by Jenny Blake
“Does walking count? Running? Biking? Swimming? Yoga? What about journaling?” I asked my friend Adam, who studied meditation while living in a monastery in Thailand. His answer was a resounding no to all of the above. “Get quiet,” he said. “Those other activities are just more forms of doing.”
It was not until my life flipped upside down, two years into running my own business full time, that I turned to the final frontier of what might soothe my deep discomfort: meditation. Adam taught me a simple practice to start with: sit with eyes closed and maintain steady even breathing, while repeating the mantra, “Rising. Falling. Sitting.” I committed to a daily practice of five to thirty minutes. I reinforced the new habit by adding it to my to-do list every day, downloading the Insight Timer app, and holding myself accountable by aiming for unbroken streaks: mediating for ten, twenty, thirty, and—just once—a hundred days in a row.
Soon I felt an enormous sense of relief that even for just ten to twenty minutes a day I could find a quiet, calm center, and access my inner wisdom. These sessions recharged the battery of my brain from blinking red empty back up to a bright green 100 percent. Meditation has since become the most important part of my day.
Many successful people, including Arianna Huffington, Kobe Bryant, Russell Simmons, and Gisele Bündchen, have cited meditation as a critical component of their daily routine and a major success factor behind their thriving careers. Dan Harris, author of 10% Happier, found meditation after having a panic attack on live national television while anchoring a Good Morning America segment. Many companies, hospitals, and the military also promote meditation with quiet rooms, classes, and group sessions for employees.
Even if meditation practice has eluded you until now, I encourage you to experiment with at least ten minutes of quiet, eyes-closed time in the morning; studies show that as little as ten to twelve minutes a day improves attention and working memory. When pivoting, practices like these will sharpen your focus, reduce stress, and provide the creative edge you need.
Give your inner wisdom the respect of inquiry.
A Basic Meditation Practice to Start With
Since that early conversation, Adam and I polled over three hundred people who identify as “meditation curious” about what gets in the way of starting a practice. We found that many beginners get overwhelmed by some very practical and understandable questions: How should I sit? What do I do once I close my eyes? What if I am the type that just can’t sit still?
If you are motivated to experiment with your own sitting practice but you are not sure where to begin, here are a few pointers from Casey Gramaglia, cofounder of the Asian Center for Applied Mindfulness.
Sit in a chair with your feet planted directly beneath your knees, or cross-legged on the floor: Keep a cushion available to elevate your hips above your knees to help with comfort and circulation.
Straighten your spine, lifting the crown of your head up: Rest your palms in your lap, right hand on top of the left, thumb tips gently touching, shoulders relaxed.
Start by observing your solar plexus area, putting your attention on your belly: Note when your breath moves in (“rising”) and when the breath moves out (“falling”).
The mind will naturally wander: There will be moments when you get distracted by hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling, and thinking. When any of these break your concentration, note it, such as “thinking” or “hearing,” then bring your attention back to the rising and falling of your breath.
If you feel the need to move, scratch, or fidget, simply note it as “feeling”: Do your best to stay put and return to your practice. Remember, meditation is a checking-in, a seeing what’s going on with the mind and body. Sometimes the need to fidget is an indication of just how unsettled we are in our lives.
Make your meditation practice your own. Try different approaches until you find one that works for you. “Remember not to judge yourself, just keep coming back to the practice, and your focus point of concentration,” Casey says. “The more often you practice, the better you will get, and the quicker you will be able to bring the mind back to attention, cultivating a refined state of concentration and peace.”
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In this chapter we homed in on your values and happiness formula. You learned how to get your body primed to pivot, reduce decision fatigue, and quiet your mind to activate your best thinking. But what should you be thinking about? Where are you trying to go?
CHAPTER 2: PUT A PIN IN IT
What Excites You Most? What Does Success Look Like One Year from Now?
A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within. . . . Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. . . . Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”
MOST PEOPLE—INCLUDING OUR CLOSEST FAMILY AND FRIENDS—DO NOT ASK US the big questions on a regular basis, if ever. They don’t typically start end-of-day debriefs with: What is working best in your life right now? What are you most excited about? What does smashing success look like one year from now? Casual conversations more often hover around stories and daily drama: This is what happened to me this week. This is how I felt about it. This is what is bugging me. Although we sometimes share the most exhilarating moments, we lean toward discussing what troubles us because that’s what is top of mind.
If your values are your compass, your vision is your desired destination. Once you know where you are going, the Pivot process can take you there—but first, you need to pinpoint where you want to end up. Your vision attaches a specific future-based form to your values. Both will help you course-correct as you experiment throughout your pivot, while you steer toward a motivating future. Impacters are highly resourceful; once they are clear on where they want to end up, they are quite creative about making their vision happen.
The more captivating your vision, the more it will recharge you during uncertain times. It is the difference between a vague sweeping statement such as, “I value travel and teaching” to an alluring invitation from your future self like, “One year from now I am living in London, working from a coffee shop as I prepare for a class I am teaching on international business law.” Your vision, though it may shift as you gain more clarity and information, keeps you focused when making big decisions.
When it comes to crafting a powerful vision, I hate the question, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” It is based on an outdated paradigm and halts rather than generates conversation. Who knows?! New job fields are emerging at breakneck speed. The iPhone launched in 2007. Do you think that in 2006, the founders of Instagram or Snapchat would have said, “In five years, I would like to have created an app—for an app store and technology that doesn’t exist yet—that will be valued at billions of dollars”? No! So we should not expect to know exactly what job or even industry we will want to pursue in five years.
Even if we could guess, we would probably sell ourselves short. Studies show that we are quite ineffective at predicting what is going to make us happy in the future. As poet David Whyte puts it, “What you can plan is too small for you to live.”
John Hill has been a chief information officer for twenty-two years. As a specialist in emerging technologies, John’s career vision is to help lead large organizations through systems upgrades that allow them to stay current, while continually learning and challenging himself. But he can never predict too far out what that might look like, given that the specific technology solutions are frequently changing.
John could sense this conundrum early on, so he adopted the following motto when choosing his college major: “What I want to do doesn’t exist yet.” This has remained true for most of his career. John never knows exactly what technologies will emerge, but he has become skilled at learning and staying ahead of the curve. His vision carries him forward even when he is uncertain
about what his day-to-day work will entail years from now.
Given that so much of what impacters may end up doing in five years does not yet exist, it is most effective to focus vision planning on a shorter time frame and consider what success looks like even just one year from now. Most people have an easier time focusing on a one- or two-year vision than on creating a specific five-year plan. If you happen to have a clear longer-term vision, that is welcome, though not necessary.
The exercises in this chapter will help you articulate how you want your life and career to unfold in the near term.
AVOID THE TYRANNY OF THE HOWS
One common mistake I see among people tackling a big decision is jumping straight into the how. This is a surefire way to send yourself into panic mode. One of my first coaches, Jeff Jacobson, called this the “tyranny of the hows.”
The problem-solving spiral tends to go something like this: “I am unhappy at work. How will I tell my manager? How could I find a new role within the company? How should I look for a job at another company while I am still here? If I decide to work for myself, how will I earn money? How will I ensure this all works out? What if things don’t go as planned? Will I have regrets? What if I end up in a van down by the river?!”
Can you see how quickly the how questions sent our fictional friend into a frenzy? How is a dangerous word to ask too early in the Pivot process. You do not have to know the whole how just yet, or even if what you want will be possible. I will provide guidance for the hows when it is time, primarily during the Pilot and Launch stages. At this point in the process, resist the urge to solve how before you know what your vision is.
Creating a compelling one-year vision can be intimidating because as soon as you identify something truly exciting that you want to pursue, your fear gremlins may rush through the door, sounding alarms that you are an impostor this and you are doomed to fail that.
Our impulse is to tuck our tail between our legs and turn away. Or stuff the dreams down and pretend we never had them in the first place. But the fears that ride in on the coattails of an invigorating vision are a good sign. They signal that you are approaching something meaty enough to challenge you, and that you are squarely in your stretch zone.
Avoid focusing too much on your fear, your dislike, what is missing, or what you don’t want. Operating solely on an avoidance of fear or dislike creates a blind spot: you know what you are running from but cannot see what you are running toward. Fear does not put fuel in your tank. Your career will remain stalled until you examine what positive outcomes will motivate you into action and sustain you through the inevitable and unnerving dips in the Pivot process.
As one Cherokee legend goes, a man tells his grandson that we all have two wolves fighting inside of us: good and evil, or joy and fear. When the grandson asks which one lives, his elder replies, “The one we feed.” Your one-year vision works the same way. You have enormous creative brainpower, so feed the outcome you seek, not the one you fear.
VISION CLOUDY? START SOMEWHERE.
People often come to me when they feel stuck and their vision feels too distant to describe, a far cry from where they are now. Or they might not know precisely what they want. Both are normal, and to be expected. But as I tell them, it is still important to start somewhere.
I never accept “I don’t know” as an answer. Because every time (and I do mean every time) I follow up with: “Guess. Just take a stab at it, even if you don’t know specifics,” answers start pouring out. I don’t know quickly dissolves after further inquiry.
Crafting a vision can start with a sweeping exploration, one as broad as how you want to feel one year from now. If you currently feel stuck, stagnant, or stressed, what is the alternative? If you are an impacter, it is likely that you want to feel more engaged, balanced, and healthy, and to know that you are making a positive difference in the world.
My sister-in-law, Gillian, graduated from law school and took the bar exam, but quickly realized her one-year vision did not include sitting at a desk every day working on legal briefs. Her one-year vision was to be engaged in a flexible work environment that would keep her physically active, surrounded by like-minded people, and provide stepping-stones toward a career that was conducive to starting a family and running a business with her husband.
After taking the bar exam, Gillian completed CorePower Yoga Teacher Training as a side project and reward to herself for finishing law school. Even though she hadn’t planned to do much with it at the time, practicing yoga became an important element of her happiness formula.
A few months later, when she found out that she did pass the bar exam, Gillian decided to teach at a yoga studio rather than continue at the law firm where she was interning. She committed to learning the business side of yoga. Earning her yoga teaching certification, combined with her business and legal acumen, helped her pivot in a new direction that was more aligned with her vision. Gil was quickly promoted to a management role within the yoga studio, bolstered by her aptitude and unique background.
Broad One-Year Vision Brainstorm
Coming up with a clear vision is like shaping a block of clay. Staring at a big square block can be intimidating, so it is best to start broad, then refine the details of your vision later. Your vision may sound like your values at first, then becomes differentiated as you specify the activities that your vision encompasses one year from now.
Here are some common broad one-year vision statements:
Do work that makes me excited to get out of bed every day.
Feel like I am making an impact; see the positive results of my work.
Prioritize my health, get in a groove with daily routines.
Make a career or business change while also aiming for financial security.
Be surrounded by a community of like-minded peers and friends.
Live and work in an invigorating environment.
After you come up with broad vision statements like the ones above, continue shaping what each item might look like one year from now. What kind of work are you doing? What impact are you having? How much are you earning? Where are you living? What are your health routines? Who are you surrounded by? How do you feel?
I encourage my clients to express a safe, nice-to-have version of their vision at first. But what I am really digging for is the excited disbelief of “What?! I can ask for that?! Is that really even possible?!” Ultimately, your one-year vision should be so riveting that the thought sends a rush of adrenaline through your body and gets your idea synapses firing.
Define Success One Year from Now
Now that you have started a broad vision outline, apply the Give-Receive-Achieve framework below to further shape what success looks like in the coming year. This is a shortcut I developed to assess how you want to contribute, what you want to experience in return, and what specific results or milestones will indicate that you are on the right track.
Give: Impact on Others
What impact do you want to have on your family and friends? On your local community? On the global community?
What types of information and resources are you most excited to share with others?
If you were invited to speak at TED, and you knew your talk would go viral and be seen by at least one million people, what message would you send?
Receive: What You Want to Experience
What result will your contributions to friends, family, and society have on your own life?
What major life experiences, work or personal, are most exciting to you? How do you want to feel on a daily basis while pursuing them? Who do you want to meet?
Take a look at your bookshelf, Kindle, blog, or podcast subscriptions. What themes stand out? When you go into a bookstore, which section do you beeline toward, and what does that say about you?
Achieve: Specific Results
What does success lo
ok like one or two years from now? What will be happening in your life and work?
What are your metrics for measuring financial or professional success?
What achievements will indicate that you are having the impact you seek?
Imagine an award ceremony in your honor. What organization is giving the award, and for what are you being recognized?
“Sliding Doors” Careers
As we move from a broad outline to one-year Give-Receive-Achieve aims, next is time to creatively explore what elements might still be missing.
In the movie Sliding Doors, the story of Gwyneth Paltrow’s character plays out in two parallel universes based on whether or not she catches a certain London train. Imagine you get to live in an alternate reality, one parallel to the one you are living in now, one in which you get to pursue any type of work you want. What would you do?
Maybe you will never pursue your “Sliding Doors” career, letting it live only in your imagination as a path you could have taken if circumstances were different. Or maybe you try this career for a year or take a few related classes as a hobby.
The key is giving yourself permission to explore: If time, money, skills, or judgment from others were not an issue, what would you do for work? How would you spend your time? Which of your values could be more fully expressed? What do you daydream about?
I have seen people list Sliding Doors vocations like professional chef, magazine magnate, talk-show host, schoolteacher, bed-and-breakfast owner, and photographer, among many others. Even if they never intended to pursue these careers, the lists offered valuable insight into their vision. The lists might indicate they were interested in working with their hands, creating artistic experiences for others, sparking conversation, and working with people—probably not all in one role, but you never know! These attributes may not have been on their radar after completing the more straightforward exercises; coming from a creative angle sparks new ideas and reveals hidden interests.