Robert L. Keith, Ph.D. Activation Personal Life Coaching

“If you think you are too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room.”

                                                                                                                               Anita Koddick

As a Life Coach, I often notice that when people want to make substantial changes in their lives that they benefit from something called decluttering.  Most of us can relate to the experience of having too much stuff; stuff that is basically not used and worse, is taking up space that could be occupied by useful things. 

Decluttering often needs to be done in relationships as well.  Do you have people in your life who take up space but contribute little or nothing to your life?  This may at first sound a bit harsh, but consider this:  Envision that you have a “friend” that you have known for a while.  Perhaps you have nurtured this friendship with invitations to get together, join you at your home for a meal and a movie, listened to stories of sadness and loss, invited to events, etc.  Continue to envision that your “friend” passes up opportunity after opportunity to share with you in a similar way what you have shared.  The friend never so much as invites you over for a slice of pizza (delivered) after many occasions of accepting your hospitality.  Your friend never asks you about your life or what is new with you beyond the usual “how ya doing?” initial greeting.  Or if he/she does, your response is cut short and your “friend” then launches into the latest tale of woe and the discussion never returns to your latest news.

Hmmm…what’s wrong with this picture?

Sounds like a unidirectional relationship to me…one in which your “friend” is the receiver and you are the provider. 

As I see it, in such a situation you have 2 choices: talk to your friend frankly and state what you need in the friendship.  Maybe the friend is oblivious and is appalled at their self-absorption.  Maybe things will change. 

But what if they don’t? Or, what if you’ve already put a lot into the relationship and you want to cut your losses because you see a pattern and you don’t expect it to change?  This is where decluttering comes in.  There are some people who go through their lives accepting the generosity of others but fail to see the value in reciprocation.  These relationships are established in  a one-gives/the-other-receives dynamic.  Usually the receiver doesn’t even realize it and might even be incensed at the very idea that someone else would see it that way.  Sometimes a person may be better off to declutter such a relationship in the same way that he/she would declutter a closet.  There is only so much space in the closet.  Are there clothes that no longer fit?  Are out of style?  Are stained?  These items take up space that could be occupied by the luxury of open space or could be filled with new clothes.

You may feel offended at the idea of “cutting someone off”.   Relationships discontinue and change all the time.  Relationships cool.  Decluttering is more conscious and deliberate — a decision is made.  You wouldn’t go to the “friend” and say “I’ve decided to declutter and you’ve got to go”.   Perhaps your decision would be to cease putting energy into the relationship.  Delay returning calls; eventually not return calls.  Or you might have an ending conversation.  It’s up to you.

Does your closet need to be decluttered?  Only you can decide this.  Remember that decluttering, whether in your house, garage, office, or life may be a metaphorical or literal first step to making the substantial and meaningful changes that you want to make to manifest your best life. 

Call me to talk about Life Coaching and how it can be transformative.  802.373.3547

One of my current “reads” is Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman, Ph.D.  This book has been around since 2002 but I am finding what I believe to be a lot of wisdom in it — and to top it off, his ideas are evidence-based which means that his thoughts are based not on conjecture.  A particularly interesting chapter is “Happiness in the Present” (chapter 7) in which he talks about various pleasures: bodily pleasures and higher pleasures.  Bodily pleasures such as the feel of a nice hot shower after a days worth of grime; tasting, hearing, textures, etc., are all among the bodily pleasures.  He defines the higher pleasures as more complex and more cognitive in nature.  Experiences such as vigor, glee, ebullience, enthusiasm he characterizes as high intensity pleasures; those such as comfort, satiation, amusement, and relaxation characterize low intensity pleasures. 

Seligman goes on to talk about how one may enhance their pleasure.  One way he says, is savoring.  He credits Bryant and Veroff of Loyola University with the definition of savoring, which they describe as “the awareness of pleasure and of the deliberate conscious attention to the experience of pleasure”.  Bryant and Veroff list strategies for promoting the savoring of pleasure:

      Sharing with others– they state this the the single strongest predictor fo the level of pleasure.

      Memory-Building — by recalling clearly or taking a physical souvenir of a moment of pleasure.

      Self-Congratulation — tell yourself how impressed others are and remember how long you’ve waited for the pleasure to occur

      Sharpening Perceptions — one focuses in on certain elements of the pleasure and blocks out others, like listening to music with eyes closed.

      Absorption – allowing for total immersion in the pleasure and not think or judge the experience; only sense it.

How long has it been since you have allowed yourself the pleasure of pleasure?  How often do you do the exact opposite of absorption by multi-tasking?  Life coaching can help you to heighten your awareness of pleasure by helping you to increase your intentionality about everything you do.   I help people to live more intentionally.  I would love to talk to you about how an extraordinary coaching relationship with me can help you to live meaningfully and with pleasure.   I welcome your calls and emails; 802.373.3547.

Isn’t this is the ultimate life question?  The answer will be determined to a large extent by what one values.  Although ones values and priorities can be powerful motivators, it isn’t always easy to get what one wants.  Sometimes sacrifice of some other desired thing is required in order to attain what is REALLY desired.  Donald Latumahina lists 3 essential ingredients to getting what one wants out of life:

   – Strong Motivation…..you have to know why you want something; this is where values come in.   Motivation is required to push through that which is difficult to get to what you desire.

   -  Persistence…..failure is assumed, but if one gives up after a failure, that which one values will not be attainable.  Here again, strong motivation in the first place helps with dealing with failure.

   -  Willingness to Learn and Change the Approach…..those failures provide opportunities to learn.  Trial and error is how some of the most important inventions have been created.  Willingness to change may involve letting go of some pride and allow oneself to not be an expert.  Most of all, avoid doing things the same way repeatedly.

If you are at a point where you KNOW what you REALLY, REALLY, REALLY want but don’t know how to get it, OR if you don’t know what you want and want to form an extraordinary relationship that will have as its goal to help you determine what you REALLY, REALLY, REALLY want, Life Coaching can help you with this.  I am currently accepting new clients and am passionate about helping people live their lives with INTENTION and ACTIVATION!  Call me at 802.373.3547 if you would like to discuss coaching and to arrange a complementary coaching session.

I have known and worked with many people over the years who have taken a leap of faith and landed in very shallow water.  We often hear, “go for it…nothing ventured nothing gained…”.  While I believe that this is true, what is often not said is that it is necessary to do one’s homework.  A leap of faith is fine and dandy for something that is an essentially sure thing.  There are other things that come along about which we may feel passionate but wisdom and good sense would dictate that research should be done prior to taking the leap.  In my own life I experienced failure because I had the passion but I didn’t do the homework. 

During my years on a medical school faculty I became increasingly interested in biofeedback.  As a psychologist with an undergraduate background in biology I was very interested in developing this as an area of practice.  On a leap of faith, I decided to go to a training program.  The program was very good and I learned a great deal.  It stimulated further interest and I felt the passion to increase my competency in this new (to me) and interesting treatment modality.  Fueled by this passion, I took a leap of faith and purchased a very expensive biofeedback software package.  This was the program that I learned on in the training and I began to try to develop more skill and facility in using this package.   As time went on and I began to try to make this new treatment modality known to others on campus, I expected that I would be flooded with referrals.  I was wrong.  I received very few referrals and many of them ultimately did not follow through.  I was very disappointed and continued to try for a while.  I began to find that insurance companies often did not cover biofeedback services.  I found out that I might have been able to get all or part of the cost of the software package paid for by my academic department.  After a while, I became very discouraged and with no patients for this modality, my software package fell into disuse. 

I felt a great sense of failure and a bit foolish.  I learned that taking “a leap of faith” without use of frontal lobe cognition abilities may not always be the wisest choice.   I had always tended not to be much of a risk taker and this confirmed all of my fears about acting.  As time has passed and I’ve had time to reflect, I see that the leap of faith wasn’t the problem; it was the lack of proper research and investigation about the market.  I thought of many questions that I might have investigated had I not decided that it would be prudent to take a swan dive into an unknown lake.  I learned a lot from that experience.

In 2000, I began to feel disillusioned with the academic medical center.  I was feeling more and more dissatisfied and it was increasingly clear that I would not be able to enact some of my plans and dreams there.  We had always wanted to move to Vermont and the time had never been right.  This thought began to take hold.  At first, I asked myself why I would leave a relatively secure job with a good salary for a wildcard, especially after having taken a “leap of faith” in the past with the biofeedback and experienced failure.  Would I put our retirement and savings at risk by making such a move? 

I began to think about this move as the potential fulfillment of a lifelong vision to live a simpler life in a beautiful, pastoral setting with 4 distinct seasons.  I had learned the value of research and doing my homework.  My partner and I decided to think about what we need to know so that we can make a reasonably good choice.  We did this…we took about 18 months to figure out details, fully aware that we wouldn’t be able to think of everything, but allowing for this level of discomfort.  We moved from Texas to Vermont in April, 2001 and I will never leave here.  It is the place I have always dreamed of.  It is home.  Over seven years later, I still feel a deep sense of gratefulness for my place here and I appreciate the beauty of it and the wonderful people we have met here every day. 

Was it risky?  Certainly, but we covered the bases of things that were important and allowed the rest to be unknowable.  It was still a leap of faith because no matter how much planning one does, there are things that can’t be accounted for.  We can’t control all of the many variables that would affect us. 

Perhaps you or someone you know is at a crossroads.  As a Life Coach I work with motivated people who want to make important decisions to live the life that they want to live.  I collaborate with people to help them envision the lives they want and to create a life they might not have imagined possible.

You’ve heard the old saying, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life”.  Well, that happens to be true.  The most important question is, are you living your life as you want to live it or are you moving from day to day without any clear sense of purpose or direction?  Do you feel as though you are in a vehicle careening through the world with no brake or steering wheel?  Many people in today’s world experience life this way.  It’s easy to do with so much external stimulation and the lack of a clear vision for one’s life.  Coaching can help a person to create a vision for life that is worth planning for.  I would enjoy speaking with people about coaching and how it can be beneficial.  Let me know if you would like to talk to me about how coaching might help you to live more purposefully and intentionally.