I’ll try to embed the video later, but, for your delectation, David Davis piling it after talking about Brexit…
Ah, I do love a good visual metaphor…
Soon I’ll be Sixty Years Old
Well actually I won’t be 60 soon, however I do appreciate it’ll be soon enough.
As life is all too short and busy, I’ve been trying to be kind to myself, generally hang in there, and not, for want of a more elegant phrase, do my own head in trying to be all things to all people. It’s only been recently that I’ve realised that stepping away from my creative outlets is not the way to achieve this and in the few weeks I’ve been away from work, I’ve felt some fairly unusual sensations wafting over me.
I realised that it was contentment. That was a weird one and no mistake.
As if by magic, (or more to the point, his Mrs. shared it on Facebook), I re-read this blog by Brian Lumsden, Life and Leadership Coach, twentyoneleadership.com, that hit home on a number of levels. Especially around self-care and the time spent with loved ones.
Rather tellingly, I actually meant to post this last year, but work/stress ate my life again and I never got around to it. It’s really worth a read.
The link to the post is here – Soon I’ll be Sixty years old
Irony in action (Or Dobby is almost a free elf)
As you are no doubt aware, I’m someone who’s expended a lot of effort trying to help people who experience stress and burnout at work stay sane when they are stuck in the same job that drove them around the bend in the first place. Ironically I have finally done the thing that I was trying not to do – i.e. leave. However, here we are, and I will be leaving my job at the end of the month.
I’ll be honest, since making the decision, I have not felt a moments’ regret or doubt and soldiering on towards the end to finish work off and hand it over is giving me a good insight into how toxic this is for me, and how I’ve been doing a pretty crappy job of making this situation work. In the sphere of my professional confidence, I currently no longer have any.
I know it’ll return when I’m doing something I genuinely want to do, but at the moment, my primary focus is getting through to the end without swearing at anyone. (And you know I love a good swear!).
Wish me luck!
Burnout and Stress Resource List
Here’s my list of useful articles and resources. Give it an visit – and if you’ve got anything you’d like to share, give me a shout and I’ll add it.
Watch a Tory fall over – Part 3 (Minus the falling)
Greetings!
In this instance, there isn’t any falling over, however that isn’t for the want of trying…
Take it away, George Gideon Osborne!
Managing anxiety when you can’t step off the hamster wheel
Let’s face it, work sometimes sucks. If you find you’re surrendering to creeping panic, here’s a few things I’ve found useful to stifle the screaming ab-dabs.
I’ve tried to encompass things that have helped when I’ve been in jobs where I’ve had little control over my time as well as the jobs where I have so treat this as pick ‘n mix according to your circumstances.
- Do everything slowly for a while, describing everything that you do silently in your head. It helps ground you in the present moment and you can do it while you’re moving around. Concentrate on what you are doing with your body, rather than “I’m going to shove this bread roll up the nose of the bloke on table 4”.
- Divide your tasks down to very small chunks – the advantage here is you’ll still probably achieve what you need to, without being overwhelmed by the vastness of the whole process of the thing that you’re trying to achieve.
- Tell an understanding someone that you are struggling. Even a text.
- Set boundaries and plan if that’s an option for you.
- (if you can) do the thing that will bring you the most joy at that given moment. (Within reason – getting someone to cover you so you can go to your child’s sports day, rather than slipping laxatives into your co-workers’ tea.)
- Lock yourself in the staff toilet and watch a Kitten/Panda/Puppy video so you can regroup.
- Go for a walk and look at trees.
- Pop over to Pinterest and find a quote that resonates and that you can use as a mantra that you can read silently to yourself until you feel calmer. This has the added advantage of you can be doing this while doing something else – even while being customer facing.
- Remember everyone is winging it.
- Remember that unfortunately some people are assholes and this is not your problem.
- Remember that other people can’t see what’s going on in your head so they probably aren’t judging you, and if they are see point 9.
Something I loved and copied for my own amusement
Not taking credit for the design, but I did copy it with my own fair hand…in emulsion tester pots.
Self-care: more than making time to wash
So…in the name of self care not just being about making sure that you don’t smell like Satan’s gusset* , I’m going to doing the Coffee (tea) and Good Book reading challenge for 2017. I looked at doing it last year, but obviously that went a little ‘boobies aloft’.
If I plan it properly, I’ll actually do it (all that project management training has to come in handy somewhere) so here are my choices for the coming year.
- Author under 30 – One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest – Ken Kesey
- Book turned into a TV Show – Outlander – Diana Gabaldon
- Author that has your initials – Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
- Set in a place you want to go on holiday (I refuse to say vacation, I’m British, dammit) – Singular Rebellion – Saiichi Maruya
- Reread a favourite – The Handmaids Tale – Margaret Attwood
- A play – Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – J.K.Rowling
- True Crime – Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil – John Berendt
- A love story – Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
- 2017 Release – Difficult Women – Roxane Gay
- Cosy mystery – Mud, Muck and Dead Things – Ann Granger
- Red Cover – Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran Foer
- A genre you rarely read – Shut up Legs! My wild ride on and off the bike – Jens Voigt
- A book older than you – The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
- A book about food – The One Hundred Foot Journey – Richard Morais
- Audio book – Don’t Suck, Don’t Die – Kristin Hersh
- Book recommended by a parent or mentor – False Memory – Dean Koontz
- Won an award in 2016 – The Invention of Russia – Arkady Ostrovsky
- Popular Fairy Tale – The Ugly Duckling – Hans Christian Anderson
- Two authors – Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch – Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
- Book written under a pen name – Career of Evil – Robert Galbraith
*have a shower
Dreams
Generally my dreams are a load of tripe: for example, the one about trying to catch pigs in a flooded field whilst carrying a washing machine. Whilst being chased by anthromorphic articulated lorries*. This was a particular stand out in my catalogue of anxiety-ridden sleep time brain vomitings.
Last night I had an epiphany. Does anyone else have dreams that come in a series? Hopefully not just me – but if it is just me, please send me the number of a good therapist.
However, I digress. Occasionally I get to have a season finale, and so it was last night. I have been dreaming about binning off lectures, skiving off tutorials and failing to hand work in for years. Hilariously, once I actually graduated, I dreamt that I had started a new degree and I was repeating the pattern. BA (Hons) Media Communications to be exact.
Last night I graduated from the fictional degree, and got a Third – and then had the realisation that a) I had a degree already so it didn’t matter all that much and b) had a much better grade. And oddly enough, woke up feeling pretty good about myself.
Brain, I could have done with this a few years ago, you twat.
*Though any inference you might hazard to make about the fact that I was married to my first husband at the time is purely coincidental.
Guess who’s back? Back again
Howdy Duffer Lovers, time to stick my head over the parapet once more.
I know things have been quiet but things have been changing (mostly for the better) here at Duffer Towers, and it’s safe to say that I’ve/We’ve been hella busy.
So…
- Christening
- Moved house (Finally!!! It has a garden!!! And space!!)
- Changed contracts at work to one that works a lot better for me. Where I don’t feel like telling the customer to “go forth and be fruitful”.
- Went to see Belly in London.
- Got a diagnosis for the lad so we can support him at school and he’s starting Reception next week.
- Lots of back pain. But also discovered the highly functional, and highly uncomfortable delights of sports massage and things are a lot better.
- Rented out the old place.
- Refurbishing bits and bats to furnish the place as it’s amazing how much stuff you need when you’ve been living in a mortgaged cupboard for 10 years. Like a TV stand.
- And I was out of action for 3-ish weeks with chicken pox. No fun if you’re north of 40.
The thing is, when you’ve burnt out before, you have to be aware that there are aspects of your life that you may need to set to one side for a while, so that you can attend to the business of living as your energy is a finite resource.
Back with the programme now though. Yeeehaaaa! x