Category: Work Life

Is it just me, or did you also notice that the holiday decorations and advertising started earlier this year?

My first reaction was like one of those cartoon characters who gets surprised and his eyes bug out about three feet.

My first thought was to chase thoughts about everything I have yet to do this year.

My first feeling was overwhelm.

How about you?

Yes, it’s “the most wonderful time of the year”…and yet all of us are susceptible of missing the wonder of it all due to work overwhelm that accompanies the holidays.

Check out these 3 Tips to Cure Your Holiday Overwhelm at work that help me:

Focus on Positive Strengths

From Madison Avenue to Your Street, we are shoved toward an impending sense of lack during the holidays. This scarcity mentality afflicts us at work as well, shifting our focus to the negative.

I choose to focus on positive strengths. I make a list of what’s going well with my businesses right now. I jot some notes about the strengths of 2014 and include financials, significant product developments, additional team members, customer problems solved, and new referral relationships.

You can do the same in less than an hour. Then begin your work day by reading over this list. This single strategy pivots your mindset from negative—what I don’t have—to positive—what we’re doing well. Since you see what you’re looking for, you will add to your list daily as you discover more positive strengths.

Focus on Positive Situations

Next, I focus on positive situations. Overwhelm produces anxiety which shuts down our strategic ability to focus on positive situations. We see Mt. Everest in its entirety instead of the first step that leads to the second step which gets you to the summit. Rather than focusing on what you can do, we shut down because we can’t do it all at once.

I’m all about doing what I can do today and working off a list of those action items. You can make a list of what you can do. Think of them as positive situations from which you leverage the kind of forward motion your business wants to reach your goals. Focus on this list and prioritize it. Pick one activity and do something to check it off. Keep building on the positive momentum you gain from this activity and move forward some more.

As you achieve more, your focus on these positive situations sharpens like a laser. You discover more positive situations and your attitude shifts from overwhelm—“what I can’t do”—to achievement—“what I can do.”

Focus on Positive Signals

I realized some years ago that my feeling of overwhelm emerges during the holidays more as a reaction to the realization that the year is about to end than anything else. I  reflected on what wasn’t done, how little time I had left to do it, and the impending sense that it’ll be undone as I begin the new year.

What I do now and what you can do too is to honestly evaluate what is accomplished toward 2014 goals now. Then strategically act on the positive situations you can now, using your positive strengths accrued through the year. Determine what barriers prevented further growth.

Then assess the positive signals emerging as 2014 nears completion that will serve as your springboard to positive growth in 2015. What are the positive strengths? What are the positive situations? How do these project positive signals in 2015?

Focusing on these positive signals gives you cures your holiday overwhelm gets you excited anticipation for the upcoming new year, and helps you truly enjoy this most wonderful time of the year!

About the Author

Dr. Joey Faucette is the #1 Amazon best-selling author of Work Positive in a Negative World (Entrepreneur Press), coach, and speaker who helps business professionals increase sales with greater productivity so they get out of the office earlier. Discover more at www.ListentoLife.org.

I am a recovering multi-tasker and not always so much in recovery.  For years, I truly believed that if you can do more than one thing at a time, that was always the better option.

That if you can do several things at a time you simply get more done and save more time.

It’s only in the last few years that I have realized the folly of my ways!

It was late at night, I was on a training call, one of about 35 people dialed in from around the world.  The trainer was one of my favorites, she always had a word of wisdom or a real story to throw into the discussion to bring is alive and create connection.

I was dead tired.  I had been up with one child or another all of the previous night.  And I had gone straight into work and house chores all day.  That’s what work felt like those days…chores.

I saw the call as the perfect opportunity to clear out my inbox, work on my accounting and make some to-do lists.  So I got busy.

My headset was on.  I checked in with the call and said hi to everyone.

Then I started to get busy, listening all the time.

I have to say, I did get my inbox cleared and my accounts finished.  Just then I realized that it was the end of the call.  The call leader asked for final input.  I noticed that I hadn’t commented at all throughout the class.

Then she asked me directly what I had taken from the materials.  I quickly glanced at the class title.  It was ‘presence’ in coaching.

I responded, it makes me realize how important it is to be truly present.  She agreed and finished the call.

At first I felt like a total fraud.  I mean, I had lied to her.  I was so distracted in my multi tasking I hadn’t even hear the call.

Then I realized, that was my lesson.

My distraction had created absence.  And now I realized the true value of presence, because I had missed out on this opportunity to be there.

It was a valuable lesson, I’m still learning.

How are you doing with ‘presence’ vs. multi-tasking?
Have you missed out on something you regretted because of lack of presence?

It was some time during high school, career guidance class. I distinctly remember that night at home, going through a long spreadsheet that listed professions.

I guess half of the common professions today didn’t even exist then!

I stopped at Marketing. Dad, what is marketing? Sitting on the other side of the living room, he barely raised his head and, without hesitation, he said ‘it’s the art of convincing people to buy what they don’t need, don’t want and might not even like’.

Wow, sounds powerful Dad, he looked up and just raised his eyes.

It was a powerful message for sure.

From that day it was clear to me that marketing is a BAD thing.

It took me years to learn how to understand, then appreciate and even come to love it.

And it all changed when I discovered the power of stories. And I don’t mean the kind of stories that convince you to buy what you don’t need!!!

I mean authentic story.

Story that tells of genuine struggle that transforms into empowerment.

Story that tells of the human condition and how we can become resilient and compassionate in the face of challenge.

You see when you tell authentic stories, you step into the true value of what you offer. You step into it for you and for your client.

The story does the work.

If the story moves you, you feel the value. Even if it’s not something you want right now, you don’t feel manipulated or ‘sold to’ you simply appreciate the value of the offer.

And as the teller of the story, you remind yourself of what you truly stand for.

The type of marketing IS powerful and it’s also fun and easy.

You see, no one can tell your story better than you. You’ve lived it. You get it. You’ve transformed through it.

And when you can experience the power of your own story, you come to love to tell it.

You get to love marketing!

What are you struggling with in your marketing?

Where do you need a stronger story in your business?

It was a beautiful saturday, we were visiting my brother. We decided to go out for a hike near his home.

There were six kids between us, my bro and I. We headed out, climbed over a wall on the edge of the housing area and were out in the wild. It’s amazing how climbing a wall can increase the adventure ten-fold!

The views were stunning, rolling hills in every direction and though the sun was hot, there was a mild breeze and we could enjoy the day. The kids ran on ahead exploring and discovering all kinds of interesting flowers, trees and other items that had been left behind by other visitors on the pathway.

They found a few footballs kicked over the fence from gardens way up the valley; delighted with their unexpected treasure hunt.

My brother and I were catching up, it had been a few weeks since we’d seen each other. We were deep in conversation when I heard my son shout. Then my youngest boy gave a scream and ran towards me. He was crying and shaking. I lifted him up into my arms and felt his heart pounding.

What is it? What happened? He could barely get the words out.

A snake. Huge.

I felt weak.

Now, coming from Ireland, I’m not a girl that’s used to seeing snakes while out on a hike in nature. You see, St. Patrick took care of all the snakes in Ireland, they say he drove them out (a story for another day!).

I wanted to run in the opposite direction.

I realized that the snake was long gone. And I congratulated my boys for their enormous bravery, adding that had I been the one to see it, I would definitely have handled it less well and probably passed out on the spot!

I did assure them that they were safe and we quickly made our way to an area where there was less likelihood of further similar surprises.

Afterwards I thought about my son’s reaction. His fear was palpable, instinctive, the absolute knowing that he was faced with real danger.

It was totally appropriate and the very instinct that translates into survival.

It also made me realize how often we are paralyzed by our perception of danger, our fear of the unknown; the opposite of the real snake lying on the path ahead.

We often make decisions in our business (and lives) based on an assumption of one of three things: danger, exposure and discomfort. The fear of these three is often stronger than the probability that any of them actually exist.

There’s a wonderful story that Byron Katie tells of walking in the desert and seeing a huge poisonous snake up ahead on the path. She was gripped with terror, imagining the impossibility of ever escaping. She feels the fear in her body but an instant later notices that in fact it is not a snake. It is a piece of rope. Katie says that once she made this realization,there is utter relief and such freedom knowing that everything is changed.

She says, once you know that it is a rope, a thousand years will pass and you’ll never be convinced that it is a snake again. You have seen and understood that it is merely a rope, it is impossible for the fear to return.

I wonder what snakes you are dealing with right now? How many of them are actual snakes? Can you see the piece of rope too? Take a look.

What is the snake in the path of your business? Can you see that it may not be as fierce, dangerous and threatening as you thought? Can you see that it is simply a piece of rope?

When so much is dependent on you, and when you are juggling multiple balls in the air at once and not only that, but you are totally convinced that the big deal will come through at any moment, why do you need a vacation? A vacation, time off when it’s near impossible even to have a cup of coffee with a friend? And you’ve been doing just fine (you think), going without even a short holiday since you started your company or business.

This is a dilemma many small business owners and entrepreneurs have. They are convinced that their business will fall apart, customers will migrate to the competition, and all new deals will evaporate if they head out to enjoy a vacation.

Good friend and mega-entrepreneur, Bill, 2nd generation CEO of a successful family company, was quite beside himself about taking a vacation. Juggling multiple balls at once, totally convinced that the next big deal will come through at any moment, near impossible to snatch a cup of coffee with old friends; you know this guy….

Finally he told me he was taking two weeks and doing a tour in a newly restored private antique railcar with a friend. This very custom rail car would hook up to several different scheduled passenger trains around the country! And this was in the dark days before cellphones and the internet, so it was going to be a real break from company routine.

So what prompted Bill to change his mind about taking a vacation? Think about this, it could change your mind also: Bill’s doctor said to him, if you take a 2 week vacation, when you return you might be two weeks behind with your work, but you will be able to catch up; and in the overall scheme of things what really is two weeks behind? If you drop dead, you’ll never have the opportunity to catch up, put things right, or do new deals for the company! You will be behind forever!

Bill took his rail car tour, and had the most amazing time inviting people on board for segments of the trip, getting reacquainted with old friends and meeting new friends (with the time to listen to others), expanding his horizons and perspectives (embracing new dimensions) by what he saw along the way and people he talked to. When he returned he said he had new clarity, more energy, and he felt the benefits of the time away were far greater than the aggravation caused by being behind two weeks; and best of all, he was still alive!

Ask yourself the following key questions, and if your answer is “a long time ago”, take a vacation!

1.When was the last time I had an all night conversation (with anyone) about the meaning of life?

2 When was the last time I built ‘castles in the air’ (for no reason)?

3 When was the last time I had a 3 hour lunch, for the food & the experience, not for doing business?

4 When was the last time I read an actual book, in bed, until noon? No electronic devices in sight….

5 When was the last time I did nothing, and enjoyed it?

There are many helpful and fun messages you can leave on your email auto-reply, your store front, or your social footprint, to keep customers, clients, and even employees gainfully engaged, while you take time to vacation; and in fact you’ll find many people are more receptive to make deals when you return in your newly relaxed, de-stressed state of well being!

It’s not a coincidence how often that deal you have been waiting for will happen precisely when you get back to your office; and don’t you wonder sometimes if it would have happened if you had not gone on vacation?

This was first seen on Entrepreneurs Questions: Why Do You Need a Vacation