What do you want out of life?

Does what you have not satisfy you and therefore you want more?

Do you feel you are in competition with others to reach the top?

Do you strive to maintain your grasp on things like power and status, afraid of what might happen if you lost them? And is this preventing you from enjoying life to the full?

What are the consequences of your striving to achieve or obtain more? Are you feeling increasingly stressed?

True happiness is not possible unless you have inner peace.   Inner peace requires your to take the time to sit and look deeply at what you are doing.  Without this awareness and understanding you will be unable to identify and meet your  real needs.   Real happiness requires understanding, love and compassion for yourself and others.

Happiness also depends on your having the ability to handle painful feeelings.  Handling painful feelings requires you to stop running away from or difficulties with constant activity or consumption.

Finding real  happiness is not a selfish act because once you have found real happiness you will be better able to relate to other people and their suffering, to put yourself in theor position.  Once you do this you will then have a better idea of what you need to do to help them.

2. True power for change lies with you..and it is up to you to follow through, you and you alone are responsible for your actions.

3. Think about the different options you have for achieving the change you want.

4. Reassure yourself that change is possible by focusing on previous successes and highighting the skills and strengths you have.

5. Examine the discrepancies between where you are now and where you want to be and identify how the ways you behave interferes with you achieving your goals.

6. Resolve any ambivalence you may have by focusing on the consequences of not making changes and any benefits you will gain from making changes.

7. Talk about the changes you are going to make, the more you talk about them the more likely you are to change.

Spend a few minutes thinking quietly about the ways in which your thinking leads to your distress. If you are anything like me you will come up with quite a list of unhelpful thought patterns. My list includes black and white thinking, assuming the worst, overgeneralising, focusing on the negatives, comparing myself unfavourably, predicting problems and mind reading. Quite a list.

However I have been able to develop healthier ways of thinking by creating the time and space I need to identify these unhelpful thought patterns that lead to difficult emotions. As a result I am able to identify thought that are unhelpful and to question their validity. But perhaps the best approach I have found is to monitor my thoughts at the time when these emotions are present, to identify the thoughts that have arisen, and to acknowledge them without making judgements. To jus let them go and to stay with the sensations in my body and by using my breath to anchor me to the here and now, rather than ruminating about the past or worrying about the future. And to recognise that thoughts are just thoughts and to focus on my direct experience.

I now have a very different take on what I need to do to be a good leader which is more about emotional awareness and which involves:

1.  Making the time to see the bigger picture, to see people and situations from a a range of different perspectives

2. Thinking more creatively and being more creative in the ways I responded to other people and to the situations I encountered

3. Taking the time and effort to understand not only each individual but also the ways in which they interacted with others

4. Being honest with myself and others about my personal agendas and being willing to put them aside when necessary.

5. Being less judgemental, no longer as attached to my own views about how things “should” be

6. Making  sure that everything I do is a reflection of my values and I not being willing to compromise on this

7.  Trying to generate and maintain positive feelings towards everyone I worked with

I do not always succeed but I know that I am trying my best.  I also try to share my approach to leadership with others through training and mentoring.

1. A mind that would not stop thinking and seeing those thoughts as my reality, rather than recognising they were just thoughts.

2. Making judgements about situations and people and then wanting to cling on to the bits I liked and push away those bits I did not like.

3. Seeing situations and people as problems that I needed to solve which reinforced the gap between what was happening and what I wanted to happen.

4. A tendency to dredge up past regrets or to worry about the future.

5. Not being able to switch off my body’s response to pressures and challenges.

Once I saw the real cause of my stress I knew where I needed to focus my attention if I was to be able to manage the stress.  Next time you feel stressed you might want to try stopping and allowing yourself to experience what is happening to you there and then.

So what can you do about it?

1. Think about and plan for your retirement

2. Stay healthy.  Existing health issues become more frequent as you get older so it is important that you work at preventing problems. Protect your joints, eat a healthy diet, stop smoking and avoid consuming excess sugar, caffience and alcohol.

3. Maintain a social support network. Make the effort to make new friends, keep in touch will family members and join in community activities, becoming involved in the lives of others is good for you and it relieves stress.

4. Keep your finances in order. This means facing reality and learning to live within a budget. You may find living more simpley will reduce stress levels.

5. Spend time on developing your inner self.

6. Develop a daily routine.  Many people are surprised to find that they are busier than when you were working so a routine can prevent the stress of constant activity and will allow you to say no to demands that cause you anxiety.  A routine will also ease the stress of not knowing what comes next.

7. Adopt a more mindful approach to life and take the time to enjoy the pleasures of retirement. Retirement is about living the life you have now…in each moment.  It is also about living it as if it truly mattered.

It is that time of year when in the past I would purchase my new Filofax inserts and spend time making plans for the coming year….projecting my earnings and expenditure, organising how I would spend my time, planning how much weight I would lose on my new diet etc  etc.  My aim was to create the perfect life….and to feel in control.

From experience I know that my good intentions rarely lasted beyond early February and life did not go according to my plan.  And that this caused me a lot of unnecessary stress.

There will be no New Year Planning activity this year.   In May I made a decision to just let myself be carried along by the flow of life and to see what happened.   Instead of lots of SMART objectives I decided that may only goals were to live simply and to be kind to myself and other people.  Simple…but not easy!

It has meant letting go of the stuff that used to be so important to me. Most importantly it has meant letting go of the need to control, analyse and make judgements…..and instead learn to enjoy, and learn from whatever arises.  I no longer feel as if my life is mapped out, and backed up by an endless “to do” list.   And do you know what, its working out OK.

I came to understand that underpinning all this planning was a sense of needing to improve myself.  so my New Year Plans always included a lot of self-improvement activities….and then beating myself up when I failed to reach some unrealistic goal.  I have learned to be less self-critical and more relaxed.

By not planning I have created the space needed to listen to my gut feelings rather than the rational mind that does all the planning.  And as a result I have found that I am making better decisions and acting in ways that feel right for me.  I have also come to understand that in New Year Planning I wasted a lot of time and energy trying to control things. I have come to understand that none of us really knows what is going on and things are changing all the time.   I am far more effective in life when I acknowledge that I do not know what is happening, and curiously engage with things as they unfold .

May you be happy in 2012.

There are lots of examples of unfairness in the workplace and trying to maintain peace of mind can be challenging.  You need to
challenge injustice whilst at the same time keeping calm and avoid getting frustrated, angry or feeling despair. Start by analysing the situation you find yourself in from different perspectives and in doing so try to reshape your attitude and outlook by seeing if your current response is helping or not.   Remember similar situations you have dealt with in the past and what impact did it have on your physical or mental well-being.  It will be helpful if you can respond with a positive approach. No situation is 100% good or bad and gaining a wider perspective will help.
Do not hang on to the feelings of being miserable, let go of any grudges and dissatisfaction and instead try to understand other people’s situation.  This does not mean that you should be passive, if necessary take appropriate action to resolve the problem.

2. Then take a deep look at the other person and reflect upon how you are seeing that person.  Are you seeing things clearly?  To what extent are they a victim of your wrong perceptions?

3. Be aware of any tendency you have to pull away from the other person or the situation…or of trying to cover up your feelings.

4. Listen to yourself, take the time you need to be heard and to be understood by yourself.  If you cannot listen to yourself how are you going to be able to listen to other people?

5. Accept things just the way they are, this will help you to remain calm.

6. Forget about trying to impose your views on others, focus your attnyion on looking and listening deeply to the other person.

7. Focus your efforts on finding peace and happiness in that moment…it is the only moment you have.

I was at a loss to know how best to get my message across and as a result communication became more stressful, less satisfying and less effective.  I dealt with the problem by focusing my attention on the content of what I wanted to say as a way of trying to ensure that I was understood. It didn’t work!!

Since then I have learned a lot about how to handle difficult conversations in the workplace.   Here are some of the lessons I have learned along the way:

1. Before you speak to anyone spend time reflecting upon how you are feeling as this will enable you to express you feelings more accurately.

2. Taking time to reflect will also help you to identify more options available to you. It is very eary to think in terms of “me” versus “them” but I have found there are often other options available if you take the time to think things through.

3. Developing a greater awareness of how you communicate provides you with an opportunity to identify any unhelpful habits. For example you can identify under what circumstances you would react agressively or passively and then take the necessary steps to avoid this happening.

4. Be flexible, avoid being locked into rigid ways of thinking. You need to be aware of your thoughts, feelings and what you are saying whilst at the same time being aware of the situation as a whole.  This is all about being flexible enough to focus on key issues whiclt at the same time seeing the big picture.

5. Be awake to the possibility of different ways of looking at an issue, listen to what the other person wants and how they see things without reacting or resisting.  It is all about having an open mind.

6. Always act with integrity and balance.  In my experience this is often easier said than done. It requires that you meet each moment with calmness and acceptance. This is definitely where mindfulness helps!

Dealing with difficult conversations is all about choosing to respond rather than react to the other person or situation and this involves taking responsibility for your contribition i.e. your perceptions, thoughts, feelings and behaviour.