I was delivering a seminar for managers recently, and asked the group to come up with some bonkers* solutions for issues the group were generating. There were no rules other than that the responses had to be totally off the wall.
The bonkers responses were then given back to the original group that raised them, with an instruction to see if they could make something workable from it.
In 90% of cases they could. And 50% of those resulted in a solution they were actually able to use at work!
So, next time you are feeling stuck, let go of sensible and let yourself go bonkers! You never know….
Where have some of your best ideas and solutions come from? Please do share with us!
(*Bonkers = Completely crazy and silly)
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Next time you find yourself with a bit of a poser, a problem that seems intractable, or a dilemma you just need to think through, try this exercise.
Take a sheet of A4 paper, turn it landscape and, without thinking too much about it, draw/doodle/sketch the issue. Anything goes as long as you don’t start writing words.
Try and do this instinctively without worrying about your artistic skills. Stop after 15 minutes at most, put the drawing in your desk drawer and forget about for a while. Your subconscious will be working away on it in the background and when you look at it again after a few hours there’s a good chance that a solution or helpful thought will have presented itself!
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Do you ever feel lonely? I was recently asked my for my thoughts on loneliness by Health & Fitness magazine, following the publication of a Mental Health Foundation report on that topic. The report discovered that 1 in 10 people frequently experience loneliness, and that 42% of us have been depressed because we felt alone at some point in our lives. That’s an awful lot of us!
Women Suffer More?
The report also had some statistics to show that women, particularly younger women, seem to be more lonely than their male counterparts.
I think there may be two reasons for this:
One, women need the friendship of other women when they are under stress and recent research indicates that they need to bond. They release oxytocin at times of stress, the bonding hormone, so is it possible that women feel the absence of company more strongly?
And two, I wonder if women are more likely to admit to feeling lonely than men? Women certainly discuss their emotions more and are more likely to seek help in other areas of life.
Tips to Fix Loneliness
- Take some time trying to work out how your loneliness has arisen. Often it’s about loss, of a partner, a friendship, a new job meaning a move. Or it may be the isolation of finding yourself home with a new baby, or unemployed. Sometimes there is no discernable cause; relationships have just drifted, friends are in new relationships, etc, or have moved away. It’s worth taking a few moments to ponder why.
- Texting and social media sites are no substitute for real human contact. Touch is especially important. Try and get out most days and actually speak to a real person, or phone someone you care about.
- Think about what you like doing. If you love reading, for example, that might not seem to present opportunities for contact being a solitary activity but book clubs abound! Bookshops often host them, or you could even start one of your own!
- Some kind of physical activity has the added bonus of raising your spirits and if you can combine that with meeting others, double whammy! So, if you like walking, what about the Rambler’s Association? This has the added advantage of usually being a week end activity and week ends, especially Sundays, can be peak lonely times.
- Offer your services to a charity. Helping with a fundraising event can give you a feel good factor but will also bring you into contact with others.
- Take a sneak peek at yourself in shop mirrors. We communicate so much by our body language. What is yours saying? Do you see a miserable looking person, eyes down, no smile. If so, you may be unwittingly putting up a barrier to friendship. Try smiling, even when you don’t feel like it! It really makes a difference.
- And finally, sometimes we just need a bit of extra help in our lives, some encouragement and support to do the things we know will help us but lack the motivation to do. That might be from a friend or a professional. Sometimes it takes time to unravel why we feel like we do but it’s time well spent and can lead to a much happier outlook on life!
If you have any tips or advice to share I’d love to hear from you!
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What hidden gems do you have stored away that could be working for you right this minute?
Recently I have received a plethora of compliments about my voice and coaching style (thank you!) I was telling my husband, somewhat wryly, that lots of people really seemed to like the sound of my voice. He replied, with due concern for my sensibilities (wise man) that naturally he thought I had a lovely voice but he hadn’t really thought about it before.
And then during a recent course I was delivering a participant came up and said:
“I love listening to you. You make difficult ideas sound achievable and your voice is perfect for this”
I think I’ve always had this voice, although clearly it has matured over the years, but lately it seems to have become a real asset to me. And it made me think about what noticing what is right under our noses (literally in my case!)
Your Gems
We’re with ourselves all the time so naturally we tend to take ourselves for granted. Women in particular are notoriously reticent at ’selling’ themselves and putting forward their skills and qualities. In the UK we still have a slight distaste about what we perceive as showing off. But times are difficult and if you don’t showcase your talents no one else will.Time for a rethink…
The You Audit
If you haven’t taken out your CV for a while do so now. Chances are it is well out of date. I recently asked an American CV specialist (Julie Walraven) how many of her clients were actually unemployed when they came to her. Her answer surprised me. Over 60% of her client base come to her while still in work but they are proactive about their development. They recognise the importance of keeping themselves up to date and ready to meet opportunities as they arise.
It’s so easy to forget what you’ve done if you only grab your CV when applying for a new job. You will have masses of new achievements during the course of a year so keep a record of them. Obviously you’ll tailor your CV to the circumstances but you’ll have a positive cornucopia of material to choose from. You are more fabulous than you know!
View from Outside
And try this:
Ask a representative group of friends and colleagues what they think is your best asset. You may get answers which don’t immediately seem to relate to work, such as you’re always so supportive and helpful. Get them to be specific. This can translate into ‘good team player’, ‘educator’ or ‘mentoring skills’. You’ll probably be blinded by the glow when you start to uncover your hidden gems!
And if you want to decide for yourself about the voice, there is a free audio download here! It’s called ‘Your Perfect Working Day’. I hope you enjoy it! And if you have any tips and experiences to share, please do!
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Listening to the news each day can be, frankly, very dispiriting with forecasts of economic gloom and environmental disasters: if we’re not careful we could find ourselves getting caught up in a downward spiral of misery. Similarly, talking excessively about problems and concerns (and I don’t mean sensible evaluation and taking action, but getting to the point when it’s all you focus on) has been shown to cause anxiety and even depression.
Good News
But the good news is that happiness and good humour is contagious too! There are some things that no economic crisis can take away from you, like your innate talents, resources, family and friends. Take a few moments to reflect on those each day.
Three Cheerfulness Tips
1) Stay calm and carry on! By which I mean don’t let yourself get dragged into a cycle of moaning and complaint to no purpose. Go on the complaint diet. Even one tiny moan a day uses up masses of cheerfulness calories so go for a smile instead. When someone starts up a litany of complaints, tell them you are following the complaint diet and will have to decline! Hopefully that will make them smile!
2) Share more! Start talking to neighbours, colleagues, friends about what you have which you can share. Like a power washer perhaps or books? Maybe you have a glut of vegetables you could offer? Once you start opening up in this way it’s amazing what you discover. Sharing a car to go shopping can lead onto sharing the buy one get one free offers which tempt you into buying too much, for example. But it also brings you a closer appreciation of your local community.
3) In times of economic downturn it can feel like you are in competition with everyone else for fewer resources, particularly in work situations. To counter this, think about joining a group and nourish your community spirit together. It might be a coffee club at work, a sewing group, a reading group at your local library, or an allotment club. Find one that interests you or start one of your own!
Try at least one of the above and see if it impacts on your happiness levels. Making yourself more happy is a very altruistic thing to do. Research in the US has revealed that happiness really is highly contagious. The findings show that when you become happy, any friend of yours who lives within a mile becomes 25% more happier too! And a friend of that friend is likely to be 10% happier, and a friend of that friend’s friend (still with me?) will be 5% happier!
It’s a positive civic duty to be a happy soul! I wish you much happiness today!
And please do share your own happiness tips!
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Late last summer I was walking with a friend in the lanes near my home when we happened upon one of our favourite gardens; a genuine Mr McGregor vegetable patch of beautiful, orderly rows of vegetables with companion planting and an elderly gentleman leaning on his hoe surveying his work. It wouldn’t have surprised either of us if Peter Rabbit had scurried out and made off with a lettuce while we watched!
We chatted with the gentleman who told us he and his family had owned the land and adjoining cottage for several generations and then invited us to see his flower garden. It was glorious, a text book cottage garden with a green house full of geraniums so amazing that the Royal Horticultural Society had been to photograph them!
Elderflower
His wife joined us in the garden, introductions were made, and she offered us a chilled glass of her home made elderflower cordial. As we complimented her on it, she then offered the recipe with the extra advice that we should pick the flowers heads when the sun had been shining on them as they released most flavour then.
Pass on Your Gifts
This Sunday afternoon I have been making my own elderflower cordial and have been thinking of her and her husband and their generosity and kindness to strangers. And it made me reflect, what can I pass this on during this week ahead? What small thing, advice, or piece of knowledge could you share with work colleagues, friends, family or, if the occasion presents itself, complete strangers? And with us, maybe, via the comments section? I look forward to hearing from you!
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It’s funny how some things stay with us forever, isn’t it? When I was at school each term began and finished with St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, from the King James Bible, which contains these words:
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
The religious aspect had little impact on me but the words and their meaning have always stayed with me. Little did I realise then how often they would resonate with my coaching many, many years later! U.S. President Obama also used them in his inaugural speech.
Impact of Stress
What I have learned through both experience and study since the 40 plus years since I first heard those words, is that when we are under stress of any sort, like a change imposed upon us, we sometimes resort to those childish things. We revert to comforting ways of behaving from our past, whether they are helpful to us or not.
So my coaching questions to you are:
What behaviours from your childhood are still helpful to you? (It might be a way of comforting yourself, your ability to make friends, how you learn new things and build your confidence)
What is it now helpful to jettison for once and for all? (It might be the equivalent of temper tantrums- anger you can’t always control, comfort eating, holding grudges, sulking)
What prism do you view the world through, your’ glass, darkly’?
And does love play a big enough part in your life?
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The first casualty of change is truth.
If you are in an organisation undergoing major change you will know that communication is vital. All organisations know this and every single book on managing change tells managers to communicate, communicate and communicate!
And in my experience, all organisations start off with good intentions but become lapsed communicators somewhere along the way.
The reasons are many. Maybe the person in charge of communications suddenly finds their own job at risk and goes to ground. Maybe the project is floundering and no one wants to say so openly. But more often it’s because for long periods of time there is no real change. And organisations make the huge mistake of saying nothing.
And we know what happens to a vacuum? Someone helpfully fills it.
Managing Change Tip
Always try to distinguish between you know what as fact, actual fact from a reliable source, and what is conjecture, rumour, speculation and gossip. If you hear something about the process try and check it out. Try not to get drawn into discussions of how awful everything will be because actually, that makes you feel awful! It’s fine to let off steam now and again but endless discussion of how bad it all is will really bring you down and limit your ability to cope.
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One of the reasons I wrote ‘When Work isn’t Working’ was the number of coaching clients who came to me dissatisfied with their work. People were unhappy with the job they had, for all sorts of reasons, but just didn’t know what to do instead.
And so I wrote a creative visualisation especially for them, which is in the book, and is now available for you to listen to!
Free Download
Simply reading a visualisation doesn’t work as well as hearing it. Which is why I have recorded it and it is on the site, entirely free of charge for you! If you have the book already, you will find it enhances all the exercises you have already done. And if you don’t have the book, don’t worry – it works well on its own too!
Just simply click on the link to the right of your screen called ‘Your Perfect Day’. You don’t need to enter any details. You can either listen to it directly from your computer, or, (recommended) down load it to a player and take it somewhere calm and relaxing for you, where you won’t be interrupted.
I hope you enjoy listening to it and that it takes you closer to achieving your ideal job! Please do let me know what you think!
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A quick brain teaser!
If circumstances forced you to go into partnership with one of your professional rivals, who would you choose….and why?
I’d love to hear back from you, but maybe it’s best to use alternative names….we don’t want to start a run on the pound!
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