Margie Warrell

Yesterday morning Al Jazeera TV network called me to do a live studio interview in their D.C. studio, via satellite from their Qatar headquarters.  I jumped at it. Living in Washington D.C., and indeed America, has been packed with cool opportunities and new experiences. Life here has been nothing short of amazing. So choosing to change where I live isn’t all easy.

The packers arrive today. They will bring boxes, tape, paper…  lots of it.

In a few days my life as I know it will be packed away and loaded into a container bound for Australia.

I know moving back to Australia will be wonderful on many fronts. But there is something about the very nature of change that makes it difficult, even when it’s change we choose and change that holds much to look forward to.

The photo above is one that I took of a former village consumed by the sands of the Sahara Dessert in southern Algeria many years ago. It’s message: Nothing is permanent.

The fact is that all change, even change for the better, is hard. Sure as one chapter closes, another begins. But there’s something about the closing that brings up a sense of loss, grief even.

I’ve felt an abundance of mixed emotions since my husband and I decided to move back to Melbourne earlier last month.

None of them are bad. Though some haven’t felt so good.
I’ve felt sad at leaving so many friends whom I’ve grown to love so much.
I’ve felt anxious about choosing the right place to live, and getting my kids into great schools.
I’ve felt overwhelmed at the thousand things we’ve had to do to close down our life here and set it up there.
I’ve felt delighted about living close to the beach, and closer to my parents, brothers and sisters.
I’ve felt touched by the outpouring of love from our friends as they’ve shared how much they will miss us.
I’ve felt perplexed by the fact that some really cool opportunities in TV-land have come just as I’m getting ready to go.
I’ve felt scared that maybe I will never have life so good again.
And I’ve felt excited about the opportunities that I will create in Australia… opportunities I’ve yet had time to even imagine. Haven’t had the time! [...]

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The new year has begun precariously for many.  We continue to hear about the austerity measures that individuals and entire countries around the world must take  to get back on track.  But is it austerity that we need or is it really audacity… and a little “Tall Poppy Courage” that’s going to make the vital difference in creating a better future?

Last night in New York I had dinner with Phil Scanlan, Australia’s Counsel General to the United States, and his wonderful wife Julia. It was an honor. The conversation was rich and diverse as we discussed my experience of living in the US for the last decade, my impending return to live in Australia and, in light of all the changes and challenges around the globe, opportunities to contribute to building further alliances between the US and Australia and empowering a new generation of young leaders.  We also touched on Australia’s “Tall Poppy Syndrome”,  a cultural phenomena in Australia likely born from our convict ancestry and fueled by a desire for egalitariasm. Over the generations it has evolved into a tendency for Australian’s to bring back down to earth anyone they felt might be getting too big for themselves.  Unfortunately it’s also likey stymied many from pursuing their dreams with the gusto and daring needed to achieve them. [...]

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Plenty of change lies ahead in 2012.  For you. For me. For people around the globe. That you will experience changes, and need to face new challenges, is a given. Whether your experience of them is one of wonder or terror, enthusiasm or despair, is a choice.  So when it comes to the spirit in which you will step into the year ahead, where is your life in 2012 calling on you to be more courageous?

You’ve likely experienced it yourself: Brimming with resolve on December 31^st as you boldly declare the goals and changes you plan to make in the year ahead, and by January 31st that resolve is evaporated into the crisp winter air, nowhere to be found.

New Year Resolutions? Bah Humbug. What knucklehead came up with the idea anyway?!

There’s a reason less than 10% of people ever see their new year’s resolutions into reality and end up stuck in the same ruts year after year:  Change is difficult.  Heck, if it were easy to keep our resolve, and stick with the changes we commit to making as we sip champagne on New Year’s Eve, we’d all be meditating daily, looking svelte in our jeans, drinking a gallon of water daily, snacking on raw veggies and free of credit card debt.  The truth is that we all have the ability to make important changes in our life, and to keep our New Year’s Resolutions (assuming, that is, that we didn’t make them in a drunken stupor).  The problem is that we often lack the strategies needed to see them through.

I’ve got a L-O-T of change ahead in 2012.  Moving to a new country (Australia, here I come!). Finding and setting up a new home. Managing my business across two hemispheres. Settling my four kids into new schools. Making new friends.  Building new business networks. And in the midst of it all, enjoying the process (i.e., not getting stuck in “overwhelm”), staying fit(-ish), and finishing the book I embarked upon in 2011. Yep, when it comes to life changes, my cup runneth over in 2012!

There’s a science to success when it comes to achieving goals and making important life changes.   Using the right strategies can make the vital difference between optimism and overwhelm, productivity and procrastination, resignation and resilience… success and failure!  So I hope that as I do my best to “walk my talk” in 2012, that you will find the 8 strategies below helpful in making the changes and taking the chances you want to make in the months ahead… purposefully, powerfully and courageously!

8 Strategies to Successful Changes in 2012 and far far beyond!

1.   Connect to Core Values. Most people like the idea of looking better, getting richer and feeling happier.  But if you are going to stick with a resolution that requires changing a long-held habit of thought or action, it has to go beyond superficial desires and connect with your deepest values. When you have a deeper sense of purpose, it compels you to dig deep when the going gets tough and stay the course – no matter what hurdles you have to jump.

2. Be Specific.   Resolutions to ‘eat better, get fitter, be happier, relax more or have better life balance’ are doomed for failure because they lack specificity. The more specific you are, the more likely you will be able to succeed.   Describe your goals and resolutions in ways that allow you to track your progress and measure your success.

3.   Design Your Environment. Your environment can be a powerful source of support.  It can also be equally powerful in sabotaging your resolve if you don’t attend to it. Create a progress chart, enlist the help of family or friends to hold you accountable, hire a trainer, create a blog.  Design your environment so that it’s hard NOT to do what you resolved to do. I always lay my workout gear beside my bed at night to make it that little bit easier to get dressed when my alarm goes off at 5:30am.  I also enlist my husband, who gets up at 5:15 (yes, he’s even less sane than me) to make sure I don’t press snooze!

4. Center Your Resolve. Being ambitious is great. But trying to do too many things at once can make you so unfocused that you just bounce around like Tigger. Besides, you have the rest of the year to pursue other goals and changes. Set yourself up for success and start with just one major undertaking come January 1^st.   Then break that goal down into small bite size steps.  Small steps, strong start!

5.   Write it Down. Don’t just think it, ink it!  A Stanford study found that when people wrote down their goal, it increased their odds of accomplishing it by over 70%.   But don’t just write down the specific goal, write down how you will feel when you’ve accomplished it.  When you have finished penning your desires, jot down on sticky pads the words that inspire you most about your goal and put them around your home/office to remind you of why you are committed to doing what it takes to bring your goal into reality.

6. Reframe Failure. Your failures will not define your success in the year ahead, but how you respond to them will. Social conditioning too often leads us to believe that if you fail you should go home, hide your dreams under your bed, and never let them see daylight again. Don’t make a failure mean more than it does. You tried something, it didn’t work out as you wanted. Period. Reflect on the lesson your failure offers, making adjustments accordingly, then tap your inner John Wayne:  saddle up again and climb back on your horse!

7. Focus on the process. Psychologists have found that it takes at least 30 days to firmly establish a new habit of thought or behavior. It’s easy to get caught up in an initial wave of enthusiasm, certain that your efforts will meet with early success, only to come crashing down when they don’t.  Rather than focus purely on the goal, direct your attention toward becoming masterful in the activity or process that takes you toward it.  For instance, if you want to become more fit, focus on being able to jog a little bit further every time you go for a walk, rather than being able to run 5 miles by day five. Remember, small steps. If you stick with the process and embrace the learning that process entails, you will meet with success. Promise!

8. Do One Thing Every Day.   Make a commitment that every single day you will do one thing, however small it may seem, in the direction of your vision.  Okay, so you didn’t get to the gym like you’d planned.  How about 5 minutes of stretching?  Life rewards action.  And while some actions may not seem all that significant, when you take any action that serves your greatest good, it sends a message to your sub-conscious that you are still in the game, and that change is still in progress (however slowly).

Making changes to any aspect of your life demands focused effort, perseverance, and a good measure of boldness. But no more than already you have within you, just waiting to be channeled toward an endeavor that truly inspires you.  As I pursue my goal to spread my message of courage more widely around the globe, I challenge you to step beyond the doubts, excuses and stories that have kept you from experiencing the best of who you are, trusting in yourself more deeply, and boldly stepping into a future that honors your greatness.

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2011 has been a difficult year for many people. Perhaps for you also.  The reality is that throughout our lives, there will be times where we have to dig deep into ourselves, rise above our fears and doubts, and make courageous decisions.

Obviously that is easier said than done. So often we know what it is we want or need to do, but we lack the confidence and courage to do it.  What if we fail? What if we make a git of ourselves in front of others? What if it leads to conflict, or confrontation or change beyond anything we’ve ever had to deal with before? [...]

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Growing up in Australia, my only experience of Thanksgiving was through American television. Somehow it seemed a lot like our Christmas. . . except of course without Santa and warm sunshine. After a decade in the US, I have really come to love the Thanksgiving holiday. The idea that the last Thursday of November each year is put aside so that people can come together and share thanks for their blessings is, I believe, a very special and valuable tradition. [...]

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There’s been a lot of focus in the media in recent weeks on both sexual harassment and sexual abuse, particularly surrounding the tragedy at Penn State. Both involve the interplay of sex and power, vulnerability and intimidation. Both are issues requiring courage. Both require more discussion than any blog post can provide, but I was to share my thoughts anyway.

ON SEXUAL ABUSE:

It goes without saying that it’s reprehensible for any human being to abuse another; much less an adult sexually abuse an innocent child. While we must enforce harsh laws to deter predators, the front line of attack on sexual abuse ultimately rests on the shoulders of parents. We have to help our children to understand three core things:

1. That no person is ever so powerful or important that they can’t tell us if they have acted inappropriately toward them
2. That we will always believe them, and
3. That there is nothing that they can ever do that they should feel ashamed about or that would ever make us ashamed of them. Period.

[...]

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Last week my friend Caren lost in her bid to be elected as a Virginian Senator.  Last week an opportunity for me to contribute to a segment on a national talk show fell through.  Last month I had another publisher ‘pass’ on the book I’m working on.

The fact is that whenever we take on lofty goals, there is risk we will not achieve them.  Too often though when our efforts fail to produce we have worked hard toward, we focus on the failure.  We think about what we missed out on doing or getting.  People speak about their “wasted effort” implying that because they did not achieve the goal they set out toward – whether it be the business contract they had worked so hard to secure or the promotion that went to someone else despite their hours of overtime – that their effort was of no value.

But that is not true.

Working hard toward a goal or vision that inspires us, regardless of the outcome, always holds intrinsic value.    What matters far more than what we get from our hard work and effort, is who we get to become from it.  Caren echoed this sentiment last night with a group of supporters gathered in my home. She shared her gratitude for the rewarding experience of simply running for office and her appreciation for the opportunity to meet so many people, of all political persuasions and across all walks of life.  Yes she worked hard. Very hard. Door-knocking on 20,000 doors hard. But she also drew enormous pleasure from the hard work, and shared the quote by Theodore Roosevelt which has inspired this post: “Far and away the best prize life has to offer is working hard at work worth doing.” [...]

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Ten years ago today I moved to America.  I arrived with my husband Andrew, my young broad of children (aged 3, 2 and 8 weeks) and my mum, who had generously offered to help me that first month on the ground.  It took 33 hours to fly from Melbourne (via Sydney, Auckland, LA and Denver) to Dallas that October day in 2001. Air schedules following 9/11 had been thrown into havoc. And when we arrived in Dallas, weary to our bones, we discovered the first bombs had dropped on Afghanistan while we were in transit.  Needless to say, it was a journey marked with many emotions and a very, very, long day.. and night… and day.

Looking back on that day ten years ago, I can still feel the emotions I felt.  An over arching sadness saying goodbye to my family, not knowing when we’d return. Anxiety about settling in to a new city in a new country (Texas no less). Resentment at my husband (not deserved, but still, I felt it) at the fact that we were doing this for his career, even though I’d always advocated living abroad.  Overwhelm as the “perfect storm” of life circumstances hit me all at once. And finally, of course, exhaustion – something every mother of three children under 3 ½ feels in the base case, without having to pack up my life to relocate to the far side of the globe.

And so here I am, ten years on, more gray hairs, deeper smile (frown?) lines, and ten extraordinary years of experience, opportunity, friendship and cultural assimilation behind me! Not to mention a few hundred thousand air miles from the 9 or 10 (I’ve lost count!) trips back to Australia since then.

People often ask me, “When will you move back to Australia?”  Ten years ago, I would’ve told them “in about 3 years, but definitely in five.” Nowadays I say, “I have no idea.” And the truth is, I don’t. And what is weird is that I’m okay with not knowing where my future lies, what country I will be living in ten years from now or even what country my kids will one day call home.  I’ve come to realize that even if I wanted to plan the future, I couldn’t.  Sometimes opportunities arise, plans change, and doors open in ways that go beyond anything we could ever imagine, much less plan for. [...]

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This last Sunday I attended the funeral of the father of my dear friend Ellie.  

It was a beautiful funeral. Very sad, but incredibly beautiful.

During the funeral service numerous people got up to speak about the life of Seyed Ahmad Kalantar,  a man I had only met once briefly several years ago.  The words people spoke about him, and the deep love and admiration with which they spoke them left me moved to tears numerous times throughout the service.

Ellie’s dad had been born in Iran 80 years ago. And while he had lived abroad for much of his adult life working as a physician, twelve years ago he had decided to return to his homeland Iran. Seyed’s life held many adventures and I’m sure, many adversities also. But the message his life spoke was one of love.  As his son, and nephews, and neices and finally, his beautiful grandchildren got up to speak at his funeral, the picture they painted for us all was of a man who valued love,  appreciated beauty, and had a deep sense of humanity and compassion.  His son said that when he would ask his father for advice, his reply would always encourage him to do whatever was most humane. If his life was a sermon, it was one of love, and courage, and compassion.

Which made me wonder, if my life were a sermon, what would it say? [...]

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