Otis Woodard

Personal Development

Lyin’ Eyes

Compassion & Self-Compassion, Crucial Conversations, Personal Development

I see it frequently, sadly, but for some reason, it has hit me harder this week. As I was thinking about writing to you about the topic I want to get into now, lyrics from one of the Eagles’ songs came to mind.

You can’t hide your lyin’ eyes

And your smile is a thin disguise

I thought by now you’d realize

There ain’t no way to hide your lyin’ eyes.”

I see people suffering this week because others have withheld feedback from them, the feedback they desperately needed. The feedback they could have considered, acted upon, and used to change for the better.

Why was the feedback withheld? [Read more…] about Lyin’ Eyes

The Waking Sleep

Personal Development

Over the past week, I finished listening to Eckhart Tolle’s classic book A New Earth, started reading The Complete Enneagram by Beatrice Chestnut, and finished ORIENT, module 1 of the personal development course I am writing.

Now I get to tie those three things together for you.

In A New Earth, Tolle made this point. While our external purposes in life will differ, we all have the same inner purpose:

“To wake up and to remain awake.” [Read more…] about The Waking Sleep

How to Achieve Your Goals

Personal Development

This video is from a course I’m developing called “Getting Started Right with Personal Development.” It gets to the essence of a three-part strategy for identifying and changing behavior that holds us back from what we most want. I hope you enjoy it.

 

Three Benefits of Personal Development

Get Started with Personal Development, Personal Development

I’m writing a course on a pathway for personal development, and I’m struggling. I’ve learned a lot over the years and I like to share a lot. That overcomplicates things. And people are very busy and don’t want complicated. There are a handful of people who want to know all the in’s and out’s, but most folks are looking for the most efficient way to move from where they are to where they want to be. I get that. But I still struggle with it.

And gosh, where do you even start with a course on personal development? As I’ve noodled on this in the early mornings this past week, it dawned on me that perhaps the place to start is by sharing the three key benefits of personal development. There are lots of benefits, some that people cannot begin to imagine when they start with personal development. However, it isn’t even useful to attempt to describe what people cannot understand, even though I’m tempted to try.

I can winnow the benefits of personal development down to three things I think everyone can understand. These three things aren’t complicated: [Read more…] about Three Benefits of Personal Development

Eight Things I Think You Should Know

Get Started with Personal Development, Personal Development, Personal Development Compass

Part of my mission is to make personal development available to anyone who wants it, anywhere, regardless of financial means. I have been blessed with incredible mentors, training, and most importantly, experience. It’s time to share it.

It is dawning on me what is really needed to get started right with personal development. I’ve been noodling on this because in the company I consult with, in four years we have ramped up to include 200 of their 6,000 employees. It’s been remarkable, but it isn’t exactly scalable or inclusive.

“What would it take to fix this?” I’ve wondered. And I’m now glimpsing a way forward. We are about to do some tests to vet this idea. It is an incredibly exciting time and a highly motivating endeavor. Namely…

Empower people to work together to support one another in personal development.

Where would this start?

I think everyone — including you — who wants real results from personal development needs to know eight things. This article explores these eight things. See how many you are clear on…

[Read more…] about Eight Things I Think You Should Know

Your 2019 – How to Rock a Mid-Year Reflection

Personal Development, Planning and Productivity

Can you believe it? Half of the year gone… poof! That kind of snuck up on us, didn’t it? One half is now behind us. One half is ahead. How’s it going for you? How is 2019 shaping up?

Do you have a process for taking stock about how your year is going? If you do, this post isn’t for you. But if you don’t have an approach and are interested in spending an hour being reflective about the first half of the year and more intentional for the second half, I’m going to give you a super simple approach. Ten steps. Sixty minutes. Yes!

Why would you want to do this? Well, if you want the second half of 2019 to be even better than the first half, reflection brings clarity. And clarity is power. If you act on it. And this approach includes an action aspect.

Given this is for folks who don’t have an approach, don’t expect this to be the end-all, be-all. I want this to be both do-able and impactful. So let’s get to it… 

[Read more…] about Your 2019 – How to Rock a Mid-Year Reflection

Life Mirrors Mind

Personal Development

A hallmark of our time is so many people are realizing that to change their life experience all that is needed is to change their mind. I’m not talking about positive thinking and affirmations. What I’m saying is we have the power to literally change the nature and quality of our mind and doing that changes our actual reality (not just our perceived reality). The corollary is our life situation mirrors us, and most specifically, our minds.

I’m getting this at a new level, myself, right here and right now. I’d like to share how I’m seeing ever more clearly that two problems I’m facing are problems of my own mind, manifestations of, mirrors of, my mind. Of my own making. And how utterly empowering it is when we can see this, know this, and not just intellectually believe it to be so.

[Read more…] about Life Mirrors Mind

Start with Self-Observation

Personal Development

“How do I get started with personal development? Do I read a book? Get a coach? Go to a workshop? What?” It’s a common question. And it is an important one because personal development often doesn’t go anywhere.

I have a bias for having a plan. A framework. W. Edmunds Deming said, “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you are doing.” I’ve written about the power of a framework here. (Expect to see more on this, soon. Very soon.)

Given you have a workable framework, one of the first practical steps is to learn self-observation. That’s what you and I will talk about here. I also have put together a whopper of a free, downloadable how-to guide for you called How to Do Self-Observation. Let’s do this.

[Read more…] about Start with Self-Observation

Why it is So Bloody Hard to Change

Personal Development

The behaviors you do that hold you back (or that you don’t do, and hold you back) arise from a system running within you. If you are like most people, you don’t know much at all about this system. And yet there it is — seven by twenty-four — running. Running you.

Our ignorance of this system, and how to work with it, and our fears related to disrupting that system make it very hard to change. In this article we will look at seven reasons it is very hard to change, why most people won’t, and how you can. I’ll give you a powerful first step.

[Read more…] about Why it is So Bloody Hard to Change