My last blog on Journals and a Search for Unrealized Dreams [Turbo-Charged Activity] kicked up some dust with several readers. Let me reassure you if you think you’re in the “This Doesn’t Apply to Me” category:  it’s never too late to start a journal. A couple of people who responded with something like “Oh, if only I’d started a journal a while ago. I don’t think I even kept my diary from junior high” don’t have to feel any real regret. You can start a journal right now.

Trust me: it’s not too late. Grab a notebook or place some loose paper in a file folder. Now, see? You have a journal, waiting for you to share what’s on your heart or in your head on paper. Now, what’s the complaint? You don’t know how to start? One year, I started a Gratitude Journal, and every night, I wrote five things that I’d considered or experienced that day for which I was grateful. Start there! Write down five things—don’t trip up on whether they seem important or not—just list or describe five things for which you feel grateful today. People put suggestions for journal prompts online all the time. Just start!

In the blog post, I revealed that I wanted to sit quietly and thoughtfully and read back through my journals to discover unrealized dreams, like Oprah and her network dreams from 1992. I found my journals stored in two different places, so the search itself wasn’t uncomplicated, and once I was in the midst of reading, I became convinced that the greatest reward from this task was to take my time and savor this reading. For one thing, my voice sounds agitated and afraid in many of the entries, a voice of a much younger Me trying to separate her true spirit from the frenzy of mothering and career life and pressures from graduate school and troubled students and, in too many instances, unnecessary and unwelcome drama.

There are entries that express the joys of mothering bright and energetic children and of wonderful travel-adventures and peaceful holidays, and those are fantastic and truly valuable, too. I’m just particularly interested in finding what lies beneath the harried voice of a woman who’s often “dancing as fast as she can.” She lived the extremes of happiness and despair at the most frenzied pace that I can imagine. What does she aspire to do or be that’s been left undone?

All the best!

Doctor Mell

From mid-November until January 2, we can all get too busy–“caught up” in the holiday plotting, planning, hosting and attending during that potentially hectic six weeks. I’ve had a rich and wonderful five weeks of family events and such as well as a host of task-driven activities that have kept me hopping. Plenty of family members, friends and strangers in check-out lines have expressed the same thing: the holidays can be crammed with turbo-charged activity and leave you feeling a little “wrung out.”

I’m focused on making time for me during this last few days before 2011. For instance, I’m gathering and reading old journals to affirm some old dreams and consider some new ones. As some of you already know, Oprah Winfrey is launching her own network, OWN, at noon on January 1, and I read in her magazine last month that the seed of the idea for her own network was planted in an old journal she’d kept in 1992. She shared in the essay that she’d been discussing how to shape the direction of her career in new and interesting ways and the idea of launching her own network came up. She wrote about the discussion in that journal and continued to be watchful for glimmers of potential in opportunities that crossed her desk or engaged her in conversation.

I’ve kept a journal for years and expect a review to really light my path, affirming some truths about myself and the world that will strengthen me and make me smile and revealing some dreams that I’d still like to realize.

Does anything like this sound like something that would help you, too? Let’s agree to focus some SLOW-charged activity on dream-making!

Love y’all,

Doctor Mell

Have you celebrated your Fiftieth or are you approaching that big birthday soon? If so, you’re going to thank me for this one. Give yourself a holiday lift by re-reading a great article by Malcolm Gladwell from The New Yorker (20 Oct 2008) titled “Late Bloomers: Why Do We Equate Genius with Precocity?”

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/10/20/081020fa_fact_gladwell

Here’s the premise: it’s commonly held that genius is tied to precocity, that “doing something truly creative…requires the freshness and exuberance and energy of youth.” However, statistically, this bit of common wisdom does not hold up. What’s most common is that “genius” is connected to long hours of experimentation and practice.

The average age of students at the college where I taught was twenty-eight , which placed many students well beyond their eighteenth birthdays and the typical age that people conjure up when you describe “a college student.” Many of my older students spoke to me about their being anxious and filled with self-doubt before they returned to school, convinced that they would struggle to keep up with the assigned work that would be easy for “the young ones.” I’d reassure them with a statistic I learned years ago: “The people who are nominated for Who’s Who in America didn’t BEGIN the endeavor for which they’re being recognized in Who’s Who until AFTER their 40th birthday.”

It’s true. Please look it up! What I learned as these same students began to take and complete college-level work and talk to me about their experience is that their self-confidence and self-esteem grew as they spent time with younger students and realized that their experience prepared them well for tackling difficult assignments and persevering. Many would say, “I expected to have to do a lot of remedial work, but I approached the work with a can-do attitude and things just clicked! Plus, I’m older now, and I know what I want and what I don’t want, and I KNOW I want to work at something that makes me feel fulfilled and makes a contribution to someone else’s life, and I’m willing to work hard to get there.”

Okay, here’s the tie-in to Gladwell’s article and genius and creativity. He examines research on famous poets, film-makers and artists, reviewing studies that focus on the age at which each creative genius published or reached mastery. Time after time, the “late bloomers” were more willing to use an experimental approach to creation. Prodigies like Picasso [whose success was early] “rarely engaged in…open-ended exploration,” but Picasso’s are very rare. More commonly, geniuses bloom later as a result of “the kind of creativity that proceeds through trial and error…[taking] a long time to come to fruition.”

If you’re almost 50 or almost 70 and wondering whether or not the world will EVER recognize your genius, talent, precious gifts and exquisiteness, you’re going to get such a lift from Gladwell out of this. The article winds up with this great line: “But sometimes genius is anything but rarefied: sometimes it’s just the thing that emerges after twenty years of working at your kitchen table.” Don’t you love it? How absolutely true!

Some of us are excited about the up-tick in the economy and the sense of great expectation as 2010 turns into 2011, but there are others of us who need a little convincing. If you’re in the latter category, click on the link above or download this article on your Kindle and read it. It’s going to make you want to pull out that dusty paint box or pull out that half-finished novel you started years ago and get busy.

My pleasure,

Doctor Mell

Hi!

I tend to follow a strategic approach to just about everything that I undertake; it’s fun to me, so fine: call me Doctor Twisted. I put my make-up on in a strategic way.

Science and Evidence-Based Life Coaching give my practice authenticity and let my audiences know that I am serious about encouraging a Big Life, Greater Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, so a scientific strategy makes perfect sense to me. The principles of the Positive Psychology “movement” are at the core of what I seek to achieve in my life and through my practice.

That said, I’m proud to announce my affiliation with Harvard Medical School/McLean Hospital and the Institute of Coaching, directed by Carol Kauffmann. The Institute supports the study of Positive Psychology and awards grants to researchers who document the effects of evidence-based life coaching in clinical and non-clinical settings.

Click on this link, read about Harvard’s special health report, and enjoy the video with Dr. Ronald Siegel, Harvard Medical School professor, on Positive Psychology:

http://www.health.harvard.edu/special_health_reports/Positive-Psychology

I’m so thrilled to be associated with this powerful science, and I’m convinced that you’re going to embrace the principles of this science-based approach with tremendous enthusiasm. In fact, I think you’re going to have to eat those words about my being Doctor Twisted.

Please take a moment and comment. I’m always tickled to hear from you–even when you don’t agree with me. Thanks for spending your time to reach out.

My pleasure,

Doctor Mell

You’ll enjoy these spirited Silver Sages, a group of men and women interviewed for a wonderful article on life at 100 years old in a recent issue of The New York Times by Tara Parker-Pope, the author of For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage:

Secrets of the Centenarians link2video

Of these delicious vignettes, I like Mrs. Miller best. You can’t help but love her. She describes a very active life, including as she calls it some “flitting around” that she does and confesses that she feels a little guilty for not being productive and doing her painting while she’s flitting. What a work ethic! You’d think that she’d allow herself just about any indulgence with time since she’s 100, but she knows she could contribute more.

Perfect.

Please forgive if you’ve wondered where I’ve been. Can I tell you something? Creating a website from conception to launch feels like you’ve been shot out of a cannon–like riding white-water on an itty, bitty boogie board. Over the last several weeks, my team of brilliant Dream-Weavers and I have built a website, so please–have a look and click around the site www.doctormell.com and watch and marvel over the next several months as A Beautiful Thing turns into Something Incredible!

I have a gazillion people to thank for their hard work, guidance, support, fresh ideas, fresh mouths, and devotion to The Cause, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t name the principal characters here: Bob, Ben, Jean, Richard, Tanja, Marcy and Cathy. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you and salute you and express my heartfelt appreciation for your faith in me and hard work and patience. You are, without question, My Dream Team, and I’m absolutely knocked out by your commitment to excellence and to me. I am forever indebted to you.

Now, let’s get going!

An article titled “Forget What You Know about Good Study Habits” remained at the top of
The New York Times‘ MOST POPULAR list all week. New research shows that our old theories about routine and quiet and unimaginative repetition don’t engage the brain and optimize studying. I think the research suggests a new twist for your self-study.

Here’s the URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/health/views/07mind.html?src=me&ref=homepage

The take-away for me and my quest to help The Silver Sages re-define themselves is that
we have to be open to alternative practices as we learn. The research says your brain is more receptive when it’s more energized–like circuit training for the brain. If you switch up your studying routine, your brain is excited by the objects, textures, sounds, and colors in your new surroundings and attaches all of that to the history facts or algebra that you’re trying to learn.

Let’s apply that information to the process of sitting down with a legal pad (or iPad) under a tree and quietly considering who you are, what gives you joy and a sense of fulfillment at work, and what strengths you bring to a job or work group. What if you sit in a noisy coffee shop and explore the same questions? a busy lobby? a corner table at the local museum’s cafe’? The new research suggests that you can amplify this exercise with unexpected sensory inputs. What if you carve out the time to consider two or three different environments for your self-study? I think you’d come up with some fascinating information about yourself and what you’ve done and what really inspires you to work hard and passionately?

Now, go and sit under the tree if you like. The fresh air will oxygenate your blood, and that’ll be a kick for your brain, too. I suspect that, if you’re someone who works better with fewer distractions, you need the peace and quiet. I’d just like to encourage you to be very imaginative as you listen for the answers to those probing questions.

Have other suggestions to maximize a self-study? Please share. I love to learn.

Always listening,

Dr Mell

Ken’s job search is stalled, and he knows it. He’s also experiencing an important epiphany: the launch of this search was all wrong, and it’s time for a new approach.

At the beginning, during the first several weeks after his company closed and his job was gone, Ken was in a sort of stupor. He knew that things had been going sour for some time–he’d even tried to offer some suggestions from his perspective out in the field when he knew they were losing traction–but he was still feeling a little blind-sided. Reality can bite.

Looking back, he knows that he really needed to take a more strategic approach to his job search, but in the midst of the stupor, he just started trying to do what he’d done many years before: go through the ads, see what was out there, and dash off some quick updates to his old resume. Now, he’s not beating himself up about it, but he knows that he wants to explore a surgical strike to re-employment. Ken? Are you listening? You need a plan, Man.

Your plan–Our Plan–is to begin by quiet consideration. Ken, you need to have a calm, cool look at your strengths and focus on what sort of man you’ve become from the knowledge, skills and abilities that you’ve gained through your education, training, work and life experiences.

Now, don’t give me that look. I know what you’re thinking: “Dr Mell, that sounds like some serious heavy lifting.” Well, here’s where you must start, My Friend, and no, it isn’t easy necessarily, but it’s absolutely worth it. You need to sit and focus on who you are at your very core and consider your strengths.

You’re better equipped than ever to do this. You’re older and wiser and have a deeper, richer perspective than you did when you went through What Color is Your Parachute? as a 20-something. You’re going to make better choices and get the most out of this significant transformational period in your life if you’ll do the heavy lifting that’s required. I promise you. I’ve seen it happen SO many times. I know it works.

Trust me,

Dr Mell