First, let me be up front about the tenure process. It has its good points.  And it has its bad points.  

Some good points: it allows current faculty the power to be sure their beloved department and programs maintain standards of excellence; it provides a measure of freedom from censorship; and it attempts to ensure that their new colleagues not only have the ability to work well together, but that their skills and expertise complement those of the existing faculty.

Some bad points: the requirements are often not clearly specified; fulfilling clear requirements is not a guarantee of tenure; developing changes in department or university needs or goals can lead to new policies that run counter to previously assumed tenure requirements; negative evaluation of a candidate’s personality may override a positive evaluation of scholarship; politics can play a big part in the decision; tenure-track faculty often keep central beliefs hidden for fear of being blackballed; and the expectation of perfection and productivity can be unreasonable.

So this client made a mistake.  What to do?

When I started writing this piece, all I really wanted to say was “Mistakes will be made. It’s the nature of living that we make mistakes.  That’s how we learn.  That’s how we grow.”

But, as you know, this is real life, and real life is often untidy. What happens, for example, if you can’t simply move into the emotional space of learning and growing from the experience?  Well, depression, stagnation, and a downward spiral come to mind as possibilities.  

There is a better way.  And this path includes several steps.  Let’s go through them.

First, get into action.  The antidote to the poison of immobility is nothing other than mobility.  This sounds simplistic, doesn’t it?  Well, in some ways it is… but there is a trick that makes it possible to take action when inaction is in control of you.  So write this down and post it on your fridge, your computer, and your bathroom mirror:

An example
Let’s say you’ve received gloomy news from your department chair, but you still have to finish the end-of-semester work and move into preparation mode for the upcoming one.  Where do you start?  Well, you have grading, reporting the grades, filing, storing materials, creating or updating syllabi, reading, and so on.  

OK, let’s get started on grading.  What?  You can’t get started on grading because it's also just too daunting to consider? 

So Break it Down.  What’s the first step?   Hint: It’s not “Grade the papers.”  The first step may very well be “Choose a time that’s uninterrupted and schedule it into my planner.” A different first step might be “Put the papers in my bag so I will have them with me when I get to my home or office.”

Once you have that step done, there will be a “very next step” that will be evident, such as “open them up and put them on my desk.”

And so on.  This does sound simplistic, right?  But you’d be surprised how much easier it is to get moving on large and especially onerous tasks when they’re broken down into smaller, more manageable pieces.  It might not be the answer to every struggle, but in many instances, it is.

There is another secret to getting moving when gloom has descended. 

Ask for Help

Stick this one on your planner or your car's dashboard.  Ask your partner, spouse, or colleague to spend ten minutes or an hour with you while you start to do the actual work. They don't necessarily have to be watching what you are doing, though that can help.  They only need to know that you are doing what you say you are doing. In my coaching, for example, I sometimes have a client do whatever she's stuck on while I listen over the phone.  And guess what?  It works!

Much of what stops us from finding creative ways to solve our own problems is that we just can’t get a handle on not only what we need to do, but what we can do.  When we finally tease out what we can do, we start to move forward.  And when we can have another human being along for the ride, it can make all the difference in the world.

Coaching offers the benefit of both.  And more!  (Another hint: I’m here if you need me.)

But what about hope?

Hope is experienced differently by each of us.  One can search the social science archives and find relationships between hope and childrearing style, family constellation, parental emotional state, socioeconomic status, and many other variables.

But I see hope as an oddity.  Some people have lots of hope, but do little or nothing to take charge of their lives. Some people experience little hopefulness, but nevertheless can be observed to take action with relative ease.

While hope may contribute to overall happiness scores, I see something that might be called "Propensity to Be in Action" as more crucial to success.  Put another way, we can hope all we want. But hope alone will not change the course of our lives or the lives of others.  Only action has that power.

After being “talked at” for a good part of a week, I was ready to learn what I’d absorbed, what gems of wisdom and practice I was taking home, and what might come next for me.  And I was eager to be in silence and see what showed up.

There was a leader who offered us meditators and non-meditators a framework: ten minutes of silence, followed by an opportunity for spoken reflection on what we’ve learned. I would have preferred to leave out the spoken part, but others found it useful. We then did two more cycles of silence, one of 15 minutes and one of 20 minutes.

During the first silence, I focused on what I wanted to remember about the conference’s three keynote presentations. After the time of silence, I jotted down the following notes:

• Deep Thinking – What draws these people to not only think about large systems, but also with the intent to generate wide-ranging systemic change?
• What keeps me from doing this?  Or do I?
• I need to do more meditation to promote integration of thought and energy.

Just below it in my notebook I also wrote down this quote, offered to us by the leader: “Silence is the dawn of true speaking.”  I can’t recall the author, but assume it is most likely composed by someone like the Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat Hanh, someone known for deep thinking.

Here are some of my thoughts regarding the notes:

• Deep Thinkers have a calling and they are responding to that call.  The thinking they offer us is “simply” their unique contribution being expressed.
• What keeps me from doing this is the missing belief that I: can do it; can make a difference; will be safe if I do it.
• It is easier to write about meditating than it is to build it into your life.  At one time, I was a daily meditator.  This is no longer the case.  What will I do about it?

My questions to you are these:

1. Where do you fall short of what you know to be true about you?
2. Where do you fall short of what others know to be true about you?
3. Do you want this to be any different?
4. If so, what do you want to be different?  (Write it down!)
5. What are you going to do about it?  (Write this down, too.)
6. Now, find a way to get the support you need, so your dreams stay clear and present in your life. 

As a shameless reminder, let me say that coaching is a wonderful tool and support when you’re stepping into something big.  You go farther faster, with more ease, greater satisfaction, and, dare I say, with more joy.  I highly recommend it.  I wouldn’t be doing this work if I didn’t know it to be true.  For your convenience here's how to contact me or find a coach through ICF.

Over the course of the next few days, I will share with you some of the learning I have taken away from that conference, learning that may prove useful for you, as well.

I did something different this year. I went to the conference with a plan!  I went there to make some specific business connections, to forge relationships with those colleagues who could help me out in a particular way. In the least, I wanted to talk with folks who might be in the position to know other people who could potentially help me.

It turns out that I made just such a contact on the afternoon of my arrival in Long Beach, and it was with the first new person I met from the conference!  I was pleased.  But the best part is that since I had told one of my long-time colleagues of my intention, she not only remembered that I had a goal, she also asked the new person the question as soon as she thought of it.  I only had to follow up.  How cool is that?

With this intention in mind, I obtained several more valuable contacts, just by asking people whom I knew to be well-connected.  That’s just the beginning, of course.  I still needed to do the follow-up.  But the plan got me in motion.  The plan helped me focus my actions, to remember to do what I would have regretted not having done after returning home empty-handed.

Setting your intention may not a necessary ingredient for reaching your goals, but it sure makes the path shorter and more direct.  It is also not a guarantee that your goals will be attained.  But, again, it surely does help.

It’s just like using a map.  If you know where you are now, where you want to be at the end of your journey, and what you want to see and do along the way, not only will the best route become clear, but it will be obvious when you have strayed too far from the path.

Here are just a few situations in which setting intentions can be valuable and just a couple of suggestions for where you might look when contemplating your own needs:

Conferences – What are my goals in attending?  What “persona” do I want to try out (e.g., being more outgoing, more reserved, more reflective, more brave)? Whom do I want to meet?  What do I want to come out of the meeting? Who do I need to “be” to have these outcomes?  What do I need to do to have these outcomes?

Classes You Are Taking – What do I want to be clear on before I leave?  Who can I buddy up with to study?  How focused to I want to be or need to be today?

Classes You Are Leading – What do I want the participants to take away from the course, the section, the class, or the exercise?  How am I contributing to the attention students are giving me?  What if I behave differently today, this week, from now on?

Vacations – Why am I taking this vacation?  To rest, rejuvenate, get a change of pace, meet new people, renew my relationship(s), step outside of my typical way of being, take photos, bring back something?

Career – What do I want from this career?  Is it still good for me?  Should I do something else?  Who is building up my career?  What comes next?

Meetings – What can I do to make this meeting be more valuable?  What are others expecting of me?  What am I expecting of others?  

Your Turn

• Take a look at your calendar.
• What’s coming up this week or this month that could use a tweak?
• Ask yourself: Am I satisfied with the way this might turn out?
• If yes: Wonderful!
• If not: What do I want as an outcome and what do I need to do to improve the chance that it will happen?

Getting clear about your personal “road map” is some of the work that goes on in coaching.  If you would like to learn more about coaching, I welcome your inquiry.

But whatever else you do, make the decision to make your day, your week, and your life, intentional!

While it is possible that I might check my email during that time, I probably will do it only randomly.  So if you send me something, rest assured I will reply when I return. 

Have a great week! 

Just yesterday, I had lots to say.  In fact, I had at least 5 topics that spewed out of my brain.  Can I recall them now?  No.  What to do?   Well, this is what works for me.  I sit down and I write anyway.  That's right.  I write.  Whether I have anything to say, whether I am coherent, or whether I know for sure that this isn't in any way similar to what the end result will be.

Sometimes, I write a bit and take a break.  Like now, for instance.  I put a laundry in the washer right after eating lunch.  And there it sits.  This is a perfect time to go hang it up. 

I can even mention that my family is pretty darn energy conscious.  So we hang up nearly all our laundry on a drying rack.  Since it's nice out, I'll put it outside on the clothes line.  But we also have several indoor drying racks, including a large one that will hold nearly two laundry loads… and a nifty device — composed of a clothes hanger, string, and clothespins — that works just great for socks, underwear, and other small items that don’t need to be hung “just so.”

So let me go do that.

Back again. 

I've been noticing that it’s been a good while since I wrote anything on this site.  I had a great summer, working less and marketing even less, and now that my wife and child have headed back to school, it’s time I really got myself in gear.  But getting myself in gear is, as they say, “easier said than done.”  At least that is what has become obvious to me.  Perhaps it’s true for you, as well.  I feel a bit like an old tree stump: rooted, but with nothing growing… except some fungi.  (You’ve heard the story about the mushroom that goes into a bar, right?  Well, this is the same thing.)  So I need to find ways that will allow me to engage once more with my work, my audience, and my passion for coaching.

It’s pretty dramatic to say that there are as many ways to connect with one’s work, audience, or passion as there are people out there.  So I won’t.  I couldn’t prove it, anyway, right? But it’s the idea that matters here. What works for me, might work for you… but there’s no knowing it until you try.

And, of course, there’s another caveat (Isn’t there always another caveat?).  What opens the door on my creativity or passion today might not be the key to the door tomorrow.  So your curiosity matters here.  And your patience.  And your gentleness.  Gentleness with yourself, I’m talking about here.  Believe me, there’s nothing more counterproductive than beating yourself into creativeness.  Or don’t believe me.  It’s just something I’m spewing out, anyway.

OK, I’m going to tell the truth now.  I didn’t go hang up the laundry.  I meant to when I wrote it.  But then I had this thought that I figured I’d forget if I didn’t quickly write it down.  So I did… and the rest is history.  Anyway, now I’m going to go and hang up my laundry.  Hopefully, when I get back up here I’ll still be in the mood. 

Another Take-Away: Don’t mess with the energy.  Or: Go with the flow.  Or something else.  What would you call it?

OK. Now I’m really going.  Note to self: remember to save this before leaving the computer.  Done.

Laundry’s up.

So what’s the point here?  Well, there are several points, actually.
One point is that when you’re stuck, you need to find your way toward action in whatever ways you can.

When you create from where you are, rather than from where you want to be, you will probably be more successful in moving off the dime.

Another point: Showing yourself, oddities and warts, can be freeing, and can allow others to connect with you and your work.  Yes, this is also true in many places in academe.  Unfortunately, it is also not true in many places in academe.

Not surprisingly, this is much like the way it is in the “real” world, too.  In some places in your life you have much more freedom to show yourself than in others.  Those other ones can be brutal environments to be in.  Perhaps you make a lot of money, perhaps you don’t, but either way, you just know that if you show yourself, sometimes even just a small part of yourself, you’re walking in dangerous territory.

I’m going to stop here.  If this jives with something you know to be true — and you’re in the mood – send me an email or login and make a comment.  If you want some help to deal with it and are interested to know whether I can be of help, let’s talk.

1. The tenure clock is ticking and you’re not doing what you know you need to do. You do lots of other stuff, but not what it’s going to take to be successful in this venture. The deadline seems far away, but each day that passes without your having taken care of your most important business is yet another day lost. You can’t get it back to do over. And with each lost day, your ever-descending sense that you haven’t done what you promised yourself you would do that day reinforces your sense that you probably are not capable, after all. Of course, you are capable. How to get you moving and stay moving is a coach’s expertise.
2. You’re not showing up how you know you need to show up. Perhaps you’re not performing well in your classes. Maybe you’re not speaking up… or speaking up too much. Maybe your fear of being blackballed has squelched too much of the style that makes you interesting to others. Perhaps you haven’t figured out how to relate to your students. Showing up more fully will not only serve to make you appear more interesting, it will make you more interested.
3. Expectations for tenure are unclear. You aren’t sure what you’re supposed to be doing. Maybe they don’t want to tell you what you need to do. Perhaps they think you should know what to do without being told. Maybe they don’t even know what it is they want you to do. The problem is that, sooner or later, you will be judged based on some criteria, explicit or implicit, fair or not. The bottom line is that you need to know. Maybe they’re telling you and you’re not listening. Maybe they expect you to ask. A coach will make sure your activities are founded in the reality of your situation… and will help you take the steps to achieve your goals
4. You are distractible or disorganized. Or both! A coach will help you put systems in place to minimize distraction, help you stay on track, and get yourself organized. And your coach will bring you back to your agenda when the other systems fail to do the job.
5. You beat yourself up for your shortcomings. That you have come so far might be an accident, contributing to your belief that you’re a fraud. Probably this is not the bigger truth. The bigger truth is that we all have shortcomings. And despite this reality, we all are stronger and more gifted than we are comfortable admitting to ourselves. Your coach will remind you of who you are, what you are bringing to the world, will “champion you” as you take on more than you believe you can.
6. Writing. Oy! Can’t get those words onto paper. Don’t ever feel good about sending them off. It is, in fact, possible to write more easily. Less drama. Some satisfaction, even.
7. Unhappy with your situation. You are doing just fine, getting your work done, moving forward, on track to success. You just don’t know why you are doing it… ‘cause you don’t really like either where you are, who you’re with, or what you’re doing.

If any of these describe you, give me a call… or give another coach a call.  But don't just assume things will change for the better if they haven't so far.  That's not likely to happen.  Remember: You have nothing to lose by calling me and the possibility of real gain if you do.  Here's how to contact me .

I just got back from city hall, where a Bike to Work Week Proclamation was declared by our mayor.  As a believer in the many benefits cycling offers to individuals and communities I have worked to bring my city, Syracuse, several steps closer to being bike friendly.

I would say that I'm passionate about cycling (some might even say that I'm obsessed… and we know there's always a fine line between the two).

I love to be on a bike!  I love the exhilaration of moving at speed, the wind in my face, the feeling of propelling myself from place to place, covering long distances if I choose, and struggling up hills (well, I don't really love that part, but I appreciate it).  I like that it helps me keep in shape.  And I believe that getting people on bikes to replace short trips in cars, by creating safe bike routes for folks to travel on, can help make a dent in what may well become climate chaos.

Passion into Action

How this is transferred into action:

• I am involved with an organization called BikeCNY (CNY for Central New York) and am the webmaster for the website. 
• This year, we have moved into regular conversations with the Mayor's Office and DPW, moving forward each time.
• I recently signed up for a charity bike ride, a 300-mile jaunt from Saranac Lake in the northern Adirondacks of NY State, to Preble, 25 miles south of Syracuse… in 4 days.  The ride benefits Special Olympics New York.  (Hey, if you are moved to donate to this cause, I would be grateful for your sponsorship.  You can do that at the firstgiving.com/stevereiter.)
• I ride for transportation, as well as for fun and exercise.

Passion and Effectiveness

Passion can be distracting.

• I really would rather be riding.
• What's the weather out there?  And tomorrow?
• Oooh. A link to a new online video.  And it's only 8 minutes long!

But passion can also enhance effectiveness.

• My challenge of riding 75 miles a day for four days has inspired me to be faithful to my weight-loss goals, now 20.5 pounds since the start of the year.  That much less to drag over the mountains!
• I get to go out and train for my upcoming ride, but first I need to [fill in the blank].  I use riding as a reward to do motivate me to do the harder things first.
• I am reminded of my strengths, as well as the sinuous course leading to success. Riding is not enjoyable every moment.  Much of the time, it takes concentration, concerted effort, and, when going up long, steep grades… against the wind, a definite willingness to endure discomfort.  Aside from making me "a better person," which I no-doubt need, my triumphs over these adversities remind me that I have "more in me" than I tend to think when the going gets rough in the rest of my life.
• By "walking my talk", putting my energy into creating bike friendly roads and riding for transportation, I am living what might be called my true nature, living more "on purpose."  Being in creation mode contradicts pessimism and despair.

Passion and Academic Success 

Passion needs a home in YOUR life, too.

• Do you wonder why you're still doing what you're doing?  It doesn't matter whether you are writing your dissertation, working for tenure, or teaching or doing research 20 years down the road.  If you're not connected to the passion that resides within you, your project — and your life — will suffer from mediocrity and boredom.
• Does the spar of passion present in your creative life?  Do you know what it is?
• If you do, great!  Take a step in that direction.  What can you do this week that will bring you a nudge closer to that passionate place?
• If you don't know where your passion lies, it's time to find out.  And the best place to start is in your own past.  What juices you… outside of your work?  What used to get you excited (in a positive way)?  Where is that spark?

Beyond Academic Success

Are you feeling uncomfortable yet?  If so, I'm hitting the button I want to hit. It is my belief that the world needs you to be living a big life, stretching, taking on bigger projects than you think you can handle.

Tell me about your dreams, your projects, your passions.  

I really liked the idea of these cards when I bought them.  Perhaps you bought them, also…  or maybe you will.  After all, we all need a whack on the side of the head once in a while.

The interesting thing is… I don't use the cards. And I never have!

What's up with that?

(Wait!  News flash! I just lost 3 paragraphs because I was working online and hit a combination of keystrokes which took me away from the page I was on… and, naturally, I hadn’t saved my work recently enough prior to hitting that keystroke.  Now, as you might guess, I’m working offline.  While I could use this creative opportunity to write an article on the smart use of technology, I will leave it to you to stop for a moment and make sure you have saved your work.  And backed up your work.  And your hard drive!   And hey, when you’re finished, please come back and finish reading this article, which now continues.)

So this is what’s up with that.  Fear. 

I am afraid that if I use one of those cards, it will shift something that will force me to go back to the start of this page, or the start of today, or this project.  Or maybe even my career!

Yeah, I know this feels like a stretch, but go along with me for a bit.  Because there is this place where I feel like a fraud.  Where I feel like not only don’t I know what I’m talking about, but that I don’t do good work.  That my coaching is lackluster, that my clients don’t benefit from working with me.  And just perhaps I need to start all over again, build up my expertise in a different field, or go get a real job.

Perhaps you share this feeling of being fraud.

If so, I’m wondering where it holds you back.  What aren’t you producing or publishing or saying?

Please write me or leave a comment. Share with others how this shows up in your work, what you’ve learned about this particular “demon,” and how to circumvent it or at least temporarily put it out of commission.  You don't have to be a student or a professor to contribute. We'll all thank you for it.

To Your Success –

You can find the full report here.