Are You on Your Holiday List? 6 Gifts to Give Yourself this Holiday Season
I’m a list maker. Are you? I get tremendous satisfaction creating my to-do list and crossing off items as they are accomplished. In fact, I start every day with a new list that has everything I want to do for my business as well as some personal tasks. (Go to the bank, write a new blog, follow up with a coaching client, run to Trader Joes, pick up dry cleaning, etc.)
Now this time of year the list gets very complicated for not only does it all have of the above details, it also has holiday gifts for family and friends as well as a calendar full of social events. Trying to keep up with all the holiday madness on top of normal business is a challenge. I get stressed just thinking about it.
It dawned on me this morning as I was putting my list together for today that nowhere on my list is ME! And perhaps the greatest gift we can give ourselves this holiday season is to take care of ourselves as well as our loved ones. Have you even thought about this? What will you do for yourself this holiday season?
Here are some simple suggestions to maintain your sanity and well-being:
1. Learn to say “no”.
As many events begin to fill in your calendar, focus on your energy and make good decisions about which events to attend and which to decline.
2. Avoid the “what can I bring?” offer.
If you’re like me and love to bake and cook, you probably make this generous offer a lot. How can I turn down someone asking for my special chocolate cake? Refer to tip number one and offer to pick up something instead.
3. Outsource when appropriate.
It can be a great gift to yourself to hire someone to clean your house or do the dishes if you are having a large party. Think about ways to reserve your time and energy.
4. Keep up your exercise routine.
When we are consume more calories at one meal than we might in one month, we need to burn those calories! Plus exercise boosts are serotonin levels and helps us to maintain our energy.
5. Schedule some quiet time for yourself.
Whether or not you are into meditation, just being alone for a few minutes a day can be extremely relaxing. It helps us clarify our thoughts and focus on what’s important. Holidays can bring lots of stress as well as joy.
6. Focus on gratitude.
It’s a time to be with family and friends and a wonderful time to be grateful for all the wonderful people in our lives.
For more tips on how to keep your life in balance, listen to my conversation with Marilyn Tam on How to Live the Life of Your Dreams on GPS Your Career Radio, Monday, December 12th.
Do You Dare to Dream?
Here’s the question: “If you had all the resources and freedom to do whatever you wanted, what would you do? How would you live your life?
My coach asked me this question as we started our initial work together this week and quite honestly, I was overwhelmed. I realized then that it has been a long time since I have allowed myself the personal freedom to dream of my future.
I seem to be stuck in practicality these days, focused on making a living and replenishing my savings and investments. In fact, I am chasing my financial goals with such intensity, that I have lost sight of where I’m headed.
The instability of our country’s financial status and the volatile swings on Wall Street all contribute to my sense of urgency to focus on my financial viability above all else. But the personal cost to me has been to lose that necessary time to dream and let my imagination carry me to perhaps new approaches and innovations in my business and life.
Because answering the above question was so difficult for me, I was wondering if I’m the only one who has lost touch with their dreams. Can you relate?
Last year I did some dreaming. My goal was to be a “Woman of Influence”; to do more public speaking and workshops to help women reach their career and leadership goals; to do more writing as well. I generated some fabulous ideas on how to reach this goal. Somewhere along the way, I got lost and lost my focus. I now realize how important it is to allow yourself to dream and dream big every so often.
Take some time this week and ask yourself the above question. Let yourself dream and brainstorm and have fun with your freedom of thought.
Let me know how it goes. What are your dreams?
Living an Authentic Life
We now live in a transparent world. Our personal and professional stories reside on the internet and will remain there in perpetuity. Our resumes, our profiles, our photos, videos, testimonials will endure long after our lifetime.
It seems that everyone knows everything about you. But how well do you know yourself? Are you living an authentic life?
We all have core values that define the essence of who we are. Quite simply, mine are based on the importance I place on my family and friends and living an active, healthy lifestyle. Other important values are integrity, respect, good work ethic. Once I define my core values, I can ask myself how well does my life align with these values? For, in fact, to live an authentic life, I should make my decisions based on these values.
By example, I may have a choice to go kayaking with friends or stay at home and eat a big bowl of ice cream (mmmmm!) The choice that best aligns with my personal core values is kayaking with friends. If I choose to eat the ice cream instead, it would not align with the value I place on living an active healthy lifestyle. I might enjoy the ice cream, but probably wouldn’t feel very good about myself afterwards. That decision would not be in alignment with my core values; the essence of who I am.
Another example may be that you are asked to take a long business trip for your company and as a result, you will miss an important family event. You agree to go on the trip, but don’t feel good about yourself because you value your family more. (We are always faced with these types of decisions and in fact, we don’t always feel we have a choice).
The point is that in order to live an authentic life, our core values should drive all our actions and decisions. When our decisions are in alignment with these values, we are living an authentic life and feel good about ourselves.
So how do you stay on track? The first step is to identify your core values and write them down. When you are faced with tough decisions (this is unavoidable as we face them everyday), look at your list of values. Understand that you will feel the best about yourself when your decision aligns with your values. Understand also, that you may not always feel you can make the choice that is best aligned with your values. When this occurs, we are making sacrifices and don’t always feel good about ourselves as a result.
Your core values are not only the foundation of who you are, but also your best road map to living an authentic life; a life in which you feel great about yourself and your decisions.
I So Deserve it!
I was on the train this past week headed into New York City to give a presentation. It was late afternoon and the train was filled with high school students commuting home. As you can imagine, there were many animated conversations going on at once. I couldn’t help but hear the conversation four girls were having who were seated across the aisle from me.
One girl was telling her friends all about her plan for the summer. She planned on doing nothing; just lying on the beach, listening to music, and hanging out with her friends. She said with great conviction, “I so deserve it. I’ve worked hard all year.”
So upon hearing her declaration, I had to ask myself how often I have thought that or said that to myself or anyone else for that matter. How often have I honestly felt entitled to taking a break or time off because I’ve been working so hard.
What happens to me more often than not is that I hit a wall. I work really hard for long periods of time without a day off and then I find myself brain dead and exhausted. Can you relate?
It would be great if I could give myself permission to take a break and feel that I truly deserve it without all the guilt. How wonderful would it be for me to plan these breaks ahead of time so that I don’t reach the point of running out of steam? When I reach the point of exhaustion, I have no choice but to recharge and recover.
I’ve often heard that the millennial generation has a sense of entitlement, but is that really a negative? This teenager was acknowledging that she works hard and is deserving of some kind of reward or break from the push and stress to perform.
I seem to spend more time dealing with my guilt than praising myself and embracing the feeling of entitlement. Is this a generational issue or gender issue or both?
Note to self: You can learn valuable lessons from anyone anywhere as long as you are open to listening (in this case eavesdropping) and receiving the lessons.
PS. I’m now planning my own summer break!
What about you? You so deserve it!
The Need for Flexible Work Solutions is Now
Sometimes I look back on the earlier days of my business career and wonder how I managed to raise two children as a single parent and still maintain and advance my career; most of all, I wonder now how I maintained my sanity and how I managed to focus any attention at all on work. I think my children, now grown and successful in their own right, turned out pretty good, and my career flourished as well, but it was not without an undercurrent of stress and guilt, and a constant juggling of babysitters and after school programs.
With this experience behind me and the knowledge that work/family balance is an ongoing challenge for most women, I applaud the White House conference on flexibility in the workplace for the attention it has brought to the topic.
The Economic Office of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers released a 35 page report , Work-Life Balance and the Economics of Workplace Flexibility, which addresses not only the need to create flexible solutions for work, but also the benefits to companies who embrace these initiatives.
According to the report, there is a greater need now for flexibility in work than ever before. Why? because women now make up almost half of the labor force in the United States. The majority of children now are raised in households where both parents work. Another key factor is that more adults are attending school.
The report also states that flexible work environments can vary tremendously by gender, race, work status, education, and industry. Flexible hours and location of work were considered.
The most impressive section of the report focuses on the economic benefits, the business case, for companies that provide flexible work solutions. These companies experience a decrease in employee turnover and absenteeism along with an increase in productivity and the ability to attract new talent to the organization.
With these types of statistics behind us, women now need to take the lead to move these initiatives forward in their own work environments. It’s time to speak up and rally the troops. Flexible work solutions benefit men and women as well as companies.
The Glass Hammer’s article on the subject provides some guidance on how best to do this from their interview with Flexpath’s CEO, Meryl Rosenthal.
Work/Life Balance is Not a Just for Women
With the advent of birth control in the 1960′s, women had a choice for the first time. They could plan their family/career path strategically. Often women started their careers and then took time to have a family. Whether or not they returned to their previous careers, they did have choices.
But with more and more mothers in the workforce who contributed to the income of the family, discussions began around work/life balance and how best to manage both a career and family. Women were still responsible for most of the childcare and housework along with their jobs. It became obvious that to do it all at the same time was a difficult, if not impossible task. The emphasis on self-care for women and work/life balance became a hot topic.
The lack of flexible work solutions, therefore, was initially focused on women who wanted options for balancing career and family. This assumed little if no participation from their male counterparts in childrearing. The lack of flexible work solutions was also tagged as an obstacle to women’s advancement in business as more and more women were forced to drop their careers to seek better alternatives than their companies were offering.
The concept of flexibility is emerging now as a gender neutral issue that focuses more on the need for everyone, male and female, to have a more flexible, healthy workplace. Flexibility is not just related to working mom stress as more and more men share household responsibilities. It encompasses alternative work solutions such as part time work, job sharing, telecommunting, on site child care. Men are now more interested in having options to take time off whether it’s for childcare, elder care, or personal pursuits.
Businesses are becoming increasingly aware that there is a business case around flexibility in terms of reduced overhead, improved recruitment and retention of talented employees. as well as the importance of a flexible work force.
To learn more about the options and benefits of flex at work, listen to my interview with Karol Rose, Chief Knowledge Officer at Flexpaths. www.flexpaths.com.
Taking on the Work of Others
Let’s face it. Women are often busy doing the grunt work while men spend more time building their careers. We have a problem with taking on too much responsibility and it limits us from doing what needs to be done to advance our own careers and take care of ourselves.
No only do we do our own work, but we also take on the work of others. We have difficulty saying “no”. As a result, we are often overwhelmed and stressed.
When a direct report comes to you with a project and they tell you they don’t have time or they don’t know how to do it. What do you do? Do you take it on because it will get done faster if you do it? Do you allow your direct reports to delegate up?
Instead of automatically assuming responsibility for something new, perhaps it’s best to pause a few minutes and think through what other possible options exist.
Perhaps your direct report can work with a co-worker on this project?
Maybe you can use this as a teaching opportunity. If you invest the time now, you won’t have to address the same issue in the future.
What do you do when a peer tries to delegate to you inappropriately?
The important message here is to stop and think about potential ways to manage the issue and also to learn how to say “no” when appropriate. Stop yourself before you launch into solving the problem for someone else. Just apologize and say “no”. “I’d love to help you out with this, but I have way too much on my plate right now.”
Sound good? Try it next time someone tries to delegate a project inappropriately to you and you will eventually feel less stressed, more in control of your own work and career.
Are the “Shoulds” Getting You Down?
As women, we are continuously striving for work/life balance because we believe it’s possible. All the subject matter experts (myself NOT included) tell us that we can achieve balance in our lives and we should make every effort to create this equilibrium for ourselves. It is doable.
We are all superwomen. As a result, we have an ongoing list of things we “should” do for our career and our family/personal life. We seem to punish ourselves with this list of “shoulds”. The “shoulds” contribute to our guilt on a daily basis and we often give more focus to what we “should” have done or “should ” do instead of everything we have accomplished.
I propose that we create a different type of list; a list of things that we choose NOT to do. This new approach is a powerful guilt-free antidote to the “shoulds” for we are CHOOSING not to do the things on the list. I choose NOT to volunteer to make brownies for the class picnic. I choose NOT to do the laundry before work this week. I choose NOT to stay late at work one night a week. I will NOT have the dinner party this weekend.
So many of our “shoulds” actually add very little value to our lives. Take a look at your list and see if you agree. So why do we persist on focusing on them everyday?
Let’s try to let the “shoulds” go. Take back your power and intention and focus on your accomplishments and success. Don’t beat yourself up with guilt. Try a new approach and create a list of what YOU CHOOSE NOT TO DO.
The choice is yours!
A Day to Honor Mothers Everywhere
It’s not easy being a mother. If it were easy, fathers would do it. ~ from the television show The Golden Girls
This post today is to honor all my clients, colleagues, friends, and family who are mothers. Words can barely express my admiration for all the wonderful talented women that I have the good fortune of knowing through business and pleasure.
Everyday, I speak with women who are balancing their roles as mother, wife, and business woman. They accomplish this with elegance and grace. Their daily routine of running a household, running a business, and running around to baseball practice and games, piano lessons, hockey, girl scouts, dance lessons etc. seems effortless. They are on auto pilot most of the time and manage to make it through their busy schedules and keep everyone happy. It is truly amazing to see. How do we as mothers manage to focus on our profession and family and do everything so well?
Of course, we are not perfect though we try so hard to achieve perfection. We expend a lot of energy attempting to keep the many different balls in the air and hope that nothing drops. Most of the time, we are as near to perfection as is humanly possible. Super heroines!
Each role that we take on as women whether it’s motherhood or career or relationship partner and spouse is a really a full time job and we are constantly under pressure (though most of it self-directed) to perform all these roles perfectly (or at least to the best of our abilities). We rarely let any one down.
So let’s take the time today to honor our mothers and also to acknowledge OURSELVES as mothers and give OURSELVES credit for being the amazing women that we are!
Happy Mother’s Day!
Bonnie
The Case for Levity
This is a guest post from my friend and very talented colleague, Katie West.
You know the drill. Head down, nose to the grindstone, work first and play later. Sure, there is merit and reward in focus and drive. They are crucial skills that help us attain our goals. But what happens when we realize that our drive and determination have driven us right into the ground? It is hard to meet our goals or enjoy their achievement if we have been left so ragged by stress and exhaustion that we are barely standing, much less smiling and laughing.
By constantly prioritizing values that drain us, without re-supplying ourselves with values such as joy, play, and fun which serve to energize and rejuvenate us, it becomes increasingly harder to find the power necessary to make significant progress towards our goals.
One way to think of it is to imagine putting your hand very close in front of your face. It is hard to focus on our hand because of how close it is to our eyes. Now, move it out as far as your arm will reach. It becomes much easier to focus on it and discern the details of it, right? The importance of levity in our lives is that it provides that critical distance and perspective we need in order to view our experience. By placing emphasis on lightness, joy, and possibility in our lives, we are able to be more productive, creative, and energetic in our responses to our work and home lives.
Sometimes people still hold firmly to the notion that fun and levity prevent or slow down efficiency. Studies show that the opposite is true. Companies who value fun and play in the workplace, rank higher in surveys of workplace satisfaction. Also, the same companies repeatedly tend to be more successful in their overall goals.
Levity boosts our ability to think outside the box and be able to generate the innovative solutions necessary to solve a problem. We stand out from the crowd. It is an easy choice when we think about it: Either working with someone who complains, uses their intelligence to find flaws, and rarely smiles OR working alongside someone that readily shares their positive spirit, their zest for a particular project, or whose creative ideas inspire you.
How can we bring a little more levity and joy into our lives during such a challenging time in our society?
First step, we have to choose to bring this powerful energy into our lives and this means we are willing to seek it out in full confidence it will help us live our lives better, perform more optimally, and create a climate of wellness within us.
A couple of simple ideas for more joy, possibility, and lightness in our days:
Watch a movie that you find funny.
Practice laughing (it is okay if you are faking it-you still get the happy benefits) on your drive or walk to work by pretending you are listening to something funny on the radio or pretending you are on the phone having a funny conversation.
Call a friend and leave a laughing message on their voice mail and ask them to do the same.
Write 3 things you are grateful for each day.
What ways can you bring levity into your life?
Katie West is The Levity Coach. http://levitycoaching.com
-
20 Minutes For $20
20 Minutes of Interviewing Coaching For Only $20...
Present yourself with confidence!
