Ask Ms. Mindfulness

“You know what I’ve realized?  I’ve concluded that it’s okay to just be average.” I heard this from a client a few weeks ago.  He continued on to say, “For so long I’ve been worried about my image.  What others thought about me.  I would leave every interaction wondering whether I’d said the right thing.  Worried that I didn’t.  Worried about the interaction.  Did I dazzle them enough?  Wondering if they were seeing the smart and successful attributes in me that I wanted them to see.  I had to get them to realize I was special, a star.  Was I successful in getting the sale or the deal?  Wondering how if it hadn’t gone well, how I could later manipulate the situation to get the outcome I wanted.” (We all do a version of this, just in case you were wondering if this is unique.) “Sounds exhausting.”  I replied. “Extremely.”  He confirmed. “And now you’re realizing it’s okay to just be average.  How does that feel?”  I asked. “I feel free.” I smiled.  It reminded me of the moment when I realized it too.  And the feeling of serenity and intense peace that came with it.  I was so jazzed about the revelation that I even broke out into poetic genius and wrote a poem about it – The Joy of Being Average. It wasn’t a very good poem.  It didn’t even rhyme.  I even tried to find it to insert it into this blog because I thought that would make me look quite clever, but my filing system must be pretty crap because it’s disappeared.  But I swear I wrote it.  The Pursuit of Special is Stressful The image management aspect of trying to prove ourselves is exhausting.  I got told growing up I was smart.  I was special.  I believed it.  I so wanted it to be true.  And it was all very well intended appreciation meant to lift me up from family members, teachers, friends and colleagues.  But then I had to prove it.  Then I had to live up to it.  I spent a lot of time thinking about it.  My image, who I wanted to be, who I wanted people to think that I was.  An international woman of mystery, a courageous trailblazer who had conquered the globe and lived and worked in multiple countries, started my own successful businesses – twice.  I carefully crafted and perfected these stories, used to spend a lot of time thinking about them for when I would give a speaking engagement.  It had to be just right.  It had to dazzle the audience.  I had a whole wall in my office filled with degrees, certifications, accomplishments.  I ran out of room for them eventually and started putting them in the bathroom.  It’s not a surprise I did this.  It’s not a surprise my client did something similar.  Our context sets us up for it, and we unconsciously fall straight into the trap.  If you look on social media it’s […]

It’s been an interesting week here in Austin, Texas.  The first ice storm of 2023 rained down on the city this week and considering the driving skills of most Texans in ice, we have all been ordered to stay put in the safe recesses of our homes (assuming you have power, and if not it’s every man for himself…).  The Makings of One Massive Frustration Funk Not being able to leave the house for several days already had me in a funk.  We extroverts need to be let out of our cage.  Then a client offsite I had so carefully planned got cancelled due to covid.  There went my perfectly orchestrated client schedule and my trip to New Orleans I was so looking forward to that just happened to perfectly coincide with Mardi Gras (Throw me some beads, Mister!).  Unfortunately, no new beads for me this year.  Add to that a 5-day migraine which started on Monday and is only letting up now, and it’s fair to say I haven’t been an easter basket of joy these past few days. My consolation had been old episodes of Married at First Sight (it’s addictive, I swear!) until we lost internet, so now I’ve been forced to work on this blog given I can’t stream anymore.  And I’m mad about that.  I need to know if Sonia says yes to Nick in season 4 of my show…if I were in her shoes, it would be a big resounding NO.  This morning tensions came to a peak, no yoga for almost a week, and I found myself in what I often refer to as an emotional loop of doom – an ongoing diatribe that repeats in one’s head like a bad Def Leppard song.  It’s easy in these moments to feel like you’re right back where you started.  I was down on myself and life in general.  I’m never going to figure these migraines out.  Rescheduling the offsite is going to put my work back with these clients, it’s going to jeopardize the progress we’ve made.  Why are these jeans so damn tight!  Why does the internet hot spot on my phone not work!  My ISP sucks!  Why did the cat just pee inside in the pot of succulents – Jesus! And then my thoughts went to an even darker place.  What’s the point of any of this!  Does anything I do even make a difference!  You know that sticky, restless feeling when you’re mad with everyone and everything including yourself?  You can’t focus, you rush from task to task to keep yourself busy but nothing seems to help?  Yes, I was there. And coincidently yesterday was Groundhog Day.  A coincidence I think not! 3 Simple Tactics to Fight Frustration and the Curse of the Groundhog So I sat down at my computer and forced (yes forced) myself to do 3 simple things that I’ve often advocating my clients do (yes it is hard at times to practice what you preach!): Coaching Questions […]

This week I was teaching a class on life and time management, where I spent time talking with participants about the difference between time management and priority management. The difference between time management and priority management The reason for making this distinction boils down to some famous words of advice: “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.”                                                                                     —Stephen R. Covey Schedule your priorities We often jump straight into scheduling the things on our plate, without even determining whether we SHOULD be working on them in the first place.  One of the best ways to ensure you’re clear on what your priorities are is to periodically check in with your line manager and simply ask.  This may seem obvious, but just because something is common sense doesn’t mean its common practice!  Research has found that managers and their direct reports often: Manage up – take the lead to align with your supervisor Amazing, right?  But the bottom line is we live in a fast-paced environment, where priorities are constantly in flux.  You’ve got to do the necessary work to constantly manage up, otherwise you may inadvertently be creating problems for yourself. So here’s a little homework assignment to do: Chances are you may be surprised what you find out! Once you’re clear on what your priorities are, the Ivy Lee Method for scheduling is a quick and easy way to schedule them. The Ivy Lee Method on How to Schedule Coaching questions for thought: Shelley Pernot is a leadership and career coach who is passionate about helping her clients discover their strengths and talents and find a career that utilizes them.  Reach out to me here for a free consultation to learn more about the coaching process and how it may benefit you! I’ve recently been featured in Feedspot’s top 50 career coaching blogs.  Check out what other career coaching experts have to say here! 

What is psychological safety? The topic of Psychological safety has been getting a lot of airtime recently.  One definition of this term is the belief that you won’t be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes.  And as a leader, you’re responsible for cultivating it and fostering a healthy level of it in your team.  It’s not about just being nice There’s one frame that often gets in the way on this front.  Quite often, when leaders think about psychological safety, they assume it’s just about being nice to your team members, and they worry about sacrificing high performance for the sake of tiptoeing around each other and not having the hard conversations that need to be had.  But the point is you don’t have to trade high performance in your organization for psychological safety.  You can actually have both. I often find it helpful to start this discussion by looking at 4 different situations that often arise in team environments: So which of these 4 zones is your team currently operating in?  Be honest!  Over my time in business I’ve worked in a version of every one of these zones.  But you don’t get to the Learning and High Performance zone by accident.  As a leader, you’ve got to work to create it.  So what can you do as a leader to increase psychological safety and performance? Consider some of these options, adapted from the work of Amy Edmonson, Harvard psychological safety guru: Coaching questions for thought: Shelley Pernot is a leadership and career coach who is passionate about helping her clients discover their strengths and talents and find a career that utilizes them.  Reach out to me here for a free consultation to learn more about the coaching process and how it may benefit you! I’ve recently been featured in Feedspot’s top 50 career coaching blogs.  Check out what other career coaching experts have to say here! 

2022 was big.  Big for me at least.  Biggest revenues, biggest number of clients.  Biggest number of challenges I had ever taken on.  Explosive growth on the personal and on the professional front.  I don’t think I had ever felt as comfortable in my role as a career and leadership coach, as a leadership facilitator, a mentor coach.  The pressure was high, but I was enjoying it for the most part.  I was flying high.  I had finally arrived!  Then I Crashed and Burned And then something strange happened at the start of this year.  I started hesitating before sessions with clients.  I started second guessing my reactions to things, the words coming out of my mouth, my interactions with people.  Did I show up with a compassionate open heart???  Maybe I’m being too hard on them…Maybe that thing I just said was really stupid…What a lame question!  I’ll never be as good as a facilitator as X.  I started thinking I had lost my edge.  And then I wondered if I had ever found it to begin with. I stopped the diatribe and instead started to ponder why – why these thoughts?  Why am I torturing myself?  It reminded me of when I was a fledging yogi, at yoga teacher training in LA.  One of the opportunities of said yogic experience was being forced to listen to our esteemed guru rant on about any number of topics for hours on end.  But one rant stood out, where the guru was talking about achievement.  “Achievement is nothing.  Anyone can achieve anything they want to.  Maintaining it over time, now that’s a different story.  That’s near impossible!” Achievement versus Maintenance I think he was on to something there.  And then it dawned on me what was causing me to hesitate.  To second guess and doubt my every move.  The gnawing feeling that I didn’t have what it takes to go the distance.  The success was a fluke.  An anomaly.  And what was hiding in the wings (although very cleverly disguised) was my inner critic.  Whispering soft things in my ear like, “You should know this already.  Someone with your level of training wouldn’t be hesitating right now.  If you were emotionally intelligent you wouldn’t be over-reacting right now.” I spent this morning in tears, having a good cry.  (Crying can be extremely therapeutic if you’re so inclined to try it…) I made a list of all the things I’ve been struggling with (it was a long list in case you were wondering).  All the things I didn’t think I had gotten “right” lately.  And then I just let the tears flow.  Tears of forgiveness for all the things I haven’t navigated well over the last few months.  Things maybe I got wrong.  Or maybe I didn’t get perfect.  Because no matter how long I’ve been doing this coaching and training gig, I still: This list could go on and on by the way. And I still just allowed the tears to […]

On my desk I keep a small statue.  It’s a beauty pageant participation trophy I got off the internet for $4.99 plus $19.99 in shipping and handling.  I even had my name engraved on it.  She sits proudly on my desk looking at me, all smug with her right hand coyly resting on her hip, standing up perfectly straight in her big poofy skirt with her sash draped proudly over her chest.  She sits on my desk not to remind me of the beauty pageant I never won (or even entered for that matter).  She sits there to remind me of the evils of striving for perfection.  And when you think about it, many of us get caught in this trap.  We get caught in the trap, and we don’t follow through.  We get caught in the trap and we give up before we’ve even started, because whatever we produce just won’t be good enough.  We won’t be good enough.  So why even bother? Or maybe we try and we don’t exactly meet the goal, or the target.  And then we beat ourselves up about it.  Here’s an example.  I set myself the goal of writing this blog once a week on January 1st of this year.  I’ve dutifully done it every week, except one in September when I was on vacation.  And then the end of the year rolled around and I’ve missed a week or two.  And then my thoughts the other day turned to – “See!  You didn’t do it.  You never follow through!  What kind of coach are you, you can’t even finish strong when you made a big deal about starting something.  You might as well give up, you hack!” I could really listen to that voice.  Tune into and wallow in my misery of failure.  Revel in the fact that I’m an impostor that doesn’t deserve to use the word coach.  I could do all that, and don’t think I didn’t think about it.  And then I took my own advice, and remembered sometimes it’s actually helpful to practice what you preach.  One of my favorite books which I often have clients read is one called Mindset, the new neuroscience of success.  In it, the author Dweck talks about the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset.  Fixed Mindset = Proving The fixed mindset is all about proving.  Proving one is good enough, smart enough and gosh darn it, that people like you.  (I’m hoping someone will catch the Stuart Smalley reference here…)  Many of us go through life locked into a fixed mindset a lot of the time.  As a result of it, we often have difficulty accepting criticism, rising to the challenge of something new or unexpected because we might fail or collaborating effectively with others because we view them as competition.  We have difficulty because the emphasis is on proving.  I have to prove I can finish what I start, and if I don’t, I’m an impostor.  Growth Mindset […]