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by Ruth Klein, Smart Women’s Café Contributing Expert 

I recently saw a T-shirt with the words,  Become the Change You Want.  I find myself going back to those words over and over again. The words are taken from those spoken by the world’s role model for change, Mahatma Ghandi, who led the successful change to independence for India. He advised his followers to  become the change you want to see in the world.  Those words ring just as true today.

One of the most stressful situations we create for ourselves at home and at work is that we want changes from others and become frustrated when those changes don’t take place. We want our bosses, our children, our spouses and our friends to change. We want our looks to change, our health to change.

What if we become the ones to change first? Here are a few new ways to become our own agents of change to transform, empower and enlighten your path to a less stressful  lifestyle.

Become the Change You Want with Your Spouse: 

• Become Your Spouse’s Role Model. Instead of expecting your spouse to be more forgiving, become more forgiving yourself. Your actions will inspire your spouse. 
• Make the Word Flexibility Your Mantra. When things don’t go according to plan, tell yourself (repeatedly):  I will be more flexible.  It works!
• Change Your Own Mind. Instead of trying to change a spouse’s mind about where to go, what to do or how to get things done, ask the question of yourself first, but from your spouse’s point of view. You might discover you will have already changed your mind before you ask the question.

 Become the Change You Want with Your Child: 

• Change Your Age. Imagine yourself at your child’s age. Instead of always making demands from a parent’s point of view, first consult your inner child. Can you explain your demands in a new light? Can you incorporate new understanding and empathy in your relationship? 
• Listen. Don’t let your role as a caretaker overwhelm your time and ability to listen to your child. Make the decision to schedule time every day to just listen. 
• Confess. Take time off from the stress of trying to be a perfect parent, and confess to your child that you make mistakes. You will teach your child that it’s okay to admit to mistakes and learn from them.

Become the Change You Want at Work: 

• Organize. Poor organization skills will only add to workplace frustration and drain your productivity. Begin your next day at work by coming in 15 minutes early to organize your desk, throw out old files, make a  to do  list and add an extra touch of cheer — a new picture, a fresh flower, or just a happy note addressed to yourself. 
• Empathize. If you can’t get your boss to understand what you want, change your viewpoint. View your needs from your supervisor’s standpoint. If you are the boss, look at your demands from your employee’s viewpoint.
  Empathy can go a long way toward boosting productivity and eliminating workplace stress. 
• Take Action. If you want better working conditions or a change of schedules, ask. Prepare your arguments, rehearse and refine them, then ask. The worst that can happen is that you will be told no. If you really dislike your job, take action to schedule 30 minutes at home every evening to network with peers and start looking for that better job.

Become the Change You Want with a Parent:

• Become Your Own Best Child. Change your behavior with your parents by becoming the kind of child you want to have. Be loving. Be supportive. Be understanding. Your parent might take a cue from you and start acting like the parent they always wanted. 
• Become Patient. Parents know to be patient with their children, but they don’t always practice patience with their own parents. Take a deep breath, and patiently listen when your parent makes a request. It’s a little courtesy a parent just might return to you. 
• Strive for Sympathy. Instead of just saying no, or I can’t get to that today, take an extra minute to explain why your schedule won’t allow you to accommodate a request, and follow-up with a gentle expression of regret. Your parent is more likely to become sympathetic to your needs.

Become the Change You Want with Your Health: 

• Become Your New Best Friend. Don’t you want the best in life for your best friend? Encourage yourself to get the best things in life by starting with the most important, your good health. Encourage yourself every day! 
• Change Your Self-Image. If you are overweight, tell yourself, ‘I am not an overweight person,’ before starting a new diet or exercise plan. I want you to think, “I want to be healthy.” 
• Play. Exercise doesn’t have to be a chore. Instead of getting up to do jumping jacks every morning in your living room, dance and leap for joy from room to room. Buy a colorful jump rope. Laugh at yourself. Enjoy yourself. Play! Exercise, honestly, can be a fun way to get healthy.

by Sherry G. Day, MS, Smart Women’s Café Contributing Expert

As the holiday season approaches, there are numerous decisions made relevant to the relationships in our lives. It is interesting to analyze our decisions regarding whom to invite to holiday celebrations, whether or not to give gifts and if so, how much to spend on a particular person, and to whom should greeting cards be sent.

One of the most puzzling situations in which I find myself has to do with
sending holiday cards to people I have not seen or even spoken to for years.

High school and college friends are mere fragments of memory now.  From year
to year, I find myself questioning why we bother to maintain these long-term, but distant  relationships.   After all, I probably would not recognize these once close friends if they were standing at my door.  I have not seen most of them since we left school.

Yet, I feel as if we are still connected because throughout the years we
have exchanged family and career updates at holiday time.  I  know of  their
children and their doings from annual updates and photos, via holiday cards.

I will probably never meet these children, though.  But I have felt their
parents’  love and pride.

Our letters and notes express an invitation to stop and visit when we are in one another’s neighborhood or are passing by on the nearest highway. And we merely pass by without bothering to call ahead, commenting as we pass,  My old school chum lives near here somewhere!  I should stop and visit sometime.  Many of us are scattered across the country and around the world.

We express a desire to  get together sometime,  knowing it will probably never happen.  Knowing we probably won’t make the effort to make it happen! Knowing we are always rushing to get to our destination without this detour to stop.

Still, year after year, we go through this ritual!  Why?  Why can t I just stop sending the cards, notes and photos?  Why am I disappointed when all I get back is a card without a note?  Why am I even more disappointed when the only  signature  is preprinted names?   Personalized cards, they call them!

I call them  impersonal!   The sender doesn t even have to spend the time or energy to hand sign the card.  There was a time when I would not even suggest printed computer labels, but as my list grows I do feel a slight change of attitude coming on.

I do believe in technology and efficient use of time, but I also believe in the personal touch.  To me, sending a card with a personal note is a gift of taking time to think about the receiver and show interest in him or her.  When I open an impersonal, preprinted and possibly computer labeled card, I ask myself,  Does the sender desire to sever this long-term relationship but does not want to be the first one to stop?   I sense there may be a lack of desire to stay connected even once a year.

It is a dilemma!  I do not want to be the one to end the relationship
either. By why not?  What is the value of maintaining it?  What is the benefit?
What is the WIIFM –  what s in it for me?  Maybe it meets a need for me.  A need to share with those who knew me  way back then.   To let them know I am doing  okay.   I have survived the ups and downs of the years and am still taking on the challenges presented to me each day.  Perhaps it allows me to share with pride my family.  After all,  way back then  this family was a mere dream we all shared in our youthful innocence.

Maybe we hang on so as not to let go of our youth!  Could it be that letting of long-term, though distant, relationships is a closing of the door to the past?  We may need to keep such relationships to remind us of beginnings to allow us to measure our progress.  After all, we set the criteria for judging these accomplishments.

This is an issue I ponder every November as I print out the holiday card list. Every year there are a few new relationships to add to the list.  Adding is much easier than deleting.  But then, I think, the list is getting too long.  Someone has to go!  But whom?  And why?  And why not?  It is time to count the names again.  And buy the cards and stamps.  I wonder how many I will need this year?

______________________________________________________________

About the author: Sherry G. Day is the President and Chief Learning Officer
of Executive Resources-Human Potential Consultants, L.C., an award-winning
coaching and training company focused on leadership and personal
empowerment. Sherry is a member of Smart Women’s Coaching Advisory Board and is a
Contributing Expert and Coach.

C  2007.  Sherry G. Day, MS. This article may be reproduced for non-
commercial use, provided it is reproduced in its entirety, you retain the
author’s byline, and include a link to http://www.ExecutiveResourcesHPC.com

Dear Family and Friends;

I hope your holidays were wonderful.  Christmas here in Africa was simply grand this year.  My daughter, Elizabeth, arrived at the Jo-burg airport on Christmas morning.  Having her walk through the customs gate into my welcoming arms was the finest gift imaginable.  Her good husband, Andrew, couldn’t come with her due to some last minute complications and we really missed him but we had a mother/daughter holiday that I will always treasure.

Now, I sure don’t want these letters to turn into travelogs but Liz and I experienced a few things that I hope you might find interesting.  One was our guided tour of Soweto.  Frankly, it’s a place that wasn’t high on my “must see” list.  I had visions of a horribly dangerous, unattractive slum.  Elizabeth, however, had spent a great deal of her time as a student at UC Berkeley protesting against apartheid and for the freeing of Mandela so I thought she might enjoy seeing where the whole thing started.  I’d heard about this guy, Jabu, who was born and raised in Soweto and now has a little tour company.  I’d had several phone conversations with him beforehand and arranged for a private tour of his stomping grounds on December 26th.  He picked us up at the guesthouse we were staying in and I was delighted to see he was a giant of a man - a Zulu weighing in at around 300 pounds.  He told us it was all muscle (it wasn’t)  (-:  He had been born in the poorest area of the huge township of Soweto and had made his way comfortably into the middle class.

That was one of the surprises of this place.  There are areas of Soweto where the houses are valued in the millions of rand.  There are other areas called unofficial settlements where the shacks are made of tin, sticks, plastic and anything else the residents can scrounge up.  Over 3.5 million call Soweto home.  What surprised us the most was the sense of pride and hope about the place. The residents are proud of the part they played in attaining freedom for their people and have a hopeful confidence that the new government will do it’s job in providing both economic stability and educational opportunities.  At one point Jabu let us out of the car in a very poor area.   He turned us over to a “local” guide assuring us we would be perfectly safe as we walked into the bowels of this destitute area. I say destitute because of the lack of any plumbing, electricity and the shanty construction. Toilets were porta-potties each one shared by at least 90 families. But all along the way were perfectly tended little gardens.  We saw signs that said, “Make someone smile today.”  Children greeted us politely and with big smiles.  We went into one corrugated-iron shack and met the family.  The man was obviously suffering from TB maybe AIDS, the floor was dirt, and they had literally nothing.  Our guide invited us to ask questions and they told us of their plight but expressed hope for the future.  We gave them a small gift of money and left.

Jabu lived through and fully participated those terrible years beginning with the riots of 1976 and he gave us a riveting historical tour.  We went into a church riddled with bullet holes where residents had tried to flee from the armed and shooting police.  We saw the homes of Nelson Mandela (modest), Desmond Tutu (elegant) and the notorious Winnie Mandela (a Palace).  The current government has made lots of promises to those living in the worst slums and has built a huge area of modest little subsidized three-room homes that can be purchased for about 16,000 rand ($2,500). There is an impossibly long waiting list that has many politicians very nervous.

We left the place with a great sense of hope for the people of South Africa.

They have the most democratic constitution of the face of the earth.  They went through a transition from Apartheid to Democracy that is termed by most of the South Africans I talk to as “miraculous”.  There was certainly bloodshed but there was not the civil war so many feared.  One of the most impressive traits of the black South African is their capacity for forgiveness.  The feeling I’ve gotten since being here is that they just want to move on.  They are well on their way.

Of course, we spent a couple of days in my village.  Elizabeth met everyone. I’d let it be known that I was not having a party but I’d asked many of those I work closest with to stop by and meet Liz.  One young man who is involved in our cultural dance group asked if I’d like him to stop by with a few male dancers to show Liz some of the cultural dances.  I said, “fine” expecting four or five of them to come by.  We were making sandwiches for our expected guests when we heard deep rhythmic chanting.  Matjeeka poked her head into my hut and said, “Your dancers are coming.”  About forty men and boys, all brandishing sticks topped with shredded plastic danced into the yard in tight formation.  They entertained us all afternoon and, of course, many villagers joined the ad hoc party.  Liz and I kept excusing ourselves to make more sandwiches.  Fortunately, we had two watermelons and many cases of sodas.  Everyone got a little something.

Two of my favorite Sangomas showed up and performed the trance-inducing dance they use for their healings.  One of them, Majone, took us to her house to show Elizabeth her “clinic” with its wall of snuff cans filled with herbs.

Really, every minute of Elizabeth’s visit was fun.  We visited a game park that raises the rare white lions.  They raise them to be completely comfortable with people.  We walked into the lounge of this beautiful African lodge and saw a playpen in the corner.  I thought someone had brought their baby but when we looked inside there were two darling little snowy white lion cubs.  The owners said we could play with them!  And play with them we did.  Playing with those lion cubs while listening to the roar of their full-grown relatives in the distance was a thrill.  There was also a little “house” meerkat that would not get out of Liz’s lap.  We went on a couple of game drives and got up close to many beautiful African animals.

It made me so happy to have Elizabeth see and experience why I love South Africa and Lesotho so much.  These are wonderful people I live with - kind, hospitable and generous.  Don’t get me wrong; I’m counting the months till I return to the US (seven!) but I will certainly leave a bit of my heart here in the Mountain Kingdom.

Wishing you all a happy, healthy and prosperous 2006,

Khotso, Pula, Nala (Peace, Rain, Prosperity),

Love, Peggi