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By Diana Raab, PhD, Award-winning author/poet/blogger/speaker
I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.” ~ Hermann Hesse The way in which you deal with the stresses and our ‘new norm’ bestowed on us by the pandemic, could be an indication of how resilient you really are. Resilience is defined as the ability to withstand or recover from difficult situations. It’s the ability to ‘spring back,’ in spite of all odds. It’s how you’re able to restore equilibrium in your life during or following upheaval. In recent months many of us have encountered many new challenges, personal, economic, psychological and/or emotional, and it’s certainly a good test of resilience.  There’s more to life than reaching targets – Try including life skills for support to achieve a more balanced life? By Suzie Doscher, Executive Coach & Life Coach focusing on Personal Development,
Self-help Author When a company focuses solely on reaching targets and continually pushes employees to reach these goals, the side effects often result in a high turnover and burnout rate. Ironically, this can cause the company NOT to achieve its targets in the desired timeframe. Pushing too hard in one direction results in an inevitable push back from the opposite direction. This is a law of nature that applies to the business world as well. Stressed employees trying to reach sometimes unrealistic or unnecessary targets tend to operate at half of their capacity. They start to make mistakes and lose track of the details amid their overwhelming work schedules. They tend to suffer physically exhaustion as well. All of this hurts productivity, the very thing the company is trying to increase. Empower yourself by not only connecting, but also aligning your life (and that includes life at work) with your core values. In my experience finding out or rediscovering what my personal values are was one of the most important steps in my personal growth. If I think back at the person, I was before I reconnected with them… ‘a loose cannon’ comes to mind. I had lots of things in place, lots of boxes ticked but at the same time my life was not making me happy. I was not satisfied let alone had anything even remotely close to inner peace. Once I discovered what is truly important to, what nurtures me, what allows me to feel like myself and grow into my skin then my life started changing. The reason being that I felt I had a foundation to live life from. I noticed my values are the bricks to my foundation, they are what grounds me. It was so exciting to find out that these values are part of me, inside of me and always there. Living in alignment with them does not actually cost me anything. There is a ‘cost’, this comes in the form of time. I take time to nurture them, to feel strong and fully in my personal power. I feel my inner light is shining. To give you some examples: I found out that one of my values is open communication. Without this I do not truly find comfort. Lacking clarity is acceptable only if there simply is no clarity available at that moment in time. Consequently, I accept that there is no clarity possible. I reduce my wish to know more ... and accept not knowing is my reality at that moment in time. Another value is Nature. It is very important to me to be able to access it easily. Even when I have lived in big cities, or travel to them, the first place I look for is a park. I always check out where I can go for an early morning walk. Being in nature revitalizes me, allows me to breathe and to start the day with a clear mind. If that is not possible plan B is do some stretches and observe the sky or whatever is growing nearby in a pot, window box or even a weed that found its way through the cracks in the sidewalk. These are examples of two of my personal core values and what actions I have learned to take to be true to them. I work with a variety of people dealing with a variety of concerns holding their lives back.One of the exercises I find most empowering is guiding them to find out what their core values are and how to align their lives with what is important to them. Not what family, friends, partners, society, gurus, or the media deem important but what is truly of value to them personally … deep down inside, in their hearts. “You have your power when you live in alignment with your personal values. This means living with respect for yourself, being true to yourself and what is important to you.” The benefits of connecting to your core values and aligning your life with them will be joy, energy, motivation, focus, reaching goals, happiness and my personal favourite inner peace and inner calm. Suzie Doscher, Coaching for Personal Development Photo: Suzie Doscher, Thalwil, Switzerland  “Let us reflect on what is truly of value in life What gives meaning to your life And set your priorities based on that” Jack Kornfield By Karen Bridbord, Ph.D., Licensed Psychologist and Organizational Consultant When I wrote about the inflection of workplace culture back in May, I was expecting the pandemic to be a distant memory by now. Remember when we all thought it was going to last three weeks? Yet today, six months into the most significant global health crisis of our lifetime, we find ourselves still grappling with uncertainty. Instead of creating new rituals to uplift and ground us as we find ourselves, as I recommended in the beginning of the pandemic, we now must find a way to sustain ourselves. We’re collectively exhausted. This pandemic is a marathon, not a sprint, and we need to act accordingly. This includes adjusting our company values and how they’re operationalized in our organizational cultures.  Shutterstock By Sweta Bothra, Lead Therapist at InnerHour, a Mental Health Platform What kind of mindset do you have? Is it one that drives you to become the best version of yourself, even when times get tough? A mindset can be defined as the way in which a person perceives themselves and the world around them. Your mindset can hugely impact your behaviours, ideas and choices you make when it comes to your goals. It can even affect your work, relationship with others and daily routine. Ultimately, the kind of mindset you have defines you who are and who you can become. There are two types of mindsets – fixed and growth. Let’s look at each in a little more detail.  Taking on passion projects outside of my working hours has helped me combat stress, recharge my batteries, and deepen my connections. By Ryan Frankel, Founder, CEO at This App Saves Lives Photo by Hannah Olinger on Unsplash Entrepreneurs are notoriously driven. We are laser-focused souls, keen on achieving our objectives and willing to overcome mountains of challenges in order to do so. And while the rigors and joys of entrepreneurship ebb and flow throughout the lifecycle of a business, we’re all too familiar with periods of tremendous stress and moments when it’s unclear how we will bounce back from the latest challenge. Having a healthy outlet for stress release is critical to coming back recharged day after day. For me, this has always been taking part in endurance fitness events such as triathlons, running races or cycling trips. And yet several years ago, I found myself literally physically broken after sustaining a ...  Everybody has an inner saboteur’; the ‘inner critic’. Think of the times when you have asked yourself “Why did I do that?” I like to think of self-sabotage as ‘a virus in the software. Shutterstock by Suzie Doscher
This is a big topic and unique to each person depending on what exactly your self-sabotage routine is and how it shows up. Have you ever wondered just how much you hold yourself back and / or limit yourself with self-sabotaging behaviour patterns? Self-sabotage can be described as running interference on yourself. I suggest ‘awareness’ is the first and most important step towards dealing with it – the awareness of this patterns existence. Everybody has an inner saboteur’; the ‘inner critic’. Think of the times when you have asked yourself “Why did I do that?” I like to think of self-sabotage as ‘a virus in the software,’ The job is to get rid of it and run a new program. Healthy routines are those that move your life forward, such as maintaining some kind of equilibrium, maintaining your physical and mental health. A routine becomes sabotage when it keeps you stuck in the same place, treading water, not moving forward. What started these self-sabotage routines and where they come from is well researched in psychology. by Suzie Doscher, Executive Coach and Life Coaching focusing on Personal Development, Self-Help Author: Balance - A Practical Handbook for Life's Difficult Moments
Coaching your team? Add this skill to your coaching style – being non-judgmental. There is an abundance of articles on being a coach to your people. I enjoy reading the quality information provided by the Harvard Business Review. The desire to increase, enhance or maintain the quality of work, and in some cases even the quality of life at work, is evident. The article in the HBR: Most Managers Don’t Know How to Coach. But They Can Learn, offers wonderful insights on what coaching is all about and aims to achieve. Your responsibilities include leading, motivating, inspiring and with your coaching you hope to further their growth, development and enhance their skills. By Brigid Schulte, BBC Worklife
Let’s see if this sounds familiar: You churn through the day at work under deadline pressure, racing to meetings, dashing off emails, feeling busy, purposeful and a little breathless. Yet as the end of the traditional workday draws near, you realise with a sinking feeling that you haven’t even begun the big project you meant to tackle that day. So you bring work home, or decide not to and can’t stop feeling guilty about it. Either way, your work is spilling over into the rest of your life, stealing time and mental bandwidth away from family or rest or fun, and leaving you feeling exhausted and a little resentful. You resolve that tomorrow will be different. But come morning, you inevitably find yourself back on the treadmill of busyness. That’s a pattern Antonia Violante has seen a lot at workplaces she’s been studying in the United States for a project on work-life balance. Behavioural scientists and researchers like her call it “tunnelling”. When we’re stressed and feeling pressed for time, Violante explains, our attention and cognitive bandwidth narrow as if we’re in a tunnel. It can sometimes be a good thing, helping us hyper-focus on our most important work. When we’re stressed and feeling pressed for time…our attention and cognitive bandwidth narrow as if we’re in a tunnel.  “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it” - Charles R. Swindoll (Shutterstock) Learning how to respond to a situation rather than just reacting to it brings huge rewards. Needless to say, it is one of those behaviour changes that is easier said than done. However it can be achieved.
Responding rather than reacting means you will have taken time to consider the situation and which response and consequent outcome best suits you. The difference between reacting and responding:
To react means you are not able to influence your emotions and you act emotionally rather than from a place of clarity. What you can gain by stopping knee-jerk reactions is a sense of strength, achievement, power to influence, calmness, plus an increase in your self-esteem. The rewards will be felt not only in your private life, but also at work. by Suzie Doscher
Feel like you keep facing the same uphill struggle? Sometimes you create your own problems with your thoughts and beliefs. It is these particular thoughts that hold you back, keep you stuck and consequently limit you. In my coaching practice, as well as my own personal experience, I have witnessed how a self-sabotage routine can be created with these thoughts and beliefs. If you find that you keep coming back to the same type of situation again and again, it is well worth exploring if, in fact, you are running a self-sabotage routine. To break this self-sabotage cycle, you will need to first determine what this limiting thought or belief is. Once you have figured that out (by yourself, with the help of a friend/boss or qualified coach), consider the information below to help yourself make a lasting change. The best approach is to replace whatever you are thinking is with a thought that is more positive. For example:
By Marcel Schwantes at Inc. In 2016, the World Economic Forum released its fascinating Future of Jobs Report, where they asked chief human resources officers from global companies what they saw as the top 10 job skills required for workers to thrive by 2020. One skill projected for success in 2020 that didn’t even crack the top 10 list in 2015 was — you guessed it — emotional intelligence. According to many experts in the field, emotional intelligence has become an important predictor of job success for nearly two decades, even surpassing technical ability. In one noteworthy CareerBuilder survey of more than 2,600 U.S. hiring managers and human resources professionals, it was found that “fifty-nine percent of employers would not hire someone who has a high IQ but low [emotional intelligence].” In fact, 75 percent of survey respondents said they’re more likely to promote someone with high emotional intelligence over someone with high IQ. Companies are placing a high value on workers with emotional intelligence for several reasons. In my own studies and observations over the years as a leadership coach, here are six that really stand out... By Marina Khidekel, Head of Content Development at Thrive Global
We all have our own ways of getting our creative juices flowing. While some of us feel inspired after taking a walk in nature, others might get our biggest bursts of inspiration in the shower, or while sitting in total stillness. We asked our Thrive community to share the specific rituals that spark creativity and inspire their best ideas. Which of these will you try the next time you need a creative boost? Establish a creative morning ritual “I start most days with a small creative ritual. Before the rest of the house wakes up, I drink my coffee, grab my art supplies and journal, and proceed to paint, collage, write, and just create something each day. For me, the key is keeping the ritual tied to a well-established habit – my morning drink — and keeping my supplies organized and visible near my kitchen table. I find that on days I take this time, I’m much happier and less stressed.” —Jill Elliott, founder of The Color Kind, Dallas, TX  Shutterstock 'Balance - A Practical Handbook and Workbook for Life's Difficult Moments' by Suzie Doscher is about change and learning the necessary everyday skills required for life = life skills. The exercises help you improve the quality of your life, supports you in difficult moments and handle life’s challenging every-day situations better. It is a practical hands-on self coaching tool. Read or listen to it when you feel vulnerable, unsure of yourself, or ineffective in difficult and stressful moments. Learn how to handle your stress effectively with the help of the insights in the book. Bear in mind that there is no balance where there is stress – stress contradicts calmness and happiness. Choose which one you wish to have more of..it is up to you. The goal of this book is to help you create new opportunities, learn new behaviors, and become the best version of yourself. It is all about practical action oriented insights, steps and behavior change. Order Your Book Now
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