Coaching – Wellness, Mindfulness, Self-Awareness, Performance

If you feel that you can be happier and more effective but something is in the way, consider coaching by George Pitagorsky.

Whether it is a session or two, or a longer or more structured program, George can help you break through the barriers and transform your life.

Schedule an appointment to explore whether a coaching relationship is right for you.

www.self-awareliving.com

Check out my book The Peaceful Warrior's Path: Optimal Wellness through Self-Aware Living

Tracking Happiness

My friend Sam sent me an article on the attempt to measure and track happiness.

To measure happiness, we need to know what it is, why we are measuring it, and how measuring it affects happiness.

Assessment of how happy we are can get in the way of being happy. It can also help cultivate happiness. It depends on how the data is used and how attached we become to being happy in a particular way.

Do your own assessment.

What is Happiness?

There are many definitions of 'happiness'. It is a felt sense and no conceptual definition can capture the feeling, though some can elicit it.

Know how it feels to be happy and how it feels when happiness slips away. Know what causes it to come and to slip away.

Think about it, and the sense of the feeling changes with the shift from feeling to thinking. To define the feeling of happiness is to conceptualize, translate feeling into strings of thoughts and words. 

The concept is not the feeling, but to put a label on it makes us happy and can be useful. So, let's look more conceptually at happiness.

Types of Happiness

Happiness takes many forms, contentment, feeling the bliss of a pleasant experience, feeling the glow of doing the right thing, experiencing a general sense of sustained well-being, or a natural state that is always present but often not recognized.

And all of these forms of happiness are lovely. Happiness feels good.

The Quest for Happiness

Happiness feels so good that we want more of it. When we are attached to being happy and to escaping from not being happy, the quest for happiness can get in the way of being happy. We can become happiness junkies.

When you recognize that your mind is getting in the way of your happiness, stop, step back, and let go. Maybe you'll experience ever-present happiness and be happy for no reason.

You can paste up "If you're happy, beep" signs to remind you.

The Art of Happiness

Lion’s Roar says, to cultivate a "relaxed care-free frame of mind that is not centered on striving to get something else or be somewhere else" 

Easy to say. Doing it takes courageous, persistent, skillful effort, and a mindset that is intent on acceptance and letting go into ever-present happiness.

"Being able to enjoy happiness doesn’t require that we have zero suffering. In fact, the art of happiness is also the art of suffering well. When we learn to acknowledge, embrace, and understand our suffering, we suffer much less. Not only that, but we’re also able to go further and transform our suffering into understanding, compassion, and joy for ourselves and for others." Thich Nhat Hahn

Apply mindful self-awareness to choose to be care-free, accepting things just as they are, without labeling and weighing them. How does it feel?

May you be happy for no reason.

Managing Expectations: A Mindful Approach to Achieving Success 

By George Pitagorsky

Success is measured in how well and how regularly you meet expectations. But what exactly \are  expectations, and how do you effectively manage them when multiple priorities and personalities are involaved?

Using the case study of a Project Manager coordinating an organizational transition, this Managing Expectations book explores how to apply a mindful, compassionate, and practical approach to satisfying expectations in any situation.

George Pitagorsky describes how to make sure expectations are rational, mutually understood, and accepted by all those with a stake in the project. This process relies on blending a crisp analytical approach with the interpersonal skills needed to negotiate win-win understandings of what is supposed to be delivered, by when, for how much, by who, and under what conditions.

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Managing Conflict in Projects

By George Pitagorsky



Managing Conflict in Projects: Applying Mindfulness and Analysis for Optimal Results by George Pitagorsky charts a course for identifying and dealing with conflict in a project context.

Pitagorsky states up front that conflict management is not a cookbook solution to disagreement-a set of prescribed actions to be applied in all situations. His overall approach seeks to balance two aspects of conflict management: analysis based on a codified process and people-centered behavioral skills.

The book differentiates conflict resolution and conflict management. Management goes beyond resolution to include relationship building that may serve to avoid conflict or facilitate resolution if it occurs.

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The Zen Approach to Project Management 

By George Pitagorsky

Projects are often more complex and stressful than they need to be. Far too many of them fail to meet expectations. There are far too many conflicts. There are too few moments of joy and too much anxiety. But there is hope. It is possible to remove the unnecessary stress and complexity. This book is about how to do just that. It links the essential principles and techniques of managing projects to a "wisdom" approach for working with complex, people-based activities.

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