Category: Stress

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This, Too, Shall Pass

Preparation, collaboration, and mindset are the keys to any risky endeavor.

This is the third blog I’ve written for March 16, 2020. I wrote my planned blog and the events of the week convinced me I needed to provide something more useful. Then, I wrote a blog about productively working from home. Last night, when I awoke at three am, I changed my mind. Today, I’m going to tell you a story.

The entire blog, read for you, right here. Just click and go.

Today I’m going to tell you a story. Back in late 1990s, I quit smoking. To celebrate my accomplishment, I decided to return to the White Mountains of New Hampshire and retrace a hike I’d done with my stepfather long before.

I was out of shape, every mile was a challenge and my gear? Let’s just say it lacked sophistication. Let’s just say most of my clothes were made of cotton.

I stayed a hut the first night. After dinner, I took out my maps and decided to reroute my descent. I didn’t think I could go down the way I came up. I found a trail that had elevation lines broadly spaced most of the way to the valley. It was long but it promised an easier descent. Seeking advice from the most experienced hiker I could find, I received confirmation that, yes, this would be an easier way down.

What I didn’t factor in was that this hiker was fit, well equipped and to him, any trail in these mountains was a cakewalk. He’d hiked all over the planet.

Another thing I didn’t consider was that the trail, long and lacking in dramatic views, was unpopular. I was hiking down on a Monday. By the end of the grueling and devastating day, I would understand how important that was.

Here’s what happened. I set off and summitted Mt. Washington. Then I turned and headed down the Osgood trail. I descended gradually, gaining the treeline quickly. Looking ahead, I noticed a change. Next to me were tree trunks. Ahead of me were treetops. Tops. As in, the trail dropped sharply, by the height of the trees.

Approaching the drop, I realized I was alone, I couldn’t navigate the descent ahead with my pack on, and the drop was substantial. I removed my pack and dropped it down the short cliff, turned and clambered down.

All that long, frightening day, I repeated this, each time becoming more aware that if I were injured in a fall, I might not be found for several days. Each time I tossed my pack ahead of me, each time my boot slipped on the rocks, each time I missed a handhold, my armpits prickled, my heart rate jumped and my focus narrowed.

Any backpacker can tell you, it’s the descent that kills you.

By the time I reached the bottom and turned onto a sandy, flat trail back to my car, my legs were so sore I could barely walk. I’d spent hours alone, in sheer terror. I stood at the top of a shallow ditch and realized that walking the four steps down and back up was almost beyond me. I burst into tears. Since I was only a few yards from the car, you can imagine the looks I got.

I usually get a laugh when I tell it. Picture me, an overweight woman with a world war two backpack standing in her floral cotton pants, crying because she can’t bear the thought of navigating a drainage ditch. Frankly, at the time, I was chuckling and crying. After all, I was safe.

What I learned that day was that my mind could become an anchor, a weight that made every step harder. I understood that with a different mindset, that same trail would be a much easier go. I also understood that if I wanted to try it again, I’d need a hella betta plan.

Backpacking is a sport of isolation, collaboration, and most of all, mitigation planning. You have only so much you can carry, so every item counts. Once you’re out into the wild, you’ll only have what you’ve brought. You learn pretty quickly to plan for every eventuality and you go out into the wilderness anyway.

Thursday, I went grocery shopping. Grim-faced people silently pushed their carts through the aisles. Apples were in great supply. Bananas were gone. I had my choice of every potato chip known to man, but if I wanted rice or beans, I was going to have to act fast. Overnight, people had changed their basic behavior. I noticed my mindset shift with each passing aisle. By the end, I felt a strong urge to buy enough for a month, to put back my normal food and stock up on high-calorie proteins, I wondered if I’d regret paying for a luxury item. I was planning on how to ration my two week supply so it would last two months. I bought yeast in case I had to bake our own bread. I mourned the lack of powdered milk. I paid eight dollars for a pack of bathroom wipes. I’d been here before. This was the Osgood trail again. I had a mindset problem.

If you would like a free coaching session this week, please don’t hesitate. Click here and book it. If you would like free coaching but not from me, please email me at Amy@RockYourDayJob.com. I’m part of an amazing community of generous coaches, many of whom are offering free support during this virus. Let me hook you up.

When faced with the unknown, plan, plan, plan and then – work your mindset.

This week, our children will be home from school. Corporate America is reviewing and modifying their business continuity planning to respond to the unprecedented challenge of Covid19. Teams are moving to a work-from-home model, while others are stepping into the breach. Our elderly neighbors are frightened and need supplies. Others are unable to care for children and work; their paychecks at risk. Small businesses, which rely heavily on steady cash flows, will reel from the blow to their income and many will not recover. Performance artists have watched their industry vanish. Families are separated from their members in long term care. It’s pretty grim stuff. We’re all taking off our backpacks and dropping them over a cliff, praying we can navigate safely to the next challenge.

In backpacking, when faced with risky terrain, it’s key not to go it alone. Hiking in pairs, turning to help those behind you on the trail, pointing out unsteady rocks, is how you mitigate the risk of the trail. Supplying yourself sufficiently so you have a good chance at sustainability but not overpacking is critical. Hikers understand there’s no such thing as one-hundred percent safe. It’s not viable. Thinking out your next step but not being paralyzed with fear is a skill wilderness adventurers build step by step.

The good news is – all of this is available to us, right now, in this current situation.

At the end of the trail, however challenging, there’s a road home.

We all have so much control, right now, at this moment. You can plan. Plan how you think you’ll work from home today. What’s most important? How can you get that work done for sure?

You can predict – something will go wrong, kids will interrupt, things will get hectic. Decide now how you want to respond to the mental challenges you’ll face.

You can contribute – each of us can act as if we’re asymptomatic carriers – washing our hands, being mindful our how our actions impact those around us, the health care system and our emergency responders. There are so many things we can do to make sure we don’t add to the burdens of the people who step forward in times of trouble.

We can behave well. We can be kind and patient with each other. We can offer to grab some supplies for an elderly neighbor or friend, we can call people how are isolated. We can spend fifteen minutes listing all the useful ways we can contribute, and then we can act. Is there something you can do to help a person who works in healthcare? Can you feed their dog? What can you do to ease their burden?

Right now, you can take steps to make sure you stay healthy. Get enough sleep. Don’t beat yourself up for not being perfect in the face of challenge and don’t turn away from a hand offered. Turn off the twenty-four-hour news cycle and consciously decide when you’ll check-in for more information.

Most of all, you can be kind to yourself. Manage your mind.

When I woke up last night at three am, this is what happened that made me change my blog –

Worries about the future flooded in. Supply chains, business continuity, what would I do next? I drew on my mindfulness skills, the same ones I’ve honed over and over since that day on the Osgood trail.

I asked myself – Where is the future?

Not what are the possible futures but where is the future, right now.

My mind, used to this question, went searching for it. In a very literal sense, the future doesn’t exist. It’s not here. Hitting that wall, the wall of the present moment, beyond which nothing exists yet, my mind relaxed.

Oh, yes, I thought. That’s right.

The future is not to be found here within this moment. It’s built moment by moment, with each breath and action we take. The future is malleable and it’s all under construction.

And that? Is just good to remember.

Work well, work smart, work for the common good.

Namaste, people. Be well.

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No Sacrificial Lambs

Would you kick this cute little guy in the face? 
Of course not.  So why are you doing that to yourself?
Looks like a long blog… take a shortcut and listen to it instead. Check out the pictures below first. Rock on!

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A few years ago, some friends and I hiked the John Muir Way, a trail that bisects Scotland.   The hike was fantastic.  It led us through pastures, fields, towns, and beside canals.  Did you know that you can smell the scotch in the air around a distillery?  I kid you not.   At one point, we spent a day passing fields of sheep.  It was May, so there were lambs.  If you’ve never been around ’em, they bounce around in little groups.  With different levels of curiosity and courage, these little cuties follow you along their fences and, sometimes, scramble underneath the wire and then scurry back inside. I was utterly charmed.

I also worried about them, I wanted to make sure they got back into their fields.   I wanted to engage with them; I couldn’t take my eyes off them.  One thing I didn’t want to do was put them in a cubicle and make ’em sit in a chair until their spines were misshapen and their eyesight went.

I wouldn’t do that to a lamb, but I’m all too willing to do that to myself. 

Why is that?

Today, let’s open up the Awareness Toolkit and take a look at unkind behavior towards ourselves.

Before we start, let me clarify here – we’re STEM people, we have projects and deadlines, we have bugs, defects, and production problems – sometimes, we just have to dig in and do the thing.  We have to fix it, finish it, or get it working again.

Collaboration is our lifeblood.  We know that investing in our social network is key to getting through difficulties, so we make sure we help out other people.  We brainstorm, listen to peers as they talk through an idea, or interrupt ourselves to help others hit their goals.  If we’re not doing this to some extent, we won’t succeed.

When we overdo these behaviors so that our health, relationships, or positive outlook suffers, then we’ve entered the dark zone of sacrifice.

For me, it’s the forced march.  I fall into the habit of working long hours without a break.   I forget to drink water, I resist getting up, I pile up snacks to give me little boosts of dopamine as I work to my own detriment.  I don’t notice that I’m getting less and less done, and I’ve crossed the horizon into diminishing returns.

For others, it shows up as giving up their own desires to say yes to other people.

It can show up as skipping lunch because you’ve accepted too many meetings.  Doing one little thing, to help someone, then another, then another, until you’re staying late to catch up.

We can fall into overdoing our good habits of determination and collaboration. Our thinking takes on a more extreme turn.

We think that something is more important than ourselves, we believe if we don’t complete this task or say yes to this request, the results will be threatening or even catastrophic.  We convince ourselves our value is tied to achievements.  Sometimes, looking at our current situation, we tell ourselves, just this one more time.  Next time, we’ll plan better.  Meanwhile, we’re staying later, we’re feeling resentful, and we can’t even list our results for the day.

Any of that sound familiar?  

Listen, lambkins, it doesn’t get better until you become aware of the issue and of the ways it goes wrong.

This behavior stems from a positive intention. We presume our self-sacrifice makes us team players. We’re tough, dedicated, and have the ability to go the extra mile.  At work, most of us want to be excellent.  We want to go above and beyond.   We also feel like none of this could have predicted.  This is the reality, we need to sacrifice for the good of the company.  True dat, right? NO!

Hey, I got it right this week… here’s the whiteboard of where we start on this journey.

Here’s what our behavior,

driven by this positive intention, looks like:

Changed or canceled personal time – we move our vacations, are afraid to plan them or take them, we miss birthdays or family celebrations, we get home just as the kids are going to bed.  Not only once or twice, but on the regular.

Forced Marches – Long hours, extreme effort, unrealistic expectations.  

I just did this last night. There were three of us working on a production issue, which we knew we could resolve, but the root cause would become obscured.   One of us had a hard stop that blew right by as we egged each other on, looking at one more thing, checking one variable, trying to get to the complete answer.  It was made worse because we already gathered sufficient evidence, an hour before, to prove the source of the issue.

Poor planning, lack of experience – when we run out of time on projects, or can’t deliver results, we don’t look like pros.  This is so hard to say because it kinda hurts me to admit it. 

As professionals, trapped in the go-go, can-do mindset, we don’t do the less glamourous work of continually reframing our MVP (minimum viable product).  If all our projects end up in a big push or fail to come in on time, we really owe it to ourselves and the company to demand that we step back and re-evaluate.  These issues are solvable, and we stop ourselves from finding solutions when we don’t require them.  I’m not saying it’s easy or that I have this solved – it crops up over and over – like crabgrass. The key is to face it – be aware.

Exhaustion, Stress, Resentment – I don’t think I have to explain this.  If you’re sacrificing your health, your sleep, the breaks that your brain needs to thrive, it’s going to show,  and you’re going to get cranky.

Falsely Helpful – Oh my, we’ve all met this person. We ask them for something, and it’s clear that they don’t have time to help.  We try to take our request back.  They won’t let go of it.  We apologize; they insist that there’s no need.   With a big, fake smile, they head off at a hundred miles an hour to do what we’ve asked, and we’re left there, feeling guilty.  Don’t be this person.  Just say no.

Being Kind to Yourself Is the Best Gift for your Team

Are you ready? Let’s turn this nasty cycle on its head. 

Go from Self-Sacrificing to Self-Affirming.

Here’s where we end up as we become aware of the consequences of sacrificing ourselves to work and move to a self-affirming stance.

 When we adopt a self-supporting attitude, we remind ourselves that our health and life priorities are first.  After all, we’re working for a reason.  I’m pretty sure it’s not a deep desire to drop dead at my desk while my family doesn’t even notice.  Sad to say, this has been a real possibility for me at times.   The good news is I’m aware of my propensity, and I’m not willing to live like this anymore. 

As we’re faced with challenges, in this new mindset, we tell ourselves, if I don’t finish, fix, solve, do whatever I’m tempted to sacrifice for,  then I’ll find another way.   We remind ourselves that there will always be another emergency, but there’s only one of us.  We can’t do anything well if we’re exhausted, miserable, or running in circles.  

Scary huh? Did you just reject all of that out of hand?  You’re not broken.  You are right on track.  My clients, and I, resist moving to a self-affirming place.  Here’s why:

We THINK this behavior means:

  • We’re selfish
  • We’re mediocre
  • We’re not a team player
  • We’re risking our job

All of that is pretty darn frightening.  Better play it safe, and keep sacrificing, right?

If you need some help working through how to affirm your right to health, optimisim and a great personal life, just say the word. You can book a 25 minute session with me and I’ll walk you through your personal, specific issue. It’s free, it’s my jam, and I promise it’ll be useful. Click Here. I can help you – THIS WEEK.

NO!  Because we’re wrong.  When you act in a self-affirming way, you actually demonstrate this:

Belief in your ability to find better solutions – we love to be around people who think there’s a better way and want to try to find it!  We love this.  You’ll love being this person.  Try it.  You won’t always win, but others will want to help you solve things better, and the more you do this, the more value you add at work.   

Stopping when your productivity falls, calling it a night – nothing will help your team more than knowing the right time to call it a night and send people home.  Sometimes, we’re all just waiting for the one person who has the backbone to say uncle.

Professional planning, designing, tracking, and delegating – Once you’ve committed to never sacrificing yourself, you’re going to need to change the way you work.  Don’t wait to figure this out before you stop overdoing it.  You have to stop first, then you’ll be driven to figure it out.  This is counter-intuitive, but it’s the magic key.  When you have to face the consequences of being self-affirming, then you figure out pretty quick how to prioritize, plan, and all the other good stuff.  Be brave! Jump in!

Self-respect, good health, smart breaks – think about a person you know who doesn’t sacrifice their health for their job and still manages to knock it out of the park.   There’s a man I’ve worked with who is like this.  He exercises, he leaves on-time most days, and he’s well respected.  If he can do it, we can do it.

Treating others as competent – this is the most unexpected and beneficial side effect.  When you treat yourself respect, when you don’t overdo it, you have to rely on others to do their jobs.  You stop over-helping and that, allows others to grow too.   In a way, you’re less selfish? What?  Yep. True.

See this little lambkin?  This is us, heading off into the world of work.  We have no idea what’s about to hit us.

Have some compassion for your innocent self, trying to do a great job in a challenging world.  There’s no need to sacrifice yourself, lamb.

And that? Is just good to know.

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Bring Your P.D. to Work

Yeah, not your police department. I’m talking about your personal dreams.
If your answer to that is – “Dream this, lady” – I’ve got the blog for you.

I’m pretty stoked.   We’re jumping ahead today and tackling something in the accelerated column of the plan for this year. 

If you’re not aware, the goal for the blog this year is to get back to basics.  I want to help you move from unhappy, out of control, boxed in, and overworked to happy, engaged, forward-looking, doing right-sized work.   Lofty, huh?

There are levels we have to pass through, and I’ll describe those in later posts.  To help us make this miraculous change, there are four toolsets, each a little more advanced than the one before.  These are short-term relief, awareness, thoughts as objects, and dreams, goals, beliefs.

We’ve been hanging around in the short term relief toolbox for a bit.  You need that relief desperately at the beginning.  Today though, we’re moving to the far end.  Why? Because that’s where we find the excitement and drive to keep us running ahead.  Otherwise, we take that short-term relief, start to feel better, and stop there.  That would be a shame.  The full journey is WAY MORE, WAY BETTER than just ending the pain.  

What is a personal dream?

A personal dream is something you want that carries an excitement with it, maybe a little anxiety, perhaps even fear.  It feels like getting on a brand-new amusement ride.   Get it?

A personal dream is also internally motivated.  We can have the same vision – buy a house – for example, and if it’s externally motivated, it feels completely different.  It feels like we’ve got a monkey on our back, like if we don’t achieve it, then there’s something wrong with us.   If we want that house because of an internal drive, then it feels like – wouldn’t it be amazing if I could get a place of my own? I wonder how I could do it?  If we fail, we feel like we’re okay, all good.  Just tripped there a bit, I’ll try again soon.

Yep, I’m still not great at this. Email me for a high res copy. Amy@RockYourDayJob

What is a personal dream at work?

Buying a house can be a personal dream you bring to work.  It shows up there as several months of steady employment needed for a mortgage, the ability to pay for the house or save for it.  A personal dream of home-ownership can motivate you to strive for a promotion or be assigned to a project that creates opportunities for a bonus.

We can also have personal dreams specifically about work, too.  It can show up as a desire to have a specific job, or work with a group that you admire, or become something you find exciting.  For years, my personal dream is to become an inspiring leader who builds team cohesion and finds terrific opportunities for her staff.

Aligning your PD with your Boss’s goals

Did you all get your goals for the year?  Were they inspiring? Got ‘em tacked next to your phone, do you?

Will this year be different?  Are you going to really work on them and make sure you hit them all, or are you going to follow marching orders, and if you’re lucky, your boss will have actually assigned them to you?

Are they in a ball under your desk already?

Yeah. I thought so.

If you want help tying a PD to a goal, I’m here.

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

What your boss wants is an external goal.  External goals often leave us feeling depleted and unmotivated.  To ramp up and actually hit those goals, you have to hitch them to a balloon, something that will get them some lift.  Tie them to your PD.

When I think of getting better at leadership, I get excited, happy.   I think – wouldn’t that be cool?  Wouldn’t I be cool if I was really great at that?  I want to run around and holler for my car keys; I want to get started.  

If I can add that zoom to my boss’s goals, that’s a win for both of us.  For example, if she wants me to figure out a process for getting a new type of application out to our users, well, that’s fine.  But it’s just a job, a task.  She tells me, I try to do it. 

When I ask myself – how can getting this new type of application out to our users help me be a better leader? Now I’m getting somewhere.  Perhaps I think our team could get to code these new applications.   That ties to my desire, my DREAM, of finding terrific opportunities for my staff. Boom.  I’m all on board.  Now this goal, which started out as a task, is part of my dream.  Now, I want to show up at work and get to it.  Now, I want to bring it out and talk about it during meetings with my boss. Now, I’m all in.

What if the goals you get can’t be tied to your personal dream?

Well, I got to tell you, there are very few that you can’t tie to your PD.  When it does happen, though, you want to tell your boss.   Tell him this is a task you’ll absolutely do, but you don’t wish to have more assignments like this.  Let him know where you’re headed, see if he can help you align it with your PD.  You don’t have to drop your PD like a hot potato, and you don’t have to declare defeat.   

And that? Is just good to know.

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The Big PP

Are you killing yourself making everyone else happy at work?
Think you need to stand up for yourself? You’re right – kinda.

Nothing will suck the fun out of work faster than trying to please everyone.  I should know, I attempted it for years.  My results? Phbbt.

Ok, this is a long one… I riff on the whiteboard stuff and there’ll be dogs barking at the end. Enjoy!

I’m pretty excited about today’s blog because I took my time whiteboarding out the message I wanted to deliver, and guess what?   I’m going to add it to this blog.  So cool, right?  Now you can get your information exactly as you need it.  You can read the blog, listen to the blogcast, or review the diagram.  Freaky good.  AND BONUS:  I did this to save myself time.

What?  You heard me correctly there, Slick. I was selfishly attempting to figure out how to get two blogs done in the time it takes to do one.  Why? Because you all don’t buy my products because of my blog, and frankly, I have housework to do.  I want to shove my two side hustles into smaller boxes so I can pick up some personal time.   See how self-serving that is?  Does it change how you think about me if I tell you the personal stuff I want to do is exercise, eat right, and just enjoy my damn dogs before they croak?   Ahh, now you don’t think that’s so selfish, do you?  Well, you’re right where I want you. We’re going take a crack at getting you to drop your people-pleasing and start making your own darn self happy.  You so deserve it.

My first attempt – too large to embed.
If you want to get a clearer copy of this, just email me – Amy@RockYourDayJob.Com

The Big PP (People Pleasing)

My own story about trying to please people at work goes like this – I wanted to learn new things, I wanted to help, so I figured out how to support an overnight system.  I was able to take on a rotation and give my teammates a break.  That felt great! Go, team!

Years went by, I became a manager, but I was still supporting things overnight, during the day, all the time.  My boss was new and made a big fuss about how many hours I was working, all the dedication I had.  I felt proud – and tired.  Years went by. The boss left.  I had new bosses, new systems, and I was still up at night, up during the day, working fifteen hours on the weekend to get my inbox cleared out, etc.  

I thought I had a time management problem.  So, during a coaching session with Brooke Castillo, she coached me on my time issue.  I’ll never forget it. First, she asked me why I was doing all that work.  I’ll paraphrase the rest:

“Because I want to do a good job,” I said. 

“Why do you care if you do well?“ She asked.

Insert lots of reasons, questions … and then

“Because I want people at work to think I do a good job,” I said.  I hated to admit that. I like to believe that I don’t care what people think about me, but that day, she coached me through all my thoughts, and that’s what dropped out the bottom. Bummer.

“Yeah,” she said.  “That’s your work.”

Happily, she didn’t leave me with that.  Instead, she went a step further.  She asked me this:

“Do you want to work all those hours?”

“No,” I said.

“Will they be happy if you work twenty-four seven?”

“Maybe,” I said.

“But you don’t want to?” Brooke asked.

“No,” I said.

“So why don’t you tell them, ‘I know you’d like it if I worked twenty-four seven, but I wouldn’t’ ?”

Boom.  That did it for me.  Suddenly, my wants and desires were on equal footing with my employers.  What I wanted – counted.

So here’s what happened next: I never said those words to anyone at work, but I thought them in my mind.  I met with my manager.  I said I was going to try something new.  I was going to try to get some work-life balance.   I didn’t ask for help with it.  I just said, let me know if you see a problem and then, I set about learning how to shove my work back into a standard time block. 

You know what happened?   My evaluations went up. I kid you not.   I slept more, delegated better, took myself off the rotation for overnights, and started learning how to work more proactively.  Why? To please me.  Who benefited? My employer.   

Straight Trippin’, dude.  

High-Five there, woman.

So what about you?  Where are you killing yourself to make someone else happy?  Really – get an example in your mind.

Now ask yourself this – do you actually control how they feel?   Yeah – you saw that coming, didn’t you? I hope so.  If we turn the page upside down, the answer key reads:  NO. 

Not today, not tomorrow, not in a box, not with a fox. 

You can be workin’ your cubicle sittin’ butt off, and you’ll never make anyone happy.  And frankly, you’re not paid to.  You’re paid to deliver results – and believe me, your boss hopes you’ll finish in time to get some sleep, ‘cause you know, lack of sleep causes lower performance at work.

Okay, so let’s tackle the BIG Elephant in the room – SELFISHNESS.

If you want to make yourself happy, then you’re selfish.

RUBBISH. 

That’s the worst bag of malarky ever, and we’ve all picked up our own sack of it as we stood at the cash register of our lives. 

Toss that idea out.  If you want to make yourself happy, then you’re human and maybe even enlightened.

If you want other people to stop being happy, so you can feel good, then you’re selfish. 

Get it?

Uh, uh.  Don’t go to … Well, if I don’t do this burdensome task that will make me stay up all night, then someone else will have to. 

That’s where this always bogs down.

Change that thought to:

Is this burdensome task my responsibility?

If no. Then, game over.  Go home if you want to.   Don’t stay late to make someone else happy if it’s going to make you sick, unhappy, miss dinner with the kids, or cause your dog to need a piddle-pad.

If yes, then ask this instead:  I’m not going to stay up all night to do this burdensome task.  I’m not going to give it to someone else (make sure this is really YOUR task; otherwise, give it back).   So now… how am I going to solve this?

See that?  That right there, refusing to kill yourself to do it?  That’s what drives innovation. That’s how come my reviews went up.   Each time I solved that problem, my life got better, and so did my performance. 

Meanwhile, back to people-pleasing – Your wants, needs, and personal life, your desire to grow is just as important as anyone else’s.  For you? It should be more so.  You worry about you.  Get your own house spiffed up.  You can come back and lend everyone else a hand later – after you’ve walked the dog and had a good night’s sleep.

And that?  Is just good to know.

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

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When You Do That Thing You Do

No matter what your jam is, it’s better if you know why you’re there.
Don’t feel like reading? I’ll read it to you.

You know that thing you do that’s, well, just a bit crazy? Yeah, that. Do you have any clue why you do it? If it’s just your weekend hobby, getting right down to the bones of your why might not be so critical unless you’re the person on the skis in this picture. But if you’re putting in forty hours a week doing something, the more ownership you have for your why, the more agency you’ll feel.

Happy Monday Folks. Last week I was awol. If you subscribe to my newsletter, you got your Monday fix, but my blog followers missed out. Thanks for checking back.

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My first job was as a cashier at a grocery store. When things were slow, they’d send the boys out to get the carts. I didn’t get the memo about pushing carts and gender. Here’s the thing, the guys would go out and make a game of bringing in as many carts as they could, the train of silver and rust wheels stretching further and further. At that store, to get the carts by the door, you had to go up a ramp. The parking lot was gently sloped away from the building, so the closer you got to the door with your long line of carts, the more physically challenging it was to both get the carts up the ramp and to turn them and not crash into the windows.

Looking back, it might have been a slightly irresponsible game.

Never-the-less, the manager was a tough, cigar-smoking old fashioned barrel of a man, and he didn’t seem to mind it. Like I said, no memo. So I started going out and bringing in carts. One day, I had a very long line of carts, the most I’d ever stacked. I was headed for the ramp with a nice head of steam. It was late, there were no shoppers coming out, so I went for it. I got the front cart to the top of the ramp. A man stepped out from the shadows and put his foot on the front wheel of the cart. Of course, the whole chain came to a stop.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He asked. It was the assistant manager. I couldn’t see his face, he was silhouetted against the windows.

He wasn’t a dumb man. He could see I was bringing in carts. So I didn’t offer that explanation. I was nonplussed. I couldn’t think of a thing to say. I didn’t know why he stopped me and he never explained. He removed his foot and went back inside.

I can be a prideful thing. I pushed that chain of carts from a dead stop up the ramp, made the turn and put them all in a neat line by the wall outside the door. I never did know why he stopped me. To this day, I don’t know if it was because I was going too fast, if he thought it was a risk for our customers, if he didn’t like women bringing in carts or if he just didn’t like me.

I do know it took me a week to come up with the word that explained what I was doing, and I needed adult help to come up with it. Competent. I thought I was being competent. I was working at something productive at a time when the other cashiers were standing around. I was performing the work as well or better than the other people who brought in carts, meaning I brought in a lot and I brought them in quickly.

That was a pivotal incident for me. Once I found that word, the incident stopped bothering me. At least I knew what the hell I thought I was doing.

I learned a lot from that. I learned that waiting for someone else to explain why I’m working is folly. Nobody other than myself knows what I’m trying to accomplish at the most personal level by the way I work, the work I choose to do and the manner I choose to do it. Nobody other than myself needs to.

In the end, it didn’t matter at all what the assistant manager thought about my cart pushing skills. He didn’t bother to communicate his perspective to me. I, however, found my perspective and a deep sense of satisfaction at being able to answer his question. I knew exactly what the hell I thought I was doing and that felt great.

Things are a little different now at work. I’ve got a terrific manager and have been lucky to have several of them in the past. They’ve taken time to explain their visions and offer that most valuable of all things – critical feedback. Doing a good job requires more than keeping my station clean and the money in my register correct, but one thing remains the same.

Nobody can tell us what the hell we think we’re doing.

That, my friends, is something we have to answer for ourselves, and my friends, it still requires some thoughtful consideration to come up with the answer. The good news is, when you do, it still feels incredible, powerful and stabilizing.

So why do you do what you do – at work?

To answer the question, let go of the traditional for a moment. Because the assistant manager could see what I was doing when he asked that question of me, he took away that easy answer. I couldn’t say – I’m bringing in carts, what did you think I was doing?

So when you look at why you go to work and what you’re trying to accomplish there, don’t let yourself say – I’m promoting our new product, obviously. Don’t let yourself say – I’m paying my bills, duh. Really put some skin in the game. Your own skin.

What is it you are looking for? What is floating your boat? As a teenage female competing with others for recognition and for promotions, I wanted to be seen as competent. I wanted to demonstrate that there was nothing in that store that I couldn’t do. I wanted to be useful and strong. I was at work to prove that I could be independent, pay my own way and earn my keep.

Once I understood that, it didn’t matter if I was pushing carts, balancing registers or running down the aisles to get a customer just the right toothpaste. I could be competent and I could achieve my objective. I could change jobs and still keep working on being ever more competent. My reason for being at work was independent of my work, my gender, my employer or even my direct manager. My reason belonged to me.

I’m just a weird kid that grew up to be a slightly odd woman. I’m not a rocket scientist or a superstar. My features are symmetrical, so there’s that. But I do know one thing – if I can figure out why I’m working, so can you.

After talking to person after person about what they want out of work, I know that the chances are, you have a strong why. You have a noble calling. You want to be excellent. Or you want to help others. You are full of ideas and you want to share them. Maybe you want to provide for your family. There’s something there we want, separate from the mountain of objectives that we’re all looking at as we head into the breach of 2020, with our corporate marching orders and our electronic dashboards.

Find out why you do what you do. If you’re not sure, take a guess. Carry it around with you for a week or so. You’ll know when you find it because the guys with their foot on your wheel won’t matter anymore. You’ll know what the hell you think you’re doing and it will feel – great.

And that? Is just freakin’ awesome to know.

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The Fight to End Cubical Suffering

If this is how you look when you think about going to work on Monday, you’re not alone.
The good news is, you can answer this question simply, effectively and calm the heck down in one easy step.
No time to read? Just hit play and check out The Fight To End Cubicle Suffering. Do scroll down and read the blue boxes… that info isn’t in the recording.

Cubical suffering is on the rise in Corporate America. Won’t you join in the fight today?

No, I’m not talking about suffering to the third degree here, although I’ve seen this type of misery grow exponentially. What I’m talking about is all my tech friends and analysts, corporate warriors of all types, sitting in a workspace and suffering. That’s what I’m trying to end. I’m not an exercise maven, a motivational guru, or an expert on how to become rich. I can’t tell you how to climb the corporate ladder. What I have, are mad skillz when it comes to happiness. Over the next year, my goal is to show you the path from unhappy, overwhelmed, boxed in and overworked to happy, engaged, forward-looking and workload right-sized.

Interested in working with me? Sign up for a free 25 minute session by clicking here. We meet on zoom, camera on or off. Find out how I can help you move from overwork and chaos to happy and engaged at your day job.

My Story

I didn’t set out to get happy at work. Frankly, when I was in my late twenties and early thirties, my goal was to survive. At that time, my husband and I owned a brick & mortar deli in New Jersey. We sold coffee, cigarettes, lottery tickets, soda, sundries, sandwiches, breakfast, lunch, dinner, fries, onion rings, you name it. If we could cook it in under ten minutes, we sold it. If we could put it in trays and bring it to your event, we catered it. The place was open from five am to eight pm with slightly reduced hours on the weekends – long hours, on our feet. My husband and I each took a ten-hour shift Monday through Friday and one full weekend day – he opened, I closed. He used to fall asleep at stoplights on the way to work. After I got home, I did the books. Incredibly, this lifestyle was an improvement over my prior job. You can find that story – here.

Two events stand out for me from this five-year phase of my life:

First, I remember having a large catering job to prepare for. It was well after midnight. I was alone at the deli. I’d been cooking and prepping for four hours, after working my normal ten-hour shift full of adrenaline rushes and physical labor. I could hear the owners of the Italian restaurant next door closing up. I still had trays to finish and clean up to do, money to count and a bank deposit to make. I needed to be back at the shop by ten am. Exhausted and overwhelmed, I laid down on the cold tile behind the counter and began to cry. I hosted a big, ugly, pity party for myself. Slowly, a thought entered my mind. Nobody was coming to help me. The work still needed to be done; we’d already been paid. I stood up, washed my face and feeling eerily calm, finished my work.

What’s the link here? Sometimes, our own thoughts are making our work more difficult.

The second thing I remember from that time is standing in our tiny living room on my day off, looking out the window, holding a phone to my ear. I still had a phone with a cord, so I couldn’t walk around. My father was on the line and we were discussing business. I remember saying to him “Dad, you know what scares me? I’m not afraid I won’t be able to do it all. What really scares me is that I might be able to more.”

What’s the link here? Sometimes what we have to fear, is our own endurance.

Flash forward fifteen years or so. I was working in Corporate America as an IT manager, driving my twelve-mile commute to a job that normally was less than sixty hours a week. I was only called out of bed for overnight failures about once a month, but recently it had been several times a week. It was a sunny day, cold, winter, clear driving. I hadn’t slept the night before, or many nights, because my mind kept me up worrying about my job. I was exhausted and miserable.

I knew that this job was far better than what I’d experienced before. So why was I so unhappy?

I asked myself a question that had a profound impact on me.

Why did I take this job in the first place?

That question was the first step in an upward spiral for me.

I can remember the exact road I was on when I started answering myself. I know what house I was passing. I know what I told myself.

“I took this job because – it has great benefits.” Owning your own business is like playing roulette with your health insurance. I used to have to choose between being able to take my son to the doctor and catastrophic coverage. It was one or the other; we couldn’t afford both.

“I took this job because it is twelve miles from my home.” We used to drive forty minutes to our deli to start our shifts.

“I took this job because of the tuition reimbursement.” It allowed me to finish my college studies and get my degree.

“I took this job because this company has unlimited opportunities.” I work in insurance, which hosts a plethora of options for interesting, meaningful work.

“I took this job because this company truly believes in stakeholder ethics.” Being a great corporate citizen was something I could only dream of as a small business owner.

“I took this job because I get to work with other people, I’m not trying to do this all by myself.” If I can’t keep going, it doesn’t mean my family, my home and everything we own will dissolve.

I remembered the day I was offered my first job at this company. My family could not believe my good fortune. What a great opportunity. I remembered the day I was offered the position as a manager. I loved the team I was on, I loved the work we did and the people we did it for. It meant something to me. It was important.

Driving into work that cold, clear day, I remembered exactly why I had this job.

All those reasons still applied. I was grateful for my job. I still thought the work was meaningful. I wasn’t happy yet, but I was on my way.

And that? Is a path you can take too.

What’s the link here? Remember your why. Everything starts with why.

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Who’s Flying Now?

Listen, every now and then, it’s good to check in and see whose flying this thing we call work.
Don’t feel like reading? Click here for the audio.

This week, it’s back to basics. This blog and the work I’m doing as a life coach has one purpose. I help people who are overworked, tired, unhappy, in a rut or unsure of their next step at work, get more control, feel better, and enjoy work.

The thing about this that makes me want to stand up and shout is we all have a lot more control than we think. We have control over what we pay attention to. We have control over our reasons for being at work. We have control over what meaning we attribute to the work we do, why we’re doing it, and how we execute. We have control over our feelings, our thoughts, our actions.

I think there are a lot of people out there who believe that their only choice at work is to try to deal with what other people say and do, to try to make other people happy and pray that someone changes things so they can be happy.

This, my friends, doesn’t work.

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

There’s no single way for everyone to be happy, but the first step is the same for everyone. Take back all the control that you possibly can. Err on the side of assuming you can act and effect changes right from your cubicle. You take back control the minute that you decide that you want to be happy at work or you want to stop overworking, or you want to do more of the work you’re best at. Whatever it is that you are waiting for so that you can feel better at work, take control of that.

Here’s the crazy thing. The only reason I’ve gone back to basics on this blog is that my brother asserted control. I want to turn this blog into a podcast. A bit of music for the podcast would be cool, after all, this is Rock Your Day Job. So I turned to my brother.

My brother is some kind of associate director of client learning programs but his side hustle is as a folk-world-rock singer-songwriter. So I thought great, let me get James to write me an intro/ outro. He said cool but… give me an outline of the journey you want to take your listeners on so I can tie the music to the point of all this.

What?

I just wanted him to string some notes together and make magic. Turns out… he’s an Associate Director of Client Learning Programs. Oh. That means he knows how to design systems that teach people stuff. He thinks I should have a plan and not waste your time. Huh.

So I sat down and started to chart out the outline for the next year and I realized this blog had gotten off course. I decided to get back to basics, the real reason I’m here. I help people who are exhausted and unhappy at work get more control, feel better and enjoy work.

This week, try to notice where you feel out of control at work. Then ask yourself what you can and can’t truly control. For instance, you can’t control what other people do or how they think, but you can control what actions you will take and you can control how you want to think about situations. You can’t control if your boss likes you, but you can control how you think about your boss. You can’t control which projects you’ll get, but you can control how you behave when opportunities arise and who you discuss your preferences with.

My brother influenced my entire process just by stating that he wanted to work from an outline.

Control. He exerted a lot of influence right there but he also exercised control over himself. He didn’t need me to change, he didn’t say no to writing music for me. He just understood how he wanted to work, what he needed from others, and he allowed himself to ask for it.

Magic.

And that? Is something you can do too.

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Don’t Trip on the Rug

Your dream wasn’t canceled, but if you’re not seeing it… maybe you forgot to renew.
This week’s blog is part 5 of the 5-part series on permanent change

For the audio version of this blog, scroll to the end and press play.

I’d done it all. I’d worked through the lifestyle implications of the changes I want to make happen. I cleared out space for my new work. I believed it could be done, kinda. I was planning and doing, heading towards change when all of a sudden, it wasn’t in my frame of reference. I couldn’t see it and then I tripped.

This week, I was seriously trucking along. I was committing tasks to my calendar and executing them. I’d hit a major milestone on my side hustle and delivered results. At my day job, I was making progress on several fronts and I was keeping my health goals in line…I even got up early and went out for a run… in the dark… and yet…Boom!

A total eclipse of my plans.

A trainee showed up that I forgot was arriving. He smiled at me and I thought “Oh no! What am I going to give him to do?” I had to cancel a launch at my day job to allow for more testing and fixes. I fell behind on daily tasks for one of my side ventures. Then, I tossed all my health goals to the wind, plopped some cheese and crackers on a plate and went out to my porch, in 24-degree weather, to brood.

Stuff happened.

Stuff is always going to happen; it doesn’t mean we should go out on the porch and brood. If we do, it certainly doesn’t mean we should stay there. Especially if it’s dark and cold out.

The business of change is the business of renewal. Daily, weekly, any time.

Here’s the deal. All or nothing thinking is the enemy. At work, believing we know it all is the first step toward failure. When we think things are black and white, cut and dry, done and over, we lose. We don’t listen to other people’s ideas, we don’t try to think of improvements, we don’t run hard right up to the deadline. We give up, think small and don’t listen.

The same is true when we’re trying to change. If you indulge in all or nothing perspectives, you’re taking the easy way to failure.

Telling myself if I don’t do everything I planned, my plan is a failure, is ridiculous right? I’m being too hard on myself.

Or am I? I might be going easy.

It’s easy because I don’t have to sit down and evaluate where things went south and revise my plan. It’s easy because I don’t have to pick myself up and try again. It’s easy because I can just stop.

Too bad that’s not how we frame this type of quitting to ourselves. We don’t call ourselves out for this kind of cheating. Instead, we wallow a bit. I know I do. I feel like a failure, I ruminate on it, but I also give up. It feels bad, but it also feels like a bit of a relief.

The business of change is the business of renewal. Daily, weekly, any time, all the time.

So how are you doing on your goals? Did you set any for this year?

If you did, were you gung-ho for a bit?

How are you feeling now?

Or are you so gun-shy that you no longer set goals?

Here’s what I know:

You can always start over, every day and twice on Sundays.

If you shoot for the stars and hit Everest, heck, you hit Everest. Dude.

There’s more than one way to anywhere.

The business of change is the business of renewal – and revision.

Renew your commitment.

Revise your plan.

Do yourself the favor of seeing reframing and re-trying as the most compassionate things you can do for yourself. Because they are. There is no reason you have to take the best route to your dreams. Take any route, take all the routes. It’s a dream. It’s your inheritance as a human. A dream is a privilege.

The business of change is the business of renewal.

Whatever your dream is, whatever you want to achieve, don’t cancel it. Spend time with it. You were designed to go after it. It’s in your DNA.

If you would like to take the first step to permanent change, click here.

The business of change is the business of joy.

And that? Is something worth chasing.

Click play for the audio version of Don’t Trip on the Rug
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Showing Up as Your Authentic Self

If being yourself at work feels like you’re one step closer to a pink slip, read on.

Who’s your best friend? Go ahead, answer that question. I’ll wait. And yes, you can have more than one. Ok, got your answer? Did you say your spouse? A childhood friend? I’ll tell you what you probably didn’t say – you didn’t say – me.

Don’t be a wise guy. I mean you, not me. Hopefully, I’m your life coach – which is a totally different thing. Basically, I’m asking if you are your own best friend. Anyone who said yes? High five, Dude.

If you want to shut down anxiety and start feeling better at work… Dudette, call me. Let’s talk about how coaching can get you mad skillz so you can show up relaxed and confident at work. Click here. We got this.

Here’s the deal. At some point, we all do something at work that is authentically ourselves. We speak out at a meeting. We vote “no confidence” during sprint planning. We buy clown shoes as a gag. We go a little Jerry McGuire, and then? We feel embarrassed. We fret over what we said, we change our vote, we go home at lunch and get our loafers. We shred our manifesto.

This is a deep-rooted survival pattern – the need for acceptance kept us aligned with the tribe. In turn, the tribe kept us safe.

When we do this at work, we train ourselves to be quiet in meetings, vote differently than we believe, stop sharing our love of slapstick and trade in our passion for cynicism. That’s painful for us and bad news for the companies we work for.

Nothing drives innovation like unique interests and points of view colliding with a problem.

Whoa. What’s all this got to do with being your own best friend?

Ready?

To show up as yourself, you need to be comfortable with who you are. Your best friend knows that you wore your shirt inside out to work last week. They like you anyway. You never get that line from Seinfeld right, but your BFF laughs anyway. They know what you mean. Your intentions are clear even when you act like an idiot. They wait for you when you’re late and pay the bill when you forget your purse. You’re not perfect and your BFF doesn’t give a fig. And that? Lets you stop worrying about fitting in and start being you.

To be your own best friend requires courage. You have to accept that you’re human, you’ll fail and you’ll win and you have to like yourself either way. You have to treat yourself with compassion.

If you are your own best friend, when you’re the only one at the planning meeting holding up a confidence level of one, you don’t change your vote. Instead, you explain to the group why you think that. You wear your damn clown shoes until someone laughs and you make their day. More importantly, you continue to speak up in meetings even if you were flat-out foolish in the last one.

I’m not saying don’t learn from mistakes. Dude, that’s just silly. I’m saying don’t let mistakes make you their errand boy. I’m not advocating for being disruptive and throwing manners out the window, either. You, waiting your turn, aiming for brevity and being polite is still you. There’s plenty of room within civility for speaking your truth.

Accepting what is unique about yourself, appreciating your great points and not shutting yourself down is being authentic.

If you punish yourself every time you get outside the tribal norm, you will never want to bring yourself to work.

To stop punishing yourself, act like your own best friend.

Every company on the planet has to innovate faster and more effectively every day. Every person on the planet has a unique voice. Every problem on the planet has a solution.

Show up as yourself and get to work. The world needs us all.

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Master the Art of Self Compassion

Does your inner critic treat you like this?
She can.

Here’s the thing, we all want to be happy, have peace, eat well and see the Mets make it to the world series. What? You don’t agree? Because you don’t want peace? Oh, the Mets…well some of you are still with me.

While we want to have these things, we do just about everything in our power to get away from the one thing that will get us closer to happiness and peace. We overeat, binge-watch TV and fiddle away the day on social media to avoid just being with ourselves. Because hey, sometimes we can be our own worst critic.

Hey, I get it. One weekend I decided to change the sheets and clean the bedroom without music, TV, audible or even a dog to talk to. I didn’t have my phone with me. It was just me and the dust bunnies and I’ll tell you, things got ugly REAL quick.

No, I wasn’t sucked under the bed by the monster – he’s where he’s always been -in my head. First I became aware of a running loop of thoughts. My head was full of worried, fretful, self reproachful little thoughts running around in there. No wonder I prefer to clean listening to books on tape. Who wouldn’t? And that’s exactly where we foul it up.

By escaping from the thoughts we have playing on a loop in our brains, we lose the opportunity to bring them out and acknowledge them.

Not that day though. I was very aware of each thought and after about the fifth or sixth one, I got creative. I got a notebook out and laid it on the dresser. Then I waited to spring my trap. The next random thought that my brain offered me, I jotted down. Then I said, OK. That’s one. Next? I turned the page and went back to work. Soon, a new nasty bit of self-criticism popped up. I walked over and wrote it on the new page and turned that page. This went on for quite a bit. It made making the bed take longer, that’s for sure, but eventually, when I asked for the next thought, my brain was beautifully silent.

The first step to loving yourself is stepping back and finding empathy, for yourself.

I still have that notebook sitting right here on my desk. I pulled it out to see what my real thoughts were that day. Here they are:

  • People disapprove.
  • I’m a worried person
  • I’m going to be in trouble
  • I’m being shoved aside
  • My self-absorption is disgusting
  • I’m not a good wife
  • I feel bad for my husband marrying a waste like me

It’s not easy for me to share these on this website. But the truth is, I don’t even remember the situation that set this thinking off. I’m sharing my private and painful thoughts because I know that I’m not the only person who has a brain that does this type of thing. I’m sharing them on the off chance that someone out there will try this technique because writing these thoughts down on paper changed everything for me. Here’s what I learned:

  1. Writing this type of thought down gets it out of your head. The method was very important though. If you just sit down with a diary and write and write, your mind will build out logic and evidence for why these thoughts are true. You can wind up feeling even worse. But not engaging with the thought, just writing it down, turning the page and asking – OK, next? – objectifies it. Each time I wrote a thought and turned the page, my brain left that thought behind.
  2. Eventually, your brain runs out of canned thoughts. I kept writing and turning the page and finally, finally, my mind was quiet, calm, relieved. It was like it had a finite set of blather in there and was too lazy to go get anything new to bug me with. Blessed relief.
  3. Looking at what you are carrying in your mind can be the doorway to true self-compassion. When both my mind and my room was clean, I sat on the bed and turned the pages of the notebook, looking at each sentence dispassionately. None of these thoughts were true. They’re an example of what one of my clients calls snowballing -packing more and more negative around a small starting point. I thought about the woman who was having these thoughts. I felt such compassion for that person. No person should have to carry those thoughts around. It was obvious that the thoughts were overblown, and just as evident that she must have been suffering as she thought them. I had been suffering and it was completely unnecessary.
Turning your critic into your ally changes everything.

That day was literally the first time in my life that I felt compassion for myself. I wasn’t judging myself. I wasn’t full of self-pity. I wasn’t avoiding my thoughts and feelings but I also wasn’t rolling around in them. I could see the thoughts I’d been thinking and I could see that they weren’t true. I could empathize with the woman who’d been carrying them around but I also saw the error in her thinking. Until I was able to step back, I hadn’t seen how needless my suffering was. I gave myself a big imaginary hug and then told myself to move on. There were more rooms to clean.

Acknowledging that we are suffering needlessly and feeling empathy for the person who suffers is the first step in turning your inner critic into your inner BFF. After all, she looks like you, she hangs out with you and you’re stuck with each other. You two ought to be friends.

And that? Is just good to know.

If you would like help with your inner critic so you can stop agonizing over every little mistake, I’ve totally got you. Sign up for a free 25 minute mini-session. We meet using Zoom. We’ll see if coaching is something that might be helpful, and then we can see if you’ld like to coach with me or if I can recommend another coach for you. I’m pretty harmless and I love to talk about this stuff. Click here and get hooked up.

NEXT WEEK: how self-compassion is the key to showing up as yourself at work, and why it matters.