Vol 2 Iss 4

As I write this, we are planning our first camping trip of the season. Yes, I know it's barely April, but we had some work done on the camper at the end of the season last year and our final trip was only in September. We usually camp all the way to Thanksgiving, weather allowing. So, it's been a long while, and we are both ready!

Even though I don't fly-fish quite so much as I used to, camping gives me a chance to escape from the phone and office/house work to catch up on my reading and napping: two essentials for a happy life. Having time to absorb nature and take things really slowly allows me to stay grounded when the daily stresses begin to build.

So, what is essential in your life? For my article this month, I've gone to my client files for stories of real people. I want you to see how different life can be when you are living what is essential to you. (Coaches call these “values.”)

Since my clients did not give me specific permission, I will protect their identity by using only an initial, which may or may not be theirs. I know they won't mind sharing their journey.

Finding your values is not always an easy discovery. Sometimes, talking it out is the best way to uncover them. We live life obliviously, like a fish trying to find water, until something outside of us helps us see things differently.

If this is something you'd like to experience, please give me a call. And as always, if you enjoy this newsletter, please forward it to a friend!

P.S. My application to grad school and the writing sample is in! Now, I wait for the faculty interview and their decision.

"Too often we decide to follow a path that is not really our own, one that others have set for us. We forget that whichever way we go, the price is the same: in both cases, we will pass through both difficult and happy moments. But when we are living our dream, the difficulties we encounter make sense."

T. came to me terribly unhappy about her job as the only female attorney in a law firm of all white guys. She was a lonely little petunia in an onion patch. Her values were at complete odds with the culture of the firm.

She valued diversity, they valued sameness. She valued cooperation, they valued confrontation. She valued work/life balance, they valued proving yourself by working long hours. Yet, the work was challenging intellectually, and she had real opportunity to help people in a meaningful way, so it was a difficult choice to drop everything and run.

In our coaching, as she articulated and owned her values, she decided one way to honor her value of diversity was to take Spanish lessons. The firm was OK with it since it could possibly open the door for more business. We could never really name a goal for the Spanish lessons, only that it honored her value of diversity. We ended our coaching with her happily pursuing Spanish and creating new ways to bring her values to work.

About 2 years later I heard from T. She had not only spent 5 weeks in Mexico last summer in a language emersion program, but she began investigating moving to Mexico to establish a recycling plant. Currently she is enrolled in a TESOL (Teaching English as a Second Language) program at her local community college to supplement her income as she makes her dream come true. She'll be quitting her job at the law firm and moving to Mexico this summer.

W. came to coaching because he, as many do, hated his job. He's a paralegal for a large impersonal insurance company. Again, the values clashed. A very independent family-oriented person, he worked for a micro-manager who had no respect for life outside work. One thing W. loved, however, was teaching. Even though he is in his 50's, he has returned to school and is about to graduate with a Ph. D. which will give him the credential he needs to teach at a University. No more micro-manager for him!

This last story is about a shift. J. is a Sr. VP at a telecommunications company and for his customers, he is where the buck stops. If one of the cell phone companies doesn't have service, you can be sure his phone is ringing – loudly. When he came to coaching, he had no idea there was any other way to live. Crisis to crisis. He was a slave to his beeper.

A look at his values showed a love of history and writing, of authenticity and responsibility. In our conversations, he was also willing to look at other ways the world could work. Now, after a couple of years of coaching, he is centered and focused. He's had two promotions (relief from the beeper!) and is involved in company policy at a new level.

His ability to look at his circumstances differently has given him more choice in the way he responds to crisis. Instead of starting the day with a list of things to “do,” he sets an intention of how he will “be.”

He is still at the same company, still looking at retiring in a few years to write that history novel. But, it's a choice now, not an escape.

So these three clients all have one thing in common, they've chosen to direct their lives according to their values. Certainly they are all still on a path – no one has arrived at their destination. But the reality is, once they reach that destination, they will discover a new destination, new ways to bring their values into focus and reality. After all, that's what we're here for. To be our authentic self.

For the full listing of workshops, visit www.forwardmomentum.com.

You are free to use material from Moving Forward! in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including a live web site link. Please also notify me where the material will appear. The attribution should read:

"By Debra DeVilbiss, CPCC, of Forward Momentum, LLC. Please visit Debra's website at http://www.ForwardMomentum.com for additional articles and resources on creating your right livelihood."

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