Friday, March 23, 2012

Michele Woodward -- Managing Change

Michele Woodward

I'm always looking for people who have positive insight about life and its surprises.  An office friend told me about Michele Woodward and how she is a fantastic life coach.  I read her blog (www.michelewoodward.com) and have found that she almost always presents a fresh perspective on how to get out there and do whatever it is I need or want to do. 

Michele doesn't just talk the talk.  She has also walked the walk.  She is a divorced mother of two teenaged children, so her down-to-earth advice is not clean and dry theory; it's based in real life, rolling up your sleeves and being in the trenches experience.

I loved the following inspirational post from Michele's blog and I hope you do too!:

From Here To There
By Michele Woodward
March 11, 2012

I am rather smitten with the idea of transformation.

Utterly fascinates me.

It fascinates me how common things like today's newspaper gets recycled into tomorrow's paper towels.  Like how left over table scraps can become food for tomorrow's flowers.

Magical things fascinate me, too, like how simple trial and error leads to a new invention that changes the world.  Like the light bulb.  Or the internet.

To some of these things we say, "Yes, but..."

Yes, but nature's way of doing things - has nothing to do with me.

Yes, but that's somebody like Thomas Edison.  That's somebody like Steve Jobs.  Not somebody like me.

Rarely, it seems, do we say, "Yes, but...I can do that, too."

But it's more than possible.

You absolutely have the power to transform things.

You.

An you can do it all by yourself, when you think about it.

You can transform the challenge of sickness into the relief of healing, just by talking about it in a different way.

As in, "I am on my way toward remission."

You can transform the stress of working with a difficult person into calm productivity, just by managing your own energy and being an advocate for yourself.

As in, "I am not jumping into that drama with him.  No, I am not."

You can transform your business from struggling to succeeding, just by focusing on your strengths and what really matters.

As in, "Despite the advice of marketing gurus, I know I am an introvert and not at my best in large networking events.  I'm going to meet people my own way."

It's daunting and a little confusing to think that you have any power to change anything.  Because so many of us have lived our lives believing we're at the mercy of others.  That power belongs to someone else.  That we're small, insignificant, unable.

But we're not.

I know you're not.

The power to transform -- to shift one thing into another -- is your greatest superpower.

And, if you open your eyes and see, you will find that you use this great skill of yours every day, in ways large and small.

Every time you open a door, turn a corner, start a new document, begin a conversation, you have the ability to transform one thing into something else.

And guess what?  The more you use this superpower, the stronger it will get.

The stronger you will get.

So begin today.  Begin by transforming where you are right now, to where you'd like to be.

And that's as easy as getting up from your chair and moving some place else.