Tranquil Tuesday

When you’re under a lot of stress, it’s easy to lose perspective and think that “Nothing is worse than what’s happening to me,” but I found a simple experiment helped me regain my perspective:

I asked myself which situation could I handle for a longer time period, bearing my stressful problem or holding my breath. I quickly found the lack of oxygen infinitely more difficult to handle. I couldn’t hold my breath for more than a minute, but I had been bearing with my stressful problems for days. This little experiment, as silly as it sounds, caused a shift in my thinking that made it easier to with my personal life stressors.

Thoughtful Thursday

Does your mind know where you are? Behind on a deadline? Beside yourself? Over a barrel?  Unemployed? Underemployed? 

Is your mind asking questions like “What am I learning to make my life easier (or at least more bearable)? Is it coming up with answers or at least making a date with you for later that day to look for answers on the web, in libraries, and from people with more experience? 

Answers are out there. From Hi Tech: A wristwatch (google ‘personal management wristwatches’) that will download your schedule from your personal computer, display it on your watch, and help you manage your time with alarms, to Low Tech: Advice on innovative strategies for finding jobs by asking priests, ministers, or Rabbis, etc. There are more out there than you could ever use, so set your mind out after them!

Wellness Wednesday!

It’s Wednesday. Is your mind stuck on the uphill side of hump day? Economic uncertainty weighs so heavily on the minds of people with the news of the past weeks. And feeling that burden makes it easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it’s going to be too hard to complete the important jobs on your list for the week. That’s an example of a cognitive distortion called “Negative Predictions” which can hurt your motivation.

If you’re having a hard time with hump day engage your mind in a hard look at your job list for anything you tell yourself that only  you can do because you believe nobody else will do it the right way. That’s an example of Emotional Reasoning (making judgments based on emotions while ignoring the facts).  In so many cases we overburden ourselves this way, making the hump of hump day way too steep. Flatten it out a little bit. Use your engaged mind to give yourself permission to delegate one or more jobs to another member of your team at work or a family member at home; or take a job off of your list for this week and move it to next week, even if only to give you one more day. I’ve seen this prevent many a meltdown.