I have always held that the most challenging times of our lives come when we face redefining ourselves.

Like when we go from being a high schooler to being a college student.

From being a college student to being employed.

Or employed by someone else to employed by ourselves.

Or from being single to being married. Or being married to being divorced.  Or widowed.

From being a kid’s mom or dad, to being an adult’s mom or dad.

From being healthy to being sick. From being sick to being healthy again.

These are the moments that vex us, because we’re required to think about who we are and who we want to be.

And it always comes just at the moment where we’ve gotten so damn comfortable with who we were.

I know you know what I’m talking about.

Often, where people get stuck is in letting go of the old, comfortable definition and making room for the new way of thinking about themselves.

It’s kinda like a special sort of roller coaster – the kind where you only ride once.  Ever gotten off a roller coaster and said, “Well, that was fun,” never intending to ride it again?  That’s like life.

You can’t go back and ride high school again.

Or college.

Or your 20s. 30s. 40s. 50s. 100s.

You get one ride. And it has plenty of twists and turns. And before you know it, you’re not where you started.

You’re somewhere new.

Allow yourself to grow, and change, and redefine.  Welcome change in all its magnificent uncertainty.

If you let it, it’ll be one hell of a ride.

***

Michele Woodward (www.lifeframeworks.com) is a Master Certified Coach, author, speaker and teacher, who helps people get clear about who they are and what they want to do – and develop a workable action plan to get where they want to go. She is the author of Lose Weight, Find Love, De-Clutter & Save Money: Essays on Happier Living, available at Amazon.com and is the founder of Career Invention Coach Training (www.careerinvention.com) – focused on training coaches to understand the new rules of work –  and Kick Ass Mentoring (www.kickassmentoring.com) – a marketing training program for coaches. She’s thrived in a number of high-level, high-pressure positions – at The White House, in corporate America – and has served as an advisor to entrepreneurs.  Michele is a sought-after speaker, leads a number of workshops and classes, teaches in Martha Beck’s well regarded coach training program, and writes a popular blog.

In the face of economic and policy changes that are rocking the philanthropic world, foundation leaders need to find new and innovative ways to motivate their board and staff. Part of this task is to help others within the organization to embrace change. One of the hardest aspects of a leader’s job is getting people to “follow”. Common sense says that the solutions are obvious…at least to the leader. Reality, however, is often different from our “common sense” solutions. How often have you thought:

• If only my board member would agree to talk with our mayor and Chamber of Commerce president about job creation, we could get more public support for our education initiative…
• If only our grantees were willing to merge their operations so that they can leverage their back office resources…
• If only my 10-year employee would be more invested in our work instead of doing the minimum and leaving at 4:00pm…

How do you overcome resistance to change? How do you stop seeing others as obstacles – they are just being stubborn, irrational, and unable to adapt to new ideas — and actually turn their resistance into a positive force for the results you want to achieve?

Peter Block, an author, consultant and active citizen in Cincinnati, Ohio, has spent his life exploring, writing and teaching about empowerment, stewardship, chosen accountability and the reconciliation of community. Early in my career I had the opportunity to work with Peter to deepen my understanding about:

• How individuals respond to change
• How to facilitate shared understanding and increase an organization’s ability to travel down the same path even though people may walk, jog, or even bicycle down parallel, perpendicular and curvy lanes that intersect in multiple places along the way.[BAD1]

The biggest lesson I learned from Peter is that it’s human nature to resist change. People naturally resist dealing with difficult realities that make them uncomfortable. None of us enjoy pain. All of us want to feel in control and don’t like being vulnerable to others. We want to feel that we have made a difference that our voice really matters, that others count on our expertise. Resistance occurs when we feel that we are going to lose control or that we may somehow jeopardize our political power in our circle of influence.

So, what does resistance look like? I’m sure you can think of times when you experienced something like…

1. Give me more detail: Asking for finer and finer bits of information. No [BAD2] matter how much information you share, it’s never enough.
2. Flood You with Detail: You ask a question and you get a 15-minute soliloquy outlining everything that happened since the beginning of the time.
3. Time: People are so busy that they just don’t have time to talk with you. Maybe after I’ve completed this huge deadline…
4. Impracticality: The “real world” isn’t ready for this kind of innovation.
5. Silence: This is the toughest resistance of all. Never believe that silence means consent. If you are dealing with something important, it’s not natural for a board member, grantee or employee to have no reaction.
6. Intellectualizing: Occurs when someone shifts the discussion from deciding how to proceed and starts exploring theory after theory about why things are the way that they are.
7. Moralizing: “Those people”, “they need to understand” “you should do…” are all phrases that indicate someone wants to talk about how things ought to be rather than how they are. Putting oneself on a pedestal of superiority indicates that the individual thinks he or she isn’t part of the problem.
8. Pressing for solutions: We all want solutions. But pushing for solutions too early keeps us from learning anything important about the nature of the problem. If we don’t truly understand the problem we want to resolve, then we can implement solutions that have nothing to do with the real nature of the problem.

This list is not all-inclusive but it does give you an idea about how challenging resistance can be to discern. How do you know when people have legitimate concerns and when they are expressing resistance?

Resistance only occurs when the concerns about facing the difficult realities and the choice not to deal with them are expressed indirectly. By blaming the lack of detailed data, not enough time or budget, lack of understanding by “those people”, or being silent, all of us can avoid implementing a new idea. Instead of saying, “No I don’t believe this is the best solution” (a direct, clear statement) resistance can include everything from the obvious such as intense questioning and criticism to more subtle behaviors such as changing the subject and giving one word answers to questions. Indirect expression of resistance is especially subtle in the South. Our “conspiracy of southern gentility” often makes it difficult to really understand others’ true viewpoint.

So, what do you do? You allow the resistance to spew forward like a storm, and not fight it head on. Feelings pass and change when they are expressed directly. Don’t fight the resistance. If you fight, argue or otherwise appear remotely antagonistic, the individual’s resistance will intensify and expand. Instead, encourage full expression of others’ concerns so that they can be diffused and addressed. The goal is to shift from indirect expression of concerns to direct statements of real issues and reservations. Once you know the true concerns, you can respond effectively.

Peter recommends three steps:

1. Identify what form the resistance is taking. Look for cues and then put some words to what you see happening.
   1. Trust what you see more than what you hear
   2. Listen to yourself. Are you uneasy, bored or irritated?
   3. Is the same idea explained to you for the third time? Are you answering the same question for the third time?

1. State, in a neutral tone of voice, the form the resistance is taking. In other words, NAME the resistance. The trick is using neutral, rather than blaming, language.
   1. Use everyday language. Think about how you would describe the behavior to a close friend.
   2. Be simple and direct.
   3. Put into words what you are feeling about the discussion.  Use “I statements”.

1. Be quiet. Listen. Let the other person respond to what you’ve said.
   1. Don’t take it personally.
   2. If someone is resistant, it usually means that you have touched something important and valuable.
   3. Most questions are statements in disguise. Listen for what isn’t being said.

Managing a foundation (or any organization) through times of change is rarely easy, but knowing how to recognize and deal with resistance certainly helps. For more information, I’d recommend Peter Block’s book, Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self-Interest (1993). And remember, although it’s the downside of human nature that causes resistance, it’s the upside that is ultimately what makes philanthropy work.

-  Jennifer Bush

Do you find your organization in a similar situation? Do your older and younger employees’ communication styles contradict each other? If so, how is it affecting the tenured business relationships that you have with your customers?

There are probably several factors influencing this particular situation. Yes, some of it is about the difference in ages between veteran sales reps and younger engineers. To this we should add the level of engagement these young professionals have in their jobs. We also need to consider that these engineers are working with individuals for whom technical expertise may not be a strong suit. Finally, we have to be careful not to simply accept one version of what’s going on. As there are a lot of factors to consider in my friends’ situation, there are also many things which influence the dynamics of business relationships in general. What does a sandwich manager do to help young employees establish the type of business relationship that you have with your veteran clients?

Begin with education. Spend more time helping your young professionals better understand how to communicate with your customers. After all, it’s not just about technical skills; part of their job is to maintain the relationship. Next, I would check with the customers directly, but discreetly. You don’t want your reps to think you’re checking on them. But at the same time, you need to get a clear understanding of any concerns your customers may have.Thirdly, I would conduct some training on the differences in attitudes between the generations. It’s probably safe to assume that both groups are leaping to mistaken assumptions about the other. Finally, I might ask the reps to bring the engineers along earlier in the relationship. This will allow them to get to know each other better. It will also allow both of them to see the other in action in front of the customer. But remember, these relationships take time.

The bottom  line  is  this: Building  and maintaining  relationships  is  important to any business. If you notice that your younger employees don’t value this aspect of the process, show them why it’s crucial, but more importantly, teach them how to maintain relationships with those who are much older than them.

You don’t know what to do.

Oh, you’ve got plenty of ideas about what you could do. About what’s possible. About your dreams.

Or maybe you’re really, really busy – pursuing a hundred leads at once and reeling from all the potential paths available to you.

But somehow nothing’s really happening. Nothing’s clicking.

And you’re either starting to panic, or, conversely, starting to think that being where you are isn’t really so bad. You can hang in there until things start to change. Whenever that might be. Someday.

Who finds this familiar? And just a teensy bit scary?

So, let’s talk about it. Let’s figure out why you consistently step away from making your ideas into something real, shall we?

It’s easy to be drunk with love about what’s possible. “I take this job, and I can make a million dollars and become CEO one day.” Or, “If I become a joint venture partner with this famous person, my life will be easy and I’ll become famous, too.” And, “It’s not really that bad – I bet I can make it better.” And we are so in love with this vision that we fail to see that the CEO is only 32 years old and not going anywhere any time soon, or that the famous person has staff that deal with “joint venture partners” (and there are hundreds of joint venture partners), or that the thing is not bad – it’s horrific – and is so toxic that hazmat is required.

The best dating advice I ever received was, “Never fall in love with potential”. Had I ever followed it, I would have been saved plenty of heartache. But, after being bashed about the head and shoulders several times, I finally learned the lesson.

Today, when offered a possibility, I put potential aside and look at what’s at hand with a clear eye. Does it fit with my strengths? My values? My goals? Notice I’m not asking, “Could it possibly, with a lot of work, pixie dust and spit, maybe fit?” It either fits or it doesn’t. And if it fits, that’s when I look at potential. Does this opportunity allow for growth? Is it fun? Is it worth my time?

Isn’t it nice to have a dream? Feels so dreamy, and love-ly. We can visit our dreamy dream whenever we want, like some personalized amusement park, and lose ourselves in all the possibility. And we love the idea of the dream, and fondle the dream, and protect it. But we never make one step toward realizing the dream in our lives. The singer never takes voice lessons, the writer never types, the entrepreneur never starts a business.

Why?

Because the dream is perfect, and real life is seldom so.

If you’re a dream-fondler but rather restless, here’s an exercise: write down a full description of your dream. All of it. Even the minutiae. Then go back through and pick two things – just two teensy things – you can easily do to move ever-so-slightly toward making the dream real. See how that feels, try a couple more, and if you hit resistance, it may be because:

Let’s say your dream is to be a writer, and the teensy thing you choose is to start writing. And maybe you even begin to call yourself a writer. That might feel like a change. A re-definition. A big switch. People might laugh. You might not fit in with your friends – they don’t even read books – or your family – who values brawn over brain.

Or maybe you grew up in a family that prides itself on academic and intellectual pursuits. You go to a competitive high school, and all your friends are shooting for the Ivy League. You go to a top school, and a prestigious graduate program. All is as it should be. But you’re not happy. All you ever do is dream of starting your own landscaping business.

But if you become a landscaper, what will people think? What will you have in common with your Ivy League friends? With your siblings? With your parents?

The fear of loss keeps you in a job you don’t like, being measured by a yardstick that’s not even relevant to your dream. If you have a strong pull toward belonging and connection, you might hold on to the group’s yardstick because making your own is so scary. And the group might say it’s wrong.

Understandable. Hard to shake.

But so worth it when you do. Remember: the people who love you will love you whether you’re a physicist or a landscaper. Whether you’re a Regional Sales Manager or a writer. More importantly, you will like you when you’re living your dream.

The failure to execute is the Big Kahuna of stuck. Making your dreams come alive, though, is the Big Enchilada of happiness. Go ahead. Start now.

Want to get clearer on your priorities? Be happier? Get insight? I’ve got audio recordings for you and my book available on my website. Click here.

***

Michele Woodward (www.lifeframeworks.com) is a Master Certified Coach, author, speaker and teacher, who helps people get clear about who they are and what they want to do – and develop a workable action plan to get where they want to go. She is the author of Lose Weight, Find Love, De-Clutter & Save Money: Essays on Happier Living, available at Amazon.com and is the founder of Career Invention Coach Training (www.careerinvention.com) – focused on training coaches to understand the new rules of work –  and Kick Ass Mentoring (www.kickassmentoring.com) – a marketing training program for coaches. She’s thrived in a number of high-level, high-pressure positions – at The White House, in corporate America – and has served as an advisor to entrepreneurs.  Michele is a sought-after speaker, leads a number of workshops and classes, teaches in Martha Beck’s well regarded coach training program, and writes a popular blog.

When Anna graduated from high school her parents wanted her to go off to college but she convinced them to let her work during the day and take evening classes at the local technical school. She never finished a degree. She didn’t see why she should be wasting her time studying when she knew what she wanted to do with her life.

Anna knew the business. She had rotated through every department, had worn every hat, and everyone of them fit. She had as much grit as any man and plenty more than her brother,Tom.

Tom never seemed to care as much or work as hard as she. Yet she knew he’d take over the business. Her father was old school and her mother wasn’t about to take him on: Tom would inherit the company and if she wanted , she’d have a job working for him. Anna challenged her father’s resolve only once, and regretted the toll it took on all of them. It would all belong to Tom, that was it.  Her father died before he had time to reconsider or retire,  and her mother followed soon after.

Anna stepped aside and let her brother take the helm. She figured Tom would let her run the operation and he’d run the front office. Tom had different plans. He told her he didn’t like the business and wouldn’t spend his life anchored to it. He sold it. Just like that. He pocketed the profits and moved away.  Other than a Christmas card or two, Anna never heard from him again.

The new owners asked her to stay on through the transition. She knew it was only a matter of time before they’d let her go but she was afraid to leave on her own. After a year they gave her notice. In three years the company went belly-up.

Her grandparents were midwesterners who were newlyweds when they moved south. They spent all they had on a small parcel of land and did what farmers do. When grandma started having babies, she had to stay home to tend them.  To make ends meet, she opened a small business she could run from the house. It wasn’t long before they were making more money from the store than they were from the farm.

Their children followed them into the business that began as a roadside stop and became the town’s biggest employer. Their son (Anna and Tom’s father) took it to the next level. Tom did it in.

It’s a cautionary tale of basic yet flawed assumptions that deal with family businesses and the roles that children play within them. It challenges the misguided notions that what was, will always be.

Most owner-parents wrestle with  the same concerns: Should we sell the business or turn it over to the children? The problem is riddled with complexity. If it’s one you struggle with, you need a starting place for your discussion. You’ll find it when you tell the truth, first to yourself and then to your family members. What are your plans for the business, now and into the future? What role do you intend your children to have in its future? Equally important: What do they want? What are their aspirations and expectations?

It’s not usual for business owning parents to project a larger than life presence. They can look controlling, intimidating, all knowing, unforgiving, enabling, take your pick.  If you want your grown kids to be honest with you, give them a fair chance. (You might benefit from coaching on this subject).

Whatever the direction or outcome of your discussion, always encourage your children to expand their education, work, and life experience beyond the boundaries they’ve grown to know and expect.

* * * *

Yes! You may use this article by Executive and Career Coach, Joyce Richman, in your blog, article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since she started her own practice in 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com

Every summer, a colleague hires a large number of college students to work construction jobs in her firm. Over the past several years, she’s seen a noticeable decline in motivation. Her seasonal employees won’t work over time. They are consistently late, and fun seems more important than money to many of them. Is it her, or is this a national trend? Either way, what should she do about it?

It’s not her. Even in a slow economy we hear from employers around the country that the drive to earn summer money does not have the urgency for some that it once did. We can attribute this to a number of factors including larger allowances from older, more affluent Boomer parents. We might add to this the heavily-scheduled lives that teenagers lead. If you’re competing with sports and social activities, you’ll lose a good deal of the time. Finally, some students have simply budgeted for what they need. When they’ve earned that money, the life-balance argument wins out.

We’ve all found ourselves in similar situations. Perhaps you’re preparing right now to hire employees for this summer. In recruiting for seasonal positions, you’ll need to consider several factors:

• Your target market. What kind of students do you attract? Ivy League or community college? That’s not to say one is better than the other, but they certainly have different agendas. Where you advertise, and the job description you use, will have a direct impact on the applicants who knock on your door.

• Your selection practices. What questions do you ask? What methods do you use to determine attitudes about work and work ethic? Taking the time to put applicants “thru their paces” is just as important for part-timers as it is for full-timers.

• Your engagement efforts. What do you do to engage these young workers? Help them to understand the valuable work they contribute to the job. If you show you care, they will show that they care.

• Your retention efforts. Do you make a practice of recruiting students for multiple summers? What’s in it for them? Do you stay in touch during the year? Can they pick up work during spring and winter vacations? Maintaining the relationship is the key to retaining them over time.

This is the bottom line: Approach your seasonal hiring with the same care that you would approach the hiring for your full-time positions. If your attitude is that you need “warm bodies,” then you’ll get nothing short of that. In both your recruitment and retention efforts, target young applicants who are not only out to fill their coffers, but also who are looking either for consecutive summer employment or for a transition out of college and into a career.

If you look back over the last several months, certain behavioral issues have already surfaced as leading contenders for top problems. What impact are they currently having on your business and what can you do to course correct before year-end?

Visionaries are given a mandate to create a concept that moves the company ahead of the competition. Impulsive visionaries, exploding with new ideas, are having a whale of  a problem motivating their troops to follow along.

What’s the problem? Either the troops don’t have a clue what these folks are talking about,  or they understand the message; it  just keeps changing before they have time to implement  it.

What’s the outcome? All beginnings and no endings result in wasted time, energy, and money. The implementers appear more concerned about this than the visionaries seem to be.

The Solution: Maximize vision and manage impulse. Emphasize discipline and demonstrate follow though. Simplify the complex. Be available to ask and answer questions, patiently, pragmatically, and considerately.

With changes occurring as rapidly as they have, companies are hard pressed to maintain their competitive edge. To amp potential, many are going outside their current talent pool to hire the most creative minds they can find.  These innovative sorts are authorized  to drive change projects to completion as quickly as possible.

What’s the problem? Assuming that driving change and leading change are the same.

What’s the outcome? The disparity between innovative wizards and their ever frustrated direct reports appears to be widening. Mixed messages and culture clashes are resulting  in an us vs. them attitude.

The Solution: Leading a change process always takes longer than you want or expect. Slow it down, intentionally. Give people time to let go of the past. Describe the goal, identify the objectives, and go for the buy-in. Take time up front and you’ll pick up time down the line.

Service and loyalty are slipping. Employees appear more flip and fickle than ever before. Their “what have you done for me lately” attitude mirrors their consumer behavior: nothing seems to be good enough, long enough. Impersonal merchandising machines have replaced personal retail shopping. Who needs courtesy if there’s no one to say “please” and “thank you” to when you shop on the net.

Bottom line: Employees are asked to do more, work harder and stay longer to get last year’s paycheck.

Problem: It’s hard to dance on a dime, carry more than your load, and work overtime all the time without recognition, affirmation, and life balance.

Outcome: Employees and customers will take their work effort and purchase power somewhere else.

The Solution: Address the issue now. There has to be “something in it for me” to stay in the game. Focus on the employee as you would your customer, and focus on your customer the way your parents say it used to be. Take stock of what needs improvement and what needs repair and plan accordingly, or you may be repeating what you never fixed, in 2010.

* * * *

Yes! You may use this article in your blog, newsletter or website as long as you include the following bio box:

Joyce Richman (www.richmanresources.com) has been specializing in executive and career coaching since 1982. She works in a variety of environments including: higher education, manufacturing, sales, marketing, media, technology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, banking and finance, service, IT, and non-profit sectors. A member of the adjunct faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, Joyce is certified to administer a number of feedback and psychological instruments. Joyce is a weekly guest on WFMY-TV and the career columnist for The Greensboro News & Record. She is the author of Roads, Routes and Ruts: A Guidebook to Career Success and co-author of Getting Your Kid Out of the House and Into a Job. A popular speaker, Richman conducts conducted seminars and workshops throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.

1. Cured cancer.
2. Brought peace to the Middle East.
3. Joined the 1%.
4. Married a Kardashian.

But your own accomplishments are whatever you say they are. Case in point, how about the sweeping magnitude of this item from my own list:

16. Took my medicine daily.

Sounds pretty trivial, huh? Plus, taking medicine is something I “should” do, right? OK, but you know plenty of people don’t take what’s prescribed to them, don’t you? It’s ultimately a choice for health, wellness and self-care, and it’s a choice I’m conscious of making every day since I was treated for thyroid cancer in 2008.

I’m proud of this accomplishment, as small as it may seem in comparison to having your own TV reality show.

Yep, when I look at my list, I realize just how productive I’ve been this year, creating several new programs and earning more income than ever before.

Ever.

Now, there’s an accomplishment that feels really good.

All my accomplishments feel good, to tell you the truth, once I put them on paper and honored them.

My list of 25 Accomplishments – overachiever that I am, turned out to be 28 items – gave me a launching point to look at how my accomplishments line up with my key values. Know your own values? Think about the things that light you up, the things that are vitally important, the things you can’t live without. For me, it’s:
Taking care of my financial, spiritual and emotional health
Being a good enough parent
Leading
Learning
Being the nerdy geek girl that I am, I actually tabulated how many of my accomplishments related to one or more of my values, using teeny-tiny hash marks. And guess what? That information is already pointing me to what I want to do more of in 2012.

Sweet.

And useful. Practical. And really productive.

Want to give it a shot yourself? Hey, if you need some help figuring it all out, download the Personal Planning Tool for 2012 – available at my website as my gift to you. You can use the Tool to review 2011, identify your accomplishments, and get your thoughts together for what you’d like to get done next year. And if you want, you can take it to a whole other level by making another list – let’s call it The Gratitude List. Can you list 25 people or things you’re grateful for?

I can. Again, the overachiever in me found twenty-six items to list, but let me tell you about:

10. The kindness of strangers.

And,

11. People who help me when I ask.

Kinda linked, yet kinda not. But I’ll tell you, I could never have had as many accomplishments in 2011 if it hadn’t been for #10 and #11. If it hadn’t been for you. Because you are on my Gratitude List. You readers and clients, family and friends. Oh, you’re on my List. Right up there at the top. Right where you belong.

It’s a crazy world out there.

Weird weather, uncertain employment, foreclosures, freak accidents.

It’s as if we’re all leaning forward, tensed in advance of whatever might hit us next, in a collective anxious anticipation.

I don’t know about you, but I find it utterly exhausting.  Like living under seige.

Right now there’s a lot of urgency and drama in the world – unemployment is stubbornly up: “I could lose my job”. Foreclosures surge: “I could lose my house.” Stock market is off: “My retirement savings are half what they used to be.” Employers pass surging health care costs to employees: “I am one major illness away from disaster.”

We’re so in the moment with all the bad news that we cannot even begin to think about anything else. We dwell, we ruminate, we get stuck in all the negative. It feels crappy.

But there’s a cure, an antidote. A way to start feeling better, regardless of the uncertainty.

Here’s what you do: have a vision. An idea of the big picture. A sense of how you’re contributing to some greater purpose and mission.

Now, I’ve written about this before – What’s The Point? – and suggested that it’s important to never confuse urgency and drama with meaning and purpose. We’ve got too much of the former right now, when what we really need is more of the latter.

Recently, the Washington Post had an interesting item on leadership. Written by Sally Blount, Dean of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, it talks about how to create worker satisfaction. Blount says: “…people in organizations are hungry for meaning, for understanding of how what they do each day contributes to a greater purpose, a greater mission.”

Excellent point. And equally applicable to individuals. Meaning: you.

Examine how what you do every day contributes to a greater purpose, a greater mission. By doing what you do each day, are you supporting your spouse, your children, your parents, an ill sibling? In the course of your day, whose lives are you making better? How does what you do make a difference?

And if it doesn’t… or if you feel like it doesn’t…

Start making a contribution.

Volunteer somewhere that matters. That’s a great thing. But you may not feel like you have the time. OK, then. Be a courteous driver. Open doors for people. Be nice to the kid riding his bike in your driveway. Mow your lawn. Make repairs where you live. Take charge of stuff rather than letting stuff take charge of you.

Dare to care about something.

Sally Blount suggests that organizations “provide a sense of purpose, a narrative for what that organization stands for and how it contributes to making the world a better place.”

Look at your own big picture, then. And craft your own narrative about who you are and what you stand for.

And hold fast to that amidst all of the hullabaloo and uncertainty.

***

Michele Woodward (www.lifeframeworks.com) is a Master Certified Coach, author, speaker and teacher, who helps people get clear about who they are and what they want to do – and develop a workable action plan to get where they want to go. She is the author of Lose Weight, Find Love, De-Clutter & Save Money: Essays on Happier Living, available at Amazon.com and is the founder of Career Invention Coach Training (www.careerinvention.com) – focused on training coaches to understand the new rules of work –  and Kick Ass Mentoring (www.kickassmentoring.com) – a marketing training program for coaches. She’s thrived in a number of high-level, high-pressure positions – at The White House, in corporate America – and has served as an advisor to entrepreneurs.  Michele is a sought-after speaker, leads a number of workshops and classes, teaches in Martha Beck’s well regarded coach training program, and writes a popular blog.