Rules and Exceptions

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Humans are rule-makers.  We make all sorts of rules.  Like “Always put the napkin on the left,” and “Stop at a red light,” and “Never loan money to a relative with a hole in his jeans.”

Rules are useful.  They give us guidelines to decide quickly.  When we have a rule for that, the debating is done.

So you could say that one way we become more expert at handling our lives is by creating rules.  A rule can cover a large number of repetitive circumstances more efficiently — and even more effectively — than not having a rule.

However, when we follow rules without awareness, we can become blind to situations where breaking a rule would create a better result.  So, if learning to create rules is one level of mastery, learning to make exceptions to them can be the next level.  Becoming expert is more a matter of learning many small adjustments to make than of finding one action that works in every case.

For example, when I was learning to fold origami, I first learned to line up edges perfectly.  Later, I learned that there were exceptions to that rule — sometimes leaving a gap or lining up corners instead creates a better finished model.  At that point, I reached a new level of skill.

Think of a skill you are trying to master.  What level do you hold in it?  Are you learning to make rules?  Do you have the rules down, and are now learning the exceptions?

Where could learning a rule or an exception help you handle a situation more skillfully?

Here’s to your growing skill in all areas of your life!

And for many useful guidelines and adjustments, please pick up my new book, Changes of the Heart.  Details below.

My New Book Launches Today!

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Changes of the Heart is here.  I edited this book featuring Martha Beck life coaches sharing their best resources.  Each one wrote about a challenge she knows well.  I wrote a chapter about writing a book, and other coaches contributed chapters about becoming your own CEO, raising challenging children, improving relations at work, finding the gifts in loss, discovering your soul through motorcycling and more.

If you like the insights I share here, you’ll find a rich source of more in Changes of the Heart.  To my mind, the chapter on Living in Gratitude alone is worth the price of the book.

Plus, for today and tomorrow only, we have hired a virtual assistant to give out bonuses to everyone who buys the book.  We’ve had a great outpouring of generosity from coaches — there are over 15 bonuses available.  My own bonus is an e-course that helps you develop your own writing voice.

All the details are at www.ChangesOfTheHeart.com.  Check it out, and please share the launch with others who could benefit from our book.

Writing Tip

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Develop a distinctive voice.  When your writing stands out, you will attract a larger and more loyal audience.

My bonus for our book launch is an e-course called Finding Your Voice for Writers.  It’s a systematic tour of style: what it is, how to gain more control of it, and how to make yours stand out.  It’s free with purchase of our book at www.ChangesOfTheHeart.com today and tomorrow only.

Small Steps

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“That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Neil Armstrong, as he placed the first footprint on the Moon.

This issue’s Small Step for Space:  Check out the Two Cultures Conference: http://www.nyas.org/two-cultures

Sometimes it appears that science is at odds with other endeavors to improve human life.  This is a conference on communicating across that gap.  Bringing people together makes all progress easier to achieve.

Book Recommendation

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Dauntless (The Lost Fleet, Book 1) by Jack Campbell

This is the first of a six book series.  The last book will be out next year.  I read the first five over Thanksgiving weekend.  Dauntless sets up a dramatic situation.  The Alliance Fleet is caught behind enemy lines.  Recently revived from a century’s cold sleep, Captain John Geary finds himself, by seniority, in charge of the entire fleet.  Can he bring them home?  A fast and fun read.

The Exhilaration of Completing a Long, Hard Project

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on November 17, 2009
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I’ve just published a book.  For almost a year, I’ve been spending significant hours every week working on this project.  It was a joint project, so I’ve spent time writing to my co-authors and coordinating our various priorities.  It was a book project, so I’ve spent time polishing the language and trimming out the errors.  It was a publishing project, so I’ve been learning how to work with a publisher and developing my delegation skills.

And it was a life coaching project.  So all along, I’ve kept my eyes on making it useful to its readers.

It’s quite a thrill to see a project like that complete.  Now I can look at it and see that it is good.  The cover is beautiful.  Each of my co-authors has brought her own expertise and perspective to specific life challenges, and the chapters rock.  I can now hold in my hands something that was only an idea last December.

The satisfaction of completing a project like that is enhanced by the long effort I put into it.  I’ve made something - more, I’ve exercised the persistence and discipline to continue work on this project through ups and downs these eleven months.  I’m here to tell you that it does pay to plan and persevere.  And even a long term project does come to its end, step by step.

Have you felt the urge to start a long term project?  Would you like the sense of accomplishment for tackling and completing something really big?  What would it do for you, to know you had persevered to accomplish a significant project?

If you are hesitating, try taking a small step.  The view at the end is worth it, I promise.

Oh, the book?  It’s called Changes of the Heart.  We’re throwing a coming out party for it December 1 and 2.  I’ll let you know all about that next time.

May you receive the exhilaration of completing a challenge that fully tests you.

With all my best wishes,
Anna

Writing Tip

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Writing a book is a big project.  Arrange to celebrate your milestones along the way.  Also, find a first reader who believes in you and supports you.  One person to share your journey is a significant help.

Small Steps

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“That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Neil Armstrong, as he placed the first footprint on the Moon.

This issue’s Small Step for Space:  Browse space news at http://space.alltop.com

We are truly seeing a flowering of space activity.  Space is back.  This time, it’s commercial.  Take a look at the articles here, and think back to where we were a few years ago.  This is a truly exciting time for space.  Again.  At last.

Book Recommendation

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Back to Methuselah by George Bernard Shaw

Of all the authors my literature classes introduced me to, Shaw may be the one I’m most thankful for.  He was an optimist, and a forward thinker.  He had a sense of humor and a strong point of view.  Back to Methuselah is a play in five acts.  It’s meant more to be read than performed.  The first act starts at the dawn of humanity, and each one moves ahead into the future, finally ending at “Summer afternoon in the year 31,920 AD.”  It’s interesting to see what this thinker born in 1856 projected for humanity’s brilliant development.

Words Shape Lives

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on November 4, 2009
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“We don’t describe the world we see–we see the world we describe. Language, as the single most fundamental force of the human intellect, has the power to alter perception. We think in words, and these words have the power to limit us or to set us free; they can frighten us or evoke our courage. Similarly, the stories we tell ourselves about our own lives eventually become our lives. We can tell healthy stories or horror stories. The choice is ours.”  from What Happy People Know by Dan Baker.

Martha Beck coach Holly Berman recently posted this quote to her online journal.  Here’s what she went on to say about it:

“Buddha states that all is illusion. He is referring to the same property described above. We CREATE our world by how we think about it. We create our own suffering–what Dan Baker refers to as horror stories. This doesn’t mean that “bad” things don’t happen to us even when we tell “healthy” stories. It means that our reaction to it (the words we use to describe it or to think about it, i.e, our “story” about it) determines if we suffer or not. For example, many people would imagine that having Stage IV cancer and undergoing chemotherapy is a horror story. It struck me that way in the beginning. Not any more. I am deeply happy because the way I think about it doesn’t allow it to frighten me or drag me down.

“If I can do this, I know anyone can do this. We just have to have the desire to change our way of thinking, the techniques to do so, and the patience to turtle step our way toward a new way of being in the world.”

Holly has taken cancer and transmuted it to wisdom.  Is there any alchemy stronger than this?

I love how clear her view has become, and wanted to share this with you.  Words shape lives.  Holly has chosen to put words of strength around her situation.  And she is thriving, in what many would consider a terrible situation.

What story are you telling about your life?  Does that story serve you?

You can read more from Holly Berman at http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/hollyberman.  She is also one of the featured coaches in the upcoming book, Changes of the Heart.  Thirteen Martha Beck coaches each contributed a chapter on a challenge they know well.  (My chapter is about writing.)  The book will be out in December.