Bad situations

Handling the Frustration of Waiting

So it’s 9:30 a.m. and I’m sitting here, waiting to know when they’ll arrive… I have several other things to do today, but I have to be here. I’ll bet you’ve had that kind of experience, the frustration of waiting for an unknown length of time, and I suspect that I am not alone in beginning to fret about it.

Will they get the work done this morning? This afternoon? Is there time for me to run errands before they arrive? Should I wait until they come even if they don’t show up until late afternoon? They called me several weeks ago to say they’d install today but I did not ask them what time. Because the store does not open until 10 a.m. I can’t reach anyone right now. And, of course, I would like to know… RIGHT NOW! Not happy.

That’s a stumbling block. “Time to stop the blame game and do a reframe.”

Of course it’s partly my fault. I could have called them yesterday to check on the time but, quite frankly, I forgot. So maybe rather than getting into a snit I should be thinking of how I can best spend the time usefully without getting involved in anything lengthy, like re-vamping this website, because “they” might arrive at any minute.

This is where a “Five minute to-do” list comes in handy. I used to keep one, and at this moment I wish I still did. There are all those little tasks that I pass by because of their relative unimportance when compared with my “real” projects. Yet they mount up, they are irritators – “tolerations” as we used to call them in the coaching world from way-back.

I’ll take a hint from “get things done” guru David Allan and walk the house, clip-board in hand, to make my lists… a 5-minute list and a project list. If “they” have still not arrived after that I’ll catch up on my reading. Those are stepping stones.

My time will not be wasted.

How about you? What do you do when you have to sit and wait? Do you take a book or a “reader” to appointments where you may have to wait? (I prefer a “real” book because some places ask that one turn of electronic gadgets in the waiting room.)

What do you do when you start to get irritated? I hope you don’t sit and fume, because fuming can ruin one’s day and sometimes other people’s as well. The stumbling blocks can seem to grow ever larger as we fume… On the other hand, lemons do make great lemonade – and that is a positive that can be shared with others – another stepping stone.

Hoping that you have – or will find – your own processes so that you use your wating moments in ways that make you feel fabulous!

Diana

Postscript – after I had written this they responded to my call, they arrived at 11: a.m. and were done by noon!

Stumbling and Stepping is a blog written weekly – or thereabouts – and I hope you will visit often. If you are a follower on Twitter (where I am choicecoach) or my Face Book The Balanced Coach page, you will get an alert when I post anew. My newsletter, “Work in Progress – because we all are”, is available by subscription, at no cost. It focuses on life balance as the basis for enjoying life – in a very broad view and NOT just in the sense of “work-life balance.” If you would like to subscribe, please complete the form on the right of this page. Your information will never be shared or sold, and you will be able to unsubscribe with the click of your keyboard – although I hope you won’t decide to.

Ways to Cope when You are Overwhelmed at Work

By Diana Gardner Robinson 2 Comments

In these days of downsizing, many workers are carrying a heavier work-load than they used to, and feeling overwhelmed by it. The more overwhelmed we feel, the less well are we likely to deal with the problem. Often we get into a state of mind in which we are convinced that nothing will help. At that point, stop, take a deep, slow breath, and commit to trying at least four of the potential solutions below even if you don’t think they apply to your situation – not all of them will. They largely fall into two categories – how you think about the situation, and how you deal with it.

1. Avoid getting into a victim stance. Once you start being a victim you adopt a role of helplessness in which you can do nothing to get yourself out. Remember, there is no knight in shining armor to rescue you. It is your situation, and you, more than anyone else, have responsibility for changing it.

2. Stay in the moment. Do not get caught in the trap of thinking about all the other things that will need doing when you finish what you are doing at that moment. We finish each task much more quickly and easily if we focus solely on it, instead of at the same time worrying about what else we need to do, about the situation in general, and about whose fault it all is.

3. Take time to list all the tasks on which you spend time and decide which ones are not essential. Your first impulse will be that every one of them is absolutely essential. Move past that to decide which tasks are not. There will probably be some that you decided to do because that was the ideal way to do it. Remember that every task serves an end result. In most work situations it is the result that must be achieved, not the process. The process can often be shortened without damage to the result.

4. Let go of control issues. How much of the pressure you are feeling really comes from outside, and how much is actually from you?

5. Delegate. Decide if there is anything that can be delegated, or that more fairly belongs to someone else’s work load. Do not just dump it on them, but discuss with those involved how work may be redistributed more fairly.

6. Come up with your own suggested solutions to the work-time crunch and take them to your boss. S/he will probably be delighted that you are producing, rather than asking for, ways to solve the problem.

7. Keep in mind that work loads are often cyclical. The fact that you are rushed off your feet this week does not mean the situation is permanent. What can you legitimately put aside to catch up on when things slow down a bit? (This is NOT the same thing as procrastinating.)

8. Take your breaks. Five minutes away from the work situation will do far more to clear your head and your attitude than the work you would achieve in that five minutes if you did not leave your desk. Lunch-breaks exist not just so that we can eat, but so that we may take a mental break. Put something in your office or work situation to remind you of pleasant things and take you out of your frantic mind-set. Read or listen to something that will inspire you or bring you peace.

9. When you leave work, leave your work behind. Find time when you can turn off the phone and do not let your work problems rent space in your head during the time when you are not supposed to be working. Some people find it even helps to develop a mental ritual, a metaphorical shaking of the dust from one’s feet, somewhere between leaving work and getting home. I know of one counselor who, as she drives across a bridge, mentally tells her clients good-bye. As she drives back the next morning she greets them again.

10. If you cannot find any way to change your situation, and continue to feel trapped, remind yourself that you chose this job. Remind yourself why. Has it now become something different from what it was when you were hired? Do you still choose it? Are you hanging with people who can discuss only the negatives? Could you start a mini-gratitude list relating only to things that happen, or exist, at work? Try to focus on the positives.

If none of this works, try updating your resume. Even in hard times, some people do find work and perhaps the universe is telling you it is time to stretch yourself and move on.

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Things to do when your lifestyle is too chaotic

By Diana Gardner Robinson Leave a Comment

While you are thinking through these processes, do not let yourself become trapped in *either/or* thinking. Life rarely has to involve only A or B. Often there are Cs and Ds and even X, Y and Z. Often, too, there is a way to combine A and B or whichever. Be creative. Don’t worry about how it’s been done before, or about what people will say. It is what you will say, how you will live, and how you will feel, that are important.

1. Be clear with yourself that you are not settling for living like this forever, and that there is a way to change it. To say that you have no choice simply means that you are rejecting the choices that you do have. It may not yet be time to make decisions, but try to imagine every possible path you could take, even the ones you would probably reject, and see where each path would lead you.

2. Carefully and honestly examine your own contribution to the situation. Based on this, decide what lessons you need to learn so as to change the situation and not recreate it. Do not allow yourself to blame others for everything. They may have had a part, but you probably made some choices too. What were they?

3. Find a true support group. This does not mean a group of friends who will play “ain’t it awful” with you while you play the victim. It means people who will support you when you make wise decisions and give you honest and constructive feedback when you do not, and who will stand beside you regardless.

4. Whatever form this group takes, keep going regularly, speak honestly, listen to feedback without getting defensive. Remember that everyone is there to get help. When it is offered, accept it. When you are able, offer it.

5. Journal regularly about both feelings and events. If you have old journals, re-read them. Seek the patterns in yourself and your situation. Re-read objectively. What advice would you want to give to someone else who had written what you have written?

6. Examine your priorities. What is truly important to you? Is this where you are placing most of your time and energy?

7. Decide, thoughtfully, exactly what it is about your life that you don’t want. Be very precise here. Do not mistake the superficial symptom for the root cause. What is really happening that is causing you problems?

8. Consider what you have that you want to keep. Pause for a moment to express gratitude for it. How much of this would you lose by getting rid of what you don’t want? Is there a way to keep it and still get rid of the unwanted?

9. Carefully and in full and vivid detail, visualize yourself experiencing whatever it is that you do want. Try to imagine yourself experiencing it with all of your senses. Do not let any thought of not having it intrude. Know that, at some level, it is already yours.

10. By the time you have gone through this process you will know what you need to do. Calmly and firmly DO WHATEVER YOU NEED TO. Do all of it. When you have done all that you can, don’t keep striving. Release your situation and trust whatever other forces are operating in the universe to operate. You will find your chaos subsiding and being replaced by calm.

Stages of Detachment from Negative Emotions

By Diana Gardner Robinson Leave a Comment

Life does not always go our way. People can be thoughtless or cruel. Things happen to which we over-react, often because they trigger old feelings from way back in the past, when we were helpless to deal with them. Sometimes we respond far more strongly than is warranted by the present situation. Neither we nor those around us may realize that the strength of our reaction is based not on what is happening now, but on something that occurred far in the past. As we grow within ourselves we learn to be less affected by such situations. Here are some of the stages we may go through as we grow.

1. You respond furiously to anything that upsets you. You are convinced you are right and that your response, however strong and intense, is appropriate. The situation continues to replay in your head, and to upset you again and again, long after it is over.

2. You become aware that you are feeling negative way beyond what is appropriate to the current situation, but you can’t stop yourself from expressing your fury. When the situation is past you are unable to stop yourself from recycling it in your mind.

3. You come to the same realization but now you manage to pull back from acting out or yelling. However, it continues to bother you long afterwards.

4. You recognize what past situation the anger was really coming from. and why the present situation triggered it, but still have difficulty in not reacting inwardly.

5. You become able to laugh at yourself as you look at the way your gut is churning, recognizing that it is really about something that actually happened long, long ago.

6. Your gut no longer churns and you congratulate yourself on staying calm. However, the person stays in your head and you (calmly) continue to rehash what you really should have said and imagine yourself “winning” or being proven right.

7. The person or situation remains in your head, but now you are able to consider your opponent’s point of view. You may be able to allow the person in your head, the one from the past, to present their viewpoint without inventing ways to slam-dunk them.

8. When the situation is over, it is over. You are able to evict the person from your head as soon as the situation has ended.

9. You get that whatever it was may have been a lesson that you needed to learn, and you resolve to act upon that learning. You no longer need to attach blame to the situation.

10. You get immediately that that the situation is not important and will not change your life. You don’t allow it to distract your behavior or your thinking. You observe it, respond appropriately without interference from your gut, and move on. You are at peace.

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