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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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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.

Never miss a Monday. Subscribe here – you get the blog, the links to the music and my personal send off for the week. Rock on!

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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Plan, Plan – Do, Do.

How well do you treat yourself when it comes to trust?
The answer to that question is a big indicator of how well you’ll do with your commitment to change.

Welcome to week four of my series on permanent change. In week one, we looked at the difference between achievement and life-style change. We completed a worksheet designed to help you get clear on what you’ll need to do to fit change into your life. If you didn’t get that, please go back to “How to Plan a Coup” and go ahead and get your copy of the worksheet from the link there.

In week two, we talked about making room in your life so that you actually can complete a change, or achieve a goal. Last week, we worked on how to believe that change is possible and if you did the work there, you saw how your belief fluctuates day-to-day and you learned how to increase your belief. This week, in honor of national Give Up Your Resolution Day, we’ll take a deep dive into how to trust yourself to actually do the thing you set out to do.

This year, you’re going to stage a coup. Even if you haven’t committed to anything yet, even if you’ve already started and given up. That’s right. No matter how you approach it, you’re going to change this year – whether you plan to or not.

The key to actually achieving your goal is to plan it and then execute the plan. Sounds simple but it’s wicked hard. Here are three planning tricks I bet you’ve never tried.

1: Plan To Delight Your (immediate) Future Self

I’ve blogged a lot about planning but here’s something I bet you don’t think of when you plan – your future self. No, I don’t mean the future you who has the new job, learned the cool coding language or got a great project. I mean the person you’ll be tomorrow when you have to take the first step.

I played a game with myself this week. I wrote down in detail each thing I was going to eat one day ahead of time. Then, I tried to follow my plan. I had said I’d make cereal with skim milk. We had none, and my car was in the shop. I skipped the meal, waiting for my husband to come home. I didn’t have spinach, I went to the store and got it. On it went. It was really hard. Then, I found myself at 5 pm with nothing planned for the time of day I like to sit outside and have a toddy or coffee and read. Bummer. I caved. I had 2 toddies, and from there on, it was a free for all.

I didn’t plan with any consideration for myself. I didn’t think about how much I like my happy hour, I didn’t think about what it would be like if anything went wrong. Folks, that was the opposite of self-care.

I did the experiment again, designing my food plan to delight my future self. I had a plan for coffee and a vita-muffin at 5 pm, I made sure I had everything I needed and I planned food that I would love. I treated my future self like gold. How did I do? Easy Peasy. I stuck to it like glue.

So when you plan what you’re going to do, plan to delight yourself, plan to hit your goal in a way that is all about making the you of tomorrow feel well treated.

2: Plan to Build Trust

Look, trusting that you will do what you say you’ll do is the cat’s pajamas. We work hard to make sure other people believe that we’ll come through at work. Our reputations matter a lot. Why? Because if we don’t live up to our commitments, then we won’t be trusted with the good projects, we won’t get opportunities and we’ll wind up doing the same thing day after day. We want the good work, the meaningful work, the great stuff. We get it by living up to expectations and delivering on commitments.

Dude, it’s the same deal with you & yourself.

If we don’t live up to our commitments to ourselves, we won’t trust ourselves. We’ll hesitate to take on new challenges because we’ve burned our bridge with ourselves. We won’t believe us when we say that we’re going to get a raise, or we’re going to hit our goals, or we’re going to get a better job.

How would it feel to know, one hundred percent, that if you committed to something just for your self, that you would for sure come through?

That feeling? Is insanely good. How do you get it? By planning carefully. Set yourself up to win. I was always very careful not to promise my son anything that I wasn’t going to deliver. When times got tough, I was able to ask him if he believed that I would do what I said. Even though our relationship was strained at that moment, he had to say yes. He trusted that I would do what I said. I felt ten feet tall and at the same time, I felt very grounded. Why? Because I believed it too.

Plan carefully, and remind yourself during execution that you’re building trust with yourself. With that kind of relationship with yourself, you can soar. You can build an amazing life starting right where you’re at.

3: Retrain Your Brain

This is all about execution. This is the DO part of plan / do.

During the execution of any plan, you’ll feel a pull to waffle a bit, to stop and check email, to read one news story, to find a better playlist, to do a bit of “research” on the internet. These things come up as urges. Sudden impulses to quit on yourself and distract yourself.

Humans are hardwired to seek pleasure, immediately, and avoid pain – permanently. The problem is, the pain we experience most of the time is emotional pain brought on by circumstances that our ancestors even a hundred years ago never dreamed of.

That emotional pain is caused by our thoughts.

“I’m a fraud.” “This project is taking longer than I thought and I won’t finish in time.” “I don’t have everything I need and I’ve waited too long.” “I have to make this report perfect or people will think something bad about me.”

The list never ends. No, listen, the list seriously never ends. That’s why it’s key to learn how to allow an urge without answering it. When you feel that pull to check emails, don’t resist it. And don’t give in either. If you resist it, you’ll go home exhausted. Will power is not a good plan long term. And if you give in, the darn thing will become stronger next time.

You have to retrain your brain. You do this by allowing. You notice the urge to check emails. You acknowledge it. ( I try to name the feeling that preceded the urge, such as frustration, or anxiety.) Then you hang out with it for a few seconds. Play with it. Here’s how it looks:

I feel anxious and I want to go find a new playlist to listen to while I work. I think – this is an urge. Why do I want to stop working and answer this urge? Because I feel frustrated. What’s that like? I feel tight in the shoulders. I feel tension in my jaw. Let me hang with this. Can I get more frustrated? Let’s see how I can build it up. That’s interesting. Can I make it less? Make it more again? Am I still OK? Yes? OK, good. That’s an urge. I want to avoid frustration by answering the urge but that will just make things worse. I’m going to go back to work.

That’s the art of allowing an urge to be there and not answering it. The next time I feel frustrated, the strength of the urge to distract myself will be less. If I do that enough, the urges will die down and my confidence will go way up.

To build a great working relationship with yourself – plan to delight yourself, plan to build trust and then make your relationship with yourself a priority, and retrain your brain by decommissioning urges. If you can do these three things, you can stage a coup for the ages.

And that? Is Magic.

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The Impact of Belief on Change

The way you think about your goals changes the outcome.
Do you believe that?

Like short blogs? This is the one for you. It’s really late and I’m busting this out because I’m committed to getting this out to you all each and every Monday.

Two weeks ago, the blog focused on the difference between viewing your goal as a one-time achievement or a lifestyle change. Click Here for your free worksheet.

Last week, I talked about clearing out room in your life to accomplish your new goal. The most critical place to create space in your life is in your mind.

The next step to permanent change is the way you talk to yourself about that change.

When I’m on track for achieving something, my thoughts go something like this – I’m excited. I wonder how much closer I’ll get today? This is going to be great. How can I do this? What should I do next?

I know I’m not going to get very far when I think like this: I’m struggling. I’m falling behind. I hope I can do this. I’m not very good at this. I haven’t done well, I need to do better. I’ll do better tomorrow.

You might not think that how you manage your mind is the major factor in achieving change, but I beg to differ. Look at the thoughts in the first example. See how many of them are open-questions? The person thinking that way is already on their way to finding more opportunities for success.

So how to do you come around to that way of thinking?

  • Each day – fill one side of a notebook page with positive thoughts about your goal.
  • Then restate your goal.
  • Then ask yourself how you feel about your goal.
  • If you feel positive, ask yourself what action you should take.
  • If you feel negative, ask yourself what other thoughts you could have and what action you can take to overcome that negative feeling.

Write all this down on paper, keep the pages together. Do this for 30 days.

Review the pages and think about what you learned.

Here’s what I learned when I did this. First off, it feels great to give yourself a daily cheering on for a full page. Second, half the time I would repeat my goal statement and feel negative or doubtful and half of the time I would feel positive. I could always think of something I could do to help me with my goal.

After a while, I realized that my feelings about my goal weren’t actually accurate. At any given time I might be upbeat or pessimistic, yet there were always other ways to look at it and action I could take. The way I felt stopped being such a big deal. I started to choose to feel positive. The more days I took action, the more success I had, the more enthusiastic I became and the more success I had.

It’s a giant flywheel for change – belief, action, results, belief, action, results.

So step three for permanent change is to start to take active steps to manage your belief.

If you want help learning how – I’d love to walk you through it. Try a 25-minute session free – sign up here.

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Getting Clear about Change

Think you can shove a big change in the same old space you’re at? Think again.

The most wildly productive year I’ve ever had started with me quitting. I stole a page from Brian Tracy and quit everything that wasn’t my day job or my volunteer gig. I did it so that I could see just exactly what I would put into the space that opened up for me.

Here’s what I packed into that year – making a lifelong dream come true, starting a new business, forty-five pounds of weight loss, a new position at work, a hike across Scotland and year of being coached by three awesome teachers. That was a pretty cool year. When I look back on that fabulous year of growth, the feeling that invariably hits me is a feeling of – space.

To start that year, I had to create space for change and when I did, the results were magical.

You can have a magical year too. You can.

It takes a certain type of work to do it, but you have it in you. The best part is? Just getting to the starting point of clear space feels so darn good, you might want to try it for the feeling of freedom and invigoration alone.

You in? Let’s get started.

When we want to make a major change at work, or in our personal lives, we need to create space for it. I highly advise trying the full-on quit everything tactic. If you don’t want to just chuck everything that isn’t nailed down – physically and/or metaphorically as I did, you’ll need to create pockets of space.

To start, clarify if you need to create space for a one-time achievement or a lifestyle change. Click these links to check my blog from last week and pick up your free worksheet here.

A single achievement – earning a degree, putting on an addition, completing a large project or hitting a target objective requires concrete blocks of space in your calendar and dedicated planning and reframing time. We’ll talk about reframing in a minute. What’s important here is the idea that this type of goal ends. You can go all-in on one thing and depending on the length of the project, you can even let some things in your life slide while you do it.

A workstyle or lifestyle change requires a more creative thought process. You’ll still need planning and reframing but you’ll also need to think about the space you create in terms of an on-going commitment and identity change. This is the type of change space that asks us to really rip open our current patterns and start restitching them into something new. It’s scary and it’s amazing.

If you try to cram in changes without creating space for them – be that space in your calendar or space in your mind to really work out how to do them, you’re probably going to wind up back in the old grind, snapping awake somewhere in August realizing another year has gone by and your opportunity for change one year older. Sigh.

I feel you, but one year older is one year wiser and you’re ready this time.

There are a few ways to create space for the changes you want to make. First, you can hit a few out of the park right away by completing that worksheet from last week. If you did it already, great. Head back to the section where you listed what you had to do more of and less of if you wanted to hit the lifestyle sweet spot. All those “do less of this…” statements probably share some common elements. Spend a few minutes refining them.

Things like – spend less time with email checking, unproductive meetings, and busy work are the low hanging fruit. We clear these things out and then we find them slipping back in again, like weeds or unwanted spam. So go through your sheet and make those changes the first thing on your list for clearing space.

Oh, how do you clear those weeds out? Identify, evaluate, replace, appreciate.

Notice the behavior. You might spend a day just making a hash mark or tapping your knuckles on your desk when you notice that you’ve been fiddling with emails for a half-hour instead of doing your main work.

When you notice the behavior, give yourself the gift of sixty seconds to evaluate it. How do you physically right now? Tight jaw, big frown? Slack mouth, drooling a bit? Once you’ve come to your senses – literally – then ask yourself, do you want to be doing this?

If this isn’t what you want to be doing, then replace it. Preferably with something you actually want – put on headphones, turn on your music and get to your project.

This is important – appreciate what you’ve done. Enjoy the idea that you are now doing what you actually want.

For me, I want to have more interaction with our customers, not to hear what they want from IT, but so that I can understand what their goals and objectives are, so I can start to suggest ways that IT can help. That’s a pretty tall order for me, but it’s the direction I need to move. To have the time and breadth of experience to do this successfully, I’m going to need more space on my calendar. This is also a workstyle change for me since I don’t intend to return to my current way of doing things. I’ll need more drastic clearing, so I’m going to use my three favorite space creators.

1 – delegate

Delegation is one way to get more space at work. On our team, we delegate down and sideways. When someone on the team has a special project, we work to delegate sideways so that we increase cross-training and create pockets of opportunity. Even if you’re not a manager, you can create a team ethos for this type of delegation by volunteering to be a delegee. Then, when opportunity strikes, you can delegate.

The key to being a better delegator is to understand how to pass off tasks fully packaged. We tend to unpack tasks and dictate the steps to complete in order to be sure the next person gets it all done just right. This takes way too long and helps nobody. Practice delegating the result you want. Let your teammate unpack the project and figure out how to get it done.

Another key component is to delegate meaningful work. If you’re asking a team member to unpack and figure out how to deliver a result, then they get to experience full contribution. That makes work meaningful. Make the work you turn over the type of work that gives them a chance to shine.

2 – quit

You heard me. JUST STOP DOING LESS VALUABLE STUFF.

Stop going to meetings where there’s no agenda. Stop decorating your office. Stop wandering around looking for coffee at 2 pm. Stop going to that monthly meeting for Office People In Favor of Plants. Sure, all the other attendees will be disappointed if you quit. Maybe. The fact is, you have no clue what they’ll think and frankly, it’s none of your business. Your business is the business of getting yourself to the life you want to live and the work that’s most important. They’ll be fine. Just. Quit.

3 – reframe

All of this is meaningless unless you can clear space in your mind. This is a repetitive chore and the basis for all the thought work coaching done by myself and my peers. I’ve seen a direct correlation between time spent on thought work and productivity in my life and that correlation is the reason I became a coach. I want to pass that on to you.

As you try to change, as you quit things, and stop doing stuff a ton of resistance and worries and doubts are going to come up in your brain. This. Is. Normal.

Thought work involves writing down your thoughts about whatever work is ahead of you today and then picking out some of your less than stellar thoughts. You then put them through a rigorous analysis until you can clearly see the patterns of behavior you need to enact to get your results. You can get a sense of this by going to my very first blog post – and watching the video on the coolest tool you’re for sure not using.

I put thought work under “clearing space” because it eliminates rumination, self-doubt and increases focus, all of which create more time for you to focus on doing what really matters.

And that? Is step two in the five steps to permanent change.

If you would like to work one on one with me for free and have me show you how to clean out space in your thoughts, book a free session here. I’d love to teach this tool to you.

See you next week for step three in the five steps to permanent change.

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How To Plan A Coup

There’s a big difference between learning to play the banjo and making a living at it.
That difference is lifestyle.
Understanding the concept can be a deal-breaker when it comes to maintaining your achievements.

Coup – pronounced KOO, meaning sudden takeover or great success.

You know you want one. Heck, I want one. Do you want to make next year the most amazing sudden achievement of personal and professional synergy you’ve ever experienced? Do you want to finally do the thing you say every January you’ll do? If there was one thing you could give yourself for Christmas, would it be a coup?

Dude! Let’s do it! Dudette, high fives all around. I’m so in. Are you?

Whoops. What’s that? You were just excited there for a minute, I know you were. But the reality is coming in like a conquering hoard, isn’t it? You’ve been here before. One minute you’re all in and the next minute… you remember… you’ve tried this before.

Not. Cool. Not. Coup.

Not to worry, that’s normal. To find out why, read my blog on Past Based Thinking

Ok, come on back to me. What if I told you there is a way forward, even if this isn’t your first try for a promotion, your first attempt at writing that book or your first rodeo? What if I told you that you can plan and execute a takeover of your own life?

I’m telling you… there IS a way forward.

I’ve learned the hard way that not planning on the difference between achievement and lifestyle can lead to backsliding on your dreams.

We experience this at work all the time. Remember when the entire company created onboarding documents? When was the last time you updated them? What about that great plan for staying on top of your technical skills? Do you even remember your plural site password? That – is what I’m talking about. The difference between getting your boss to buy you that amazing tech training subscription and actually taking the classes on the regular is the difference between achievement and life-style.

If you know me and work with me, you know that I lost weight a couple of years back. And you know that I’ve put a lot of it back on. What a shame, huh? But not surprising right?

What I was missing was future focus. Basically, when I lost weight – I gained an identity problem. I wrote about this – Nirvana Park. What I’ve learned is that for permanent change, you need to understand how you’re going to get something, and then how you’re going to keep something.

Achievement is getting something, lifestyle is how you keep it.

To prepare for creating a mind-blowing, life-altering new year’s resolution worthy of the ab-fab human you are, start by exploring your goals in relation to both how to get something and how to keep it. You can do the steps below thinking only about work, only about your personal life or combine the two.

  1. First answer the question: What is the result I want by the end of 2020?
  2. Next answer the question: What are the things that are important in my life?
  3. Make a list of all the activities, priorities, results, etc you want your life to include.
  4. Add a column for “GET” and note for each item what you would have to do to get this attribute, result, etc. If you already have it, just put a dash.
  5. Now, add a column for “KEEP” and note what you have to do to keep or maintain this result.
  6. At this point, it may seem you can’t possibly have it all. You’re right on track.
  7. Now, take each item, or group of items, and write a sentence that looks like one of these ” Being _____________ means spending more time__________ and less time _____________.” or “Having ____________ means (doing/being/saying/taking) less of ____________________ and more _____________”

Do you have a much clearer idea of where this new achievement or goal is about to take you? Keep going, do this for each item in your list. Do you feel a bit more positive? I hope so. The last step is to really look at your answers.

What does this lifestyle require you to give up? What does this lifestyle require you to add? Can you seriously say this is the way you want to live?

Here’s what I learned by dropping 45 lbs and gaining 30 back – getting thin has a beginning and an end. Staying thin – does not. Before you set out to achieve something, ask yourself if this is a one-time thing – like buying a hot car – or a lifetime thing – like getting healthy. If it’s a lifetime thing, then you need to plan out both how to get what you want and how to keep what you want.

Achievement & Lifestyle.

So are you in? Do you want to plan a coup?

Click here to Download your Free Worksheet

This year, between The Great Gift Exchange and Auld Lang Syne, let’s plan your coup.

And me? I’m with you all the way.

See you next week for part 2 of the Five Steps to Changing Your Life

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Reboot Your Day Job

Months in the making…
Yours for the asking…
My new program – Reboot Your Day Job – is available now.

Here’s a story for you. There once was a bright, enthusiastic developer. Kinda like you. She landed an amazing job. It was a bit scary because she was new at it but she wanted to rise to the challenge, to solve problems, to get paid and to start out on her big, terrific adult life.

Things went pretty A-OK at her job and she was given bigger assignments, more responsibility and … tighter deadlines. She was put on important projects. When the whole team went all-in on a big push, it was thrilling and she felt great to be part of the tribe, to deliver the product, to hit the delivery mark.

Soon, she was always assigned to important projects. Her manager asked her to mentor newer employees. She got a raise, a promotion or two, took out loans, bought some big-ticket items. Emails flooded in: electronic system notifications, overly cheerful company morale-building events, survey requests, project specs, production issues and more. The company added instant messaging and video calls. Daily agile standups for every project, and even though she was supposed to be focusing on her main tasks, the other interruptions never really went away. The quiet focused time she needed eroded. She used to spend six hours a day quietly coding. Now she was lucky if she spent two. Now, she was doing it all in the evenings from her couch while she snacked mindlessly.

Our young, enthusiastic developer was now a respected mid-level programmer (or analyst, or engineer). The big pushes she used to enjoy seemed to have become her way of life. Her manager was sympathetic but was having the same issues. Soon our programmer was starting to see herself as failing at her job. She wasn’t hitting targets she thought she should. She couldn’t control her email, she could only be tolerant with interruptions for so long and then she lashed out. She was missing family outings and not taking all her vacation time. Most alarming of all, sometimes she would cry… right in the middle of a work-day. She stopped going to lunch, eating at her desk, trying to save time, hoping she might not have to work so late. Soon, she stopped drinking water during the day. It was too hard to find time to break away. Meetings were booked back to back and if she didn’t keep working, she’d be up all night.

Finally, her sleep stopped working. Thoughts of work invaded her nighttime hours, waking her up or making it impossible to go back to bed. She started binge-watching shows in the hours after midnight when she found she couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t remember the last time she read a novel or just came home on time five days in a row. She began to show up later to work. The only thing that could save her now was a new job.

Sound familiar?

This person is a combination of several of my clients. Real people, really suffering. Let’s keep looking at this combination client as one, lovely, overwhelmed and very sad developer ( or manager, or entrepreneur.)

One day, when she was weak, when she was ready to try anything, she met me, or another coach, or she saw an ad and in a fit of desperation, signed up for something she barely knew anything about. The promise was that it would be different. Maybe, just maybe this might help. She had nothing to lose. She clicked on a link, dug out her credit card, double-checked the money-back guarantee and, holding her nose, jumped in. She hired a life coach.

She met her coach over a video call which was great because frankly, she didn’t really have time to drive anywhere. Sometimes, she just left the video off and they talked.

Her coach asked her what she wanted out of life. She was so broken, she honestly didn’t have a goal. She just wanted to stop suffering. Her coach gave her videos to watch, a page or two to read, easy homework that she took very seriously. She watched the videos and did the homework. None of it was earth-shattering but by working through real-life examples from her work, the developer started to see how she could make changes that actually got her different results. After a couple of weeks, she started to feel better. She wasn’t sure if it was the coaching or if things had just happened to get a little less hectic at work. One thing was for sure, she was learning how to say no and how to evaluate her own thinking.

After four weeks, when she met with her coach, she didn’t have a huge issue to discuss. Things were… OK. Not bad. She had made progress – like changing the way she managed her time, and crazily, she’d had an entire weekend when she didn’t check her email. She wasn’t sure she needed a coach anymore. Her coach had her start making lists. Daydream lists of what she wanted out of life, how she wanted to live, what she wanted to achieve. A lot of the stuff was really pretty doable now that she had it on paper. The future was starting to look better.

Sounds like bull, doesn’t it?

It’s not. It’s what happened to me when I took the chance and worked with a coach. It’s what happens for the majority of my clients who go through my Reboot Your Day Job program. The ones who are committed, who do the homework and who show up ready to make a change get the exact results I outlined. You could too.

I’ve already given you everything you need to know, right here in my blog. If you start at the beginning, watch the video and work through the examples from my year of blogging, you could get these same results. Or you can work with me for six weeks and feel start feeling better right away.

I’ve added a money-back guarantee. If for any reason you are not satisfied with the program I will refund your payment. And… I’ll do that one better. I’ll give you a discount if you sign up by 1/31/2020.

Click here to get the coupon code.

During a 50 year career, we will spend 30% of our waking hours at work.

My premise is simple: If you’re gonna spend that much time doing something, you should darn well enjoy it.

  • For years, I liked my job, but I struggled with the same issues over and over again:
    • Overwork & overwhelm
    • Judging myself too harshly
    • Saying yes to too many things
    • Waking up at night and fretting about situations or projects
    • Feeling guilty about disconnecting
    • Focusing on the wrong things during the day, working late at night to catch up.

I WAS A MESS; WORK WAS A MESS & I WANTED – TO RUN. AWAY.

  • Then, I started working with a life coach, and she helped me clean up my thinking
    • I got perspective, I got more done, of the right things, at the right time.
    • I started managing my work instead of letting it control me.
    • I learned to treat myself better and to see mistakes in a different light.
    • I practiced saying no in the right way to the right things.
    • I stopped disrespecting myself & I dropped all that guilt like a hot potato
    • I put my thoughts into the proper place and time. I started sleeping better and better

I was so amazed –

I trained as a life coach just to find out how all that happened. 

If the person in the story sounds like you, and you’re ready for a change, please be brave.

If you want to feel better fast, click here to get the coupon code.

And that? Is just good to do.