We don’t always have the answers, but we can cultivate a willingness to go exploring in search of new questions, and new answers. 

Where might a healthy dose of willingness open up new doors for you today?

What are 20 things you love to do?

Make a list. Reach back into your childhood if need be. Gather back together any disconnected parts of yourself.

For all of us, regardless of our roles in the world, when we ‘grow up’ we can sometimes forget those things that help us feel most vitally alive. Ironically, the higher our level of leadership, the more important it is to remember these things that help us feel like a kid again. Typically, we carry greater responsibility and have less free time, so it becomes even more vital to use that time really, really well doing things we love.

What do you love to do?

If you felt 100% in the driver’s seat of your own life and career, what would you do differently today?

Sometimes we forget the degree of choices we really have, and let our focus shift to those things we believe we cannot control. In these moments, shifting our focus to the choices we do have is a leadership move.

What choices have you overlooked?

Three Simple Steps to Access Our Own Wisdom

For the big questions, the ones that help set the course of our lives, or significantly impact our work or our leadership, access to more than intellectual thought can pay off.   There is a wisdom that lives in our bodies.  Some call it intuition, or may speak of doing a gut check, or having a gut feeling about something.   How though, in the midst of a busy day, do we access this?

Here’s a simple formula to have your inner navigation system working for you:

·      Ask good questions.

·      Settle into your center.  (Sometimes easier said than done… how-to is below!)

·      Listen from an open stance.

·      (Ok. there is a secret fourth step.  Practice steps 1-3 often, and you’ll get really good at accessing your own wisdom!)

1) Start with asking good questions:

Example: What is the core challenge I am facing?   What is the opportunity inherent in this challenge? 

The questions we ask ourselves determine the direction and shape of our attention. Quality answers emerge from excellent questions, so choose them well!   Whatever your challenge, if you’ve been framing it as a problem, try these questions that focus on challenge and opportunity instead.  Same content, different way of looking.   What do you notice?

2) Next, learn to settle into center.

We are most effective when we are relaxed and alert – not tense and alert.   Tension is like grime on a window or static on a phone line: it infers with clear seeing, clear hearing, and clear understanding.

Centering involves both a physical relaxation and a mental clarity of focusing on what matters most.  By beginning with the body, our minds can follow, and clarity can emerge.  We always have an ally here, in the regular rhythm of our breath. Let your attention settle deep into your belly, and allow your breath follow.  Soften your shoulders, let your jaw relax, feel your feet, way down there, closer to the earth.

******Feel your breath.

Through as many breaths as it takes to soften and release the tension holding you, feel the fullness of breath in your belly.  Let each breath coax a bit more space through your sides and your back.  Feel your mid back expanding.  Feel your sides open.  Feel the weight of your body settling you into the support of the earth below.  (Even many floors up, gravity still works, and the earth is still beneath us- you may just need to use your imagination a bit more!)

If you are bottled-up-tight tense, you may need to prime the pump by doing several complete exhales.  Ironically, since nature abhors a vacuum, the best way to get a full, deep breath is to fully empty the lungs.  So do this with vigor, as if you were blowing out the candles on a cake, and there really is one for every year!   With each deep exhale, let your shoulders drop another notch, your jaw soften, and then inhale fully, deeply.  Placing your palms on your abdomen just below your navel can help you direct your attention, and therefore your breath, even lower.

******Now keep your attention in your center.

Once you bring your breath and your attention to your center, you can un-kink the hose of your whole energetic system, and allow the life force to connect you to what you cannot see, but that is always there, always supporting us, always available.  Like the sun not yet seen in the early dawn, that life force is with us, not visible, but present.  When we settle into our breathing, we can learn to feel this support and allow our bodies to open into an alert yet relaxed state. 

This process of centering takes practice. As with all things, practice is the key ingredient to success.  You will get better with time – and practice!

3) Listen from an open stance.   

What is your challenge today?  What is your opportunity?  When we listen in our center, we often find more wisdom, and more comprehensive answers.  It’s as if we can see through a wide-angle lens, and not just through a telephoto lens.  More possibilities show up.   Let yourself get curious, and go exploring.  When we narrow down too soon, and latch on too quickly to particular approach, we sometimes squeeze out real possibilities.

When you listen from your center, what do you notice?

Now let yourself begin.  And keep practicing!