Managing Transitions

Transitions happen throughout our life! It’s important to plan for them whenever possible by anticipating changes and preparing.

This week was a BIG transition for not only me, but for my entire family, including the dog! After running my International Coaching & Training company from my home-based office for nearly 15 years, I went back to work FULL-TIME in the corporate world. Although I will continue to serve my current clients I will selectively decide which future clients I will work with both as a speaker and a coach.

There were lots of ups and downs this week and key lessons both applied from my work and learned as a result of this huge transition! Here’s some of the key highlights.  Let me know what you learned from my personal experience…

  • previous Wednesday: got formal offer and request to start on Monday
  • weekend: stocked up on groceries, caught up on wash, cleaned and straightened the house, planned meals, purchased train ticket, researched parking, gased up car, went clothes shopping, met a friend pre-made kids’ lunches and refrigerated part of it overnight, took dog for an evening walk, prepared singles for parking meter, showered
  • Monday: ESTABLISHED NEW ROUTINE!! got up extra early, took dog for half the regular walk, fed him and ate my breakfast then finished kids’ lunches, got dressed while listening in to the news, applied makeup and fixed hair, got kids up, dropped off daughter at bus, trusted son would get to school on time (MISTAKE #1), went to work and met many new people and attended new hire orientation with about 8 others, panicked when I received a call from the school that my son was truant at 10:50, connected with husband and he handled it, ran to catch the 5:17 train home and battled with traffic from the train station to get home to a lovely dinner prepared by my husband, took dog for second half of walk, finished emails I didn’t finish on the train ride, showered, prepared sandwiches for next day, read through materials from work, was in bed by 9!!
  • TUESDAY: pretty much same routine but my daughter asked to walk up to the bus stop and I made sure my son was out of bed before I left the house and not just awake. Got to work a little early again! Grabbed a cup of cocoa at DD, met with team members and contributed my ideas at a meeting (which were well received!). Had sessions with scheduled coaching clients and did evening prep again
  • WEDNESDAY: same am routine and every seemed to work smoothly till I got to the train stop just a few minutes behind schedule. Did a load of wash before work! Brought my own lunch with me to save from having to go down to the cafeteria again. Through in a load of towels before walking the dog and put them in dryer when I returned. Nearly missed train as I folded bills to get them into the meter. (NOTE TO SELF: HAVE BILLS PRE-FOLDED AND READY TO GO!). Worked on learning new systems and getting acclimated at my new job. Hurried home to attend Grandma’s birthday celebration with the family.
  • THURSDAY: had a little trouble waking up because I got to sleep a little later last night. Brought my lunch with me again. Ended up getting the next train (which wasn’t an express) and got to work just 20 minutes later. (NOTE TO SELF: DON’T PANIC, THERE’S ANOTHER TRAIN EVERY 15 MINUTES OR SO; LEAVING EXTRA TIME HAS BEEN A BENEFIT BECAUSE I AM STILL THERE BEFORE 8:30). Hubby had to work late and daughter arranged a ride home from cheer practice beings son was working. Held scheduled coaching sessions in the evening, then completed evening routine.
  • FRIDAY: good morning, everything flowed smoothly! Got a lot of things accomplished at work and am running fairly smoothly. Enjoyed some lunch on the company and goodies left over from a training so I didn’t have to buy lunch. Took one train earlier and left a little more time to get down the elevator because I’ve been rushing to the train every day. Got home in time to meet husband and a friend to travel an hour to our daughter’s HS cheering at the FB game. Fortunately, lunch held me over and I wasn’t hungry for dinner. I’ve been stocking up on healthy snacks and water to keep in my office so I had plenty choices. Hit a deer on the way home from the game. Are you kidding….what a way to end my first week back on the corporate job! We’re ok but the car and the deer didn’t quite make it!
  • SATURDAY: Got to the gym for a good solid workout! Brought my daughter to cheer practice. Started cleaning and straightening. Did more wash. (WHERE DOES IT ALL COME FROM??)

So, I’m proud to say that I got through my week! Without my husband stepping up to prepare dinners and pick up what he saw I wasn’t able to get done, it would have been much more difficult. So, thank Goodness I have such a wonderful husband. I miss dinners with the family all together and miss communicating with each other more than anything.

Preparing, planning, organizing, communicating and staying calm were the big winners this week!!

Balance your Priorities

How much faster, busier, more hectic and  demanding can our lives possibly get?

These past two months have been especially challenging for me with numerous family issues and my own health concerns. Although I study life balance and help others through my teaching, speaking, writing and coaching I found myself bursting at the same seams I’ve helped others better handle. All of my techniques and strategies were in my tool box and once I took a deep breadth, re-focused, and took things more slowly I was able to manage day-to-day and see the rainbow at the end of all the rain that was pouring down in my life.

Living a balanced life  has become one of the biggest challenges in our  society.  However, as I’ve learned from my own experiences, until you get your thinking and actions aligned, you’ll naturally be out of balance. To be in balance, you need to align your life with your top priorities and live that way each and every day!

Your priorities come from your core — your personal values.  They define what is really most important to you. They help guide your decisions about where and how you will spend your time, money and energy.

If you want to live a balanced life, begin by defining your core values and key priorities.  Define what life balance means to you. 

A blanket answer will not resonate with every one of you. We will have different answers to what’s important to us and what life balance looks like for us. Life balance is a concept that has a different meaning for each of us. What’s a balanced lifestyle for one, might not be balanced for another.

The key to getting the right balance, is making time for what’s important to you.

Begin with the end in mind

Posted this piece at Manpower’s Experis page to help remind you of the importance of managing your busy life, controlling your time, making more effective decisions, and becoming more proactive, productive, efficient and balanced in the way you live your life.  Please add your comments!

 

 

Getting Help

Been talking about the need to be able to ask for and accept help for years but now that I am reliant on others, I am truly experiencing the power of help in a new way!

It has been several days since I had surgery. Maybe I was in full denial, but I really believed I would bounce right back. I didn’t arrange for any help. I had coaching client sessions scheduled the remainder of the week because they were all scheduled to occur by phone.  I find that I wasn’t ready for the reality of not being able to do anything and feeling so crappy.  The pain was so bad that doctors/nurses had to keep increasing my pain medication. The effects of anasthesia, pain medications, discomfort left be quite immobilized and needing help even for some of the most basic things.

Although I had prepared my family and business by removing a lot from my plate, had done a thorough house-cleaning, cut back work appointments, bought a full week of groceries, planned a week of meals with my husband, etc. things seemed to unravel when my condition wasn’t quite as expected. My teenaged kids were not as helpful as I thought they’d be. My husband grew bored with sitting around and helping me. Even the dog pouted because he didn’t get his daily long walks with me. I hadn’t planned ahead or aligned the help I needed. I falsely believed that I would be able to handle things.

After having a bit of a meltdown and feeling sorry for myself, I was able to appreciate the help I already had. My sister-in-laws who coordinated visiting on separate days to help out, a friend who stopped in with the medications she picked up for me, the many phone calls I receiced, the help from my husband, my mother-in-law and the kids. This morning I took control and put out emails, texts and calls for help. As a result, I had lots of response!

The lesson learned is that when you act like ‘super-women’ , people expect you to be such but when you expose yourself to needing and accepting help, there’s a world of people ready, able and willing to help! I am grateful to those who have come to my aid with help, emotional support, flowers, meals, and more. Too bad it takes experiencing a situation first-hand to be able to experience the real power of the lessons!

Happy Summer!

Today is officially the first day of summer.  For some, it may have felt that summer started weeks ago when your kids ended their school year or when the days were longer and hotter.  With temperatures peaking in the 90’s today and bright sunshine, it will definitely feel like summer here in NJ, although the kids don’t finish their school year until Wednesday!

As each new season comes and goes, many of my clients use it as a time for self-reflection and renewal. They check-in with their goals to see if they are on track. They commit to achieving new goals for the second half of the year.

  • Are you on track with your goals?
  • What are your priorities this summer?
  • How will you be sure to stay focused on achieving what’s most important?
  • What obstacles may prevent you from achieving what you what you want to?
  • How can you plan on avoiding them?
  • What will you do to gain some enjoyment from this more relaxed time of the year?

As a professionally trained and internationally certified coach, I work with business leaders to help insure their personal and professional success.  I offer training, keynote presentations, and seminars to support each individual and the organization as a whole to achieve your goals. Contact me at natalie@theprioritypro.com or 908-281-7098 to discuss your needs!

Savor the Long Days of Summer

Summer is coming!!!   With summer comes longer days, more outdoor activities and more opportunities to do things together with your family.  Now is the opportune time to put in a new habit of spending some quality time as a family after dinner to go for a walk, pedal through the neighborhood, do some extra reading, play ball, go out for ice cream, or whatever you and your family would enjoy doing together.  It takes about 21 days to get a new habit in place.  Once you’ve developed this time as a normal part of your daily routine, it will be easier to adapt your activities to other times of the year while still focusing on spending time together.

You could also take this opportunity to create some activities just for you, for you and your spouse, or together with a friend or neighbor.  Use this time consciously and create it to be what you want.  It would be helpful to have a handful of activities you enjoy.  Time is too easily frittered away when the effort is not taken to use it wisely.

Select things that are fun and enjoyable that you’ll look forward to doing.  Get in the rhythm of “being” the kind of person you want to be rather than being too SuperBusy to enjoy your life and loved ones!

Rejuvenate and Relax!

There is an art to taking vacation and getting the rest and rejuvenation you need. Here are some important tips posted in my blog at MyPath that will help you prevent work from spilling over into your personal time.

 

Surviving Work Overload

These days I continually here about employees at every level of the organization who are overloaded with too much work.  This chronic problem is mostly a result of numerous workforce reductions and vacation schedules.  Many of us have experienced that dreadful sense of having far too much work to do and too little time to do it in. The option is to ignore it because you are “too busy” and to work unreasonably long hours just to stay on top of your workload. Unfortunately, the risk is that you may build up resentment, exhaustion and frustration that leads to poor quality work while you neglect other areas of your life and eventually experience intense levels of stress.

Some of the key signs that you or others may be overloaded include:

  • A boss with no real sense of your job
  • Increased sick leave
  • A sharp rise in complaints
    • Poor synergy with a team of co-workers
  • Conversation breakdowns
  • More consistently working longer hours and weekends
  • Increase in turnover
  • Increase in customer complaints
  • Inefficient meetings
  • Improper delegation of tasks
  • Constant interruptions & distractions
  • Too many emails, text messages, etc.
  • Feel totally out-of-control or overwhelmed
  • Employees complaining about work/life issues, limited career opportunities, or lack of skill development. If you colleagues are leaving in droves, find out why!

Work more intelligently by focusing on the things that are important for job success and reduce the time you spend on lower priority tasks.  I found a tool on line at the Mind Tools site, which can help you take the first step in looking at your work, Job Analysis. According to information on their site, job analysis is a key technique for managing job overload – an important source of stress.

Also, try out some of these simple, popular and often effective solutions to many of the problems frequently encountered in the work environment:

  • Proactively discuss with your boss the inefficiencies related to constant change and propose some realistic boundaries.
  • Establish boundaries around when you can and cannot be interrupted by employees or colleagues.
  • Turn on your phone only during designated hours or have your secretary impose a heavy filter on the incoming phone calls. If you are the secretary, keep conversations brief and get all necessary details during the first call.
  • Prioritize your e-mail and correspondence. Don’t leave the email indicator on unless it’s absolutely critical for your job.
  • Accept the possibility of a complete turn-about in your work as a result of uncertainties. Learn to reprioritize when change is necessary.
  • Only permit emergency calls at work from family, friends, and neighbors.

10 Tips for Balancing Work & Family Life

Read this article in the May issue of Treasure Coast Parenting to learn tips you can use in your own life to gain more balance.

http://www.tcparenting.com/0511%20-%20May%20Webzine/index.html

Strengthen Your Leadership

Everyone can be a leader, regardless of title. You just need to be willing to step up. Many leaders are self-created, not born or designated, by their organizations.  In this link to my blog post at Manpower’s site, you’ll learn  some noteworthy behaviors that can help you be a strong leader regardless of your position within the organization.

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