Peter Nicholls

  Does this picture fit you?

• sleeplessness
• being angry a little too often
• frequent frustration
• increased absenteeism from work
• presenteeism (going to work when you were so sick you should have stayed home)
• reduced concern for customers/ clients
• emotional exhaustion
• a reduced sense of accomplishment
• unable to switch off from work

These are some of the pains you feel when the demands of work and personal life are all too much for you. They can be summed up in one word – stress.

The hidden danger is in the insidious effects of such symptoms, the outcomes of which may not surface for months or even years. But if left unattended, the wheels can eventually fall off, often in dramatic and life-diminishing ways. These include stress-related illnesses, heart conditions, relationship breakdowns, job loss and depression.

When you are not enjoying life, it often seems hard to change things around. The following seven steps may, however, make the task easier for you.

1. The first step is always the most difficult – deciding you really want to take action and do something productive to ease your work/life pain. Once you’ve made that decision, you’ll enjoy the rest of the process.
2. Create your own enjoyment. Sounds a bit trite? There’s more to what I call "the enjoyment factor" than first meets the eye.  Enjoyment:
   • Is a creatable experience from which fun, laughter and pleasure are automatic reactions. If you’re not enjoying life, you’re unlikely to achieve the positive frame of mind needed to resolve your work life harmony problems.
   • Is a natural mechanism for coping with stress, because your mind is unconsciously transported to a world within the real you – your authentic self – a world in which you feel relaxed, de-stressed and at peace with yourself. Your problems are put on hold.
   • Heightens your sense of self esteem, self confidence, self belief and feelings of self worth. When your mind returns to the real world, the heightened feelings flow, like a ripple effect, through every thing else you do. The intensity of the enjoyable experience will determine how long and how wide the ripple effect will extend. It can even trigger a new outlook on life.
3. Do it often, even if only for a few minutes at a time. The more often you create your chosen enjoyable experiences, the better your chances of stabilizing your thinking and your ability to juggle your responsibilities. You might be surprised how much this can help you review how and where you allocate your energies.
4. You can create enjoyment at work, home and play. Play (any personally chosen discretionary interest that you undertake just for enjoyment) has for too long been undervalued regarding its benefits to work and other responsibilities of life. Much stress comes from a lack of control over what happens to you, the changes being imposed on you and the expectations demanded of you. Discretionary interests – play, leisure, recreation, sport, "time for me", call it what you will – is perhaps your last bastion of total control and freedom of choice. The more often you get control of your life through leisure interests that you love, the better you will be able to survive and thrive in today’s frenetic lifestyle.
5. Enjoyable experiences generate new emotional energy to replace the energy burnt by your stress. A lot of the pain of a discordant work life mix is you are trying to burn energy you simply don’t have. It’s not rocket science to realize that you need to replace burnt energy. Resting isn’t enough. A car needs more than regular refuelling – its longevity requires regular care and maintenance. It’s the same with you.
6. Create leisure experiences that are not only enjoyable but are opposite – or at least quite different – to those experienced at work. If you work in a busy and noisy environment, a quiet, perhaps solitary, experience may help, if the work is intellectual then create enjoyable physical or manual experiences. The emphasis here is on experiences of the mind that make you feel good about yourself, irrespective of whether the interest is physical or mental. In the final analysis, every enjoyable experience is of the mind.
7. Fit it into the week’s busy schedule. Enjoyment isn’t limited to weekends, joining clubs, or any other of the old leisure traditions. It’s about doing your own thing whenever and wherever you wish, at any time of the day or night and on any day of the week.

   A few minutes of ‘flight’ can sustain a day of ‘fight’ if, during that time, your inner person is allowed out to enjoy the freedom of self-expression. Self-created interests can include musical appreciation by listening or playing, art, craft, beading, genealogy, bird-watching, walking for pleasure, gardening – anything that transports your thinking into your own world of enjoyment. When you lose yourself in an interest you love you find yourself – the person of worth within you.

These factors do not of themselves overcome a discordant work life mix. They do however generate a more positive attitude, in which you feel good about yourself. You are establishing a revitalized outlook on life that strengthens your self-confidence. Your problems either don’t seem so great any more, or you perceive them more calmly and with a sense of personal power in your ability to make your daily life more enjoyable.

In the final analysis these steps will enable you to become a better friend to the most important person in the world – you!

Article Source: http://www.bestmanagementarticles.com | http://performance-management.bestmanagementarticles.com | About the Author: Peter Nicholls is Australia’s People Gardener – cultivating vigorous personal growth to thrive to one’s full natural potential. Visit Peter’s website at http://www.workleisure.com or contact him at peter@workleisure.com

Dr. Paul Lanthois

As I came back from the business meeting, my wife noticed the glazed and drained look upon my face. “How did the business meeting go?” she asked with a knowingly grin upon her face for she had seen that look on me before.

“No wonder the guy’s business is struggling.” I replied.
“Why is that?”
“What was meant to be a meeting on how to boost his business, ended up with him going on about how his wife has left him and how his business partner has left him. When I offered some suggestions and strategies to improve them, he would just come up with reasons why it wouldn’t work. It was as if he just wanted to complain and wasn’t open to any help.”

I’m sure you all know people like that or have had to endure such draining meetings like I did. The way they choose to manage stress may make them feel better but it is often at the expense of those around them.

But recent research is showing that such stress management methods are not only draining for other people but are also draining on their wallet. A study of the lives of 268 Harvard Sophomores for 70 years found that the way that you coped with stress had a definite impact on your income potential.

They assessed the participants’ ability to manage stress as either mature or immature. Displays of these skills were regarded as having mature stress management skills:

• Suppression (patience and stoicism)
• Altruism (doing unto others as you wish to be done for yourself)
• Anticipation (allowing painful emotions coming to mind before the actual event)

Immature stress management skills were shown to be:

• Externalising blame
• Complaining but not accepting help
• Acting out emotions (e.g. throwing a tantrum)

These immature ways of coping with stress often make the offending feel better at the time but often generate unhappy working environments and relationships. The research shows that ranting and raving doesn’t pay.

According to this 70 year study, people who were shown to have mature stress management skills earned 233% more the subjects shown to have immature stress management skills.

So if you ever notice yourself bitching about how the Global financial Crisis is to blame for your woes, you may want to go and look at the real cause in the mirror. You then may want to tell that person in the mirror that it is time to grow up.

This study puts paid to the old adage, “Nice guys finish last.” It shows that being pleasant to work with and associate with is one of the key ingredients to a successful career and business.

Article Source: http://www.bestmanagementarticles.com | http://leadership.bestmanagementarticles.com | About the Author: Dr. Lanthois is the director of the Work Life Balance Foundation (www.WorkLifeBalanceFoundation.com ) offering health, stress relief and work life balance programs designed specifically to boost morale and productivity in the workplace.

Some hard-working people should ask themselves why they don’t want to go home,
writes Stefan Stern on ft.com

Or are long hours essential to modern business success?

In his article, Stern considers what sort of person you have to be to succeed in the 24/7
world of global commerce that characterises the 21st century.

He argues that it is no longer enough to just be really good at your job. Drive, hunger,
ambition: today’s workplace seems to demand more and more of such stuff. And if you
are serious about getting on in your career or leading your organisation on to greater
success, a strong sense of urgency is required.

But, in our world where the celebrity is king and where reality TV has even invaded the
board room, you now have to have a real sense of identity.

As Stern puts it, you have to “front up… put on a good show… create the right
impression”. If you’re looking to move up the ladder, it is not enough to just do a really
good job, you have to be able to tell a good story about yourself too.

Using Big Brother as an example, Stern points out that never before have so many people
spent so much effort on creating an appealing self-image or a winning identity.

He quotes the distinguished sociologist Anthony Giddens and his talk at a half-day
symposium called “Humanising Work”, held under the auspices of the Lehman Brothers
centre for women in business.

“You have to work on your identity today,” Lord Giddens told the packed seminar room
at the London Business School. Lifestyles are now enormously diverse, he explained. We
have to choose who it is we are going to be.

But we all know there must be more to successful business people than the superficial
qualities that make a celebrity. Hard work, for instance.

Stern believes that TV celebrity and former chairman of leisure group Granada Sir Gerry
Robinson is being a touch disingenuous when he suggests that there are really only 10 or
12 key decisions you have to get right every year. Concentrate on them, Sir Gerry says,
and then delegate and relax.

Hard work, high levels of commitment and, even, obsession are likely to help you
succeed.

Stern refers back to Lord Giddens’ wide-ranging talk at the “Humanising Work”
symposium, where he considers the relationship between the highly committed, obsessive
professional and the more troubling phenomena of addicts and those trapped in
compulsive behaviour patterns.

New technology helps feed some people’s addiction to work. Lord Giddens jokes about
the hard-working types who, getting up in the night to go to the bathroom, seize the
chance to check their e-mails. This presupposes that the BlackBerry is not still buzzing
away on the bedside table or under the pillow… and that said executive has even gone to
bed in the first place.

But as Stern’s article points out, these compulsive characteristics are also linked to
depression. So there’s the rub. Addicts are obsessive and compulsive. The characteristics
of obsession and compulsion are associated with depression or, equally, high
achievement.

So, are obsessively long hours just part and parcel of success? Maybe. But, Stern argues,
to find out whether long hours are essential to you, the best question you can ask yourself
is just why don’t you want to go home.

Read the full article at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c22d5128-3bb3-11dd-9cb2-
0000779fd2ac.html