All of these are action steps.  By definition, action steps take you away from where you are.  Nothing wrong with this, except when the answer to a particular situation lies right where you are here and now.  Which is usually the case.

An effective alternative to  “movement” coaching is based on the TIbetan meditation “Stay”.

It takes courage and stamina to stay where you are when every nerve and instinct is telling you to move, change something, look outside yourself for an answer or in some way move away from discomfort.

Only by being with the dis-ease and  only by allowing it to stay around long enough can you watch it fall away.  When you have the experience of seeing that the discomfort is transient and not a permanent state; when you realize that it will subside by and of itself if you don’t distract yourself from it  – it loses its power over you.

Sometimes the appropriate action to take is that of no-action. Sometimes the thing to do is nothing.

As Pema Chodron says “This perfect moment is the best teacher.  And lucky for you it’s right here with you all the time.”

So how can you be coached to do nothing?  Simple. Think of a metaphor of repetition.  Whatever works for you.

Buddhists use the metaphor of dragging an ox along a path.  The ox doesn’t want to go to market or to work.  He wants to meander off into the sweet grasses and weeds at the side of the path.  His owner keeps pulling him back onto the path over and over and over again.

It’s debatable whether the ox learns to stay on the path or whether he just tires himself out. or gives up.

It doesn’t matter.  What is true is that the paradox of “Staying” can move you forward, doing nothing can produce  possibility.

If you’ve had a hard time keeping Resolutions in the past take a long, hard look at how you keep personal commitments to yourself throughout the rest of the year. When only you and your bathroom mirror know about it do you keep your promises in a responsible fashion or do you find yourself re-negotiating, back-pedaling and making excuses?

Many New Year’s Resolutions are born of disgust or exasperation after a year of failed attempts and procrastination. We make them in a punitive mindset of self-judgment. If you’ve been falling on and off of diets all year it may make sense to you to make a stern year-end commitment to empty your refrigerator and set the alarm for 5 AM to hit the gym.

But consider this hypothetical situation. You just loaned $20.00 to your brother-in-law who made a commitment to pay you back on Monday. Instead, he spent the whole week dodging you. How would you feel about loaning him an additional $100? If he hasn’t shown any ability to keep the smaller commitment would you throw good money after bad? Perhaps you’d like him to demonstrate his responsibility on the small matter before trusting him further on a larger amount of money.

So the first tip to making New Year’s Resolutions you can keep is:

1. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Set yourself up to win by committing, initially, to the minimum possible. You’re probably thinking that this flies in the face of conventional wisdom that New Year’s Resolutions should be BIG life changes. But is this realistic?

Let’s look at the weight loss scenario as it’s a big one for many people. You make a resolution to trudge an hour each day on a treadmill and drop all fats and sugars from your diet when you haven’t jogged more than a half hour a week until now. Exactly who are you trying to kid? Better to commit to 4 hours of exercise a week and salad lunches three times a week to ease yourself into your new lifestyle. You can always up the ante later. Choose a level of commitment that will stretch you but not overwhelm you.

2. Chunk it down. Chunking down is a process by which you take a large, difficult to manage project and break it down into more easily handled tasks. Don’t make one Resolution for the whole year. Make a resolution for the month of January. On February make a second one. Move incrementally. For the weight loss scenario, if you started off easy you could make a commitment that on February 1st you add in weight training and switch to only whole grain carbs.

3. Tap into your support system. Let everybody know what you’re trying to do and ask for their help. Tell your spouse you’ve made a commitment to spend 5 hours a week learning new software skills and that you’ll be doing this each evening from 8 PM to 9 PM. Ask him to hold you accountable and listen to him when he does. Tell your usual crowd you’re trying to quit smoking, or cut down on the beer or lose carbs. Ask for their help and give them permission to bust you if they find you in the stockroom with a boxful of Krispy Kremes or a pack of Marlboro.

4. Write it down. Studies of small business people show that those who wrote their goals down were 20% more likely to actually achieve them. After you’ve written down your Resolution put it everywhere. Write it on each day of your daily planner. Post it on your bathroom mirror. Put it in your sock drawer and in your wallet next to your money. This will help you avoid “going unconscious”. If you’ve committed to cutting way down on buying CD’s, it can be chastening to be reminded of this when you’re reaching for the plastic in Tower Records.

5. Celebrate yourself when you reach your milestones. Most of us are hard on ourselves when we don’t reach our high standards; we’re brought up not to sing our own praises. If you set out to achieve something that is difficult and important to you it only makes sense to pause and acknowledge your effort when you succeed.

Anyone else would show you a little more consideration than you show yourself. Your boss would take you out to lunch or give you a raise. Your students would send you thank you notes. Take yourself out to dinner or away on a weekend trip and appreciate your achievement. Tell everybody you succeeded and accept their compliments graciously without downplaying your accomplishment.

If you’re an entrepreneur or small business owner, you’re under siege from Bright Shiny Objects.

Every time you check your e-mail, open magazine, network or check out a competitor, you’re faced with a multitude of them.

They glimmer and twist in the light and you just have to have them.

Over the first few years of my own business, my BSO’s started off fairly predictably with websites, then blogs, then podcasting, then webinars, teleseminars, ezines, newsletters, pop-ups, workshops, e-mail classes, direct marketing, advertising, networking. Is your head about ready to explode just reading about them?

A solid marketing plan, prioritized according to chronological necessity will eliminate impulse buys and distractions.

Your BSO’s can go on your wish list, also in order of necessity (NOT desirability) and you can knock them off one by one when you’ve covered your basics.

So what are the basics?

• One solid and consistent way of targeting your ideal client. (This could be a website, store, craft fair or ad.)

• A way of capturing your client’s contact information. If a website is your preferred way of targeting your client, then this would be a sign-up box on your site; if you attract clients by speaking, you would capture their information by a hand-written evaluation.

• A method of communicating on a regular and consistent basis with your clients. We all know the stats that your average client needs to be exposed to you at least 7 times before they will buy from you.

• A consistent and regular way of following up with your clients to care for them and ask for their repeat business.

When you’ve taken care of these basics, feel free to experiment and add in all the baubles and trinkets you want.

When I trained as a Life Coach, I learned that the classic coaching take on this was that I probably have an agenda other than actually writing and finishing a piece. I am avoiding doing something I think I want to do because I don’t really want to do it. I think this is partly true.

Certainly, if a client ‘fesses up to not taking actions which are so clearly needed in their lives I might ask them

“What do you really want?”

“What would happen if you didn’t take the action?”

But I would also ask a much bigger question.

“What is your expected outcome?”

It’s occurred to me more than once that my foot-dragging over an activity directly correlates to the attachment I have to its outcome. If I don’t have much energy invested in how something turns out I can either do it or not do it. If something is important to me, especially if it reflects something about me or gives an impression of myself to the world (like writing or keeping a sparkling clean house), I leave the door open to creating avoidance or stress around it.

So the Constructive Living lesson for today is this.

When you find yourself putting something off, notice what you are doing. If you’re procrastinating, be aware that you are working with something which is important to you. Be grateful that you have things to do in your life which are important to you. Put all else aside and do it immediately to the best of your ability.

Then you can go back to matching your socks and alphabetizing your recipes.