Mel Choyce

  • Advice to Myself

    It took me a couple months, but I’ve started seeing my coach again this year. One of her first assignments for me is to think about the advice I’d give myself for the rest of this year. I’ve come up with a couple ideas — some of which are perennial problems, while some are problems I’ve only recently started thinking about thanks to therapy and coaching.

    Focus

    Ah yes, focus, my mortal enemy. So illusive and mercurial. What does focus even mean for me? Well, I should definitely allow myself more heads-down design time. Close Slack. Close p2s. Close email. Put “do not disturb” on. I struggle with focus, so giving myself more space to focus by turning off distractions can help.

    And if that doesn’t work? Allow myself to do some passive distractions, like washing dishes or some watercolor painting. I often make breakthroughs on a problem while doing something else with my hands.

    Lean Out

    I have too many commitments. I need to scale back on some of them, especially projects that aren’t directly contributing to my growth. This means leaning out instead of jumping forward at new opportunities. After all, the more I’m doing, the less focus I have for the most important tasks. This is super hard for me! The key to this might be external accountability… or signing out of some volunteer Slack groups when some projects wrap up.

    Be Vulnerable

    Like most humans, I suck at vulnerability. My coach had me read Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly, and I need to continuously take her advice to heart.

    This means…

    • Don’t be afraid to look stupid
    • Ask more questions
    • Allow myself to talk out problems with other people
    • Ask for, and accept, help
    • Allow myself to take breaks and time off when I feel like I need it

    Grow Without Shame

    Related to being vulnerable, I should allow myself to be in a constant state of growth. I need to give myself permission to stop comparing myself to other people, and instead, look to them as inspiration — how can I reach that level of skill? I need to embrace a beginner mindset, and get rid of “I should already know this” from my vocabulary.

    It’s okay to not know things! I should be aware of what I don’t know, and then let curiosity drive me. I can choose what I want to learn more about. I can on the things I WANT to know more about and improve them with intent. Rather than striving for perfection — which is an impossible task — I should be striving for excellence.

    Recognize my Experience

    Not only should I not be ashamed to learn and grow new things, but I also shouldn’t be afraid of speaking up and asserting myself when I’m an expert. I’ve gotten way better at this in the last couple years (leading a WordPress release actually helped) but I still have a long way to go. As we’d say at GRCB, I rock! 🤘

    mel

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  • Coaching

    At the urging of some colleagues, I've started working with a professional coach to help me work through some obstacles I encountered in this last year as a WordPress focus lead. I'm fortunate in that Automattic will pay for me to receive ten coaching sessions per year.

    (Since I'm also taking a three month sabbatical this year, it works out pretty well for me to focus the bulk of my coaching sessions on the first half of the year, and then save one or two for reflection.)

    I have a lot of issues with structure. I love it, but I'm terrible at creating it for myself. I thrive on external accountability. As I learned reading Better Than Before (which I've yet to finish), I'm an Obliger:

    Obliger's respond readily to outer expectations but struggle to meet inner expectations.

    …

    Obligers may find it difficult to form a habit, because often we undertake habits for our own benefit, and Obligers do things more easily for others than for themselves. For them, the key is external accountability.

    Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin

    Yeahhh, this is 100% me. 

    Coaching, for me, is an attempt at external accountability. I have appointments, so I must keep them. I have homework, which my coach is expecting me to complete, so I have to complete it. I need to improve myself, because Automattic is paying this great coach to guide me through self improvement. 

    For example, as part of my first coaching session, I filled out a "Year in Reflection" and "Self Discovery" form. The year in reflection felt like a natural extension of my previous post, but I found the Self Discovery form quite challenging. My self-reflections are usually unstructured (like my frenetic brain), so slowing down and focusing on specific questions was a nice exercise. For example, it took me a long time to answer question, which I think worth writing down publicly to keep myself accountable:

    Look forward 20 years – you are attending a function where someone is giving a speech about you. What would you want them to say?

    That I’m resilient and scrappy and get stuff done. That I never compromise my values for results. That I'm welcoming and never chased anyone with good intentions away. That I inspired a new generation of designers to contribute to open source.

    After my first session, where we chatted about the forms I submitted, I was given some homework assignments:

    • Keep reading Taming Your Gremlin by Rick Carson, which I was assigned along with my discovery forms.
    • Clean my desk! I did that over the weekend, and it’s looking pretty nice now. (Maybe I’ll finally get around to putting up art.)
    • As part of my Self Discovery form, I had to write about the qualities I associate with a true leader. I’m now tasked with taking those qualities, turning them into the first-person, and making a poster I can print out (and hang up at my desk!). This is due by the end of today, so I’ll work on it after posting this ?

    As I have more coaching sessions, I'll try to post more updates and insights. Here's to self-improvement in 2018!

    mel