Tips for: Managing Stress Time Management Conflict in the Workplace Managing Emotional Upsets Singles: Relationship Issues Grief and Loss Work- life Balance Book recommendations Useful links

Managing Stress  

Some people thrive on stress, others don't. Certain forms of stress are normal and essential. However, the key is to manage stress at a level suitable to you.

What are the warning signs?

• Not sleeping

• Loss of energy, exhaustion

• Headaches

• Rashes

• Irrational behaviour

• Stomach upset or ulcer

• High blood pressure

• Missing meals and not eating properly

• Feeling anxious and overwhelmed

• Loss of joy in life

• Depressed mood

If these signs are obvious to you, don't ignore them. Try to look at what events or situations are causing you stress and address the triggers: 

• Determine what you can change and how you can act on the changes

• Determine what you cannot change and how you can accept this

• Reassess your timetable and get your priorities right 

• Ensure you take pleasurable and enjoyable activities

• Ensure you get a good diet and sleep and maintain a disciplined daily rhythm

• Build physical reserves by exercising or playing sport

• Make sure you have  good social times with friends 

Time management

It is sometimes forgotten how important time management skills are. Often, it is only when people begin to miss appointments, not deliver work on time or start taking sick days due to stress, is the importance realised.

Time management is the thoughtful, planned organisation of time around actual tasks, activities or functions that you have to perform throughout your day. Broadly this will include: work, social activity, family time and emergencies.

Effective people have good time management skills as they concentrate on results and not on being busy. The key is the ability to look realistically at all aspects of your life.

To begin the process:

• Check how you really spend your time - time sheets

• Find out how much your time is worth - cost your time

• Make sure you concentrate on the right things - determine work priorities

• Plan to solve a problem - action plans

• Tackle the right tasks first - priority lists

• Decide what your personal priorities should be - personal goal setting 

Conflict in the workplace

Differing viewpoints often arise in small businesses and it is imperative to address any concerns immediately as they are likely to escalate and become more difficult to navigate. Once a conflict escalates beyond a certain level, mediators or arbitrators might be required.

There are usually three levels evident in conflict dynamics:

1.  Joint problem solving - parties have  shared aims and achieve what they both want

2.  Negotiation - parties have different aims and achieve a little of what they want

3.  Conflict - parties have no shared aims and there is a winner and a loser

Where both parties have shared aims it is easier to negotiate, however, once you reach the point where no one agrees on anything, a mediator will be required to sift through the points in question. The following stages will help you understand where a conflict is heading.

Stage One: Negotiation

1.  Discussion

2.  Debate

3.  Actions to work through

Stage Two: Consider a mediator or arbitrator

4.  Serious - parties rigid and have a fixed image if the result they require

5.  Element of pride - weaker party/loss of face

6.  Strategy of threat - us or them argument

7.  No sense of humanity - subversive, rebellious

8.  Undermining nerve - stop work, reduce hours

9.  Fight to the death - heading to court 

Managing emotional upsets

The following tips are designed for you to take care of yourself physically, mentally and emotionally.

• Take responsibility for yourself, not just responsibility for others. Self responsibility is vital to mental health.

• Have a good diet, take plenty of rest, and walk. Don't run or do rigorous exercise, it is too exhausting at this time. With a long walk you can often digest things emotionally.

• Take some fresh air , and time to check in with yourself. To do this, take 10 deep breaths and a glass of water every hour you are awake.

• Get rid of clutter. Often people hold on to all kind of things. Get rid of things that create work and that don't give you joy.

• Make the environment pleasing. Have treats around, such as fresh flowers - from the garden - and fresh fruit.

• Seek out friends. You need a sense of feeling connected to others around you.

• Try this ritual - breathe in and out slowly and say, "It is good" on the exhale. The power of this is amazing. Even in the depths of despair, this can shift your perspective momentarily.

• Look for a good GP. Someone who sees you twice a year will have a sense of who you are and will notice when there are significant changes.

• Look for a good counsellor, you need a sounding board, someone objective - not a relative or friend.

• If in a relationship, or with close family members, increase your understanding and sharing by using "I" language such as, "I think", "I feel", "I want", "I don't want". Differentiate between thoughts and feelings. Feelings are not, "I feel like going out today", that's a thought. Try, "I feel sad", "I feel angry", "I feel frightened".

Singles: relationship issues  

If you’re single chances are it’s happened again – another relationship ended.   

Whatever you do – Don't Don’t panic, don’t despair, and don’t give up! 

Do - come in and talk about it.

Do - look after your self-esteem and find out more about yourself.  What's getting in the way of  achieving what it is you want for yourself?

Do - bring harmony and balance into your life.

Do- eat well, rest, exercise and play.

Do- enjoy living once again.  

You’ve been through this before and your self esteem is rock bottom and you’re beginning to wonder… is it me…? Or is it them…? Will I ever be able to pick my self up, dust myself off and go out there again? Maybe it’s not possible to meet someone anymore… all the good ones have been taken! How many times can I put myself through this? And why is it that others seem to be able to do it but me? (…Or can they? …Maybe no one is really happy …so what’s the point in putting myself out there and risking rejection and hurt time and time again!).

But I feel lonely and miserable and I’m scared of growing old and being alone.

It’s time to…

 Take stock...take control...take care...of yourself.

What is important at this time is  to not spiral into self-pity or depression. Grieve and move on, get your life in order. Too often people sink into helplessness, hopelessness and despair and cease to function well in their lives. Their work suffers and they lose touch with friends and most importantly with themselves and what really matters to them.

At an age when the world has become much smaller – it’s so easy to travel and get places, the irony is we’re now more isolated and disconnected. It’s not so easy to meet like-minded people. This is exacerbated by less time to pursue leisure activities thereby being more available to develop meaningful relationships. Then before you know it, time seems to be running out, you feel desperate, perhaps become too quickly attached to someone who isn’t the right person. But either the biological clock is ticking, or the desire for companionship is turning to desperation.

When you address these issues you’ll be surprised at how good you’ll feel and in ways you’ve probably never imagined, and when that happens, well…

Ten years ago, Jocelyn at 42 and single was depressed anxious and quite isolated. To the outside world she appeared successful and content. However secretly, Jocelyn felt despairing, frustrated and fed up. Her life had diminished to work and television, with the occasional outing to the movies - alone. She rarely saw the few friends she had since she’d become suspicious of their motives and comments, imagining they were judging her critically.

All this led to her self-esteem and confidence diminishing. Jocelyn was anxious she would never marry and have children, and despairing that the dream of a fulfilling life had eluded her. She felt a failure. This led to her spiralling into a sense of helplessness and hopelessness about her life. She rarely went out, she rarely met anyone.

As her biological clock was ticking on and as a last ditch effort, Jocelyn decided to seek help.

After a time in therapy she came to understand her wants and needs a little more, decided to reassess her life and began to realize she’d been too busy focusing on what was not right in her life rather than on what was right. Jocelyn began to tap into her many talents and skills and began to develop a renewed vitality. She took up new interests and began to become more excited about her life. This led to her confidence improving and she made more contact with old friends and established new ones.

There was a happy ending for Jocelyn. She was introduced to a man whom she eventually fell in love with and moved in with. They created some joint dreams, which included exploring themselves and the world together. They decided that at this time in their lives there were other exciting things to do rather than becoming parents – the biological clock stopped ticking too loudly.  

Grief and loss

Grief and loss is a natural part of life and takes on many different forms;  not only around death and dying.  It is important to learn to grieve as we're constantly taking on the new, working with change and therefore having to confront loss as one of our major stressors. We need to understand what it means to grieve and take the appropriate steps, and learn to nurture ourselves. 

Grief and loss involves letting go, as in the process of death and dying. This can be balanced by bringing in new life in the form of  fresh food, walking in nature, drinking plenty of water to flush out, avoid alcohol as this can be a depressant at this time. Take quiet times for baths and time to be alone.

And all through this process it is important to be able to talk to someone objective.

Work- Life Balance by David Baldwin of LifeConnect Pty Ltd  

Some years ago the director of a large international engineering company came to see me. He had had a spectacular career, over a span of some twenty-five years. He worked his way up from the shop floor working a lathe, to a respected position on the board guiding the company forward. On his journey he had put himself through university and taken away degrees in engineering and science, while working an arduous and demanding job. He spoke proudly about his achievements, how he had influenced the direction of the company, reorganised management and contributed to the current success of the firm.

The reason he came to see me was that he was three months away from retirement and simply terrified about what the future held for him. He tried to quell his anxiety and panic attacks by planning as many new activities and diversions as he could. As an engineer and manager he was used to solving problems, so he was deeply disturbed that he could not solve this, in his view, unnecessary distress and agitation.

His story has a happy ending but it was not without immense inner struggle in learning to relate to himself and the world around him quite differently. His story is also a common one, although there are many individual variations.

Harry (our director – but not his real name) had devoted himself to his career. Social life and interests were lived vicariously through his wife and his children. But to say that his life was unbalanced, while true, was also an oversimplification. More interests and activities did not in itself remedy his situation. As we worked through his biography it became clear that the anxiety had been there for quite some time, but well masked by his formidable activity and the demands of his work.

In order to improve the situation of poor life balance quickly and concretely, the following technique can be used. Look at the time spent on activities relative to an ideal balance based on interests and needs. 

This can be done by drawing up an inventory of interests in the areas such as:

• leisure and recreational time

• social activities

• work interests

• spiritual interests

• health and wellbeing

• home and family

• personal space

 Just seeing how time, effort and resources are allocated to each of these areas can be helpful in realignment towards a greater balance. However it is sometimes important to look deeper than this. It is difficult to feel a sense of balance in life without a sense of personal meaning. Cultivating personal meaning takes time, and presence of mind. The following are some of the exercises Harry and I worked on:

1 At least once a year take stock of your personal situation. Consider what you have achieved and what you have left undone, what life has brought you and what you have made of it? Look honestly at the current state of all your important relationships. 

2 Take time to reflect on your learning and knowledge, whether from life or from formal education and training. What might you still want to learn?

3 Cultivate interest, not just new interests or hobbies, but cultivate interest itself. (I am often shocked about how little partners in a long term relationship know about each other)

4 At least every three years take time to dream about the future, and anchor the dreams into goals, which are regularly reality tested.  Attempt to understand what really motivates you. This is more difficult to accomplish than it sounds. But the reward is more purposeful action.

Of course there is no magic formula. But all of the above exercises have been thoroughly ‘road tested’. These exercises have proven useful to people wishing to take greater command over their lives.

Recommended reading

Often we are asked to recommend a book to complement a person's process. Here are some popular ones from the last couple of months.

Contentment -  A Way T True Happiness    Robert A. Johnson & Jerry M. Ruhl  1999

The authors encourage the reader to negotiate and embrace "what is" rather than getting caught up with modern life's push to achieve and acquire more. It is instructive and wise, and contains all the tools we need  - including illustrative stories, myths, poems and practical exercises - to seize true contentment in the here and now, rather than  striving ceaselessly for more.  

Coping with Grief  Third ed.   Mal McKissock & Dianne McKissock  2003

An Australian publication  by local Sydney consultants. It is an invaluable guide to helping the bereaved person and those around them to understand grief - what to expect over the initial days and months, and anniversaries.

You can conquer Cancer New Edition  Prevention and Management Ian Gawler   2001

An Australian publication which has become a classic and one of the most widely read books on the subject of cancer prevention and cancer management. It has been reprinted sixteen times and translated into twelve languages. this edition contains new information and self help techniques. It is an holistic approach to cancer; emphasising diet, the power of the mind, meditation, family and social support and the spiritual dimension to life.

The Road less Travelled     M. Scott Peck  1978

The author suggests ways in which facing our difficulties - and suffering through the changes - can enable us to reach a higher level of self understanding. He discusses the nature of loving relationships: how to recognise true compatibility; how to distinguish dependency from love; how to become one's own person and how to be a more sensitive parent.

Skills for resolving conflict     E. Wertheim, A. Love, C. Peck, L. Littlefield   1998

An Australian publication and practical text that provides a detailed description of how to resolve conflict using a co-operative approach in both interpersonal and workplace settings. The book guides readers through a step-by-step process, starting with basic concepts and skills and moving on to more advanced ones. There are exercises included to encourage the application of concepts to real life situations.

LifeConnect stocks a comprehensive range of  book titles for sale that we find are supportive in the counselling, coaching and therapeutic process.

Useful links