4 Solutions to Deal with Work Overload

By admin | Published: August 31, 2010

If you are piled on with work, it’s likely that you could benefit from more clarity in 3 areas.

1) Not clear about your ‘business model’

You probably know what the ‘outcome’ is that you want, but you may not be clear about the strategies to get there.   In other words, the person who is the boss (whether YOU are the boss in your own business or you report to a boss in an organization) is not clear about the business model.

Business owners come to me and say “I want to earn ___  (fill in the blank, let’s say $250K).  When I ask,  what is your business model, I often get a blank look.   If you are not clear about your business model you will ‘throw spaghetti against the wall’,   or try to do anything and everything that will bring in revenue or save on costs.   Is your model to have 25 high paying clients at $10K each?  Or 100 people paying you for a $2500 service, or 1000 buying a $250 product.   Do you have a justification for your answer based on market research combined with your unique strengths?

If you work in an organization, often strategy is not well thought through at a higher level.  Here’s an example of gaining this kind of clarity can be successful:  I coach a senior person at a fashion company where the frontline workers were buried with work and morale was plummeting.  My client spearheaded a meeting with the cross functional senior team and worked out a formula to clearly decide which designs they would pursue, and which redesigns, adhoc changes,  offshoots,  they wouldn’t.  Workload at all the junior levels decreased by almost 50% within a month.    If you are in an organization,  are you aware of a clear strategy that is being implemented, and if not, can you ask your boss to help walk you through it?

2) Not clear about your function or your most highly leveraged activities.

As a business owner, you may be caught in the trap of doing everything yourself,  and thinking that you can’t afford someone else to do the things you are not good at.  That keeps you in a cycle of trying to do everything and not having time to do the marketing that will help you grow enough to hire a virtual or in person assistant.  Can you name the 3 activities that directly earn you the most money, and if so, what you are doing to preserve your time for them?

If you work in an organization,  are you clear about what the essential function is that the organization pays you to do.  I know, I know – What’s problematic these days is that you are often doing 2-3 people’s jobs. Have you identified what you strengths you have that make you invaluable in your current role?  Are you making  the best use of your strengths, and if not, can you ask about re-sculpting your role,  getting needed training,  or delegating to people who work for you?  What decisions are you empowered to make that would choose one clear direction instead of many?

3) Not clear about your priorities

Simply put, you may be doing work that others have created urgency around but is not YOUR priority.  Your priority is to fulfill the functions you have identified in points #1 and 2 above, and to do so in the order of their due date and biggest impact to other people.

If you are in an organization and have competing priorities, the work that is due for the person who has firsthand control over your position and bonus has priority ;-)

4) Not clear about how to handle difficult interpersonal situations,  like how to say no or push back on your boss.

You may know that you are being asked to do ‘too much’ by your boss.  Or you may be saying yes to other’s demands and not preserving your energy for what you identified in #2 above – because you are not clear on what your own value is.

To push back effectively with a boss or client,  you want to get clear on what you can and can’t say.   There are 3 legs to any project you are asked to do:   Time – Resources – Scope.  What you can do is negotiate the terms of any of these.  For example,  if you are asked to do something very quickly,  you can say Yes but ask for more resources or to reduce the scope.

Often the issue is your own need say yes when you mean to say no.   That means you are not clear about your own value,  you think you have to say yes in order for other people to like you or want to do business with you.  Watch for solutions for this in an upcoming blog on people pleasing ;-)

Please leave a comment on my blog about your challenges with work overload.

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The Reason Why Therapy Doesn’t Work

By admin | Published: August 19, 2010

When you start to see the same idea and hear the same suggestion from people over and over, do you take it as a sign?  There’s a specific word that keeps coming up for me in the last few weeks.  I’ve been trying to avoid it.  But it keeps coming up again.

Therapy.

5 times in the last weeks,  my friends and colleagues farmed me out to do a free consult with a loved one who’s having challenges.  After I finish talking with each of them, I heard “I got more out of talking to you for an hour than in a year of therapy.”

I kept hearing from my friends: “You should be a therapist”.

“I don’t want to be a therapist.  Therapy doesn’t work”,  I say.

Then there was the front page article in the NYTimes Magazine 2 weeks.  After 40 years in therapy,  the author concluded she didn’t possess desired self knowledge nor relief from depression.

It makes me mad, quite honestly. Here are 3 beefs I have with therapy.   And then I’ll tell you what I’m going to do about it!!

Before I begin, let me say I do think therapy can be helpful for some people some of the time.  People who are already pretty well put together can often put the insights into action and get into a better place in their life.   Therapy is also a great way to have someone who knows you over time and can provide a sense of continuity (e.g., ‘Remember when this happened with the last guy you were dating).   If you are looking for a forum to hear yourself talk  through things out loud,  traditional therapy might serve up what you want.

But if you are paying good money week after week,  in the hope that you will move past stress and suffering you face and finally have confidence, success, and ease in your relationships, here is my critique.

First,  therapists are trained to help you make the unconscious conscious,  they are trained to help you verbalize your feelings.  They are usually not trained to give you tools that will help you improve your daily life.    What you need to have the success and happiness you want are tools to deal with yourself and deal with other people better.    Skills like,  how to change your negative and doubting thoughts,  how to deal with your feelings and get into a better emotional state so you can get back to focusing on work or respond constructively in the relationship,  how to get yourself to do what you know you should do instead of procrastinating,  how to influence other people to cooperate with what you want,  etc.    That’s why therapy feels like its just “talking about it” again and doesn’t make you feel like you know how to do anything to change your circumstances.

Second,  I went to ‘therapy school’ (at UC Berkeley many years ago ;-) so I can give you some inside scoop.  The way therapy works is that you re-create the patterns you have with the therapist, and then the therapist can help you see it live in action.  That’s why the therapist is often making comments about what is going on between you and how you must feel about her/him.   Sometimes this can feel like you are awfully focused on your relationship with the therapist and its more about the therapist wanting to keep you around instead of what needs to be cleaned up in your life.   I was going to add a lot more technical detail here but then I was reminded of what a client said to me years ago which states the case much more eloquently.  So I went and dug out the quote for you:  Like a scuba oxygen tank – Sharon gives you the tank and the tools so you can go off on your own versus therapy which is like life support – you have to stay plugged in and keep going back just to keep breathing.

Third, there tends not to be any accountability.  There aren’t clear benchmarks or consequences for whether you make progress towards what you want in your life.

Fourth,  therapy tends to focus on making sense of the past instead of creating a future that you LOVE.

I could go on with a few more beefs, but let me stop there and let me tell you my surprise about what I’m going to do about it.

I’m going to become a therapist.  Yes, you read it right.   In response to so many people asking me to do it, I’m going to offer therapy.  But…I’m going to do it MY WAY.

That means my clients are going to know what they really want in life and what they want out of therapy.   They will get not only a sympathetic ear, but also practical tools they can use to advance in their career, deal with office politics,  deal with tension in personal relationships,  know how to manage their time and get more work done, etc.  We are going to make sure that you make progress quickly towards a life in which you feel free of old patterns and get to fulfill your potential.

What do you think?  Please leave your comments below and tell me about your experience with therapy.

I open the doors September 1st and have limited number of slots for in person therapy in NYC, and a few openings by phone.  If you are interested or know anyone who would benefit from this kind of therapy,  contact me at sharon@sharonmelnick.com.

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Daydream Your Way To Success? Yes…

By admin | Published: August 2, 2010

Here’s a question you may have:  ”How can I get myself to picture my success and believe that I can achieve my dreams… if I haven’t accomplished what I want yet”.    I’ve come across a resource for you that will help you picture “who you want to be” and “what you want to have” to help you achieve it more quickly and easily.

If you’ve ever tried to do visualization or make a ‘vision board’ but you didn’t get the breakthroughs you wanted,  it can lead you to be frustrated and discouraged.  Click here to learn some pretty powerful truths and how to visualize in a way that will accelerate your ability to get what you want.
(You’ll also get a technology that will help you make a picture of your own Horizon Point on your own computer)
If visualization hasn’t worked for you, it may be the case that you are making common mistakes that I’ve made.
For example…
1.You make the effort to practice visualizations for a few 
days—but nothing happens. So you decide it’s a waste of
time and stop. And guess what? Nothing happens. (Duh.)
2. When you try to keep your concentration on your visualization,  you either fall asleep, notice that nagging pain in your neck, or start thinking about a problem you’re having at work.
3. You’ve painstakingly glued a vision board together and 
stared at it, but you don’t really believe that it could happen for you.
4. You’re not completely sure visualization will work—so you 
figure it’s not worth putting effort into it unless you are 100% certain 
something wonderful will happen.   “Why bother”!
Any of these sound familiar?   To get some ‘new’ movies going in your own mind, click http://bit.ly/ceKJfs
Enjoy these videos that explain the “why” and the “how” of visualizations to help you make the simple shifts in your thinking and actions that will help you create your powerful destiny.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Why you beat yourself up…and how to stop

By admin | Published: July 1, 2010

I was walking to the swimming pool at my gym yesterday, and I got a call from a client who said she needed me to ’straighten her head out’.  I have been out of touch with you as a loyal subscriber for a while – I’ve been working on some really exciting things I can’t wait to tell you about soon – and I’ve missed you.   So, to get back in touch, I thought I’d give you an opportunity to ‘listen in over my shoulder’ as I talked with her about how to stop beating herself up.  (Just in case this is something you do too;-)

She had just found out that the start-up she was working for was not going to receive the funding they were hoping for, and was therefore going to fold.   She was beating herself up for not acting sooner after she saw the warning signs, for joining the company in the first place, and for her preference for entrepreneurial environments over corporate ones.

We could all imagine we’d be fearful in a situation like hers – but of course the most effective response is to pave a new way forward rather spend time and energy regretting what has occurred in the past. Here are some reasons why you beat yourself up and what you can do instead.

1 Control

You beat yourself up to try to have control.   We have a need to explain situations that happen, particularly situations that we didn’t want to happen or that are out of our control.   We believe we are presented with a choice of explanations:  Either: I could have stopped this from happening or There was nothing I could do about the situation.   We will often choose the former because believing we could do something to stop it from happening again will give us a semblance of control.  It’s the lesser of two evils, given the other choice is being helpless.

Instead, find other ways to have control in the situation.   In the situation of my client, there are tons of things she could focus on,  including: deepening the connections with new company prospects by providing value in interviews;  learning how to better ‘read’ politics and  to assess the viability of a company as it unfolds, to better anticipate future challenges;  leveraging relationships she made at the start up to find new opportunities or introduce them to her next company’s services;  spending time clearly articulating her possible role and compensation requests that would not leave her in the lurch in any subsequent start up environments.

2 Clarity

When you are doubtful about yourself, you tend to look at everything through your own subjective lens, and not use the same objective reasoning you would be able to bring to a business decision.   She was reprimanding herself that she should never have joined the company,  she should have read the tea leaves about the fate of the company, etc.

After I asked her some clarifying questions,  she determined that in fact the company’s prospects were quite viable until recently,  and that it was really only a matter of 4-6 weeks between when she started to have suspicions about the company’s viability and the company’s failure.  And on top of that, within 2 weeks of the warning signs she had reached out to me to coach her to help her develop additional next step opportunities.

From our conversation, she gained clarity that it wasn’t wrong of her to prefer an entrepreneurial environment over a corporate one, and it wasn’t a bad decision to join the promising start up,  her regrets were really confined to what went on in approximately a 2 week period (between her having intuitions and her acting on them) – not the last 6 weeks,  6 months of working there, or the past 45 years of decisions in her life!

You can probably appreciate that adjusting your perspective on a confined situation is much easier to work through than having anxieties and regrets about many decisions over many years of your life.    Having clarity on the ‘real problem’ reveals to you a manageable piece of a puzzle – one that you can resolve straightforwardly – instead of obsessing about a vague life long self criticism that could never be tackled.

3 Confidence

When you beat yourself up you are not owning your value.  You are only giving attention to the aspects of the situation that reflect your doubts, and devaluing as ‘obvious’ or ‘anyone could do it’ the skills that you do bring to the table.   The part of the situation my client wasn’t focusing on was that in the last month since we started working together,  she has generated interest from 4 possible new start up companies.  She wasn’t allowing in that the founder of one of these 4 new start up companies had already said “I’m glad you reached out to me” and asked her to come on board.

What are the ways that you know deep inside you that your unique way of doing things provides value,  creativity, and helpfulness?  Remember that I wouldn’t be able to do what you do.  Appreciate that your experiences and your personality has led you to be able to work and care in a way that no one else can.    Instead of worrying about what people think about you or about what your prospects are for a next career situation, focus on the contribution that you have been put here to make.  Think about the end goal of your work – the way that your work helps people,  or the overall mission of your team/organization. Just feel glad about the  way your unique skill sets contribute to making that end goal happen and keep your focus on finding ways you can contribute even more effectively to that end goal

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Do You Pull the Plug On Your Own Productivity?

By admin | Published: May 13, 2010

As you know, you have approximately 60,000 thoughts a day,  but a single one can pull the plug on your productivity for the whole day (or week).

For example, I had a client who who sold insurance.  He got a referral to meet with the person who heads a big union.  Can you imagine,   get to sell insurance to thousands of union members?  KaChing.

He scheduled into his calendar a time to follow up on the referral and prepare a proposal for them.   What happened when the reminder came up on his screen?  He said to himself,  “Its going to take too much time to put together all the pieces of the proposal today”.   (NOTE: This is code for: “I’m not clear about the task so I don’t know how to get started AND I don’t believe I can do a good job on this”).   I asked him what would be the first thought he had if the union representative called and asked for a meeting this afternoon.    He said “part of me would be excited,  the other part would be thinking:   ‘They are probably smarter than me, why would they want to meet with ME?’”   So he let his staff interrupt him all day and didn’t make the call or do the proposal.  That was the thought that pulled the plug on his productivity.

(BTW,  I call the question I asked him the “Oprah” test:  If Oprah’s show called for you to be on tomorrow,  are you ready??  If not,  you’ve got some work to do!”)

Another example:  I had a client who worked as an underwriter at a bank.    She would look at her ‘to do’ list,  it would say:  Write a memo on x policy and send it to boss for review.   When she saw that item, she’d have the thought:  “My boss is going to think my work on this shows I don’t know enough”.   So her solution was just to put off doing the work.   When she would get herself to do it,  she sometimes had questions,  but she wouldn’t ask her boss/mentors because she had the thought: “My boss might think I’m stupid if I ask that question”.    She ‘got by’ doing the basic work but didn’t feel confident or that she was making a real contribution.    A single thought pulled the plug on her productivity each step of the way.

What is your single thought that pulls the plug on your productivity?

If you haven’t had the kind of productivity you want it is because you haven’t had a Productivity Mindset.   What is a productivity mindset?

Its a way of thinking that guides every thought, every action and every reaction you have from the moment you wake up until you go to bed.  Each moment of the day will present you with a ‘fork in the road’,  to be productive or not.  You will have a thought in response to that opportunity.     There are certain ways of thinking that will set you up to be productive,  and other ways that will derail you and keep you overwhelmed and unclear.    If you have confidence in the value you provide (or at least are in motion to upgrade your mindset and your skillset) then you will do work that moves your career forward.   If you don’t have that confidence you will pull the plug on your productivity.

Within an hour or two from now, you will already have an opportunity to make  a choice to have the confidence to be productive, or not.  What choice will you make?

FYI,  in our coaching the insurance guy developed a Productivity Mindset.   4 weeks later the union gave him a piece of business that put $15K in his pocket.  They are now negotiating a deal 3 times that size.

And my client at the financial institution,   after our first meeting she said:  “I always had somewhat of an “I can’t” attitude,  but since our first meeting I have been working feverishly and have been really focused.  I took an extra initiative and did a daunting project – this is the first time in years I contributed to the knowledge base for everyone in the department.  My boss said “Wow,  this is GREAT” and thanked me.  I now know I’m contributing,  not behind the 8 ball.  Its been life changing, really.”

This is the beginning of a series of blogs and videos helping you to ‘get out of your own way’ and develop a Productivity Mindset.   Can’t wait to ‘converse with you’ on the next blog.  Please leave your comments below.

Posted in Get Out of Your Own Way | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Reduce Stress in Any Situation

By admin | Published: April 15, 2010

There are always 3 angles you can use to tackle any stressful situation.

Problem  <–> Perception  <–>Physiology

Usually you might only think about trying to “change the problem”, and if you can’t do that then you might think you have to just put up with it.   This framework shows you that there is a lot more you can control than you think.

Here are two examples, first from a new client of mine who’s starting a company and second, from a participant at one of my speeches to a NY financial company who’s getting piled on at work:

A new client is starting an exciting business.  She’s meeting with tons of people everyday and getting a lot of advice.  She ends the day feeling unfocused, like she is going in a lot of possible directions and her head is spinning.   When she comes home at night her mind is racing and its hard to get to sleep, so she feels she is exhausted and running on fumes.  She believes: “I don’t have time to deal with stress!”

Here’s how she can reduce her stress using the 3 Stress Shifters:

1)     She can “change the Problem”.

  • Schedule in (and enforce) ‘quiet thinking time’ and work with a coach to get clear about the core mission of her new company.
  • Meet only with people who are relevant to that core  mission, don’t just meet with people because she got a well-meaning virtual intro to them.
  • Do a 15-30 minute phone meeting to determine whether the fit  warrants a face to face meeting.
  • Narrow the criteria she’s given to colleagues in asking for introductions.
  • Get an assistant to vet the introductions made to her.
  • Block times to meet with people in the same location, and block separate times to get work done.

2) She can “change her Perception”.

  • She feels she has to ‘say yes’ to requests for meetings.  Though magic can happen when you meet in person,  she has to be aware when she is meeting with others for the ‘right reasons’ (mutually beneficial growth) versus trying to please other people and not owning her value enough to say “not now”.   Instead of worrying about ‘missing out’ on helpful connections,  she could trust herself that if she is focused she will be successful, and people will therefore still want to meet with her in the future.
  • Second,  she could trust herself and take her own counsel more.  She is letting her head spin with all the advice-getting and not filtering the input she’s getting through her own intuition.

3)   She can “change her Physiology”.

  • She could institute a 30-minute period before bed in which she turns off her electronics,  and drink chamomile tea or a magnesium supplement (such as Natural Calm) to deeply relax her for sleep.
  • To fall sleep, or put her back to sleep if she awakens in the middle of she could use Left Nostril Breathing – cover your right nostril and breathe exclusively through your left nostril (this activates the calming part of your nervous system).  This breathing technique will put her back to sleep within 3-5 minutes.

Similarly,  if you are getting piled on with work at your company, and your management constantly changes priorities,  there are many strategies to tackle this stress.  Here’s just a few ways following the framework of the 3 stress shifters.

1) Change the problem:

Ask the manager who is giving you multiple assignments to indicate their priorities with you. Get explicit permission to change your deliverables and request ‘air cover’ with other bosses (when in doubt do the work for the people who are responsible for your promotion and pay!); To prevent rework and having to chase people down,  do this when the work is being assigned:  Play out (in your mind) the steps it will take to complete the deliverable and anticipate the questions you will have – request permission for a few minutes before the end of the meeting to ask those.  Take time to find out whether a template exists or whether similar information exists elsewhere within the company.

2) Change your perception:

Ask yourself:  when you are working under deadline and worrying that you might not get it done on time with a high quality standard,  notice:  what are you imagining the consequence will be if you don’t succeed perfectly?  I’ve asked hundreds of corporate professionals this question at my presentations and what I hear is you probably have an image in your mind such as getting fired, living under a bridge, standing on the welfare line, etc!  This puts you in a state of fear.  You’re under enough pressure as it is,  CHANGE THE IMAGE in your mind so that you aren’t trying to do your best work with the sword of Damacles hanging over your head.

3) Change your physiology:

When the thoughts in your head are colliding with overwhelm, use this breathe for rapid focus and clear thinking:   Inhale – Hold – Exhale through your nose for equal amounts of time (e.g., inhale count to 5, hold count to 5, exhale count to 5).  Within 90 seconds to 3 minutes you will get into a very focused, clearheaded state to conquer your work!

Give yourself more options when it comes to dealing with stressful situations.  Use strategies from each of the 3 stress shifters in order to feel immediately more in command of your situation.

Take a moment right now to apply the 3 stress shifters to any stress you are facing.  What can you do to “change the problem”, “change your perception”, and “change your physiology?”

Ask a question or leave your answer below.

Posted in Be Strong Under Stress | 2 Comments

Win the Battle With Your Inner Perfectionist At Work

By admin | Published: March 4, 2010

I just found out that its “National Procrastination Week”.  Who knew?  I’m wondering who marshalled support in Congress to get this passed?    But anyway,  let’s take advantage of the attention on this widespread challenge and discuss strategies to take back the reins from the part of you that sets you up to procrastinate.  There are many reasons for procrastination, but let’s focus on a common one today:  Perfectionism.

How much time has your inner perfectionist been sucking from you lately?  Here’s how to win the battle:

1)  Get your Inner Perfectionist to have a little ’sit down talk’ with your Inner Bill Payer.   Get everyone on board that in the short term and in the long term:

“Done makes more money than Perfect!”

2)  Disabuse your Inner Perfectionist of the notion that it is omniscient and can read the mind of your prospects, clients, colleagues, and boss.   Rather,   explain to it that the best way to do a job that will please others is to put out a first iteration and get feedback on exactly what other people want from your deliverable.  Then turn your deliverable around incorporating their feedback.

3) Make sure your Inner Perfectionist knows the value that you are being paid to provide.   For example, I coached a small business in which the owner had a very high performing entry level analyst who would pull all nighters to get the numbers right to the 9th decimal point.  However, the owner of the firm just wanted a percentage range so he could provide investment estimates to his clients.  The analyst of course would come in trashed with exhaustion the next day – and not able to be at her best for her duties.

If you are being paid to be a detailed oriented perfectionist, then have at it!   If not, you are doing yourself and everyone else a disservice.  Know the value you are being paid to provide and be perfectionistic at providing that value!

4)  Require your Inner Perfectionist to have a clear idea of the outcome you want to create before you start explaining what you want to other people.   Otherwise,  you will create resentment in the people you work with and decrease your ability to get highest quality work from them in the future

What are the challenges and successes you have had in the battles with your Inner Perfectionist?  Leave them on the blog below

(Note:  Til the end of this National Procrastination Week, I’ll also be tweeting  links to my most popular blog posts on procrastination in case you missed them the first time around, get them at @drsharonmelnick).   If you prefer to hear me talking about tips to move past procrastination via audio,  go to www.sharonmelnick.com to get fr*ee excerpts of From Procrastination to Productivity: 25 Proven Techniques to Stop Procrastinating)

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The ONLY resolution you ever need to make

By sharon | Published: December 31, 2009

There is one “master” resolution. Without it all your other resolutions cannot be carried out. The one ability you want to resolve to strengthen is Self  Trust.

Self-trust is relying upon your  inner resources (i.e. emotional, mental, physical, and  spiritual) to achievedesired success and fulfillment.   It enables you to stay steady and expand what you CAN control in this fast-changing world, rather than try in futility to change market conditions or other people.

Self trust is about believing in yourself , i.e., whether your efforts are worthwhile and will help you progresstowards the happiness and results you seek.

Self trust is about your ability to manage yourself, so that when it comes time to do the behavior you’ve said is healthy or constructive for you, you can get yourself to do it.

Self trust is about viewing yourself as worth treating well, i.e., that you are deserving of having the resultsyou are pursuing. This comes from seeing yourself as others see you, not through filters of self judgment.

You judge  yourself because you think you will only be loveable to  others or secure in your career if you live upto an ideal  of perfection. Therefore you always compare yourself to  this ideal, setting yourself up to fall short and beat  yourself up.

Everyone, no matter who you are, has felt  crunched in the past year or so. Some of us are feeling  overwhelmed by the stresses, others of us are feeling  resilient, knowing they will land on their feet no matter  what. Resilient people are energized and taking action  everyday to create opportunities and keep their  relationships strong. Self trust is a key factor that  determines how you will navigate through turbulent times.

How do you rate yourself on a 1-10 scale of Self Trust? What is your Resolution for how Self Trusting you want to be in 2010 and the upcoming decade?

Self trust is a learned skill.  Here are some questions to aid your yearly review and an exercise   to build self trust:

1) Build that self trust by spending time to review your year/your decade and making peace with it in yourself. Here
are some questions you can use to guide your review:

What are the trends?

In what ways are you proud of how you have grown, and contributed?

What are the behaviors and attitudes that continue to give you justification to beat yourself up?

What pledge do you make to yourself to change these behaviors? Why will your efforts  to change this behavior be different this time? What will  happen if you don’t make these self corrections? What will  be possible for you if you do? What accountability will you  build in?

Where can you accept yourself more and find workarounds for the things that are challenging for you?

Where can you accept the people you are close to even more, so that you no longer are disappointed and angered by the behaviors they repeat?

2) Check out this video I made (its  old, we’ll all laugh at how different I look now!) It gives you a  tool that will help you quickly build trust in yourself.

Please comment below and let me know how you build self trust.

Posted in Get Out of Your Own Way, Popular Posts | 13 Comments

Stop feeling controlled by a difficult family member or colleague

By sharon | Published: December 14, 2009

Usually people are “difficult” because they are going about getting their needs met in the only way they know how. They have very specific (and we might think “overly rigid”) ways of feeling powerful and having esteem;  they focus narrowly on controlling things, situations, and people so that they can get the outcomes that will enable them to feel good.   They are not able to feel good by connecting meaningfully with you for who you really are.   They are not able to see you as a separate person, with your own wishes and interests, they can only see you as an actor on their stage in order to get the result they need to feel good about themselves.    Self oriented?  Yes.  Limiting their own happiness?  Yes.  Doing it on purpose to make you mad?  No.   Doing it because you objectively are ‘not enough’ or ‘wrong’?  No.

If you have more effective and diverse ways of getting what you need, then you are more lucky than they are – and it understandably makes you see their limited approaches as unreasonable.  Usually you will feel annoyed by them and want to block them from getting what they want, as a punishment of sorts for being so controlling.   Instead, be appreciative that you are able to feel more connected to other people and have more harmony than they are able to achieve.   Try to have compassion for the limitations they face and the constraints in their success and happiness they are creating.

If you want to try to get them to act in a different way,  you will rarely evoke that change by trying to reason with them or trying to convince them to see it your way.    Someone like this is going to be motivated only by what motivates them, not by what you think is reasonable.    Figure out what is really important to them (hint: the thing they always try to control you about).  Whenever you talk with them,  always state your request in terms of how your request will help them get what they want.   Always take a moment to think through their request and think together about the final result, to avoid having them change their mind many times and cause rework.     Thank them for their input, and if they repeat themselves many times,  remind them respectfully that you already heard the information and that you are interested in continuing to listen if they have any new information to impart you.

Most importantly, start orienting your life around no longer deriving your emotional or financial security from them.   This is your way of freeing yourself from the effects of their control!

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How to Avoid Family Conflict These Holidays

By admin | Published: December 10, 2009

Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays probably mean get togethers with your family of origin (or even more loaded:  with those of your spouse!)

While there are many comforts and joys of spending time with your extended family, sometimes it can mean interacting with people who control, frustrate,  criticize, or burden you.   With all the stresses you are facing this year,  cross ‘family conflict’ off your list with the following perspectives:

What is the “real reason” you are aggravated with a difficult family member?
You wish your difficult family member could just “get it” and behave differently in their own life and towards you.   Their behavior may legitimately take up a lot of time or show insensitivity to you.  But know that you are angry with them because you are hoping and expecting that they will be more evolved than they are at this point.   You are hoping that one of these times they will give you the validation you richly deserve (but they are likely incapable of.)   When you say to yourself that they should be different or vent to a confidant about “why do they do that?”, you are hoping that they will heed your advisement and magically do it differently next time.  You are ‘living in hope’.

As soon as you accept that they are “where they are on their journey” (and so are you), you know it is not fruitful to try to change them.   As long as you are hoping and expecting they will be different, you can continue to act in your same patterns and expect the change to come from them.   Even though its painful for you to standby and watch someone you care about not be happy,  you must appreciate part of you wants them to act differently in order for you to feel at ease or comfortable with yourself and your situation.  The answer of course is to focus on your 50%.   To the extent that you can feel ‘good in you’ no matter how your family members are acting out of their limitations, you will no longer be aggravated by them.

How can you make family interactions more harmonious?
There are many things that you can do to take responsibility for your part of the interaction.  Some examples include:

  • Know exactly what you want from the situation so you can ask for it instead of hoping they will read your mind.
  • See it from their point of view, make them feel understood, and phrase your requests to them in terms that motivate them (and don’t just assume because you want something they will want to be that way for you.)
  • Do things that are easy for you to do that help them get their needs met even in their rigid ways.  For example, show appreciation to a narcissistic person and make them feel special.   If it means acting out of integrity for you, don’t go along with them.   Let a narcissistic, controlling, or off- color person know your limits.  Tell them you in a neutral, respectful tone that you don’t tolerate that behavior, and that you will talk to them or spend time with them when they are not acting that way (then walk away and come back later).
  • Make sure your communication is clear and respectful, reducing the chance you will be misinterpreted
  • Articulate more precisely the kind of support, love, and cooperation you can get from difficult family members and what you wish you could get but will realistically not be able to get.   Only interact with them around the former.   Focus effectively on nurturing yourself and initiating meaningful connections that will bring fulfillment in your current life – so you are less vulnerable to others making you feel balance.
  • Instead of focusing on the unrealized harmony within your family, be grateful for the family members who are alive and in a state of reasonable health;  be grateful for all the ways that you and your family members have been resilient to the current challenging times.

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