By Mary Lloyd, CEO, Mining Silver LLC

NOTE:  This post first appeared in the March 2010 edition of Barbara Morris’s online newsletter Put Old on Hold.

Every so often, a new guru advocates “Do what you love.”  It’s the best career advice ever, whether you’re just starting your work years or getting ready to throttle back for retirement. 

But what if you’re already doing something you don‘t love?  Most of us can’t afford to just implode what’s paying the bills.  How do you get from what you are doing now—which you may literally hate—to what you really want to do without totally starting over?

• It doesn’t have to be a jump over the cliff.   We tend to think either/or on this.  Keep doing what you’re making money at now or take a massive, scary leap into the unknown.  You can do a lot on your current job to prepare for that better work life.  Think remodel rather than demolition. 

• Get real about what you want to do.   Flesh out your dream job right now so you know what you’re getting into.  If you fantasize rather than taking a serious look, you see only the minuses of your current job and only the pluses of your dream job.  Be honest about that new work and thorough with the details. You’ll either be creating momentum for the day when you can make the transition or learning that your “dream job” isn’t all that much better—or maybe even different—than what you’re doing. 

• Become a virtuoso at what you can now.   Many of the skills you need for your “perfect work” can be developed in any job.  Follow-through, time management, writing, speaking, and critical thinking skills are all transferable. Patience, tolerance, and persistence are attributes that are golden anywhere.  Work at becoming a superstar at these kinds of things right now.

• Find the center of the sweet spot.  What’s most important about your dream job?  Sometimes the crux of what you yearn for can be part of what you are already doing.  If you can’t find a way to put it in your current work, give yourself that special thing in a hobby or with group involvement.  Doing so will whet you appetite for more and create the motivation to take bigger steps eventually.

• Educate yourself in small doses.  The word “educate” conjures up expensive, time-intensive options—college degrees or formal training for accreditation of some sort.  That thinking makes the dream unachievable because the “entry fee” is more than you can handle either in time or money or both. 

Get your education in smaller doses.  Read books.  Surf the Net.  Make friends with people who do what you want to do.  Join groups involved in that profession or interest area. You can learn a lot in doable steps if you get rid of the  idea that learning has to be in some kind of formal setting.  Plus as people in the field get to know you, you develop a network that you’ll need later. 

• Don’t wait.  Staying in a job you hate indefinitely is self-inflicted slavery.  Anything you can do to help yourself move toward something better is healthier emotionally.  

Getting your feet wet has lots of benefits.  People in that field get to know you and start to appreciate you.  Your focus becomes sharper as you get more depth.  And if you do eventually decide to seek that formal credential, the coursework will be easier because you are already familiar with the terminology and the concepts.

Anybody can say “I hate my job.”  And any job is going to be awful on occasion.  But if you really need something different to make your heart sing, the only one stopping you is you.

You can change that.

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Mary Lloyd is a speaker and consultant and author of Supercharged Retirement: Ditch the Rocking Chair, Trash the Remote, and Do What You Love.  Her passion is in capitalizing on the potential of those over 50.  For more, please visit her website http://www.mining-silver.com.  She can be reached at mary@mining-silver.com.

This article originally appeared in the December 2009 issue of Barbara Morris’s online newsletter Put Old on Hold.

Yikes!  “The Holidays” are here.  It doesn’t make any difference whether you equate that with Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Winter Solstice, or even Festivus; this time of year has something for everyone to celebrate.  And that “something” usually brings with it a massive dose of stress.  Why?  Because “the holidays” represent a perfect emotional storm—the nexus of inviolate tradition, unplanned change, and great expectations.

To get to where you can actually have fun with “the Holidays,” you have to appreciate the force of that storm and realize you are in it.  It’s not as simple as just saying “This is complicated.”  But it doesn’t require taking a leave of absence from your entire life for the last two weeks of the year either (though this is my favorite fantasy).

So let’s look at these three “forces of nature.”

Inviolate Tradition:
The longer we live, the more traditions we have the chance to establish.  When you couple, you mesh your family traditions with his (or her) family traditions.  Even if you don’t stay a couple, quite often you end up keeping at least some of the traditions you added with the partner.  You see something on TV or in a book that looks like fun.  You add that.  You think of something fun for “this year” and then end up doing it every year.  There’s more and more and more that “we always do” at this time of year.

But traditions are like closet space.  Unless you weed things out every once in a while, you get a lot jammed together in a tight space.  And then you can’t enjoy any of it because it’s wedged in so tightly it’s hard to even get to it.  

•   Not every tradition deserves to be honored forever.  Which  ones do you really appreciate?  Which ones are you doing because you think you “have” to?  Who would notice if you let some of the latter go?  Maybe it’s time to find out.

Unplanned Change
This year has brought a mega-dose of unplanned change for many of us.  Lost jobs, reduced work hours, and lost business have affected how much we have to spend.  Heavy workloads for those who do have jobs make holiday tasks even harder to get done.  Wherever there is change, there is stress.  Most of us were already stressed before we got to “the Holidays” this year.

There’s only one good way to handle change—accept what is going on now and run with that.  This year, it’s fashionable to admit you have to change how you handle the season.   What an unexpected blessing!  It’s the perfect chance make changes you’ve been wanting to make, regardless of whether you are still be able to pull off the old routine. 

There’s another kind of change that’s more subtle.  What’s changed with your loved ones?  Maybe one of your kids moved away for a job.  Maybe your sister has married a man with seven kids and his own traditions.  It’s not fair to insist everyone else still do all the things “we’ve always done for the holidays” if they aren’t in the same place with their lives.   But letting go of traditions you cherish can be hard.  

•   Are you insisting everything stay the same because it suits you–even if it’s more difficult for other participants than it used to be?  Are you being honest about others’ needs with your holiday extravaganza?  Are things different for you this year?  Respect and accommodate changes.

Great Expectations
Let’s face it.  We’re all still kids when it comes to this time of year.  Maybe we aren’t waiting for the pony or the new bike anymore, but we do want “the Holidays” to be magical, perfect, and totally satisfying.

That’s just not realistic.  Things go wrong in life–often at the worst possible moment.  People who are already stressed about 100 other things over-react more easily.  Grand plans with a lot to get done become overwhelming at the last minute.  It’s just a holiday season—not the sum total of your life’s accomplishments.  Throttle back for heaven’s sake!

•   How can you streamline things so there’s more room to enjoy what’s going on?  Do what you can comfortably and be joyful with those results.

That’s the bottom line on this particular time of the year—JOY.  Usually, things are so hectic we never feel it.   Maybe a look at these three things can help you bring it back. 

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Mary Lloyd is a speaker and consultant and author of Supercharged Retirement: Ditch the Rocking Chair, Trash the Remote, and Do What You Love.  Her passion is in capitalizing on the potential of those over 50.  For more, please visit her website http://www.mining-silver.com.  She can be reached at mary@mining-silver.com.

By Mary Lloyd, CEO, Mining Silver LLC

This article initially appeared in the November edition of Barbara Morris’s online newsletter Put Old on Hold.

 We’ve reached my least favorite month of the year–“dreaded November.”  Growing up in Wisconsin, January was the daunting month.  But snow and subzero temperatures pale in comparison to what November dishes up in the Pacific Northwest.  It’s dark enough to develop photographs at my dining room table at noon and the rain and wind just keep on coming.  Ah, November…  The perfect time to look at the wisdom of learning to wait.

The gloom and cold and Mother Nature’s nasty fits have sweet purpose for everything in the yard that has either died or gone dormant and for us, as a reminder that resting is an important part of living well.

The “fun” parts of cycles are easy to get used to—the growing, the flowering, the fruit.  But this is the time of year that reminds us that things die.  The lovely blue lobelia.  The crimson leaves of the maple.  The zucchini plant (finally!).  Quite a lot stops being what it was–some permanently and some until next spring.  The idea that “it’s over” is not so uplifting for most of us.  But it’s every bit as important in the cycle as the flashier parts.

Nature going dormant reminds us that parts of our lives need to die sometimes, too.  Friendships, pastimes, jobs we thought we’d have until we retired.  The reasons for the end of each are more complex than with plants.  But they have reached that same point in the cycle–an ending.  Endings come just slightly before the next beginning if you let them. 

Maybe the friend moved away.  Maybe the hobby got boring.  The person you can’t love anymore may have died in the real sense or just in how you saw him or her.  The job—and maybe the whole company—may have gotten eliminated.   It’s easy to get comfy with what we like and expect it to go on forever.  But that’s the natural progression of things.

Most of us aren’t very good at dealing with these little deaths.  Instead of seeing them for what they are–necessary transitions—we dwell on what was, convinced that’s what still should be.  Every time we do that, we miss the point, and the chance to savor that quiet time that comes before starting again.

Being still and waiting is not easy in this age of instant everything.  We flip a switch and have light and move from place to place on seventy-miles-per-hour freeways.  We can buy or learn anything we want at any time of day online.  But the downtime that comes when something ends has lots to offer.

First, of course, we get to rest.  But we tell ourselves we don’t have time for that.  This rest is important for more than relieving weary bones though.  Getting clear of what was before you move on to what’s next streamlines the process in the long run.  Letting an idea steep for a while often gives it additional depth and breadth.  Waiting instead of jumping into the next thing as soon as the last one is finished can give you much needed perspective that makes it easier to get things to go right once you do get going.

But how do you wait? 

With patience.  Much as we want to believe we have total control, we don’t.  Things happen when they are supposed to not when we think they are supposed to.   The simple act of accepting that notion is powerful.

With hope.  Wise waiting includes believing that good things are on the way.  Getting things to grow involves trusting they will.  When you don’t believe what you want, need, and are focused on will come, you keep changing course—sort of like planting different seeds in the same spot the garden every other week. 

And with gratitude.  Being grateful you’re part of something bigger than your personal timetable is the fast route to serenity.  Let life be what it is and you will automatically slow down when the chance presents itself.

Whether it’s kids or carrots, growth is never uniform and consistent.  There are spurts and there are plateaus.  There are times when you wonder if you really did plant what you thought you did because nothing’s coming up.  Respect those times.  Let that part of you be dormant.  Wait.  Trust that growth will come again.  That your efforts will bloom and bear fruit.  

Even when it’s dark and cold and wet outside, the warm fire of promise burns inside you.  That makes resting good.

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Mary Lloyd is a speaker and consultant and author of Supercharged Retirement: Ditch the Rocking Chair, Trash the Remote, and Do What You Love.  Her passion is in capitalizing on the potential of those over 50.  For more, please visit her website http://www.mining-silver.com.  She can be reached at mary@mining-silver.com.

By Mary Lloyd  CEO, Mining Silver

Last week I got my carpeting replaced.  I live in a small house, but there’s a lot of carpeting.  And it had been there for twenty years, so pulling it up could not have been a very pleasant job.

But the two guys who did the work conversed pleasantly, with lots of good-hearted laughing, whenever they were working near enough to talk to each other.  What an unexpected lesson in how to work happy!

They both seemed very pleased to be doing what they were doing and did it well.  But they also did it in a way that took them home in a good mood.  How many of us approach our work that way?  If I’m not paying attention, I can make myself grumpy getting the simplest things done and I’m my own boss! 

I wish I could tell you the secret of their attitude effectiveness, but I can’t.  I understood the laughter, but I didn’t grasp one word of what they were saying.  They were speaking Russian.

If you are ready to suggest that they were probably making fun of me, my choice of carpet, or my house, shame on you!  I’m a psychologist and a screenwriter by training.  I can deduce a lot from tone of voice and pitch.  These guys were happy.  Open.  Enthusiastic.

When I spoke to the salesman who sold me the carpet about them after they finished the job, I learned the lead guy is willing to work every day of the year if they want him to.  He will work 18-hour days if needed.  He trains other young Ukranian guys in his trade so they can have a good future in this country as well. And in his spare time, he’s building a house for his parents–since he’s already built one for his own family.

This isn’t about how unique this guy is–much as he is.  This is about the power of wanting to work.  It’s a mindset that’s gotten very little encouragement in the last fifty years in the US.  With the economy retching and writhing, perhaps we are getting back to it.  That would be so good.

Maybe those of us who’ve been blessed with all this opportunity will start to see work as a plus and a joy again.  And maybe we will be healthier simply because we have relearned how to be happy at work.

by Mary Lloyd,   CEO, Mining Silver

A while ago I wrote a piece on how being good at what you do is the best job insurance you can ever invest in.  Being good at what you do makes you too valuable to let go.   It makes you the best candidate for the new, bigger challenge.  And it makes you want to go to work–and enjoy being there.

Sounds like that should be it, right.  End of helpful suggestion, friendly advice, or whatever you want to call it.  However, most of us assume we are good at what we do without ever bothering to work at it.  And without looking for feedback to confirm our comfortable assumptions.

You don’t want to believe that you’re one of those, right? We all do it.  So the first step toward being really good, instead of just thinking you are, is to adopt an ongoing attitude of wanting to improve.

Perhaps you’re thinking that’s just not worth the effort.  When the economy is sour and pink slips are flying like snowflakes in January, the ”safer” inclination is to keep your head down.  To do what you are told and not try anything more.  Out of sight, out of the axeman’s mind, right? 

Not really.  The more you do to help the company make it through the bad times, the better your chances of being there–and on a fast track–when things improve.  That’s true whether you’re 23 or 63.

So…what can you do to be better at what you’re doing than you are today?  How can you know more–about the product, the customer, the competition?  How can you gain better skills–at telephone communication, writing effective e-mails, calling only essential meetings?  How can you do better with the paperwork?

Even in the perfect job, there are things that aren’t exactly bliss to accomplish.   If you’re good at what you do, you get them done timely anyway–without anyone having to hound you.  People who are good at what they do prepare.   And they follow up.  Are you an ace at all of that?

It doesn’t make any difference if you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or the volunteer who gives cookies to donors once they’ve given blood, being good at what you do makes whatever you are involved in better for those you interact with.  That’s one payoff–people like working with you.

It also makes whatever you are doing better for you.  The phrase “half-hearted effort” says it all.  If you don’t care about what you are doing, doing it leaves you with half a heart.  It’s a case of prostitution in a way.  You’re selling your effort to something you don’t care about for some other benefit–money, social acceptance, being considered “holy,”  whatever.  

If you don’t like what you are doing, you need to find something else to do.  Something that you WANT to do–and want to be good at.

There are many aspects to this quest for excellence, but the first one has to be that you WANT TO BE GOOD AT IT.  You can be ten years old with your first paper route or ninety-two and playing roles as a patient for med students at some university–or smack dab in the middle of an “ordinary” career with too much work and not enough resources.  It doesn’t make any difference where you are when you decide to honor yourself by seeking to be outstanding at what you do.  It just means that you have found a path that will sustain you for your entire life.

Being good at what you do gives you traction externally, by being a valuable resource to the compnay and its customers.  It also give you more power internally because it helps you feel competent–and confident.   

So that’s the first step:  WANT to be good at what you’re putting your effort into.  I’ll offer more in the next few weeks on ways to do it–finding good resources, getting accurate feedback, and staying the course after a not-so-stellar performance. 

No matter what your age, being good at what you do is worth the effort.

By Mary Lloyd, CEO, Mining Silver

This article originally appeared in the Oct 2009 edition of Barbara Morris’s online newlsetter Put Old on Hold

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This idea that we must focus exclusively on advancement as a career path needs an overhaul.  We sacrifice “out” into a broader life experience and “around” into a more meaningful context when all we worry about is  “up” in our work lives.

A while back I did a presentation about giving older workers a way to keep working on a flexible basis.  That’s important, but it’s only part of the picture.  A wise 40-year old who spoke to me after the speech hammered this home when he said “You need to do something for those of us standing in line who deserve a chance to lead, too.”  He’s right.  This is not  just a case of letting the venerables of the company show up when they feel like it.

“Career” entered the corporate lexicon in the 1960’s.  Since then, the assumed career path is “Work hard, climb the ladder.  Work harder.  Climb higher.  And higher still if you can.  Then retire.”  And fall off the ladder instantly.

The going-up is full of stress and the going-down is WAY too abrupt.   Why do we keep doing it this way?
 
The current economic mess makes us yearn for the up….up….up.  But is a rocket the best analogy for fashioning a career?  It assumes one launch and then a climb into the stratosphere in a steady trajectory to great things–and then oblivion.  We miss so much using this image. Careers can have any shape.  The best is allows you to live the rest of your life at the same time. 

So back to the dilemma of giving retirement-aged workers meaningful opportunities AND young lions the chance to prove themselves as leaders.  We need to do both, but to get to that point, we need to change our sense of career trajectory.  A good career is not just a case of going up and up and up.  It also needs to include a well-thought stage of coming back down.    The way we currently do it is an  ascending straight line with a precipitous fall once we get to retirement. 

An inverted “U” with salary changes in sync with workload would be far more effective.  This would be good for employers who wouldn’t be paying fulltime salaries to people who are starting to throttle back unconsciously.  It would be better for employees since they could stay involved longer abd not deal with the abrupt changes and resulting physical and emotional perils of the traditional version of a career end.

Eventually, companies large and small will use their most experienced people as mentor and coach long term so the company gets the most benefit from their extensive experience.  Then younger leaders shouldering top roles will have access to wise counsel in their decision-making and fatr more extensive resouces for learning what their new roles involve.  At the same time, older workers will know their expertise is valued even as they are paid for fewer hours.

We need to get rid of the idea that throttling back implies a demotion to make this work though.  Cutting back on workload–with a resulting reduction in pay–in late career should be an assumed part of a career path.  If we were REALLY good at this, going to half time when kids are young or to care for a sick loved one would also be accepted practice.   We need to learn to value this kind of flexibility rather seeing it as a flaw or mistake when somone adopts it.

But we’re still fixated on rockets—launch, go into orbit, and stay there.  In reality, careers are more a series of attempts with varied outcomes and additional launches.  Consciously deciding what level we are shooting for each time we launch would be so much smarter.  With a young family or an ailing loved one, we shouldn’t shoot so high.  When we’ve already achieved a lot, moving from leading to giving wise couns–and making room for other things in your life–can be energizing.

A career is more like the space shuttle than the booster rockets that get it into space.  Yeah, there is a big deal launch, and a lot goes into getting ready.  But a shuttle does more than one mission.  It handles the garbage as part of its return duties.  It corrects problems it didn’t create.  And sometimes it gets into dilemmas that weren’t supposed to be part of the mission.  But most to the point, it’s really good at COMING BACK DOWN. 

We need to learn to come back down as part of a career path.  To throttle back as needed so that the rest of life occurs for the entire trip.  We need to launch more than once and when something doesn’t work, launch again without any of the current “failure” mindset. 

The ultimate value of a career is not in the height of the trajectory.  It’s in the quality of the life you lived while you were in it.

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Mary Lloyd is a speaker and consultant and author of Supercharged Retirement: Ditch the Rocking Chair, Trash the Remote, and Do What You Love.  Her passion is in capitalizing on the potential of those over 50.  Her website is http://www.mining-silver.com.  She can be reached at mary@mining-silver.com.

by Mary Lloyd, CEO, Mining Silver 

Assuming retirement is the only way to get balance in our lives is silly.  But achieving balance while employed fulltime takes some effort—and courage.  Would your life be better if your work was shaped differently?

Some basic questions:

Does what you do have to be done during regular work hours?   The “9 to 5” job is essential when the next guy is adding a bolt to the assemblage you just worked on.  It was also best when the fastest way to share information was to stop at the desk of the coworker you needed to talk to.  But today’s “product” is often information and the quickest way to get it to someone else is electronically–even if you’re sitting next to him. 

If you work with information, you might well be able to do it just as well in the middle of the night.  If what you do is independent of what others do for the majority of the process, when you get it done might be negotiable—as long as you know how to do it.  

Does your work have to be done at the Company’s physical location?  Working at home is far more productive for many employees.  Some companies have reduced the amount of space they lease for doing business by using this strategy.  Both Company and individual worker can benefit big time with telecommuting arrangements if they are carefully crafted.  What would you lose by working off site?  What would the Company gain?

Is it essential to work for someone else?  Yes, you need a paycheck, but lots of people do very well pursuing them as freelancers and contract employees.  Being your own boss gives you the most flexibility for meshing work with the rest of your life. 

But there are risks.  If you think working for yourself is the answer, do your homework.  What’s the market for what you want to do, who will hire you, will that kind of work go on indefinitely, etc.

If you decide to go for it, there’s set-up work to be done to get it right.   Success hinges on the following, at a minimum:

• Prove to your boss that you are productive without constant supervision.  You have to be a “self-starter” to be able to not work at the office.  From this day on, get things done without asking unnecessary questions, calling avoidable meetings, and otherwise wasting time—yours and others’.  Get on with the task before someone checks to see if you are working on it.  (Waiting to start until a supervisor—or the person who needs it—asks how far you are on a project will imprison you in that cubicle forever.) 

Work smarter.  Get hints from the “old pros.”  Don’t spend work time on non-work activities (personal phone calls, texting, online games, social sites).  How can your boss trust you to work at home if you’re playing solitaire every time she walks by your desk?

• Be incredibly good at what you do.  Learn your craft and develop an in-depth knowledge base.  Learn the interpersonal territory well, too–be it as a sales person, a supervisor, or a troubleshooter.  Become aware of how well you are doing the job relative to others at your company and beyond.  Strive to excel.  Do this before you utter one word about working from home or with unconventional hours. 

Being really good at what you is prime job insurance.  It’s also going to be your ace when you start talking to your boss about a different way to work.

• Design your nontraditional strategy so that improves your quality of life rather than just complicating it.  Everyone else is still going to be working the old way.  Set boundaries so their inefficiencies and interruptions don’t invade the time you’ve opened up for other things.  

Be accommodating on legitimate requests.  But get proficient at saying “no” to the people who want you to do their jobs because you know more than they do.  (This is the one negative of being good at what you do.) 

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This post originally appeared as an article in the August edition of Barbara Morris’s online newsletter Put Old on Hold.

by Mary Lloyd, CEO,Mining Silver
 
Norman Vincent Peale was promoting positive thinking way back in 1952.  Motivational speakers have been proselytizing about it for decades.  These days you’ll find it in “The Secret.”  But even with all that, our focus now is most often on the negatives—what to avoid, be afraid of, or worry about.  That’s not so good.  Negative thinking has some really nasty side effects. 
 
Take nutrition, for example.  We’re supposed to avoid trans fats.  And high fructose corn syrup.  And genetically altered food.  To get rid of free radicals and reduce our cholesterol.  We avoid red meat and bottled water and anything that came from Mexico—or is it Timbuktu this week?  Fresh greens are the road to certain death as is peanut butter—or whatever has been most recently found to have something nasty in it  SOMEWHERE. 
 
Be careful.  Be VERY careful.  Be afraid of what you might eat by accident. 
 
There’s so much more joy in eating gorgeous food that you meet raw and cook with love.  Beautiful food is good for you. How about doing that instead of trying to avoid what isn’t.
 
Food is just one arena.  There’s stuff to avoid in every facet of life.  Scams. Toxic personalities.  Sunshine–at least without sunscreen.  Binge shopping. Crow’s feet.  Traffic jams.  Weeds.  Spam.  Mean people. Burn out…  The list goes on and on and on.  Persuasive content these days is aimed at getting you to NOT have something happen, be it identity theft or erectile dysfunction.

We pay a huge price doing it this way.
 
Negative thinking puts you on alert:  There is danger–something that’s not good for you that you need to do something about.  Something to fear.  Something to worry about.  Your entire body stays on alert, waiting for further instructions on whether to fight the thing or run like hell.  These are other words for “stress.”  By worrying, we increase our odds of a heart attack, stroke, or some other health problem. 
 
Most of what we are afraid of isn’t even real.  It’s projections of a future that hasn’t happened—and probably won’t.  If you’re afraid of the pit bull that’s snarling at you, that’s smart and it’s time for action.  But being afraid of what you might eat is silly.
 
Trying to avoid all future risk is futile.  Why not enjoy what’s going on right now, instead?  Doing that increases your immune levels, reduces your stress, and, of course, makes life more fun moment to moment.
Being happy provides an energy boost that makes life easier.

So how can you be positive in this negative world? 
 
Choose it.  Consciously search for the positive in whatever you’re dealing with. 
 
Be grateful. When you acknowledge what you have, the wisdom to see that specific blessing links to an overall sense of wellbeing.
 
Ignore the naysayers.  Even if they are people you love and live with.  Imagine an invisible wall of positive energy between you and that toxic thinking, keeping you from falling prey to the worry and woe.

Yes, it’s easy to get caught up in the negatives.   Try not to.  The benefits of being happy far outweigh this unachievable effort to be 100% safe.  As long as you’re alive, there will be risks.  They will be no greater if you choose to be happy–and may actually be far less.  Regardless, life is sweeter when you see the pluses—and there always are some.

By Mary Lloyd, CEO, Mining Silver LLC

This article initially appeared as an article in the online newsletter Put Old on Hold, edited by Barbara Morris.

The dramas of daily life can be painful. The snub. The really mean person. Someone else’s problem that you drop everything to solve. We think these dramas are caused by other people. But the truth is we create them ourselves–when we are too wound up in what’s going on to pay attention to what we’re really trying to do.

I got wise to this recently while trying to figure out that most difficult of challenges—how to be happy with someone of the opposite sex. I was raised in a very traditional family. By the time I was ten, I was very good at figuring out what other people needed and making sure I did what I could for them to get it. By age twelve, I was also good at constructing stories in my head about why I didn’t get what I wanted…needed…deserved in the same way. By the time I got to dating, both those behaviors were entrenched.

I’ve made great progress in getting rid of these dumb ideas, but with a guy, I regress to “terminal unidirectional giving mode” after the first date. It’s an unworkable approach, so I end up feeling blue–about something I said, something he said, something I wanted to happen that didn’t, etc. The “couple drama.”

My current goal is to be really good at living in the Now. All the baloney I’ve been feeding myself about how men and women are supposed to relate is built on old, stale information that’s completely out of sync with what I need to do to relate well now to a man—to anyone for that matter.

But knowing that mentally isn’t enough. You need to consciously FEEL the dissonance you’re creating with your negative drama on an emotional level to be able to let it go. When you catch yourself feeling blue—or angry or anxious—you can learn what you were telling yourself that triggered the feeling instantly.

After I learned to do that, an interesting thing happened. I realized the man who made me blue was not the man I was dating. The guy who left me dissatisfied was a made-up character I created myself—out of all that old, stale information that I thought was gone.

So I named him. Robert Funk. Whenever Robert’s around, I end up in a funk because of the negative ideas I hear from him. I like my man friend—he’s a pleasant, happy guy. I don’t like Robert Funk. He makes me feel bad. Now that I know I created him, I can just tell him to go away. Robert Funk doesn’t belong in my life. So long, big guy.

Have you created a Robert Funk for yourself? If you have expectations that your relationship is supposed to proceed a certain way– that he (or she) should call at a certain time or provide a certain level of financial comfort or share deepest secrets—then you’ve got your own little “couple drama” going. You don’t need it.

Once I met Robert Funk, I noticed the other characters I write scripts for. Jenny Gotta gets the lead a lot. She’s boring–all she does is work. I need to banish her, but she has such great reasons for doing it her way. “Good girls get the work done.” “Nice people do what they said they would.” “You have to do the work if you want to succeed.” Sorry, Jenny. You’re outta here.

Then there’s John Sturdy. He makes me do more work than I should be doing. John convinces me to take on massive physical projects meant for someone bigger and stronger—or that I could hire done. He talks me into finishing work at 2:00AM. John doesn’t understand the word “relax.” An excessive workload makes me feel strong and independent—but also worn out and alone. And by doing it that way, I miss one of the richest interactions available to a human—the give and take of helping. Bye, John.

There are others, but these three seem to be in the middle of most of the unhappy scenes in my life. Every one of them is fiction. Creative writing I do in useless support of emotional delusion. They aren’t real and they diminish my life with what they tell me. It’s time to send them all packing. Finally.

How about you? Any great drama in your life? If you’re doing this kind of stuff, find a better use of your creative talent. The emotional drama thing serves no good purpose. And it’s not fun. Just familiar.

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Mary Lloyd is author of Supercharged Retirement: Ditch the Rocking Chair, Trash the Remote, and Do What You Love. She offers seminars on creating a meaningful retirement and consults to businesses on how to use older talent well. She’s available as a speaker. For more on dealing well with life go to => http://www.mining-silver.com.

From Mary Lloyd, Mining Silver

This is the third of our year-long series of questions.  And this month’s comes as March goes out like a lion for a lot of us.  Flooding, snowstorms, and other nasty weather are worrying us all over the country.  And globally, we are all still stuck with this mess of an economy.  That’s a lot to get stressed about.  And most of us know all too well what stress feels like.
This month, let’s flip that and look at the opposite.  Let’s consider what “relaxed” feels like.  For April, please give us your comments to the following question:

How do you know when you’re relaxed?

Please take the time to register and leave your opinion.  We’d love to hear what you think!