Category: Work Life Balance

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Disconnecting… from Impossible to Done.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let’s tackle those objections right now.

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

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

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

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

Workload and Culture.

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

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

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

Those are some pretty strong headwinds

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

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

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

Not one. Not one single client.

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

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

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

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

The two reasons why clients fail to unplug.

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

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

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

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

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

So, what’s the answer?

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

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

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

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Let’s Get Back to You

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that? Is just the beginning.

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Get Strong

Think this is the soft stuff? Think again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More than any of that, I wish you compassion.

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

Namaste.

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Right Size Your Work

Thinking about the space your job takes up in your life is one way get more control.
Click here to listen to the blog, plus some riffs. Or click the video above to see the VLOG. As always, you can read the blog below.

I talk about space a lot. It confuses my coach. I say – I want more space in my life. I want more space around this task. I’m looking to add space.

“Wait,” she asks. “Are we still talking about work?”

I learned to think about time in terms of containers by reading Julie Morganstern’s book, Time Management from the Inside Out. She’s a professional organizer who translated cleaning out closets into a theory of time management. Now, I think about work in the same way.

Julie asserts that the size of a closet is finite. You get so many cubic feet and that’s it. At some point, you can’t put any more in. I like to add an addendum to that – within the space allowed, you have a finite amount of items you can put into your closet while still allowing enough room around them to keep the closet usable. Usability is flexible. There’s a maximum amount of usability – one item per shelf – and a minimum amount of usability – I can only take out the last thing I shoved in there.

When you get the most amount of items in the closet and can still use them all easily, you’ve right-sized your space. When you hit that, you can maintain order in your space easily for years.

Right-sizing your work is the process of shoving work back into the time allowed, or fluffing it out so that it fills your time nicely. Right-sizing your work is how you build for long-term endurance. Like managing an amazing pantry it’s a balancing act of things you really need and stuff you want to add in – and it’s totally possible.

Why Right-Size?

  1. Make sure you get to do the things that matter to you
  2. Ensure that you deliver peak performance at work, at an advantage to yourself.
  3. Because life is better when you’re not exhausted & missing out 
  4. Because life is better when you’re not beating yourself up for things you didn’t do
  5. To maximize your experience of work and life.

Are we still talking about work? I have a broad definition of work, as you might guess. I love work and so, I don’t groan thinking about adding in more. For me, work is anything you do, on purpose, to accomplish a return on investment.

What is Right-Sizing Work?

We all overwork and underwork in our lives. Some people overwork at their day-job. Some people underwork. Some people have side hustles they overwork. Some underwork at their small business. We invest time in relationships for a return of connection. Are you overworking or underworking that? What about your personal tasks?

When you overwork right-sizing means keeping work small enough to avoid diminishing returns – which occur when you are exhausted and it takes longer to deliver the same result. It also means making work fit inside the time you are willing to exchange for it.

When you underwork right-sizing means keeping work large enough to deliver returns on your investment. If you spend a lot of time worrying about work you aren’t doing, that’s a sign you are underworking. In this case, you want to focus on consuming the time you are willing to invest.

Is all this starting to sound like planning? It’s more than that.

Plan your time like you’re putting items into a closet. The space is finite so you have to choose what can go in.

How to Right Size your Work

  • Create positive boundaries – set cut off times that  allow for real benefits, recognize and celebrate all that you accomplish.
  • Set clear objectives for small blocks of time. Don’t plan to “work on a report”. Instead, plan to “create the first draft of my quarterly budget slide dec”.
  • Be willing to cancel, disappoint people and say no. When you overwork, you’re used to doing this to your friends. Be willing to do this with meetings and favors. When you underwork, you’re used to canceling on your work plans. Be willing to cancel on friends.
  • Have clear priorities. You’ll never get it all done.  At least I hope not.   So the only way to know which results to schedule is to have priorities.  They also help you say no. A lot.
  • Plan daily and weekly at the very least. The weekly planning session is where you face the hard fact about the space you have in your week for the things you want to do. Don’t make this about perfect, make this about learning. Plan your week, then at the end, review your progress. Adjust the next week’s plan. The daily planning session is where you quickly move tasks or time when the world throws you a curve.
  • Be kind to yourself. Always, always – this is the most important thing. It’s not about getting a A in planning, it’s about building a life that’s right for you, in every way.

And that? Is just a beautiful way to live.

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Get Your Results Right

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

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

The full blog, read for you. Enjoy.

A meeting made me cry.

In a good way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let me lay it out for you visually:

Situation: Three month deadline on brand new project.

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

Feeling: Urgency

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

Result: Everyone shows up.

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

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

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

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

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

Why does focusing on personal results matter?

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

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

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

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

And that? Is just a good thing to do.

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

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

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

Six weeks. $600. Everything changes.

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

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Action

Action is the antidote to despair – Joan Baez.
It’s also been touted as the fix for fear, anxiety, and doubt.
With an intro like that, who wouldn’t want more action?

Nothing dogs us like action, or rather – inaction. Facing fears, making a difference, and just plain getting through the workday, all require action. So why is that so many of us struggle to act? Let’s dig into action, decisions, and getting stuff done.

Today’s blog, read for you. Enjoy.

First off, let’s divide the world into two kinds of action. Tony Robbins called it massive action and passive action. Educators call it learning from resources and learning by doing. Either way, we’re talking about consuming information versus actively attempting something. Often, we postpone taking action by learning, reading, watching, talking. All of which are fine in doses, but don’t hold a candle to engaging with the world and trying something. In a sneaky, sneaky twist, our brains LOVE passive action. After all, what’s safer than reading a book or watching a movie? Our brains love safe; they love passive action.

So when I’m talking about action, I’m talking about massive action. Massive action, that has mass, movement, impact and engagement, is the action that we want to call on when we’re trying to achieve a goal. Whether that goal is getting your new cool idea noticed at work, or saving democracy – I think we can all agree that massive action is what’s required.

Do dare what is right, not swayed by the whim of the moment.  Bravely take hold of the real, not dallying now with what might be.  Not in the flight of ideas, but only in action is freedom.  Make up your mind and come out into the tempest of the living.  -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Ok, so our brains are totally against going out into a tempest. Things HAPPEN in a tempest, things CHANGE when we take action. As soon as you attempt to take action, your lazy brain, all chillin’ on the sofa with its tank top and stretchy shorts on, looks over and pauses whatever it’s binge watching. Why? Because its job is to stop you from getting hurt. What’s the easiest way to do that?

Depends. Could be it might frighten you. It might tell you that your idea will get you laughed at. Could be it might tempt you... chips and salsa anyone? But you are too smart to let that stop you. Be ready. And if your mid-brain wins this round, notice how it did it. I noticed that my brain could get me to skip my morning walk if it was raining. Can you spell treadmill? Boom. Then my brain told me that using the treadmill was selfish. After all, the dog needs to walk too. So for a while, I let that be my excuse. If the dog can’t go, I don’t go. Wait? What? Tricky. Turns out, the dog’s chill if I use the treadmill as long as I don’t make her use it with me.

He was a sociopath, I think, in love with himself and no one else, craving action for its own sake, and indifferent to any long-term consequences, a classic Man of Destiny.  – Hocus Pocus  Kurt Vonnegut.

Truly, that’s not the best quote for this article but I just love me some Vonnegut.

So action for action’s sake isn’t what we’re talking about. Running around with no clear goal or without thinking things through can be trouble. However, most of us take way too long to come to a decision. We want to make the perfect decision. In reality, making the best decision we can, in a reasonable amount of time, is all we need to do.

Check out my article on decision making – Beauty & the Beast

Once the decision is made, action is where it’s at. Taking real action sends a message to ourselves that we can effect an impact on our own lives. In fact, any meaningful results you’ll ever get come from taking action. We live in a world that feels out of control. We have invisible viruses, we have bosses that make decisions based on information that we aren’t told about. We use technology we barely understand to do our jobs. We have our retirement invested in a stock market that, from the looks of it, is disconnected from reality. Our brains don’t like any of this. We like certainty.

Action takes us out of rumination and engages us with the world. Want another bonus for taking action?

Dude, the day feels longer when you fill it with diverse actions towards meaningful goals.

Try it. Compare a day with no plans, when you engage in passive action to a day when you take five or six different actions towards a goal. Which day felt longer? Which one felt like a life well-lived.

Lady, I’ve just told you the secret to having a long life. No matter how many years you actually live, you experience more life when you’re taking action.

And that? Is just a good way to feel.

If you want to take more action and figure out how to get past the mental roadblocks to action, sign up for a free 25 minute mini session. We’ll discuss how coaching helps.

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Get up, Log off, Get Gone

Look, you gotta go now.

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

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

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

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

Dedicate Yourself To Leaving Work at Work.

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

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

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

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

3. Understand that stopping your thought patterns takes practice.

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

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

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

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

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

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Agency

Is this a random spill or symbolic artwork? How you make sense of your world is entirely in your mind.

I’ve struggled this week with how to make a blog on personal power at work relevant in the light of current events.

Although I can listen, see, imagine, and sympathize, I will never experience what it is to be a black person in America. Although I’m the mother of a police officer, I will never know what it’s like to be one. I can’t walk in any of these shoes.

Here are the shoes I can walk in – a pair of pop-art pumps with chunky heels – because these shoes belong to me.

These are literally, my shoes.

Standing in those shoes, here’s what my experience as an American woman has taught me – systemic, conscious, and unconscious bias is 100% real.

Here’s what I can tell you – I have been told and shown, based solely on gender that I am ridiculous, inconvenient, a threat or worse yet – a disposable object.

Here’s what I believe – People do abuse power and when anyone in power acts as if the rules and laws don’t apply to them, they should be held accountable.

So let me be clear – on the macro level, I for sure don’t think we should pretend inequality, injustice or violence doesn’t exist. That would be crazy. I believe in social agency. I believe in protest, in free speech, and the ability to leverage our influence to change our laws. We have a truckload of problems with bias in this country and we should get to work on them.

For the purposes of maximizing our impact at work, I don’t think it serves us to relinquish our sense of agency, even if the deck is stacked against us. Which brings us to today’s topic – agency.

Agency: the ability to act independently, to impact the course of your life, and to set goals for yourself. A sense of agency is linked to subjective well being on both a personal level and for us as a society. As my grandmother used to say, as long as you have choices, you’re OK.

So many of us give our agency away on the day-to-day. When we give away our agency, we’re giving away our sense of control and, along with it, our own power.

You get to look at the world around you and decide what’s working and what’s not. You can change your mind about all sorts of things.

You change how you view yourself.

You can change what you think about your job, your boss, your capabilities, and your value.

If you’re going to embark on a journey of this sort, let me encourage you to change the way you view your own agency. I’d like to encourage you to see yourself as the CEO of You, Inc. No matter what deck is stacked against you at this moment, you have the choice to validate that reality by giving up or spend some of your time on the planet trying to reshuffle the cards. My advice is always choose to reshuffle.

For this at-work example, let’s say that I want to move up one level in my organization and to do that, I’ve decided I’ll need to demonstrate leadership on a large project.

One way to approach this is to ask my manager to give me a large project to lead. Then, I can go back to my desk and wait for the project that never comes. When review time comes, I can be frustrated by the fact that nobody gave me a chance to shine and, I can settle for whatever wages I get, remaining in my current position, probably doing less tomorrow than I did yesterday, because, well, nothing works.

Let me tell you, this happens all the time. Why? Because the person in that example believes that they must be given a project by someone else. Can she control her boss? Hell no. Can she make someone give her a project? Not before the next review cycle comes up and not without legal action and money. Maybe not ever. So this is a completely dead-end way of dealing with the here and now – even if it’s true! This is why, in the moment, I always act in favor of personal agency.

So let’s say, despite the fact that I’m an old woman of average intelligence, I think I have the ability to maximize my personal benefit, and demonstrate my effectiveness, regardless of what project my boss gives me.

Now let’s say because of this belief, I tackle even small projects with a professional process. I document what I do, I create templates to use to build efficiency, I keep track of how long I expect it to take, how long it actually takes, and what caused any variance. Let’s say I sat down at the start of the project and wrote out my expectations of how I would perform and in the end, I evaluated my performance.

Basically, I treat this little project that I’m doing by myself, as if it was the big opportunity I’ve been waiting for. I’ve assumed all the authority over how it will be handled. I’ll be evaluating my own performance, so my manager’s feedback is now secondary. I’ll be learning from the project and improving my skills. Because I’ll understand why any problems in delivery or performance occurred, I’ll be able to build in processes to prevent future delays or disappointing behavior of my own making.

Here’s what I’ve just done – I’ve taken all the power over my performance and my opportunities, out of the hands of my manager, and put it all right on my desk. I’ve basically just made my manager irrelevant in the context of this project. I don’t need to know when he wants it done, because I already know when it will be done. I can just check to see if that will suit him. If not, I can offer up options. I’m not forced into a timeline, I’m negotiating one. I don’t need him to tell me what he expects because I know what results I’m delivering. Now I can just confirm I’m delivering what he’s looking for. I basically treat my manager like he’s my customer. I have lots of power. I have the goods and services he wants to buy. I just have to keep myself relevant.

Do you see what I did there? It’s still work. I still need to deliver stuff and make it good but it is a completely different ballgame if I see myself as the owner of Myself, Inc., and my manager as my best customer. My work experience is no longer at the whim of my boss, my work life is at the whim of ME. If my boss doesn’t agree with my evaluation, well, that just means we need to communicate better. Or I might decide to make it mean nothing at all.

What I find actually happens is I get really curious about what my boss thinks. I’m not devastated when my boss has something critical to say. I’m fascinated. I take this bit of information and analyze it. Did I miss something in my own eval of me? Great! I’ll add it to the working template for next time. I already do this for myself, so getting this information upfront is like getting a free trip around the monopoly board.

Ok, sound good? So to build out your own little Yourself, Inc. empire where you rule with confidence and independence, take back your own agency.

  1. Commit to working for yourself and refuse to let your boss control your opportunities. Strike a blow for the republic of you!
  2. Study your own work by stating beforehand what you will be doing ( time estimates, results expected, and expectations of your own behavior) and then by evaluating what actually happened.
  3. Take it one step further and ask yourself how you can be better, faster, or more professional next time and add that information to your documents.
  4. When the next project comes, repeat the process but shoot for improvement using the information you learned.

In a short time, you’ll have great confidence in your ability to deliver, your ability to estimate when you’ll deliver and how you’ll approach the work. When you have that kind of bedrock under you, it’s easy to ask good questions about projects, you can estimate quickly and with confidence.

It doesn’t work if you don’t put in the effort to do it fairly. You must lay out your expectations for yourself upfront. Don’t just do work and take stock at the end, looking back at the project and feeling good or bad about it. You won’t build confidence and communicate to yourself that you take your work seriously.

Because you value your own work and treat it with respect, you no longer have your ego tied to the size of the project you’re handed, the team that comes with it, or really anything external. All your satisfaction is internally driven. When your own evaluation of your performance is the most important one you get, there’s a lot of freedom in that. When you hold yourself accountable to you, and you treat yourself like a professional, you have just shown yourself who you are at work. Better yet, you’ve just shown everyone else, too.

And that? Is just a great way to work.

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Confidence and the Big How

Think you have to know how to do something before you can be confident?
Think again. I’m gonna lay it down – get ready to take notes.

Straight up. Confidence is a feeling. Which means, say it with me, you can create it anytime, anywhere. On your worst day – confident. On your best day – confident. Sounds good doesn’t it?

Wanna hear all about the free site for Medical Front Liners & other stuff? Click on and let me read you the blog.

We get tangled up when we think that we need to have built up a history of skill and results in order to have confidence. If you’re talking about how certain you are that you can deliver a piece of software within the time allowed, then yeah, ok, knowing that you’ve done it before gives you confidence.

SCRATCH. Back the truck up.

No. Truth: the feeling of confidence comes from your thoughts. So if you think – I’ve done this six hundred times so I’m sure I can do it again – that thought can bring confidence. Sure. But stick with me, it’s the thought “I’m sure I can do it again” that generates the feeling of confidence.

Now, let’s ditch arrogance right here. Arrogance is not confidence. Arrogance is thinking you are somehow, someway “better” than someone else. That’s not what we’re talking about.

Confidence is the feeling of self-assurance that comes from faith in your own abilities.

The Big How

My coach gets us to build confidence by having us do stupid dares. We dare ourselves to ask someone for a free dinner, we ask for a better seat at a concert or a new job. We dare ourselves to publish a book, or a blog or sing in public. We dare ourselves to start businesses, to grow our businesses, to get on a live event and coach people. We dare ourselves to enter a 5K, return a product, or just ask for help. Sometimes we dare ourselves to jump up on a park bench and recite a poem – for nobody, in front of everybody.

Why? Because all of these things are uncomfortable. And the more you put yourself out there, and do something that has you squirming and wanting to back out, but you do it anyway, the more you realize that you’re OK. Ok with being turned down, OK with being thought a fool, OK with being ridiculous, vulnerable or just plain wrong. OK with trying and failing, OK with trying again and OK with figuring out how.

At work, we are confronted with things we don’t know how to do – all the time. How to get it all done? How to create something, fix something, get our message across, and sometimes, just how to be happy.

Here’s the big secret – you don’t have to know how to feel confident. All you have to do is have faith in your ability to figure it out.

The Big How – is about writing down where you are now, where you want to go and then listing out all the things that can stop you from getting there. For each obstacle you write down the plan for overcoming the obstacle.

Say I’m an analyst and I want to be a team lead – here’s some obstacles:

  • People don’t see me as a leader
  • There are no current openings for a team leader
  • I’m not sure what a team leader does
  • I don’t have any large projects where I can demonstrate leadership.

Now, I think about how to overcome the obstacles.

  • People don’t see me as a leader – So I can demonstrate clear leadership of myself. I can volunteer to set up meetings, which will put me in control of the agenda and the meeting and the follow-up. I can look for opportunities to be of service to my team, and demonstrate teamwork and leadership. I can dress a bit better, carry myself like a leader.
  • There are no current openings for a team leader – but I can tell my manager I want to prepare for one. I can say I want to be the next in line, her replacement. All managers need a replacement in training. I can ask for additional work that will help me learn what she does.
  • I’m not sure what a team leader does – I can meet with other team leads and find out what their responsibilities are, I can imagine what would be helpful and take that work on of my own volition.
  • I don’t have any large projects where I can demonstrate leadership. I can lead smaller ones, and demonstrate skill, and when I notice that my boss has too many balls in the air, I can ask for the chance to take one. I can get on committees and work on their projects. I can ask for a project.

Now, I have a path. More obstacles might come, but for now, these are the ones I see. If more come, I’ll add them to the path. For now, I’ve got a lot of work to do. Some of these things will fail, but since this is my path, my Big How, it’s ok. I’ll just think of something else.

For some of these, I might have to carry the big how with me for a few days, asking myself over and over – how can I solve this obstacle? Eventually, your brain will give you an answer. Try it. Even if it fails, you’ll get more information about what to try next.

Once you’ve done this process consciously a few times, you start to understand that you have the best ability on earth – the ability to figure out The Big How.

You can start anywhere and go anyplace.

How’s that for confidence?

And that? Is just a great way to feel.

If you would like to have me walk you through this process, click here and book a free 25 minute session.

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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.