My client P recently coined the term, StagnAction, as a shorthand for the behaviors that he lapses into when he’s stressed out. They feel good in the short term but drain energy and creativity in the long term. They foster stagnation.
Here is his list of StagnActions.
Watching and re-watching guilty pleasure TV
Mindless snacking, especially late at night
Facebooking
Complaining
Nail-biting
P is unemployed and looking to make a transition to a new field. StagnActions don’t serve him so he came up with a list of Pro-Actions to replace them. Here’s that list.
Going outside
Making short videos
Walking his dog
Cooking
Carpentry projects
Create your own StagnAction and ProAction lists. Make sure you have at least as many ProActions as StagnActions.
What would be different if you replaced just 10% of the StagnActions with ProActions?
The metaphor of the job hunt is inherently disempowering.
It casts you as a hunter, stalking prey which is doing everything in its power to elude you. It requires you to camouflage yourself, to hide your true colors in order to capture something.
I don’t know about you, but this does not seem like a good way to envision developing one of the most important parts of your life.
So how about creating a new, more empowering metaphor?
Here are a few some of my clients and I have created:
Job Happy Hour 
This framing allows S to enjoy the process. She’s a social animal so this metaphor helps her relax and stay confident. Just like at happy hour, there’s always one more person to talk to, one more lead to follow. Whether leads “pan out” or not, she’s having fun meeting people, making connections and mixing things up. And when she does hit upon a promising lead, it’s a result of her being more herself so it feels easy.
Job Trail
H is an avid hiker. She uses the trail metaphor to remind her that she needs to pace herself as she explores a new work life. This trail is a long one; she does not want or need to think about finishing the hike. The hike will keep evolving. She has a sense of where she’s heading, but also keeps an eye open for inviting paths along the way that might be overgrown and hard to spot.
Job Stew
This is my metaphor for career management. I love putting different ideas and elements into the crock pot for a long, slow cook. When 
I first started imagining my post-HR life in 1996, I knew I wanted to use my voice, to support others in transforming their lives, to do something different every day and to work outside the corporate office environment. That’s all I knew. Over time, these elements simmered and blended with my experience and actions to create my current work life.
What’s your new metaphor?
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Here’s my Spring 2012 newsletter on crafting your very own Crystal Clear Vision.
Interested in becoming a coach?
I co-teach a nine-month certification program called Coaching for Transformation at the New York Open Center. Our next program begins September 8, 2012.
Join me this Friday, March 16 at 7p for a FREE intro to this challenging, transformative, rigorous coaching certification program.
Click here to sign up! Pre-registration is strongly recommended.
Is this how you feel after a long day at work?
Next time you come home from work, skip the TV and the computer. Those will only deflate you more.
Instead, get comfortable and try this Re-Inflation Exercise:
Imagine you’re a balloon. How inflated are you? Use a percentage. You might feel just 1% inflated. That’s OK.
Focus on the part that is inflated. Put all your attention on that air. Breathe it in and out a few times.
Now notice how inflated you are.
Breathe a few more times. Feel yourself inflating even more.
Now that you have a bit more air circulating, do one of the following actions:
- Call a friend
- Go outside
- Journal
- Connect with your pet
- Breathe more
- Make a healthy meal
- Anything that will breathe more air into your balloon
What impact did this exercise have?
I invite your feedback. Please send me a note or make a comment below.
I’m honored to have been featured in a recent article on MilitarySpouse.com.
Military families move frequently and often with very little notice. This means a lot of upheaval for the kids and spouses of our servicemen and women.
In this piece, I offer tips and strategies for staying grounded and focused on your personal goals while managing a big move.
Check it out!
A special bonus for Military Spouse readers: contact me now and put Military Spouse in the subject line. I’ll get in touch with you for a complimentary strategy session for staying focused on your goals.
Are you eager for new ways to empower people?
I’m co-leading a one-day coaching skills workshop on March 25 at the New York Open Center. This program is ideal for managers, business leaders, parents, healing professionals and anyone who is passionate about helping people fulfill their potential. You’ll walk away with new skills, new perspectives and a plan for using your newly developed coaching skills right away!
My co-leader Richard Michaels is a masterful coach, Gestalt therapist, artist and co-founder of the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, MA.
Date: Sunday, March 25, 2012
Time: 9:30a - 6:00p
Location: New York Open Center, E. 30th Street, NYC
Cost: $140 for Open Center members; $150 for non-members
Click here for more information and to register.
Happy Valentine’s Day! 
It is easy to love things that are, well, loveable.
How about the things that are challenging, painful, heart-wrenching? How about loving those?
Here are some unloveable things that I’ve decided to love.
2011: Illness – On my sixth wedding anniversary, I suffered an asthma attack which was triggered by viral pneumonia and spent several days in the hospital. I’d been running hard for the past three years (pregnancy, childbirth, growing my business, chasing a toddler) and my body had no choice but to shut down. It all just came to a screeching halt.
I choose to love my pneumonia because it taught me to put my family’s self-care – nutrition, sleep and fun – above everything else.
2002: Job loss – On the heels of September 11th, I lost my job and the bulk of my identity along with it. As I’ve written about before, I thought I might be forever lost without my work. I was wrong. I never went back to full-time work in my field. Instead, I started and nurtured MadhuCoach over the next twelve years. I took on project work and lived on unemployment.
I choose to love my job loss because it taught me to ask, “Who am I without work?” This is a question I continue to ask.
1998: The big break-up – I followed a boyfriend to New York City. Three years later, out of the blue, he announced he was leaving. We’d been talking about getting married and he realized he just wasn’t ready to make that commitment. So he left that very afternoon, July 4, 1998 , Independence Day. For the first time, I was on my own in New York City.
I choose to love my break-up for forcing me to create my own life in NYC.
How about you?
Describe what is most challenging in your life now.
What are you learning from this situation?
What questions is it prompting you to ask?
What fears is it asking you to face?
What are three positive outcomes that may come from this situation?
What can you choose to love about this situation?
“We knew the big plays were coming. We just had to be patient,” said NY Giant Mario Manningham after yesterday’s Super Bowl win. 
I can’t stop thinking about Manningham’s statement. It has me looking at patience and opportunity in a whole new way.
I’m inspired now to think of patience as a state of calm and confident preparedness, a place of active curiosity and awareness. If I’m patient in this way, I can see opportunities more cleary, more readily and more often.
And I can now see opportunity as inevitable, a natural part of the game. I don’t have to force or make the big play happen. It will happen and all I have to do is be ready when it does.
What do you see in Manningham’s statement?
I recently read the opening chapter of “Hyperspace” by physicist Michio Kaku and was stopped in my tracks.
Kaku recounts how as a boy, he used to spend hours watching carp swim around the pond at San Francisco’s Japanese Tea Garden. He tried to imagine the fishes’ experience. 
An excerpt:
“Living their entire lives in the shallow pond, the carp would believe that their “universe” consisted of the murky water and the lilies. Spending most of their time foraging on the bottom of the pond, they would be only dimly aware that an alien world could exist above the surface. The nature of my world was beyond their comprehension. I was intrigued that I could sit only a few inches from the carp, yet be separated from them by an immense chasm. The carp and I spent our lives in two distinct universes, never entering each other’s world, yet were separated by only the tiniest barrier, the water’s surface.”
How does this resonate for you right now, in this moment?
