Archive for August, 2008
The Mirror of Difficult People
Difficult people make us take a hard look at ourselves. Why can’t we get along with a certain co-worker? Why do they make us so angry?
The answers lie within us. We need to expand our awareness past the usual answers:
- S/he isn’t smart enough.
- S/he doesn’t care.
- S/he is just a jerk
We label someone as difficult because we don’t want to invest too much emotional energy into them. We try to categorize the difficult people in our lives so we don’t have to worry about what they think.
In reality we are cutting them off because we don’t want to exert extra energy. We are taking the lazy way out.
Difficult People
Slow Leadership posted an article from Peter Vajda, Are ‘Difficult’ People Really Difficult? that spurred this post. He argues that we tell ourselves stories about the people in our lives and once they are told, they become concrete. These stories are usually built on false circumstances because they are an expanded version of the truth. When you recognize these stories and learn to let go of them, You will be able to free yourself from emotional attachment.
Let’s say you meet Jim, a co-worker, on the first day of your new job. He’s in a bad mood and doesn’t respond well to your questions. It’s during this time that that we begin to create the story and idea of what a person is like. Well the night before Jim’s wife may have told him that she wanted a divorce. If you would have met Jim the day before you would have a completely different perspective on the guy. The problem is that we keep repeating this story in our head every time we have an interaction with that person.
The Stories We Weave
It’s these self made stories that stop us from connecting with people that would have become a good friend or at least someone tolerable. The true nature of an individual is revealed when confronted with difficulty, whether it be a person or a situation.
You can write that one story and stick with it or you can open your awareness to the possibility that this person holds a key to your happiness. The more mental blocks that you can unlock the easier difficult people and situations will become.
Unrelated Articles That are More Enjoyable Than Difficult People:
- Develop Your Emotional Intelligence
- Productivity at its Most Effective – When It’s Easy to Apply to Your Life
- How You Are Silently Signaling Your Co-workers to Treat You
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Slowly Ease Back Into Your Work Before You Really Freak Out
Let’s redefine stress so it fits into how you handle your life. Stress is the tension that you create to keep pressure on yourself. We do this because it keeps us on our toes ready to quickly answer a manager’s question or finish a report before the deadline.
It’s hard to admit that our stress is our fault, but it really is. If a lion was tracking you in the middle of an open field this stress would cause your heartbeat to skyrocket, igniting your thought processes and forcing you to act. Let’s take a step back…If you weren’t afraid of dying or pain, and you really wanted to end your life, how do you think you would feel?
You would probably be cool as a cucumber because you would be willing to take the pain to end the pain.
Acute Stress
If you were afraid of being eaten by a lion you would run like the inner track star that has always been dying to come out. This acute stress occurs because your heart is pumping like crazy, trying to keep the blood flowing to all the vital muscles. You want to live so you find the best actions to make it happen.
We feel this acute stress because it’s fast, intense and takes over the whole body. This stress occurs when we are giving a big presentation, approaching a deadline, and other major events. It’s easy to recover from this type of stress because we have no choice. Our bodies crash, shutting down our brains and forcing us to relax.
Chronic Stress
The problem with chronic stress is that it’s soft and slow. It’s a small river wearing away the rock bed. We don’t even realize that our happiness is eroding away. Over time the constant pressure breaks us down.
We carry this burden with us wherever we go. We martyr ourselves out to the world, so the people in our lives know how much we give and give.
Imagine you had to stand for hours at a time. The first hour may be easy, but slowly the burden becomes too great and your muscles and ligaments can’t handle the constant strain. You would collapse from exhaustion. There is documentary to illustrate this point, which I tried to find on Google and YouTube, but was unable to remember the name of the movie. The film follows a competition to win a car. A group of contestants try to stand and keep their hand on a car for longer than the other participants, and as soon both hands are no longer touching the car they lose. It’s an excellent chance to watch people at their best and worst. They become delirious and eventually the pain is too much. All except for one, who looked like he was on the brink of letting go too.
Your chronic stress does the same thing to you. Imagine if you had to stand in one place for hours or even days; eventually you’d have to give in and rest. We all need leisure breaks to help us stabilize our productivity.
Ease Yourself Back In
After allowing yourself a break, you shouldn’t just jump back in at full speed. You need to ease yourself back into a slower pace of work. I know this is hard to do at some jobs. Management expects full speed ahead.
If you enjoy what you do then you have to be creative with your effort. Try to work in smaller batches and when each batch is done then take a small break: bathroom, water, or a nice conversation with a co-worker. One of my favorites is making all kinds of crazy faces into a mirror. It usually makes me laugh and relieves the internal pressure that I put on myself.
You have to find the pace at which you are comfortable working. Your flow will fluctuate, so be willing to plow through work if that’s the type of mood you are in. Just don’t be afraid to take a break when you need it. It’s all about being flexible with how you are feeling that day.
Do you take scheduled breaks or do you just go with how you feel?
When You Are Freaking Out Because You Are Stressed Read These Articles:
- Leisure Expert Alison Link Answers a Work Happy Now Question
- Why are Icelanders so Good at Working Happy?
- Stress Management Journal
- Work Bullies are Stressful
- Hand Massage for Stress Relief
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Images courtesy of Clover_1
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You Should be Celebrating Your Average and Tiny Successes
Most of us only celebrate the momentous occasions that happen in our lives. When we get a big promotion or raise we go out to dinner. We splurge and buy an expensive bottle of wine and order whatever we feel like eating, living it up Entourage style.
It’s good to celebrate the big events, but the small victories are what lead up to the big victories. If we don’t emotionally reward ourselves when we accomplish the small things, we aren’t setting ourselves up for success.
Sometimes we write a really well-crafted email, come up with a good plan or have a successful meeting and we just let it pass as if nothing has happened. This is so wrong! You need to have small celebrations to match your small successes.
We often get caught up in doing our work. We plow through to get as much done as time will allow. It’s during these times that you may think that you don’t have time to celebrate. However if you don’t celebrate you risk losing motivation and increasing your stress. Do you ever reach the end of the day and breathe a sigh of relief? And when you get home all you can do is sit in front of the TV because your energy is drained. I used to be there. I put so much energy into everything I did, never taking time for a mini-leisure breaks, just rushing through to make the next day seem a little easier. I was fooling myself into believing that I was being ultra productive, when in reality I wasn’t having any fun.
Create Your Small Celebration Routine
Every time I write an email, whether it’s 50 words or 500, I always lean back in my chair, interlock my fingers behind my head and smile. That’s it. Just a little smile to reinforce the good work that I’m trying to accomplish. It takes all of five seconds. If you don’t have five seconds for a small win then you are in the wrong business.
Take the Time to Plan a Little Celebration
This is all just a trick of the brain. Even a child that knows when she completes a drawing one of her teachers, parents or friends will get all excited (mini-party) clapping their hands, praising, and showing the child that when she works hard she will be rewarded with positive emotion.
When you finish a report you can reward yourself with a minty piece of gum. By taking the time to take your mind off of your work, reaching into your drawer, unfolding the wrapper and putting it into your mouth, you are creating a mental bridge that will help create excitement before you begin the next report.
Make a habit of your mini-celebration routines and you’ll notice the work that you do will bring you more joy and success because you are creating positive emotion after you complete each task.
What do you do to celebrate your small successes?
Articles Related to Celebrating and Partying:
- Create 12 Parties a Year Instead of 1 Boring Holiday Party
- Celebrate the 4th of July The Way Our Forefathers Did
- Throw a Mini Party
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Image courtesy of Mauricio Pellegrinetti
30 Seconds of Laughing and a Few Minutes of Learning
Finding a way to make your career fit your emotional needs is probably the most important advice that you should apply to your working life. Check out how Tina Su quit her job. She is making a go of full time blogging. Making her dreams come true came with hard work, but now she has an excellent chance of creating her ultimate career.
Boring people are quickly forgotten. Janelle over at Create Business Growth wrote a cool article about knowing the rules that bore people during a presentation. We are visual creatures and we need stimulation otherwise we’ll just tune you out.
We need to learn to maximize our creativity, especially if you are trying to bring in more customers, improve your career or just write a poem. Marelisa over at the Abundance Blog talks about maximizing your creativity. It’s a worthy post for any creative type.
Take action now and figure it out as you go along. Sara over at On Simplicity talks about making the choice to start a good habit, not later, but now. Hey, the only way you will make a lasting change in your life is to take action.
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I’m a sucker for slapstick comedy and this little piece is great. A nice little leisure break after working hard all week. Make sure you catch all three. You’ll understand after you watch it.
I hope your weekend is filled with the recognition of the beauty that is before you because when we accept the splendor in our lives that’s when we see love in everything.
Building Your Future Career Foundation
I recently read a post from Ittybiz that made me think about my own career. 5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Have A Cushion Before You Quit Your Job. I am currently working at a job that’s not my perfect fit, but I still get a lot out of the experience. I’ve thought about quitting and just making a go of speaking and writing about work happiness, but I’m not ready. I know that it’s my dream; I’m just in need of a little more seasoning before I go out on my own. I also need more support from other people in my life. It’s not the fault of the people that are currently in my life, but the need to add people who can open doors for my career.
Your uncle in the cardboard box business isn’t going to help you find those freelance writing gigs that you’ve been trying to land or introduce you to the CEO of your ultimate company. You need to connect with people who have influence in your field. That means being the persistent giver that loves to help others.
Personal Story to Cement My Point
When my wife finished her student teaching, unofficially graduating from college, she went back to work for that teacher for free. At first I was like, “What are you doing? Go enjoy your summer,” but after talking to her and understanding her goals I began to understand her wise choice. The teacher wanted to move into school administration. Nikki kept her face and hard work ethic right in front of that teacher’s eyes. When the teacher decided to leave, she recommended Nikki for the position. The principal didn’t even consider any other candidates.
Career Enhancers Radar
You need to put yourself on the radar of the people who can help you. If that means sending a hand written note with a little present that doesn’t cost more than a few bucks, so be it. If that means doing a little extra work so you stand out from the crowd, so what if you lose out on a weekend or two.
It’s about building a network that will support you during tough and good times. Without it you’ll be a lonely coconut just hanging on and hoping not to fall before you are ready. Find those other coconuts, join their clump, but don’t be afraid to switch clumps when you need more help and always keep in touch with those other clumps with a phone call or an email. If you do fall, your old group may be able to send down a monkey to bring you back into the tree for a little more seasoning.
That’s why I have to respectfully disagree with Naomi that you just need to quit your job. I think you need to build a network of people who can help you find clients, investors, and connections that will beget success. I do agree that there will never be a perfect time. Quitting your job will force you to make connections that you never would have tried to make if it weren’t for some pressure. Yes, you will need to take the leap if you want to own your own business, sooner is better than later, otherwise you’ll just look back on your life wishing that you took that chance to work for yourself. But don’t do it without a support system from people in the industry in which you want to work, otherwise you’ll be floundering for air, begging for a job instead of being confident in each meeting.
How many trusted people do you truly believe are in your network that will help your career? What do you do to foster these relationships?
Related Articles to Creating the Career that You Deserve:
- Just a Little More Effort for True Happiness
- What Working Happy is All About
- How You Are Silently Signaling Your Co-workers to Treat You
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Image courtesy of Steffe
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