Video version of this post

Picture this. You’re at school, maybe you’re in high school, maybe you’re in college, maybe you’re at work. And you struggle mightily to remember what you learned in school yesterday or what was said in that meeting. Or you struggle to remember what you learned in your study session last night. And you know there’s a test or project deadline. 

You know when you go in to take that test that you’re probably not going to get a grade that reflects your understanding of the material. You are not going to deliver that work in time – even though you know exactly what you want to do. And this isn’t the first time you’ve had this experience.

And your teachers going to look at you and ask “You’re so smart, why can’t you do this? You knew it in class!” And your parents and maybe your peers will ask the same thing. Your manager and co-workers will say “You told me how you were going to do this! Why didn’t you do it? Why isn’t it ready?”

And you are just over it. Don’t they know that if you could change it you would? That you hate those questions? That they’re not helping you at all?

Why do I bring this up? Because I had this same conversation with my son the other day. He’s getting ready to go back to college. He had a concussion and had to withdraw for a semester. During our conversation he said, “Mom, I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop.” So I asked him, “Do you feel that way all the time?” And he said, “Yes, I do. I think I’ve got things under control at school, I’ll have done all my work, and studied, then I get to the test; I will have known it the day before; I’ll have answered questions in class, and, boom, I screw up the test.” Invariably it’s a math test. (A lot of people with ADD struggle with math. It has to do with how and where math information is stored in the brain.)

And I thought, “This just stinks.” I asked him if he thinks his other friends feel the same way. He said, “No.”  I’ve heard this from my clients, my students, my siblings who have ADD, and my friends who have ADD, including my late husband. They just go around with this constant feeling of “When is the next shoe going to drop?” “When am I going to fail the next time?”

So I said, “Well, Ken, that’s your ADD brain talking.” And he looks straight at me and says, “Hey, Mom, it’s just my brain!” Hello. It’s just his brain. It’s not like he has two brains. I realize that I need to change the way I talk about that. I need to change both the way I think about it and talk about it with my clients and with him.

So what do you do to move past this negativity? It’s hard. It takes a lot of work. You have to dig into your experience. You have to look at where your successes are, how you were successful, and write them down. You’ve got to look at those successes and own them. When you look at times that you have been successful, you can gradually combat the negative voice in your head. It also help to ask people around you to notice when you’re successful and to point it out to you.

The number one piece of coaching for my son, for my clients, for anyone who is working hard to succeed, is to find an advocate at work or at school. Someone who knows and appreciates you just the way you are. And ask them for help. Ask for help with your strategies. If you know how you work best, you can ask them to help you use your strategies. Say you have a big project. You know you need to break it up into manageable pieces so you can get it done – because if you look at the whole project and the completion date all at once, your brain will explode.

Ask a co-worker for some guidance on how to break the project up. Tell them that you do your best work when you can break big projects into smaller pieces with more frequent deadlines. By the way, this is one of the most valuable productivity tips – break big projects into smaller pieces. You don’t have to disclose that you have ADD.  You can frame it as “This is how I work best.” People want to help you. They do. And, please, do not give up if you don’t get the help you want the first time you ask.

You can do the same thing at school. I’m not going to lie. It can take a little time to find the right person; they might not be right in front of you. They are there. There are people who will help you advocate for yourself.

Instead of waiting for the next shoe to drop, find someone to help you. Own what you do well. Ask for help. People want to help you.

It’s worth it. You’re worth it.

Article: How Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Can Stop Negativity

Article: Revealing the Real Millenials: Career Expectations

Slideshow: Nix the Negative

There is no expiration date

Watch the video here.

One of my clients had to pull out of our coaching engagement. We’d done some assessments, which is where I always start so we can get a jumpstart on getting to know each other.  We’d been through the assessments and she had learned some things about herself that she hadn’t thought about before. She had also learned some new ways to describe herself and then she had to pull out of coaching. She was concerned about stopping and picking up later.

She said that she’d hate to think that she had wasted all that time on coaching because she was ready to make a change and now she couldn’t. My first thought was, “Hey, there’s no expiration date on what you’ve learned!” There is no expiration date on what you learn explicitly, like through a career coach. There’s no expiration date on what you’ve learned in a job or in life.

Think about it, those things you’ve learned about yourself never go away. You will just find yourself using them later in your life. It will also inform what you do next, because once you’ve learned something new about yourself, you don’t forget it. You might not use it yet, but you do not forget it.

One of my favorite clients is an amazing young man. He likes to work, is a good worker - totally self-effacing. He is in his twenties, and has been a hockey referee since he was 16 years old! 16!! Now, I’m from the South and we have hockey down here, but not much. But I’ve been to games and I know what a hockey game looks like – all those guys, skating on the ice, really fast – and they fight!! And who breaks up the fights? The referees! So, here’s this young man, skating around on the ice himself, following the game, calling the game, breaking up fights – and he is in charge of the situation – he can keep track of everything that’s going on on the ice! It blows my mind every time I think of it!!

When I told him that I could not imagine keeping up with all that while moving around on the ice, he goes “Oh, I never thought about it that way! Wow!” So he found a job that he loves, and he’ll never forget what he learned about himself. He won’t forget how to describe his crazy amazing skills!

This keeps happening in everyone’s life. Let’s go back to my client who had to drop coaching. Months later she emailed me asking if I’d look at her LinkedIn profile. Of course, I did. And she had used everything we had gone over in her assessments to create a fabulous LinkedIn profile, including her headline and summary. I couldn’t resist telling her “I told you that there’s no expiration date on the work we did! You never know when you will use it. The learning process is never wasted.”

What have you learned lately that has no expiration date? Please post your answer in the comments below!

If you like this post, please share it with your friends!

Becky

Belief: The World’s New Product Is You

5 Steps to Building a Personal Brand (And Why You Need One)

Don't Settle.

Watch the video here.

My clients tell me that I refuse to let them settle. I recently realized that this is the essence of all coaching. All coaches, whether athletic, academic, career, or life coaches, challenge their clients to not settle. Instead we coach people to push through to the next level – and we support them as they reach for it.

All coaching is about mastering skills that you do not think you can master. Maybe it’s cutting 2/10 of a second off a 40-yard dash time, or recognizing and hitting that slider that’s been fooling you. In life coaching, maybe it’s learning to ask the hard questions when you’re in a relationship, or learning to count to 5 before you react to a situation that sets you off. In career coaching, maybe it's learning how to network, manage your time, ask for help, or ask for a raise.

My client didn’t settle. Believe me, she wanted to, but she didn’t. Frances is a college professor. She emailed me about a couple of positions that she was interested in. Both positions were at the same college. Frances has been adjunct faculty for a while. Both of these positions offered her the opportunity to move up to associate faculty status. Frances could have handled one of the positions with her eyes closed. The job was in her area of expertise, and included some of her favorite things to teach (Frances teaches teachers). She was a shoe-in for the job. Easy process, perfect fit, right in her comfort level.

The other position was right in her career sweet spot – but it had some requirements that Frances felt she didn’t meet. So, she was reluctant to apply for it. We talked. I pointed out one of the great truisms about job descriptions. Companies and schools create a job description for their ideal person, frequently including criteria that no one can meet. Usually, no such person exists. But here's the deal, if you meet 50% of the job requirements, you should go for the position.

Here’s the cool thing. She met the most important criteria for the job. Every single one. And it’s her dream teaching job. At a great school. She still pushed back. So I pushed back harder. We created a cover letter that described how she believed in this school’s mission and described how she was a perfect fit for some parts of the job. We totally ignored all the other parts of the job.

She got the phone call. She got the interview. She got the job. She got the job and they took away the parts of the job that she wasn’t comfortable with. Win, win, win.

Here’s another universal truth. When a company wants you to work for them, they will find a way to make a position fit you. Yes, they are hiring you for your skills. They are also hiring you for your personality and how they picture you adding value to their company.

Frances took a risk and didn’t settle for applying for the comfortable job. She pushed through her doubts, applied for the job she really wanted – a job that lets her live out her passion – and got it. And she loves it.

Don’t settle. Push through. You can do it. If you need help, I'm here.

Becky

www.beckyberrycoach.com

5 Signs You’re Just Going With the Flow at Work 

How to Get the Job When You Don’t Have the Experience
Why Women Don’t Apply For the Job Unless They’re 100% Qualified

Look at the world through someone else's eyes.

Watch the video.

Have you ever tried to convince somebody that your way is the right way to look at something? That your way to analyze a situation, write a report, answer the phone, leave a message, conduct a meeting, work on a project is the best way? What would change if you switched your perspective and looked through their eyes?

A couple of weeks ago I had a conversation with a client (let’s call her Sandra) about this very topic. Sandra was concerned that her daughter, Amy, never has clean clothes because she refuses to do her laundry. So, like a good mom of a child (of any age) with ADD, she helped her daughter create a strategy to get the laundry done. It was a well-developed strategy, just 7 steps, including sorting and temperature selection directions.

As Sandra and I chatted about this, I pictured Amy standing in the middle of her room, clothes everywhere, staring at the list of 7 steps to do laundry successfully. Then I pictured her turning around, walking out the door, and going to get a snack. I could imagine her brain just thrashing around, going “There’s no way I can do this right. I can’t even think. I’m leaving.” She was frozen, unable to do something she really wanted to do (because she really likes having clean clothes). 

What happened? Amy looked at that list and was overwhelmed. It didn’t matter that she could just start by picking up her clothes. When she held that list in her hand and looked at it, Amy knew there was no way she could even wash one load successfully, so her brain shut down (this is a real neurological thing in the brains of people with ADD and Asperger’s Syndrome) and she hit a virtual brick wall. 

So, Sandra and I created a new strategy – with no sorting requirements. Here it is (1) gather clothes (2) load a bunch into washer (3) add a detergent pod and a Color Catcher (to catch colors that bleed) (4) start the machine. Repeat as necessary. 

And it worked. Why did it work? Because Sandra looked at the situation from her daughter’s perspective instead of her own. Once she pictured the confusion Amy must have felt when confronted with all those steps, Sandra was able to pare down the strategy to something that Amy could do.

Once Mom recognized that the brick wall was not stubbornness, but something that really occurs in Amy’s brain when she is overwhelmed, she figured out a way around the wall. Sandra has learned what parents, friends, and co-workers of people with ADD have learned, you cannot break through the wall. If you want to help someone get past the wall, first you have to understand that you (and your friend) cannot break through the wall. You must switch your perspective and help figure out a way around the wall.

So, after a few conversations, Sandra (and her husband) have practiced and refined their ability to look at the world through their daughter’s eyes. It’s working.

By the way, when you learn to look at the world through someone else’s eyes it changes your approach to every situation.

Take the scenic route, look at the world through someone else’s eyes.

Slideshow: My 10 Secrets to Staying Sane Even with ADHD

Article: Managing Adult ADHD: The 5 Rules Adults with ADHD Should Live By

Video: TED Talk: You can grow new brain cells

Becky Berry, Career Coach
www.BeckyBerryCoach.com

A post about grief

From Wikipedia:

Grief is a multifaceted response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or something that has died, to which a bond or affection was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, it also has physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, and philosophical dimensions.

Today is October 3, 2015. My husband would have been 75 years old today. I had been struggling with writing my blog post for this week when my son said I should write about extreme grief and how it changes you. Out of the mouths of 22 year olds…..

It’s absolutely true; extreme grief has changed me. I’ll never again be the person I was before my husband died. I will never be the other person in a team of two who could face down any challenge – from starting numerous businesses and closing some of them, to working together for years (some of those years in back-to-back desks in our bedroom, to becoming parents at 54 and 36 – him for the third time, me for the first - to constantly changing jobs, grad school, a teenager with cancer, a teenager surviving cancer and going off to college, then adjusting to an empty nest. We were a team. We loved each other without restraint. We fought with each other – with some restraint. We supported each other unconditionally for 30 years. Losing that kind of partner and that kind of support is shattering.

Luckily, I carry with me every single thing I learned in the 11,059 days we were together. Some of those things, like extreme perseverance, keep me going. Some of the other things, like his unshakeable belief that I could absolutely do anything I put my mind to, ground me.

3 years later there is still the chorus of grief that constantly hums just below the surface, ready to grab me at random and unexpected moments. I feel myself floundering around, searching for the anchor that’s not there. Instead, I feel like I’m floating, trying desperately to learn that I don’t have that kind of anchor anymore.

So, I keep going forward. Trying to be kind to myself, understanding that there are days where I just cannot function and not punishing myself when I fall apart. It happens less and less. I have old friends and new friends and family that support me unconditionally.

The grief chorus keeps humming and I keep moving forward, understanding deep in my heart that as long I keep moving, both cursing and embracing this new life, I will make it. I will live into a life that is informed by the 30 years we had together. I just wish he were here.

PS Purple and orange are two of my favorite colors. They are also the colors of the Clemson Tigers. Bo went to Clemson. Every time I look at the colors of my logo I grin.

www.BeckyBerryCoach.com

The little things are the big things

video version here
Do you know somebody who struggles, who struggles to do those things that “anybody can do?” Like staying organized, starting projects, remembering names, keeping track of their own calendar, or completing projects on time? I do. I have a lot of experience with people who struggle in both my personal and my professional lives.  Here’s what I’ve found.

People who struggle in their daily lives at home and at work are used to hearing “Why didn’t you?” “Why can’t you?” “You’re just lazy/stubborn!” “You’re not motivated!” “I know you’re not stupid! Anybody can do this (pick up their own room, meet deadlines, keep up with papers, turn in their homework, find a specific item in a closet)!” They are not used to hearing praise. So I’ve found that when a person who struggles does something right, the standard “thank you” doesn’t cut it.

I have found that if I take the time to praise someone who struggles when they have a little triumph, it makes a difference. Could be they’ve picked up the floor in their room, maybe it’s finally sending me the date I’ve been waiting on so I can move forward on a project, maybe it’s unloading the dishwasher with a 2 minute argument instead of a 2 hour argument.  When I take the time to notice what they’ve done right and take the time to praise them effusively, it makes a difference.

Why praise effusively? Because there’s a massive concrete roadblock in the minds of people who struggle daily. When you praise them, you have to overcome all those years of their hearing “you’re wrong,” “you’re not right,” “you’re incompetent” – but mostly – “you’re wrong,” and its subtext “there’s something wrong with you.” The only way to bust through that concrete roadblock is with extravagant, effusive praise.

What if you go crazy about their accomplishment like they’re taking their first step? You know how parents go crazy when their kids take their first steps? It’s so crazy exciting because it is a major milestone. So, guess what, if you struggle to keep your life together, to keep your life organized, to do the things that most people think are normal, when you do something seemingly “normal” like making a deadline, it is a major milestone. And, the older the person is, the bigger an occasion or an event it is, because your praise is trying to beat through that wall of you’re not good enough, there’s something wrong with you. 

Guess what happens when you praise you them effusively? You bring the focus to what they are doing right. You are saying “I noticed you, I noticed you doing this thing, and I know it’s a big deal and it’s hard for you.” 

And you start to feel differently about that person, too. Your focus shifts from what they’re doing wrong to what they’re doing right. You begin to appreciate them more.

So, if you know someone who struggles, praise the little victories. Praise them loud and long so they begin to break through that roadblock of “I can’t do anything right” and feel the win for both of you. 

The little things are the big things.

Becky
www.BeckyBerryCoach.com

Stop It Right Now!

video version here

Stop that voice in your head that says you’re not good enough. 
Stop second guessing yourself. 
Stop thinking about the things you could have done differently.
Stop thinking about things that are out in the future.
Know that you are good enough right now.
Know that you have knowledge you’ve acquired through your own experience that helps you make decisions.
Know that the past is over.
Know that you can’t predict the future.
Stay right here, in this moment, right now.
Stay here and witness what is out there for you today, in this moment.

Witness your own amazing life.

Here's a link to the video.

Becky
www.BeckyBerryCoach.com

Have trouble staying in the moment, in the here and now? Check out the articles below for some ideas.

What 15 Top Meditation Experts Most Struggled With As Beginners

7 Simple Tips To Stay In The Now