder too long on any one question:

• Head (Intellect/Rational) – Do I have enough facts, data, history, analysis, details or examples?  What do I think after sifting through the information?  How will this help the situation?
• Heart (Feelings/Emotions) – What emotions am I feeling (scared, exhilarated, worried, unconfident, sad or happy)?  What does my heart say about the situation?  How does knowing how I feel help me make a better decision?
• Gut (Intuition/Wisdom) – What does my body intuit; what is my gut sense?  Do I sense the situation, idea or the person is right, wrong, dangerous or unclear?  What does this information tell me about what I need or should do? 

Step Three – Gain clarity; create a space to inspect and reflect on your choices before you take action.  This interrupts your brain from its predictable drive for using the same old patterns for quick and comfortable decision-making.  Instead reflect on the varied but connected answers from your three center of intelligence.  While the answers may be different for each center, combined they serve 100% of your needs for making good choices. 

Your three centers of intelligence provide access to every bit of knowledge, talent and wisdom that you possess.  This deepens your self-knowledge, increases your confidence and expands your decision-making comfort zone.  If a decision doesn’t work out, you have the experience of what to do the next time, and that is something you can trust.

There are two ways to build confidence: the first is to fake it until you make it the second is to foster it from within.  We have all had to fake it at one time or another, like giving a presentation when you had neither the skills nor adequate time to prepare.  More than likely, it became a tactical exercise to complete – to suffer through.  If it went well, your confidence may have increased; if it tanked, what confidence you had disappeared.  To make matters worse, a lack of confidence in one area tends to leak into another.

There is Another Way to Develop Confidence.  Fostering confidence in yourself can be a transformative experience, instead of an experience to endure.  I’m talking about real confidence, where how you think and feel on the inside, shows on the outside in a positive way.  There are three things you can start doing today to create and sustain a vital inner confidence:

• Articulate Who You Are – Uncover and become familiar with your strengths, gifts, biases and blind spots, and learn to appreciate what you find out about yourself.  This brings clarity to what you are thinking and feeling in the moment.  It gives you the opportunity to be more proactive and show up in the way you wish to, which increases your influence and credibility. 
• Be Fair – Value fairness; mistakes happen and you shouldn’t fear them.  If it really was a mistake, then you can learn to say, “that’s not like me” instead of beating yourself up.  Cultivate an attitude of lessons learned and staying connected to yourself and others by learning to say, “I was wrong, I’m sorry and “Thank you.”  You must mean the words that you say (to yourself and others); when that happens, the results are magical.
• Who Must You Be to Achieve What You Want? – Answering this question helps you see the situation from the inside out – from your perspective – from your wants and needs.  When you have the answer, prepare yourself by asking, “What is the feeling, thought or action that I need to follow – to learn and grow?”  Considering this question gets you ready for the next thing, even if you’re not ready now.  It plants the seed for confidence and self-efficacy, and when the opportunity presents itself, you will be ready to move forward. 

When confidence blossoms, you feel comfortable in your own skin and you can be in the world with ease because you’ve learned to be present in the moment.  Developing inner confidence is one of life’s bargains – it is not bestowed by others – but found within.

Are you looking for success and happiness by choice or chance?  It is so easy to get caught up and not live the life you intended.  It can feel like you are drifting along and living on auto-pilot; that your life is defined by the expectations of family members, friends or colleagues; that your life is directed by the outer trappings of what you are supposed to achieve by a certain age: homes, jobs or fat retirement accounts.  It starts to feel like everyone but you get to decide how you’re supposed to live your life.

You are not alone.  It is easy to be sidetracked by the external world when clarity is elusive and you find it difficult to articulate “who am I, how do I contribute in the world and what calls to me in life.”  If that internal clarity is missing, it throws off your inner game and you tend to engage in these actions:

• Define yourself by the external indicators: Job, clothes, cars, houses, electronic toys, vacations, titles, money and status.
• Get distracted because you don’t know or have your own goals: You are influenced by the goals and aspirations of others and you join their journey – instead of creating your own.  You float along, go along to get along, do what seems easy or do what is necessary at the moment, and the results get are unsatisfying.
• Remain un-awakened: You have not identified and clarified your internal feelings or thoughts and you find it difficult to articulate what is inside.  This makes it tricky to give people what they need from you; causing anxiety, frustration, tension or anger for you and others. 
• Influenced by external factors: Like to focus on the next bright, shiny and exciting situation, thing, person or thought, which derails you from your purpose in life.
• Feel trapped: Mortgages, college funds, needs of aging parents, bills, retirement requirements, the expectations of parents, spouses and children or financial reversals.
• Swayed by others: The people we meet in our lives can be electrifying or terrifying, with lots of folks in between: they can push, dominate, punish, manipulate, stifle, blackmail or ignore us if we do not give them what they want.
• Listen to old tapes: “I’m not good enough – I always mess it up – It is too hard” this limiting self-talk cause untold suffering that takes you in the opposite direction of your deepest needs.

All of these experiences are part of the human condition, and yet, many individuals meet these situations with equanimity, because of they live their lives from the inside out, not the other way around.  The good news is that when you seek to uncover, explore and value what you find about yourself, your “positive inner game” comes to the forefront.  Giving you the personal mastery to know and do the right thing, and if you don’t know how, you trust the universe or you “know” that can find out and make it happen.

Sometimes the greatest journey you can take is within yourself; being crystal clear about what’s important to you, what wounds you and paralyzes you, what makes your heart sing and what let’s you sleep at night like a baby.  Mastery of your inner game is the difference between surviving and thriving – living life on purpose.

Anger is fuel—you can feel it and want to do SOMETHING!  But often, it is not acceptable, polite or appropriate to demonstrate that anger, so you do everything to avoid it: stuff it, ignore it, bury it, hide it, etc.  When you can’t avoid it any longer, you act on it and live to regret it.  You may do everything—but listen to it.

Anger is meant to be listened to and acted upon—not acted out.  It demonstrates your boundaries.  Anger tells you that what worked or was acceptable in the past, is no longer tolerable.  However, if you do not deal with the issues or transgressions when they are small, the situations will continue to appear.  As a result, your emotions of irritation and frustration escalate to anger, which begins to fester.  When anger isn’t dealt with productively, it can render the nicest person bitter, resentful and vindictive; emotions which are corrosive to you and others.

It doesn’t have to be this way.  Anger is a tool—not a master.  LISTEN and DECIDE how you want to use it.  Anger is not an action itself—it lets you know when you need to act in your own best interests.  Anger does not choose you—you choose it; therefore, use it to your advantage.

Dealing effectively with your anger means having productive mindsets—an inner game that enable you positively meet, what life throws your way.

• You get angry because you choose to, not because someone made you angry.
• Let it motivate you to reflect and see the best course of action to take.
• Talk it through with a trusted advisor to help you understand the root cause.
• Release the stress of anger through some form of exercise, breathing, meditation or venting in a safe place.
• Reflect and use your insight to stop or shift anger from being triggered.
• Remember, it’s a gift that reminds you that your boundaries have been violated in some way; enabling you to respond in an appropriate way to take care of yourself.

When all else fails, take a note from the page of the musician, Duke Ellington, “I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.” Use the energy of anger to create what serves you, not what depletes you and others.