Color Your Style with Vegetables™

Do vegetables have personalities? Do they have characteristics that we can see, feel, and taste? Can eating vegetables have a positive affect on personality? These are some of the questions that I will be exploring. In the coming year I will be focusing my attention on vegetables. Eating healthy and adding more vegetables to my diet whenever possible.

The more I find ways to identify with vegetables and add color to my plate, the better I like vegetables. I was not born a vegetable lover. In fact, I have an insatiable sweet tooth. Finding fresh vegetables in season from the garden or the market has given me a new outlook on vegetables. As part of my push toward enhancing my desire for vegetables, I've developed the idea of four "Vegetable Characters." In fact, seeing myself as a colorful vegetable full of flavor and nutrition, and learning to appreciate a variety of colors and flavors has helped me appreciate diversity. Expanding my palate, appreciating new textures and colors has helped me step out of the box. Now I see people as a carrot, pepper, green bean, or tomato. Can you guess which vegetable could be described as spicy, rooted, connected, or contained? After studying personality assessments and colors, I came up with a unique vegetable analogy for describing a person's style.

If you are curious about the vegetables, take a look at the presentation from the California Career Development Association's 2009 Regional Conference at Stanford University, Color Your Style with Vegetables™. The full descriptions of the vegetables will be coming in future blogs. Color Your Style with Vegetables™ has been copyrighted for future publications.

This website is intended for informational purposes only. For professional personal/ career coaching, call or email Nancy for assistance with consulting, resources, and information to meet your personal needs. See links on the side panel for professional organizations. Copyright LWD © 2005 Nancy Miller

Spread Happiness

What is happiness? Measures of happiness have been studied for years. In fact, for ages youth was considered a measure of happiness as people searched for the "fountain of youth." With all of the money spent today on looking and feeling youthful and ageless, it is obvious there is still a market for youthfulness as a measure of happiness. Sometimes the amount of money we spend is considered a measure of happiness. Positive psychologist Martin Seligman has been studying happiness for many years. His research on authentic happiness has led to a Master of Applied Positive Psychology program at the University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center.

Happiness is even being studied as link in economic development. Since the meaning of happiness seems to be a bit subjective, the study of happiness can be ambiguous unless it is clearly defined. In the Wall Street Journal Online, The Numbers Guy discusses research on the self-perceived quality of life or well-being in his article, "On a Scale of One to Four, How Happy Are You?" Is quality of life the same as perceived happiness? Can happiness be quantified, defined, and qualified? Do you even know if you are happy at any given moment? Positive Psychologists have developed assessments for measuring Authentic Happiness and now have a website for measuring and improving "Happiness." But sometimes the question of happiness is more of a comparison: "Am I happy compared to what?" Unless you decide to be happy, or know how to make yourself happy, you may find yourself less than happy at any time or place.

The Christmas season with the lights, gifts, family, and often spiritual context can bring out joy and happiness in many, but it can be a source of unhappiness for others if they expect the season or other people to make them happy. Gratitude, giving, sharing, music, exercise, and relaxation promote happiness. Find ways to spread happiness this holiday season rather than waiting for it to come to you. Enjoy the season!

With Love and Happiness,
Nancy

This website is intended for informational purposes only. For professional personal/ career coaching, call or email Nancy for assistance with consulting, resources, and information to meet your personal needs. See links on the side panel for professional organizations. Copyright LWD © 2005 Nancy Miller

Family Gatherings

We are very blessed to have many family gatherings during the holidays. We plan to eat, sing and play games. I had a wonderful pre-Christmas with my daughter, son-in-law, grandsons & new granddaughter in Albuquerque, NM. The boys enjoyed seeing Santa and the "River of Lights." We had a wonderful view of the aquarium from a large glass window during our "Dinner with Santa."












This website is intended for informational purposes only. For professional personal/ career coaching, call or email Nancy for assistance with consulting, resources, and information to meet your personal needs. See links on the side panel for professional organizations. Copyright LWD © 2005 Nancy Miller

Joyful Holidays

The holiday season is here! The holidays for many people are a time of "Great Expectations." For some it is a time of joy, warmth and happiness, while others feel lost and empty. It is a great time to fill your emptiness by sharing with others in your community or spreading the joy you feel. It's wonderful to enjoy the music and lights on cold dark nights. But some of the simple expectations can feel thwarted as we think of sharing, giving, and how it should be done and has been done in the past. This morning I decided to make pumpkin bread from a Watkins Pumpkin Bread Mix. Simple. I've made plenty of breads and cookies. But after I creamed the margarine and added the eggs, the butter looked lumpy and didn't mixed well. I planned to share the bread with the neighbors and felt like it wouldn't be something I was proud of. But the warm scent of cinnamon and spices, and the delicious looking bread that came out of the oven, brought my senses to life.

Having an "Attitude of Gratitude" takes me a long way during the holidays. I am grateful for my family, doing work that I love to do, and having time to write out my thoughts and ideas. Starting my day with gratitude takes me through all of the unexpected disappointments along the way.

When things don't go as planned a "Sense of Humor" helps me gain perspective. Sometimes there are illnesses and heartbreaks that press on people even during the holidays, but often it's the little things that build up that cause us to lose our cool. The little things that we feel are important over the holidays can sometimes become overwhelming. Family gatherings, food, gifts, and cards are all wonderful as tokens of gratitude. But when having everything "just right" becomes more important than the "good intention," the meaning gets lost. I spent hours yesterday working on pictures to make photo cards. This year was the first year I tried to send them. When I got the finished cards I was disappointed to find that some were quite dark. The cards seemed to turn out darker than the pictures that I had printed. My first thought was that no one would like them, and they would wonder why I would send cards that didn't look picture perfect. Then I looked at my growing family and smiled. We're not perfect and sometimes it shows.

The last thing that I want to do is have a "Plan" for next year. I want to have a picture in my mind of the things that are really important to me. I plan to express my expectations to others, and smile when life takes a turn in the road that I didn't expect.

Have a Joyful Holiday!
Nancy


This website is intended for informational purposes only. For professional personal/ career coaching, call or email Nancy for assistance with consulting, resources, and information to meet your personal needs. See links on the side panel for professional organizations. Copyright LWD © 2005 Nancy Miller, M.S.

Building Alliances

Networking is the key to finding a job. In the broadest sense it is the key to finding any job, but networking is even more important if you are looking for a job that you feel passionate about as in a career related to the green economy or sustainability. If networking is so important, what is it?

• In the world of computers, networking is sharing data between two devices. http://compnetworking.about.com/cs/basicnetworking/f/whatsnetworking.htm
• In the career world networking includes sharing information. In fact, speed networking could be compared to computer networking. Speed networking can be useful for entrepreneurs who want rapid exposure of their name and product identification. It is one step up from social networking.

The most important way to network is to by building alliances. The Riley Guide describes ways to build alliances for networking, http://www.rileyguide.com/network.html. Alliances are not built in a 3-minute connection, although whenever you connect with another person whether at work, a meeting, a community garden or at the grocery store, if you make a connection, you can then build an alliance.

After years of working in my field and learning my personal strengths, I can be fairly comfortable in a speed networking meeting. On the other hand, my niece actually loves it. The last time I went to a speed networking event through my alumni association, I invited my sister and niece to go with me. We spent 3 minutes talking to each person as we moved around the tables. It was a great place for me to practice my elevator speech and meet a dozen or so people in a short period of time. After we made the rounds and I talked with a few people, I was ready to leave. I had stretched myself to the limit. My niece on the other hand was just warming up. She made new friends and talked to people I didn’t even know were there. What makes the difference? Why is it net WORKING for some people and net FUN for others?

We each have different strengths that we bring to our environment. I like to think of my environment as a garden. I have seeds that are my natural strengths that grow naturally in certain environments and seem to wilt in others. Each of us works in our own garden. We may have different strengths and challenges, but we can learn to build character by cultivating seeds that don’t grow naturally in a given environment.

As the gardener, I can take charge of my career development. My career includes my lifetime paid and unpaid work, but "Career Development is the total constellation of psychological, sociological, educational, physical, economic, and chance factors that combine to influence the nature and significance of work in the total lifespan of any given individual.” Career Development: A Policy Statement of the National Career Development Association Board of Directors, (Adopted March 16, 1993; revised 2003)

This website is intended for informational purposes only. For professional personal/ career coaching, call or email Nancy for assistance with consulting, resources, and information to meet your personal needs. See links on the side panel for professional organizations. Copyright LWD © 2005 Nancy Miller