Who doesn’t experience overwhelm sometimes? Although it doesn’t happen to me often, when it does, it is as though I am driving in first gear, without my Satnav and only brain fog for company. It is a sign I have left things too long and I need to start taking control now, if not sooner. Is this something you recognise in your life?
If only we could have demands, duties and deadlines flow in at exactly our preferred work rate. Enough to keep us engaged and feeling productive. But not so much that the stress of it damages our results and sense of worth.
But this is the real world. We can rarely control the amount of work and demands we experience, but we can control our response to them so that we feel more productive, more empowered and less stressed. In this article, I share my top ten: ones I use with my clients and also on myself when overwhelm strikes.
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I’ve been doing talks recently about stress, mental health and wellness at work. And one of the statistics which people find most alarming is that almost one in three people have experienced either unmanageable stress or mental ill-health at work (depression or anxiety). 62% of people attribute this in full or in part to work.
We all have 1440 minutes every day. Yet some people seem to achieve so much and others barely make a dent on their good intentions. And yet others seem to be incredibly busy achieving absolutely nothing, least of all a sense of achievement or fulfilment. There are many reasons this could be true and one way to think about it is to consider how you use your time according to how much you do of each of the following:
It is Ken Blanchard who said that feedback is the breakfast of champions. But it always seems so stressful. Whether you’re giving it or receiving it, few people are comfortable around it. It has got to the point where organisations are questioning the validity of appraisals and one company, GE, are calling feedback Insights so people feel less antsy about it. Why?