Self∞Development Network

If only…

Now there are some potentially dangerous words! If only… leads you to spend time and energy focusing on something that didn’t happen. It leaves you regretting — wishing and pining for something that isn’t. And probably can’t be.

My friend and thought-leader Dick Richards, writing in the discussion group dedicated to his excellent book on discovering your own unique genius:

One of my favorite sayings, and I’ve known it so long that I can’t recall if it is my own or I took it from someone else, is, “Every canvas has edges.”

That is an acknowledgement that creativity arises in response to limits. Many people operate as if they believe that creativity arises from freedom. It doesn’t. It arises from freedom within imposed limits.

Photographers know what their instruments will and can’t do. Dancers know what their bodies will and can’t do. Painters know what they can and can’t do with pigments. etc.

Hear me: Individuals and organizations always operate within limits. They always face constraints. Wishing it weren’t so is neither realistic nor productive nor healthy.Individuals and organizations always operate within limits.

If only… is a resignation. It is passive, impotent, and powerless.

When faced with constraints, some people refuse to retreat. Instead, they rally. They declare, “Think outside the box! Color outside the lines!”

Yes. Such sentiments have energy and power. But sometimes when we find ourselves in a situation that confines us, we need to learn to think inside the box. To discover or create new / better / different ways to color inside the lines. To work with fresh perspectives and new ways within the limits that surround us.

And sometimes we need to change the box, to redraw the lines. To find or create a wholly new canvas on which to work.

And such change processes start not with If only…, but with What if…

If only… is a resignation. It is passive, impotent, and powerless.The replacement of one word in a simple two-word conditional phrase totally reframes your response to limits, totally redefines the world. And makes all the difference in the world.

What if… implies creativity, possibilities, action. It has potential. It can infuse you with power — to improve, to create, to change the world.

When you find yourself frustrated by the limits and constraints surrounding you, do two things. First, push to think afresh within those limits, and then consider choosing to muster the courage to change them.

Make a point to make the dramatic, life-altering move from If only… to What if… .

It’s an old saying, but worth hearing and thinking about again…

It’s never too late to have a happy childhood!

The first step, decide to enjoy yourself.

And often that means leaving behind the many little and large hurts of your chronological childhood. You can’t undo or erase them, but you can transcend them — moving on, giving yourself permission to laugh, to abandon your troubles and cares for hours at a time, to enjoy yourself freely and deeply.

Put fun on your agenda. Seek people you want to laugh and smile with. Make time for unpurposeful silliness.

If it’s hard to start, go to a park, a playground, a child’s birthday party. Watch and remember, or learn, how it is to play, to indulge in delightful pleasures with total abandon and no concern for anything else.

And then go forth and do likewise. Be a kid — a deliriously happy kid, whether it’s again or for the first time in your life.

Leave behind your imperfect childhood and your cares as a grown-up.

Giggle, wiggle, heal.

Heeding your intuition can be risky. How do you know if you have “good” information bubbling up from inside you? Should you trust it? What if you just aren’t sure? Can you be sure with intuition?

Scary stuff!

You can’t really prove intuition — that’s something of an oxymoron isn’t it.

For some intriguing thoughts about intuition, check out Debbie Call’s blog, Spirit in Gear. I’ve got a guest post there on my own experience with the fuzzy, squishy, ephemeral (but not effeminate!) quality of intuition. And there are several enlightening entries there addressing this fascinating way of knowing.

Life’s too short and you have too much else going on to tolerate the many annoyances that sap your attention and drain your energy.

Life coach Debbie Call describes such “tolerations” as:

…things that we put up with that drain us of energy. Like an often-used drawer that sticks, or a light bulb that goes out that you haven’t replaced, or a needy friend who sucks you dry. Tolerations can relate to things or relationships, both personal and professional. Some tolerations can be eliminated immediately, through action, or by throwing money at it. Others take much longer to work through, like a boss who puts you down, or a child who is difficult to be around.

Now, if you’ve decided to put up with an annoyance — like driving a long way to a job you really like, or letting your kids have their noisy friends over so that they’re close at hand — well, those are decisions with some costs attached. But not tolerations.

A toleration is when you hear that little voice in your head saying, “Grrrrrrr! I have simply got to get that fixed/attended to” (or whatever action you need to take to eliminate the nagging, irritating, infuriating annoyance).

A great way to fight back against the infuriating and depleting affect of such draining tolerances is to list them.

List as many as you can. Once you start, you might find it very easy to write down 50, a hundred, maybe more — from the most innocuous to significant in various areas of your life: work, family, technology, relationships with loved ones or friends or colleagues, your living quarters, your transportation, your clothing, on and on and on. Everything is fair game.

Then, categorize and prioritize your list. Try putting everything on your list of tolerations into one of these four categories:

1. Eliminate. Do what it takes to rid yourself of the source of your recurring frustration. Take your suckless vacuum cleaner in for repair. Or buy a new one. Cancel your subscription to the magazines that make you feel guilty when you can’t read them. Reserve an hour on Saturday morning to spray lubricant into all the squeaky hinges that are making you batty.
2. Delegate. Get someone else to take care of something that’s irritating you. Risk a few tense moments with your spouse or off-spring to reassign some household chore you just can no longer bring yourself to doing. Consider a trade in duties. Sometimes just making a change in equivalent chores is enough to get you out of your rut. Or hire somebody to do your least favorite chore, even if you have to sacrifice something you like in order to do that.

   We go out to eat less often since hiring a lawn service, but I feel that I’ve gained so much by not “wasting” hours and hours mowing the lawn. (And I do understand that some people, like my next door neighbor Jerry, just love to putter for hours and hours on their lawns. I’m not one of them. To each his own.

   The lesson: Whatever you want to eliminate or delegate in your life is a very personal value judgement and you shouldn’t feel the least bit uncomfortable in admitting to yourself or someone close to you what presses your hot buttons.)

3. Tolerate for now. Sometimes we just need to make peace with an annoyance. There is a timing to everything; and sometimes that is tied to funds or your inability to eliminate something that bugs you because it requires too great a sacrifice. Every prize has its price. And you can’t always be prepared to pay it at this time. BUT, the good news is, even if you have to live with the annoyance a bit longer, just knowing that you’ve decided to do that will make your stress level go down because you’ve moved this particular source of annoyance from a toleration to a choice.
4. Reshape your view of the situation. I used to be very frustrated with having my business in my home spread out on three floors: Office on one; files on another; shipping supplies on still another. But then I recast my view of the situation. It wasn’t a case of “being spread all over the darned place.” Instead, going between the floors was an “opportunity to get up and get a little exercise in the course of the day.” That slight shift in my point of view made a huge difference in eliminating my frustration, and once I became more comfortable with getting up and out of my office chair, I started doing it more often.

   And I dropped a pants size. I didn’t need any fancy gym equipment to get the effect of going up and down steps; I could do that right where I was for no extra charge! And once I got out of the chair more often, it was easier to go outside for a breath of fresh air. And then to take a walk around the block, which helps me to clear my head and recharge my batteries. Another positive unexpected consequence as a bonus to nothing more than a shift in perspective about an otherwise annoying situation. The reality was, the situation was exactly the same as it was when it bugged me so, but my view of it made its effect entirely different.

If you’re breathing, you’re going to encounter plenty of annoyances in this world. But you can take action to both reduce their number and their impact on your quality of life. Don’t wait another moment longer. Start listing — and eliminating or minimizing — the tolerations in your life.

Right now!

Podcast: Listen to this MP3 file of the Labor of Love post.

One of the interesting side-notes to come out of the tragic incident at the Sago Mine in West Virginia last week: Many miners interviewed by the news media told reporters, “I love my job.”

Lousy job. Happy worker.

Now, just how can that be? How can anyone love a job that takes them into the dark, dank, cold bowels of the earth beyond the reach of even one ray of sunshine, for many long hours at a time?

How can anyone love a job that leaves them covered in soot from head to toe; that can pollute their lungs with deadly coal dust; that is hard, back-breaking, and fraught with danger?

How could anyone love a job like that?!

As an AP story put it:

Many people wonder why anyone would want to do such work; miners say they can’t imagine doing anything else.

Despite near-constant peril and ever-present grime, many miners do their job for the same few reasons: good pay, family tradition, the military-like brotherhood and the thrill of making it out alive at the end of the day.

In my experience, people can find themselves in love with most any kind of work. Once as a consultant I was called on to analyze an employee morale problem at a municipal sewerage operation. (This is not a joke.)

I set up a series of private one-on-one interviews with folks who, literally, have a shitty job. I expected to hear rant after rant about what a lousy stinkin’ job they had. And, believe me, it was stinky.When you are unhappy with your job, it’s tempting to just blame the work.

To my total, utter surprise every one of those men told me how they really enjoyed their relatively low-paying public sector job. Some even exuded infectious, ebullient enthusiasm for their work. I was knocked over. And it was not the smell of methane in the little lunch room where we met.

And, at the same time, all complained bitterly about their boss. By all accounts, he was a tyrant.

The point here is: If you aren’t happy in your job, it may not be the work. Perhaps you aren’t well suited to doing the duties. Or they don’t provide you with what you need or want to take from the job.

When you are unhappy with your job, it’s tempting to just blame the work. But it’s also helpful to bear in mind that someone out there loves every kind of job. Even the hardest and dirty, stinking kind.

So when you feel yourself dreading the prospect of another day on the job, step back and work to discover the true source of your angst. Then make a plan and take some action to address what’s not right.

No job will fit you perfectly, but the more you can find to like in what you do all day, the happier you will be. If you can’t find much to like, get about the business of either fixing what’s wrong, adjusting your perspective on the situation, or finding new work.

If you’re earnestly working on some New Year’s resolutions, you may be waiting and hoping for others to notice the “new and improved” you.

Don’t hold your breath.

Janet Hagberg, one of my favorite thought leaders (to whom we’ll turn frequently here for her wisdom), has a great observation about making a personal change.

Don’t expect people to applaud you when you change. Most people are moving too fast to notice. You can applaud yourself.

Yes, indeed.

In fact, I’ll go one step further. Make it a little game. Monitor your progress, give yourself the credit you are due, and take a little secret pride in the fact that no one else has noticed whatever positive evolution you’ve managed to create for yourself.

Why secret pride in going unnoticed? Because that means that you aren’t calling undue attention to yourself; you are not making a “big to do” as you work on you. You are just doing the work for you.

That’s another plus worth celebrating.

If you plan to make resolutions for the coming year, make it worth your while. Don’t just dream and dash off a wish list. Give yourself the gift of New Year’s resolutions that truly give you the life you imagine.

Here’s how.

The following seven powerful techniques will help you take the resolutions you make for the New Year all the way from conception to completion. (Won’t it feel great next December to look back on your New Year’s resolution list with every item checked and crossed off — with a great big circle around Mission Accomplished!)

These tactics apply equally well to goals in both the personal and professional domains of your life.

There is nothing inspiring in listing bland New Year’s resolutions such as lose weight, exercise more, spend more time with the kids, and the like. Or listing workplace goals such as have more staff meetings, build more rapport with peers, improve professional skills…

TIP: Answer this powerful question for every resolution you make: What do I get when I achieve this?

EXAMPLE from the personal domain: It’s not “lose weight” — nor even, “lose 10 pounds by March 1.” Those goals are not likely to sustain you through the hard work you need to put in to meeting the objective. Instead, focus on the True End. What do you get when you do the activity?

How about: “Lose 10 pounds by March 1st so that I can wear clothes that make me look and feel better.”

Or, “Spend at least an hour every other day in totally focused time with the kids so that I can make a significant positive impact on their emotional development.”

EXAMPLE from the workplace: It’s not “have more staff meetings” — nor even, “publish a staff meeting schedule by April 1.” Those goals are not likely to sustain you through the work you need to put in to meeting the objective.

Instead, focus on the True Ends. What do you get when you accomplish the goal? How about: “Publish a schedule for bi-weekly staff meetings by April 1st so that I can learn more about the staff’s perspectives on current projects, reduce bottlenecks in work flow, improve associate engagement, reduce interruptions to my work day, increase work satisfaction and lower stress levels for everyone.”

When you focus on the True Ends, you spell out the benefits you expect to gain as a result of the work you put into pursuing your resolution. That can inspire and sustain you through all kinds of resistance.

Many people fail to achieve their (even very specific and realistic) goals simply because they did not have a plan for executing the activities required to produce the targeted outcomes. If you do not think about and plan the how of your New Year’s resolutions–charting at least an outline of action steps–you have nothing but a dreamer’s wish list. And lofty dreams don’t usually materialize into hard reality all by themselves.

Whatever your resolutions for the coming year, you’ll find them coming to fruition when you pursue them with the twin powers of optimism and discipline.Put some time into crafting an action plan. Pick up a book, do a web search, gather and read information on “best practices” and glean lots of other expert tips on how best to do what you are setting out to do.

Every human activity in the world has been analyzed and cataloged twenty (a thousand) times over. Avail yourself of expert thinking; get smart about the processes that will lead you to achieve your objectives.

No matter how modest or ambitious your goals for the year, chances are that you cannot accomplish your objectives in one swift move — especially if you have done little previous work in the area you’ve targeted for improvement.

Accomplishing your goal comes from incremental achievements.

If you’ve not been very diligent in giving your staff performance feedback, you won’t close the gap by suddenly checking in on your reports every 15-minutes. If you haven’t exercised in a couple of decades, you are unlikely to achieve a goal of winning the Boston Marathon.

So, to make good on your resolution to give your staff more timely and frequent feedback, start making progress by getting away from your own desk at least once a day more than what was you previous habit. After a couple of weeks of doing that, increase the number of conversations you initiate with each staff member to at least one per day. Then gradually ramp up to once in the morning and once in the afternoon.

Targeting several little goals will lead you, rather easily, to your big one. Stair-step your progress: One push up today, three a day by the end of next week, at least 10 a day by next month…

Chart your progress. Keep records that demonstrate your achievements. And then go ahead and bask in the glow of documented accomplishment.

How can you make progressing toward your goal more like enjoyment and less like torture? Working with my coaching clients, I’ve found that there’s almost always a way. Think about shaping the environment surrounding the tasks related to your goal so that you naturally derive pleasure from doing the activities that lead to your attaining your objective.

EXAMPLE from personal life: If you really enjoy being with other people, don’t exercise alone. Find a friend or a group of friends who will join you in the gym. Then, socializing, gossiping and laughing with people you like, you probably won’t hardly even notice the time and effort you now easily spend on the treadmill, stair machines, and the like. The time flies by and you wonder, “Hey, how did I work up such a sweat?”

If socializing isn’t your thing, think about adding music or the great outdoors to your uniquely motivating mix. When I needed to seriously shed pounds and tone muscles a few years ago, I mixed lots of my favorite “pump” music and put it into a portable player. Then I got the best shoes and great outdoor gear I could find so that I could walk and lift weights in the outdoors I so love. RESULT: I lost more than 25 pounds without feeling tortured and I’ve been exercising regularly for more than three years now. I find it absolutely effortless to “psyche up” for the workout because I find it so enjoyable and rewarding on so many levels.

Maybe your nirvana is in a local mall. Or a quiet corner of your basement. Or whatever. The key is to create a rewarding situation that makes your goal activities rewarding in themselves. When it’s rewarding, it’s easy to do. And to keep doing.

EXAMPLE from the workplace: If you want to build relationships with your colleagues, but abhor small talk or feel too distracted by all the “real work” in the office, try making the objective more personally rewarding. Like to golf? Invite some peers out for a casual day on the links. Don’t have an agenda, just spend the day together and let the chitchat lead to deeper bonds. If golf isn’t your sport, go fishing, boating, or have your colleagues over for a barbecue on a Sunday afternoon.

The key is to create a rewarding situation that makes your goal-related activities rewarding in themselves. When it’s rewarding, it’s easy to do. And to keep doing. And that helps you gain without pain.

5. Publicly commit to your goals.

Use the power of public testimony to reinforce your commitment to yourself.

EXAMPLE from personal life: Tell everyone you feel comfortable telling, “I’m giving up cigarette smoking this year.” Or, “I’m going to fit in a size 5 by the end of May.”

Post a chart of your progress on the refrigerator, in your work area.

EXAMPLE from work: Tell your friends outside of work, “I’m going to be a better boss this year by spending more one-on-one time with each of my associates.” Or, “I’m going to complete my projects on time by making a more thorough project plan for every major project I’m involved with.”

Post a reminder of your goals on the refrigerator at home, on your workplace blotter, in your car, wherever you’ll regularly see it.

Keep proclaiming your commitment. Enlist the power of public testimony (and the encouragement of loved ones and friends supporting you). And use the power of frequent reminders to reinforce your commitment.

6. Forgive your little lapses.

No matter how well you plan, how many people you tell, how enjoyable you make the task environment, you are probably gonna slip. It’s okay. You’re human.

Falling off the plan does not mean you’ve failed. Just that you need to get up and get back on the path you had set for yourself. Just dust yourself off, shake off the transgression, and start again.

Here’s the productive cycle for your little stumbles: Forgive, forget, forward!

7. Reward yourself for true progress.

You know very well what would be a great reward for yourself. So you don’t need me to list suggestions.

One caution: Exercise discipline so that you don’t reward yourself in anticipation of making your goal. Rewarding yourself prematurely short-circuits the reinforcement process and defeats the incentive value of the reward. Why bother to work for it if you’ll just hand the goodies to you anyway?

One exception: If you set for yourself a personal goal of slimming down or toning up and that means that you’ll eventually be able to wear clothing that you cannot fit into now, go ahead and buy an outfit that you want to fit into. Hang it up prominently so that you can see it every day. And whisper to it every morning, “Soon. Soon.”

Whatever your resolutions for the coming year, you’ll find them coming to fruition when you pursue them with the twin powers of optimism and discipline.

Very best wishes to you and yours for a safe, healthy, and prosperous 2006.

Podcast: Hear this post by listening to this MP3 file

Earlier this week, I saw a wonderful production of Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol. It reminded me of this important idea: Sometimes, there is a large gulf between how we see ourselves and how others see us.

The delightful play was adapted from Dickens’ novel by David “Tommy” Thompson and staged on the campus of Princeton University. In it Ebenezer Scrooge complains — on a few occasions — that his “weakness” is his “generosity.” Yeah, his generosity.

Naturally, juxtaposing the miserly Scrooge with a self-perception of being generous to a fault, well, it struck a lot of the holiday theatre-goers as pretty funny.

But what’s not so funny, is that so many of us think of ourselves in ways that may be in direct opposition to how others see us.

Gather a little feedback from those who know you best and care about you the most.You probably can easily think of several examples in your own life. I’ll tell you about a few from mine.

One boss I worked for was an extreme loner who had an irrepressible fondness for preaching teamwork to her direct reports. Likewise, another boss I worked for — an intense, withdrawn and emotionally volatile individual — had a penchant for frequently distributing articles on communication skills to his employees. A friend of mine describes himself as a highly organized “Type A” personality — but he’s often late on projects and just doesn’t have much initiative. And still another friend fancies herself as a “people person” but tends to avoid spending time with people!

I’ll bet you know people like this, too; people who are just about the polar opposite of how they think of themselves.

And that brings us to two important questions:

1. When you think of yourself, what kind of person do you see?
2. How well does your self-image square with how others see you? (And how do you know that?)

Action Steps

This is the time of year when many of us take time away from work, gather in the company of family and our closest friends, and pause for some reflection.

It’s also a great time to gather a little feedback about ourselves from those who know us best and care about us the most. Here’s a technique, building on a method pioneered by executive coach Marshall Goldsmith, that will help you get valuable feedback from people who know you well.

At an appropriate time, tell those people you care about that you are doing some self-reflection and would really value their input. Say something like,

As I look back on this year and ahead to next year, I’m doing some thinking about my life. I’m trying to take stock of myself and I’d appreciate your help in helping me to see myself with fresh eyes. Would you mind giving me some candid feedback?

Once you have your friend’s or loved one’s permission, begin by focusing on your strengths. Sometimes we overlook our true gifts or fail to give them the credit we should. So start by asking something such as: When you think of me, what do you think my strengths are? Or, What kind of things do you think I’m best at? Listen closely, especially for information that might be different than what you’d expect to hear.

Then, listen closely, especially for information that might be different than what you’d expect to hear. It’s important that you let the other person speak from their heart. Don’t prompt them in a certain direction, and don’t go fishing for compliments.

Just ask and listen. Have a pen and a pad of paper at hand to take notes.

After you’ve heard about your strengths, say,

Thank you for your insight, I really appreciate that. Now I’d like to ask you about things that people may not tell me about but that I really need to hear. If you were to make two suggestions to me to improve myself, what would you recommend that I focus on, and what specifically would you suggest that I do?

Notice something very important here: You are NOT asking for a litany of “weaknesses,” or to be mercilessly critiqued. You are asking for specific, actionable suggestions.

If you direct the conversation you could very well close off important channels of potentially very helpful information.And if you get criticism instead of constructive feedback, if you hear more complaints than suggestions, maintain your composure. Overcome your impulse to be defensive. Just listen. Then, thank the person for their input. And try once again to steer them toward giving you actionable suggestions.

Say: “I really appreciate your candor. What would you suggest that I do to improve?”

Variation on the Theme

If you have an area in your life that you’ve already identified for development—being less of a perfectionist, or demonstrating more patience, or showing a greater interest in others—ask those close to you directly for suggestions about dealing those issues. But do it after you’ve first asked about your strengths and for the other suggestions for improvements.

That way, you don’t assert your own agenda prematurely. If you direct the conversation you could very well close off important channels of potentially very helpful information.After all, how will you know how others see you, if you don’t give them a chance to tell you honestly?

Getting unvarnished feedback about yourself can be a bit of challenge, especially if you hear what you’d rather not. But the truth is a great gift. And you don’t have to be Ebenezer Scrooge to see the value of taking your life in a renewed, better direction.

Podcast: Hear this post by listening to this MP3 file

A recent post addressed the limiting consequences of most self-descriptions. The challenge goes deeper than simply excising self-descriptive labels from your vocabulary.

Anything that follows the words “I am…” is potentially very limiting because I am is both defining and confining. Saying I am declares, to yourself as well as others, your identity. When you hear yourself say, “I am something” often enough, you internalize that condition. You think of and act in accord with how you’ve defined yourself.

Most people say “I am” in conjunction with three domains of their life: Occupation, Emotion, and Self-identification.I am is both
defining and confining.

OCCUPATION. It’s become a staple of too many cop shows and movies to hear a police officer, usually while facing frustration on the job, declare: “Being a cop isn’t what I do, it’s who I am!”

You are not your job. Your livelihood shouldn’t define your personhood.

Here are some better ways to describe how you make your living without tying your identity to your paycheck:

• I work as…
• My job is…
• I earn my living by…
• I work for [Organization], as a [Job Title]
• My occupation is…
• I run / manage / work in a company that…

What’s key in all these examples is the very important shift in your language from I am — which equates with your identity, to I do — which describes an activity, and doesn’t necessarily define you.

But what if you are a highly educated professional, a physician, lawyer, accountant, or the like. Yes, it’s very tempting to self-describe yourself in terms of your profession. I am an engineer. I am a historian. I am a pharmacist.

But that’s still very limiting. After all, in today’s world, even for highly educated, specialized professionals, employment is tentative. And, no matter how much you like what you do for your livelihood, your career can’t begin to describe you — at least, let’s hope not! And if it does, well, then you really need to heed this message.

Open up your perspective with a slight but important shift in language.What’s the alternative to describing yourself with your professional designation? Try saying, “I have a certificate/license/degree/doctorate in … [your field of expertise].” Or, “As a registered nurse, I work at XYZ health facility.”

By making this subtle but very powerful shift in your language, you open up tremendous opportunities in how you think of yourself — and the permission you give yourself to think, feel and act beyond your professional designation.

EMOTION. Just as following the words, I am with a professional description is unnecessarily limiting, using I am before describing your emotional state also confines you. When you say, “I am angry,” you are in essence equating your state of being with one emotion. Saying, “I am frustrated / angry / upset” restricts you. Your self-description converts all the multi-faceted complexity of you and reduces it to one narrow, highly limited description.

Rather than reducing the whole of yourself to one emotion, open up your perspective with a slight but important shift in language. Don’t say, “I am furious!” Say, instead, “I am feeling frustration with this situation.” Or, “Right now, I am feeling…” Or, “I am experiencing [whatever emotion you feel].”

This allows you to acknowledge and express your feelings, but you retain your sovereignty over your emotions. You experience them but are not defined by them.

SELF-IDENTIFICATION. Another way we unnecessarily limit ourselves is by our self-descriptions following “I am…” For example, “I am a conservative / a people-person / a numbers guy / a hunter / a numbers guy / a Mac user.” Or, “I am Black, Italian, Presbyterian.”

You are always more than your inclinations and affiliations. Even the groups you are proud to be a part of, do not, cannot, define you.

HEven the groups you are proud to be a part of, do not, cannot, define you.ere are some alternative ways to express these various dimensions of your life:

• I tend to favor a conservative agenda.
• I enjoy hunting.
• I have long preferred the Macintosh operating system.
• My heritage is Italian.
• My faith is Presbyterian.

By describing the various dimensions of your life without equating them to your very being, you more accurately represent the many facets of your life. All of the things that you think, feel and do help to characterize who you are. But none of them defines you.

Use your language more carefully, and you will find yourself with fewer limits and greater possibilities in your life.