Stronger By Any Measure

USA TODAY Reports Burnout Up Among U.S. Employees

November 5, 2012

According to ComPsych Corp, a provider of employee assistance programs worldwide, 63% of workers cite high levels of stress at work with extreme fatigue and feeling out of control.

According to psychologist Ben Palmer, CEO of Genos International, “The more you adopt the ‘do more with less’ mentality, the greater you drive down innovation because high workloads and stress are the antithesis of innovation.”

How to counter this?  My suggestions from the field of resiliency and work./life integration:

(1)  Remember that legacy can be a lien on the future. Are people doing “things” because no one has challenged the status quo?

(2)  Encourage employees to be push-back zealots—asking them to point out activities that add no value to the end results.

(3)  If there is merit in an activity, make sure everyone understands why.

(4)  Be an on-the-ground leader. Look for points of stress within the organization and then work (not visit) alongside those employees.

(5)  Recognize the law of diminished return. Specifically, the quantity of ones efforts and the quality of one’s efforts are not in balance. Major issues with rework, mis-communication, and even accidents occur when an employee is exhausted.

(6)  Create fun in the process. An assisted living center needed to totally clean and paint the kitchen in the memory care unit of the building. The executive director told her staff to come in in old clothes and prepare for manual labor. The executive director led the charge, putting on upbeat music, encouraging singing while they worked, and had pizza brought in as a lunch treat. More work, yes. But because the senior leader became intimately involved AND made it fun, no one complained.

(7)   Get outside assistance and coaching for employees to learn how to handle their own levels of stress on and off the job. I’m headed back to the East Coast next week to do just that. After all, we are responsible for the choices we make and can learn to respond in more life-affirming, re-energizing ways. It just might take an outsider to prompt this awareness.

E-Mail Stress

July 16, 2012

From The New York Times:

Corporate employees receive and send an average total of 105 emails per working day, many of which are unnecessary. The most productive and least stressed workers are those who don’t check their mailboxes regularly.

Traits of Stress-Hardy, Resilient People

May 15, 2012

The Stress To Power blog has a list of the traits of resilient people who are stress hardy.  It’s a wonderful little list and worth reading.  Take a look for yourself.

Understanding Stress

April 19, 2012

Stress is simply a fact of life.  Everyone knows that but not everyone knows the true cost of untreated stress and how it impacts your physical and emotional wellbeing.  If you want to know more about stress take a look at this article at HelpGuide and MedicineNet.  You’ll find a plethora of information and advice.

Improve Performance: Walk in the Woods

November 12, 2010

Researchers have been looking at what happens to our bodies and brains when we walk in woods, in the mountains or by the sea. This study is called ecopsychology.

I didn’t make it up!  The Japanese have been studying this for years!

Results? People do better on tests involving memory or attention after trekking through the woods than after walking in a city. People have increased levels of physical and mental energy as well as a greater sense of well being after walking along an outdoor path beside a stream.

It gives your multitasking brain a break. Time slows down. Stress levels are reduced. Blood pressure and heart rate subside.

In short… get up and out (side) for great benefit.

P.S. If you can’t, go to http://www.giftsfromthemountain.com.   Come walk with me in the Rockies and put your mind and spirit at ease. It’s our new conversation fire-starter training film distributed by Star Thrower Productions.

USA TODAY Survey-Vacations Don’t Refresh

October 9, 2010

USA TODAY ( October 8,2011)  posted a survey in which only 43% of employed professionals return from vacation relaxed and less stressed.

Wonder why?  Answer: In my opinion, it’s all the tools we use to stay connected to the office.  And tools take a toll. How much courage does it take to unplug? What stops us?  Fear we will miss something? Ego says we’re invaluable?  Maybe the world as we know it will end?

Hardly.

Put on an auto responder that says to CALL if it’s an emergency.

Don’t be surprised if no one calls you.  The higher up in the organization you go, the more you are developing the team around you by letting THEM carry the ball for awhile.

Refresh And Renew By Saying “Enough”

November 16, 2009

Feeling overwhelmed by all your obligations but self and other imposed?

SO stop!  It’s time to plug into something that YOU choose-something that can renew your batteries and refresh your interest in work AND life.  Unlike the bobble-headed figures that nod “yes” at every touch, you DO get to declare “time out” and place yourself first.

#1:  Retreat to advance.  Take yourself away for at least two nights and three days to a place for a silent retreat. Yes-silence!  Forbid yourself from using the phone, the television, or the radio.  It’s time to listen instead to the voices in your head that have been trying to get your attention for ages. Write what you sense. Think on paper.  And make resolutions that speak to what matters most.

#2:  Experience something far a field from your profession. Take a class or read a book that is NOT in your chosen line of work. Select something that piques your curiosity. The notion is to look for connections or ideas that might stimulate a new way of looking at your work or your life.  Former elementary teacher Gail Wenos studied ventriloquism and discovered a new way to teach adults!

#3:  Stretch yourself.  If you take an exercise class once a month, try going two more times.  If you cook the same food the same way, alternate with a new cookbook.  One father saw himself as totally ill-equipped to ride anything that had less than four wheels. But he took motorcycle lessons with his teenage son and his sense of personal accomplishment grew along with the bond to his child.

#4:  Practice your art every week.  Everyone has an art. It might be hammering nails or singing in the shower. It might be designing a garden or counseling a friend.  But it uses a talent you’ve got and when this talent is engaged, you burn brightly. You leave the time refreshed. Put this down as a personal “no matter what” on your day timer.

#5:  Throw out what weighs you down.  Read only those things that are meaningful to you.  Can the clutter as well as the people who are the constant complainers and gripers.  Ditch the weight of unnecessary purchases and their financial burden. Give clothes you haven’t worn in over a year to Goodwill . Remember, every ounce counts.

Is Life Balance Possible?

November 10, 2009

Study the best seller lists of the past few years and you’ll notice titles that range from Peter Lynch’s “Beating the Street” to Thomas Moore’s “Care of the Soul: How to Find Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life.” This juxtaposition captures the dilemma facing all of us in the business world. How does one swim with the sharks, squeeze the margins of an angst-filled financial world, and still lead a life of wholeness in spirit, mind and body?

Nor is this a new question. Marsilio Ficino’s 15th Century treatise, “The Book of Life,” sought to help the Medicis and their merchant counterparts create a renaissance of spirit amid the draining demands of commerce and a new creature called capitalism.

Whether a Renaissance banker or the CEO of a high tech conglomerate, whether a guild master of stonework or a manager of information services, the issue is still one of balance.

But balance is not an equal measure of work, love, prayer and play. Nor is it a state that can be achieved and frozen in form for all time. Rather, this amorphous thing called “balance” is an on-going, deliberate set of decisions that make the journey of life much like the metaphor of sailing.

Consider the single person sailboat. When there is much wind, the little boat appears off balance, moving forward at an angle, sails filled to bursting and the sailor leaning back over the craft, with one hand on the sheet and toes hooked under the railing. What allows the sailor to stay in the boat is that he is connected to all the important parts of that craft. When the wind shifts, so too must the sailor.

Life is also like that. We give ourselves tremendous mental stress when we think that life must balance. Having a different image allows us to see where we might be out of control.

Briefly, there will always be competing and unequal demands upon our time… much like the tug of the tiller or the push of the wind. Depending upon the course we have chosen for ourselves, we respond to these demands. We might decide to change direction, seek harbor, or give full rein to the beating waves and blustery wind. The quality of these decisions depends upon the direction of our sailboat, the prevailing winds, the depth of the water, and the need for overhaul and repair.

Direction refers to the goals, created by our values, which we have established. The wind and the depth of the water represent those people and events, outside our control, which make demands upon our time. Lastly, overhaul and repair stands for the need to cease and desist, to nurture and renew our physical and spiritual self, and to re-examine the course we are sailing.

If we consider sailing as a metaphor for the “balance” we all seek along life’s journey, then what is needed are navigational aids. What could help all of us on such a journey is a process, a formula, whereby we might take stock of our decisions, weighing them against our personal values, goals, and physical requirements. Since we are all bound by the same relentless 24-hour day, we would be best served by looking at not how much we can cram into the blocks called “time”, but how wisely do we choose what we put into our finite day.

Is Your Life in Balance? A Quintessential Careers Quiz

September 12, 2009

Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D has developed an on-line life balance quiz featured at Quintessential Careers.  The quiz is a series of 15 true or false questions that are self scored using a scoring guide provided to those who register to receive it via e-mail.  You can take the quiz yourself at http://www.quintcareers.com/work-life_balance_quiz.html.

22 Affordable Ways to De-Stress from Admin*Secret

August 21, 2009

Stress and its unwelcome effect on our lives is a topic I often cover in this blog and in my articles.  Admin*Secret has a tip article covering 22 affordable ways to de-stress in a slideshow format that covers topics such as doing an activity you enjoyed as a child, volunteering your time, going on a picnic and much more.  To read the entire post visit http://www.adminsecret.com/benefits/articles/2252-22-affordable-ways-to-de-stress

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