Overwhelm: A Career Signifier

Being efficient relies on noting times when you step into and remain overwhelmed and what you do to get out of it. The overall aspect of taking on too much and not having an exit strategy can create a cycle of feeling tracked and overwhelmed.

As you become more skilled and busier in your work the likelihood of becoming overwhelmed and distracted becomes more prevalent. Being overwhelmed is when you have more to do or process than what you perceive you have time for. The challenge with overwhelm is that it costs businesses millions of dollars each year with employees not being productive, efficient and on top of things.

It impacts the work place because employees are not given the specific tools and strategizes to change their attitude and perspective. In this blog I will go into detail about specific techniques I coach clients on that you may find helpful.

There are specific tips I am going to share with you. In additional I have a unique model I have developed that you can apply to any situation to get out of overwhelm. Please email me to get your copy.

Here are some suggestions I recommend. The first is to say no to certain activities and conversations that don’t support your goals. It’s honorable to say no in your life so you can make space for what is most important. In partnership with saying no is always opening to understanding and knowing your limits. As we live longer our body changes and our life energy reserves shifts, which impacts our limits and our capacities. By knowing this you save yourself time and energy. I recommend you take brakes every 1.5 hours or so and take notice of your natural rhythms. Are you more likely to be an early morning person or a late night person? Track your most productive and energetic times and use that time to do the most demanding and meaningful work. I also encourage you to play with how you do tasks by experimenting with your use of time and task management.

Specifically after you know your natural rhythms you can relax into the moment and let your past and future melt away. To reduce and begin to eliminate overwhelm it’s important to look at what is essential in your life and career and do what gives you the most reward and out put. As you choose to release relationships, activities, volunteer projects, clients, career directions, to dos in general that have drained you then you create more energy to dedicate to what is important for you. In previous blogs I have mentioned the 80/20 rule where we receive most of our enjoyment and success from 20% of what we do. By reducing what you choose to take on, remain involved with and focus on you can reduce the amount of work and projects down to a manageable amount that you can work with. From there I suggest you systemize and automate as much as you can of what you have taken on into daily rituals and systems that allow you to create a way to focus on completing things verses remaining on a treadmill of busyness.

And finally the most practical and sometimes the most profound are the items that relate to increasing your health and vitality such as mediating, exercise, eating food that works for you well, getting enough sleep, and spending time alone without stimulus such as TV, computers, conversations and work.

Overwhelm is a state of mind that you can change with your attitude and the actions you take.

Work Life balance

Being your best in the workplace means being effective in both your personal and your professional arenas. Work-life balance is a tangible and accomplishable activity. We all explore what balance is and how to achieve it as you do in your life and work.




It's important to choose to make this a priority. Some people are addicted to the busyness of being busy and non-effective. Choose to have fun and balance your personal life with your work. Once you do this you begin to see new behaviors and actions bring you greater success and expansion. The foundation of any new skill and result is to make it a priority and redesign your life to accommodate your new focus.

You can do it. Believe you in your innate ability to create enjoyment and balance between all areas of your life. What I find that is the #1 obstacle to this is that we tend to compartmentalize our lives to such a degree that we don't see how things overlap or contribute to one another. I recommend you look for the flow and commonality between work and personal life. When we generate separation it takes energy and time to stop one activity and move to the next. Ive had people loose 45 minutes worth of valuable work time due to having to switch gears and think about something totally unrelated and out of their focus at that time. See how your work and your personal life serve one another and go about being more efficient in all areas and spend less time trying for perfect balance.

I recommend that you create a list of specific items that you appreciation about your work and your personal life on a daily basis and make time to enhance and bring more of that into your life. A list is imperative because the mind will forget and trick you into believing that there is nothing that you appreciate. Aiming for balance and ease takes discipline and focus.

In addition to this I suggest you make a separate list of specific actions about 10-20 that you can do to increase your appreciation and enjoyment of life. Each day you need at least one thing you are energized by and look forward to. I suggest you have one from your work life and one from your personal life. If they can be the same that would be excellent. You want to begin exploring the connection and flow between these two areas of your life, and aim for seamless transition and effectiveness.

Work-life balance is a simple process of shifting your focus from separate spheres and moving it from a tetter totter with work on one end and life on the other end to a more balanced perspective with the fulcrum (middle part) being those actions, thoughts and beliefs which link the two sections together. The balance is generated in the overarching connection and appreciation of you and your life. Next week I will speak to efficiency and preparation for a New Year!

Negotiate Your Salary

Negotiating is a skill that completes your professional package. Being able to convey your thoughts to another and generate a successful outcome demonstrates many benefits to an employer. Learn more about the specifics required to be a success.

Once you have your job offer then it’s important to move forward into the phase of negotiating and claiming your compensation packet. I want to remind us that there are many ways how to define your value and build a win/win expectation. In negotiating the first step is to gain career advise from others about the industry standard for your position. You need a realistic and present time value statement for the position you are aiming for. Once this is established you can move forward with exploring your bottom line negotiating points and your career needs.

Negotiating is a conversation of asking for what is needed, listening to what the other person has to offer, and seeing how things can fit for each party. Both people want to feel like they got a good deal and the long end of the stick. In allowing for this it is important to initiate a discussion on behalf of your career goals by taking into account your compensation packet as one venue for establishing value. In this global age there are many aspects to being competitive and beneficial to an employer. One important key is in the value that you bring to them not only in your cost savings in relation to salary but also based on return on investment. As you establish the dollar value of what you bring to the table and the benefit you provide they can more easily pay you what you request. This is accomplished by speaking and demonstrating your past successes and by mentioning your ideas for their business goals. To be engaged in an effective negotiating conversation requires establishing up front the value of what you offer and what they need and confirming that there is a strong match.

Negotiating is a process of dialoguing with another person by selling in what you have to offer and placing a financial dollar amount attached to it. In negotiating it’s important to begin with what your key points are and what you are willing to move on and change and what are your basic bottom line non-negotiable items. By having both in mind you know where you begin and where to end. As you engage with the person you are drawing them into a conversation with you that is rich with needs, requests, and bottom lines. How you negotiate will also demonstrate the type of professional you are and set the tone and foundation for your work. Do it with respect, intention, and partnership. This provides getting your needs met and developing a foundation of colleague to colleague offering.

Negotiation is both a mind-set and a skill. Both of which are career requirements to move you and your goals forward. It is a way to contextualize what you are doing and to interact with another person to produce a successful result. It also takes skill and tact to bring various requests together and to keep the conversation moving forward. At the end of the day, negotiating is about building rapport and generating a working relationship that brings lasting results.