Awesome Leaders: Dealing with Distractions
Welcome back!
One essential way to conserve energy is to ignore distractions. You don’t have time anymore for other people’s pettiness or squabbles. If you’ve been involved in drama, exist stage left on the run! Nothing will throw a person off course quicker than drama. Some people lose endless amounts of time because they are entangled in problems that aren’t even their own. Unless it involves a beloved friend or family member and your direct involvement is absolutely necessary, let people fight their own battles. We do bear a responsibility to protect our loved ones. However, if the person’s crisis is self-generated and there’s no real danger involved, it may be best to just stay out of it. Some people will never learn to make better choices until they begin experiencing their own consequences. We actually do them more harm than good by bailing them out of their endless scrapes. It is not your job to fix other people’s lives, it is your job to fulfill your destiny. Just like you can’t do other people’s exercise routines for them, you also can’t do other people’s emotional or spiritual work for them either.
Another major distraction is general negativity. You don’t need to hear all that’s wrong in the world right now. You need to be thinking about the positive. Better yet, this can be a vibrant time of celebrating all that is going well in your world. You can’t afford to have someone put doubts in your head, tell you that you’re crazy, or try to subtly convince you that you’re in the wrong for even trying. Attitudes are contagious and you want to make sure you aren’t unintentionally adopting anyone else’s discontented worldview. You’ve carefully crafted your thinking and approach to your dreams, so guard that well by not hanging around negative people or situations and absorbing their unhappiness. A few people enjoy the attention that stirring up trouble brings them, but they don’t realize that their reputation spirals further downwards with every incident that takes place. Others love to gossip, and live for the wagging of their own tongue. You can end up in the middle of a mess before you know it. Don’t take this particular form of manipulative bait, or you’ll fall into the trap like prey.
Until next time, stay focused and know that I’ll be praying for you!
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Awesome Leaders: Investing Your Energy
When setting a sustainable pace, one crucial area to be exceedingly mindful of is how you invest your energy. There is only so much of you to go around. You really are a finite resource. Don’t overcommit. Don’t allow dysfunctional people or situations to drain you of the energy you need to carefully protect for your most important priorities. Make sure you conserve your energy by taking time out from all the hard work and have some fun. Go to a ballgame, take the kids to the park, play with the dogs, surprise your spouse with a candlelight dinner, or whatever else will rejuvenate you and build the most important relationships in your life. Remember a huge reason you are pursuing your dream is because of them. If they are supporting you, and they are gracious enough to cheer you on, then you owe it to them to be self-disciplined enough to build in break times with them. You want to look back and say you did right by people while you were accomplishing your goals. You want your support people to feel as good about the process you followed as they do about the finished product. Taking time to refresh yourself will be of great benefit to your team as well. The more rested and happier you are, the more of your best self you can bring to them.
You also don’t want to ruin your own health. Some of us with Type-A personalities have to learn this lesson the hard way. Sometimes it takes a serious health scare to get our attention and show us the wisdom of a more sane pace of living. The human body was made for cycles of rest, work, and play. It wasn’t designed for non-stop effort. Chronically pushing it beyond the pace of what your particular body can tolerate spells disaster. Eat well, exercise, and get enough sleep to feel rested. If your dream requires you to put in extra-long hours for a period of time, that’s fine. But take a break when you need to and know when to get back to a more normal routine. You want to be alive and well to enjoy the fruits of your labor!
Until next time my beloved fans, I will be praying for you. š
Awesome Leaders: Sustainable Life Practices
Setting a sustainable pace is a critical part of building a successful life. Being out of balance only works for so long. If you lose your health or your family along the way, it defeats the purpose. Your body, mind, spirit, and family must be able to tolerate what you are doing long-term. You are a vessel, and you want to have a clean, healthy flow. You do not want to be a clogged pipe filled with sludge. You have an enormous say in how long you live, and what the quality of that life is. Decluttering your life doesn’t give you less, it actually gives you more. As you let go of obligations, attachments, habits, and possessions that serve no real purpose in getting you to your goal, your life becomes filled with only what is the most meaningful to you. You get to decide what your life is about.
The effort and energy required to reach your goals will vary over time. But keep in mind that no endeavor in life requires nonstop maximum effort. The human body, mind, and spirit simply cannot sustain an endless level of high speed performance. We need to spend time planning when we need to work our hardest, balanced with the other things that matter the most to us in our life. Otherwise, people get exhausted. Operating from an exhausted state creates dangers we otherwise wouldn’t face. Our thinking isn’t as clear, and our decision making abilities are compromised.
Give yourself the gift of a carefully balanced strategy, and then trust your plan enough to follow it. Time, logistics, and finances may all need to shift. But if you’ve done an intentional, mindful job of thinking things all the way through, you’ll have come up with a plan to minimize any negative impact. This is when self-discipline becomes a defining characteristic of your life. Some folks never come up with a plan to achieve their goals. Even fewer have a plan and do what it takes to get started. Even less get underway and stick with it when it gets hard. That means the self-disciplined person’s chances of success are outstanding. It’s going to take discipline to follow your plan. Remember though, that breaks are absolutely necessary when you need them. The beauty of a sustainable pace is that it has enduring flexibility that allows you to work hard then rest, while maintaining focus and building progress over the long-haul. Once you have sustainable practices in place, you will gain momentum that will carry you along.
Until next time, I wish you peace and remember that me and Jesus love you! š
Respectfully,
Deb
Awesome Leaders Bonus: Two Other Issues That Can Trip Us Up (Part Two)
Leaders my leaders, welcome back!
Last week we talked about how even if you have worked hard to get healthy, family of origin issues created by dysfunctional family members can still trip us up. Today we’re going to talk about relationships / marriage. The person with whom you share your life has more of an impact on you than anyone. Your future is intertwined with them. This relationship deserves special care, and an investment of your time, effort, and energy. Getting this relationship right is one of the best gifts you can ever give yourself. Your personal and professional life can quite literally depend on it. Setting boundaries with them is essential too, but it is extraordinarily difficult not to be heavily impacted by what they choose to do. But it remains true that the healthier you are, the healthier the relationship becomes. Just like with your family of origin, it is absolutely not ok to allow them to rob you of your health or well-being in any area of your life. If you are being abused, reach out for help. You deserve better than a life of fear and pain.
Your relationship is as unique as a fingerprint. It is a living, breathing entity all its own. When you treat it as a sacred treasure, you maximize your chances of success. The examples of loving relationships we’ve seen in our lives greatly impacts how we view relationships in general, and how we act in specific situations. The good news is that we can make healthier choices about how we define relationships and how we love within them. If we are listening, our partner is telling us how to be successful with them. When we pay attention and honor them, we have successful interactions. When we don’t, we have trouble. If our partner is making a reasonable request of us, based on healthy needs, then there probably isn’t a healthy reason for opposing or defying that request. Perhaps the details will need to be negotiated, but the request itself is not objectionable. The more requests you can fulfill for each other, the happier you are going to be.
Even the strongest couples can be stressed to a breaking point if the events in their life overwhelm their coping resources. Work to build up your ability to weather any storm that comes. Learning how to provide for and protect the relationship are vital tasks for building a lifetime of success together. A major part of having a successful relationship is having the ability and the willingness to negotiate how to handle whatever life brings your way, then honoring those agreements. When you provide for and invest in your life together, you stockpile resources that can be used when life gets rough. When you put protections in place, you create a buffer zone around the relationship to help it withstand anything that arises. Then the two of you can rely on finding shelter and staying strongly connected inside that protectedĀ zone.
Until next time, work on getting things right with the one you love, or at least making some good progress for yourself!
Awesome Leaders Bonus: Two Other Issues That Can Trip Us Up (Part One)
Leaders my Leaders, welcome back!
In addition to the five major issues we previously discussed, there are two other areas that can cause us significant problems in our private and professional lives: family of origin issues, and relationship problems. Even if you have excavated your own issues and worked them through to a good resolution, other people can keep you mired in problems that are not of your own making. If you are dealing with someone who has one of the five major impairments we’ve already covered, it will have an impact on you. It’s essential that for your own well-being and the good of your team, you find ways to put good boundary lines around the problem.
Family of origin issues can follow us right into adulthood. Unhealthy families are unable to let go of control over their members. They demand that people remain in their old roles, following old rules. If anyone deviates from that script, it is considered a betrayal and punishment swiftly follows. Families of this type are especially outraged when people grow beyond the dysfunction and get healthy. Concerted efforts are usually made to get those who have wandered from the family narrative, to resubmit to family control. It isn’t just parents either. Sometimes, parents are highly supportive of their adult children, but it is the siblings who want to keep the old family ways going because they get something out of it. It is absolutely ok to love these people anyway. But it is absolutely not ok to allow them to rob you of any aspect of your health, your relationship, or your career. If you can have a conversation to ask for the changes you need, have it. But if you think it won’t be received well, or respected, then it falls to you to either limit contact with these people, or limit the impact they have on you and your life. Don’t compromise your values or well-being for them. Hold that line. Enjoy the parts of the relationship that are good, if there are any. And either head home or take a break if things get to be too much. Make a decision in advance how you are going to respond (not react) when old stuff starts up. Then stick with your plan and make adjustments as time goes on. When you refuse to yield the healthy ground you have fought for and won for yourself and your life, other people will be forced to change how they relate to you. You might not ever change who they are, how they act, or what is wrong with them, but you will change how they relate to you and sometimes, that’s enough.
Next week we’ll talk about relationships. Until then, keep making progress so that you can break free from the issues that are holding you back!
Awesome Leaders: The 5 Issues That Can Hold You Back (Part Two)
Leaders my leaders, welcome back!
Let’s continue our discussion of the categories of trouble that can bring serious strife into your personal and professional life, and shipwreck your leadership career.
4)Ā Drama Stagers. These folks are the ones who create particularly crazy making environments. Work is a theater to them, a stageĀ upon which to act out their moods, whims, and issues. They are well aware of their behaviors and they calculate how to use it to gain an advantage at the expense of those around them. They did not necessarily grow up in an addicted family, nor do they necessarily have any other kind of psychological problem. The defining characteristic of drama stagers is that they choose to continue acting in destructive ways because of the benefits it provides them. They can be merciless, and have no problem sacrificing other people and what is important to them. These folks have an inflexible narrative about themselves and the world. They will do anything to preserve, protect, and defend that narrative. They constantly scan for threats, challenges, or violations of their narrative. Essentially, they have decided what their life should be like and assigned the rest of us roles that support their desired objective. We are almost always unaware of our role, but we still get punished when we don’t play our part. Drama stagers attack people, not problems. They don’t want problems to be fixed, that is not their point. Spinning people in chaotic circles is the point. Drama stagers are weapons of mass disruption in the work environment, creating upheaval where there had been none before.
5) Immaturity. These people simply haven’t grown up yet. Perhaps they are lacking in skills, perhaps it is their choice. Whatever the reason, they cause plenty of chaos in the workplace because they do not handle themselves in a mature, professional manner. They are the peopleĀ who ridicule, gossip, bully, harass, and otherwise show off for their buddies by being completely obnoxious. I refer to this as the arm-fart stage of development, because it is behavior typically found in a junior high cafeteria. Immature people also throw temper tantrums. Their emotional management skills are at a toddler’s level of development. They are easily insulted, offended, and angered. They can be verbally abusive, slam doors, throw things, and otherwise act out to get their way. They have adolescent style fits of rebelling and defying normal workplace protocols. These are the chronic slackers, whiners, and socializers. They cause a great deal of disruption in the workplace, all of it designed to raise their social stock or shirk responsibility.
Next week we’ll cover two other areas that can really trip us up personally and professionally. Until then, take a good honest look at the five major areas of trouble. If you recognize yourself in any of them, then it’s time to set about the hard work of changing so that you can do right by your team, your organization, and perhaps most importantly, yourself.