Ann Badillo Coaching

Ten Qualities of Self-Renewing Adults

Source: The Hudson Institute of Santa Barbara
By Pamela McLean, Ph.D.

1. VALUE DRIVEN
Primary anchors within self
Time gets organized around critical priorities

2. CONNECTED TO THE WORLD
Caring and Communicating
Listen and Empathize
Networking and Seeking

3. CREATE SOLITUDE AND QUIET
Removing oneself voluntarily from one’s habitual environment promotes understanding
and perspective that transcends day-to-day life

4. GOOD PACING
Life is more than work, work, work, do, do, do... It is QUALITY rather than schedules,
INTEGRITY rather than applause

5. CONTACT WITH NATURE
Nature is a universal resource for renewal – Use It!

6. CREATIVE AND PLAYFUL
Staying alive by taking life in

7. ADAPTIVE TO CHANGE
Allowing ourselves to pursue best options

8. LEARN FROM THE DOWN TIMES
Learn more from our failures and our down times than from our long and sweet plateaus

9. ALWAYS IN TRAINING
When learning, we feel drawn to new possibilities

10. FUTURE ORIENTED
Look for challenges to deepen our experience and make a difference in the world

2008 Year In Review

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

As we end the year I want to share this set of questions for us to reflect upon.

This last year --In myself, my relationships, my work, and my community:

1. Where have I been strengthened this year?

2. What has softened in me this year?

3. What has deepened (integrated or fallen into place) this year?

4. What has opened (what's new, what have I learned, where am I being stretched) in my nature this year?

Source: Angeles Arrien 

Winter Solstice Open Coaching Call:

Sunday, December 21st, 9:00 - 10:00 AM

CANCELED

Call in Number: 646 444 5502
Participant PIN: 696972

Join us!

All are welcome. Drop me an email  ann@badillo.com and let me know you are coming. We will reflect on these valuable questions as a community of practice.

The Day's Closing

The Day's Closing
Evenings

From the beginning of time, a richly colored twinge of dusk touching the eastern horizon, the lengthening of shadows, and the appearance of the evening’s first star have let us know that it was time to rest, relax, and retire from the pressures of the day. For human beings and other living things that tend to be most active in daylight, evenings can be less hectic and more relaxing, as we prepare for sleep and spend quality time with our loved ones. But evenings are about much more than dinner and the feel of a cool, soft pillow. Evenings are a wonderful time to catalog the events of the day without distraction, to revel in gentle solitude or silence, to end the day in serenity, and to commune with your inner self. 

Five Tips for August Renewal

Summer is traditionally a time reserved for relaxing with family and friends.  Summer is also great time in the year to engage in a bit of self renewal, to 'press pause button' and step back from one's daily activities to notice how 2008 is rolling out. There's no better time to recalibrate before the manic Fall starts.

Five Tips for August Renewal

1. Make a list of activities you loved when you were under the age of 25, post your list in a visible place for a few days -- then pick one activity to resurrect and try it on for the month.

2. Take a mini-vacation that requires only a little planning -- make it within driving distance of home and somewhere you haven't been.

3. Take a day long silent retreat in you home -- no email, no phones, no television, just YOU.

4. Scan 2008, looking back and looking at the months ahead -- create two columns on a blank page -- one side for what's working and the other for what needs adjusting -- brainstorm on ways to make small adjustments.

5. Make time for dreaming big dreams without any requirements to act on them --- just allow a bit of space to wander in unknown territory!  Who knows where you might lead yourself.

Source: The Hudson Institute of Santa Barbara

Cycle of Renewal Reading List from the Hudson Institute

I highly recommend this reading list for making the most of each phase in the Cycle of Renewal.

PHASE ONE: GO FOR IT

Allen, David. Ready for Anything: Productivity Principles for Work and Life. NY: Viking Books, 2003.
Block, Peter. The Answer to How is Yes. SF: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2003.
Bossidy, Charan & Burck. Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done.  NY: Crown Business, 2002.
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow. NY: Harper Perennial, 1990.
Loehr, Jim & Schwartz, Tony. The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Tim, Is the Key to High Performance and
Personal Renewal.  NY: Free Press, 2003.
Nash, Laura & Stevenson, Howard. Just enough: Tools for Creating Success in Your Work and Life.  NJ: Wiley Publishers, 2004.

PHASE TWO: THE DOLDRUMS
Bridges, William. The way of transition: embracing life’s most difficult moments. Boston: Perseus, 2001.
Bronson, Po. What Should I Do With My Life?  NY: Random House, 2003.
Chodrin, Pema. The Places that Scare You.  Shambala Press, 2001.
Chodrin, Pema.  When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times Shambala Press, 2000.
Viorst, Judith.  Necessary Looses.  NY: Simon and Schuster, 1998.

Thought for the Day

People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life.  I don't think that's what we're really seeking.  I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.

Joseph Campbell ~ from The Power of Myth

Focus on New and Powerful Choices to Attract New Situations and People

Below is a valuable teaching from Layne and Paul Cutright:

What you focus on expands in your awareness. If you focus on new and powerful choices, you will magnetize yourself and attract new situations and people. These new situations and people will match your purposefully created beliefs, attitudes, and anticipations.

So here's the new game plan: Start tuning in to the higher-self perspective in every situation and acting as if this perspective is the most valid. Continually ask yourself, "What is the most empowering point of view about this situation?" or "What interpretation will take me to the future I desire?"

Your thoughts become beliefs that become feelings that become attitudes that determine how you'll interpret and respond to situations. Usually the interpretation is automatic and unconscious, but once you've trained yourself to direct and observe your thoughts and identify your belief structures, you can observe and direct your interpretations. Remember, your interpretations aren't beyond your command. As you take charge of your interpretations now, you begin to move to greater levels of authentic personal responsibility and power.

Layne and Paul Cutright

What needs to open up?

From Michael Bungay Stanier quick scribble. He's a delightful and creative coach from Canada. I recommend subscribing to his e-newsletter Box of Crayons

What needs to open up?

Here are five ways for you to expand – and some resources to help you do it.

1. Open up your body

If you want to change your thinking, change your physical state. As counter-intuitive as it might sound, I believe that your body leads your brain.

I recently came across Sean LeClaire's Body Centered Breaks. All you need is your computer and a willingness to stop typing for just two minutes.

2. Open up your mind

I've recently started to use magic to open some of my workshops. It's marvelous, because it's easy to do and the "wow" factor is fantastic.

be excited

The minute you begin
to do what you really
want to do,
it's really a different kind of life.

--buckminster fuller

Personal Renewal

“Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account."

John Gardner
Personal Renewal Speech, November 10, 1990, Delivered to McKinsey & Company, Phoenix, AZ.

John Gardner on Personal Renewal