Times of Transition

Times of Transition

By Michelle Meyer|2016-11-21T11:37:26-06:00November 13th, 2015|Blog|

How do you know if you’re achieving the balance you need in your life?

It’s actually not rocket science – there are some pretty great tools for assessing yourself.

Since I chose to walk away from Morf3D a few months ago I find myself in a time of transition. Being here reminded me of a huge shift that happened for me a few years ago, when I first experienced the Circle of Life assessment process. It led to some important changes for the better.

I was first asked to plot myself on the “Circle of Life” in 2010. Here’s what I came up with:

Not very balanced! My life was consumed by work, with very little play or exercise. I was fortunate enough to be relatively healthy physically, but I was exhausted, mentally disconnected, and likely on my way to becoming ill with some form of disease.

Looking at this circle, I could actually see the imbalance. Suddenly it was easy to start formulating specific actions I wanted to take to change the (literal) shape of my life. There were several things I did:

I focused on myself first – through the body work I had started with my Rolfing therapist, and through a return to daily walks with the dog whenever I was home.
Next, I added a daily meditation practice and started doing yoga more consistently.
Over the coming months, I reintroduced a couple of things that I loved but had not been doing: sculling and skiing. These gave me both fun and exercise. It was challenging at first, but got easier over time.
I added other things that were fun for me: I started traveling more for my own pleasure, reading more, and doing absolutely nothing without feeling guilty about it.
I stated I wanted to work less for more money – and that started to happen almost immediately.

I assessed myself again in 2013, and looked like this:

Michelle2013

Much more well-rounded – literally! Life had become much easier, and yet I was actually doing more (and working less). I noticed my relationship to time had shifted. Somehow I had more time; my life wasn’t so stressful. And, I was actually making more money! Hmmm, funny how that worked.

At this point I also started working on what I wanted to be doing to contribute in the very long term. That work led to the creation of GirlAuthentic and of Morf3D – both in 2013.

Now, here I am at the end of 2015:

circleoflife2015

This assessment reflects a continued expansion of the circle, which I am very pleased with. I managed to keep the circle expanding even while adding GirlAuthentic and Morf3D. However, I did notice I worked a lot harder this year, and earned a lot less money. Hmmm, going to have to take a look at that.

I think I fell into the trap of believing that to start a company, one must sacrifice everything (time, money and values). Most would say, “that is just the way it is.” But I’m not sure it has to be. I am convinced there is another way – I just didn’t find it the first time.

Which brings me to my current “time of transition.” Times like this always provide an opportunity for new self-assessment, and new changes for the better. I’m not sure how long this period will be – but it’s an opportunity I don’t want to miss.

I have some more processing to do first, to understand the lessons I’ve learned. I’ve got pieces, but I have to keep working to get clarity. That will lead to more formulating of what the next attempt will look like to continue the work of GirlAuthentic and of building a company based on my vision of contributing to an abundant, healthy, equitable, sustainable, balanced world by building a business rooted in being healthy, equitable, and balanced. Building a business based on being that way myself.

The work continues – and that’s just me! If you’d like to try the Circle of Life for yourself, you can get started by printing the pdf below. Better yet, look for a certified coach to guide you through the process! My nutritionist, Kelly Hoogenakker, first introduced me to the program – I’m sure someone like her could help you too.

If you’ve tried the Circle of Life, leave a comment below! I’d love to learn from your experiences in pursuing greater balance.

Download the Self-Assessment Worksheet

2

When “Equilibrium” Means “No”

When “Equilibrium” Means “No”

By Michelle Meyer|2015-05-19T14:40:35-05:00February 13th, 2015|Blog|

One of the greatest forces we have for equilibrium is the power of our own choices.

I was reminded of this last month as I sat wringing my hands in Galway, Ireland, making a choice of my own. It was New Year’s Day, I was midway through a wonderful vacation with my family – and I was supposed to be working.

My December hadn’t gone the way I thought it would. I’d been planning to have that whole month at home, not traveling, to work on a long list of things I wanted finished by the end of 2014. Among them was a January blog post for this website, GirlAuthentic. I like to send these posts to my creative team by the beginning of each month so we can workshop things a little. So December was my window.

Well, that didn’t happen. Instead of being at home working, I found myself traveling every week of December – right up until Christmas. Two days after that I left for a 2-week vacation in Ireland and the U.K. with my kids. That’s how I got to Galway. Behind on my work. With friendly e-mail check-ins and reminders coming from my team. Where was the January post? Would it be ready soon?

You know that “ugh” feeling? I had that feeling.

And I had a choice to make. I could take time away from my kids to write a blog draft – which I chose not to do. I could get a little less sleep one vacation night and write the draft at the end of one of our long days together – which I chose not to do, either. Or I could choose to not work, to just be present with my family, even if it meant waiting until February to get the year started for the GirlAuthentic blog.

That’s the choice I made. For me, that choice was equilibrium (although it didn’t completely relieve that “ugh” feeling).

At the top of this page you can see the tagline for GirlAuthentic – “Equilibrium at Work.” It’s a brilliant phrase suggested by a brilliant woman who helped me put a lot of the look and feel of GirlAuthentic together (thanks Jessica!). Over the last year and a half I’ve found this play-on-words can mean a lot of different things to different people.

Is “Equilibrium at Work” about equal numbers of women and men in the workplace? Is it about a feeling of balance or equilibrium for your team – or for you personally? Is it about what happens after we achieve this equilibrium, when it begins to truly work for us?

Last month, for me, “Equilibrium at Work” meant one word: No. It meant I had a choice, and I could use that choice to feel more balanced in my own life. You can, too.

As someone else reminded me last year, it helps to look at the big picture. This person pointed out that true progress, considering all GirlAuthentic represents, is measured best in terms of decades. I had always had that thought in the back of my mind, but also sort of felt like I wasn’t living up to delivering on expectations (I’m not sure whose!) if I didn’t make things move faster.

It was such a relief in a way to give myself permission to approach this effort in terms of decades, not just months. Skipping one month of the blog, in the course of a couple of decades, wasn’t going to be the end of the world. But it would increase equilibrium in my own life.

And now – back to work.

0

Bye-bye to the Long-Hours Culture

Bye-bye to the Long-Hours Culture

By Michelle Meyer|2015-05-19T14:43:59-05:00December 11th, 2014|Blog|

BlogHeader_Dec14Email

The title above was the subtitle of a recent article by Lucy Kellaway, a columnist for the Financial Times. This full-page piece ran in the Business section of “The World in 2015,” by The Economist. I was so excited to see a global periodical dedicate a full page of commentary to changing attitudes on work hours.

Why? Because women have been leading the way on this issue for years – but it’s not actually a women’s issue.

Kellaway says it will soon be “cool” for executives to put a stop to unhealthy work habits and start working more efficiently between 9 and 5. Her piece describes the future like this: “Holidays will be holidays. The out-of-office email will no longer be followed by a reply from the ski-slopes. A spare jacket will no longer be needed on the back of the office chair, as going home will be all the rage. To get your work done by a reasonable hour will not be a sign that you are a slacker, but that you are working efficiently.”

I’ll take it! And Kellaway isn’t alone – there has been a lot of writing this year about how we need to adjust the culture that rewards workaholic behavior. I think the conversation starts by asking “why”: Why should taking time off work (for anything – children, sabbaticals, taking care of a sick parent, simply taking a break, whatever it may be) mean you automatically get dinged in terms of salary or promotions? Why do we assume that if you forego those activities you deserve higher pay or an earlier promotion? That simply reinforces a workaholic reward culture – or worse, it actually rewards a person for being less productive and less efficient with their time.

Of course, this piece was published in The Economist – a European periodical. Our friends across the ocean have been leading the way for a long time on healthier attitudes toward work. European workers take more vacation and work more reasonable hours than their American counterparts. How flabbergasting for us that they still manage to have global economies!

It isn’t just Europeans leading this conversation – it’s women. We’re lucky in a way – because this has mostly been framed as a gender issue or a women’s issue in the past, we’ve gotten to frame the conversation, ask the questions, and create something new.

What’s the something new? The idea that this is not a gender issue after all. This is a labor issue. Many men are looking for as much freedom from the old behaviors as women are – women have just been more vocal about it thus far. But this isn’t a “women’s issue” – it’s a human issue.

I love conversations like these, because they help us create a better future. But I still believe it’s going to take a long time to actually change the culture of unhealthy work habits – and I’m impatient.

That’s why, over and over at GirlAuthentic, we’re proposing a shortcut. Instead of waiting for the old businesses to change, we need to be about creating new businesses with healthier cultures that will bring sanity for those who want it.

Who’s going to create those businesses? Women, we need you to lead the way again.

0

Is your workplace built on love – or fear? Here are 2 ways to tell.

Is your workplace built on love – or fear? Here are 2 ways to tell.

By Michelle Meyer|2015-05-19T14:45:19-05:00July 17th, 2014|Blog, Women and the Workplace|

We are embedded in fear – more deeply than we realize, much of the time. It’s ingrained, so we don’t even realize it much of the time. It’s become part of our autopilot at work – and in life.

If you want to see whether you’re operating mostly out of fear or out of love, there are two places to look: the actions you take and the language you use.

Fear actions:

Monitoring people’s time at work (because you’re afraid they won’t work otherwise)
Not talking about whether the women are being paid the same as the men for the same job (because you’re afraid of retribution)
Tolerating abusive, bullying behavior (because you’re afraid of being labeled a “whiner”)
Continuing to work somewhere where you’re not happy (because you’re afraid of the unknown)

Love actions:

Allowing people to manage their own schedules (because you trust they want to do good work and will get their work done)
Paying women the same as the men without being asked/coerced (because it’s simply the right thing to do)
Enforcing the “No Asshole Rule” (because you love others)
Moving toward what feels good or right in your career (because you also love yourself)

You can see this fear-versus-love dichotomy in the actions we take all day long – or you can look for it in the words we use. How do you talk about competitors, colleagues, customers, and other institutions?

Fear language aligns us against others:
Win, Beat, Dominate, Crush, Annihilate, “War on…”, Adversary, Knockout, Attack, Closed, Control, Kill, Defeat, Faction, Enemy

Love language aligns us with others:
Trust, Serve, Join, Collaborate, Share, Open, Transform, Build, Give-and-Take, Care, Seek, Generosity, Allow, Build, Partner, Connection

As we focus on operating from love, not from fear, we can create environments that help and support us. We may not know exactly how that is going to look – which makes us afraid. But we can have the faith that we are being presented with everything we need at the moment – which is living in love.

I believe we can use these perspectives, behaviors, and language to create the companies and social structures we all want to operate in. What do you think?

4

behaviors

Times of Transition

How do you know if you’re achieving the balance you need in your life?

I focused on myself first – through the body work I had started with my Rolfing therapist, and through a return to daily walks with the dog whenever I was home.

Next, I added a daily meditation practice and started doing yoga more consistently.

Over the coming months, I reintroduced a couple of things that I loved but had not been doing: sculling and skiing. These gave me both fun and exercise. It was challenging at first, but got easier over time.

I added other things that were fun for me: I started traveling more for my own pleasure, reading more, and doing absolutely nothing without feeling guilty about it.

I stated I wanted to work less for more money – and that started to happen almost immediately.

Download the Self-Assessment Worksheet

When “Equilibrium” Means “No”

One of the greatest forces we have for equilibrium is the power of our own choices.

Bye-bye to the Long-Hours Culture

Is your workplace built on love – or fear? Here are 2 ways to tell.

We are embedded in fear – more deeply than we realize, much of the time. It’s ingrained, so we don’t even realize it much of the time. It’s become part of our autopilot at work – and in life.