Category: Stress

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Disconnecting… from Impossible to Done.

Did you say Workload and Culture? Lady, we have got to talk.
The whole blog, including additional comments, read for you.

Me: So, you’re overwhelmed. Tell me about that.

Client: I got up this morning at four am because we have a big project due.   I worked until six am, let the dogs out, and I’ve been working right here at my computer until our session started.

Me: That’s, let’s see, four am to seven pm, that’s fifteen hours? 

Client: (shrugs) I have more to do when we hang up.

Man, when that client spoke those words, my heart broke. I knew exactly how they felt. If you’re struggling with workload, like my client was, the idea of leaving on time probably leaves you with a lot of “yeah, buts…”

  • Yeah, Lady, but I can’t just stop. All this work will crash and burn.
  • Yeah, but, you don’t understand the expectations at ABC XYZ Corp.
  • Yeah, but, I’m in the middle of a major corporate project with huge visibility

I’m using my Saturday to write this blog and let you know… There is hope…

Let’s tackle those objections right now.

Last week, I tackled the 5 steps to unplug in my blog, which include planning ahead and letting your manager in on your intention.

Tackling the inability to disengage is the first step in my Reboot Your Day Job program. Coaching gives you a safe place to work with someone who can help you “try on” new ways of approaching old challenges.

Although the corporate world can and should help us – by providing flexible schedules, transparent conversations about resourcing and prioritization, allowing people the freedom to determine how and when they work, supporting meeting reduction policies, and looking for ways to reduce the email / IM chatter load on knowledge workers…there’s still a lot you can do, right in your own chair, while you wait for that utopian moment.

So – why aren’t we throwing down our mice and logging off?

Workload and Culture.

At first glance, they seem like likely culprits. After all, most of us have some loose definitions of the two that look something like this:

WORKLOAD: The never-ending avalanche of requests, demands, emails, interruptions, projects, emergencies, reactivity, and problems ….. supplemented with training, upskilling, the need to understand new technology and our jobs, and our business partner’s job so we can add value and find big ideas…topped off with a dollop of ERG’s, clubs, and engagement activities so we can support our colleagues, share the joy of STEM, work toward social good, combined with expectations that we will soon be networking and innovating -possibly in a building, after packing a lunch and commuting.

CULTURE: What you see everyone around you doing, what you hear your colleagues saying, what you believe is expected behavior, and what you imagine is required of you to fit in and succeed in your company.

Those are some pretty strong headwinds

I mean, all that AND I have to wear pants? What happens to all that work and all those expectations when we unplug? Not what you think.

I’ve walked clients through this over and over. Here is what doesn’t happen:

  • They don’t get fired.
  • They don’t fail to deliver on the big project.
  • They don’t stagnate and they don’t lose credibility.

Not one. Not one single client.

Why? Here’s what you don’t see when you’re stuck in overwork.

(I’ve included links to prior blogs for a deeper dive… you’re welcome!)

Every manager, everywhere, has said “Find a way to get it done.” No manager, anywhere, meant “Work until you drop.” when they said it. Why? Because of all the negatives that overwork creates… see the list above.

So what does happen when you unplug? Well, I hate to say it… but you wind up dealing with some pretty uncomfortable things… which is why… unplugging isn’t easy.

The two reasons why clients fail to unplug.

The number one reason why people don’t succeed when they try to unplug is fear: fear of what will happen to their projects, fear of what other people will think of them. This fear prevents them from even trying to unplug. I could cry when I think of it. What a shame!

What people don’t seem to be afraid of is the lost opportunity costs of overwork, missing out on creative solutions, missing out on collaborative opportunities, restricting other people’s growth, and reinforcing a culture of endurance and overload. All of which are the direct result of overwork – for you and your company.

The second reason is discomfort – it feels WEIRD to leave on time.  It feels WRONG to not be at work while the sun is out.  It feels UNCOMFORTABLE to ignore those little pings and dings, emails and IM’s.  If there’s one thing we know, it’s that we don’t like difficult emotions. Difficult emotions drive people back to overworking before they can see the benefits and find ways to overcome those feelings.

                Oh, you thought that grief and abject despair were the only difficult emotions? 

Wake up and smell the coffee, my friends.  We humans also don’t like – boredom, being fidgety, mild anxiety, discouragement, confusion, uncertainty, and about a million other emotions that don’t require a divorce or a death in the family.  That includes that little bit of uncertainty you feel when you’ve been away from your email for an hour.   Cal Newport discusses this in his book Digital Minimalism.  I’ve blogged about it here: Learning to Carve.

So, what’s the answer?

The answer is… follow the five steps I gave you last week. Clients never believe that this can work. Heck, I didn’t believe it until I tried it. That’s why I recommend a two-week experiment. That’s enough time to overcome discomfort and see real benefits. That’s enough time to start taking the actions that leaving on time forces you to take – thinking big picture, finding creative solutions, turning to others for help and inspiration – and it’s enough time to expose the problems your overwork has been masking. Two weeks is also short enough that the whole world of work won’t collapse if I’m wrong (which I am not.)

And that? Is just the only way to find out for yourself.

If all of this is just a bridge too far for you, I get it. I really get it. I needed a coach to help me get my overwork under control. I’d like to help you too. Click here to sign up for a free 25-minute session... no hard sell, just empathy in spades and real tools you can use.

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Let’s Get Back to You

There oughta be someone you can call to help you with that.

Look, it’s not like the pandemic created this problem. Difficulty leaving work on time, leaving work at work, and leaving work out of our dreams has been a top issue for my clients from the first moment I had a client. In fact, it was the first thing I wanted help with from my first coach. Why is it so hard to just stop?

The companies we work for, the language from the top, and the messages from the managers we report to – along with the examples they set – all contribute both positively and negatively. Like diversity, commitment to employee welfare and boundaries is something you can’t just talk about once and call it good. Companies need to send consistent messaging through words, actions, and examples to be effective. Then – they have to do it again and again and again. If possible, I’d like them to do it without my having to join an ERG to prove it’s important.

But what if your company’s overload plumbing is a bit… out of order? Does that mean you’re stuck with the overflow of work? The continual back-up of things to do?

Not at all. You, my friend, possess mad plumbing skilz. And if you don’t, I’m here to help.

Here’s how to reach me, else, carry on for 5 things you can do to unplug fast and stay loose.

If you’re suffering from overwhelm and would like to work with me, sign up for a free consultation. Let’s see if I can help. Schedule that here.

If you’re out of work, or working on the health care front lines and would like to see if coaching helps, it’s my honor to assist you for free. Schedule that here.

Heard about my 6 week course – Reboot your day job? – Find out more here.

  • Number 5: Remember why you took this job. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t to slowly boil yourself in work. Whatever that reason was, it’s likely that it’s not the same reason you work late. Let’s say you took the job you have so that you could get to work on full stack projects. OK. Now ask yourself – do you get to work on full stack projects? At all? If the answer is no, you’ve got a different problem. If the answer is yes, then ask yourself if took the job work on full stack projects day and night. Hint: The answer is no. Sometimes this exercise alone is enough to re-set your perspective on those long nights and make it easier to just … log off.
  • Number 4: Leave earlier than you dare to. Clients often try to just leave a half hour earlier. Turns out there’s not enough upside to that small change to actually motivate you to endure the discomfort you’ll feel the first week you unplug. So go big. Leave on time, on the dot. Leave early enough to actually enjoy your day.
  • Number 3: For goodness sake – PLAN something at quitting time. Do not leave this up to your own brain. It is just going to ask if you don’t want to do five more emails, finish one more task, or worse yet, plop on the couch for reruns of Law & Order until you wish you were back at your desk. Plan something wonderful. Take a class, dig out a hobby, or just play a card game. Whatever it is, make sure it’s better than work.
  • Number 2: Prepare for the discomfort. You’ve established a pattern with yourself and others. For the first week, it’s going to be a bit uncomfortable. You’ll wonder what people think about you… working your eight hours and leaving. You’ll feel funny ghosting all those pinging IM’s from your co-workers. You’ll worry about keeping up. Have a plan for this. Use Tech to give everyone the 411: Clearly set your status – I’m gone. Call if it’s urgent – see you in the AM. Block your calendar as “out of the office” in the evening so people with flexible schedules don’t book you for meetings. Breathe. This is scary but it just might be the most invigorating thing you’ll do all year.

And now, the Number One Way to Stop Working On Time –

Tell your boss. You heard me. Walk or Zoom into his office and tell him you’re trying an experiment. You don’t think it will cause him any issues, but you just want to let him know. You’ll be logging off – on time – for two weeks. Tell him you want to hear from him if this is a problem. And then? Follow through.

And that? Is just the beginning.

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The Power of Stepping Back

My bank started charging to sort and count change- the results were unexpected.
Don’t want to read? Check out the audio with additional content and … a rock intro.

How are you?

That’s a real question. I’ve been diving into this for myself over the last few weeks. The answer for me is – not all that great. That’s saying a lot. I’m almost always in an optimistic place or on my way towards one. Still, my reaction to the current environment has taken a large toll on my physical and mental states. So, I’ve set out to fix that. Here’s what I learned.

Data matters.

I’m more susceptible to media than I thought.

Rolling your own change is amazing.

Several years back, I could bring a large box of change collected from around the house into my bank. The cashier would come around to the lobby, she’d unlock a machine, and I’d dump the contents of the box in. It would count the coins and the cashier would credit my account for the total. It was a chore and a bit of fun seeing the final result. I’ve mentioned before that I like money, right?

Then my bank issued a statement. They would take a percent of the total going forward.

Here’s a known fact. Humans hate to lose more than they want something new. That’s saying a lot because we love us some novelty. Straight on that.

So I reacted predictably. I stopped bringing my boxes of coins to the bank. To heck with them!

Ironically, I had a quart container of lose change in the back of my van at the time. What did I do with it?

Double irony! At the office ( you remember the office, right?) there was a table set up. People were collecting pocket change for charity. Fabulous! I had change. Pockets and pockets of it. So I went out to my car, dragged the tub inside and plunked it on the table. Problem solved. Take that banking industry!

Of course, the recipients probably poured it into a sorting machine that took a cut. D’OH! Curses! Foiled again!

What’s a frugal change radical to do? I plotted my next move while the change piled up in the laundry room, on the dressers and finally, became part of large collection in the guest room.

Then 2020 came. No more change, at least not hard charge.

Let me rephrase – no more coins.

Over the past holiday, I found myself wandering the aisles of Wal-Mart, trailing my husband through the stationary section, idly picking up notebooks while he mulled over the options for hanging files. My eye landed on a box of coin wrappers. Without much thought, I flipped it into the cart.

New years’ day I dragged it out to the kitchen table along with a large jar of coins. I opened the box. The wrappers were the kind designed for use in a sorting machine. I don’t own one.

I pondered this. I’d spent money for the wrappers. I was going to use valuable time to roll this change. I’d recently read “Time Smart” by Ashley Whillans so I was super aware that in my quest to save the surcharge from the bank, I was paying more for wrappers and in time than I was saving. What to do? Should I just say the heck with it?

Happily, I’m currently working my way through “Digital Minimalism” by Cal Newport. The value of quiet time, free from TV, podcast, or even Audible, was also front of mind for me. I find it fantastically humorous that I keep shutting this audiobook off in response to his arguments for mental quiet.

With his ideas in my mind, I started sorting, counting, and rolling the coins. After a while, I got a rhythm going. After a while, I noticed my breathing, the sun through the sliding glass doors, the quiet satisfaction of watching the rolls pile up. There were a lot of coins.

Time passed, my thoughts wandered to the books I’d been reading, memories of times when my husband and I were young and very poor. The joy of finding I’d saved sixty dollars in change – a king’s ransom at the time. Memories of where we were living and how good our life was. I thought about the fact that I’ve somehow become a saver when I believed I was a spendthrift.

My husband came into the kitchen. I showed him the pile of rolled change and went off to find more stashes. When I returned, crowing over a plastic cupful, he had pulled a chair in front of the refrigerator, dragged the garbage can over, and began to toss out expired condiments and unidentifiable leftovers. I returned to rolling coins. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him in the yellow light of the ‘fridge. As we worked, both sorting and organizing in our own way, we chatted.

We recalled memories of the old days; shared our thoughts about the future. In the new year’s quiet, we worked on low-value tasks that took time but not effort. While 2020 sank further away and 2021 rose before us, we came to easy agreements. We sorted through our future, keeping some goals, tossing others out, no longer meaningful in the wake of the fading year. We untangled plans that had seemed intractable when discussed over a hurried morning coffee as we rushed into our workdays. Now, as we sorted and selected vegetables and dimes in the quiet, we agreed on what to do next. Easily, thoughtfully, calmly.

Just like that, our way forward changed. Not a lot, just a little. Because we were alone, just the two of us. Fox News was not there. CNN was not there. Governors and Presidents were not in the room with us, shouting from the TV. Dr. House wasn’t there diagnosing us, and the Tiger King was a distant memory. I’d stripped Linkedin and Facebook from my phone, deleted all aspects of the attention economy, put timers on my email and apps, leaving me present in the kitchen with our coins and our future.

No podcasts.

No books.

Just chores, the dog and our own ideas.

More of this in 2021?

Yes, please.

And that? Is just my New Year’s resolution.

If you would like help sorting out the drama and organizing your thinking, sign up for a free session here. I can help you stop the mental chatter and get back to what matters. It would be my honor.

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Get Strong

Think this is the soft stuff? Think again.

If there’s one thing I wish for you at Christmas, it’s compassion. Yeah, I know you wanted to master Ruby on Rails or get that full-stack gaming developer position outside Portland, but hey, anybody can have that. This compassion thing is way, way cooler.

Not buying it? I get it. Concrete skills are marketable, way fun, and useful. Compassion is the soft stuff, the fluff. It doesn’t pay the bills and it doesn’t get you true creds.

Still, if there’s one thing I wish for you at Hanukkah, Kwanza, or Winter Solstice, it’s compassion. If there’s room for one more gift, I wish you generosity – generosity of spirit, of wallet, of time.

With those two skills, compassion and generosity, your life will never lack meaning or joy. I’m pretty sure you can’t say that about any coding language or new technology.

And yes, I do mean skills, because as any monk will tell you, both of these grow with practice.

I would love to help you experience the power of creating these in your life. You can sign up for free 25-minute session here… Free Session. No strings, no hard sell. At the end, I’ll ask you if you’re interested in signing up with me. You say yes or no. That’s it. No sweat.

Compassion is our innate ability to recognize suffering in others and the desire to help. Generosity is freely and frequently giving to others. To learn more about how compassion increases physical well being, check out this article. Basically, generosity gives us greater pleasure in life, compassion gives us less inflammation and longevity. Cool beans.

That urge to quell suffering isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s not the soft stuff. No way. Compassion requires nerves of steel. That strength can yield big results at work.

In Fearless at Work, Micheal Carroll talks about viewing other people’s aggression as something separate from the individual. Rather than reacting to insults and threats, we can look through those behaviors and see the intent behind the behavior. Carroll isn’t advising this so that we can stay on the good side of a bully. He recommends taking the compassionate view so you can skillfully decide whether to “lend a hand, get out of the way, or end the confusion altogether.”

At work, this looks like keeping our cool when others are upset. It’s understanding and having sympathy for, the underlying situations and motivations that cause other people to lash out, to reply quickly and thoughtlessly, or to miscommunicate. Compassion is also holding people accountable, fairly, and thoughtfully, not allowing them to continue down a fruitless path. Compassion is the motivator for stepping back and shutting up when you have nothing to add. It’s the reason we step forward and speak up for the right things even when we’re scared. We do these difficult and sometimes frightening things because we see the suffering not doing so causes and we want to help.

That takes some serious mojo. Compassion is the only house big enough for that.

Compassion doesn’t just make us better work partners. It reduces our stress. Every minute we spend thinking about those around us, trying to lend a hand, is one less minute we focus on our own trials and tribulations. There is a world of suffering, an endless opportunity to help others and forget our own worries. Generosity of time shows us that we aren’t overwhelmed after all. Generosity of wallet proves that what we have is enough. Generosity of spirit gives others credit, support, and encouragement and in turn, we feel uplifted.

It’s almost impossible to help someone at your own expense. Every attempt just winds up back at your own feet, paying dividends that outstrip what you gave—everything you give boomerangs back.

In the biggest payback of all time, the more you practice compassion for others, the easier it is to have compassion for yourself. If you want more on that subject, click through and check out my blog – Mastering the Art of Self Compassion.

I hope you look back at this year and find achievements. I hope if you lost loved ones, your memories bring you more sweet nostalgia than tears. If you lost your job, or your business, I wish you a long list of strengths and skills, and the resilience to keep trying, to never give up. I wish you support and a hand up. I wish you friends, family, wildlife, and pets.

More than any of that, I wish you compassion.

And that? Is just the best I have to offer.

Namaste.

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Review This.

If self-reviews make you want to jump out a window shouting “Review This!”, you might want to approach them from a fresh perspective. My advice? Stop thinking about your boss.
Prefer to listen? Click the play button.

So, I, like, ran a search on self-reviews. My first hit told me that self-reviews make employees feel more engaged. Well. My team is pretty engaged in wishing that they didn’t have to do them, worrying about when they’ll find the time and fretting over figuring out what to put in which box on the form.

I filed that article under W for wackadoodle.

I don’t know about you, but for me, self-reviews feel like pure, unadulterated torture. I often start my work session by penning my resignation letter. Dear Boss – I’d rather quit than relive this year. Goodbye.

If we were only talking about 2020, you might understand this attitude. But I feel like that every year and I love my job.

So what’s going on?

The self-review hits so many triggers, it’s hard to know where to start. The fear of being judged, which is tied to the primal fear of being tossed out of the tribe is just the most obvious one. There’s the taboo against self-promoting behavior, also tied to the loss of tribe anxiety. Then there’s the fear of failure, of not having done the things on the list that was given to you at the start of the year. Fear of exposure – the fear of others realizing that you don’t actually know what those goals meant, where you fit into them, or how you did. Fear of losing something – status or money – based on your answers.

Once you’ve kicked your fears to the curb, there are expectations to deal with. Am I making the most of this opportunity to document my strengths? Is this going to affect my performance ranking? My raise? Does my family depend on me getting this right? Good God, Man! Why didn’t I start this a year ago? Beyond that, the resentment – I told them all of this last year and it got me no-where. Eventually, we get down to the sneaking suspicion that none of this actually means anything.

Finally, you’ve arrived at the truth.

Because if you’re in fear, expecting some huge result or bent out of shape by the futility of it all, your self-review will be meaningless.

Why?

Because the person the review has the biggest impact on – is you.

I’d like to offer this twist of logic. What if you approached your review as if you were writing it for yourself? I contend that you’re doing just that.

Your company is paying you to take a moment to self reflect. To look back on your work year and jot down some of the highlights. Things that you did well, that you enjoyed, that you’re proud of. Some of that stuff happened for all of us. Even if our biggest project imploded, there’s still something in there that went right. There’s still something you learned. So jot that down too.

Be specific. Isn’t that the basic Review 101 advice? It’s good to do not because you have to have exact percentages in order to bolster the case for your existence on the planet, but because we get better insights when we have precision of thought. Coaches understand that for clients to get insights, they need to pick a single situation and analyze what actually happened. It’s the same for self-reflection in business too.

Talk about what you did instead. Let’s face it. We all knew that a never before seen virus was due to arrive in 2020 and we set our company goals accordingly. Right? No! Even if there wasn’t pandemic, our business goals wouldn’t have been perfection anyway. You had goals, you hit some and you missed some. Talk about what you did.

Deliver the information in light of what you want.

You signed up for your current job. Why? What do you actually like to do? What do you want to do more of? This is your chance to highlight the things you’re best at, which are probably the things you like best. It’s a chance to remind yourself what you want out of work.

Look, you’ve met your boss, right?

So trust me, your manager knows you.

Your self-review isn’t a blind date. You don’t have to impress your boss with it. You already did the best you could at that for the last 52 weeks.

Your self-review is a chance to remind yourself that you actually did a hella-lot this year. It’s a chance to lay out what the heck you want out of work and let your manager in on the secret.

So relax. Get a cup of joe and enjoy doing a little self-reflection.

After all – it’s your review.

And that? Is just good to remember.

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Get Your Results Right

Think you control the results on your project? Think again.

3 ways to get this content – Vlog, Audio or Blog.

The full blog, read for you. Enjoy.

A meeting made me cry.

In a good way.

Ok, so crying at work is never really a positive. It messes with your makeup and then you have to buy more Kleenex. Tearful co-workers can freak people out, but a little sniffle of gratitude never hurt anyone.

Here’s the setup. It’s a big project, unplanned, unbudgeted, needs to be done in three months and four departments must agree to make it happen. I called a meeting. I invited everyone I could think of. I sent the invite in the afternoon for the following morning at 8:30 am. I wasn’t sure anyone would come.

Everyone came. A dozen people changed their plans and got on zoom.

Right now, at this moment, I still feel grateful.

Why? Because we all know, I was not in control of that result. That result was created by a team of people dedicated to getting things done.

I could influence the result by selecting the right people, picking a time that most people had open, and wording the invitation correctly. I could contribute to the result by acting quickly to get the meeting on the calendar, by showing up myself, and by doing my best to distribute a meaningful agenda. What I couldn’t do was control how other people responded. That was on them.

So the fact that the meeting happened and the project kicked off and got underway rapidly was a broad result made of up of lots of personal contributions.

Realizing that all those people measured themselves against a yardstick of being responsive, engaged, collaborative, and open-minded got me thinking. I thought – I’m proud to be one of them. I work with great people. I’m so impressed. I’m so lucky. Those thoughts give rise to a powerful feeling of gratitude. And yeah, I get a bit choked up.

That story is an example of the difference between results we control and results we don’t control.

Self-coaching is all about evaluating your own thoughts, feelings, actions and results so that you can have a better experience at work and in your life.

As part of that process, you look at your results and tie them back to your actions.

You tie actions back to feelings and, ultimately, to thoughts.

It’s important that you start that process by analyzing the right set of results. Personal results. Our actions create personal results. Our personal results can influence and contribute to broader results, but those broader results can’t be tied back to our own stack of thoughts, feelings, and actions. Only our personal results do that.

Why? Because other people influence and contribute to broader results and guess what? We don’t control other people.

Let me lay it out for you visually:

Situation: Three month deadline on brand new project.

Thought: I need to quickly know which teams are impacted and those teams need to understand the project.

Feeling: Urgency

Actions driven by the feeling of urgency: review my understanding of impact, schedule meeting for the following morning, invite representatives from many areas to ensure no one is missed, provide a concise, clear agenda. Acknowledge the inconvenient timing and express appreciation to the invitees. Send invitations.

Result: Everyone shows up.

For the purposes of coaching yourself, that result line is incorrect. It’s what happened but it’s not the result for me that the actions created for me.

To better find my personal result, I’ll take another look at the thought.

I need to quickly know which teams are impacted and those teams need to understand the project.

The result I created for myself after doing all those actions was: I acted gave myself the best chance to find out who was impacted. I provided meaningful information to other teams as soon as I learned it, something that matters to me.

Everyone showing up was the result of a dozen personal results, driven by a dozen different thoughts, which caused a dozen people to show up on zoom. It had very little to do with me beyond the invitation. That result, of the meeting taking place and the project kicking off less than a day after I learned of it, belongs to the collective.

Why does focusing on personal results matter?

If it seems selfish or self-centered to spend your time focusing on your results rather than the broader result, remember this. We still have to work hard to influence and contribute to the broader results. Tying our personal growth and job satisfaction to actions and results outside our control is losing game. You’re not going to be any better tomorrow at controlling other people.

The most control you’ll ever have is over your own thoughts, feelings and actions.

Results that are in your control, tie back to your own standards and are meaningful to you personally are the big engine of job satisfaction and engagement. Feeling like your work matters is huge. Feeling like your work matters to you, and knowing that you’re in alignment with your own standards the root of engagement.

So when you’re reviewing results, don’t forget to look at both sets. The broader results and your personal results.

And that? Is just a good thing to do.

Want to learn how to set your own bar, deliver your best results, and stop being overwhelmed by the chaos?

I’ve got a program for that: Reboot Your Day Job.

In six short weeks, you can get back control, make the big decisions you’ve been putting off and be more organized and productive than you ever thought possible.

Six weeks. $600. Everything changes.

Book a free 25-minute session to find out how my program can change your life.

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Mind-Body

If your Work Life / Biological Life balance has been hit by a truck, read on.

I’ve got a deep-dark secret I’ve never shared on this blog. Basically, because I feel ridiculous to say it out loud… but hey, public embarrassment is what blogging is all about. Here goes. This blog is about the problem of not having time to eat lunch, and, er, other things.

Here it is, the whole blog, read to you…. with a brand new intro. Oh, yeah, and riffs.

I’m talking about the issue of mind-body disassociation. I initially noticed the problem when I was working with my very first private coach. I would talk to her every week and pretty-much try to impress us both with how difficult my work life had become. To show her the profoundly pressured existence I found myself in, I would get right to the most basic of bodily functions – using the restroom.

I didn’t have time for it.

I would find myself not drinking liquids for hours. My fingers would fly over the keyboard in a mad rush to finish one more thing, while my bladder tightened and my whole body was thrown into a tense and hurried race. God forbid someone came into my office to interrupt me. My head would jerk up, eyes wide and frantic. Suddenly aware I couldn’t wait one more moment, I’d start heading out the door as I talked to them, finally saying…

“I’ll be right back.”

This, I thought was a profound example of the extreme demands of my job and my need to keep producing every second. I also thought it was a bit wackadoodle and I didn’t want to confess it to anyone. Now, years later, I understand that I am not the only person to experience this. Just last year, I watched a woman who’d built a million-dollar business in a few years confess to the same thing. And she’s a doctor.

So let me ask you, are you disconnecting from your own biology? Do you –

  1. Find yourself not willing to get up and get lunch, and when you do, you gobble it down at your desk?
  2. Find yourself doing one more thing, one more thing long after you’ve realized you’re profoundly uncomfortable?
  3. Start work early and find that it’s almost lunchtime and you haven’t had your first cup of tea?
  4. Head into bed in the evening knowing you haven’t exercised or even been outside?
  5. Work later than you want, feeling more and more pressured to work even later?
  6. Miss dinner with your family, even as you rush to get finished?
  7. Find yourself working late into the night, while lights go out, your family crawls into bed, and yet, when you finally walk into the bedroom, exhausted physically, your mind races on?

Dude. You are so not alone.

And Dude – understand this – you’re a carbon-based life form with some biological imperatives you will really enjoy following. And yeah, stick with me here. I know I just lost you on that biological imperative thing.

Long before I sat in the convention room in Texas and watched a woman with a two-comma business confess to my deep dark secret, I’d already resolved the issue for myself. It still felt great to realize that she’d been just as misguided as I had been.

Here’s how I broke free.

First, my coach and I really dug into some of the underlying beliefs I carried around.

This is something it’s much easier to do with a coach, so please, if you want help with this issue, definitely sign up for a free 25-minute session. You, basically, are the entire reason I’m a coach and I want to help.

As soon as she asked me what I would tell a teammate about this issue, the answer was way clearer than my annual objectives. I would say… “Go take care of yourself. Be late to the next meeting, leave this meeting early. Stop typing for Pete’s sake. “

Ask yourself, is there anyone in the world you care about that you would encourage to keep working when they were exhausted, hungry, ready to bust a gut or missing their children’s bedtime?

Please tell me the answer is no.

So step one is to find out why the heck you think it’s OK to do that to yourself. I’m not even going to make you turn this blog upside down to read the answer.

It’s not. You’re not different. You are a biological creature. If you dry up to a husk and pass out in your chair, you’re doing anyone any good. At some level you understand this because you’d shut your buddy’s laptop lid if he was doing this to himself.

Once I got through that thought process, I realized there was another problem. I’d decided it was OK to stop and use the restroom, to eat my lunch, to dance a jig at 6 pm if I wanted to… but I wasn’t doing it. Why?

I was so used to stuffing down signals, my body couldn’t reach me.

My body was literally phoning in and getting a busy signal.

Time to send in the construction crew to re-run the cable between my body and brain.

I literally had to train for this.

I made a plan and gave myself a mantra – Biology Rules.

Biology Rules – because it does. I’m not a brain on stick with some fingers and a thumb. I’m a human being. I’m a creature. I’m a mammal. If I don’t follow the biological rules that being a mammal encompasses, I’ll die.

I can’t swim underwater for hours and I can’t survive without physical exercise.

I can’t jump off a cliff and fly and I can’t go without water.

I can’t crawl across the ceiling and I can’t go without hitting the john.

PERIOD.

And neither can you.

We can’t do without sleep, without connection to other humans and we can’t think well for hours and hours. We just can’t.

To restring the connection between body and mind, I made a deep pledge to myself. Biology Rules. No excuses. The minute I noticed that I needed something BECAUSE of my biology – I just got up and did it.

Turns out, the world didn’t end when I would check into a meeting and say – I’ll be right back.

Nothing fell apart when I started eating my lunch outside.

My boss did not call me into his office because he’d noticed I’d been getting eight hours. I mean what was he going to say, I think you need to be on line until eleven pm? Of course not. He had no clue how late I was working; he was having his own problems disconnecting.

OK let’s get back to you.

You are a biological creature. You have some rules to follow. If you ignore them, your experience right now is miserable and you cut your life short.

To remedy this, admit that you’re human.

Agree you deserve the same basic advantages as any assembly line worker – the right to regular breaks and a right to stop working at the end of the day.

Plan on a mantra and a rule. – Biology Rules: My body’s needs that trumps all other demands. Or try this: Use it or Lose it: I’m not willing to bust a gut, shrivel and dry up or have a lack of sleep induced psychosis for my employer, who doesn’t even want any of that either.

Notice your body’s demands. Are you angry? Is it because you feel rushed? Do you feel rushed because your body needs something? What is it?

Then give your body what it wants.

I promise you, when you do this, you will see a productivity increase. I’ve seen this for myself and client after client. It’s the cruelest joke ever. We think we have to double down on work to get through everything. It’s not true. We have to double down on bringing our A-game. To bring our A-game, we have to honor our biological mandate.

And that? Is just a healthy way to work.

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The Big Loop

Got a brain? Well, then you probably have a big loop.

I yelled at my coach yesterday. I told her than every time I look at the news, I get upset. I told her that when I’m upset, I don’t follow through on my plans. She smiled. Not a big “I hear ya, sister” grin, but a half-smile. She wasn’t buying it. I tried to beat her to the punch.

“Uh, uh. No way I’m gonna sit in front of the TV and feel all THOSE feelings.”

“Forget that,” I said forcefully and loudly. Yeah. I was yelling.

“Sure, but you’re jumping to the worst-case scenario,” she said. “And that’s what’s driving the feelings and that is what’s keeping you from the results you want.”

I folded my arms over my chest.

She kept her poker face. It was game on, which meant she brought out the big guns. “You’re giving away all your power,” she said. “Which is fine. Is that what you want to do?”

Ok. So I’m not a medical professional or schooled in psychology. I’m an IT manager and a life coach. But one thing I know is this: I do not want to give up on anything I can control. I had to concede the match. By assuming that what I see on TV must generate the same feelings it always has before, I’m basically abdicating on myself. I -for sure – don’t want Wolf Blitzer and Bret Baier running my emotional show. Double true! So, I did me some research on ways thinking, the thing I rely on to get my work done and keep my life moving, can get itself sideways.

I’m a human and I have a brain. My brain does a lot of looping. Looping is one way of describing thoughts that come back over and over. Another way of saying it is – repetitive thinking. I’ve got a lot of it. Turns out, we all do.

Repetitive thinking isn’t good or bad. Like most things, it has two sides to it. After all, we’re pretty efficient creatures and if our brains have this behavior, I’d like to think it’s adaptive; it has its uses.

There are lots of types of repetitive thinking – rumination, worry, cognitive processing, emotional processing, solutioning, planning ahead, what-if thinking, level-setting expectations, worst-case analysis, reflection, self-criticism, post-mortems, goal setting, and day-dreaming. All of it involves us running scenarios or sentences over and over in our minds.

Not all of this is bad. In fact, when you look at the list, you can see why repetitive thinking might give a guy the edge. Planning ahead, risk mitigation, goal setting, thinking options through, picking up better health habits, recovering from depression, and getting through emotional trauma all come from this type of thinking.

You can also see how this type of thinking can cause us problems. Over-analysing, habitual worry, snowballing from small events to large future worse cases, self-judgment, negative self-talk and repeatedly triggering the body’s stress response system with our thinking are all linked to some pretty depressing outcomes. The list includes, you guessed it – depression, anxiety, and flat out poor physical health..

So how do we keep our positive patterns and reduce our negatives? Well, it turns out that positive outcomes from repetitive thinking are linked to our emotional state and the direction we guide our thinking in. Basically, the more you think about negative stuff, without giving it meaning and direction, the worse you feel. However, if you apply positive intent, have basic optimism about your ability to achieve your goal, and have a positive emotional state when you begin, repetitive thinking can predict a good outcome.

What?

Ok …. let’s get into the concrete examples here.

Say you work hard on a project, turn it in, and your boss changes something on every single gosh darn slide. You might engage in a bit of rumination, running the feedback he gave you through your thoughts several times. You might start to feel a bit down. Then you might think about the fact that you feel like crap. After about an hour of noticing your low energy and disappointment, you might beat yourself up a bit for letting your boss get to you like that. After a short break and a chat with a friend, where you have a candy bar and complain, returning to your desk, might bring you face to face with worry. What if you’re one step closer to getting fired? Or what if every project you do goes this way? How are you going to stand going through the whole year with this boss? By the time you get home, you’re not ready to listen to your spouse, not wanting to put in any more time on work and basically, good for nothing but ordering pizza and snapping through channels.

None of this sets you up for a great day at work tomorrow.

Let’s rewind. You work hard on a project but you know your boss has more experience. So you collaborate with your boss, ask his opinion and sure enough, he has something to add to every slide. You take it back to your desk and evaluate the suggestions, accepting some, and rejecting others. You have a call and discuss it. Of the rejections, you change your mind and keep a couple and throw out the rest. You turn the project in and engage in a bit of rumination. You wish you had thought of some of the changes yourself. You reflect on how you could have known to make them before your boss told you. For the ones you should have thought of, you make notes for next time. Of the ones you couldn’t have known, you tell yourself that’s why he’s the boss. By now, you’re exhausted and you feel it. You take a break, have a candy bar, and blow off some steam with your friend. Back at your desk, there’s a mountain of work still to do, but at least the presentation is off your plate and your job is safe for another day. By the time you get home, you’re tired but you’re glad to hear someone else’s troubles for a while. You let your spouse vent and then together, you decide to forget about fixing dinner. You get a pizza and put on some harmless feel-good show and watch together.

After a good night’s sleep, you’re ready to take on another day at work.

In both cases, the boss had input for every slide. In both cases, you work hard, are tired, and don’t make good choices about everything – indicating some stress and will-power fatigue. But in one case, the negative emotional tenor and the assumption that the boss’s input means something negative about yourself, cause the repetitive thinking to take on a depressing tone and gravitate towards less constructive ways of understanding. In the other, a more optimistic attitude – assuming the boss has good intentions, finding an explanation for why you didn’t know some things, and taking proactive measures for the future by trying to learn from the feedback, lead to a much better mental outcome.

The key here is to notice when you’re indulging in repetitive thinking. Notice the direction of the thinking. Notice your overall situation and emotional state.

After a long day at my stand-up desk, when I come out to cook dinner, I’m pretty low on mental resources. Turn on the news and let them rehash the same three issues over and over, and my brain might just pick up on the iterative loop of negative data. (Talk about repetitive!) Toss in a bit of repetitive thinking about how all this will play out over the next 80 days, and I’ve got myself a nice set up for a miserable night. Just maybe, I’ll yell at my coach about it.

Noticing that I’m tired when I leave my desk, mentally tired but physically sick of sitting still, I can predict that I’m going to do way better listening to a Ted talk than listening to the 24/7 cycle. Later, after a break, some exercise, some time with my dog and my husband, I’ll be a much better place to catch up on what happened in the world. Then I can use my brain to ruminate on how lucky I am, to reflect on what campaigns I might want to donate to and remind myself that I’m still on track, even if the talking heads are doing their best to convince me the rest of the world, is not.

If you want to work on noticing your thoughts and figuring out what and when to switch up the process, sign up for a free 25-minute session.

And that? Is just a better way to use our brains.

For more on repetitive thinking, check out this informative link “Watkins ER. Constructive and unconstructive repetitive thought. Psychol Bull. 2008;134(2):163-206. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.134.2.163″

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Get up, Log off, Get Gone

Look, you gotta go now.

It’s the Summer of Covid-19. Are you still at your desk?

I used to be this woman. Minus the nice bathing suit and the toned legs. Yeah, minus all of it except the phone. That briefcase would have been my laptop and instead of a beach, I’d be chillin’ on the lanai at my mother’s in Florida, but the concepts the same.

We all know that it’s good for us to leave work at work. Not so easy, you say?

Here’s a few simple tips that have worked for my clients.

Dedicate Yourself To Leaving Work at Work.

1. Don’t wait to have time, to take time.

Clients who overwork tend to think they can’t sign up for that pottery class, can’t get that dog, can’t start that work out routine until they figure out how to leave on time. This is backward. One of the reasons you stay too late at your desk is that you don’t have a clear goal for what comes next. By clear goal, I don’t mean weeding the garden if that’s your least favorite chore. Trust me on this. Schedule the class. You’ll figure out how to get there.

2. When your boss tells you to go, take him at his word.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this. The employee is overwhelmed and can’t see the forest for the trees. Boss gets concerned. “Go home.” “Take your vacation.” “Leave early today.” Employee nods and gets back to work, telling himself that the boss is nuts, or that’s nice but I have too much work. People, your manager is trying to help you. Hopefully, he or she has been around the block and can see a forward that you can’t right now. Or maybe, like me, he just knows that you’ll work smarter and faster once your head isn’t full of cotton and misery. When the boss says go, go.

3. Understand that stopping your thought patterns takes practice.

Our brains like to do what we did yesterday. Why? Because we survived. There’s no super intuitive magic going on. You can’t stop thinking about work because you aren’t taking ownership of your brain. If you don’t guide it, then it’ll do what’s easy. What’s easy? Whatever it just did. So now that you’re on vacation, now that you left your desk on time, don’t expect it to be roses. Now is the time you have to do some work for you. Now is the time you have practice directing your thoughts. It’s not fun – until it is.

4. Don’t expect there to be fun things to do unless you’ve planned them.

If you walk away from your desk and find yourself standing in the kitchen with a strong desire to refill your coffee cup and head back into your office, then just turn to your plan.

What? You don’t have one? We’re right back at item #1 again. Plan something fun. Just last week, I sat down with my coach and she made me construct a list of things to do in the evening. Things that feel good, don’t require food and aren’t about productivity or work. Brilliant. So, now? I’m heading out for my walk. Plan something good and enjoy your time off.

And that? Is just a great thing to figure out.

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Don’t Chain Your Joy to Your Desk

Think breaking free from your desk has to happen before you find joy? Bass Ackward, man.

Look, work is hard, right?   Being out of work, looking for work and having work – we’re talking difficult situations, regardless of which boat you’re in now.

Whether you’re overworking, underworking or struggling to find or keep a job, in every case, you’re going to hit up against a belief.  The belief that you have to know the solution before you get to the results.  Not so, Sparky.

I know exactly what it feels like to hamstring myself by tying together things that can be independent.

I was a woman who wanted to be “She who never wonders what to wear.”  The experience of walking to my closet each day and trying outfit after uncomfortable outfit, was balled up so tightly in my head with being overweight that I actually believed that I couldn’t have any other experience until I lost weight. It simply didn’t occur to me that you don’t have to be thin to have seven outfits that look good and fit.

I used to have twenty-five percent of my salary tied to credit card debt. Along with my mortgage and a car payment, that pretty much meant we were always one paycheck away from financial failure. I didn’t think I could change that. I thought you had to born with the miserly Scrooge gene in order to be debt-free.

I had my experience of being utterly miserable in my job.  I believed that my boss had no idea what I did all day, had no time to understand it and basically, disregarded me.   I felt the amount of work on my plate was more than anyone could ever do and I believed that I didn’t have the political clout to help our team. I was miserable because of my work.

It’s easier to see when we’re talking about frumpy clothes and harder to see when we’re talking about work but in each case, a belief that was connecting two unrelated things was holding me back.

I believed I had to be skinny to have clothes I liked.

I believed I had to be born with a talent for money to get out of debt.

I believed that my boss, my company and my workload had to change for me to be happy.

None of those was true.

I have stayed inside a dressing room long enough to hear the canned music tape play completely through three, count ’em, three times. No lie. Turns out, if you’re willing to spend several hours inside a clothing store, trying on every style, in every size, you can emerge as “She Who Never Wonders What To Wear”, even if you’re a size 16 – or 2XL – or a size 2.

I have also been thunderstruck with the thought – What If Money Is A Skill? Whaaa?? I have read dozens of books on personal finance. Turns out, with patience and time, you can get out of debt without living in a tent or starting a farm. Who knew?

 It’s also true that you can be happy, at work, at the job you have now. I learned to love that exact same job I described. I did it because I wondered if I could be happy doing anything and I set out to find out if that was true.          

Just like getting out of debt, or finding nice clothes that fit, getting happy where you are is a matter of trial and error. To get happy I did all sorts of things. I made a playlist of in-your-face music to listen to on the way to work. I played it every day… Drive by Incubus, Happy by Pharrell Williams, Taking Care of Business by Bachman Turner Overdrive and 51 other songs that made me feel in control and ready to take on my day. I left on time for a week straight just to see what would happen. I figured out what I loved and was good at and did those tasks first, forcing myself to find ways to offload work or make the dull stuff more efficient. I spent a week saying no to three things every day. I listened to management and leadership books. Basically, I kept trying stuff until I found what worked for me.

One day, as I was walking out of the office, on time, I passed the desk of a dear friend. I knew she was deeply unhappy and I also knew she didn’t have to be that way.

I coach, I bother with all this because I’m profoundly certain that you can be happy.  I want you to know that you can be deeply satisfied, right where you are.

Don’t, please, please don’t chain your joy to your desk.

The two things don’t depend on each other.   Don’t wait for things to change.  Try things -things I suggest and things you think of for yourself. 

There is nobody on the planet who can tell you where your path goes, or how you make magic in your life.  Nobody.   You are so incredibly unique and perfect, and so amazingly yourself, how can anyone know what fantastic direction you’ll go?

If you chain your joy to your desk, if you wait for your job to make you happy, you are missing the race.  You are missing the path.  You are sitting down on the path.  And that’s OK but please, if you’re not happy there, don’t stay there.  

And I don’t mean leave your job. By all means, stay there, until you figure out how to be happy at that job.  Even has you fail at things, you can be happy. Even out of work, keep trying new ways. Find ways to feel joy, even as you struggle, fail, and triumph. Once you do that, nothing is chained to your desk, not you,  not your happiness, nothing. 

And that, is just my wish for you.

If you would like a free 25-minute session – click here. It’s free, it’s on zoom, camera on or camera off. It’s my pleasure