As a leader with your team, as a parent with your kids, or in any close personal relationship, you will experience periods where you feel drained, anxious, or exhausted when it comes to managing the relationship.
Our culture even prizes the notion of being able to handle highly-stressful work settings, treating it like a desirable work skill.
Whenever we make changes, either personally or professionally, we are going to run into tasks that are uncomfortable. They may seem simple on the surface, but because they are new, they take more time and energy. The good news is that once you get yourself moving and actually do the tasks a few times, they slowly get easier, more comfortable, less fraught with conflict, and they start taking less time and less energy.
Before you even open your mouth, they already have an idea of who you are, what you think of them, what your agenda is, and what you want from them. Whatever words come out of your mouth will be automatically “fit” into their existing paradigm.
What will my parents think? What will my boss think? What will my friends think? These are the worries that influence our decisions and cause us the most anxiety. The good news is, most of those judgmental thoughts we fear are illusions. They don’t actually exist, except in our heads. Don’t believe me? Consider this.
The first several months of a new job can be incredibly stressful as you work hard to make a good impression and show your new employer that they made a good hiring decision. But sometimes trying too hard can backfire and your efforts end up alienating the very people you are trying to impress. Here is a story of how one manager navigated this tricky terrain.
Bosses are tough to deal with in general. They represent authority, and they often bring back memories of what we hated most in our relationships with our parents and teachers growing up. The micro-managing boss is especially hard to handle if you are creative, innovative, and want to make a contribution of your own in an organization. But since quite a few people in management positions fit this profile, chances are you will end up with one at some point in your career. Here are some tips to help you get the space you need to thrive.
If you are working in a draining environment, you may be tempted to quit so you have time and energy to move forward. But unfortunately, that extra time will be replaced with panic if you don’t have a source of income to keep you comfortably afloat for at least a year. When I work with people who are panicking about running out of money, it is difficult for them to be confident during interviews, and they tend to take the first opportunity that provides income, whether it’s a good fit or not. Which may put you in a worse position than you were in before.
You have a dream or a fantasy that you flirt with from time to time in your head. You wonder whether you should try to make it happen. You wonder if you have what it takes. Then you forget about it. For a long period of time – could be months or years, ideas pop in and out of your head. You may even have spurts of energy where you gather information or start moving forward, but they are very short lived. Throughout all of this you feel uncertain. The stage ends when you decide for certain that you will at least give it a shot.
Businesses need customers, and sometimes this idea creates one-sided relationships that can have you walking on eggshells or exhausted by the end of the day. But you don’t have to settle for challenging customer relationships. Here are a few guidelines that some of my clients have used to shift the energy, especially with their most demanding clients.
Most new entrepreneurs make the mistake of thinking that a unique idea is the key to success, and because of their protectiveness, they have a hard time moving forward and putting their idea into action. They only talk to people who are willing to sign non-disclosure statements, and even then are somewhat vague about what they plan on doing.The fear is, “What if someone steals my idea?” But what you may not realize is that at least two thousand other people in the world probably have the exact same idea you do. It’s not the idea itself that makes a business, it’s the execution of that idea, and as the business grows, things will normally change.
