Comments on: Focus on the moment, or, coach class

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:08:37 +0000

Fiona, thank you for commenting. I think it’s important for people to admit that they can’t get it all done. As the noted management consultant Steven Wright said, “You can’t have everything–where would you put it?”

By: Fiona Walsh

Fiona Walsh — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 21:06:29 +0000

Dave – I enjoyed your post very much! The Marshall Goldsmith blog resonated with me as I was in overwhelm and tying myself in knots trying to figure out how to get it all done. That article made me step back and decide on a few things to focus on and let the rest go. The world did not collapse and I found myself enjoying things more! As you aptly say, it is about getting clear on what you WANT to be doing, not what you think you should.

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:15:45 +0000

Ruth, I think one difference between compassion and codependence is that compassion, as I see it, can see what is (or seems to be) and just accept it, without necessarily approving of it.

The non-tautological version of “it is what it is,” maybe. Matthew McKay and Patrick Fanning, in a more therapeutic setting, see three elements to compassion: understanding, acceptance, and forgiveness. They’re talking about individuals dealing with one another, or with themselves.

As for goal-setting, I agree, not a skill often taught. Sports helps, I suppose, though when I was a kid most organized sports were school teams, meaning 90% of people were left outside.

As for the one-foot-in-front, Carolyn Hax, who writes an advice column in the Washington Post, once phrase it as “doing is better than dwelling–on your sorrows, on your problems, on the couch.”

By: Ruth Seeley

Ruth Seeley — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:08:34 +0000

As one of the Goddesses of Empathy I struggle with the difference between compassion and co-dependence. Glad the winding path of our conversation led to a blog post for you though.

I think one of the things we are not taught well in either school or life (or weren’t when I was going to school) was how to set goals. Oddly, this is one of the things that becoming a strategic thinker has really helped me to do. When you realize that most ‘overnight successes’(in the sense of positioning someone as an industry expert) are the result of not only their own achievements but two years’ worth of hard slogging by a team of highly paid PR professionals, you start to appreciate the discipline of setting objectives, devising a strategy, and then of basically putting one foot in front of the other to execute the tactics.