‘Cape-Up’ to ‘Keep-Up’!

I’m not talking about dressing up as superheroes!  However, we could all do with a ‘cape’ to see us through challenging times.  What if we can have a ‘cape’, even if it is invisible?  And, what if we get to keep that cape?  What superpowers would we want emitting from it when we ‘showup’ ready to engage as the best version of ourselves?  What if we could be a hero to ourselves?  In turn, this would enable us to ‘power-up’ and be a hero for others.  As we are adapting, and transitioning through unchartered, changing times, we can ‘cape-up’ to ‘keep-up’ if we start taking the act of ‘self-care’ seriously.  Your professional relationship engagement skills, demeanour and composure, productivity output effectiveness, stress management, and overall neuro wellness functionality (developing and growing internal programming skills) and vitality are at stake.

Differentiate Between Intentional Self-Care and Illusional Self-Care

I would like to dispel all myths, that self-care is associated with being selfish or self-centred. It is quite the opposite!  Perhaps you think that it is just something associated with women……aargh! For any male readers, please feel free to call it ‘man-care’, ‘cop-on care’, ‘self-management’, or ‘wellness-care’.  I do not mind what you call it, just once you are actively taking care of yourself is all that counts.  Reflectively, let us take a ‘deep dive’ to establish what self-care is, and isn’t.  To do that, let us differentiate between what I refer to as ‘intentional’ self-care versus ‘illusional’ self-care.  Self-care is the intentional care of one’s mental, physical, and emotional health, achieved through every day practises and activities.  It is the conscious, deliberate work we do on ourselves with an ‘inside-out’ approach. This supports our ‘system management’ functionality (our biological resources) and ‘sustainability’ in terms of our overall wellness and health care success. Self-care enables us to ‘prime’ our system management wellness internally to optimally integrate with our outside external challenges and the world we live in.  This in turn supports activating and boosting healthy performance levels.  Lack of self-care can potentially feel like you are spinning one too many plates and struggling to keep them all rotating and balanced.

Self-care is about doing many things we often don’t feel like doing.  The ‘ugly’ stuff that is acting in our best interests!  Be it going for a morning run in the freezing cold, or fighting with ourselves, not to overindulge on junk food or treats.  It is not just about lifestyle choices to keep ourselves physically fit; we have our emotional and mental health to take care of.  Let us park that for a moment, and take a look at ‘illusional’ self-care.  

Illusional self-care is the delusion that you are practising self-care; however, it is more focused from an external perspective.  Here are some examples of what that might look like. Taking time out to ‘treat’ yourself to shopping.  Having a bath surrounded with candles.  Power dressing to paper over the cracks.  Grooming within an inch of your life while still feeling like crap on the inside.  Taking time out from the world because you are so exhausted from working crazy hours.  Having a device detox day.  None of this constitutes the act of self-care.  It is just occasionally ‘being kind’ to yourself (which trust me, I’m not knocking), or a temporary ‘rescue’ quick fix, that is merely sticking a band-aid on your wellness and giving you some temporary feel-good factor. It is not consistent, and it is not enabling your daily wellness.  Illusional self-care can be seen as stop, start attempts, doing a little bit here and there, but nothing that is consistent or sticking.  Perhaps, all your eggs and effort are going in one basket, looking after the physical side of things, and emotional and mental factors are neglected!  While there are fantastic psychological and emotional benefits to be gained from physical exercise, which I advocate, on its own, it often is not enough.  Many people, when dealing with daily stressors, high stake situations, and challenges don’t know how to manage stress ‘in the moment’ when it occurs.

Self-care is about creating a life you truly and actively want to ‘live in’ daily. Not a life you are trying to escape from, or take breaks from.  It is not about creating distractions to run from your problems or challenges. It is not about ignoring the difficult things you need to do, like tax returns or putting off medical appointments, or having uncomfortable conversations that will potentially mend gaps or fix situations.  It is not about surviving on autopilot, binge-watching Netflix to drown out emotional upset, or boredom, or laziness to bail out on your house chores, or reaching for booze as a coping mechanism to switch off after a stressful day.  

Insights into Protecting your Emotional and Mental Wellness Supporting Healthy Relationship Engagement

Self-care is about enabling alignment and balance in your life through daily self-care rituals and routines.  The word discipline seems to scare some people somewhat.   So, apply what ‘word’ works best for you.  Part of self-care is about getting good at saying ‘no’ to people,  situations, experiences, behaviour and actions (in yourself and others) that are not acting in your best interests! It is about saying ‘no’ to overextending yourself.  Self-care is about building healthy boundaries in terms of your relationships with others.  Being select on what you do, and don’t allow in from others to protect your own emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual wellness. It is about saying ‘no’ to friends, family members and colleagues that suck your energy or don’t treat you like you deserve.  It is about understanding behaviours and triggers in ‘you’ that you don’t like, which results in you acting out of character.  Equally, the same applies in your interactions with others. Self-care is about dropping tolerations.  The more things you are tolerating that you are not happy about, the more energy drain you are going to experience.  If it is something you feel you currently can’t change, perhaps you are unhappy in your job, accept it for the benefits it brings you, and put healthy boundaries in place to protect your mental and emotional wellness. 

If in the instance there is something you no longer wish to put up with, perhaps someone is in the habit of being unfair, dismissive, unkind, micromanaging you, for example, you can make an informed decision to put a healthy boundary in place to protect yourself – you may wish to inform someone in a non-offensive manner that their behaviour of a certain nature is not or no longer acceptable.   You may wish to soften that down in your tonality while remaining assertive, but you get the gist (yes, that is a big one to do that, but can come at a high cost to you if you don’t). If we don’t address behaviours in others that are making us unhappy, we are giving them permission to treat us that way, and that just simply is not right.  The more tolerations you lose, the more time and energy you free up for beneficial, and priority value-driven aspects you care about and that are important to you.  It is about saying ‘yes’ to all this good stuff!  Be kind to yourself in the process of building and developing healthy boundaries.  You can expect to experience resistance in yourself and from others as you start to apply and integrate them into your life.  I encourage you to stick with it, keep practising the process of applying them and reap the benefits of nurturing your own levels of self-regard, confidence, assertiveness and independence.  All of which are key emotional intelligence skills to develop.

Get Ahead of Making Excuses and Broken Promises To Yourself – Boost Your Mindset Skills

If at some point in your life you got great results from doing something because you felt like doing it, it may perhaps have led you into a false lull, that you need to ‘feel’ like doing something in order to do it.  Then that is a load of codswallop, unfortunately.  I do empathise, as I do get it.  Perhaps view it this way, our ‘thoughts’ and ‘feelings’ are like very close neighbours, often having heated controversial debates with each other.  Your lack of ‘feeling the love’ with doing something usually shouts the loudest!  This is the emotional part of your brain trying to veer you off track!  Such cheek!  To override that, and veer your thinking into the logical prefrontal cortex part of your mind you need fast-acting thinking skills to intercept the entourage of ‘excuses’ and ‘buts’, that all too commonly love to make a self-sabotaging appearance.  I get my daily dose of ‘excuses’ and ‘buts’ the same as everyone else.

My trick to ward them off, is asking myself ‘what are the benefits attached to doing this?’  I will list the top benefits that crop up.  Sometimes, that just does it for me.   If I’m having a very persistent stubborn moment with myself, I will persist, and say ‘ok, what else, what other benefits?’  At least now I’m in the logical part of my brain having positive solution-orientated chats with myself.  If I am having an all-out bad day ‘just not feeling it’, thankfully I have a persistent skill set for asking questions.  What is it costing me if I don’t go for my run today?  One I love to use is ‘What is acting in my best interests?’  This one is always hard to argue with. Having a few ‘empowering enabling questions’ to the ‘ready’ is a great way to ‘shift’ your mindset, and reframe your thinking to get you moving.  I strongly encourage you to explore with it and come up with your own empowering enabling questions that resonate with you.  

Raising Awareness – Checking-in on Yourself

When it comes to self-care, please realise you cannot run effectively on ‘empty’ or stop/start attempts!  Be it self-care or self-management, it comes before people care and people management.  The act of self-care involves the self-mastery of learning how to embody ‘slowing things’ down.  If your ‘mind is full’ and frazzled, think of it as bringing your headspace into a ‘mindful’ space. At least long enough to check-in on yourself and ‘listen’ to what your needs are at intervals throughout the day: Am I hunger?  How am I feeling?  What do I need?  Am I tired?  Am I irritable? What energy feed am I bringing into my workspace?  Have conscious awareness that the energy signals you transmit in the ‘open-loop system’, that exist between human to human are highly contagious energy field frequencies which provide us with lots of valuable data on the vibes and signals we pick up from each other.  These show up in your mere presence though your state of being.  Be it negative, positive, tired, stressed signals emitting from you, these will be detected automatically, and experienced from others in your company, through your body language alone.  Neuroscience tells us that our body language counts towards 55% of how we communicate.  This includes our online communication and presence.  How you show up is having a biochemical reaction on how others will experience you.  Within 0.7 seconds, this will be a good or bad experience for others and how they resonate with you.  That is how fast we are impacting people when we show up in front of them. 

Benefits and Tips Attached to Self-Care and Neuro Wellness

Self-care, wellness and health management should be your top core priority goal.  Not just from a professional perspective supporting your performance output, and facing daily challenges and stressors, however, from an adaption and sustainability perspective for longevity and life extension.  That is a reason if ever there is one!  Sticking around in healthy condition, to continue to share your life’s journey with those that already consider you their superhero! 

If you wish to ‘cape-up’, I highly recommend giving serious consideration to what areas you are neglecting (we don't do this intentionally) in terms of your wellness and different aspects of your life.  When one area of our life is experiencing difficulties or neglected, it seeps into other areas of our lives, escalating feelings of unhappiness and discontent, which leads to underlying struggles.  What gaps do you consider you need to bridge to support you ‘keeping-up’, in a healthy and fit condition, evolving in unprecedented times of global change?  Perhaps, on reading this, it might encourage you to put a self-care action plan in place to bridge to your career and life success with sustainability, a positive mindset and courage in mind.

WFH – Work Smarter, Not Harder!

Without a doubt, you have got to love how resourceful this turtle is!  He is saving time and energy, a very clever chap!  Em, I do wonder how he will enjoy rewarding himself with his free time.  Which brings me to us humans, and how are we ‘resourcing’ our ‘human resources’?!  Now, there is a leading question for you!  With good reason, I’m raising it.

The Facts Uncovered

Recently I stumbled across research from LinkedIn, who complied a survey on people working from home (WFH).  The major reveal and headline reported that remote workers are clocking up to 38 extra hours a month.  It is equivalent to an additional working week within the month.  Predominately, the main reason for this, is employees are anxious to prove that they deserve to keep their jobs.  43% of respondents said they felt under pressure to answer e-mails and calls quicker than usual.  Feeling the constant need to show up online while they are remote working plays havoc with workflow and productivity effectiveness.  It is a significant challenge for many employees.  The survey revealed 36% of remote workers said the Covid-19 lockdown had affected their ability to focus.  A further 27% admitted they found themselves being easily distracted by their home environment, which is not surprising in the least.

A Reality Check

Naturally, stress and anxiety are on the increase.  56% of respondents said they felt more anxious or stressed about work than before the Covid-19 lockdown was introduced.  The biggest challenge and concern amongst employees is that their employer may no longer operate or make them redundant.  41% of respondents expressed worry about this.  Pre Covid-19, there was a trend and wave of organisational change, and restructuring in full swing.  Many companies were already in the process of downsizing, outsourcing, and making employees redundant.  Outside of this, the real impact of Covid-19, and what ‘changes lie ahead’ and how unemployment will be further affected remains to be seen.  These are incredibly uncertain times for people.  My heart goes out to anyone caught up in this ‘human chain’ of uncertainty and fear that is incredibly prevalent and very real.  Let’s not forget the human social aspect of people feeling lonely and missing the interaction, connection and buzz from their work environments.  21 % of respondents admitted to feeling lonely.  I will revisit this one with you further down, on how to actively improvise and re-create those ‘water cooler’ moments that you are missing from your work environments.

The Adaption Process

I don’t have a magic wand to make the stark realities that you have just been digesting disappear!  I wish!  Needless to say, there is a major adaption period that we are all transiting through, while we are in the midst of a phased Covid-19 recovery period.  The same ‘phased recovery’ period, where restrictions are gradually being lifted, tweaked and adjusted, can just as easily be reversed back to full lockdown, should the need arise.  That has been made very clear to us by the government.  Where everyone is at with the adaption process, will be experienced entirely differently for people.  If the above resonates with your circumstances, then please take some solace, and comfort in the fact there is so much you can do, to regain both autonomy and peace of mind.

Taking Back Control

We can’t let our energy, focus and attention get sucked on what we can’t control.  Easier said than done, trust me, I know!  However, when we veer our focus and attention to what we can control, the ‘controllables’, that sense of control and autonomy is the starting point of either getting back on track or ensuring you stay on track if you haven’t veered too far off.  Either way, emphasis on ‘sustainability’ as we continue to navigate and transition in unchartered times is paramount.  To enable the ‘future sustainable version’ of you, you need to invest in yourself now.  It is crucial for your mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health and well-being.  These are ‘internal factors’, driving your ‘external’ productivity, and performance output.  If you are concerned about experiencing productivity challenges, or you simply want to elevate your current performance levels, then I encourage you to read on.  It is time to put an ‘enabling strategy’ in place to rise to what the new evolving ‘norm’ is.  It is the difference between ‘just surviving,’ with anything from ‘mediocre to good’ performance skills, to ‘thriving’, and operating from a place of ‘great’ and ‘peak performance’ skills. 

Take a Sneak Peek and a Look on the Inside

In terms of ‘taking back control’, I mentioned ‘internal factors’ above, and this is what I’m going to be asking you to zone in on.  Allow yourself some ‘spaciousness’ and ‘presence’ to embody that concept.  What do I mean by that? I’m inviting you to take some time out, to ‘zone out’ from ‘external factors’, even if just briefly.  All too often, people are focusing on ‘blaming’ external factors.  Be it Covid-19, your employment circumstances, a demanding boss, a narky colleague, environmental challenges working from home, or whatever it may be for you.  

I’m going to ask you to ‘dial down the noise’ on whatever external challenges show up for you.  If you are going to take some ‘honest reflection’ time on how you are performing, enabling you to take back control or stay in the driver seat, you need to pull in the reins and ‘zone in’ on you.  Zone in on where you are currently at with your ‘internal performance drivers’.  I’m genuinely advocating people to ‘work smarter, not harder’, and that is a job that works best from the ‘inside out’, definitely not in reserve, which is how people are automatically wired.  When you formulate your thinking process from the ‘inside out’, you can then merge the internal and external factors to synchronise, and harmonise in a way that is acting in your best interests.  Taking a ‘sneak peek’ on the inside involves raising your conscious self-awareness levels.  In turn, this enables the opportunity to allow ‘new thinking’.  It opens opportunities to explore how you can ‘bridge gaps’ from where you are ‘now’ to where you want to get to, in terms of making WFH, work for you in the best possible way! 

System Management and Sustainability

On taking that ‘sneak peek’ on the inside, to check-in with where you are currently at; it will allow you to review how you can potentially reframe your attitude, and approach in some instances.  Furthermore, it will give you the ‘inside track’ on how you can better manage, and streamline your ‘human biological resources’ in a way that complements you WFH and your workflow ‘output’.  The same ‘output’ is vastly dependent on the quality and consistency of your ‘input’.  This is about channelling your ‘human biological resources’ to achieve overall ‘system management’ and ‘sustainability’ at optimal levels.  It is aimed at supporting your ‘neuro wellness’ for overall enhanced functionality and performance, bridging to your continued success.  With this in mind, I would like to share some top tips, insights, and valuable tools and techniques to support you to ‘power-up’ and ‘tool up’.  Remember it is an ‘inside job’ to deal with the outside world!

WFH – Enabling Strategies – Top Tips, Tools, Resources and Insight

1. Presenteeism Does Not Equal Productivity – Let us get clarity first on what presenteeism is, and how it shows up.  The presenteeism definition is the practice of coming to work (or remoting) despite illness, injury, stress, anxiety etc.  It includes; pumping your efforts, energy and resources into proving to your boss, that you still have a pulse, and that you are ‘online’ and working.  Diving on every call, and jumping on every e-mail, feeling like you are on ‘high alert’, have you operating from your ‘stress network platform’.   It is counter-productive to you, and the quality of the work you are producing.  It is not sustainable, and you risk burning yourself out.  Learn to take your foot off the pedal with this.  Of course, stay engaged, that is incredibility important.  However, learn to strike a balance with it.  Tools and tips are coming up to help you with that.  To be fair, if you are getting your work done, and submitted it, keeping all the wheels in motion, then this is evidence and facts in it-self.  Bank it, and keep track of your wins, and achievements along the way.  It will provide significant ‘buy-in’ at your next performance review, or online departmental meeting.  

Please know that presenteeism is the absence of you ‘being present’ at full optimum capacity for performing.  Instead, your ‘neuro activity’ is being conflicted in terms of your focus and attention on priority tasks.  I strongly advise you, if through the Covid-19 period, or indeed any other circumstances are taking its toll on you, where stress, anxiety and exhaustion have been catching up on you, take some time for growth, rest and repair.  Operating with these symptoms is impacting your thinking, focus, concentration, memory and ability to make informed decisions.  Recharging your batteries first is essential.   That will be stage one in ‘bridging gaps’ to your success. Presenteeism is a major challenge for organisations, and, from what I have described, you get it.  Your mental health is at stake, invest in your wellness first, and then the rest will follow.  

If you are struggling with adapting to change, you may be interested in my e-book, Overcoming Resistance to Change.  It includes a range of beneficial models and tools to start on the road to recovery, to get back on track.  It contains a powerful tool on: Adapting with Sustainability – Habits and Investment Plan Tool.

2. Stop Multi-Tasking – This is a big no-no! According to several research sources and studies, our brains are not designed to do more than one thing at a time.  Our brain lacks the capacity to perform both tasks successfully.  It impacts efficiency and performance output, where productivity suffers as a result.  I have provided research and evidence to back this up in my e-book: Unlock The Secrets to Boosting Productivity.  

To help you put structure on your workflow with priority task scheduling, enabling productive time and energy management check-out: Nine Top Reasons Why You Need an Action Plan Tool.  For goal setting and priority task scheduling my e-book on: Overcoming Resistance to Change includes: ‘Execute Action Plan’ Tool.  It is a powerful tool that will give you structure and routine and a sense of autonomy and peace of mind.

3. Starve Distractions - Starving distractions is completely easier said than done.  Distractions are a fact of life! There is no getting away from the struggles that manifest unless they are consciously dealt with.  No differently to the decline caused in productivity from multitasking, distractions are another major contributing contender.  Distractions ‘show up’ and present in what can be a complex host and array of multidimensional facets.  They show up both internally and externally.  To fully appreciate the real cost of distractions on your productivity and how to overcome them, refer to  Distraction Awareness.  This is outlined in Unlock The Secrets to Boosting Productivity.  To elevate your focus and concentration levels, and accelerate your strategic performance output, this e-book contains a powerful: ‘Feed Focus – Habit and Behaviour Investment Plan’ Tool.  

4. Build Healthy Boundaries Around Your WFH Hours and Conditions – It is increasingly being reported people are struggling to switch off from work, with work and home life merging into one.  People are becoming addicted to work as a way of coping and getting sucked into a ‘workaholic’ lifestyle.  Build healthy boundaries and practices around your work schedule.  If you don’t do that, you are seriously risking, not just your productivity in terms of the quality of work you are producing, you are also jeopardising, your well-being and mental health.  Make a conscious effort to wean yourself off working excessive hours if this is the case for you.  Remember it is about future-proofing, and sustainability, in it for the long game, not running on ‘empty’ and potentially burning out.  Your self-care and wellness come before people care.  Particularly if you are leading teams and influencing others, then definitely self-management, before people management is a must.

In taking the first steps to regularise your hours, here are some top tips:

5. Social Connectedness and Social Responsibility – This plays a part in developing your emotional intelligence skills.  Furthermore, from a human perspective, staying connected with your circle of colleagues and friendships, particularly if you are feeling lonely or isolated is hugely important.  For those of you missing the coffee dock breaks, and water cooler interactions, then here are a few concepts.  A great idea, if you are not already doing it, is to instigate coffee break zoom calls at a set time for colleagues, having the option to join in.  Make sure to spread positive vibes, and it is a great chance to network and catch up on the latest within the organisation.  Often these interludes can be more informative that some business meetings.  If you haven’t heard from a colleague in a while, that otherwise would have been the ‘life and soul’ in the office, be sure to check-in on them.  It will be appreciated, and kindness never goes astray. 

6. Sports and Social Events – perhaps you are missing these.  Many companies are engaging in quiz nights, charades, bingo etc. via zoom.  Keeping the ‘fun’ aspect of company culture alive and kicking.  Don’t forget to offer prizes, IOU a cocktail, book token, or takeout vouchers!  There are many fun ways to get creative and keep the fun and positive spirits up. Enjoy!

The Future – WFH -The Road Ahead

Undoubtedly, WFH provides many fantastic benefits, and these will be experienced differently for everyone.  While we don’t have all the answers to what the future holds, and what lies in the road ahead, WFH is a major part of how businesses are going to stay viable in transitioning, and recovery phased periods.  From the survey carried out, 51% of respondents want more flexible hours and the option of working from home when they emerge into a new world.  One-third would like to see greater use of video conferencing instead of meetings in person.  New trends have emerged, and new and better ways of doing things, are some of the positive aspects to come from Covid-19.

The onus, and responsibility is on each individual to make WFH, work in the best possible way.  Striking a balance with it, getting routines and healthy habits in place, and learning how to separate home-life, from work-life is indeed a balancing act.  Consistent small steps each day, with the help of the tools I have mentioned, will significantly enable and support you in achieving that.  The ultimate goal should be to stay mentally and emotionally well while adapting to world changes around us.  Keeping positive ‘forward momentum’ involves you investing in your own ‘system management’, future-proofing for ‘performance success’ and ‘sustainability’.  Remember work smarter, not harder, just like the turtle dude on his skateboard!