Feeling Like You’re Never Enough? Had Enough Of That? Here’s How To Stop That Feeling…

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

My last blog post was all about the value of discovering what fills up your energy tank and learning to nurture yourself without judgement.

 

How’s that going for you?

 

Did you forget all about this because you are just too busy at your job and with your life?

 

Demands around us can be overwhelming for sure.  However believing you’re “too busy” is only a distraction from facing that you may have submitted to a false belief that you have to answer all these demands in an effort to prove your “enough-ness”.  You prove your “enough-ness” by demonstrating your ability to “juggle it all” flawlessly.

 

Let’s face it “juggle it all” simply means keeping other people happy – and we all know it’s impossible to keep everyone happy all the time.  What’s really behind this juggling is a fear that we aren’t “enough”.  The juggling distracts us from addressing and healing our sense of “not enough-ness”.  It’s our ego’s desperate quest for “please like me” which can only be experienced when everyone around us knight’s us by declaring “Hear ye, hear ye!  From this day forward let it be known that (insert your full and formal name here) is in fact, a true specimen of ‘enough’ – MORE than ‘enough’!”

 

But the ego is cruel…

 

…the fear it’s desires stem from will only accept approval in a Universal law defying manner.  It seeks approval from situations where approval is not possible due to the Universal law of like energy attracts like energy.  That means that you cannot experience what you don’t believe – so you can’t find yourself in situations where your efforts bring you a sense of peace, accomplishment, and rewards if you hold fear around being “enough”.  The truth is, holding a false belief that you are “not (worthy) enough” in any way can only put you in situations where you will continue to experience the very thing you fear.

 

Ever felt expected to perform impossible feats that stretch your knowledge/skills/abilities/values beyond their limits and only piss insatiable people off in the end no matter what you do?

 

Of course you have – we all have had held that fear of not being enough at one time or another.  We are vulnerable to it when there is a lot of what seems like turmoil happening around us – ESPECIALLY if our livelihood is attached to these situations in any way (i.e. at your job)!

 

Feeling Like You’re Never Enough?  Had Enough Of That?  Here’s How To Stop That Feeling…

 

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The Quickest Way to Recover From Feeling Trapped and Burned Out

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

One thing I learned from self-help pioneer Louise Hay, author of How to Love Yourself, (and countless other self-help books), is that the quickest way to recover from feeling trapped and burned out is to discover (or rediscover), who you are and love yourself for it.  It’s amazing how we change our energy and what we attract when we shift how we view and care for ourselves.

 

In a blog post I wrote earlier this year, I introduced you to the idea of operating from energy vs. effort.  In that post, I asked you which of these 2 formulas were you following at your job…

 

Aptitude (what you can do)

+ Motivation (what you can gain or need to perform)

= Effort (hard work)

 

or

 

Attitude (what you believe about yourself and others)

+ Intention (what you believe others can gain as a result of your contributions)

= Energy (what you effortlessly give to others and attract for yourself in return)

 

Here’s a secret I didn’t share with you in that post – neither formula works optimally without one more factor.  That factor is fulfillment.

 

Fulfillment, in the sense I am referring to, is defined in the dictionary as follows:

  • to make full
  • to meet the requirements of 

 

Practicing fulfillment is about

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Is Your Job Synonymous With Pain And Suffering? Say “YES!”

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

“Your faith in the Universe must be stronger than your fear of not getting what you want.”  Jen Sincero (author of You are a Badass – How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life)

 

March’s blog posts are all about recovering from job burnout.  You can heal and feel clarified, confident and convicted again – it is possible!  Here’s how…

 

If you are feeling burned out (as evidenced by your chronic exhaustion, royal crab ass attitude, and frustration over never feeling like you can get anything accomplished – at least not without battling miles of red tape and tolerating the unpredictable whims of those with more authority and power than you) – then you probably got there unwittingly.  No one actually thinks “Ya know what would be cool?  I’d love to fight uphill battles all day long for the benefit of people I think are unworthy and unappreciative of my efforts – all while dragging my ass – wouldn’t that be great!?”

 

While we may not think we chose this scenario for our life – we did.  Here’s how it happened…

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Feeling Burned Out at Work? You Don’t Have to Join the Club!

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

The other day, The Wall Street Journal published an article by Rachel Feintzeig entitled Feeling Burned Out at Work?  Join the Club.  The article is about how the burnout problem appears to be worsening which is driving up turnover and health costs for companies.  It discusses how companies contribute to burnout creating cultures that include universal factors such as:

  • job uncertainty
  • an expectation that you always be in work mode thanks to technology or being responsible for people and initiatives happening in other countries – who doesn’t love a conference call at 2:00 AM?
  • an ever-present “do more with less” expectation

 

But have companies single-handedly created these cultures or have workers manifested these factors from their fear-based beliefs born during times of economic uncertainty?  In other words, is the workforce truly a victim of economic capitalism at its worst or are we powerful creators who still haven’t learned to wake up to and hold true to who we are, what we have to offer, and what it takes for us to provide our skills and services especially in times of economic uncertainty or in the face of fear-filled leaders who falsely believe the way to endure hard times is to pass a burden of giving more and receiving less onto their most valued commodity – their human resources?

 

Although there is so much companies can do to address this epidemic, workers simply cannot rest their laurels on their righteousness that companies are just not doing enough to help their employees heal.  Workers must rise up to realize that although they are right that companies are wrong to enable these factors for short-term gains, it doesn’t justify throwing in the towel by settling for short-term solutions to address their sense of dwindling energy, power, and emotional (which drives physical) well-being.

 

If you are feeling burned out, your spirit is broken and only you can actually fix it.  Companies know this – they make amends with the only solutions their fears will allow – band-aid solutions such as yoga or meditation at work.  I’m not trashing either practice – both are fabulous and if your company offers them – be grateful.  However they alone are not the solution that will heal you.  You must find and engage in solutions that work for you to be emotionally aware and well.

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Still ready to quit? Want to be transitioned to a job you love much faster and easier? Then stop doing this to yourself …

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

Warning:  this blog might be tough to read…

 

… but it can help you gain your power back in a job situation you just wanna quit.

 

Buckle up…

 

Identifying with any of the 3 scenarios in my latest blog series about quitting your job is living in agreement that there’s something wrong with your current job, employer, work environment, etc.

 

This erroneously identifies the problem as being outside of yourself leaving you powerless and in victim mode.  Still ready to quit? Want to be transitioned to a job you love much faster and easier?  Then stop doing this to yourself …

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Feel like everyone else’s agenda runs your day and you can’t get anything done at work? You can break this cycle – here’s how…

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

Do you feel incompetent, insufficient, discouraged or powerless to get done what you need to or want to accomplish?  Welcome to inefficacy.

 

How much would you agree with these statements:

 

  • I accomplish the things that really matter every day at work.
  • I have the resources I need to get my job done.
  • I feel supported and encouraged at work by my colleagues.
  • I value my contributions at work.
  • Others value my contributions at work.
  • I feel qualified to do my job.
  • I feel I can handle anything that may come up in my job.
  • It’s ok to contribute to others in my unique way.
  • My job matters.
  • I play an active role in addressing issues that come up related to my work or workplace.

 

If your degree of agreement with many of the statements above is low, you may be at risk for experiencing a feeling of powerlessness at your job which can lead to disengagement and eventually burnout.

 

Feeling powerless at work is especially concerning because it can directly affect the quality of your work.  We all know when the quality of your work falls, we stand out – and not in a good way.  In my experience, management tends to tolerate a degree of cynicism from workers who are still producing strong results – and everyone can easily empathize with exhaustion because we all experience it from time to time.  But when you don’t produce – your boss isn’t producing – so it’s a problem that quickly gets noticed.

 

Although there is a lot an organization can do to improve an employee’s ability to recover more quickly from inefficacy – but often it’s left to the individual to “shape up or ship out.”  It usually goes down something like this “It might be a tough time/situation, but your _____________________ (fill in the blank with some negatively perceived quality you may have – i.e. anger, complaining, lack of confidence, unwillingness to participate, etc.), isn’t helping.”

 

The organization often sees feelings of powerlessness as the employee’s problem to fix – not theirs.  Organizations tend to do their part by starting performance counseling – a “talking to”, poor reviews,  written documentation, demotion, etc. or threats of those things come your way to put you on notice that you need to improve.

 

So, do you feel like everyone else’s agenda runs your day and you can’t get anything done at work?  You can break this cycle – here’s how…

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Feeling crabby at work? Don’t focus on things changing in your job to restore your mood – focus on this…

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

How dedicated would you say you are to your job?  How dedicated would you say you are to your customers, your co-workers or your supervisors?  When it comes to job satisfaction did you know that how you feel about the people you interact with has more to do with how you will feel about your job than the tasks you have to perform?

 

But getting along with people can bring problems.  As we all know, we are not meant to please everyone all the time – and everyone is not meant to please us all the time (although we often live like this is how life is supposed to be).   With that, we experience cynicism from time to time.  Someone will do or say something that makes us contort our face into the same shape it would make if we smelled something really foul and offensive and a cartoon bubble might appear over our head that reads “WTF?” and emotionally we respond with some form of fear (anger, hurt, shame, confusion, etc.).

 

Hopefully our norm is to forgive and move forward.  But sometimes it builds up and we respond to that person or similar situation with a degree of reserve expecting a similar pain we experienced in the past.  Consistency in that thinking eventually leads us to develop a negative attitude as our norm or to just withdraw altogether.  This is how cynicism evolves.

 

So, are you feeling crabby at work?  Don’t focus on things changing in your job to restore your mood – focus on this…

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I love that this was said…

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

“Everything seems to be exhausting me, no matter how much sleep or how much coffee I drink or how long I lie down, something inside me seems to have given up.  My soul is tired.”  Unknown

 

This quote has probably crossed the mind of every adult at some point in their working career.  It’s truly speaks to a fear that you may be tired beyond recovery.

 

That is never true – you can always bounce back.  Experiencing energy-depleting events and learning your boundaries and how to bounce back is how consciousness evolvement happens.

 

My last blog was all about becoming aware of events at work that are likely to exhaust anybody and the remedial action you can take to recover your vigor.  You might be surprised – not so much about what some of the contributors are to exhaustion – but about the remedies to recover.  You may be doing things that you usually enjoy but they could actually be keeping you down.  So put down the coffee and other self-medicating remedies and read my last blog…

Do you feel emotionally drained after your work day?  There is a way to get your energy back!

 

 

Do you feel emotionally drained after your work day? There is a way to get your energy back!

By Gina Calvano | Leave a Comment

Confession:  I slept a good part of the day away yesterday.

 

I’m battling my usual seasonal allergies plus I didn’t sleep well the night before. I thought “It’s understandable – I’ll take an allergy pill, a long nap and I’ll be fine.”  And I was – for the most part – I wasn’t 100% – but I was able to pull myself together, shower and enjoy a family dinner and birthday party later that afternoon.

 

This feeling reminded of how I would often feel this way when I worked in corporate earlier in my career.  The truth was, I felt this way pretty much every day AND I did not have confidence that anything could help me to rally and get productive or feel energetic.  Can you relate?

 

  • Do you feel tired before you go to work (even if you slept well the night before)?
  • Do you anticipate that you will be drained physically and emotionally by events that will surely come up at work each day?
  • Do you doubt you will have the energy to deal effectively with your work each day (no less accomplish a few goals)?
  • Even if you had the energy, do you doubt that your energy and efforts would make a difference?
  • Do you feel emotionally drained after your work day?

 

There is a way to get your energy back!

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Feeling tired, crabby, powerless – pretty much every day? You can recover – here’s how…

By Gina Calvano | 3 Comments

Do you experience any of the following pretty much every day?…

 

1.  exhaustion (mental, emotional and/or physical)

 

Do you experience depleted energy due to helplessness, futility or tiredness due to overwork?

 

2.  crabby 

 

Do you frequently have a negative or cynical attitude or loss of concern for something you have a responsibility for – this can include people you interact with fairly regularly?  Do you seek to remove yourself from these situations or people whenever you can?

 

3.  feeling powerless 

 

Do you feel incompetent, insufficient, discouraged or powerless to get done what you need to or want to accomplish?

 

Chronic exposure to any of these 3 experiences can unleash a case of burnout.

 

Burnout typically starts as a form of disengagement which may be triggered by perceived threatening situations, diminished returns on personally invested resources, enhanced demands, or lack of resources.  It can begin as mildly as developing a “wait-and-see attitude” towards aspects of your life – meaning you might hold back from investing too much time, effort or energy in something because you prefer to see how things “play out”.  But here’s what happens when we allow solutions outside of ourself to develop…

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