Work-Life Sanity Blog

Fourteen years of coaching professional women have taught me some of the most prevalent patterns of imbalance and the interventions that can restore a sense of well-being and sanity.  

I don’t mean to sound facile about these solutions.  The details are always unique to the individual and difficult for her to see from within the experience.  Moving forward generally happens very slowly.  I don’t believe in a happily-ever-after kind of unconscious happiness, but I passionately believe that some kinds of suffering can be alleviated. 

Here are two patterns of imbalance — experienced as unhappiness — I’ve witnessed with my clients, my friends, and myself, and the course corrections that can make a difference.

1. Feeling out of control, overwhelmed, powerless.  The solution for this  generally involves:  

·     naming it as such, and thereby differentiating it from the feelings of despair, failure, and self-loathing that often accompany it

·     taking back control, increment by increment, wherever possible, by renegotiating agreements, selectively jettisoning obligations, re-prioritizing, and whatever else it takes

As a result, the individual regains firmer ground and some level of control in her life, and feels back in her own power again.  

2. Feeling drained, exhausted, depleted, even sick. 

·     Here too, the place to start is with awareness: name it for what it is, and separate it out from the sense of shame, emptiness, and failure that people often feel as a result of no longer having enthusiasm or passion FOR ANYTHING.  The no-enthusiasm-for-anything syndrome often shows up in people who are very drained and exhausted.

·     Generally what’s also called for is serious rest, recovery, and replenishment which often means cutting back somewhere in order to make room for this. 

In my experience, once people GET that this is what’s going on, that it’s not about personal failure but rather about personal depletion, the reframe is very empowering and they quickly figure out what to do.  They often need support thinking through the pragmatics of it and then implementing it.  Cutting back is particularly difficult for women with a habitual pattern of pleasing others.

As the depletion and exhaustion are replaced with a sense of being nourished and re-charged, at least some of the unhappiness recedes, leaving a generally happier camper.   And a more effective one.

Adequate self-care often results in greater effectiveness, across the board.  This ripple-out effect often surprises the individual, who may feel ”selfish” in administering the self care (often as a last resort).  But it does make sense.  Who’s likely to be the more effective manager, parent, or creative problem-solver: the person who’s exhausted, frazzled, and running on empty or the one whose batteries are charged and whose focus is unambivalent?

If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for your work or your kids.

It’s a no-brainer, but we all forget sometimes.  The nagging, unresolved, unfinished stuff rolling around in our heads saps our energy.   It keeps us from being as effective as we could be because we’re not fully focused on what we’re doing.   For the same reason, it keeps us from enjoying our lives as fully as we could — we’re just not all there for the good stuff. 

Recent findings in brain research reveal that multi-tasking is not an efficient way to work.    Being preoccupied with one thing while doing another is a kind of  multi-tasking.  

While I’m writing this blog post, I’m also thinking about an extended conversation I’m having with my husband.   The background noise of the conversation clogs my writing process and slows me down.  I would be well served to either finish the conversation with him or table it until some specific future time.   If I were to do that, all the energy currently tied up in it would become available to me.  I certainly could use it.

Since finishing the conversation is not an option right NOW, I’m going to plan to do so (or at least resume it ) this evening when we’ll both be home and not working.   Making this decision should open up some bandwidth for me.  I’ll report in at the end of writing this post.

Meanwhile, I want to offer some anecdotal evidence for the point I’m making.  

The nagging, unfinished business under the surface for an accounting consultant I know was that three people on her team were not performing their jobs to the standard she thought was appropriate.  She wasn’t addressing it in any way other than fretting about it. 

Once she articulated it as a problem, she could address it proactively. For each of these employees, she drafted the specifics of what needed to change and initiated conversations with them in which she made it very clear to them what she expected and that this was not optional in any way. 

While she had had prior conversations with them about performance, she felt she had been too vague and general.  This time around, she was absolutely clear. 

The result was that two of the employees immediately started performing to the standard and have been doing so ever since: problem solved.   The third one required training and supervision to perform to the standard, and this training and supervision is currently underway in a structured, scheduled, and monitored configuration.

The secondary results are that the consultant: 
1. no longer feels preoccupied with this issue and has more focus and energy to do her work
2. is pleased with the work she did as a manager
3. is thrilled with the better work that her two employees are doing
4. will have an easier time doing this the next time it comes up in her professional life (and alas, it will)

My bottom line advice is to NOTICE what’s sapping your energy, what’s rolling around under the surface, what’s stressing you.  And then deal with it. 

And yes, I have to say that my own experience of writing this post improved once I decided I would resume my extended conversation tonight.  That allowed me to essentially drop it for now, and that was a good move.

About 10 days ago I had day-surgery on my hand.   I was NPO after midnight and scheduled for a 3:00 pm surgery.  Doing without food or water was no big deal, but no morning coffee?  That was hard.

I’ve just returned from taking a few vacation days in New York.   A friend came up from DC and we spent a day together.  I stayed over with another friend and spent a day with her as well.  Very fun, and a perfect getaway for me. 

I’m back to a  very full plate, much to do in a very short time.  When I have a crunch like this, I need to work more quickly than I’m comfortable working.   If I’m not careful, I can get very stressed by it.  I think it’s the discomfort that stresses me, not the work itself or the volume.  So this time I’m going to try managing the discomfort a little better, and I’ll see if that makes a difference.

How will I do that?  Well, one thing I’ll try is this: when I start feeling stressed, I’ll ask myself, “Are you stressed by the discomfort of having to work more quickly than you want?”  If the answer is yes, I think knowing that will help me keep it in perspective: I can certainly handle my own discomfort — it’s all up to me.  

Meanwhile, I’m excited about all that’s going on, including a cluster of teleclasses coming up at the end of the month.

One of the key skills I teach many of my clients is to recognize when they need help and how to get it.   

Being a coach keeps me honest: I really do have to walk the talk.  That means I have to recognize when I need help and then to get it.

My business is extremely busy right now.  Not so busy with clients that I am full, mind you – so don’t hesitate to contact me yourself about coaching or to refer someone else!   But extremely busy with the “back office” side of things.

My back office plate filled up incrementally with the following, probably TMI, which you should feel free to skip (go to “At some point,” below): 

·     I was interviewed for an internet radio show that’s airing next week, the publicity for which required that I create a Face Book page and bring on some fans.  

·     This blog, which had snoozed through the holidays, needed to become more active again. 

·     My trademark, the Getting Unstuck® Coach, was challenged by a company seeking my permission to use the same trademark for their training business, which overlaps with my corporate training work.  Some back and forth with them, a threatening email from their attorney, calls with my trademark attorney, etc. Yuck.

·     I’ve finished my ‘09 bookkeeping, but the forms that go to my accountant need to be filled out, which inevitably requires going over my data one more time, making corrections, etc.

·     I’m down to the last 30 copies of my book, Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: Restoring Work-Life Balance. So it’s either time for a run of another 300 of them, or time to migrate to a print-on-demand solution.  Investigating print-on-demand solutions means identifying the players, getting informed about each’s process and pricing, doing the compare and contrast, and making a decision.  Yuck.

·     Finish the profile of my business on Yelp.com and ask clients to write recommendations.  

·     Deal with my mouse, which intermittently stops highlighting. 

·     Write a formal proposal to lead a daylong work-life balance training for a tech company in FL.

·     Write an informal proposal for a keynote later this month.

·     Email the contacts I’ve been referred to at 2 magazines to inquire about writing a work-life column for them.

·     Send out an email to everyone I know to announce this blog and update people on my coaching niche: work life balance and productivity.

·     Schedule teleclasses for the end of February, and get the classes and registration info onto my website (now done) and into my February newsletter.

·     Write the Feb newsletter.  (You can subscribe here.)  

·     Update website: send requests to my web programmer and follow up.

·     Other stuff too.

At some point, I began to feel overwhelmed.  I worked longer hours, I tightened up my efficiency, I said no to non-work invitations.  I was barely making a dent in the list, and the overwhelm got bigger. 

And then I heard the bell ring and saw the light bulb turn on: I needed more help!  Duh. 

So I got help.   Lots of it.   Most of these items are still in process, and the list is ultimately my responsibility, but having other competent people working on some of the bigger jobs and getting back to me for input as needed is a HUGE RELIEF.   I am point person, not point-person-&-technician.  

If you’re at all like my clients or the people in my seminars, your initial response to “So I got help” may be something like, “Yeah, right, well maybe in YOUR life, but not in mine.”  Stay tuned for a subsequent post that addresses this. 

In a recent conversation with several people about blogging, I realized that I’ve been making things unnecessarly difficult for myself by requiring that my blog posts be about 500 words long.   Of course I’ve read other people’s posts that are shorter, but I never made the connection that mine could be shorter too.

I know I’m not the only person who makes things more difficult than they need to be, but I’m the one I know the best. 

For a long time I thought that work was supposed to be hard.   If it wasn’t hard, it didn’t count, I thought: it wasn’t worthy somehow.   Once I became aware of that thought pattern, I was able to see that it didn’t serve me, and I started the process of learning how to allow things to be easier, which is turning out to be a lifelong process. 

This is iteration number 99 of “it doesn’t have to be difficult.”  My posts at this blog can be be as long or as short as they need to be.

It seems to be Annual Review Season in the lives of several of my clients, so I’m thinking a lot about this subject.

I’m a huge believer in self-acknowledgement in general.  But at annual review season, even moreso. 

Even if you work for an organization that does annual reviews REALLY, REALLY well (and that’s maybe 1% of organizations), and even if you get a REALLY, REALLY great review this year — it’s just not enough acknowledgment.  Why? Because other people don’t know HALF of what you do. 

They’re not there with you on ordinary Tuesday mornings when you navigate a treacherous conversation with an extremely disgruntled client and you somehow manage to turn things around through your listening skills, your relational skills, your technical skills, your integrity, and your sheer endurance.  No one but you even KNOWS what a great save that was and what it required of you!  

But YOU do, and if you were writing your own annual review, you’d get something into it that acknowledged this contribution: the net result, and all that went into it.

No one knows that when you reviewed your notes “one last time” the night before your meeting last week, you came up with a strategy change that would make it a much better meeting.  You went with it, staying up til all hours to make all the other changes your change would require.  And what happened?  To all your staff, it appeared to be just another one of your usual good meetings.  No one knows the degree to which you go the distance. 

But you do.  And if you were writing your own review . . .

So here’s the drill.  Write your own review, for your eyes only.  Acknowledge not only your results, which is the only thing that most people  (including you?) see, but also your behaviors and your personal qualities that are part of the way you work.  

Here are some examples of behaviors that deserve to get acknowledged and rarely do:
You take the time to write a carefully worded email when called for.
You realized you were working inefficiently and took steps to clean it up.
You got timely advice from HR (and followed it) regarding a direct report with performance issues.

Here are examaples of personal qualities to be acknowledged:
You’re reliable, dependable, diligent, and hardworking.
You have high standards and you know when not to be a perfectionist.
You have a great sense of humor.

When you write your own review, be sure to ackowledge your results, behaviors, and personal qualities.  You might consider writing one for work and one for outside of work.   And you don’t have to wait for once a year.