A year of resolutions

Like the slogan “a puppy is not just for Christmas”, I feel resolutions aren’t just for the New Year.   From those resolutions we purposefully set, to those that spontaneously emerge, each help us take control of how we live our lives.

For many people, the strike of the clock at midnight on New Years is that exact time to bring forward a new commitment, thoughtfully considered and crafted in advance.   

For others, it may just be about carrying those over from the previous year, for our old patterns are tenacious are they not?

As a morale booster, it is comforting to reflect on those that we no longer have to set.  We can dismiss these so easily, forgetting their significance, so they need to be remembered and celebrated. I’ll include my 23year old resolution giving up smoking, or that simple habits like drinking 2 glasses of water each morning, meditating or exercising daily, have long become part of my routine and no longer need to be on the list.

Trust also, that profound resolutions will pop up during the year.  They will stir within us and will not obey any fixed arrival schedule.  Like a bud, they cannot be forced open and will blossom in their own time.  And they will feel easy. Because they will fit with who you are. For me, decisions like volunteering 3 hours a week at MSF or becoming (mostly) vegan - did not come out of any plan but perhaps had their origins deeper in my psyche.

Beware of course, that resolutions are fodder for the ‘Trickster’. When we think we have something nailed, life teaches us that it may not be so.  We may find for years that we need to stop something or start something or give up something.  Often it takes many failed attempts and soul-searching to figure out that we have been resolving to do something externally when it requires an inner resolution.  Many a year I have resolved to find love.  Now that has changed, to being love.   

After all that, perhaps the most powerful resolutions of all are those we make in each precious moment of our lives. Those moments, when we see the wants and fears that are driving us. Where in the ‘now’,  we resolve to break out of our old ways and choose a different response.   It may be when we drop our shield of anger to reveal our vulnerability, decide to be appreciative rather than critical, be generous when we tend to withhold, open up when we typically shut down, and stay when our impulse is to run.  And when we find ourselves faulting on our momentarily made resolution, we take a deep breath, gently forgive ourselves, open our hearts and resolve to try again. 

2017 like any other year will provide more opportunities for resolving to be [happy/successful/insert your word/s here] than you realise.

Happy New Year and beyond.

Image: Winter Rose, oil on canvas, by Fiona Read – posted by Vivid Greeting Cards 13/12/13

The lazy [leader’s] guide to saving the world

As the first truly global accord, the Paris Agreement, ratified on the 4th of November is monumental.

I can’t begin to imagine the work involved from the grassroots campaigners to the signatories that has enabled this to happen.  Decades of hard work and cycles of complex international negotiations. A powerful reminder of what can be achieved through individual and collective action.

This week in Morocco, the discussion will be about how to put this accord into force, and meet its aims.  This is where the real work begins.

And we know as individual citizens, we can make changes in our lives now to help combat climate change and be more loving towards the earth and its inhabitants.  Recognising that we all, even the most laziest of us, have a part to play in creating a sustainable world, the UN has provided a ‘lazy person’s guide to saving the world’.

Perhaps we are all inherently lazy.  Working with leaders,  I wonder if actually many of the busy leaders are paradoxically, the lazy ones. 

Those leaders who, swamped with tasks and desperate to get things off their desk, or get their direct report out of their office, or respond to yet another demand from higher up  – will take the lazy option of giving quick answers, barking instructions or giving their well-rehearsed opinion.  They fail to see the opportunity the occasion presents to them.  The possibility to pause, get off automatic pilot and listen and inquire with courage and compassion.  The chance to go off a familiar path, out of one’s comfort zone of interaction and let the other be truly heard. To dig into what is really going on and discover new realities and solutions rather than ‘clipping one’s wings’ and creating a sense of dependency through a fixed answer or view of the world. 

For the lazy leader becomes unnecessarily busy.   Because the direct report they gave directions to, comes back time and time again for their advice, having not learnt to take ownership or think for themselves. Or hot potatoes continue to get passed down the line.  The lazy leader, having not helped to unleash potential in the other, stymies the creation of new ideas and innovation, so is forever chasing their tail. The lazy leader tells mindlessly rather than coaches consciously, so nothing advances or changes.  They just get drawn into a spiral of fire fighting, rather than strategically driving transformation in the organisation. 

So here’s my lazy leadership guide to saving the world.

• Pause

• Listen

• Ask

                                   

The only thing, it may take some hard work.

For a conversation on how our Earth Coach programmes can build capacity in the Sustainability Industry, please contact me. 

  

Image: via google images (http://nobleanarchist.com/blog/comfort-zone-lazy-mammal-danger-zone/)

Earth Day

Today is Earth Day.  But of course every day is earth day.  

Here is something to contemplate.

Activist and author Naomi Klein tells a story about the time she travelled to Australia at the request of Aboriginal elders. They wanted her to know about their struggle to prevent white people from dumping radioactive wastes on their land.

Her hosts brought her to their beloved wilderness, where they camped under the stars. They showed her "secret sources of fresh water, plants used for bush medicines, hidden eucalyptus-lined rivers where the kangaroos come to drink." 

After three days, Klein grew restless. When were they going to get down to business?

"Before you can fight," she was told, "you have to know what you are fighting for."

I retold this story to a company recently as part of a pitch for working with sustainability managers.  Suffice to say, it wasn’t appreciated.  “As a person I get it, but it is not appropriate in this context” we were told.

Nature is worth saving for its own sake.  If we as humans want to co-exist, we need to realise our connectivity with it.  We can so easily disconnect ourselves, particularly if we are sitting in an office feeling far removed.   It can bypass us that everything around us is born from the earth, that everything we do has an effect.  To ponder on the raw materials and production processes, that made this city, this chair, this cup of coffee, one can only be humbled and awed at the gifts of nature and the ingenuity of people, and be pained at the impact we have.

The path to sustainability or a more respectful co-existence with the earth, is a spectrum.  At one end, are the companies who adopt sustainable practices as a legal obligation.  For others, it is purely a profit-driven motive, a strategic approach for survival.  Along the continuum is recognition that there is shared value in a balance (good for business, good for society).  At best,  a systemic approach, one that recognises the interrelationship between economic, social and environmental elements, is taken.

We can only do this if individually, we become more conscious of our own actions, and our sense of belonging in the world around us.   This collective sense of interconnectedness will help our communities and companies make more earth responsible decisions.

There are numerous ways and experiences that we can draw on to nurture this.  Here is one...mindful walking.  As Thich Nhat Hanh said,  'Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.'

 

Naomi Klein story (tinyurl.com/5q84zh) as told in R. Brezny (2009) Pronoia is the Antitode of Paranoia, North Atlantic Books, page 76