All things considered

As the holiday season draws to a close, the city traffic thickening like the post-Christmas midriff, it's important to make some plans about life, be they big or small, writes Shane Gilchrist.

The scene: it's a few days after New Year's. At Rainbow's End, South Auckland, my 9-year-old son is listening, seemingly intently, as it is explained to him that despite the mechanical breakdown that has added an extra thrill to our roller-coaster ride, gravity should eventually do its thing and bring us hurtling back to ground level.

The impromptu snafu allows a bird's-eye view of the heart of Manukau City, a perch from which to ponder cars snaking along the adjacent motorways, planes looming large in the humid air, people at work, people at play.

As far as metaphors for life go, roller coasters might be a little obvious, yet holiday hi-jinx (even spending more than 15 minutes trapped within a metal harness) has its benefits.

Taking a break from what constitutes normal life provides a window into what kind of life one might want to lead.

As Dunedin psychologist Chris Skellett says: ''Holidays offer an obvious time for people to pause and reflect.

''I think, over the summer break, be it at a campsite or the beach, everybody connects with what life means to them. The rest of the year is when we are enmeshed in the demands of day-to-day life.''

A consultant psychologist and executive coach who has also worked in the public sector and served on the executive boards of the New Zealand Psychological Society and the New Zealand College of Clinical Psychologists, Skellett recently released the book The Power of the Second Question: Finding Simple Truths for Complex Lives.

Following 2011 publication When Happiness Is Not Enough: Balancing Pleasure and Achievement in your Life, his latest book contains insights he has gained through his career, particularly in his Dunedin-based practice.

While providing a series of exercises aimed at stimulating conversations both internal and external, The Power of the Second Question also includes a range of quotes.

Yet one sticks out from the rest.

It's by the late John Lennon: ''When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down `happy.' They told me I didn't understand the assignment. I told them they didn't understand life.''

Skellett urges people to look beyond their daily demands, to pause and ask those bigger-picture questions.

He notes that new year's resolutions typically involve people making pragmatic goals (lose weight, stop smoking, save money ...).

Yet such to-do lists fail to tap into anything really inspirational.

To use business terminology, any overview needs to be strategic rather than operational.

He puts it another way:''When choosing a seat on a plane, we might be asked whether we prefer a window or aisle seat.

The aisle seat offers us a practical connection to the exit, to the overhead lockers, to the flight attendants' trolley, and to the toilets.

''Conversely, the window seat offers an opportunity to gaze out across the world. To marvel at the vastness of the landscape, and to reflect upon the wonderful experience of being alive.

''This book is all about choosing the window seat ... we do get bent out of shape by the demands of everyday living, the constraints and pragmatics of family and work.

''That's why it is often at times such as New Year - or around funerals, weddings or the birth of a child - that people realise the plans they had for their lives haven't been realised.

''We need to stop and capture those fleeting moments of clarity.''

Which brings us to the title of Skellett's book.

''Second questions'' are those which follow a more obvious, factual inquiry.

''They lift you up to see the bigger picture. They force you to stop, to take a breath, and to touch base with a broader overview of the world. You learn to see your place in the wider frame,'' he explains.

Often, moments of personal reflection are based on a current worry (perhaps financial, health, or work-related), a process in which we simply ruminate about the facts or situation in front of us.

''It is only when we subsequently visit our accountant, doctor, or boss and have a good conversation with them that we can move forward.''

The key factor is that, in a more formal conversation, the other person will usually ask a good question.

''The accountant might ask us what our spending priorities are. The doctor might ask us what we need to change about our lives in order to improve our health. The boss might ask us what would make our work life more rewarding,'' Skellett explains.

''They will all invite us to find our own way forward by identifying the key issues and then coming up with an agreed action plan to address them.

''And in response to their perceptive questions, we will usually find our own personal 'aha' moments.''

CONTEMPLATING CAREERS
Sometimes those ''aha'' occasions result in people seeking a change in their working lives, from tweaking aspects of a job to a complete career U-turn.

Like Skellett, Tess Livingstone also asks lots of questions of people.

Team leader at Careers New Zealand's Dunedin branch, Livingstone says it's obviously important to identify the true source of a person's dissatisfaction. Sometimes, a career might not be the problem at all.

A good starting point is doing a wider review of ''life satisfaction levels'' to help identify areas that are going well and areas needing improvement.

''You can do this by identifying the range of factors that contribute to your everyday week and ranking these on a scale of 0-10 in terms of satisfaction. These might include: work, health and fitness, hobbies and interests, community involvement, learning, finances,'' Livingstone says.

''Sometimes making small improvements in other areas of life (such as family time, more time for interests or community involvements or cutting back on responsibilities in other areas) can lead to improved functioning and satisfaction in work.

''At Careers New Zealand we talk about healthy career development involving four key areas: good self-awareness (awareness of things like your values, skills, interests, personal characteristics); knowledge of your opportunities and the associated risks and rewards; decision-making strategies and the ability to take positive action to move towards your goals.

''Many things influence values and they can change. For instance, a person's values may have changed as a result of being in a different time of life, having different responsibilities or being mid or late-career as opposed to early-career,'' Livingstone says.

''Your values often link to what is motivating you to seek change. People might have a range of reasons for seeking change, from wanting better pay, to more challenge or having more control over how they do their job. Other people want to feel they are making a difference.

''By analysing these points, people start to get an idea about how they could start making a change.''

The next step would be to work out where to make change. And it doesn't need to be wholesale change. Sometimes it's incremental.

''There are a couple of ways in which people take stock: they might look at their daily tasks and identify which ones they like performing and feel successful at and which ones they don't,'' Livingstone says.

''Then the question to ask is, how can I get to do more of, or get better at, the things I like doing? And who can help me do that? ''While it is also important to address skill gaps, it's almost always more worthwhile to focus on developing strengths.

''I often encourage people who are thinking about change to pull their job into the various tasks or skills they use. Then they should look back at their career history and do a bit of a mix-and-match exercise: if they took a certain skill and put it in another setting they were involved in, they might get an unexpected combination.

''If you are getting a bit bored in your job, look at setting your own performance standards; asking for more responsibility; take on a project that involves learning new skills; invest and commit to your own learning.''

And sometimes change takes time. It might take months or years while you wait for a change in circumstances, such as family responsibilities or financial commitments.

But having thought about options and worked on skills means you are well-placed to move should circumstances change.

''It is often quite hard to choose change rather than be pushed into it,'' Livingstone says.

''Some people might have a thunderclap realisation and launch into change straight away; others might take years, gradually moving to a point where they are ready for change.''

 

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