Yeah! We made it to the other side of a BIG move and we are now settled into new space. Moving, like any complex project, takes loads of communication ability and patience.
There were exciting moments (like realizing there is more storage space than I realized) and there were challenges too (moving during a hurricane, water damage, and misunderstandings about how space would be used.) Sometimes I handled communicating during the upsets well and other times I did not. Learning from the times that do not go well is the greatest gift - it is silver lining thinking. Do you know the phrase about finding the silver lining (looking for the best possible outcome)? It is like making lemonade when life gives you lemons. Are you a sliver-lining finder? Is your communication inspiring to yourself and others?
Have you ever considered becoming a silver lining creator? In other words, have you ever thought about being a person who communicates in a way that inspires yourself and others to find the best possible outcomes even when things are challenging?
One of the best ways to do this is to keep a learning journal to track your own growth. You'll see your own progress by tracking the situations and experiences in which you created a silver lining!
Our thinking and your feeling evolves and matures by doing this. You will focus on creating new possibilities!
Consider this: Create a Conversation for New Possibilities with yourself about where you want to create a silver lining. Where is something stuck? Where are you feeling resentment and bitterness that you know it would be better if you released it and moved on? What would it take to create something better? Review your own goals and see what bubbles up.
Use Conversations for New Possibilities when:
- Brainstorming new ideas
- Proposing a new idea or solution for a problem
- Uncovering ideas from peers and team members
- Trying to solve a problem that needs a new solution that is not clear to you
Here are some ways to get your Conversation for Creating New Possibilities started:
- What would you like to create?
- I have an idea I'd like you to consider and I'd be open to hearing your ideas too.
- What are the options? Can we come up with three or more options that we had not considered before?
- If we waved a magic wand and the problem was solved, how would we know? What would be different?
- What ideas or suggestions do you have about how we should approach this?
- Would you share your goals and objectives, where you see things going . . .
- If you could be the best at one thing what would that one thing be?
- If you knew you would not fail, what would you do?
- Imagine that you just won three million dollars. What would you do with it? (Let yourself play with this question as if it just happened.)
- Let's see if we can come up with 50 ideas related to our goal in the next ten minutes. No idea is too trivial or out of bounds. We are looking for volume now and we'll come back and edit them later.
- Tell me about your thoughts about how to improve or change the situation.
- Perhaps if we considered this in a new way we could put our puzzle pieces on the table together and see what we come up with?
- If you could envision the best possible outcome, what would that look like?
- If there were no limitations, what resources would you need?
- People invented the rules. When you are creating, approach it from the angle that there are no rules, or that the rules can be changed if needed. What rules are holding us back that we could consider revising?
- What have you learned from your past that impacts this situation? How can we build on that with new ideas?
- I'd like to have a Conversation for Creating New Possibilities. When would be a good time for you to do that?