by Heather Plett | May 13, 2011 | Uncategorized
Today is another in a long series of grey, sometimes drizzly, sometimes windy days. This morning I feel like a caged animal, longing for the space beyond the clouds, beyond the grey.
I feel easily caged. It’s part of my nature. Put too many boundaries around me (office walls, too much structure, not enough time on my schedule to wander, too many rules or limitations), and I get so restless I could SCREAM. I pace the cage, I rail against the machine, I get really, really cranky.
I know this about myself, and yet I keep expecting something different. I keep thinking I should WANT to fit into the cages that seem to make other people happy, I should LIKE sitting still for awhile, I should be THANKFUL for the office walls and structures that box me in. Oh the “shoulds” I have dumped on my head! I’ve tried so hard to fit into the ordered worlds that seem to make other people happy. And yet I can’t. It just doesn’t work for me.
It’s the same way in the world of business. Even though I am thrilled that self-employment gives me more opportunity to wander, to sit in the middle of a labyrinth to do my work, or to choose the library, a coffee shop, or my tiny basement studio as my creative space for the day, I still find myself trying to force myself into some kind of box.
I should be able to fit my business into a box, shouldn’t I? All the business books tell us to be specific, to have a crisp clean elevator speech, to have a niche market, to KNOW what we offer the world and to be able to communicate it in simple clean language.
But every time I try one of those boxes, I start to get really, really restless and I want to bust out of the box. Every time I try to define myself as one thing – “writer, communications consultant, teacher, creative midwife, facilitator, leadership coach, transformation guide” – I start going a little crazy and my body fills with angst.
And then I do that thing I do when I assume everyone else is figuring it out except for me – I assume there must be something wrong with me. I beat myself up a bit, and I try a little harder to fit into a box.
But the boxes NEVER FIT!
Because I am a wanderer. An explorer. A scanner (in the words of Barbara Sher).
I am a creative thinker. A box-buster. A questioner. An outside-the-lines-colourer.
And you know what? I’m proud of that and I don’t want to beat myself up over it any more. I want to BE WHO I AM and build a business out of that instead of trying to find some model that doesn’t fit.
Because of that, two things will be happening in the coming weeks:
1.) Next week (on my birthday), I will be releasing a new product that I absolutely LOVE because it is so true to my heart. It is about the beauty of being a wanderer and I’m SO happy that other wanderers have agreed to help me with it. OH MY GOSH this is going to be fun! I’m celebrating what makes me a wanderer, sharing it with you, and hopefully helping you to celebrate your own box-busting, colouring-outside-the-lines, happy wanderer nature too.
2.) Within a month or so, I plan to migrate my blog over to my heatherplett.com url. I have loved Sophia Leadership, but it has begun to feel like another one of those boxes. Not nearly everything I want to write about or create or sell is about feminine wisdom or about leadership. It’s time to just brand MYSELF and release the products and services that emerge out of my gifts instead of trying to squeeze all of my energy and creativity into a brand that doesn’t fit. I’ll still write about leadership and feminine wisdom now and then, but that won’t be the whole she-bang. Being a WANDERER is part of my brand, and so I will celebrate my burning need to wander from one idea to the next.
I’d love to hear from you if you have any ideas. For example, let me know what your favourite things are about visiting my site. What would you like to see more of? What things would you buy from me if I created them? What e-courses would you like to see me teach?
by Heather Plett | May 11, 2011 | beginnings, dreaming, growth, Leadership, Uncategorized, Wisdom
I’m done with writing goals. Good-bye. Good riddance.
I used to write them faithfully – at least once a year and sometimes in between. A lot of smart people told me that they were good and necessary and vital to my success, and since I have a habit of listening to smart people, I not only wrote them but I told other people to write them too. (After all, I wanted people to think I was smart too!)
But I’m done with goals. I’m kickin’ them to the curb. Because they’re not the most effective tool in my tool kit.
You want to know what works better than goals?
Questions.
Yup. You heard me right – questions work better than goals.
Here’s a short section from How to Lead with your Paint Clothes on that explains why…
To get stuff done, ask good questions.
We have all been taught the value of effective goal-setting, but rarely have we been taught the effectiveness of curiosity. Research has shown, in fact, that curiosity and openness help us get MORE accomplished than determination and goal-setting do.
Three social scientists once conducted a series of experiments to determine which was more effective, “declarative” self-talk (I will fix it!) or “interrogative” self-talk (Can I fix it?). They began by presenting a group of participants with some anagrams to solve (for example, rearranging the letters in “sauce” to spell “cause”.) Before the participants tackled the problem, though, the researchers asked half of them to take a minute to ask themselves whether they would complete the task. The other half of the group was instructed to tell themselves that they would complete the task.
In the end, the self-questioning group solved significantly more anagrams than the self-affirming group.
The researchers – Ibrahim Senay and Dolores Albarracin of the University of Illinois, along with Kenji Noguchi of the University of Southern Mississippi – then enlisted a new group to try a variation with a twist of trickery: “We told participants that we were interested in people’s handwriting practices. With this pretense, participants were given a sheet of paper to write down 20 times one of the following word pairs: Will I, I will, I, or Will. Then they were asked to work on a series of 10 anagrams in the same way participants in Experiment One did.”
This experiment resulted in the same outcome as the first. People primed with “Will I” solved nearly twice as many anagrams as people in the other three groups. In follow-up experiments, the same pattern continued to hold. Those who approach a task with questioning self-talk did better than those who began with affirming self-talk.
My nine-year-old daughter Maddy figured this out before I did. (Or perhaps I had it figured out at nine too, but somewhere along the way I let smart people convince me otherwise.)
Not long ago, she started her first journal. “Mom,” she said, “I’m going to call it ‘A lifetime of questions.'” And then she proceeded to write pages full of all the questions she has about life, leaving blank spaces after each question in case she finds the answer and wants to fill it in. Sometimes she shares her questions with me and sometimes she doesn’t.
The other day, she was waiting in line at six in the morning to audition for The Next Star, a TV talent show that’s like Canadian Idol for kids. After the original giddiness had worn off, she plopped herself down on the ground, pulled out her journal, and started writing her questions. She didn’t show them to me, but there’s a pretty good chance at least one of them was “will I be the Next Star?”
The answer to that question was, unfortunately, “No” (she didn’t make it past the first round of auditions), but if you ask me, she’s a pretty big star just for having the guts to do all the research about how and where to audition, practice her songs relentlessly for weeks on end, get up at 5 a.m. on a Saturday, wait in line for five hours, and then march off alone into an audition room full of strangers (I wasn’t allowed to watch) and compete against kids who were mostly a few years older than her – all at the risk of failure. (One of the first questions she asked me afterwards was “Mom, can I take singing and dance lessons so I’m more prepared next year?”) That little girl is a hero in my books!
So I’m taking the lessons I’ve learned from Maddy and those researchers, and I’m living a lifetime of questions.
Remember that black canvas I painted when I was in the depths of despair over my long surrender? I decided to fill it with a bunch of hopeful questions.
I’ll let you know what the answers are when I find out!
Note: For this and other unconventional wisdom about how to take a more unique and powerful approach to life and leadership, check out How to Lead with your Paint Clothes on. There’s still room in the learning circle (along with the fascinating people who’ve already joined) and we’d love to have you!
by Heather Plett | May 10, 2011 | parenting, Passion
I’m not a mommy-blogger for a few good reasons. I don’t think I’m particularly competent at parenthood (aren’t we all just feeling our way in the dark?), and there are a lot of other things roaming around in this grey matter that I’d just as soon write about as parenting. While I take great delight in my three daughters, I’m not one of those moms who gives up all else for the sake of her children (nor do I think that’s particularly healthy for mom or kids).
Today is an exception, though. I’m going to blog about my kids.
Last night, I was curled up on the couch when a lovely thought occurred to me. “My three children are all blessedly happy at this moment.” It was a good moment and I had to bask in it while it lasted.
The oldest daughter had just returned from a rugby game and was riding that post-game adrenalin high as she demonstrated some of the plays for her dad and I.
The second daughter is off on a French exchange program in Quebec, and though I didn’t speak with her last night, I can only presume she was happy based on all of the conversations I’ve had with her so far. (There was pure joy in her voice after visiting Old Montreal.)
The third daughter was taking great delight in some new art supplies (thanks Connie!) and was making art in her new journal.
Fierce athlete, curious explorer, and imaginative artist.
That doesn’t paint the whole picture of those three girls, but it certainly gives you a clue about what makes each one unique.
I didn’t mold them into these things, nor did I put any particular effort into helping them find these particular paths. I just did two simple things – I gave them tools and permission. The tools weren’t particularly expensive. Just rugby cleats, art supplies, and a suitcase. And the permission? Well, that was just a matter of deciding a long time ago that I was going to be okay with watching them choose their own paths, whether or not they seemed like the right paths to me.
I think this goes way beyond parenting, though. I think it’s got everything to do with leadership too. Give them tools, give them permission, and set them loose on the world. It’s what leading with your paint clothes on is all about (which, by the way, could also be called “parenting with your paint clothes on” because there are so many parallels).
And it has everything to do with self leadership and self care too. Give yourself the tools. Give yourself the permission. And set yourself loose.
If you love to paint, when was the last time you bought a new paintbrush or tube of paint? If you love to write, why not invest in a beautiful journal and trust that your thoughts are worthy of a good home? If your body loves to move, why haven’t you bought yourself a good pair of dance shoes or running shoes?
And when was the last time you gave yourself the gift of an afternoon to do these things you love to do? Are the things that bring you joy at the bottom of the list after all of the other priorities you have to get to? Stop doing that. Seriously. Give yourself permission.
It’s pretty simple, really. It’s the only way you’ll find your path – give yourself the tools and the permission.
by Heather Plett | May 9, 2011 | Let go of the ground, Trust
Okay, I’ll admit it. I’ve been doing a lot of striving lately. Striving to make my business work, striving to make my relationships work, striving to make my life not seem like a colossal waste of time.
What do I mean by “striving”? Well, for me that’s the word that best describes the panicky, desperate, clawing-for-success effort I put into things when I feel like I’m losing my grip. Striving is all about spinning-my-wheels, addicted-to-action effort, that usually has little to do with what’s in my heart. Striving is the opposite of trusting.
Striving is the space I’m in when I think “if only I could figure out the magic to online marketing like so-and-so, I’ll be able to sell more copies of How to Lead with your Paint Clothes on“.
Or “maybe if I create a few ‘cheap and easy‘ e-courses and sell those first, I’ll be able to generate more of an audience for the ‘hard and soulful’ stuff that’s closer to my heart”.
Or “perhaps I’m not tweeting enough, engaging enough, marketing enough, hanging out with the cool kids enough… etc., etc.”
Or “maybe if I could just get an endorsement from So-and-So-Bigshot I’d have hoardes of people flooding my blog.”
Or “I’m just not going to the right events, meeting the right people, doing the right dance, singing the right songs.”
Or, in the relationship realm, “something’s broken and if I don’t bend over backwards to FIX IT NOW, then I’ll be a failure, the relationship will be a failure, everything will suck, and it will all be MY FAULT.”
Honestly? Striving sucks. It sucks big time. It sucks all of the energy and creativity out of my soul and leaves me depleted and feeling lost.
Striving is the stuff I do when I’m not being true to myself. Striving is the stuff that takes me far from my authentic self, far from my heart, far from the path I feel called to.
Striving is almost always about comparing myself to other people and finding myself lacking.
And the truth is, striving never works. Striving takes me down a dead-end-road every single time. Maybe not right away (sometimes there are momentary rewards that make it seem worthwhile), but in the end, it’s always the same – failure.
Whenever I’ve attempted any kind of suck-out-my-soul marketing, or paste-a-cheery-face-on networking, I fail. I can’t lie to my heart. I can’t “fake it”. I can’t cozy up to So-and-So-Bigshot or market like Big-Shiny-Expert – I just can’t. It’s not me and it never will be.
I’m learning the same about relationships. When I’m giving away pieces of my heart that don’t feel right to give away, or participating in things that feel like betrayal to my heart, I’m losing and the relationship isn’t really working (even though it may temporarily seemed fixed because of my actions).
If I can’t sell the things that are true to my heart, that evolve out of my deepest truths, then I might as well go get that job as a postal carrier that I’ve been tempted to get. Because at least walking the neighbourhood delivering people’s mail feels authentic and honest and doesn’t turn me into a big fat self-loathing fraud.
Authenticity is the only way I know how to live. I mean REALLY live, not just “get by”.
A meditation teacher once taught me “When you’re sitting in meditation, and a thought enters your mind, don’t try to judge it or chase it away. Just label it ‘thinking’ and let it pass. And then when the next thought comes, do the same with it.”
I’ve started to apply that teaching to my temptation to strive. Whenever I sense myself doing that inauthentic, desperate-for-sucess striving, I simply label it “striving” and then let it pass. Once it is past, I try once more to lean into trust.
Because trust is the only thing that can replace striving. Trust in God. Trust in my own authentic heart. Trust that even if I fail, I will be okay and my failings don’t define me as a failure. Trust that Sophia God is calling me down this path for a reason, even if that reason seems blurry these days. Trust that there is goodness and abundance available for me.
Trust that the best thing I can offer the world is not a reasonable facsimile of Big-Shiny-Expert, but authentic, beautiful, flawed, honest me.
by Heather Plett | May 6, 2011 | Uncategorized
Sometimes an idea grabs ahold of you and just won’t let you go until you follow it.
The moment I first heard that Cath Duncan was going to walk 100 kilometres in honour of her little Juggernaut (her stillborn baby), I knew instantly that I wanted to join her. In the weeks that followed, I came up with every good reason in the world why it wasn’t a good idea (it’s in Alberta and I can’t afford to travel right now, it’s bad timing with kids starting school, it’s too hard to fundraise all that money, etc.) and yet I couldn’t deny the deep longing I felt to join her.
And so, finally, after working through all the resistance, I committed to it! I want to walk!
Why?
For one thing, Cath and I share a similar story. Like little Juggernaut, my son Matthew was stillborn. His eleventh birthday will be a few weeks after the walk. I felt so drawn to Cath’s story that I knew I wanted to do something to honour her little girl (and, at the same time, my little boy).
For another thing, I think Cath is an amazing woman with a lot to share with the world and I want to see her live a long and healthy life. I want to see a cure for Kidney disease so that Cath can continue to shine her unique light in the world. I want to do what I can to honour and support people living with illness like Cath who continue to fill the world with dignity and beauty despite their struggles.
And for a third reason… I am on a journey toward greater health myself – physical, spiritual, and emotional health. I am on a journey that has seen me take up running for the first time in my life and I am LOVING it. At the beginning of this summer (just after I turn 45) I will be running my first half marathon. It seemed fitting that I would book-end the summer by walking 100 km at the end of it. Running and walking make me feel strong and alive, physically, spiritually and emotionally, and I look forward to this challenge and what it will bring to my life.
And that brings me to the final reason… holy COW! Can you imagine how amazingly mind-blowing and life-opening it will be to spend three days walking through a beautiful part of the world with three incredible women? (Yeah, I have some selfish reasons too.) For this happy wanderer, I just can’t imagine a more FUN way to spend three days!
For Cath, for little Juggernaut, for Matthew, and for myself, I will walk 100 km!
Will you sponsor me? Please? My 45th birthday is coming up on May 20th – perhaps instead of that gift you wanted to lavish me with, you can spend the money on the Kidney Foundation?
Just one other thing… go on over and “like” Team Juggernaut on Facebook and follow along! There’s a super-duper Secret Project soon to be revealed that I KNOW you’ll want to be in on!
Today is another in a long series of grey, sometimes drizzly, sometimes windy days. This morning I feel like a caged animal, longing for the space beyond the clouds, beyond the grey.
