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Burnout: 1000 Paper Cuts

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For many, 2020 has been a year of 1000 paper cuts. Rather than one big event resulting in a dramatic case of spontaneous combustion it has been the one thousand paper cuts shredding our optimism, cutting away at our self-efficacy, and dicing our energy into exhaustion.

Rather than wallpapering our mind with premature resilience, I believe it is time to take stock. I believe the way out of something is through it — so if you feel burnt out I encourage you to stop, or at least pause, notice your wounds, and declare: “owie, owie, owie.”

I believe our wounds transformed can become our gifts to our community but let’s not rush it with images or being resilient rubber balls that just keep bouncing or Energizer bunnies mindlessly marching forward while pounding our drums to drown out pain.

It is okay to not be okay, Just because you start there doesn’t mean you stay there. You can move forward but sometimes we need to sway backwards a little bit to generate authentic movement and momentum.

Remember Scott Peck’s opening 3 words in The Road Less Traveled: “Life is difficult.”

Mindful Noticing: A Pathway to both Liking and Engagement

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A simple, yet very powerful, employee noticing practice.

Your mindfulness is expanded when you take time to notice new things or see old things in new ways. Ellen J. Langer’s research on mindfulness demonstrated that when we notice more about others and things we like them more and are more engaged with them.

So you don’t have to pay attention, it cost nothing. Give your attention freely to whoever or whatever is right in front of you. You can start small by even noticing 2 new things.

When you give others your attention, your mindfulness expands, and you create stronger more engaged relationships with others. You will also find yourself more engaged in your work.

Make everyday noticing your true gift for the New Year.

5 Zingers on How to Successfully Work From Home When You Have No Choice

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Once there was an elephant

who tried to use the telephant —

No! No! I mean an elephone

Who tried to use the telephone —

~ Laura Elizabeth Richards

With the mass enforced exodus from the workplace to home due to the coronavirus there has been a plethora of articles extolling a tyranny of tips to teach neophytes how to show up for work when you are forced to work from home.

Many of these tips take the form of commandments to the newly minted home worker.

  1. Thou shalt shower and dress properly before starting your day.
  2. Thou shalt work only in a spot in your home dedicated to your work!

At 65 years of age, let me face the elephant in the room, or at least in the picture below an elephant in the River Kwai. I have worked out of my home for 40 years and have seen many changes in how I work. In addition, what works one day may not work the next so as opposed to cajoling commandments, I offer 5 invitations to entertain as you muddle thought the trials and tribulations of doing homework when you thought you had left it all behind after grade twelve.

Before you read the five invitations, here is my one real tip: If you ever face an elephant while standing downstream in the River Kwai and the elephant needs do an elephant size number 2, swim to the side and upstream as fast as possible.

Do it your way. The Buddha said be a lamp unto yourself and Frank Sinatra sang, “I did it my way.” By all means read tips and articles and talk with others but primarily carve out your own path. Some of us love to do household chores between work tasks while others of us need to sequester in a small basement room with minimal noise and no family interaction. Don’t be surprised if your ways and means of work alter based on how you are that specific day, what is going on with anyone else living in the home (including the cat), and the nature of your task.

View this experience as an experiment. Perhaps when the crisis is over you will want to request more opportunities to work from home or you will know that you are meant to be in a bustling office with a cacophony of sounds and a myriad of incidental interactions. Be reflective about how your experience unfolds even if you capture yourself folding laundry when you desperately need to complete the quarterly projections. Stay curious and learn more about your own best ways of working.

Make memories. At one point during my career working from home, I had 3 children under two years of age inhabit the same place I worked (twins were born when our son was one). It was bat-shit crazy at times and the pablum on a report definitely diminished the report’s gravitas but today I have playful memories of the challenges and the time spent at home cemented a close relationship with my children.

Be mindful of your own engagement. To me engagement is caring. Take moments during the day to monitor how much you care about what you are doing. If you are full of care for your work, good— but if your caring is low be careful and don’t become careless. Good relationships can contribute to our caring so know that you may be on your own at home but you are not alone. Make good use of the plethora of tools to stay connected and supported with coworkers from email, text, and the phone to Skype, Zoom. and WhatsApp.

If you can laugh, you can last. Given this is a forced change know that things will go wrong. You may find yourself watching a game show at ten in the morning or you may find yourself with an appetite like an elephant knowing the fridge is just a few short steps away. If you work in your housecoat be sure it doesn’t suddenly fling open when you answer the door to sign for a package.

Please note that I inserted three elephants into this article and loosely referred to a bowel movement with the real elephant in the River Kwai. It wasn’t funny at the time but it brings a smile to my face now as I never knew how fast I could swim when fully motivated. Perhaps even if you feel you are sinking at times the necessity of working from home will help you to swim more powerfully into your work.

I am not prone to prayer but I like to start my working day with this modified serenity prayer composed by an anonymous woman named Jane N: “God grant me the laughter to see the past with perspective, face the future with hope, and celebrate today without taking myself too seriously.”

Perhaps before you return to the office you may discover, “there is no place like home.”

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Do you want some coaching/support/guidance on how to work at home? If you would like authentic and down to earth coaching directly with David Zinger, one of the world’s leading experts on employee experience and engagement, on how to work well at home I invited you to contact me for 1 or 2 individual coaching sessions via phone, Zoom, or Skype. During this challenging time I will reduce my fee to $100 Canadian a session — which is under $75 US per session. To get started email me: david@davidzinger.com.

Working from Home

The Secret Power of Moments for Full Engagement

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I believe one of the biggest barriers to full engagement in work is fear. Fear arrives in many forms. One form I am familiar with is procrastination. We put off. We delay. We think we lack good time management or tenacious willpower.

What we lack is a way to tackle the fear that surrounds being engaged and the answer resides in moments. The fear can range from the idea that even if we do our best it won’t be good enough to not even knowing how to do a task and afraid to ask for help.

We can often do in moments what we can’t do in grand plans, big strategies, and “smart” goals because moments shrink fear to something so small that we are no longer afraid.

Here is a simple equation to explain this:

Engagement = Moments > Fear

The next time you encounter personal disengagement and you believe fear is lurking behind the scenes I encourage you to remember this statement:

Moments shatter fear into tiny fragments that can easily be managed and overcome.

Take your next moment, separate it from the herd of endless time, and focus your work in that moment. When you start to string or stack together many moments you may even surprise yourself about what you can accomplish. The poet, William Blake, encourages us to see the world in a grain on sand…

Engage along with me, our best is yet to be.