Honey is the Answer
April 24, 2009
Some sayings are familiar and end up being supported by research findings. “It’s easier to catch flies with honey than with vinegar,” is one example.
It would be surprising if you didn’t agree with the old saying, yet very few of us practice its advice in our daily lives. Well, researchers have proven once again that positive feedback is in fact more powerful than negative criticism at “catching” behavior change in a positive direction.
In one study, researchers videoed people bowling and then showed them the playback while pointing out either the mistakes they made or the things they did correctly; people improved much more with the positive feedback than with the negative.
Other studies have shown that parents of tough kids improve their parenting when their children’s positive actions are pointed out, and that people can be trained to change actions and behaviors with nothing but positive feedback.
There is a growing movement of consultants using “Appreciative Inquiry” to help businesses and organizations solve long-standing problems and develop new strategies. Those of us who have practiced these approaches with organizations and with individuals are struggling for a descriptive label to identify positive approaches. “Appreciative Coaching” is a possibility as is “Positive Coaching.”
There is another group of us who wants to be sure that “Strength Based Coaching” is properly placed with the other positive approaches. Recognizing and building on strengths is a pivotal aspect of many approaches.
The bottom line is to be selective, choose to work with someone who appreciates your strengths and will reflect the most positive aspects of you living your life well. Be certain your coach gives at least 3 to 1 positive to negative feedback and holds a vision of a brighter future that builds on your strengths.
Is this a Pollyanna approach? No, it just focuses on where you want to head, not where you tripped.
For more information call Jay Livingston at 978-446-9600, email me at Jay@LivingstonServices.com or visit my website at www.LivingstonServices.com
Knowing it’s Time to Change is a Great Start
March 13, 2009
Change is a process and by definition, a process is something that happens gradually. So, if you’re feeling like it’s time to change, celebrate the beginning of a process.
Creating change in yourself is a campaign that starts with recognizing a pull within yourself toward something new or away from something familiar. What hook will get you thinking about change? Your too-tight pants might bring the idea to your attention. Puffing your way up a flight of stairs is hard to completely ignore. Losing a large client interrupts the bliss. Feeling burned out suggests something is off. Having your spouse discouraged with you is a strong clue.
What we’re likely to miss are not these in-our-face examples, but the ones we turn away from without a thought; “You’re frustrating me! You don’t understand me! My client just doesn’t get it! Why is it so hard to explain simple ideas to people? Are these people stupid?” The situation is crying out for change, but we deflect the responsibility to someone else. We miss the full role we play in the miscommunication.
Noticing that we have the leverage to start the ball rolling is not a small accomplishment. Being aware of ourselves – insight – is not a commonly held skill. Coaching may ignite it; therapy can nurture it; pressure from a loved one occasionally forces it. But it isn’t easy to grab insight or to hold on to it.
So, if you feel it’s time for some change, celebrate. Even if you don’t know how you got there, pat yourself on the back and take a breath; you’ve taken a good step and you’re already beginning to change.
http://www.livingstonservices.com/
ADHD Client Self-Awareness and Confidence
February 9, 2009
I was struck by the pain a very successful entrepreneur shared with me. He grew up hearing that he was lazy and stupid because he couldn’t manage his time and stay ahead of his school work. Even after he was diagnosed with ADHD late in high school, his family couldn’t understand what he was struggling with and accused him of being undependable and dumb.
This bright, creative, kind man still carried many of the weaknesses that you might expect from someone with ADHD, but he does well with the occasional support of medication. He has made an impressive life for himself with huge successes in his personal and business life. He is the CEO of the midsized company he founded and has two great kids.
What hurts me is that he doesn’t know how good he is. He still feels like that kid his parents mistakenly thought he was. He has carried that false image forward through college graduation, a successful start-up business and the current, profitable company he has grown into a recognizable brand.
He came to me because inside he feels like a fraud. He wonders how others can keep from seeing the truth about him. This is one of the tragedies of ADHD, a person is functioning well, but hasn’t taken time out to correct and update their personal-awareness file. They are in an enviable position in their lives, but can’t enjoy the success.
My entrepreneurial client was stunned to hear from me that many around him were almost assuredly also feeling anxious about their competence, that early information so impresses itself on our brains that it’s difficult to shake up our primal self-image.
Understanding what was happening and having a chance to talk it out gave my client a great boost of self-confidence. He is surprised and pleased that there was this next level of confidence that he didn’t even know was available to him.
I asked him what kind of difference he thought this increased confidence would make in his life. He grinned and said that with everything he had going for him, he figured he could change the world if he wanted. He just might!
Sharing Expertise Isn’t Knowing It All
February 2, 2009
Jack, a young man in his early twenties, and I were talking, and taking more than our share of the guacamole dip, at a friend’s party. We were getting along well because he was dipping with the Fritos and I was using the multi-grain chips. He responded to my question about what he did for income by explaining that he was the day-manager of a men’s store.
He politely reciprocated the question and I explained that I was an ADHD/Executive coach and briefly described how, among other things, I tried to help people with difficulties around focus of attention and organizational issues find lasting solutions to problems that were standing in their way.
He brightened up and said, “I’d like to do that kind of work.” I asked him what about it appealed to him. He replied, “I am always able to tell my friends what to do when they’re stuck, and I think I would be good at it.”
He began to share with me some stories of his successful advice to friends; it was impressive in its scope and boldness. His raw certainty reminded me of more confident times in my life. I had a momentary sinking feeling as I realized, “Boy, are those days gone.”
The problem with his notion of his strength is that coaching isn’t about telling anyone what to do. Although, as I think about that, I do suppose I tell my self to stop talking and listen more. And I recently had to remind myself to cool it with the pearls of wisdom that sounded so interesting to me, but didn’t really address where my client was at.
The longer I practice, the more inclined I am to just ask questions.
“Where did your attention go at that moment?”
“Have you ever tried anything that worked?”
“Did you forget, or get distracted?”
“That was successful! What did you do differently to make it work?”
“How often does that happen?”
It’s my job to provide some scaffolding around my clients’ judgment, strategy, planning, etc. until they can get on their feet. Of course, there is a need for suggestions to consider when their stuck, but most of my effort is in trying to make the hidden visible and bring awareness to particular patterns, so that they can discover the methods that might work for them
I’m not sure what I’d tell them to do even if I had unusual perceptiveness. After all, until something is tried it isn’t clear what will work, and once it is tried, they’re often in a better position then I am to know what really works.
I told my young friend at the party something similar. I said, “I encourage you to explore a coaching career. I’m sure as you look it will become clear whether it is what you hope it might be. Let me know if I can help.”
Read more from Jay at: http://www.livingstonservices.com/
The ADHD Dance
January 4, 2009
My dog knows I struggle with planning the steps needed to complete some tasks. Well, he probably isn’t actually aware that I struggle, and come to think of it I don’t so much struggle as sometimes simply skip some of the planning.
This all became clear to me as I got giggling at myself the other day. I was reading “Spark,” John Ratey’s new book. He describes what he calls the “pirouette” as his ADHD patients leave a session only to spin back to retrieve their keys or cell phone. I realized I was doing my version of the ADHD dance as I left my house on the way to the office, and my dog was watching the whole process.
I pick up my purse and tea mug, say goodbye to the dog and walk out the door. Sometimes I make it to the car before I hurry back in to retrieve a paper or book I want to share with a client and then I’m out again. Often I’m back in again to grab my gym bag or yoga mat. All the time my dog is quietly watching me come in and out organizing my leaving as a sort of “in action” style of planning.
ADHD is diagnosed through a series of recognizable attributes, but those same attributes are shared by many people who aren’t diagnosable with ADHD. I also like Ratey’s term to describe these people with ADHD style symptoms but not the full blown diagnosis; he calls this “shadow” ADHD.
Understanding this notion can be a real help to individuals who feel the diagnosis has essentially pushed them into an image of themselves that makes them uncomfortable. Having the diagnosis doesn’t make you completely different from others, just different in the specifics of your style of coping with life.
Those with ADHD are only distinct from many, many others in the severity or complexity of their issues. They are in step with the American dance, just doing their footwork to a slightly faster more complex beat and occasionally stepping on their own toe.
Living Successfully with ADHD is About Balance
December 29, 2008
As I get the opportunity to tackel another new year in my life I am convinced that healthy living, for those with and without ADHD, is about moderation and balance: eating, exercise, work and play all require an ability to moderate. But moderation doesn’t mean avoiding the peaks of exhilaration or ignoring our superior talents. At times, we simply need to strive to be the best we can be, and then we need to relax enjoy less than perfection.
There is a moderation or balance necessary as we choose whether to focus on using our strengths or developing our weaker attributes.
I once worked with a business owner who had developed a complex piece of medical equipment that was being used “experimentally” in dozens of hospitals. He hadn’t ever submitted the paperwork to the FDA for approval for its manufacture and use as an “approved” device. The owner was a brilliant technician who couldn’t manage his time, set priorities or direct his employees. When I came on board the FDA was on the verge of shutting the whole operation down for want of a detailed and ordered list of manufacturing steps. The owner just couldn’t produce the list; he didn’t think in that kind of sequential way.
Each of us has a constellation of personal attributes, on one end of the spectrum are strengths that lead to successful actions, and on the other end are weaknesses that restrain our success or cause us to regularly stumble. The common wisdom, and what many people challenged by ADHD have consistently heard, is that you need to develop the areas you’re weak in.
There’s truth in that encouragement (or reproach?), but there’s also a misunderstanding of how success seems to work. Getting to sustainable success takes a balanced approach; we need to focus on our strengths and find ways to work around certain core social/professional attributes that we are weak in, like my business owner not being able to set priorities.
We wouldn’t expect a football player to necessarily be a top level engineer or a commercial pilot to also be an exceptional lawyer. Professionals who excel focus on playing to their strengths. There are some skills, however, that are called upon day in and day out and even if we aren’t exceptional in those areas we need to be able to get by. The trick is to develop enough skill to predictably meet your obligations, but to keep a major focus on using your areas of strength to drive you toward success.
A position that requires you to make excellent estimates of time or to work in an unstructured environment, but meet precise goals, may well put unreasonable demands on your weaknesses, whereas a partner who loves keeping an eye on the details may allow you to shift focus to using your strengths.
We can’t always choose which attributes we will need, but we can try to be sure that the majority of demands on us play to our strengths and try to minimize the need for us to struggle with our weaknesses. To not keep that balance may well derail the possibility of success.
I hope your new year brings satisfying successes, insight and growth.
ADHD or Shpilkes
December 1, 2008
I have always enjoyed working with clients with energy and creativity. Growing up in a family with a variety of personalities spiced with the strengths and weaknesses of ADHD was a wonderful introduction into this work. I was reminded of this recently when my sister called to tell me about the “perfect” site she’d found for the wedding of my niece.
“It sits right near the beach with a wonderful view of the water. It’s the perfect size for the number of guests we’re inviting and if anyone gets bored they can go for a walk on the beach,” she seriously explained over the phone. I cracked up!
Who but a person with the wiggles and attention span of ADHD would choose a site for a wedding based on a way to relieve boredom? I love my sister dearly, but she has shpilkes. I was reminded of how appropriate this delightful Yiddish word is when I was reading Jerome Groopman’s book, How Doctors Think. He describes himself thus:
“Truth be told, I was not a model child, too eager to engage in mischief, paying little attention in class, looking at the clock and counting the minutes until recess. A psychologist today might fix the label of ADHD to me, but at the time my family concluded that mine was a classic case of shpilkes, a Yiddish word meaning, roughly, ‘ants in your pants.’”
My parents, who both spoke Yiddish, used a similar, but perhaps more interesting expression, “full tuchas mit vertschaft”, meaning, I was told, “a behind full of furniture.” Ah, that the light hearted amusement of these words could help reduce the negative self-judgments of ADHD.
Committing to Change an Old Habit
November 24, 2008
A coaching client I was working with this week, who has an ADHD diagnosis, wanted to make a commitment to himself to increase his phone calls to prospective clients; sounds good, except he has tried this more than half a dozen times without successfully following up.
This time I encouraged him to not make the commitment. I felt he still didn’t have a realistic chance of fulfilling it, and if he had made the commitment and not followed through on it again, the value of all his commitments would just continue to erode.
In my coaching, I’m always looking for ways to help my clients bring a higher level of awareness and motivation to the task of changing their habits. A commitment is a classic and sometimes powerful method, but part of its potential power is in its ability to draw attention to a situation – to create a “different than life as usual” moment.
Making a commitment stand out – catch your attention – means it needs to be thought through carefully and it has to marshal your best efforts. Taking the time to make a deliberate decision before making a very specific commitment, even to yourself, raises the value of your commitments and the chances they will be effective.
My client and I spent the last half of our session identifying what strategies he could use to increase the odds that he would successfully follow through this time. He ended up making a commitment to do something he was sure he could accomplish, create the tracking sheet he would use when he was ready to move forward on the phone calls. If he is successful at completing the new form, his subsequent commitments may be even more powerful motivators.
Don’t over commit!
ADHD and Your Self Esteem
October 27, 2008
Many of my clients are successful public speakers, entrepreneurs, and CEO’s, and yet many have the feeling that at any moment they will be “found out”.
My work with adults with ADD and ADHD includes looking at and trying to correct old messages implanted by unaware parents and teachers – you know, the “You’re lazy”, “You’re unmotivated and will never amount to anything”, “How stupid can one person be?” messages.
Sam, a very active, extremely bright and super busy CEO I work with, owns his own company, and even with the current economic mess, has a net worth in the double digit millions—all self-made. He also owns a self-concept badly in need of repair. As a boy and adolescent he was told he would never succeed, that he was stupid, couldn’t learn, was undisciplined and wouldn’t even make it to his own funeral. On some bad days, he feels just like that boy/adolescent again as those old messages come swimming back into his head.
Sam got sick of beating himself up based on other peoples’ messages and finally made time to slow down and try to understand himself better. (I know, slow down sounds dreadful, but don’t worry, I have plenty of things to fiddle with in my office and I’m not opposed to taking a walk if needed). Sam and I are working to update his self-esteem file to have a more realistic picture of himself. In just three meetings, Sam has begun to recognize times he’s putting himself down and can sometimes stop, get current and remind himself of the countless strengths and talents he has.
Don’t hesitate to contact a therapist or coach if you are an adult who suspects you have attention deficit disorder, with or without hyperactivity. Your peace of mind is worth it.
ADD Coaching:Focusing On A New Habit
October 20, 2008
My ADD coaching clients find that developing new habits isn’t a snap. Our biological systems are designed to favor efficiency and consciously instituting a new habit isn’t as efficient as repeating an established one.
I personally have been trying to develop a new habit when I race my small sailboat, a Laser. I forget to check exactly where the wind is blowing from at any given minute. During a race the wind direction can shift back and forth and if you react to that shift you can gain more on an unobservant competitor than by any other means.
But it’s hard to remember to check the wind when you’re trying to trim your sails, balance the boat and watch out for other boats. The starting place for me was a fairly rigid rule – every time I glance at the wind vane I would also compare where I was steering to something on shore to check whether there has been a shift.
Rigid rules feel constraining and tickle my resistance, but I know that if I bear with them for a while a more natural, less rigid process will begin to emerge – I will develop a new habit that flexes with the changing situation and eventually that habit will become the efficient, unconsciously one.
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