In this New York Times article Paul Tough points out that the students that stay in college are not necessarily the super smart, super students.  It turns out it is the student that has exceptional character strengths (e.g. optimism and persistence and social intelligence).  These are the students who can recover from a set back, a bad grade, etc. and be resolved to do better next time…”the kids who make it are the ones who can tell themselves: ‘I can rise above this little situation.  I’m O.K. Tomorrow is a new day.’”

How do kids get this? FAILURE.  We need hardship to build this resilience.  ”The idea of building grit and building self-control is that you get that through failure, and in most highly academic environments in the United States, no one fails anything.”-Dominic Randolph

I have recently had some interesting conversations with 30 somethings who are STRESSED!  kids running around zapping their intimacy, chaos creating lack of connection, overworked, overwhelmed.

I have recently had some interesting conversations with 40 somethings who are STRESSED! Ok. You get the idea.

Stress is everpresent.  We hear that our 20′s are supposed to be carefree time to enjoy life.  We hear that our 30′s are time to settle down and make a family….etc.  But we let our 20′s pass by with busyness, stress, overwhelm, and our 30′s pass by with a marriage that dissolves from lack of intimacy, lack of connection…

What are we to do?

20′s: Develop the skills to recognize and manage stress

30′s: Create healthy patterns in our marriages–daily time outs with our spouse to check in and really connect/communicate, find scheduled times for intimacy, date each other, recognize the importance of Mom and Dad’s relationship coming ahead of the kids.

I LOVE it! I told my son that is a girl you want to get to know.  Can you imagine the teasing that she must endure at high school to do her own thing? It must be immense, but she does it anyway!

Hats off for Cat Girl!  Creative, Unique, Hear Her Meow (or roar? maybe she will be a lion tomorrow?)

I clearly will never be a ‘marketeer’ but coaching is not what someone else could ‘use’ or ‘need’.  Coaching is the unique opportunity to learn how to flourish, to learn how to live a life of fulfillment.  If we were to score on a 1 to 10 scale each segment of our lives (our marriage, relationships, work, play, parenting, etc.), what numbers would we see?  Are we living life to the fullest? Coaching is a gift.  It is the place to discover what a 10 looks, sounds, tastes, and feels like!  Can you imagine that?

Coaching has transformed my life and the lives of my clients.  It is an opportunity to learn & develop the know how to live your most fulfilling life, to live in the present (the land of the now here rather than the land of nowhere), to discover the power of choice, to laugh & live more…Now who doesn’t want some of that?!

Lesson #12: Open up to fear unconditionally.
“There’s nothing wrong with feeling anxious, ever, over anything at all. Fear and anxiety are part of who we are. Once we drop the pointless, wrongheaded routine about needing to get rid of them, we can carry fear and anxiety around with us through life like friendly companions. Instead of battling fear, we just let it happen, and when the fight against it dissolves, so does the torment. We slowly learn to live in harmony with fear, anxiety, and stress, expecting them to show up and welcoming them when they do.”

Lesson #11: Keep your eyes on a guiding principle.
“Fear, anxiety, and stress can make the universe seem chaotic and bewildering, so it’s always helpful to have a compass to steer you through the maelstrom…devotion to personal values is a crucial part of learning to live with anxiety and stress…our emotional pain helps highlight what’s really important to us…’If you flip anxiety over, it tells you what you care about, what your values are’…”

“He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.”-Friedrich Nietzsche

Lesson #10: Build faith in yourself.
“…developing confidence that you can handle intense fear and stressful predicaments is absolutely vital…remember, worry research shows that people handle worst-case scenarios far better than they ever expected, and therapists like David Barlow like to plunge their clients into deep terror to show them reserves of strength they didn’t know they had. And in addition to building confidence through fear exposure, we can also do it through the ways that we talk to ourselves and handle worrisome visions of the future. Here’s a useful practice: next time you imagine something you fear coming to pass, visualize yourself not enduring it miserably or falling apart but coping with it well, demonstrating grit and resilience.”

Lesson #9: Joke around.
“…thinking playfully or joking in a stressful situation helps us break out of a negative point of view…by poking fun at life’s occasional grimness, we neutralize its venom and lift ourselves above it.”

It turns out that a brain area known as the nucleus accumbens is VERY active in teens and is the area of the brain associated with the processing of rewards aka sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. On the flip side, the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that helps us resist such temptations & is essential in our ability to make rational choices, is less developed in teens. In fact it has been shown that kids with ADHD have an immature prefrontal cortex (studies have shown that this immature prefrontal cortex eventually catches up to its peers with about a 3 year lag time).

So teens nucleus accumbens is more active than their prefrontal cortex, but as they develop into their early 20′s, there prefrontal cortex (usually & hopefully) becomes more active than their nucleus accumbens. Thus we see what we call maturity. We also see more rational choices, less car accidents, less impulsive & risky behavior.

You see, son, science can be helpful & fun…

(information based on a book: How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer)