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

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…

Continue Reading

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

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…

Continue Reading