Category: decision-making

choices, decision-making

Step 97: Keep it Together or Take it Apart?

Christa Avampato

In a number of areas of my life, I’ve been thinking about whether to keep it together or take it apart:

Online – do I set up a new blog or twitter feed to explore some new topics or do I keep it all centralized here on this blog?

Entrepreneurship – do I just choose one idea for a new company I’d like to start or do I try to whip up a combination of a few of the ideas?

Vacations – do I link a few together for an extended break or take smaller trips that give me more frequent, albeit shorter, breaks throughout the year?

Work-life balance – do I seek to have a schedule that’s more fluid between work time and me time or do I want a line when work ends and me time begins?

There are valid arguments for keeping it together or taking it apart. What I’m wrestling with is which option in which areas of my life generate the most happiness. Which is more efficient? Do I want a life that’s jumbled and fragmented because I like to mix it up? Or would I be happier, and maybe even a little bit more sane, if I took on the mantras of simplicity and consolidation?

Lately I’ve found in my life that I have many more questions that answers. “I don’t know,” is a recurring reply that keeps bubbling up to the surface. In Sanskrit there is a wonderful phrase that is often used when a student asks her guru a question: “neti, neti” (“not this, not this”). The connotation of the phrase has come to be “maybe, maybe not” or “it depends…”

When I consider these questions about keeping parts of my life together or taking them apart, I often feel myself shaking my head slightly and silently repeating, “neti, neti.” I’m wondering now if we should just test it out without worries that we may have to fold and walk away if our new experiments don’t work out the way we want them to. Keep some of it together, take some of it apart, and see how it goes. The prana will point the way.

choices, decision-making

Step 92: Settling

Christa Avampato

Brian often uses the following phrase when I talk about “ideals” – the ideal job, relationship, apartment, friendships, life: “you get what you settle for.” I’ve been sitting with that phrase lately because something about it didn’t sit right with me. I have never thought of myself as someone who settles for anything. And then this weekend I realize that I’m exactly the kind of person who settles. We all are. We all get a job, choose a place to live, develop relationships, decide how to spend our free time. So there’s no more need for me to worry about settling because settling really just means choosing a path, making a decision. In this light, settling doesn’t sound bad at all.

We all settle, but the question is what are we willing to settle for? Said another way, what is it that’s going to make us happy and want to get up out of bed today. Either it’s something that makes us really happy or something that doesn’t. It either leaves us fulfilled or it doesn’t. Brian, as usual, is right. What we end up with is what we decide is good for us. We do indeed get what we settle for – it’s a matter of choice.

decision-making, determination, yoga

Step 72: Attitude

Christa Avampato

“It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.” ~ William James, American philosopher

Today began my second weekend of yoga teacher training. Two weeks ago, I left the first day of my training with my head swimming, my emotions racing, and a lot of self-doubt living inside my body. All I could do was go home, go to bed, and promise myself that no matter what, I would get up the next day, go back to that studio, and give my best. I’ve got attitude in spades.

And my attitude on the yoga the mat is beginning to infiltrate other areas of my life in powerful ways. Last night when I found out I didn’t get into Columbia’s PhD program, I couldn’t even be upset. Nor was I disappointed. My first reaction was “well I guess my path leads a different way.” Last week I had lunch with my boss and we talked about our shared belief that we could learn just about anything we ever needed to learn. It might be difficult and it may take us some time, but if we really put our minds to anything, we could reason through it. Attitude at the beginning of a task or how we accept news we didn’t anticipate, makes all the difference in how we pull through.

Somehow, without even knowing it, I took all the yoga I’ve been practicing out in the world for so many years and embodied it to apply to issues in life that have nothing to do with yoga. My practice changed me. It gave me a better attitude. It helps me to let go and trust. Or at the very least, it helps me to keep trying.

career, decision-making, design, relationships

Step 67: Making Patterns Instead of Plans

Christa Avampato

I am coming to the end of Mountains Beyond Mountains, a book about the journey of Paul Farmer, the founder of Partners in Health (PIH). PIH has been one of the biggest players in the relief efforts in Haiti because Farmer has been doing critical medical work there for decades under grueling conditions. He has given his life for the people of Haiti, and more broadly for the belief that health care is a global right of all people. He takes the stance that withholding health care from people is a violation of social justice. It’s clear from the book that Paul Farmer’s entire life, professional, personal, and spiritual, follow from this single belief. He makes things happens, and in turn for his tireless efforts, the world has also opened the way for him.

This morning I read a passage on the subway that stopped me in my tracks because it rang so true for me in my own life. “It seemed to me,” wrote author Tracy Kidder, “that he didn’t have a plan for his life so much as he had a pattern.” Many times in my life people have counseled me to get a plan, and so respecting their advice I would dutifully go off and make a plan, only to have it be sent out the window as the world repositioned me in another direction. When people ask me about my plans, personally or professionally, I’ve always felt a bit uncomfortable. I make plans; my life just doesn’t seem to follow them. This idea of creating a pattern and using it throughout our lives as we make choices and evaluate more options resonates very deeply with me. Creating and utilizing patterns seems like a much more fruitful endeavor than making plans.

So here are some of the patterns I create in my life:
1.) I like to be challenged to “think different”
2.) I thrive in environments where I have to be both creative and analytical, when I can have my head in the clouds and my feet on the ground
3.) People and relationships energize me and inspire me; I am not made to be entirely alone in solitude
4.) Having a higher purpose is important to me
5.) Vertical learning curves are fun to scale
6.) I love networking and introducing people to one another – the more I can mix it up, the better
7.) I like to find that hidden gem: a side of someone’s personality that they don’t express all the time, a new place that’s still largely unknown, or a new idea that turns widely held conceptions on their heads
8.) I resist any force that tries to put me in a certain box with a big ol’ label on it; I defy boxes and labels to even try to contain me!

If this idea of patterns resonates with you, too, I’d love to hear how they play out in your life.

change, decision-making

Step 61: Valiant Struggles

Christa Avampato

“You, too, God willing, will be 65 some day–and when you look back it’s never the easy times that pop up in the viewfinders; it’s the valiant struggles and adversities suffered and occasionally overcome that fill the highlights tape.” ~ Tom Peters

Memory is a funny thing. It’s amazing what will surface at specific times, without us even actively asking it to make an appearance in our minds:
– This morning I woke up thinking of our family dog who we had to put down in September. I thought about how hard that day was and also how grateful it made me we for his love all those years.
– For a few weeks I’ve had dozens of conversations about relationships – the good, the bad, and the ugly. After a string of recent ones that didn’t end so well, I realized that finally I think I’m ready to find one that really works for me and becomes a blessing in my life.
– Occasionally, I will be walking around my neighborhood and still imagine the event that would have unfolded if I hadn’t gotten out of my burning apartment building exactly at the moment when I did.
– September of 2009 will forever be a month that I remember as one long struggle that I survived.

Struggles and their after-effects can play out in two ways: they can be things that send us spiraling down into misery or they can become the hour of our greatest teaching. It’s a choice. Our choice. Yes there’s a grieving period and it may be far longer and more filled with despair than we’d like it be. Eventually we have to decide to stay down or stand up and start over. Pain can be a powerful motivator to transform our lives in ways that we wouldn’t without its prompting. Struggles can be valiant.

change, choices, decision-making

Step 51: Fixing Broken Systems

Christa Avampato

“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.” ~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Band-aid solutions are tempting options. They tend to be inexpensive, fairly easy to implement, and make us feel like we’re doing something good for the world. The trouble is that they are temporary fixes that soon need to be replaced, reworked, or repaired, often at a higher cost in time, dollars, and effort than the first band-aid solution, and all the while, the original problem we were trying to remedy gets further out of hand underneath.

Fixing root causes can be tiring work. It’s almost always expensive, and it usually requires a good deal of risk and a whole lot of courage. However, it’s the only fix that is truly a fix and solves a problem rather than covering it up.

This week I’ve been thinking about root causes for challenges that concern me. Some of these challenges, in order to really be overcome, are going to take significant action on my part. I can’t take care of all of them, at least not all at once. Now comes the critical step of deciding which fixes are worth doing and which fixes are better left to someone else.

I’m staring at the Magic 8 Ball of my life and asking “where do I start” and for some issues it says, “ask again later”. Right now there may be no clear cut action plan and so rather than develop a band-aid solution just so I feel like I’m making progress, I will have to let some of the challenges persist until a clear way through, even if it is a difficult path, emerges. Fixing broken systems require action, and it also requires patient inquiry. It is a great balancing act between the two.

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.

choices, decision-making

Step 27: Non-negotiables

Christa Avampato

Yesterday, Brian and I had a discussion about anxiety and what causes it. Lately, I’ve been having some very vivid dreams about choices I’m making and how those choices will affect other areas of my life. I love to think about ripple effects, taking an idea as far down the road as I can to see how it may play out in the short-, medium-, and long-term. Of late, I’ve also been experimenting with working backwards, considering where I’d like to be and then working back to see what I should do now to get there.

I asked Brian for some other tools like the working backwards strategy that may help me with the current decisions on my plate. He suggested the idea of building a list of non-negotiables. I am a fan of pro-con lists, though the trouble with pro-con lists is that they are interminable. By contrast, a list of non-negotiables is finite and non-negotiables quickly help us get to our core values.

We can develop a list of non-negotiables for every area of our lives: career, relationships, where we live, our diet. And the genius of this type of list is that it prevents us from settling. There are certain things that are just unacceptable, and if we take each of the options before us and match it up against our non-negotiable list, we can more easily discern which options could work and which ones need to go to the trash.

I’m working away on my lists for different areas of my life. Here’s one for how I schedule my writing commitments:
1.) I must retain the rights to my work
2.) I receive credit for the work and am able to list my website’s URL at the beginning or end of the piece
3.) The piece must be about a topic that personally interests me
4.) The publication must broaden my reach to a new audience

That’s it. Now of course there are other things I’d like to have, though these 4 points are the must-haves. If an opportunity violates any of my non-negotiables, no matter how great the opportunity is, I know I will eventually be unhappy with it. Knowing our non-negotiables provides us with our greatest chance at happiness, ensures our authenticity, and presents the most efficient and fulfilling use of our time and effort. Who could argue with that?

clarity, decision-making, happiness, opportunity, simplicity

Step 10: A Place to Go

Christa Avampato

“I learn by going where I have to go.” ~ Theodore Roethke in the Poet’s Corner at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine

I keep a wipe board in my apartment that tracks my to-do’s for my projects. This confined space helps me to sort out where and how I’m spending my time and energy. It’s a helpful, simple tool that keeps me on track by giving me a very concrete visual of my priorities. It tells me where I have to go to create the kind of life I want.

In 2010, this chart has been heavily influenced by Innovation Station, my after-school project with Citizen Schools. With Citizen Schools, citizen teachers build the curriculum backwards, starting with the construction of the final project, called a “WOW”, and working the lessons backwards with the final project always in mind. Rather than using the forward-working paradigm of “what comes next?”, I have to start with “what needs to happen right before the WOW?” I decided to try this approach with my wipe board, too. On the far right side I wrote down the goal, and then only included the projects in my life right now that work toward that goal.

This exercise helped in a number of ways:

1.) I have some projects in my life that aren’t serving that goal, and they didn’t make it to the wipe board. These projects have value; they just aren’t the right projects for me given my goals and in comparison to the other projects I have. I also noticed some very clear holes – things I needed to be doing, places I needed to be going, that I didn’t realize before this process.

2.) I breathed a great big sigh of happiness to see how the projects all fit together and support one another. A cohesive plan breeds confidence and conviction.

3.) Having the plan laid out gave me a lot of energy. I spent a lot of time carefully thinking through options and allowing them to play themselves out in my mind while I made some key decisions. With this plan laid out, I freed up the energy that I was using in the decision-making process.

4.) The plan provides me with more down time to be with people. These projects lay out the main interests of my life, and by knowing those interests, I can strengthen relationships I already have and start new ones based on commonalities. I am always inspired by feats that people can accomplish through collaboration. Having a very clear sense of what we want to accomplish helps us to meet others who have those same goals – our kindred spirits.

5.) The wipe board gives me a place to go. There will always be new opportunities and new projects that will appear. It can be hard to say no. With a clear sense of what I want, I can go to the board and see where the new opportunity fits. If it doesn’t fit, then the decision process is made that much easier. It’s an effective sorting method.

Clarity of mind gives us a wonderful sense of freedom, a radiance that we can feel and that others can see. By working toward clarity, decisions become easier. The tough work of getting to clarity is well-worth the reward of simplicity.

decision-making, Examiner, goals, New Years Eve

Examiner.com: 5 Tips to Help You Create and Achieve New Year’s Resolutions

Christa Avampato

So here it is: time to crank out a list of lofty resolutions that you know will never last past January 31st, right? Don’t do this to yourself. Please. You’ll feel like a failure, and that’s just not fair to do that to yourself. Examiner.com knows this, and they’ve asked all of their writers to share tips on how to make readers wildly successful with their New Year’s Resolutions in 2010.

I just posted 5 tips, followed by a personal story of my 2009 resolution, that I hope will be helpful to you as you begin to turn your attention toward a bright new year teeming with possibility. For the article, please click here.
The image above is not my own. It can be found here.
choices, creativity, decision-making, innovation

My Year of Hopefulness – Make Big Decisions Real

Christa Avampato

“A problem well defined is half solved.” ~ John Dewey

Just when you think you have it all figured out life does something very funny – it changes everything on us. We get thrown an option that we never even imagined as a possibility. This recently happened to me while I was in the middle of making a very big decision. I thought I just had to choose between A and B, A being far superior to B, so superior that it didn’t even seem like a choice at all. Enter choice C, a real choice. Houston, we now have a big decision to make and this one is not easy.

I’ve got several mechanisms for deciding between options. I’m a fan of the pro con lists. I like talking to lots of different people and getting their perspectives on what they’d do if they were me. I’ve also been known to just wait and see in silence until some helpful piece of info emerges. This latest decision is a bit more complicated. B and C are actually equally great options. I’d be lucky to have the opportunity to pursue either avenue. Now it looks like I’ll have the chance to choice, and they will lead me in wildly different, happy directions. This is the classic case of two roads diverged in a yellow wood.

For inspiration in my decision-making, I was reading through some of my books this weekend and came across a few books by ?WhatIf! Innovation. In How to Have Kick-Ass Ideas, Chris Baréz-Brown talks about the very personal decision-making he and his wife went through when they were deciding whether or not to have children. To make their choice, they decided to live their life for a week as if they had decided to not have kids. This helped them live their through the lens of that decision, sort of like a test-drive of a car. After that week they re-evaluated their choice to see if it felt right.

Chris’s method is vastly superior than my pro con lists and asking 100 different people what they would do. His method makes the choice more personal and lets us experience some of the consequences that hit us shortly after we make a choice. In truth, I’m a little scared of this process and I’m going for it anyway. I’ve recently noticed that one of my areas of personal improvement is to see the downside of a situation as clearly as I see the upside. Chris’s process will allow me to not only see the downside, but experience it. It brings a certain reality to the situation. If tough decisions need anything at all, it’s a healthy dose of reality. I’ll let you know what I find in a week!

If you’ve never read Chris’s book, I highly recommend it. It’s a perfect, inspiring read for anyone at a crossroads looking for guidance from one of the world’s leading creative minds. Get it here.