The 100-Day Project
At the suggestion of one of my coaches, I have started a 100-Day Project. I committed to doing something every day for 100 days. My project is to write something short every day and then post the week’s musings here. The following are my posts for the first week beginning January 31, 2021.
1. I have been delving pretty deeply into what coaching means. What is the purpose of a coach? What are the expectations? What do we do exactly? These are wide open questions of course. Ask any makecoach and you’ll hear a different answer. My experience, such as it is, is that clients are looking for answers. Many times, they want to engage a coach because they think the coach has the answers. The coach will give them a plan, something tangible to work on to get the results they want. But, for me, the client has the answers already or more importantly, has the capacity themselves to uncover their own answers. My job as a coach is to help them see this. To help them understand that they have an internal wisdom they can tap into to create what they want in their lives. For me, coaching is a partnership in which a coach helps a client connect with their own internal wisdom.
2. One day I decided to join another coach and create and host a four-week workshop series to connecting generations. It sort of just came into being. I never questioned it when she proposed it and it has just unfolded somewhat naturally. Since this is the first time either of us has done anything like this, it is all a learning experience. We’ve learned about Eventbrite, more about Zoom (break-out rooms), we’ve contacted and shared the invites, we’ve designed the program and had a couple of practice runs. New coaches are often afraid of jumping in and doing these kinds of activities for fear of failure, looking silly, having problems, whatever. But I feel oddly calm about the whole thing. I am looking forward to see if anyone shows up and whoever does, will get our full attention. Then we’ll work on the second one. After this month, then we’ll see where it goes. I am holding it lightly, learning, and enjoying the process.
3. Last night my husband and I watched the Bill Murray — Rashida Jones movie On the Rocks. Directed by Sofia Coppola, it’s about a father and daughter relationship as they both question her relationship with her husband. But thinking about it this morning, it’s a perfect illustration of run-away or indulgent thinking. Creating a story around something that happens and then running with it. Rashida’s character read’s doubt into her husband’s behavior and mentions her doubt to her father. Her father runs wild with it, mostly because of his own behavior during his marriage to her mother. They both get caught up in the story of infidelity which turns out not to be true. When we take a random thought that we have and create a story around it, rather than just letting that thought move on, we create problems in our lives. Thoughts come and if we let them, thoughts go. Rashida’s character took a thought, nurtured it, shared it, expanded on it and almost damaged her marriage. She created the problem. We create the problems in our lives by grabbing onto thoughts that don’t serve us. Thoughts are just thoughts, they don’t mean anything until we decide they do.
4. What’s does it mean to be retired? I used to think it meant working a 30-year career and then moving to the beach. That was what I planned anyway. I had even built the beach house. But a few months after retirement, I sold that house and with it, threw out all those assumptions. From there, I went on a journey that was not about retirement but about exploration. I realized I had set myself free from many constraints and beliefs that I had been holding onto and I could remake my life, create a new life. Three years later I am on a very different path, one I couldn’t have foreseen. I still don’t know where life will take me. Things keep changing, unfolding. I can’t anticipate where I am going but I am curious to see. It seems my job now is to be open, to accept, to invite in whatever life throws my way. It may not always be good, but it will always teach me something. I have been a life-long learner, and I am learning more than ever.
5. I read a three-book series recommended by my brother from a Canadian author named Rachel Cusk. The two words that came to mind when I finished the first book, Outline, were Ambivalence & Elusiveness. These two words stayed with me through all three books. These books were so finely observed and, in some way, gave me a feeling of detachment. I couldn’t get my head around them, they seemed strangely unemotional. Ambivalent. Elusive. The stories play around in my head but I can’t grasp them. They are ephemeral. Do they reflect how we live today in Western societies? How we connect or don’t connect with each other? We observe our fellow human beings and interact with them but can never know or understand what’s going on in their minds and lives. By the physical nature of having a body, we are naturally separated from each other. We pass each other as strangers, even living in the same spaces. The saying is that we can’t ever really know someone and that is the feeling I get from these books.
6. Last night I watched the Robert DeNiro movie, The Intern. I watched it because our next Life Transitions workshop series is about the Future of Work. I was thinking how to tie the work needs of young people to the work needs and desires of older generations. Thinking about Ken Dychtwald’s book, What Retirees Want, which highlights the changing nature of retirees in the Boomer generation (my generation.) What we want is to live with purpose and intention once leaving a long-term career. Maybe we go back into the same line of work but in different ways, with different motivations. Watching DeNiro do just that is intriguing, important, and fun. Bringing the generations together in the workplace, in volunteerism, in hobbies even, enriches everyone’s lives. We have so much to learn from each other and it is such a joy to reach out and connect with each other.
7. Yesterday, I received the latest blog from wine guru Jancis Robinson entitled “The benefits of age.” I immediately thought this would be my topic for this morning. So, what are the benefits of age, at least to me? Perspective comes to mind first. Over time I have seen, learned, absorbed many different ideas, points of view, opinions. I still have my perspective, but it’s been softened by exposure. The edges are not as sharp. Some people dig into their long-held beliefs, they calcify, but this hasn’t been the case for me. I am more open to challenging my beliefs and pushing the boundaries of what I used to believe was true and immutable. Like a fine wine, age can deepen our humanity or turn it to vinegar. We have a choice to open up and appreciate life’s ever-changing gifts or close down and become sad and bitter. I choose to appreciate the benefits of aging.
