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Issue # 10 September 14, 1998
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About the Author:
Sherry Lowry is a Austin-based
business coach who works nationally and
internationally with executives, manages, business owners other coaches,
psychologists and therapists. She brings experience to her clients as a
founder and developer of 7 businesses, including one non-profit organization,
as a consultant and trainer, and professional mentor. Co-leading group
telecalls (via regular telephone connection) and telegroup series is a
speciality....with other field experts on corporate marketing, using public
speaking as a marketing took, marketing with heart, and offers with Diane
Menendez special teleclasses for mental health professionals transitioning as
coaches. In 1996, Sherry founded and continues to host The Coaches’ Showcase,
a free theme-based telegroup exchange with some of the industry’s most
experienced coaches. Also useful is her online collection of The Lowry Notes -
free to the public at her WWW site. She holds two traditional graduate degrees
and has completed the Coach University curriculum. She is on the Board of
International Coach Federation and is a member of Professional Coaches’ and
Mentor’s Association and Texas Executive Women.
Contact info:
Sherry Lowry, MCC
Austin, Texas, USA
Ph: 512-527-0097
Email: sherry@sherrylowry.com
Web site: www.sherrylowry.com.
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Mission Possible
Part Two of Two
Recall from last week that "Your mission, Reader, should you choose to accept it, is to develop a Mission: Possible for your work and your life." See Issue #9 for the first five steps in completing that mission... and find here the remaining six.
6. Rank Possibilities.
For each of the clusters you've created, rank its
appeal for you, as High, Medium, or
Low. No need to justify why something appeals to
you--just trust your gut feeling about it and pay attention to your
energy and excitement as you imagine yourself carrying out the idea.
The trick here is to actually let yourself imagine you are doing
this thing. Then do the ranking. Don't just read the phrase
and rank without actually letting yourself have a fantasy about doing
it.
In our earlier article, Your Personal Declaration of Essence (Issue #7), we talked about Joan's work on Vision and Purpose. Joan's rankings for this
activity could have looked something like this:
High
consulting with leaders of Fortune 500 companies (in her own city, without air travel)
keynoting at leadership conferences
writing a book on leadership factors of executives of recently merged companies
Medium
writing a column on business communications in a local newspaperTER>€
(national would have had High appeal for her)
creating a new seminar on business communication
training corporate staffs in communication during times of major change
Low
speaking internationally (too much travel!)
teaching at a local university
developing curriculum for an on-line weekly class on writing via chat mode on the WWW
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Go back and circle or highlight the Highs. These are the ones you'll be working with below.
7. Identify Your Top Choices
Using the "High" list, identify your top choices. How? Use these 4 criteria:
- Great appeal for you--
you're excited about it
- Lets you satisfy your Needs easily and readily, without struggle
- Lets you use your Gifts
- Lets you live through your Values.
We suggest you find your top 3-5 choices. But if you have more
possibilities right now, you can work through your entire list.
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About the Author:
Diane Menendez, Ph.D., is a business and personal success coach. She has been
coaching since 1983 when she began the High Performance Coaching process as an
internal staff coach at AT&T. Since 1988 she has coached more than 250
business executives in Fortune 100 companies and has provided leadership for
company-wide efforts in executive and leadership development. Menendez’s
special niche in executive coaching is providing support to leaders of rapidly
changing industries who are committed to transforming their personal
leadership styles. She has successfully also transferred her skills to work
with entrepreneurs, other business owners, family owned business leadership,
and non-profit executives and their organizations. She created Results-Focused
Leadership Development, an intensive, creative and empowering process that
influences and inspires client to fully develop their leadership potential
while supporting their company’s mission and goals. Her passions are inspiring
the success of family business members, entrepreneurs and therapists and other
professionals in transition. Her www domain name, HeartDance.com, is an
expression of her belief that, "Our work can bring us joy as well as financial
rewards." Yes, that’s what she means -- real joy, enough to make your heart
dance.
Contact info: HeartDance, Cincinnati, Ohio USA, 513-474-1137
1-800-882-9383;
Email: diane@heartdance.com
Web Site:
www.heartdance.com.
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8. List Major Blocks to Success, Obstacles to be Overcome.
Time to do a reality check. For each of the Top Choices you've
listed, identify the top obstacle that could block your
success. For each obstacle, identify the first steps you could take to
overcome the primary obstacles. How feasible is each in the time-frame
of the upcoming year. Check your resources--what will you need that you
don't have now? Any need for new skills, special talents, or financial
resources? Check your energy level around each: do you have what it
takes to move it forward?
9. Re-rate Your Options. Let the Top Choice(s) Emerge.
Take each of the top choices you've worked through the rate them
again, as High, Medium or Low.
By this point you will know that some are not likely to
be successful. Let them drop off your list. Others may not be
attractive to you any longer. But several will start to stand out to you
as attractive. Let yourself name the top ones. Once you make even one
piece of a decision, the likelihood is that this will release energy for
you to fully decide the rest.
10. Use T.E.P. to Whittle Down Your List.
Put the name of each remaining option on a 3" x 5" card. Sort
the cards by T.E.P.: Your willingness to invest
Time, Energy, and Planning in each. Your #1 option is the one
in which you are most willing to invest.
Put the #1 T.E.P. option on the top card, and label it #1.
Sort the other options accordingly, giving each the number which reflects
their TEP ranking.
Now, spread the cards out and rearrange them from left to right. At the
left, put the option that is the easiest to do. At the
right, place the option that will be the most difficult to
do. Arrange the rest in between.
11. Apply The P.I.P. Factor
Search for the option that gets you the most
P.I.P.--the most Practical, most Interesting and energizing, and most Possible.
Take that one, let yourself identify the barriers and ways to overcome
them (see step 8, above) --and, you're home! You've created
Mission: Possible!
Why Create A Mission?
Your mission provides the concrete path to guide your daily tasks
and decisions. It says what you are willing to do in your life, in
exchange for what you want to gain. Success in your mission brings you
acknowledgment from the world that you're on track, on purpose. And, it
gives you an internal personal sense of accomplishment because
your life is Purpose-full.
Put a Stake in the Ground
Your mission stakes out the territory that you are claiming, the ground
you are willing to stand on publicly and privately. It lets you know what
you can commit to. After all, your integrity is founded on being able to
give and keep your word. So, be clear about what you are claiming.
Clarify your mission so well that it can only
be yours, no one else's.
As Laurie-Beth Jones says in The Path,
"You are either living your mission or you are living someone else's.
Those with a clearly defined mission have always lead those who haven't any."
Coming Attractions!
Next week: another installment of Tips in Leading the Seamless Life™
"Famous Quotations"
September 28: back to the regular bi-weekly series with
"Touchstones"
signals, flags, and identifying cues of becoming Seamless™
E-Mail us with questions or suggestions.
Sherry can be reached at sherry@sherrylowry.com.
Ph: 512-527-0097
Diane and Sherry's book, Discovering Your Best Self Through the Art of Coaching, can be ordered at http://www.sherrylowry.com/book.htm.
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