Dr. Suzann O'Koon's Blog

You can be/do whatever you set your mind to.

drsuzannokoon — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 01:02:16 +0000

Twenty-two years ago this month, I sat with my father in the intensive care waiting room at Jewish Hospital. We had just had another visit from the surgeon who was explaining what complications my mother was experiencing and what needed to be done. As usual, as soon as the doctor left, I helped dad understand what the doctor was saying. This is not to say that my father was not an intelligent man, because he was very intelligent. He was so emotionally concerned about mother that the doctor’s words didn’t make much sense to him. After one particularly involved discussion, my father said to me, “Why didn’t you become a doctor?” I said, “Because you never told me I could.” He said, “You can be or do whatever you set your mind to do.”

After my parents died, I went back to school to become a psychologist. I needed permission to “go for it”! I’m giving YOU permission, too.

Shoulds versus Wants

drsuzannokoon — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:32:50 +0000

A theme that is emerging in both my therapy and life coaching practices is one that has to do with one’s ability to decide what’s right for themselves versus what they ’should’ do. More times then not, when I ask a client to consider whether their choice is based on a ’should’ or ‘want’ they have difficulty. When I ask them to focus on the question, “Do I want this for myself”, they still have difficulty. Many people just plain don’t know what they want.

To gain an awareness around your “wants”, you can ask yourself, ‘Do I like this? Is it pleasing to me? Have I liked this in the past? Have I liked the outcome it has produced in the past? Would it fulfill a need I have?’ (this leads into questions about my needs, desires, goals, values, belief system, etc.). See if this helps you have greater awareness about your “wants”.

Make that 8

drsuzannokoon — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:59:01 +0000

I need to add to my list from my previous post.

If you keep running into the same kind of problem over and over, it is likely a life lesson you need to learn.

What do I mean? Well, I will take one of my own life examples. I can always get to a certain point in a project when my own resources run out. Then I am stuck. An example has to do with my dissertation. I really struggled with the design of my study and particularly the statistics to use. It seemed as if everyone else was chugging right along, knowing exactly how to get er done! And I was struggling. When I ran out of resources I finally asked for help. This was not before I was ready to chuck it all! Finally, finally, finally, I got help. And I found out that other people had gotten help as needed. I had to learn to ask. I just didn’t realize that that was a normal thing to do. I thought I had to do it all by myself.

Before and since then, I have repeatedly found myself feeling stuck, until I asked for help or collaboration with someone who had a different set of skills. I think my life lesson in this case is that I need to realize that I don’t have to know it all! I can ask for help. Maybe I have finally learned that lesson. I don’t have to know it all.

7 Truths of Life

drsuzannokoon — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 12:48:27 +0000

To my current and future clients: I will continue to stress the following 7 life truths. Once you have mastered these truths, you will be able to get unstuck and move to your greatest potential. My Friday writings will address these 7 truths. Watch for them.

You are who you think you are

You can’t change other people, only your reaction to them.

No one ‘makes’ you feel. You choose your own feelings.

Just because someone doesn’t want to be your boy/girl friend doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you. You two are just not a good fit.

You make your own reality.

You can be/do whatever you set your mind to.

You really can’t love others until you love and care for yourself.

For parents of young adults: Get a life! And get out of theirs.

Any questions?

Fulfillment and Finances

drsuzannokoon — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 18:53:10 +0000

Fulfillment and Finances are taking center stage as the focus of Baby Boomers who are reaching “retirement age”. Ask yourself or someone who might be in this stage in life, the following questions.

· How do I want to spend the next 20 or 30 years of my life?

· What opportunities would I like to pursue?

· Do I even know what I want to do?

· What would be meaningful and fulfilling to me?

If you couldn’t answer any of these questions with clarity, you would be similar to many other baby boomers. Some people have done much thinking about this stage and others, well, not so much! This is such a life affirming time! We can be and do anything we set our intentions on.

Why is it so important to think about this stage in life with vigor? Because

50% of all people who live to 65 will live to 85

That’s a lot of life to live after retirement. This generation is healthier and better educated than previous generations which makes this stage in life one with more possibilities than ever before.

Most people don’t realize that they might have so many bonus years!

So what are people planning to do after they retire? Do they realize how that they have a good chance (well, at least 50% chance) of living twenty years or more past their retirement?

It might be time to consider an Encore Career to go along with the bonus years of health and vigor! It might be time to consider fulfillment rather than 24/7 leisure activities. It might be time to find that well-deserved balance in your life.

Individuals and couples are exploring the questions at a greater rate than ever before.

Why not join them?

Contact: Suzann O’Koon, PhD at suzann@suzannokooncoaching.com or 502.939.2987 OR Gary R. Jay at GaryRJay@aol.com or 585.288.3747

Success at any age

drsuzannokoon — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 13:31:03 +0000

I’d like to share a piece offered by Philip Humbert, PhD, http://www.philiphumbert.com in his weekly newsletter. If you are thinking about what success means and how to be successful, I say start with these:

The Fundamentals of Success

In life, and in business, there are only a few fundamentals that make life work out well, and they have never changed. Too often we pretend that technology and education have created “new rules” or that modern systems permit us to cut corners and find short-cuts that didn’t exist in the past. While there may be examples where that is true, in general, I don’t believe it.

The fundamentals of living well, achieving our dreams and creating wealth have not changed. The path to success today is remarkably similar to the path walked by generations past.

What are the basics? You might have your own list, but I would suggest at least the following:

1. Personal Integrity. Socrates recommended, “Know thyself” and Shakespeare added, “to thine own self be true.” Knowing who we are, what we value and making sure that our words and actions match is fundamental. Doing unfulfilling work or living in an environment that doesn’t suit us will surely undermine our long-term success. Too many of us live “lives of quiet desperation” and that is NOT a foundation on which to build a life!

2. Clear Thinking. Many of us grew up in the “feel good” generation and we are confused about the role of thought (education, planning, skills and tools) verses emotion. We let our hopes, wishes, fears, or “hang-ups” run our lives. High achievers take time to think clearly, seek expert advice, plan wisely, and learn from the mistakes of others. The Old Testament says that “wisdom comes from a multitude of advisors.” Some strategies just work better than others. Buildings are always designed and “blueprinted” in advance. Our lives should be designed just as carefully.

3. Unfailing Optimism. This is not shallow “positive thinking”, but a clear-headed, conscious faith in the future and in your own potential. “Where there is a will, there is a way,” or as Hannibal said over 2000 years ago, “We will find a way, or make one.” High achievers believe in their skills, in their plans, and in their futures. They forge ahead with confidence built on integrity and careful planning.

4. Hard Work. Ben Franklin observed, “Early to bed, early to rise makes a man (or woman) healthy, wealthy and wise.” I’ve heard people say achievement should be “effortless” and I agree that sometimes enormous amounts of work can flow easily and quickly, but I also know that creating a great life usually requires dedication, personal discipline, attention to detail, and effort.

5. Patience and Persistence. A great life is rarely built in a day. It takes time develop a life of one’s own. There will be mistakes and wrong turns along the way, and highly successful people are neither surprised nor disheartened by this. They simply get a good night’s sleep and start again in the morning. They learn from their mistakes, correct them, and move on with better skills and more effective strategies.

There are more fundamentals than we have room for here, but they have not changed, and there are no “new” fundamentals! Creating a great life does not take extraordinary luck, unusual talent or skill. Building a great life does, however, require that we follow the “rules” that make life work out well. The fundamentals are not sexy or exciting or sophisticated, but they are tried and true. Use them to create the life you truly want.

How Do You Define Success?

drsuzannokoon — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 19:29:23 +0000

I was working with my coach today (Yes, coaches have coaches!) discussing my vision of success. In the process I was able to really get clear about what I mean by success. When I am “fully me”, I am successful. There wasn’t one thought about the amount of money I make when I was defining my successful life. The next step led me to define happiness for myself. Guess what? I’m happy when I am fully me.

People tell me that I seem genuine. I feel genuine and I equate that to being “fully me”. So, for the most part I am happy and contented when I am being genuine. But what about when sad or bad things happen in my life? I can be genuine and unhappy at the same time. Seems like a contradiction. So I am looking at the different levels from which we experience life. This is an ongoing process that will take many more posts. I thought I would put it out here for your comments.
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Boomers could be retired longer than they think

drsuzannokoon — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 19:23:06 +0000

We had dinner with some cousins last night and I was struck by one comment. My cousin’s father has been retired and living in Florida longer than he had worked/owned his retail clothing store! I’m not sure if Cousin Willie knew he would be retired longer than he worked! But that brings up the subject of what to do with all these bonus years that Baby Boomers may experience.

There seems to be a dichotomy in thought for those in the traditional retirement age bracket. On one end of the spectrum are those that say “I want to retire to leisure activities” (they don’t actually say it THAT way but that’s what they mean) and those that say, “I want to continue to have meaningful activities and continue to be contributing and finding fulfillment” (they don’t actually say it THAT way either, but that’s what they mean)! There need not be any judgment either way, but for those that want to find fulfillment in their bonus years, they are needing some guidance. It’s like when you were in high school or college and you didn’t quite know what to do with your life, you often went to a professional to help with the process. Third Age Coaches are the professionals to go to at this stage in life. It really is a new developmental stage. People used to work until they couldn’t anymore and then they died. This Third Age bonus years concept requires transitioning from where you were to where you want to be. People are taking control of these decisions and not letting circumstances dictate “what’s next”. People of all levels of economic stability are making choices that are fulfilling their deepest desires and creativity. They are becoming the person they really want to be rather than going into a certain line of work or profession for the economics of it needed for raising children, building homes, and supporting families. Now is the time in their lives to be fully themselves. But figuring that out is a process that involves insight and honesty.

Setting Boundries–For the new adult and their parents

drsuzannokoon — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 18:48:58 +0000

My therapy practice has experienced a flood a new adults (18 to 28 years old) recently. That wouldn’t be so dramatic by itself, but the challenges they are bringing to the therapy sessions are remarkably the same! The situations usually sound something like this:

I’m a failure. I can’t seem to get a grip on what I want to do with my life. I’m a disappointment to my parents. Everyone else has started their life and I’m still stuck in school. I will never find anyone to marry me. Things haven’t turned out the way I thought they would. (remember, they are not out of their 20’s yet!) I’m not happy.

Through our discussions, several themes evolved.

The first theme had to do with comparisons. One young woman, age 22, who is finishing her 5th year at the university in order to graduate said, “All my friends are finished with school”. When I asked her to name them, only 2 of her 5 closest friends had actually finished theirs degree. One had dropped out, and 2 weren’t as close to graduating as she was. She had chosen to focus on the 2 of her friends who had graduated to compare herself to rather than taking a broader look at the people who hadn’t. A young man, a little older than this 18-28 group was looking at the financial success of others his age and lamenting his lack of achievement. What he forgot to look at was the difference in the long-term potential his degree and talents could achieve compared to the level of income his comparison group had without that same potential.

I will often cite a cancer study with regard to comparisons. Briefly, the study of women in chemotherapy treatment were asked to rate their sense of hopelessness during their treatment. The women who compared their own situation to women who were doing better than them physically, rated their hopelessness as very significant. The women who compared their own situation to others who were doing more poorly than they were physically, rated their level of hopelessness as not significant. The results suggest that eventhough the women making the comparison were all equal in their progress, it just depended on who their compared themselves to as to what their emotional outcome would be. This makes the argument to pick someone who is not as well off as you to make your comparison to. If you choose someone better off than you, emotionally, you will feel defeated in some significant way. This is a great coping skill.

The second theme that seems to be appearing is the notion of pleasing other people and their needs for you. I’m all for being a pleasing person….but first you have to take care of your own wants and needs. Then you can consider if someone else’s wants are something you want to attend to. You have choices to comply or not; but first, you must know your own wants, needs, values, life view, belief system, etc. So how do you figure that out?

One of the many ways: I ask people to look at the “shoulds” in their life. If they can change the “should” to a “want”, then it is their option to go for it! I will talk more about this next.

The other big theme that’s surfacing is the new adult can’t seem to BE an adult! The parents of the new adults have forgotten that they need to back off on the parenting role. Oh, they could be an adviser if the new adult asks for advice, but they need to wait for the invitation. Bite your tongue if you are a parent of a new adult. I can show you the marks in my tongue where I’ve bitten mine! I will say, “I have a thought about…. Would you like to hear it?” If they say ‘yes’ I tell. If not, I hold it. By asking permission, you are respecting their right to choose to have your wisdom or not. A key word is ‘respecting’. I respect my sons. I trust that they will make the best choices for themselves. Even if their choices don’t work out the way they had planned, it is not a mistake…it is only an opportunity to learn. What a gift! So, parents and new adults listen up! Stop ’shoulding’ on yourself and your adult offspring. No more, “Well, I think you should…….” These new adults need time and space to figure out who they are and what they want in their lives. They do not need to “live their life by committee”. Each person is a unique individual and has the capacity to grow into independent, self-sufficient, successful adults if the parents would just step out of their way and cheer them on! And new adults… confidence comes one step at a time; with one lesson at a time. Have some patience.

MOVE FROM Reaction to Response

drsuzannokoon — Thu, 15 May 2008 13:30:37 +0000

In many situations, clients talk about how someone else ‘made them feel’. I think of that as a person’s interpretation of someone else’s behavior. But to take that point a step further, I reread a book by Dave Ellis called the Human Being Book, and am now focusing on the reaction to a feeling. He says it best. I don’t even want to paraphrase. Please read and reread until you get the message.
(From Dave Ellis, Human Being Book, pp. 199-200)
People often resist their feelings because those
feelings are linked with undesirable behaviors.
Consider the man who breaks a dish every time
he’s angry. After a while, he makes himself wrong
for feeling angry. When he does feel angry, he
resists that feeling. After all, it costs too much to
keep replacing all those dishes.
His way of thinking misses one point: When
he gets angry, he doesn’t have to break dishes. In
fact, there are a lot of things he could do instead:
He could yell. He could take a brisk walk. Punch
a pillow. Play a tuba. Anything but break a dish.
Once we understand that a feeling does not
necessarily lead to any particular behavior, we
can give ourselves permission to open up to
the full range of our feelings. We can have any
feeling at all and then choose how we want to
respond.
Choose what to do next.
Feelings are for feeling. That’s all. There’s no
reason to judge them, explain them, justify them,
fear them, or stuff them. Feelings are natural
events, just like the weather. (As I have said, they are your interpretation of the behavior) To condemn a
feeling is like saying that rain is immoral. We can
feel any feeling without acting in ways that
damage ourselves, others, or our environment.
It is liberating to discover that actions and
feelings can function independently. We do not
have to feel strong, powerful, or motivated before
we take constructive action. We can do what needs
doing in our lives without fixing our feelings first.
That’s fortunate. Our feelings constantly shift
with the flow of outside events. When the baby is
screaming at 2 a.m., the boss is in a bloodthirsty
mood, or the weather is overcast and rainy for
days on end, we can feel low, even depressed. We
can find ourselves just reacting to other people’s
reactions: someone insults us, we fire back a
nasty remark; rain falls, we sink into sadness;
the car has a flat tire, we seethe with rage. If we
thoughtlessly react to those feelings, we’ll find
ourselves constantly at the mercy of the circumstances
that triggered our feelings.

Instead, we can notice our feelings, accept
them, and choose (I added the bold) what to do next. Instead of
lamenting the rainy weather, we can call a
friend or curl up with a favorite book. Instead of
complaining about what a jerk the boss is, we can
look for the underlying problem that sparked her
anger and find a way to solve it. We can even
attend to the screaming infant, knowing that we
can feel sleepy and still attend to business
tomorrow morning.
It’s to our advantage to have a clear sense
of what we can control—and what we can’t.
The weather and other people’s reactions are two
examples of items that belong in the latter category.
Instead, we can let go of such things and
focus instead on what we can control—our focus
of attention and our actions. Remembering this
offers a stable and lasting source of happiness.
Remember that like begets like
Yes, it is a challenge to be loving when
others aren’t. It’s easy to react in kind when
someone is rude, caustic, or resentful—easy and
ineffective. Sinking to a lower level merely adds
to the environment of tension, upset, and misery.
Being happier involves letting others have
their feelings and not taking it personally.
Feelings, whether they happen to us or someone
else, are not right or wrong—they just happen.
When another person is angry or rude,
they aren’t broken and we don’t have to fix
them. If we want to be happier, we can accept
the other person, notice our feelings about them,
and then choose what to do next. Unhappiness
is contagious. Awareness, attention, and action
offer the antidote that protects our system from
further unhappiness.