Flexibility at Work

So many leadership courses are based on the idea that to improve performance we must firstly sort our thinking out. So we focus on motivation, confidence, self-belief or ways of controlling or removing anxiety and stress. Sounds logical enough. The problem is while this approach makes such intuitive sense to us, the evidence does not support it. 

Our minds are expert problem solving machines which evolved to scan the environment for threat, propose hypotheses, and then prompt action to avoid, control, or get rid of any threats. But when we try to apply the same techniques to our own thoughts, beliefs and emotional states, the evidence is that we make the problem worse, not better.

In contrast, the alternative - psychological flexibility - gives people control over their lives, ironically by letting go of the struggle of trying to control their emotional states.  It is the ability to focus on task-relevant stimuli while feeling negative emotions that drives better performance and reduces distress.

 

Our thoughts and emotions tend to be unreliable indicators of long term value.  We have little control over them and they tend to ebb and flow – sometimes dramatically.  If we trust our thoughts and emotions and act based on them, we can often overlook the more important, sustained patterns of action which bring true meaning, vitality and richness to our lives.

In people who lack psychological flexibility, it might be possible to see:

1. The same old strategies being used over and again while not achieving the desired result (eg working incredibly hard to ‘get things done’ so that family are cared for, even though that leaves the person with pain exhausted and completely unable to emotionally care for the family).
2. People trying all sorts of methods to avoid experiencing something they don’t want (i.e. stopping all enjoyable activities because it increases chronic pain, or attending multiple treatments to get rid of pain, or only doing activities in a certain way to make sure that pain doesn’t become overwhelming)
3. Carrying on with activities despite pain, but ‘enduring’ the pain and feeling distressed or under strain when doing so.

 

To build psychological flexibility, there are three skills which are trained:

1. Increase awareness of the present moment. By increasing one’s sensitivity to what is happening in the present moment we can discriminate between what we observe with our five senses and what our sometimes unreliable (or autopilot) minds tell us is happening.
2. Develop the ability to watch thoughts come and go, and then choosing which thoughts to act on. Rather than getting ‘hooked’ by difficult or disruptive thoughts. It is not about changing thoughts, but changing one’s relationship to them.
3. Focus attention on what it is we really want to achieve. Increasing awareness of an individual’s values helps build motivation and enables people to take positive and sustained action, even when doing so is challenging.

These three skills help counter the factors that underpin poor performance.

 

In a nutshell, psychological flexibility enables people to focus and engage fully in what they are doing rather than getting pushed around by their thoughts and feelings and commit to doing what works more often.

So, how do you put this into action? 

Sports psychologists emphasise the role of the ‘right mindset’ to athletes, telling them to clear their mind, be calm and confident, and to remember their successes. But the reality is that performers are just as filled with doubt, worry and negativity, as the rest of us, even at the elite level. Focusing on getting rid of those thoughts can:

• Be counterproductive – if the athlete tries to get rid of negative thoughts, research shows that thoughts can become more influential, not less, leading to even greater entanglement.
• Detract focus from the present moment –if the athlete starts saying ‘It’s OK, I’m a good kicker, take a deep breath, relax’, then they are not actually focusing on the kick, but on their thoughts.

 

In contrast, the skill of psychological flexibility allows you to be present and accept thoughts – to see negative experiences as normal, while being able to refocus your attention on your chosen behavior, giving you higher levels of motivation, task-focus, wellbeing and performance. Excerpted from Working with ACT

 

"I believe success is preparation, because opportunity is going to knock on your door sooner or later, but are you prepared to answer that?"  - Omar Epps


 

Are You Stuck In A Rut? (Part 2)

Take a field trip.
Go somewhere or do something that interrupts your established patterns and kicks your mind and spirit into a different gear. It's amazing the power new surroundings have to renew and refresh the spirit. And you don't have to travel far either. If Tahiti is not an option, try sitting in a different chair at home, taking a different route to work, or working at the library. New perspectives are at your fingertips!  

Harness the power of regret.
Studies have shown that counterfactual thinking can actually help motivate you to act. What is counterfactual thinking? It’s what it sounds like: Thinking about how something might have happened instead of the way it actually happened. You can imagine a better or a worse alternative.  Think about what you would do differently next time and change your behavior to reach the positive outcome.  In any situation, the question “What might I have done?” prompts a new and empowering resolve: “When X happens (or doesn’t happen), I will do Y.”
 
Remember your victories.
Make a list.  Put items on Post-It notes around your space.  Do whatever you need to do remind yourself that you can get through this, as you always have.

Set boundaries.Take a close look at where your time and energy are being drained by what feel are unpleasant obligations. What are you doing that doesn't bring you joy? Start saying no.

Surround yourself with positive people.
Even if you're not feeling like it, force yourself to spend time with people who will inspire you.

Many times, the road to success is found by taking a detour. Sometimes we get overly focused on getting to our goals through a well-trodden or familiar path. A crisis is one of the ways that the Universe can show you a new direction. If you can say, “yes” to the alternative route in front of you, you may find a wonderful new vista opening up that’s full of opportunity. 

So the next time you find yourself unable to move forward, take a moment to believe in yourself. We all get stuck at times. The trick is to minimize the time you stay stuck! Any car can be gotten out of that rut in the mud if approached with the right tools. Trust that you will get out of whatever quagmire you may find yourself in - now that you have your own tools at hand to help!

 

Are You Stuck in a Rut? (Part 1)

Doing the same things in the same way, day after day, can sap our energy and enthusiasm, leaving us unsure how to restore excitement and spontaneity to our lives.This is a clear message that it's time to change, but how?

Lighten up.
Sometimes you need to give yourself a break from the constant nagging, and those shoulda's, woulda's, and coulda's that you keep running through your mind. Chastising yourself is clearly not helping you actually get anything done, not to mention that it's depressing and bad for your emotional well-being. Take the pressure off in any way you can — give yourself a longer deadline on a project, or scratch out all items on your “to do” list that can wait until next week. 

Take stock of your comfort zone.
To get out of your rut, you need to have a good understanding of what —if anything—is keeping you in it.  Are echoes of your past influencing your responses and keeping you stuck in place? Understanding where your responses are coming from is a first step toward getting yourself on the move.

Make a small change.
Even a small alteration in a rut can have remarkably liberating effects, Call someone you haven’t talked to for a long time. Try a new recipe or workout regimen. Instead of watching TV in the evenings, dig into a compelling book.

Set attainable goals.
Do you feel overwhelmed by the amount of change getting out of the rut will entail? When you set goals, keep in mind that we all tend to exaggerate our abilities and we also attribute failure to circumstances beyond our control, rather than ourselves. Be ruthlessly realistic about how well your talents match up with the goal you’ve set. If the rut has to do with a goal you’ve set for yourself that seems unreachable most of the time, you need to pull back and master the thought process called mental contrasting.

Use mental contrasting.
This technique involves keeping your ideal future in mind while also thinking about the factors that may stand in the way of your achieving that future —almost as if you were looking at two images on a split screen. Mental contrasting allows you to be energized and motivated by that desired future, on the one hand, while keeping you realistic about what you need to do to fix potential problems, on the other. This also promotes strategic “If.. then” thinking which allows you to plan your reactions and responses to potential setbacks. Excerpted from Psychology Today


More tips to follow...

5 Tips for Overcoming Workplace Negativity with Enthusiasm

Negativity often occurs when people are impacted by decisions and issues that are out of their control. Examples of these include corporation downsizing, under-staffing that requires people to work mandatory overtime, budget reductions, and upper-management decisions that adversely impact staff.

Maybe it's not as bad as people think.  If you're a supervisor, help people create options, feel included, and feel part of the communication and problem solving.  If you're dealing with this on a personal level, try these tips to overcome workplace negativity with enthusiasm. 

1. Present Problems as Opportunities for Solutions
Whenever a problem is presented, respond with "How are we going to handle it?" People don't need to have all the answers, but they should be bringing solutions forward and thinking about them - not just complaining.  If you're a supervisor, make employees part of the goal-setting process, so they won't feel like they're just being ordered around.

2. Think Positive
The biggest impact you can have on negativity is to respond to it in a way which is both proactive and positive.  Think of positive and negative approaches as being like two magnetic forces. By keeping your positive approach strong and visible, you'll attract people to your end of the spectrum. In other words, you can't fight negativity with negativity.

3. Build Relationships Based on Trust
Use positive attitudes and enthusiasm to build relationships. Negative attitudes make it difficult to trust others, and without trust you can’t influence positive change. Taking action to build trust will increase comfort levels and strengthen relationships.

4. Win People to Your Way of Thinking
The only way to win an argument is to avoid it. When handled correctly, disagreements and debates are opportunities for positive change. When disagreements arise, show respect for the opinions of others, never tell someone they are wrong, and try to see things from the other point of view.

5. Disagree Agreeably
How do we do this and still have our ideas heard? Keep the lines of communication open by trying to see things from a different perspective. Take the time to really think about how the other person thinks and why they feel the way they do. People are entitled to their own opinion.
 

“The old saying that “success breeds success” has something to it. It’s that feeling of confidence that can banish negativity and procrastination and get you going the right way.”    - Donald Trump

Dealing with Negativity at Work

Have you ever worked with one of those people who are so unfailingly negative that they tend to suck all of the life out of a room? The person who has an objection to every idea and a snide comment for every cheerful effort? 

It’s a rare workplace environment that hasn’t experienced the corrosive effects of chronic negativity. Negativity can spread like a cancer in a team, eating away at everyone's engagement until the whole group is infected with negative thoughts.  If not stopped, it can even continue to spread among departments, regions... and even infect an entire company. 

So how does it start?  Many studies have been conducted on this, and all have generally found these to be the top five reasons:

    1. An excessive workload   
    2. Concerns about management’s ability to lead the company forward successfully
    3. Anxiety about the future, particular longer-term job, income and retirement security
    4. Lack of challenge in their work, and boredom.
    5. Insufficient recognition, and concerns that pay isn’t commensurate with performance

The facts.  Some people exude negativity. They don’t like their jobs or they don’t like their company. Their bosses are always jerks and they are always treated unfairly. The company is always going down the tube and customers are worthless. You know these people.  With them, your best course of action is avoidance.  On the other hand, sometimes normally positive people are negative. Some of the time, too, their reasons for negativity are legitimate. The good news is that unlike cancer, there is a cure. Enthusiasm and positive attitudes can spread just as quickly - improving performance and increasing productivity!

Tips for Dealing With Occasional Negativity:

• Listen to the employee or coworker’s complaints until you are certain that they feel heard. Sometimes people repeat negative sentiments over and over because they don’t feel like you have really listened to them. Ask questions. Clarify their statements. Make sure you have actively listened.
• Decide if you believe the employee or coworker has legitimate reasons for their negativity. If you decide affirmatively, ask if they’d like your help to solve the problem. If they ask for help, provide advice or ideas for how the coworker can address the reason for their negativity.  Do not get sucked into the problem, only provide brief suggestions for a way out.
• If you decide the concerns are not legitimate, tell them what you think. Tell the coworker you care about their concern and about their happiness at work, but you disagree with their assessment of the situation.  Don't spend additional time listening to their complaints, you will only encourage growing negativity and, potentially, behavior.
• If the coworker just wants to complain to a friendly ear, they don’t want your advice or assistance to address the situation. Listen, but set limits. Long term complaining saps your energy and positive outlook. Don’t allow that to happen. Walk away. Tell the coworker you’d prefer to move on to more positive subjects.

 Tips for Dealing With Recurring Negativity:

• Avoid the person as much as possible. Just as you set limits with the coworkers whose negativity you believe is baseless or unwarranted, you need to set limits with genuinely negative people.
• If you are forced, through your role in the company, to work with a negative person, set limits. Do not allow yourself to be drawn into negative discussions. Tell the negative coworker, you prefer to think about your job positively. Avoid providing a sympathetic audience for the negativity.
• If you're feeling threatened by this person, don’t play into their use of fear to keep you from speaking up. Be specific about the behavior you want to stop and tell them how their behavior is affecting you. Restate what you’re asking them to change. Keep it very brief, document what was said and share it with your supervisor. You need to engage them so they know that you are trying to fix the problem. If this is harassment, they need to take action to address it. If you’re the supervisor of the abusive employee, you need to fire them. You’re enabling their behavior and your inaction could also expose your company to a lawsuit.
• If negativity among employees in the company is persistent, if the issues that warrant negativity are left unaddressed, and the negativity affects your ability to professionally perform your work, you may want to consider moving on.

"Negativity is expensive. It costs companies millions of dollars each year."   - Gary Topchik, Managing Workplace Negativity

8 Tips for Dealing with Negative People

How do you deal with negative or difficult people. People who seem chronically critical, indignant, angry, or just plain rude. How can you act in a way that doesn’t reinforce their negativity– and maybe even helps them?  Most of us use avoidance as our chief strategy, but this is neither practical nor effective, since it's often impossible to avoid a person completely and it creates unnecessary stress in our lives. Fortunately, there is a better approach. Here are 8 tips I've found through lots of research, and from my own trial and error.

1. Remember to focus on your response.
That's all you can really control.  This is something we must actively work on - to think before reacting.  When we're caught off guard, we end up resorting to a defensive position, which rarely turns out well. Instead, we have a variety of paths to take - We can chose to wait it out, not respond, or forgive.  Often, a wise approach is to ask yourself two questions -
     “If I don't respond, what is the worst thing that can happen?“
     “If I do respond, what is the worst thing that can happen?“
Answering these questions often adds perspective to the situation.  When we learn to control our responses, we’ll not only be doing a favor for our mental well-being, but we’ll also have diffused a situation that would have gone bad.

2. Understand the person's intentions.
It’s always easier to offer someone compassion if you try to understand where they’re coming from. Try to identify the person's trigger: What is making them act in this manner? What is stopping them from cooperating with you? Then focus on what can really be acted upon. Rather than dwell on what you can't change, focus on the actionable steps you can take to forward yourself in the situation.

3. Treat the person with respect.
No one likes to be treated as if they are incompetent. Compliment the other person for something they did well, tell them you’ve learned something new through interacting with them. Remember to be genuine. You might have to dig deep to find something that you appreciate about this person.

4. Express your frustration.
Take out some scrap paper and dump all the random and negative thoughts out of you by writing freely without editing. Continue to do so until you have nothing else to say. Now, roll the paper up into a ball, close your eyes and visualize that all the negative energy is now inside that paper ball. Toss the paper ball in the trash. Let it go!  Maintain a positive boundary. Then when you interact with this person try these tricks:

• Protect the positive space around you. When their negativity is too strong, just walk away.
• Help them feel more positive, not act more positive – which is more likely to create the desired result.  Listen compassionately for a short while and then help them focus on something positive right now, in this moment. Don’t try to solve or fix them.

5. Confront them.

Don’t play into their use of fear to keep you from speaking up. Be specific about the behavior you want to stop and tell them how their behavior is affecting you. Restate what you’re asking them to change while sticking with the facts, and not being hurtful.

6. Don’t take it personally, but know that sometimes it is personal. 
It could be a matter of opposite outlooks: Super-friendly people, for instance, may be at odds with all-business-all-the-time types — and vice versa. Understanding those basic differences gives you a glimpse of someone else’s viewpoint, which may help temper your irritation. You can’t write off everything someone says about you just because the person is insensitive. Even an abrasive person may have a valid point.

 

7. Act instead of just reacting.

Don't wait until the person gets angry before you try to deflect the situation. If you know someone who seems to deal with difficult thoughts or feelings often (as demonstrated in their behavior), don’t wait for a situation to help them create positive feelings. The most effective response to meanness is compassion. Where there is meanness, there is often a lot of pain, both in the unkind person and for the person on the receiving end of a mean joke, comment, or email. Remember that it's only when mean people are actually happy that they will stop trying to take us down with them.

 

8. Choose to Eliminate Negative People In Your Life.
Negative people can be a source of energy drain and deeply unhappy people will want to bring you down with them. Be aware of this. Being exposed to chronic meanness can be very similar to being in an abusive relationship. Cut negative people out by avoiding interactions with them as much as possible. Remember that you have the choice to commit to being surrounded by people who have the qualities you admire and enjoy. 

Remember that YOU can make the world a better place by working on yourself – by becoming self-aware, tapping into your compassion, and protecting your positive space. You may even help negative people by fostering a sense of peace within yourself that their negativity can’t pierce.

 "To all the other dreamers out there, don't ever stop or let the world's negativity disenchant you or your spirit. If you surround yourself with love and the right people, anything is possible." - Adam Green

  

Creating a Sense of Gratitude in your Life. Every Day.

To start the year off right, try these simple practices to cultivate gratitude.  When you're feeling blue or frustrated, use them as tools to get you back to a positive head space.

Stop Complaining.  About people, situations and events that make you unhappy, sad or depressed. Nobody can make you unhappy.  No situation can make you sad or miserable unless you allow it to.

Commit To Your Goals.  When we look for positivity in the little things that make our lives worthwhile, we leave no room for negativity and our goals come to the forefront. Instead of recounting all events of the day, filter out only the positive ones and make a note of them. It could be anything trivial, from your bus arriving on time, your mom cooking a delicious breakfast, to remembering to pay the bills on time. You would not believe how this helps you achieve your goals — by clearing the mind.

Be Kind.  To yourself and others.  It's scientifically proven to make you feel good.  Helping someone selflessly releases serotonin in your brain and hence makes you feel good about yourself almost instantly. Try doing one act of kindness every day to flush out the toxins of depression from your system.

Practice Forgiveness.  Hatred is a negative feeling and harboring it will have nothing but negative effects on your well-being. Stop thinking about the hateful emotion/person and let it go. Remember to forgive yourself too.  

Release The Past.  When you find yourself thinking that the past looked so much better than the present and the future looks so frightening - Stop.  Remember that the present is all you have.  Be present in everything you do and enjoy life. After all life is a journey not a destination. Have a clear vision for the future, prepare yourself, but always be present in the now.

Be Optimistic.  Treat failure as an opportunity to learn a new and better lesson from life.  Never give up trying. Once you start harboring an optimistic attitude towards life, success will automatically follow.

Don't be Afraid to Dream.  Dreams motivate, inspire and expand our sense of self. They also make us happy because they give our lives a sense of purpose. Happy people usually love what they do, and if they don’t, they love who they are. Dreams remind us who we are.

Care For Your Body. Your physical condition has a direct connection with your well-being. A fit body and healthy mind is reflective of happiness. Start working towards the
health of your physical, mental and emotional energy by caring for your body.  Exercise and meditation help calm your nerves, soothe your mind and elevate your mood.

Give.  Cultivate a habit of sharing with others — your money, knowledge, service, wisdom, care, love.  Giving has many unexpected benefits from attracting more happiness into your life, to inspiring others, and changing the lives of those you touch. In the end the whole world is made into a better place. Ask, “how can I serve?” Pay it forward. Give freely.

By practicing these steps daily and being conscious of them, you will learn gratitude at a level you could never appreciate before. You’re made out of love, and there’s an opportunity at every corner to show it.  Excerpted from wake Up World

 

“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.”  - Denis Waitley

Spreading the Spirit of Gratitude This Season

Gift-giving is a strong tradition in many cultures all over the world, but some gifts are best received from the inside-out; from a place where love and appreciation begins. Move through this season of thanks and giving with awareness, and not just going through the motions.  The best gifts aren't bought from a store, they come through spending quality time with the people you care about, or from gifts that come from the heart

Here are a few gifts of gratitude your friends and family will love:

Donate in Someone’s Name.  The perfect gift for the person who has everything: something for someone in need. Make a donation in a family member’s name this year, choosing a charity you think they would be passionate about. Maybe even suggest making charitable donations a new tradition.

Give the Gift of Time.  This can be as simple as an IOU for a task that you know needs doing.  

Make a homemade card or gift.  Taking the extra time to give something that's not "off the shelf" makes whatever you give so much more special.  Because these gifts can be quite cost effective, be extra generous and bestow your goodies on your hair stylist, babysitter, and landlord too.

Shop Local.  If making homemade gifts is too intimidating, bless local business owners.

Host a Party and Ask People to Pay “Cover”.  Time celebrating with family, friends and neighbors is what creates the best memories, and strengthens relationships. If you host a party, ask guests to bring cash for charity, or canned goods for the local food bank, as their “cover” for the night.
 

Volunteer.  Make volunteering a holiday tradition. Get some friends together and spend time with seniors, or in a local soup kitchen. If you have kids, get them involved, too. If you buy toys for a toy drive, bring them to the drop-off zone to help them understand the importance, and rewards, of generosity.  Excerpted from eHarmony

And for yourself, be thankful for those things that you may normally take for granted (and that some people are unable to experience) — the ability to breathe, to walk, to eat, to speak, to grow, to connect, to love, to live.

As the new year begins, remember to take the time to recognize and express your gratitude for important people in your life.  Whether it be in person or with a thank you note. 

Gratitude is a glue that binds people together. To give it is to receive it because to receive it you must first give it. This is a beautiful circle. When your friends and family engage with you in this flow of thanks, you’ll never again be alone and wanting for help.
 

“You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”    - G. K. Chesterton

 

A Thankful State of Being

When we are in the state of thankfulness, we are in a higher state of awareness.

Often when we practice being thankful, we go through the process of counting our blessings, acknowledging the wonderful people, things and places that make up our reality. While it is fine to be grateful for the good fortune we have accumulated, true thankfulness stems from a powerful comprehension of the gift of simply being alive, and when we feel it, we feel it regardless of our circumstances. In this deep state of gratitude, we recognize the purity of the experience of being, in and of itself, and our thankfulness is part and parcel of our awareness that we are one with this great mystery that is life.

It is difficult for most of us to access this level of consciousness as we are very caught up in the ups and downs of our individual experiences in the world. The thing to remember about the world, though, is that it ebbs and flows, expands and contracts, gives and takes, and is by its very nature somewhat unreliable. If we only feel gratitude when it serves our desires, this is not true thankfulness. No one is exempt from the twists and turns of fate, which may, at any time, take the possessions, situations, and people we love away from us. Ironically, it is sometimes this kind of loss that awakens us to a thankfulness that goes deeper than just being grateful when things go our way. Illness and near-miss accidents can also serve as wake-up calls to the deeper realization that we are truly lucky to be alive.

We do not have to wait to be shaken to experience this state of being truly thankful for our lives. Tuning in to our breath and making an effort to be fully present for a set period of time each day can do wonders for our ability to connect with true gratitude. We can also awaken ourselves with the intention to be more aware of the unconditional generosity of the life force that flows through us regardless of our circumstances.   Excerpted from the Daily Om  http://www.dailyom.com/articles/2010/26207.html

Gratitude isn’t something that we feel; it’s a something that I AM state of being. We can be disappointed that our desired outcome was elusive, or we can be grateful that we got the chance to try and learned some valuable lessons along the way. We can be angry that someone we trusted lied to us ,or we can be grateful that it didn't go on longer than it had to. We can be resentful of a lot of things and people that test our limits every day, or we can be grateful that they teach us more about ourselves. If you need another reason to give thanks at the dinner table on Thursday, how’s this: people who maintain an “attitude of gratitude” tend to be happier and healthier than those who don’t, according to a lengthy and instructive article in the Wall Street Journal.

The WSJ‘s Melinda Beck reports that adults who feel grateful have “more energy, more optimism, more social connections and more happiness than those who do not, according to studies conducted over the past decade. They’re also less likely to be depressed, envious, greedy or alcoholics.”

What the bulk of the research suggests is that gratitude should be chronic in order to make a lasting difference in well-being. Dr. Robert Emmons, professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, and a pioneer in gratitude research, told the WSJ that in order to reap all of its benefits, feeling gratitude must be ingrained into your personality, and you must frequently acknowledge and be thankful for the role other people play in your happiness: “The key is not to leave it on the Thanksgiving table,” he said.

This is a perfect time of year to teach our children about being thankful. The Thanksgiving holiday will be quickly followed by Christmas. Both holidays bring many opportunities to create new family traditions that will bring the real meaning of thankfulness and gratitude to a personal level for our children.

Helping our children recognize and show appreciation for things they have learned to take for granted can take some time. Kids are never too young to start learning how to see and show thanks for the good things in their lives. Although Thanksgiving, by its name alone, makes us think about giving thanks we should teach our children - by example - that being thankful and telling others how much they are appreciated should happen every day.

Even in the midst of extremely challenging circumstances, we can find something to be thankful for. In addition to helping us cope with challenges, this kind of grateful attitude can be contagious and is a wonderful life lesson to share with our children. Learning to be truly grateful can change your life. 

"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was “Thank you”, that would suffice."  - Meister Eckhart

Growing Your Community

As I mentioned, a community can start with just one, and build one person at a time. 

 

One of the big tricks in our present world is to get people off of their devices to begin engaging with people, strangers, face to face.  One of the simplest ways to do this to engage people when they already inclined to open themselves up - over the holidays.  Then, use some creativity to make a welcoming environment where people can connect.  Doing this one-on-one can be intimidating, but once the group starts to build, a group environment dramatically lessens peoples fears. 

 

Another interesting tactic is to make your community more closed.  Allow each member of the community to invite 1 person per month.  If every member did this, the community would grow by 100% every month.  The exclusivity and being allowed to invite just 1 friend/colleague per month may encourage people to actually to find someone they really want in the community, and who they believe to be a good fit. 

Communities are like gardens, which can whither away by applying too much pressure and the wrong amount of water. Finding the balance for your unique community will take some trial and error.  But what creates an environment where people are motivated to build and grow the community together?

 

Articulate your vision.  Having a strong vision and really understanding your community will help create the forum where people are motivated to contribute.

 

Select your Community Manager. While it's the job of everyone to make sure the community works, there absolutely needs to be someone responsible for its health. Key attributes of this person is that they need to show up, be inspiring, know how to delegate, listen to and use feedback, and be a team player.

 

Make people feel invested in success.  Focus on the importance of starting small and involving the community in the process of building it. Too often, communities are launched with much fanfare and excitement, without asking members what they need. Invite your members to build the community with you early on. If you have a critical mass of people, content and conversations already in the community, you will show, not tell, new members what they can do. This will give them further motivation to participate. And the more that your members are involved, the more likely they are to educate others and entice them to participate.

 

Increase awareness of community. Can you partner with other like-minded groups?  Do you celebrate your success as a group?  Do you have ongoing ways for members to participate?  These are all important for helping your community to thrive.

 

Always think about building and growing.  Be sure you are constantly welcoming, encouraging and educating new members. The community manager is often the person paying it forward for everyone else, but be sure to allow enough flexibility to function without him/her. Developing community champions -- from the ranks of your early members, and new members who show desire and proclivity to lead -- is the number one job of the community manager. As more and more people join in, it's important to help them find their own why and how. Putting champions in charge of enabling their own groups helps increase motivation and builds the value of each individual contributor.

 

 

 

Building a Strong Community (Part 2)

Here are 5 things you can do right now to improve your chances of building a strong community:

 

1. Actively engage people.  The foundation of a strong, wise, resilient community is people knowing and actively engaging with each other.
2. Start a group.  It could be a neighborhood sports team, a neighborhood association, book club, greenspace project, dinner exchange, neighborhood watch group, etc.  The goal is to bring people together and let the connections blossom organically.
3. Throw a party.  Nothing brings people together, of all ages, like having a good time.  And usually involving food.
4. Clean up the neighborhood.  Again, this could be a greenspace project, graffiti removal, art project, etc.  Simple projects where people of all stripes come together nurture community pride and mutual admiration.
5. Provide opportunities for learning.  Everyone in a community knows something someone else would love to learn, it's just a matter of connecting them.

There are good resources out there for more ideas and suggestions.  One is CommunityMatters. CommunityMatters is an organization that equips cities and towns to strengthen their places and inspire change. They champion the idea that through transparent, collaborative conversations, communities can steer change at home. And they offer tools, resources and expertise.

Any new project may seem daunting from the start, but it just takes one person to spark the change.  People want a strong community.  Build it one person at a time.

 

Building a Strong Community (Part 1)

Thanks in part to the global economic and environmental crises, individuals and agencies throughout the world are rediscovering the power of community. Community is the engine of people powered change. Government is effective, especially in terms of monetary support, but there's no substitute for people identifying with and caring for one another and the place they share.  Strong communities are the key to holding government accountable for protecting the rights of the most vulnerable. Social justice never comes from the top-down. People must be organized to support one another but also to demand that their government provide what the community can't or shouldn't do for itself. There are some things best done by community, some by government, and some that can only be accomplished by working in true partnership.
 

Communities have a unique role to play when it comes to much of what we most value – our environment, safety, welfare, health and happiness. Moreover, communities possess the local knowledge, passion, creativity, sustainability and holistic perspective that are often lacking in bureaucracies.

When we focus on people's needs, they become clients in a service system. When we focus on their strengths, they become citizens of a community. Everyone has both needs and strengths and everyone requires services as well as community, but we tend to divide our society into two camps – those with needs and those with strengths. When we fail to utilize everyone's strengths, our communities are less inclusive and powerful and the labeled individuals miss the joy of connection and contribution.  Excerpted from The Guardian

People can, and often will, come together in strong, united communities if they're encouraged and supported to:

• have shared aspirations, values and experiences
• have a strong sense of mutual commitments and obligations, promoting personal and social responsibility
• take part in local and national life and decision-making
• fulfil their potential to get on in life
• challenge extremism and hate crime

What have you done lately to help strengthen your community?


 

Expanding Nature in Your Community

If you're looking for an activity that people of all ages can enjoy, start a community garden.  Rallying support from your neighbors, friends or local organizations is a great way to start a garden in your back yard - so to speak.  From personal health to neighborhood development to environmental impact, the benefits of community gardening are increasingly good and overwhelmingly shared.  Community gardens have helped introduce healthier lifestyles into the homes of young and old for generations - and continue to grow today. 

Community Gardens

• Increase a sense of community ownership and stewardship

• Foster the development of a community identity and spirit

• Bring people together from a wide variety of backgrounds (age, race, culture, social class)

• Build community leaders

• Provide a focal point for community organizing, and can lead to community-based efforts to deal with other social concerns

Begin by bringing people and different organizations together to learn which issues are important to your community.  Discuss how a community garden – whether a communal space or individual plots – could serve the needs of the community.  Develop a plan of action.  Get people energized and organized.

Then, start gardening and implementing your community garden program. Once the project is up and running, let everyone know!  Gain greater community support by welcoming visitors and sharing updates on how the neighborhood is benefiting from the garden’s existence. Over time, revisit the plan and make any needed changes based on lessons learned or feedback from partners and neighbors.  Remember to plan ahead so that the garden will continue to grow for seasons, and generations, to come.

Follow these 10 steps to get yours started now.

Though it may be too soon to call it an urban wildlife movement, initiatives focused on urban greening and biodiversity seem to be catching on. The U.S. Forest Service, which once laughed off the idea that anything urban could be wild now supports a growing urban forest program.  Research has shown that oaks benefit everything from caterpillars to songbirds. Urban ecology and urban wildlife programs are also proliferating on university campuses. And in Baltimore County, officials now stipulate that canopy trees, rather than ornamental trees, must make up 80 percent of any planting on county land, and half of them need to be oaks. In an area where local nurseries hardly ever stocked oaks before, people sometimes balk, until the county’s natural resource manager, Don Outen, explains the logic of it: Research has shown that oaks benefit everything from caterpillars to songbirds. Even fish prosper, because the aquatic invertebrates they feed on favor oak leaves on stream bottoms. At that point, says Outen, the reaction tends to shift to, "Why haven’t we been doing this before?"  Accommodating wildlife in cities doesn’t necessarily require massive investment - you can bring in more birds just by cutting out pavement, or breaking up endless lawns with the right kinds of shrubs. Mowing those lawns a little less often - not weekly but every two or three weeks - will increase the population of native bees and other pollinators. Excerpted from Environment 360
 

 

The role of parks, community gardens, and green open spaces in urban areas is often underestimated, and the potential of these areas to improve both the quality of life of city dwellers and urban sustainability is not always being fully realized.  To make dramatic change, city governments need to get on-board and facilitate the change.  But, even a small group in a local community can do amazing things.

You can learn even more in the book, The Guide to Greening Cities. 

Nature. Community. Home.

Most of the time when people think about nature they think of places untouched by humans. “Nature” is often considered something that exists far away from cities. In reality, the division between nature and city is blurry. There is nature all around the city, even inside our homes.

You can find urban nature by:

Taking an early morning walk. Even in the busiest city you can find more animals in the early morning before the day’s bustle begins. Walk around your neighborhood, or your neighborhood park, as close to sunrise as possible, and see what animals you can spot. You might see bugs, worms, birds, squirrels, raccoons, skunks, rats, and mice. (Animals that many people think of as pests are part of nature too!)

Volunteering for a park invasive species removal. This is a great way to learn about plants in your city. Invasive species can harm native plants and animals.  Help restore the natural ecosystem.

Planting a community garden. A community garden has numerous benefits from community building, to health, to education.  Delicious and nutritious for the mind, body and soul of a community.  I'll expand in more detail on my next post.

Planting trees.  Many city agencies and organizations have initiatives to plant more trees. Having more trees helps reduce the urban heat island effect and promotes the well-being of its inhabitants, both human and animal.

For families, you can also start your own Wild Playgroup. When children connect with nature, they also connect with each other, their families and the community as they learn that they are part of something bigger than themselves. Their sense of identity and character is strengthened. Through experiences in nature, children can become passionate stewards of their special outdoor places. Additionally, adults are more likely to take care of their local environment if they have had time to experience it as a child. Learn more and download a toolkit here.

 

This year is the 50th Anniversary of the signing of the Wilderness Act into law.  The primary author, Howard Zahniser, felt that given enough time, a majority of Americans would come to believe in the deep power of nature and support conservation.  He was sure that the challenge lay not so much in converting avowed opponents of the Wilderness Act, but in enlisting the support of the silent majority.  And he had an unwavering faith in education as the vital tool for getting people to make this step.  "It is a step that is so difficult no because it goes so far but because it must be taken by so many," he said in 1961.  "A whole nation steps forward with purpose in the enactment of such legislation, and it marches only when so many are ready to go that the others must move too."

 

"We have come to realize that we ourselves are creatures of the wild... that in the wilderness we are at home, that in maintaining thus our access to wilderness we are not, as some have thought, escaping from life, but rather are keeping ourselves in touch with our true reality, the fundamental reality of the universe of which we are a part."  - Howard Zahniser