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THE THREE RESOLUTIONS

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THE THREE RESOLUTIONS

Tag Archives: Oscars

“It’s all too much!” Often, only if you LET that happen.

24 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by threeresolutionsguy in Character and Competence

≈ Comments Off on “It’s all too much!” Often, only if you LET that happen.

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Dad's Army' Eddie Redmayne, David Bowie, Donald Trump, Oscars, Racism, stress, YB12

Everything develops – even stress.

I have undergone input on overcoming stress from the best, but all too often the writers and trainers focus on stress being caused by AN event – a family argument, potential redundancy at work, a split with a spouse, and so on. But I have always been aware of the ‘true’ story, which is that stress is rarely the consequence of any singular event.

It is all too frequently the result of a whole series of events, occasionally but not always contemporaneous (at once), the combined effect of which is the sudden or even gently insidious onset of some kind of breakdown. And the worst part of this is that the lack of a significant event, or the inability to recognise the drip-drip-drip build-up of smaller stresses, had two effects.

First, the sufferer cannot deal effectively with the stress because s/he cannot clearly see the cause. As we are ‘stimulus-response’ creatures we expect to look at our symptoms and see a clear cause for our emotions, and when it isn’t clear we get all confused, and arguably even more stressed. Unlike a pain we can localise and treat, built-up stress has no scar, wound or ache we can point at and go ‘Aha!’ with.

The second effect is that those around us are also unable to see the ‘significant effect’ and therefore question why it is we are demonstrating the symptoms of stress-related physical or mental distress. I remember a colleague ‘going sick’ with ‘stress’ and those around me could not understand why he was so stressed as (in their eyes) he didn’t do any work and had nothing to be stressed about. I politely pointed out that just because someone is on sick leave from work it doesn’t necessarily follow that work was the cause. In the case in point it was probably more related to domestic issues related to civil legal challenges he was encountering with a questionably motivated local authority.

What is the cure to such stress? I am no psychologist or psychiatrist but one thing leaps out at me from cases like these, based wholly on my own experience of ‘built-up’ stress.

Take control. Recognise what you can do about your circumstances, and take charge of starting the things that need to be started, and stopping those that should be stopped. Let go of the things about which you can do nothing – accept them and move forward. Part of doing this is to identify what the problem is, but not necessarily the cause. Sometimes knowing what the problem is, is enough – the cause gets taken care of ‘by default’ when the problem is addressed. Not always, but more often than you realise.

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The YB12 – Best Year Ever Program includes input on overcoming stress. Go to the Have Your Best Year Ever page for more information, or go to www.yb12coach.com

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Balance, Daniel San, balance. Miyagi was right.

10 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by threeresolutionsguy in Character and Competence

≈ Comments Off on Balance, Daniel San, balance. Miyagi was right.

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Academy Awards, Donald Trump, GOP, Madonna, Oscars, Sherlock Holmes

A coaching process with which I am closely involved includes in its programme the concept of living a balanced life. Stephen Covey aficionados may stop reading here, expecting to read about time management and making sure that all roles get the appropriate attention at the appropriate time, but that is not what I’m going to write about. In this context, balanced living means making sure that your life is not wholly focused in one area or, to be more precise, that your life DOES try to encompass a broader range of ‘stuff’.

Holmes

Last night I was watching the Robert Downey Jr. version of Sherlock Holmes and it occurred that here was an example of someone living just such a balanced life. I watched as Holmes studied bio-mechanics, chemistry, music, psychology, the arts, the martial arts, the culinary arts, and so on. He mastered understanding of the contexts of each, and occasionally the detail. In doing so he underpinned and reinforced his ability to do what he did best, his detecting. His balanced and broad studies supported his ability to carry out his vocation, while not interfering with it.

The Second Resolution, which invited us to focus on character and competence, does not restrict us in terms of that competence; it does not confine us to competence in only one area even if life makes it the most profitable route to professional success. The all-encompassing nature of this Resolution arguably encourages efforts to improve our competence by living a broader experience, reinforcing our character as we do so. By overcoming the Restraining Forces of Pride and Pretension we move past being ‘proud’ of the one thing we do well and seek to take steps* to be modestly content with being able to understand and explain concepts to the degree that we don’t need to pretend we understand things – we actually do understand.

I admit I am guilty of focussing too much in one area – personal development – but that is partly professional imposition and partly a desperate search for something spectacularly new and effective.~

But truly effective, Holmes-like living is better and worth working for. Broader study and experience feeds the ability to express ones-self to a degree that our friends, colleagues and peers understand and accept our ideas far more easily, instead of viewing them with suspicion and doubt.

Balance your competence by widening your understanding of ‘life’ – not just yours, life in general. Read broadly, use what you discover.

That is true balanced living.

*(Oops. Nearly wrote ‘take pride’ there.)

~(When the truth is that adherence to the 7 Habits is all that is needed – the principles serve the detail.)

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Go on. I dare you. At Amazon, now.

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