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Are You Flat Out?

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Do you get stuck in wall-to-wall meetings with no time to do the work in between? Many employees are working flat out with scarcely time to catch their breath. Full on! Sound familiar? Working at such a pace gives you little time to think clearly or even straight, which can lead to poor prioritisation and focusing on the urgent rather than the important things that would really make the difference.

Over time, this can create a vicious circle. You get more and more tired and stressed and less productive, creative and resourceful. Ouch! Falling asleep on the sofa at an early hour clutching a glass of something can be the only thing you have the energy for. 

 Here are some tips to try out:

Tip 1: Read this bulletin on overwhelm

 http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs042/1102862873131/archive/1103079251463.html

Tip 2: Get up from your desk and look back at your empty chair. Imagine you are in the chair. What advice would you give yourself?

Tip 3: Block out time in your diary away from your work station for thinking, planning and reflecting and coming up with ideas to improve productivity, fulfilment, reduce stress and improve productivity

Tip 4: Learn to coach yourself. E.g. ask yourself “What is causing the stress?” “What can I influence?” “What actions can I take and when will I take them?”

Trust Goes Down The Toilet

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Research by The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) exploring the quality of life in the UK shows that only 15% of employees would describe the management style in their organisation as trusting and 9% think it is suspicious.

Only 46% said they had trust and confidence in their senior managers.  For employees to feel engaged and go the extra mile, they need to feel trusted, not with someone standing over their shoulder watching their every move.

It is a challenge – companies need to be careful and keep a close eye on things and they have become more risk averse post credit crunch, but micromanaging turns off employees so they feel less motivated and work less.

What do you think is the right balance between control and trust?  

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http://visitor.constantcontact.com/d.jsp?m=1102862873131&p=oi

  • Human capital
  • Smart living and working
  • Self promotion
  • Career strategies 

How To Trip Yourself Up – The Easy Way

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Values are one of my soapbox topics. Why? Simply because they create and preserve reputation, happiness and fulfilment, that’s all. Nothing major. Many people don’t know what their values are. I was tickled to read about the City’s letter to the Financial Times, signed by the big cheeses. Often companies have agreed their values and then behave the opposite. What are values? Values are the things that are important e.g. trust, integrity, learning, innovation etc and different people define the same value in different ways, making managing image like herding cats.

The purpose of the City’s letter? To distance themselves from past naughties by clubbing together to promote the image of integrity about the financial world and improve its brand. Integrity is one of my top values and to me means ‘do what you say you will do’. Imagine my surprise when I read this article on the same day my business banker had failed, for the third time in 6 months, to return my phone call, despite their proud declaration ‘we will return your call within 3 hours’ promise. Join up the dots.

Living the brand is more important than defining it. Underpromise and overdeliver, not the other way round. If your company has values stuck on the wall, or on your web site, make sure you are ‘walking the talk’, as otherwise it’s like tripping yourself up with an electric barbed wire and falling into a sea of starving piranhas. Not nice.  The younger generation are very values conscious and being lovers of instant social media, will tweet your misdemeanour around the world faster than you can say ‘corporate social responsibility policy’. As I have been with my bank since I was 16, and am now 45, no need to explain that we will be getting divorced! Time to log onto Twitter…………

Do you want to divorce your job, or perhaps your career? Download our free report “Pain free career change” – click on this link: http://www.careerstrategies.co.uk/

Are you receiving the Energise monthly bulletins via e mail? Don’t miss out on free insights, tips and inspiring case studies. Click on this link to opt in.

http://visitor.constantcontact.com/d.jsp?m=1102862873131&p=oi

  • Human capital
  • Smart living and working
  • Self promotion
  • Career strategies 

Want To Keep That Holiday Feeling?

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Where did August go?! Welcome to September – kids are back to school and you are back to work and my blog had a 2 week holiday too, so is refreshed with new words. How can you keep that holiday feeling?

My lovely cat Thelma has been staring at an ant on the kitchen floor for the last 15 minutes, absolutely enrapt in the moment. “So what” I hear you cry, what’s so interesting about THAT INANE DETAIL to blog about it, for goodness sake, don’t you know how BUSY I AM going through all my e mails?! 

Well, Thelma isn’t living in the past or worrying about the yet to be revealed future, which she can’t change, she’s just enjoying being in the moment. Being in the moment is where happiness happens. When I stop being busy and focus on the here and now, it is a simply wonderful place. Time slows down, I feel carefree and it’s rather blissful. It’s easy in principle and very hard in practice because we have so much to do and it’s very easy not to.

Ok, so how do you do it? Kids and animals are great at it, so copying them helps. Stopping and becoming more aware of what your senses are noticing helps, instead of being on rush autopilot command control. Want to read more? Eckhart Tolle “Practicing the power of now“  is a great book.

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Spider Stops House Move

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A spider has been stopping my sister from moving house. Actually that’s not true. Spiders.  The shed at the bottom of her garden is looking a bit of a mess, so I asked her why she hadn’t cleared it out. She replied that her car’s not big enough to fit the things in and she needed to get someone with a big car to help her. Well I’ll help you, I replied. No! she retorted The real block turned out to be the prospect of her facing the spiders. I had many a fun time chasing her as a child with a spider encased in my hand, to the backdrop of her screams. 

Why am I telling you this story? It’s because the things that stop us from doing what we want or need to are not always obvious, they can be hidden. That’s one of the reasons why procrastination happens. Blocks can be conscious or unconscious and the bigger the task or change e.g. career change, the more the blocks can get in the way and so we keep on stopping ourselves and then get frustrated when we don’t make progress.

I had a block about becoming successful because I thought I’d become busy and get stressed, which I didn’t want to be. We can keep at bay things we want without realising WE are the root cause! What do you want to change and how are you stopping yourself? 

Often people are afraid of career change. Click on this link to download the FREE Energise report “Pain free career change” http://www.careerstrategies.co.uk/

Ever Encounter ‘Sod’s Law?’

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Do you ever encounter ‘sod’s law?’ You work really late to perfect a presentation and then it’s cancelled. You don’t take a great job at another company because you have your eye on your retiring boss’ position and then they give their job to someone else.  

Sod’s law is about things not going according to plan. But then who said there was a plan in the first place? 

Sod’s law is annoying but inevitable, the knocks that make the highs high. How can sod’s law be prevented? It probably can’t, but you can choose your attitude to it and be philosophical. If ever a prospect or client meeting is cancelled, rather than getting wound up, I feel glad of the unexpected spare time. What’s your biggest experience of ‘sod’s law’ and looking back, was it really such a sod?

Are you receiving the Energise monthly bulletins via e mail? Don’t miss out on free insights, tips and inspiring case studies. Click on this link to opt in.

http://visitor.constantcontact.com/d.jsp?m=1102862873131&p=oi

Human capital, Smart living and working , Self promotion, Career strategies

Fancy a day trip to avoid the budget news?

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Why not pop to Milton Keynes. Yes really. Not only does it have nearly as many roundabouts to get lost in as Swindon to distract you from capital gains increases, it also has an event on which will engage you. Forget champagne bars, this is the place to go. It ends on 30 June, so get your skates on. http://www.theartofengagement.co.uk

I find that many managers and leaders don’t ‘get’ employee engagement, despite the fact that there are a lot of fed up employees at the moment.  “How people feel affects how hard they work” is a very simple concept. The trouble is that there are a zillion factors that affect it, money being just 1.  The 5 year returns on average of organisations in the 3 Times Best companies to work for lists 2010 (Big, mid, small companies) outstrip those of the FTSE 100 firms more than 4 times; 15.5% compared with 3.5%, so maybe there is something in that soft fluffy engagement stuff after all? 

I don’t know about you, but as the average person spends around 80,000 hours at work in their lifetime, I want to enjoy my quota, especially as women in my family live until 98, so I’ll be about 88 when I retire at this rate.  What engages you at work and what disengages you?

A sense of anticipation?

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It’s the emergency budget tomorrow and there’s a sense of nervous anticipation in the country. People don’t like uncertainty at the best of times, especially if it is going to be good news! Could boost the sales of piggy banks, after all every upside has a downside!

Life can be such a paradox – get clear about what you want, anticipate it, feel it etc but don’t have expectations and be attached to the outcome. Reconcile that! Easier said than done.

It IS important to have a clear focus and know where you are heading, after all the whole coaching profession is set up on this basis, but expectations can be a killer! In relationships, with new business pitches etc

What’s the happy medium do you think?

Variety is the spice of life

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Metro newspaper today in London featured research showing that over half of women are bored. Bored with too much housework and their work being the same.

I refuse to iron – it’s against my principles and love linen as I can get away with it! Variety is one of my values and I feel ‘out of sorts’ if I don’t have enough variety, both socially and in my work. All my clients are different – the themes are similar e.g. fears about change, lack of confidence, challenging relationships, lack of time, and I learn so much from my clients. Often it’s like a mirror – they reflect the issues that I am facing!

What is an important value for you?

Knowing your values helps you to make more conscious choices about decisions and what you say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to. They also help to make sense of difficult emotions, because when our values aren’t honoured, we feel frustrated, sad etc. But that’s a topic for another day!