Identifying Obstacles

The state of your “rat cage”

Identifying Obstacles

A friend of mine recently forwarded me this article:  The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered, and It Is Not What You Think about this book: ‘Chasing The Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs’Rat pic 3

I read the article, and watched the TedTalk, and have yet to read the book (currently on request at the library). The article is about the causes of addiction and quotes a study called Rat Park conducted in the 1970s by Bruce Alexander PhD. (See the full study here). With out reproducing the whole article, essentially Dr. Alexander found out that rats addicted to cocaine or heroin living in a bare cage that were then transported to a cage with lots of activities, exercise, other rats to socialize with, good rat chow, basically a “Rat Park,”  abandoned their addiction. Fundamentally,  “he argues, addiction is an adaptation. It’s not you. It’s your cage.” Read More >

A funny thing happened on the way to my last blog post…

Coaching Tips, Identifying Obstacles

The funny thing is, the post was about motivation and I was 80 percent done writing it and my motivation fizzled, *poof* it was gone. Or maybe I could say it was transmogrified; every time I would go to finish the post, something else would capture my attention and suddenly organizing my sock drawer became crucial. Okay, so maybe I didn’t organize my sock drawer;  however I did manage to strip all the paint off my wooden staircase which is a task I have been avoiding for 4 years. So yeah, my motivation shifted and boy was I motivated to avoid finishing my post. Luckily I have a good friend who reads this and kept asking me where my next post was. Turns out I was motivated to come up with vague answers to evade the question. This made me think about all the energy I was expending avoiding my post,  so I figured it was a good time to explore this issue,  as I know I am not the only one who experiences the capriciousness of motivation. Cohen quote

So I wonder if it comes down to an alignment of determination and motivation. Certainly one won’t work with out the other. So what throws them out of alignment? For me with my last post, something felt off and I couldn’t figure out what.  Stopping and focusing on something else often provides me with the inspiration to continue. This time, no dice, my motivation and determination fell out of alignment and the only thing I was determined to do was anything else.  Read More >

Follow-through

Coaching Tips, Identifying Obstacles

Follow-through is defined as either the part of the stroke following the strike of the ball or the act or instance of following-through. I would argue that following-through is often many strung together acts of following-through, most of us don’t follow-through just once on a project and say “ah that’s done.” Usually isn’t that simple and it is a compilation of follow-throughs that ultimately help us reach our goals. Just as in a football, or er soccer game, the game doesn’t stop when one goal is made. There are many kicks and plays leading to many follow-throughs which may not result in a goal, however it does result in an over all game and a type of accomplishment. Sometimes it is just hard to see the big picture. Pardon me for the sporting analogy, which admittedly is not an area of expertise. However I am moved for two reasons, one the World Cup starts tomorrow (Woo Hoo)soccer-ball-goal-image and two because I have been experiencing some lessons around follow-through. These lessons highlighted for me both how important follow-through can be, as well as the difficulties around “follow-through.”

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Change Happens

Identifying Obstacles

In my work I sometimes think “change” is a four-letter word, because so often clients wince when I say that word. Change HappensI am in the business of change and that is the primary reason people come to see me, so why do people cringe at the word “change?” Ultimately because change or changing can feel like a loss of control, and frankly we don’t like to admit the following; we want control of our lives and seek control in a multitude of ways. We create illusions and expectations of how things “should be” and like to think we have much more say in matters than we really do. So when things change it is a big reminder that we don’t have that much control.

Not to sound all doom and gloom, there is the good part, we may not have control over change, however we have control over how we experience change. Hallelujah! This means we can work on how we view change how we handle change. Read More >

Befriending Your Inner Drill Sergeant

Identifying Obstacles

I come across what I call the inner “Drill Sergeant” a lot in my work with people. Often when this idea or concept comes up people readily identify with the inner “Drill sergeant, although they haven’t named it yet. Your Inner Drill SergeantIf you aren’t familiar with the inner “Drill Sergeant” well it goes by other names too: gremlin, inner critic, saboteur, negative self talk. Most often this inner “Drill sergeant” is a negative inner voice that prevents us from being as successful and satisfied as we want to be in life. This voice is sometimes the voice of fear, doubt, procrastination, a symbol of eroded self-esteem, what ever it is or stems from it represents some form of negative self-talk. Read More >