So let me ask you a question... when was the last time you brought work home with you......?????
It would appear from the MANY conversations I have regarding this, that most of us, take work home some of the time, and lots of us take work home most of the time..... and to what end???
Does it make the volume of work get smaller???? Does it allow you to exist in a stress free environment??? No????? in fact it usually has the opposite effect...
We seem to have an inability to accept that for most jobs the work never gets finished.... the in-tray is never empty... that enough is enough...
It is time to make a stand against ourselves, taking work home habitually is not good for us, our relationships or our families... so.... our challenge is....
to not take work home for a week..... and observe if anything really changed at work in terms of our function, did the in-tray get soooo much bigger, or did we actually start managing our time or our boundaries (that would be the No word!!)...
and on the flip side what did we get to do at home???
There is a job there too- playing, relaxing and enjoying ourselves...
And as an aside... our primary aged children should not be bringing work home with them.... they 'work' at school for 30 hrs... home should be a place where they get to play, and explore being a child.... look what homework did to us..... created a really, really bad unhealthy habit and it is time to stop it...!!
Ever felt like you were hitting your head against a brick wall???
Frustration expresses itself in lots of different ways at work and at home.... disengagement, anger at a situation, avoidance or yelling are some of the more common ones....
For Marcie from www.funkyunderachiever.blogspot.com yelling at the children... is her thing.... Now as I promised to coach her in return for her lovely award...here goes... so Marcie..... with frustration there are some key steps...
1) Identify the frustration and decide to do something about it... Marcie is trying to reduce the yelling... but does she really WANT to do something about it??? Yelling gives her an emotional release and is by far and away the easy thing to do because to not yell means she has to deal with the source of the frustration....
2) What is causing the frustration.... time pressures, feeling under-appreciated, perceived lack of understanding of the importance of the situation.... your view of the world and how people 'should' behave in it....
3) Take responsibility for your part in it.... you have the frustration, you control the emotion.... Are you setting unrealistic expectations, are you judging others by your own measure and is that fair to do....
4) Imagine what you would be like when the behaviour is changed.... and the frustration is gone.... what do you get from it?
5) Change your behaviour... break the habit!!!! At least try... and when you do it well, give yourself a virtual hug.....
So Marcie and anyone else who is feeling frustrated have a go at the steps above... if you have any questions about any of the steps give me a yell... and let me know how you get on...
Have fun.....
Slight change to plan, not my usual style post.... and all because someone lovely sent me a blogging award....
The Versatile Blogger..... not quite an Oscar.... but the new blogger equivalent (or at least that is what I am telling myself!)
and I am very excited as it may help in my quest to find 100 people who "get" my approach to coaching during 2011 and follow me, so just ordinary normal people going about their lives wanting to make a slight change here and there.... and need a place to discover what that change might be.
Drum roll please....... drrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.... a huge thanks you to the lovely Marcie of the most amazing www.funkyunderachiever.blogspot.com
Marcie is hilariously funny and trying to do what most of us are... make some changes.... and strangely enough that is what I do!! So coming soon will be a coaching Marcie blog from me as a thank you for this lovely award.... Watch out Marcie...
I also now have to tell you 7 things about me (part of the award thing)
1) I love people watching (not procrastinating honest!!)
2) Coffee is an essential item of my day
3) Getting outside preferably with exercise...is an essential part of my day
4) I think children should be allowed to be children more than they are
5) One of my wishes would be that we as people in our society got better at empathy....we seem to have lost that somewhere along the way
6) I get angry when people in cars only think about themselves....
7) I think we need to do more incidental exercise.... get off our butts and walk more places
And I really enjoy what coaching does for people.... let me know if you get a buzz/ some success out of any of the posts!!!!
Thanks again Marcie.... catch you soon.......
I also need to add some more new people here..... but need to do some searching first so it will have to be another day!!
It is really easy to create a list of things that we 'should' do..... in fact most of us will have one to hand instantly... and right now might even be feeling guilty about not doing something on the 'should' list...
I should go for a run....
I should just tidy the.....
I should keep in touch better.....
etc etc
It is great that you can see how a change can make a difference to your life and that you in fact have thought about a change....
but.... how much of that change is something that you own? How many of the things on your 'should' list do you actually 'want' to do?
We are constantly bombarded with expectations, our own, our friends and family, workplace, and societal expectations.... but we rarely effectively filter them and this creates our 'should' list and can lead to a sense of
- not having enough time to do everything we think we should
- guilt that things are not getting done
- not being good enough
- not keeping up with everyone else who in our mind does everything on the should list
Frequently it can be as simple as changing the filter from 'should' to 'want'........
So ask yourself out of the 'should' list at the moment... what do you actually want to do and question the validity of the request???
Here is an example of part of a coaching conversation which happens frequently.....
Coachee...... "I should run more......
Me..... "Why do you want to run? ....
Coachee.... "For exercise and because it is good for me"
Me..... "But do you want to go for a run"
Coachee.... "No, I hate running."
Me.. "Then what exercise would you rather do instead?"
Coachee.... "Walking, I quite like walking"...
Me... "So walk."
So go on.... try it with your should list....
- Pick something you 'should' do
- Ask yourself what the purported benefit to you is- health, fitness, friendship, enjoyment...
- Ask yourself if you value that benefit- do you actually want to do it?
- Make it an achievable thing that you enjoy....
- And enjoy doing it!!!!!
Now I am off to do something I really want to do...... enjoy doing something you really want to too....
