Claiming Your Voice Weekend Workshop at the famous Esalen Institute

The world famous Esalen Institute is nestled on the bluffs above the Pacific Ocean in gorgeous Big Sur, California

Course led by Life Coach Meredith Haberfeld

Some of the greatest leaps in personal development come when we stop believing that others have more access to deep wisdom than we do, have superior opinions to ours, or hold sway over us—when we finally know at the end of the day that we can trust ourselves.

This workshop will address many aspects of claiming your voice—in writing, in vocal work, and, most importantly, in daily life through the choices you make in it. The program will help you gain access to your many inner voices as well as different aspects of your character, many of which you suppress and ignore, but which can each provide important insights and wisdom in your everyday life. Finally you can get comfortable in your own skin.

In this workshop, you will deepen the ability to hear yourself—and all that there is to hear. What does your body say about how you feel right now? What do your emotions have to tell you? What feelings and messages have you been resisting? This workshop will teach you to allow them to surface so you can come deeper into your own power.

The days of being guided by pleasing others and trying to fix yourself are over. This program is for anyone of any age ready to sink into the experience of being and trusting yourself.

Click Here to register (hyperlink from this to: http://webapp.esalen.org/workshops/10251>) or call 888-8-ESALEN

Dates:                   July 22-24, 2011

Location:              The Esalen Institute, Big Sur California

Cost:                      $695, tuition, food & board included

Click Here to register (hyperlink from this to: http://webapp.esalen.org/workshops/10251>) or call 888-8-ESALEN

By Career Coach, Meredith Haberfeld

Whether you’re about to be dumped out of your current position or bored to screaming point by work that used to be gratifying, one way to stay ahead of the unsettling see-saw of a career transition is careful preparation.

Most people find life transitions intimidating, especially on the work front. But now is actually a prime time to lean toward the next fulfilling adventure in your career.

Here are 10 steps that will help get you where you want to be going:

1.    Stay in reality: You need a well thought-out financial plan for your transition, including the time frame by which you want to be in your next job, and how long you can freely explore without running low on funds.  Important: take the time to do the math up front.  If you have six months worth of financial padding then the plan has to accommodate being situated in a new job where your basic life needs are taken care of in that amount of time.  (That’s not to say you can’t pursue a parallel path if your savings are insufficient, of course, but you may have to stick with your current employer or find an interim position that pays the bills while continuing to work toward your goal.) Don’t be impatient, be strategic.

2.    Hone in: Do a brainstorming-around your ideal dream job to hone down career choices.

a. Write out the elements you like in your previous work (e.g. being with people, exercising leadership, doing email, etc).

b. What elements do you want in your career that you have not yet had in your day to day job or from your total experience of working?

c. What elements do you want to not have in your next career?

d. How much money are you committed to making?

e. What jobs have you loved? And for each one, write out:

1. what you loved about it

2. anything you didn’t love about it

f. What are all the careers you’ve thought of in the last 5 years?
(Don’t worry about whether or not you have a PhD.  People think insularly.  Your task here is to broaden your thinking.)

1. Then, go back and make a bulleted list of each of the career choices, defining what it is about each career choice that interests you.

Examples:  Veterinarian–the pleasure of healing, being with animals.
Interior Designer—tapping into my artistic side, creating beautiful things and settings, working with people.

Notice how this leads you to a list of your own VALUES in your work life.

Choose the top 5-8 of the career choices that are most important to you. Now you have your list of ‘deal-breaker’ VALUES that must be there for you in your next job.
Then you can brainstorm and begin a fact-hunting mission to develop a written list of the handful of jobs/career choices that are a match for your ‘deal-breaker’ list.

3.    Soak up information like a sponge: Talk to everyone appropriate (which will be more people than you first imagine) about your interest in transitioning your career.  Most people are chasing a mirage, and far too often they make career choices based on fantasy thinking or simply on poor information.  Also our relationship to work is inevitably altered as we grow and change—the average person often makes several career changes over the course of a lifetime.  So being informed about such an important next step is vital.

“Live research” allows you to hone in on the very real elements you want to move way from and gravitate to the ones that you find match your desires. Get the word out to the people you know about what you’re interested in pursuing and ask them specifically who they know that would be useful for you to speak with.  Find every opportunity you can to talk with people who are in the jobs or fields for career choices you’re considering.

This is one of the MOST CRITICAL elements of a successful career transition and to make the right career choices, yet it is the piece that is most often missing.  Not only does this process refine your decision making, but the ancillary benefit is that the very individuals you reach out to for your “live research” become a critical part of your network that ultimately parlays you into your next job and career.

4.    Talk to people:  Get away from the computer!  Through every phase of your entire transition, authentically cultivate relationships.  This is the single most powerful force leading to successful job transitions.  Nurture and expand your network of friends. Don’t come off like you’re only interested in selling yourself but be sincere, get on their radar screen by fostering a genuine connection.

Go to industry conferences, parties, cocktails, morning breakfasts; and create and develop relationships.  Ask not what others can do for you, but what you can do for them.  This reciprocity will have you be “top of mind” when the right opportunity presents itself.

5.    The art of re-positioning yourself: If some of your career choices are in a new industry, spend time getting extremely clear about your “portable value”.  Know and be able to concisely communicate your unique worth and just how your skills will benefit your future industry and new employer.   Practice succinctly articulating – in your ‘elevator pitch’, as well as your resume – how your distinctive talents, abilities, and accomplishments perfectly position you for what you’re seeking to do.  Every person’s experience can be re-packaged to meet the demands of a new industry.  Spending the time to do this right makes an enormous difference     between success and failure.

6.    Find your ROI:  When preparing to look for a job in a new industry, clarify and focus on the measurable contributions to the bottom-line result you’ve achieved for your former or current employers, and show how it can work anywhere. Present your significant skills and explain how you’re ready to out-compete even in another industry. Every time you are asked “What do you do or want to be doing?” answer this question instead, “Why should you pay my salary?”

7.    Action: Daily action is required. Create a strategic plan for your transition; with daily, weekly, and monthly goals.  Start with where you want to end up:  figure out what you need to know about your new career and each possible career choice, and what you need to do to get there. Build a pipeline of actions from there. Actions can be small; but be in motion.

8.    Build in accountability: Get a partner to hold you to your plan and keep your word, without regard for disappointments or your mood.  Ask people to champion you when you face set-backs, but to hold you accountable for sticking to your daily actions and driving yourself forward.  Too often people get bogged down by disappointments and then buy into in the belief that the work world is too tough right now.  Daily actions that stretch you, and maintaining accountability to your plan not only reduce overwhelm and anxiety, they’re a powerful impetus to get you to your ultimate goal.

9.    Momentum: There is an “effort equation” when starting something new; for example, for every 100 ‘units’ of effort you put in, you can expect 1 result.  As you gain momentum, this equation improves, to perhaps 1 result for only 50 ‘units’ of effort in.  This means…play…put the energy in.  If you’re impatient, you may get discouraged by not seeing the results as quickly as you want.  But it is mathematical.  Put the energy in, consistently, no matter what, and the results start flowing in.

10.    Courage: When setting out to do something different you may have a crisis of confidence; a feeling like “I am a charlatan” or “There’s no way I can pull this off!”  There is often a period of time when you are gaining credibility within yourself.  Have patience during this phase and know this period is finite.  In the mean time, fake it.  Don’t be wishy-washy: when introducing yourself – statements like “I’m trying to be an author” or “I’m sort of working on becoming a therapist” sabotage you.   Get in the habit of saying, “I’m a writer” or “I’m a chef”.  Hear yourself say the words–listen to what you are and be proud. Once you get your feet under you for long enough, your this turns to genuine confidence.

A final note: The days of linear careers are over.  Be pragmatic; take all your differing agendas into account, including how much you need to be making, what you love and hate doing, the legacy you want to leave, the transition time you have available for making a career move.  This will help you make the right career choices.

When you finally free up your thinking and accept that reality and desire can be accounted for – you discover so much more is possible – and you get to real actionable answers.  Now it becomes a matter of breaking up the transition into ‘Lego pieces’; individual manageable blocks that build on one other to get you out of your head and into action, and in the direction you want to take.  The horizon then becomes limitless.

To contact Meredith, click here on Contact Page or call 866-599-6535.

Oh, no, it’s the “R” word! Currently heard and seen everywhere. Call it what you will — recession, slump, downturn, it has everybody edgy and fearing the worst.

It doesn’t help that we’re bombarded with messages that promote financial and job insecurity. The media thrives on perpetuating anxiety and fear. C-R-I-S-I-S.

How do we ride the wave when it seems the customary trappings of our lives may be at risk?

A good starting point is to embrace reality while understanding that the nature of your life is not static. The reality of today will not be the actuality of tomorrow or next week.

Tips for Tinkering with Happiness
Meet Challenges Head On
Meet challenges head on, not from a place of fear or intimidation but with clarity, daring, grace and innovation.
If there’s something real that you’re avoiding — or if there are eventualities you should plan for, take action to begin dealing with them today. Even if it’s just a small action. Get in action.
If you’re dwelling on your fear of what might happen in the future, bring yourself back to the present and deal with what is before you — head on. When we get lost in what should have happened (past) or what we fear will happen (future) — we spoil the only place we are actually experiencing life — right now, this moment. Come vacation here in the present, it’s nice.
Accept Uncertainty and Change
Wish as we might, we don’t live in a static and unchanging world. Change is the constant. And we human beings don’t generally do that well with change. We find it upsetting. But the truth is, everything about life is uncertain, so we may as well embrace it.

Choose Wisely
How you deal with difficulties is a choice. Your choice. You may resent that, it may even stump or anger you, but it’s the truth. Choose carefully what you’re focused on. Are you replaying bad possible future scenarios in your mind? Do you choose words like “terrible” or “crisis” (instead of, for example “wild”, “volatile” and “uncertain”)? Are you fixated on re-circulating thoughts of possibly losing your job? Are you spending your day staring at the stock market on the computer and feeling terrible? If it’s not leading to positive action, and it feels bad, cut it out. How you deal with anything is YOUR choice.
Choose carefully how you’re framing facts, and what conversations you’re spending time in. If you’re having trouble with this, get help.

Let Go of Your Crummy Stories
Happy or sad or cold or warm are all different points on the graph of life. What’s so bad about feeling? If you don’t attach a big old story to it, feelings come and then go. Sad, scared, happy. Where we get into trouble is making up stories (that we think are capital “T” True) and sticking them onto the feeling — “this is terrible”, “we won’t be okay,” “I should have known better.” It’s the story you latch onto the feeling that’s the problem. Announcement: your stories are just your interpretation. They are not capital “T” True. You could loosen your grip on them. If you just let the feeling come and go and don’t attach a story to it, it washes right through. Practice this — it enables you to take effective action — and it works miracles.

Have Fun Even While You’re on a Financial Diet
Have fun even while you’re tightening the belt. Write out what you’d love to be doing without regard for money and then identify what the underlying desire is. You can then start to discover ways to fulfill that desire with whatever is financially appropriate. For example, say you want to go to St. Barts…but given your bank account, this is just not the year for that. Take a look past the specifics for the underlying desire, in this case, for example it may be to relax, let go of your daily concerns and to unwind. Then look for how else that desire can be met within your current budget and realities; maybe it’s asking a friend if you and your family can stay at their country cabin an hour away for a weekend, or negotiating with your spouse a day of an upcoming weekend that you can be “off duty” and use that day to do whatever pleases you. You do not have to deprive yourself of fun and things you love just because you’re on a financial diet. Stretch your brain just a little — you’ll discover whatever the underlying longing — you can fulfill it completely with less mullah.

Don’t Play in the Dirt
Nurture your friendships; and choose them carefully. Share fun and play, but don’t fan the flames of anxiety. Listen, give back, be a good ally. If you have people around you dwelling in doomsday thinking, be compassionate that this is where they are in this moment, even offer up a different perspective if you like, but don’t hang out and play in that mudpit. That mud ends up all over you.

Thanksgiving Ain’t Over
Real gratitude and appreciation for all we do have is a major contributor to peace of mind. And I’m not talking about a fake nod in this direction. Be grateful for what you can actually be grateful for. Kiss your difficulties on both cheeks! Use their sharp edge to get you off your keister and leave a thank you note for past experiences, for the journey from there to now.

Move Your Bod
Strengthen yourself physically, play ball, chase the dog, dance with a child, do whatever it takes to get your energy moving in ways that delight you and give you flexibility and endurance. The challenges you may face are better dealt with when you’re feeling at your physical best.

Take a Walk
Get out in Nature. It’s no cliche that green spaces calm and nurture. They also inform. Trees exist within their cycles, budding, blossoming and leaf dropping, nothing is lost. Wall Street might disdain such a simple lesson but you can gain from it when you realize that abundance ebbs and flows but is always present, always operating on a natural principle of plenty.

Invest
Nurture and sustain yourself. Don’t let the turbulence out there make you feel impoverished and helpless. Make other investments elsewhere, such as in the emotional and spiritual parts of your life. Be anchored to the sacred (whatever you perceive that to be). Pray, meditate, be still in good solitude that you might connect to yourself in deep and powerful ways.

Remember:
1. The sky is not falling. Yes, the economy is wild, and the world is uncertain. The truth is there is nothing so terrible about an uncertain world. When you peel back the veil, that’s actually the very nature of life.
2. Misery can paralyze and drain you, and not only in difficult times. You are always choosing your interpretation of what’s happening and what it’s going to mean to you.
3. Stop wishing and hoping things were different. They’re not. Choose a helpful view of reality and deal with it.
4. The reality of today will not be the actuality of tomorrow or next week.
When you are fretting and fearful, you are living in an imagined world of a bad possible future; railing against the human ail of not being able to control everything. When you stay in R-E-A-L-I-T-Y about what is happening in the moment, you’ll notice the present is actually survivable, even if it is not what you want.

But you can then think clearly, sleep soundly, and create powerful action.

Meredith is a Life Coach and co-founder of Meredith Haberfeld Coaching and The Institute for Coaching.

By Meredith Haberfeld for City Atlantic

Winter 2007-2008

Declaring New Year’s resolutions is one thing…keeping them is quite another. Most of us have a clear vision of what we want from the future, but few actually take the time to formulate a plan to achieve it. Strategy is key.

The Resolution: Advance My Career

The Advice:

For the Employee

Design your intentions for your career for the year. Create a business plan as though you’re an entrepreneur. Ask for a review and follow through until it is scheduled.

Come to the review with your own ideas of what you can do to develop. Be thoughtful about this. What are the gaps between your current performance and the people both 1 & 2 levels above you?  What skill sets do they have that you don’t?  Determine them and create and share your plan to resolve the discrepancy.

Also come in to that review with a few highlights of what you have accomplished this past year.  The more you can quantify this in dollars and cents or measurable results – the better.

Write down feedback from your supervisors and create an action plan to address each point and set up a meeting to review it with your boss or supervisor.

Dismiss competition. It’s a distraction. Create a big game to go after and play to impress yourself. The most remarkable leaps I have seen people make happen when they re-direct whom they are trying to impress, stop aiming to please their boss, and work every day to impress themselves.  Inevitably it is noticed.

For the Entrepreneur

Let your ambition come out.  Design your plan for 2008.  Pick your top initiatives. Make quarterly targets.  Fight like hell to meet them.

Although you have the joy of not having a boss, take time each week to write a weekly business report and send it to someone: your director of operations, your secretary, your spouse. In it, addresses the action items on each initiative with specific deliverable dates. The specific deadlines prove crucial for my clients time after time.

For the Career-Shifter

Figure out your financial plan that will take care of the transition.

Turn on your networking.  Resumes and job boards are devastatingly wasteful compared to networking with actual people. Dig through your old contacts and find out what people are up to these days, send emails to say hello, update contact information, send a holiday greeting, or set up a coffee date for the new year.

Aim for one in-person meeting a week just to connect with people who may be relevant to your transition. Meet with no agenda to get a job from them, but instead just to communicate and see what could come of it. You’ll be shocked what lurks within your own contacts when you really take this on.

When aiming for that perfect new job, consider your end target will come as a function of many, many no’s.  And the game then becomes: How many no’s can you accumulate while playing at your best?  The more you can get in a day or a week, while playing at your peak, the faster you’re advancing your goals.

For Everyone

Let yourself dream.  Before you get “realistic,” pay attention to your desires.  One of the things that’s special about extraordinary people is that they listen to their longing – even when there is a long list of reasons that they can make for why it’s likely not to turn out.

Do the dreaming and design. Break the dream down into benchmarks with real deadlines and put them right into your calendar so they’re staring back at you.

Be light with yourself about any failures…they don’t stop

you unless you sit in them.  If need be, shed a tear, moan to a friend, then wipe yourself off, and get back to your game.

Put the past in the past.  If you’ve failed at this goal before learn from your mistakes.  Face forward into a wide-open future rather than being distracted by the trail you’ve left behind you.

Meredith Haberfeld is an acclaimed Executive Coach in New York City . She can be reached at www.meredithhaberfeld.com