Monday Morning Blues? Try this…

I am lucky enough to love what I do! I use the word ‘lucky advisedly’- I actually worked very hard to get to a place where I am doing work I really love, where work really doesn’t feel like working! (Which is almost the title of my book, as it happens!)

Some days I just plunge in and get going but other times I am a bit more reflective. On the days I am feeling reflective this is what I do:

First, I’ll cast my thoughts back over the previous week (see this post) and really give time to thinking about what worked for me. You may find yourself dwelling on what didn’t work but try very hard NOT to go there. It isn’t particularly helpful and will dampen your mood.

Three Things

Then I’ll make a quick list of three things I want to happen in the forthcoming week. I don’t necessarily mean tangible things like a ‘to do list’, although sometimes they feature. Often it’s to do with how I want to feel. And I remind myself that how I feel, how I manage my feelings about what happens is in my gift. Our thoughts are hugely powerful and choosing how we think about things can make us feel very powerful too.

And writing it down helps reinforce the intention to achieve those things. Just a few minutes of your time but it could have a powerful impact on the rest of your week and cure those Monday Morning blues!

How do you start your working week?

PS If Mondays really are a bad day for you then you are getting a powerful message about how you’re spending a lot of your life! Even in a recession it is possible to make changes, with care! It’s a common issue when coaching, women don’t like what they do but feel ‘frightened’ to change, or often don’t know what they want to do instead. If that sounds like you I wrote my book with you in mind! It’s a work book designed to help you get ‘unstuck’ and begin to make positive change in your life. You can read more about it here, and don’t forget the free audio download link on the same page! You can download it immediately and get started straight away!

Photo credit: Rose Ann

Why Do You Work?

Why do you work? Often the first response to that is “for the money” but when you dig a little deeper money is rarely the primary motivator, although of course it is a significant factor. Take a few moments to think of 5 reasons why you work.

When money is the main reason for working, it’s often as a means to an end. As in, I’ll do this job I don’t like because it pays well, and stay until I’m in a position to do what I really want. But financial rewards are important and we women are notorious for under valuing ourselves in this area and not always asking for enough. (Latest survey says a 98 year wait for UK women to get equal pay with men – good grief)

Reasons for Working

I sometimes work with groups approaching retirement; one of the questions I ask them is what does work give them? First, with the prospect of a living on a pension looming large in their minds, they always say money. But then some more interesting facts emerge. They enjoy the status of being employed, particularly if in a senior position and they like the companionship. They like the satisfaction of a job well done, of feeling that they count.

Surveys

This is borne out by research into what makes people content at work. People like the opportunity to do what they do well every day, to use their skills; they also like that work to be recognised to be their line managers. In addition they are happy in workplaces where someone takes an interest in their development, and where training and staff development is valued and supported.

If you find yourself in a role where you’re not getting any of things, you may wish to consider moving jobs. If that’s not possible, consider how you might build some of these things into your life by other means. When work isn’t working for you, then you need to take responsibility for managing your own career, because no one cares about it as much as you do. If you haven’t got a good employer, or good line manager, you just have to grab the career reins yourself!

Photo Credit: Valdas Zajanckauskas

Are You Unhappy at Work?

One of the effects of our economic recession is that feeling that if you’ve got a job, you’d better hang onto it! That’s fine if you’re happy with your job, but what if you’re not? What if you’re really unhappy at work but can’t see a way out? There are always bills to pay and very few of us can take the risk of unemployment for any length of time, however tempting it feels on a Sunday night to just chuck it all in!

Research in Happiness at Work

Stephen Wood and L.M. De Menezes of the Cass Business School in London, published some research earlier this year* which supports what I have been saying for some time. When you can’t actually switch jobs, working on making your existing job better, improving your working life, will increase your sense of well being and happiness at work.

They advise trying to make your job as enriching as possible and taking opportunities to be more autonomous and grasp opportunities which may enhance your CV. So no falling into the “I won’t help ‘them’” trap as actually being more co-operative can actually help you!

They also found that knowing what was going on, being kept in the loop, helped employees feel more content with their lot. This is no surprise as in any times of stress and change we need to feel we have a say in what is happening, that we can exert some control somewhere in the process. And one way of doing that is to increase communication with your manager or your HR department. Find out what’s happening in your business, whether it’s your immediate company or your industry as a whole.

Plan Ahead for Next Job

Don’t see this time as ‘dead’ time. Yes, you need to hang in there for a while but there are still opportunities to plan ahead. Don’t wish your life away but a bit of judicious planning for the next step, when it becomes available, is good career planning. Maybe get yourself on a course within work, or invest in one yourself outside of work; (a lot of participants on my Renewyou course are doing exactly this).

If you don’t know what that next step is, but you do know that you don’t like what you’ve got, listen to my free visualisation and see what it comes to mind!

You spend a lot of your life working, so it needs to work for you as well as your employer! Make a start now on enriching your working life!

Photo Credit: Gokan Kohur
* High Involvement management, High Performance Work Systems…Journal of Human Resource Management 2011

If you’ve enjoyed this article, check out these 3 Essential Questions for Women

How To Improve your Working Life with 3 Simple Ideas!

It’s hard enough at the best of times if you don’t like your job but when there’s an economic downturn it can feel like a prison sentence. Good jobs are thin on the ground, and let’s face it, we’ve all got to eat and pay the bills. And so you stay put and try not to rock the boat too much but it’s eating away at you. Your enthusiasm starts to wane, you lose motivation,your joie de vivre for other parts of your life is affected and before you know it you’re well and truly fed up!

How to Improve Your Working Life

Here’s three tips to help you cope with the bad times and get ready for the upturn (trust me, this will pass).

1Don’t Take it Personally, Think Global

We women have an uncanny ability to personalise things. Thoughts like ‘Why me?‘, ‘I’m no good’, ‘I’m so unlucky’ start to morph into ‘I’ll never get a good job again‘, ‘no one will employ me’. It’s a downward spiral and doing you no good at all. I’m all for being realistic about situations and the reality of this situation is that there is a global economic downturn and ‘times is ‘ard’ for almost everyone. It is not personal.

2 Upgrade Your Spam Filter

Now about those little messages dropping unwanted into your brain as you sigh over yet another unrewarding piece of work you have to do. Believe me, they are making you feel worse. So if we want to feel better we need to deal with them. If you’re a regular reader you’ll know I’m very into evidence based research and using techniques that work. Well, positive thinking is not something off the wall; it’s a technique that works and is used in treatment models for all kinds of conditions.

First you have to identify your negative messages to self (write them down as the thoughts go in; I bet you’re really unkind to yourself sometimes). Then you have to harness that negative impact for a good and positive one. So turn your spam into something helpful, like ‘ I am good at what I do’, ‘this will pass’, and so on. I can’t write them for you as they have to be something that sounds like you talking and doesn’t make you squirm with embarrassment!

3 Find Something Fulfilling Outside of Work

When you’re not getting what you want from work try and get it from somewhere else! Work out what you’re missing: challenge, stimulation, new learning, team work, responsibility, money maybe, and see if there is a way of finding that outside your current role. You could offer yourself and your skills to a charity, maybe do an additional part time job (that’s harder but not impossible), start an online course, read a self help book and try out what it advises, sign up for an evening class…. Give yourself ten minutes to jot down all the possibilities, don’t censor anything. Or better still do it with a friend and make it fun.

I’d love to hear how you cope or have coped if you’ve ever been stuck in a job rut. And don’t forget my book ‘When Work Isn’t Working’ covers all of this and more.

Photo Credit: Kostas Kitsos

Job or Career?

Having a job is not the same as having a career; you will have very different feelings about a job, usually its just a means to an end. Jobs come and go and can disappear in an inkling, often for reasons well beyond your control.

A career is something you have for life (although you may have several careers in one lifetime!) A career is something YOU control.

I have had jobs (too numerous to mention!) and I have had three careers – as a professionally qualified social worker, as a manager, and now as a specialist in change.

A career is a lifetime experience of making the most of your skills, your knowledge and your life experiences. People with careers tend to read and study in their spare time and it doesn’t feel like drudgery. A career is something you develop and plan. Having a career that you love really does mean that work isn’t working!

It’s your life, your career. Don’t hold back from spending time thinking about and planning your career. It’s time well spent, whatever age you are! There will be knock backs along the way, and times when you leap ahead. But knowing what you want, having goals and milestones along the way, will ensure you get where you want to be and then help you stay there.

What has been the best move you have ever made to help you take charge of your career?

End of the Weekend Blues?

If you often find yourself feeling a bit down as the end of the weekend approaches, maybe it’s time to think seriously about what you are doing the rest of the week!

When you feel fed up with your job it’s hard to motivate yourself. So you stay stuck in a place that doesn’t excite or inspire you.

Even though jobs are thin on the ground at the moment, you can take action to put yourself into the right place for when the jobs market picks up. There are still jobs out there but you have to be much more proactive.

Here’s an exercise adapted from ‘When Work isn’t Working’ which will help you start to take some control.

Exercise

List all your friends, family,colleagues, acquaintances. Think widely across your network to include home, work, hobbies, faith groups, union/professional groups, everyone you can think of.

Supporters

Now, take a long, hard, honest look. In that group who are your supporters? Supporters may include people who can offer you emotional support and those who can offer practical support. Differentiate between the two.

Who on your list might hold you back? You might find, surprisingly, that the same person can pop up in both camps. Friends or family who give you emotional support can be the same people who tacitly encourage you to stay where you are. It’s not done from malice, more a fear of change. When we change it impacts on those closest to us.

Look at your list and pick out those who can help you, either with new skills, introductions, experience, advice, enthusiasm or maybe signing up to an evening class with you, or introducing you to a networking group.

Have you asked them to help? Make a note in your diary to speak to them this week. Take back some control and  perhaps Sunday evenings will soon be your favourite time of the week. When you have a job you love, it really doesn’t feel like working at all!

What advice has worked for you?