Category: choices

choices, creative process, decision-making

Step 322: 5 Ways to Make Complaints Useful

Christa Avampato

“When we complain we are tearing down an undesirable structure in order to make room for something new.” ~ Daily OM

We all complain. You can be the sunniest, most happy-go-lucky type of person, and every once in a while even you will utter a complaint. And you should. Whenever someone is always upbeat, never sad or angry, and never complains, I am immediately suspicious. Pent up anger and frustration is harmful. If you don’t let it out, your body is going to find a way to internalize it. And that can only mean a lot of trouble down the line.

There’s a balance that needs to be struck when it comes to complaining. It has to go somewhere; it has to be of value; it has to lead to a better way forward. I’m all for any and every complaint that accomplishes that. Here are 5 ways to make that happen:

1.) Find a trusted, creative, honest sounding board
This is the first step to a good complaint. We all need someone who can listen to us and help us find our way. The finding our way part is the one that’s tricky. Honest sounding boards, ones who can see us through our complaints, don’t always tell us what we want to hear, but they do tell us what we need to hear. Those are two very different things. A friend or relative who can be both supportive and honest is critical to helping us turn our complaints into assets.

2.) Work it out, literally
I spend a lot of time working out my complaints when I walk Phineas. My yoga practice helps, too. Any kind of activity that stretches your body helps to stretch your mind to imagine new solutions and options – exactly what we need to turn our complaints into actions.

3.) Get quiet
Once we air our complaints, we need to spend some time actively forgetting them. When we twist something over and over in our minds, it becomes difficult to see our way past it. If we can get quiet and look past it, it’s easier for a solution to bubble up. I have a meditation practice that helps me separate myself from my complaints and worries. Getting quiet doesn’t have to be a complicated practice. For 5 minutes every day, close your eyes, sit in a comfortable position, inhale for 4 counts, and exhale for 4 counts. It’s amazing how much creativity shows up when we just remind ourselves to breath.

4.) Find others who share your frustration
I’m not suggesting that you find other people with the same frustration you have so that you can all sit around and wallow. If we can find people who share our concerns, then we can support one another by finding a way to solve the source of the complaint. We’ll also be able to see the source of the complaint from different angles, a key necessity for improving the situation. In the case of resolving complaints, two heads are better than one.

5.) Write it down
Writing out complaints is another way to get them out without saying or doing something we’ll later wish we could take back. I write about frustrations on this blog, but most of my complaints are confined to a little green notebook I have. It holds my pro con lists, my decision tress, and my brainstorms. Most of the material is throw-away, but just the act of writing out my problems really does make them feel less daunting.

What did I miss? What methods help you deal with complaints and frustrations?

adventure, choices, decision-making, dreams

Step 319: 2011 Planning

Christa Avampato

“Life’s like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending.” ~ Jim Henson, American puppeteer

Many companies and organizations are currently reviewing their plans for 2011. They’re asking themselves about low hanging fruit and bit bets, where to place their energy, time, and money. Just as organizations go through this structured planning process, it’s helpful for us to personally review our own plan for 2011. On December 31st, 2011, what do we want to reflect on? What do we want to learn? Where do we want to be and what will we have accomplished? Tell me your ending and let’s figure out how to get there.

Here’s a quick exercise I did recently that really helped me fill in some of the blanks. I’ll keep working on it through December. I hope it helps you, too, as you start to create your dream ending for 2011:

1.) What are your big areas of focus? These can be project-based or topical (personal finance, career, relationships). Mine are all project-based because I work better when my energy is focused by project.

Mine:
a.) Compass Yoga classes
b.) Yoga and personal finance book
c.) This blog (of course) / my writing in general
d.) Innovation Station

2.) What are specific goals under each project or topic that you want to work on? Give each one its own line and feel free to list as many as you’d like. We’ll get to editing later.

Mine:
a.) Compass Yoga classes
– regular weekly yoga class
– give a workshop of some kind
– secure one additional regular teaching gig

b.) Yoga and personal finance book
– get all of the content written and organized
– work with a designer (hopefully my brother-in-law) on an illustration style and cover design
– decide if I want to self-publish or shop it around
– if I want to shop it around, ask for some advice from writer friends on the best way to do that (I know nothing about the traditional
publishing world)
– give a workshop based on the book

c.) This blog (of course) / my writing in general
– choose a blogging topic for the coming year. 2009 was about hope, 2010 has been about living an extraordinary life. What should
2011 be about?
– secure another regular writing gig, similar to my time with Examiner.com
– syndicate the content into a series of smaller e-books by topic
– continue marketing my e-book Hope in Progress

d.) Innovation Station
– compile all of the materials needed for a pilot
– secure a pilot in a public school

3.) Now we have to prioritize! First the big areas you want to focus on, and then the goals underneath each one. If you’re like me, you have a huge list that might just make you a little sleepy just looking at it. I’m not asking you to edit or cross out any of your dreams. Who knows? Maybe you’ll find a way to clone yourself and get it all done, or many some of your to-do’s will take a lot less time and effort than you think they will.

This prioritization will take some time because you have to spend some time thinking about your values. Take the time you need for this portion. This is a year of your life we’re talking about here, so give it the attention it deserves! I’m still in the prioritization phase myself. I’ll get back to you in a later post on how my planning is going.

4.) Once the prioritization phase is done, pour yourself a cocktail of choice and celebrate! You did a good piece of work setting up this plan.

5.) Now, after a celebration, get going. Post your goals on your fridge, on your front door, in your car, at your desk. Anywhere that you will see every day. And remember to celebrate every win, big and small.

Let me know if this process is helpful and what you’re planning for a happy and bright 2011. I’d love to give you a helping hand for an amazing year ahead!

adventure, career, change, choices, decision-making, risk

Step 315: Risks Are Less Scary Than They First Appear

Christa Avampato

I’m a fan of the daily newsletter from Psychology Today. Every day they send over 4 stories that are loosely connected, and try to make their readers better people. A few weeks ago they sent over a set of article about fear and how the mind interprets different fears. My big take-away: we have a warped view of risk, real and perceived.

I think about risk a lot for several specific reasons:

1.) At the moment I work in financial services – an industry built around the ability to manage risk
2.) I’m working on starting a small business – a challenging proposition even when the economy is at its best
3.) I live in New York City, a city built and run by people who take their dreams, and all the risk that those dreams carry, very seriously

One of Psychology Today’s articles talks about the 10 ways we screw up our perception of a risk. The good news: we’re actually much more capable than we give ourselves credit for. I understand that the economy’s in the hole because we got way too confident, that for years we were living way out of the ballpark of our means. I’m not suggesting we get back to that place of too-risky living.

What I am suggesting is that we’ve gone too far in the other direction. We tell ourselves that we can’t take any risk now. Better to stay in the job, relationship, city where we are. New is scary. New is uncertain. New is overrated. I hate that we’ve painted ourselves into a corner. It’s true that we need to make smart choices, but it’s also true that we need to live, really live. We’re creatures of dreams and aspirations and joy. We won’t thrive if we don’t strive.

I’m not telling you to run out into the world, full tilt, throwing any and every caution to the wind. (Well, actually, I think it’s good to do that once in a while.) What I am asking you to do is keep in mind that we only get one crack at this go-around in the world and that this world needs you to live the best life you can imagine. We need you at your very best. It’s my firm belief that we’re at our best when we’re happiest, and we’re happiest when we’re out there in the world living the way we want.

So take a little tip-toe outside of that box you put yourself in. Try something new and different that does nothing but lift your spirits. If we all take some small steps, together we can leap.

change, choices, creativity, imagination

Step 312: Growing Imagination

Christa Avampato

“Even as you research, you are filtering out the things that do not resonate with your inner ideals and choosing what does. In doing so you are telling the universe to narrow down the infinite possibilities, focusing all the combined energy of co-creation on what you have chosen. This creates a channel through which your goals can find you, like a beacon in the vast darkness of the universe. Today you are the creator of your future, and your only limits are the boundaries of your imagination.” ~ My horoscope from DailyOm on Friday, November 5th.

My friend, Laura, introduced me to DailyOm horoscopes about a year ago and I am always amazed by their ability to strike just the right chord and help me to feel okay with where I am. I read the horoscope above on my phone just as I was leaving Brian’s office. I was talking with him about a shift in my career that I’m hoping to make in 2011, as well as some other plans I’m making for new projects. I’ve been toying with different ideas and filtering as needed. I explained to Brian that the filtering process can be a little frustrating because it seems to take so much time and the pay-off builds in such small increments.

I’ve started to believe that every creative act requires more editing than content. The initial recording of the idea is important, though the culling down, the focus, and the distillation of what matters and how to execute it are equally important. And that focus is needed if we want to truly expand and grow our imaginations to their full potential. And the incredible thing about imagination is that once we choose to embrace it, celebrate it, and nurture it our goals really do find us. This isn’t magic; it’s only the harvesting of all the seeds we’ve sewn for so long.

choices, failure, future, opportunity

Step 301: Put an End to Waiting

Christa Avampato

“If there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do for any fellow being, let me do it now, and not deter or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.” ~ William Penn

“Mantras you shouldn’t say: I don’t know; I’m not ready; I can’t do it.” ~ Yogi Tea

I’ve made excuses for why I can’t do good now. I need more experience, education, money, time. Truthfully, we will never have all of the resources we think we need to get something done, and the other side to that truth is that we don’t need as much as we think we do. I spent a number of years thinking I didn’t have enough experience to offer to be a teacher. In my writing, I kept seeing my age as a limiting factor. “I need to wait until I really know more before I commit my beliefs to writing,” I would tell myself. The actual reason why I put off too many actions for far too long – I was scared I’d get it wrong.

And then I tried and did get it wrong, and the world didn’t end as I had feared. I got opportunities to try again, and again, and again. As long as I’ve been willing to put myself out there, the world has given me opportunities to keep trying. We lull ourselves into thinking we just aren’t ready, that we had better wait to realize our full potential until some magical time in the future when the stars will align right before our eyes.

By waiting, we deny ourselves the power to create and align our own stars. We need to stop focusing on what we need, and recognize all that we have. We need to understand that achievement is based not upon what we have but who we are, and right now, in this moment, we are enough and we are all we truly need to make good happen. Pick up those mantras of “I don’t know; I’m not ready; I can’t do it” and chuck them out the window in favor of the mantras “I’ll figure it out; now’s the time; let’s get going.”

art, change, choices, faith, fear, politics, relationships, religion, theatre

Step 287: Review of the Off-Broadway Show, Freud’s Last Session

Christa Avampato

In 1998, I saw the play Picasso at the Lapin Agile in San Francisco. I remember being completely riveted watching the fictional meeting of two of the most inspiring characters of all time, Einstein and Picasso. This construct for a play appealed to me so much that I still routinely think about that show 12 years later. It was at times touching and sad, joyful and hopeful. Full of lively, passionate debate and intense discussion about timeless social issues, I always felt it would be hard for a play to match Steve Martin’s brilliance.

Lucky for us Mark St. Germain has succeeded in building a script that’s even more powerful and thought-provoking than Martin’s – Freud’s Last Session, now playing off-Broadway at The Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater at the West Side YMCA. Freud’s Last Session showcases the possibly factual meeting between a young C.S. Lewis, a devout Christian and the gifted author who would go on to write The Chronicles of Narnia and The Screwtape Letters, and Sigmund Freud, a life-long atheist, consummate intellectual, and founding figure of psychoanalysis, who is at the very end of his life and career, dying of oral cancer. Set in London on September 3, 1939, the invasion of Poland by the Nazis serves as the political backdrop of their meeting.

The piece made me laugh out loud one moment, and tug at my deepest convictions the next. The dialogue is so sharp and the acting by Martin Rayner (Freud) and Mark H. Dold (Lewis) so penetrating that the 75-minute show flew by, too quickly in my opinion. I wanted more of the debate and the history. I found myself rooting for their relationship, and wanting it to go on, in spite of knowing that 20 days later Freud would engage his long-time friend and physician to end his battle with cancer.

The show touches upon an incredibly diverse set of themes: religion first and foremost, war, death, sexuality, fear, faith, love, memory, humor, and change. While this list of topics seems overwhelming, they are in the very capable hands and words of St. Germain, who expertly weaves them together in such a seamless way that I found myself completely wrapped up in the story as if it were my own. The language he uses is so vivid and the mannerisms of the actors are so authentic that I truly felt I was peering into a window on history. This play is the most rare form of theatrical work – a perfect script. Every single word precisely and beautifully chosen. The set and lighting designs are so realistic that I felt transported across space and time to Freud’s London study to witness this single, emotional meeting.

This show has a special, very personal meaning for me because my father was a Freudian psychologist. He passed away when I was a teenager, long before I ever had the opportunity to have a conversation with him as Lewis may have had with Freud. I didn’t get the opportunity to understand his contradictions and complexities, though that may have been for the best. At the end of his life, he was in a great deal of pain physically and emotionally, as Freud was. Through the dialogue of Freud’s Last Session, I was able to put together some more pieces about my father’s personality, as if I had actually been placed there in that seat for a very specific reason – to help me get a little bit closer to understanding my childhood. My thanks to Mark St. Germain for this amazing gift; he has inspired me to dig deeper and learn more about Freud and Lewis. I’m confident that there are more answers there, waiting for me to discover them. And that is perhaps the greatest lesson of the show – that self-discovery is a journey that never ends and yet must be pursued. As he so adeptly has Lewis say, “The real struggle is to keep trying.”

Freud’s Last Session runs through November 28th at The Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater. Don’t miss it.

Image above depicts Mark H. Dold and Martin Rayner as Lewis and Freud, respectively.

choices, creativity, decision-making, determination, passion, patience

Step 269: Stubborn Persistance Pays

Christa Avampato

“Stubbornly persist, and you will find that the limits of your stubbornness go well beyond the stubbornness of your limits.” ~ Robert Brault

Phin and I head out early every morning for an hour-long walk, and I use that time to hang with him, get my own bearings, and meditate on where I am in life at that very moment. This often sends my mind just out over the horizon, into my not-so-distant future. What is it I’m really trying to do? What really matters?

These morning walks often have me thinking about limitations: financial, personal, professional. Sometimes these limitations really grab a hold of me and just won’t let go no matter how much I try to shake them off. I try every trick in my bag to make my limitations vanish (or at least my perception of them) and very often they just hang on, unabated. They are stubborn to say the least.

This morning I tried a different approach. What if I didn’t try to completely bust my limitations but instead just sat and talked with them? What if I could show them that my dreams and I are even more stubborn and will not be dissuaded? I will work around them and do what it takes to get where I want to go. And what if I could see my limitations as gifts, as teachers, rather than roadblocks. What can I learn from them, and more importantly from my fear of them?

As I considered this idea, I could feel my breathing loosen up and the creativity started to seep back in. Limitations exist to give us some bumper lanes, to actually heighten our creativity and provide some structure in which to build the life we want. It’s easy to get bogged down by them, to wish that that they would just melt away giving us complete and total freedom. The truth is that there will always be some kind of limitation on us. No resource is entirely unlimited, except creativity. Limitations may be stubborn, but they’re nothing compared to the creativity we can amass and put to good use to get where we want to go. Persist. Just persist, and see where that takes you.

care, career, choices, commitment, creativity, decision-making, determination, work

Step 266: Don’t Lower Your Expectations

Christa Avampato

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him. The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

When I was in business school, one of my favorite professors revealed his secret for a happy life: low expectations. He was kidding, a little laughter to break the mind numbing tension caused by information overload. He lives a life of the highest expectations I’ve ever known. And it is happy one, too.

Today, I had a conversation with someone who told me she was concerned about my expectations. I was explaining that certain areas of product development like mobile and social technologies require agile development – fail fast and don’t make the same mistake twice. Involve end-users in the process. Beat it, bureaucracy. And no, taking a year to develop a new product or service that isn’t even keeping pace with competition is not acceptable.

She tried to counter by saying that without a knowledge management system in place, there isn’t a way to lower run times between product iterations. I said that building a knowledge management system also needs to be done quickly, and it’s incumbent upon every one to create it and contribute to it. I was being unreasonable and displaying my very high expectations, and I would not back down. Her response, “Well your expectations worry me.” My response, “We have to do better.”

Uncomfortable conversation? Yes. Would I take it back and change my behavior? No. Progress requires unreasonable, unrelenting expectations, and the ability to back them up with creativity and a strong work ethic. And I mean to be a person of progress, not a person of simple adaptation to someone else’s standards. I’d rather aim high and be disappointed every day of my life, than strive for and achieve mediocrity.

choices, dogs, future, pets, priorities

Step 265: Living in the Moment

Christa Avampato

I’m working my way through Cesar Milan’s book as Phin and I get to know each other. So much of the advice is counter-intuitive, though I can already see how helpful it is to see a dog as a dog, not as a person with fur. I’m so guilty of not learning that lesson sooner. I have always seen my dogs as people, and now I know why so many of them had issues of possession and anxiety. By letting dogs be dogs, they have so much to teach us about being human. By making them human, we miss out on their distinct sense of wisdom.

Dogs do not dwell on their pasts. They truly are creatures of the moment. Their existence is in the here and now. Certainly they develop habits and associations, but 99.9% of the time those habits and associations can be undone and replaced with others. Their degree resilience is enviable.

As a I read the section of Cesar Milan’s book about how dogs appreciate the persent, I thought about how much time people spend living in the past, incurring anxiety by situations that are long gone and will never be repeated. We relive disappointments, insecurities, and sadness of our past ad nauseam. We can’t let it go. Dogs let it all go. They care about what’s happening now, in this and every moment.

Imagine if we could do that as a way of life? Get up every day with a renewed sense of hope and happy anticipation. What if we could really leave our past behind us? Would our life experience be richer or poorer if we could set aside our past and our future and just love where we are right now?

choices, decision-making, priorities

Step 262: More Life Editing – My First Lesson from Phineas

Christa Avampato

In January I wrote a post about my wipe board, the blank, erasable canvas that I use to keep track of the projects in my life. In the last two weeks, I’ve noticed that my wipe board, and by association my life, has become too full. I laughed when I caught myself squeezing project descriptions into unreadable script in the corners of the wipe board. I have been doing the exact same thing with my life. It’s easy to sign up, say yes, and create content in our lives. Deciding not to join, saying no, and editing the content are much tougher actions to take.

Now building time into my schedule to bond with and take care of Phin, it’s time for another round of editing. Phin showed up in my life to make me realize what’s really important and needs tending, and also what needs to go. It’s a message Brian has been giving me for months and I’m just now really hearing him – our creativity organizes around the constructs we give it, not the ones created by the outside world.

So I’m taking my time back into my own hands today. I’ve still got some more choices to make, but here’s what’s going so far:

1.) Free writing. Other than my own personal writing like this blog, I’m not writing anything for free – there has to be some kind of payment in the form of some currency I really care about. I have some writing work I want to get to like my yoga / personal finance book. Writing for free when that writing does nothing for me personally just isn’t an option anymore.

2.) Writing about topics I don’t care about. I’ve done some of these assignments recently for all the wrong reasons. Being rewarded financially is important to me, and it’s equally important for me to be rewarded financially for writing about topics that are important to me and that I want to promote.

3.) Work projects and colleagues that suck the life out of me. I have some of these at the moment, and I’ve recently become more vocal at work about the projects I want and the ones I don’t want. In middle management at a large company, it’s easy to just take what I’m given and tow the company line. I can do this, but it makes me miserable. And here’s the real upside about speaking up at work – it’s created a really open relationship with my Director and VP, it’s driving change in the direction that I want it to go, and I’m getting more of the work I want. Leadership from every chair is really important and possible.

4.) Friendships that are not a two-way street. I have a few friendships in my life that are not giving me as much as I’m putting into them and have been putting into them for many years. And then in contrast I have so many that are wonderful, fulfilling, balanced experiences. Going forward, I’m focusing on the latter.

5.) Private clients for Compass Yoga who can be serviced by other yoga teachers. Originally, I thought I would take on any private clients who were willing to work with me. Now, I see that I’m looking for people with very specific needs – whether it’s confidence, or having a specific ailment that they are trying to heal – physical or mental. I’m also tremendously interested in providing yoga to people who want to enhance their creativity through concentrated focus on calming their minds. There are plenty of wonderful yoga teachers who can teach anyone with $100 / hour to spend on private yoga. I’m not the right teacher for those students. My yoga is about helping people who can’t find the physical and mental help they need elsewhere. And that distinction is important, and feel right and good to me.

Are you doing some editing in your life, too? I’d love to hear about the choices you’re making.