Happy New Year! Or is it?

For many this is a tough year to celebrate the ringing in of a new year.

The economy is still limping along. Unemployment is still a painful reality, either for themselves or someone they know personally.

Job security feels fragile when one can be so easily replaced.

Bosses are afraid of making mistakes, which is resulting in a depressing risk-averse conservatism in decision-making.

The advent of a new calendar year does present an opportunity, though.

Even if the optimism isn’t built in this year, we can choose to use the calendar to our advantage. Even if (especially if?) our spirits and energies are low, we can use the tool of the new year to choose an attitude shift within ourselves.

Even if circumstances are difficult and the outlook is bleak, we can choose to face and confront this reality rather than complain about it or wish it were otherwise. 

Yes, for many people it would be dishonest to exult “Happy New Year!” That things are difficult doesn’t mean, though, that it has to be a bad year.

So choose yourself a “Meaningful New Year!”. Give yourself a “Proactive New Year!”

There is no power in the world that can stop you from choosing to have an empowered, responsible, determined, creative, persevering, generous, and life-enhancing new year.

To those for whom this is a particularly difficult season, I pray we find our way together to making it a deeply worthwhile season.

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

Born and raised in Southern California, I am not a natural fan of the rain. While I understand its nourishing, generative, and cleansing attributes, I generally consider it an intruder, a nuisance and an unfortunate complication.

Some days, though, it rains.

There is no escaping it. There is no wishing it were otherwise. There is no pretending it has no impact.

What do you do when it rains?

Stay inside and suspend your plans? Bundle up and trudge on through?

I am learning a third way… to welcome the rain.

While certainly not my preference, rain is occasionally my reality. I can face my reality and make the most of it, or I can bemoan my reality and painfully endure it.

I can choose to transform the situation into an opportunity, or I can choose to blame the situation for holding me back and ruining my plans. The choice is mine.

How will you respond if it’s raining when you arrive at work? The choice is yours.

Some days it rains.

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

So many voices shouting for attention.

The distractions and demands can confuse us, alter our priorities, or even overwhelm us.

That’s when I find it helpful to commit simply to getting one thing done.

One thing that will take precedence over everything else.

With a single goal settled for the day, other important tasks and issues can be scheduled in light of it.

Instead of losing your most important priority in the mix of the many important things, it becomes the stable anchor around which everything else can be organized.

Daily Focus Pad

Have you seen our Daily Focus Pad?

Three simple questions with which to begin each day.

• If I accomplish one thing today, that one thing must be…
• What one complicating reality can I anticipate and head off?
• What one element can I include in my day that will keep me energized?

Get a copy for yourself. Or purchase a discounted set for the team. (Click here.)

Before anything else…

Before you do anything else, pause and decide what one thing you will commit to accomplish today?

Give yourself the gift of focus and accomplishment today.

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

My, that was easy to say.

Some words are easier to say than to do.

Go for it! is an enthusiastic, high confidence encouragement to dive in without hesitation or reservation.

Commit. Invest. Push. Give it everything you’ve got. Operate with abandon, joy, zeal.

As I said, easy to say. Not always easy to do.

There are times when we’re weary. There are obstacles we encounter along the way. Not everyone is encouraging in either their words or deeds.

As much as we may desire to “Go for it!” our reality is sometimes dimmer, slimmer or grimmer. (No corny rhyming intended, though I must admit I’m smiling.)

Sometimes we need someone to shout “Go for it!” as a reminder, as an exhortation to action, or as a walk-up call.

Sometimes we need to tell ourselves to “Go for it!” so that we don’t miss out, settle for less, or get into a rut.

Sometimes the easy words are needed as a catalyst to the more difficult action.

So to you I say, “Go for it!”

You are a gift… even if you are currently weary.

You have a contribution to make… even if you’re having trouble seeing your way forward.

The complexities of today are a part of your life as much as any of the idealized futures you are building for yourself.

So, “Go for it!”

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

Not all battles are adversarial conflicts in which there is a winner and a loser.

Could it be possible that on some occasions the smartest course of action might be to surrender?

That to win in in the big picture would mean to admit that you’ve lost in the current scene?

How on earth can admitting defeat be a victory?

When you need help.

When you’ve got too much to do or need skill sets that you yourself don’t have, it’s smarter to surrender.

It’s a victory to recognize your limits. The sooner you get a handle on what you can and cannot contribute, the sooner you can surround yourself with the people, skills and resources necessary to get the job done and done well.

The defeat comes in pushing yourself until you burn out, make a costly mistake, or simply produce a mediocre outcome because you felt it was somehow more noble to operate alone.

When you need perspective.

When you can’t see the forest for the trees or small issues feel like huge problems, it’s smarter to surrender.

It’s a victory to take a step back and get some different perspectives on the issues at hand. The sooner you surrender the soon you can climb over to a different vantage point on the wilderness trail and discover viable routes ahead that are not visible from where you are standing now.

The defeat comes in letting all problems, disagreements and complications become obstacles that stress you out, cloud your thinking, and prevent you from making needed decisions.

When you need to change course.

When you find yourself digger the hole deeper and deeper or find your efforts taking you away from the goal instead of toward it, it’s time to surrender.

It’s a victory to recognize when you’re off course. The sooner you surrender the sooner you can take constructive and redemptive action to turn things around. The sooner you stop walking down the current path and turn around, the sooner you can choose a different path.

The defeat comes in stubbornly sticking to a course of action because you’ve got too much invested already or will feel humiliated to hear a rival say, “I told you so.”

Once in a while the smartest course of action is to raise the white flag.

Surrender. The sooner you do the sooner you can get help, get some perspective or change course.

The sooner you surrender the sooner you will be able to win.

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

Being small children they are not reasoning with you calmly or waiting patiently to take turns. They are screaming and begging and tugging for all they’re worth.

No matter which child (task) you choose to go with, all the others are going to scream and pull all the harder.

You don’t stand a chance. You lose no matter what you choose.

And so some of us try to go in all directions at once. Give a little something to every child.

You can see what is going to happen. Pulled in every direction, you go nowhere at all.

We need to do one thing at a time. This involves making a choice.

We need to address the angry, screaming “kids” who have to wait. This involves a conversation.

When we are willing to choose and converse, we put ourselves in a position to make concrete progress on our to-do list.

Working on one thing at a time allows us to focus and follow through. No partial efforts. No incomplete processes. No hanging decisions.

Conversing with the other, unchosen priorities (whether people on the team or voices in our heads) allows us to assure them of their importance so that they don’t need to kick and scream in order to be noticed.

Next time you have a to-do list longer than Santa’s, imagine yourself in the center of a group of screaming children pulling you in all directions at once.

The fantasy of being able to actually move in every direction at once quickly explodes. (Hopefully in laughter.)

Make a choice and have a conversation.

You’ll be amazed at how much you get done today.

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

It’s a challenge to stay fully engaged and keep working hard when we feel we’re on our own.

We need friends. We need fans. We need allies. We need cohorts. We need cheerleaders. We need partners. We need loyalists.

We need to know that someone is on our side.

Who is that person for you?

Who’s got your back when you’ve made a mistake and need an advocate?

Who’s got your back when you need a leg up, an encouraging word, or some cover from criticism?

Whose name comes to mind for you? Anyone?

If no one comes to mind, then consider building a couple closer relationships. It doesn’t have to be anything major or intimate.

What you want is to begin building rapport, comfort in conversation, and trust in communication.

You will be surprised at how much trust expressing interest is what someone else is doing will earn you.

Going it alone is going the hard way.

Who can you show some support to today?

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

But will we be there in spirit?

With business leaders being as embarrassingly insecure as they are, there can be enormous risk in fully showing up at work.

To enthusiastically contribute one’s skills, talents, gifts and passions in many workplaces is to inadvertently remind one’s supervisor that they do not possess those same attributes.

A few—might I add, smart—leaders celebrate having team members whose skills complement their own.

Most, though, seem distressingly threatened.

Hence the tragic risk of showing up fully.

I have a friend whose initiative, creativity, and hard work ethic is being interpreted as aggression, arrogance, and an effort to make others look bad.

Go figure. Is it his job to make his boss feel more secure? Of course not.

But can he ignore the reality that someone with more positional power than him keeps misreading his style and contributions? Absolutely not.

Some of us end up laying low, if not hiding, in order not to ruffle feathers or be misunderstood.

Everyone loses when this happens.

How can you  be both true to yourself and take into account the perception challenges insecure leadership poses to your efforts?

How can you both muster the courage to show up fully at work and also participate in the shaping of how those efforts are perceived?

Such are the risks of choosing to show up in spirit as well as in body.

The risk may not pay off. Such is the unpredictable nature of other peoples’ insecurities.

On the other hand, the risk may both earn you the respect of your supervisor and set a healthier tone for an entirely new way of working together.

You’ll never know until you try. You already know that waiting for your supervisor to change is futile.

We need to you to show up today. Do yourself and the rest of us the favor of taking that risk.

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

You, of course, will face all these realities with poise and grace, because you are a secure leader who is comfortable with the whole spectrum of work realities.

Having said that, though, you don’t need to begin your week with your worst problem.

You don’t need to have the first thing you hear to be insults, complaining, or criticism.

Try starting the week spending time with an ally.

Go for some coffee together. Take a walk around the premises. Meet for breakfast before coming into the office.

Choose to make the first thing you hear be compliments, encouragement, acceptance, respect, and expressions of support.

Reinforce in your soul that you are a gift with the input of someone who is on your side.

It can be a good friend, a trusted co-worker, an admiring fan, a supportive supervisor, or an adoring significant other.

The point is to begin the week with the positive, excellent truth about yourself.

From this solid foundation, you will be better equipped to face your mistakes, confront unexpected problems, and sort through the myriad of mixed messages that one encounters in a messy and complex workplace.

Pause and put a call into an ally right now. Begin the week with the truth.

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

There are times when how the work was completed overshadows that the work was completed.

We all get weary. We all experience boredom, stress, and fatigue among other difficulties at work.

Very few of us can simply override these feelings by sheer force of will, working with as much vigor, enthusiasm and effort as we would in the best of times.

We need a way to stay in the game when work and life pressures are weighing heavily on our spirits.

Who would you give the promotion to? The person who is engaged or the person who is distracted? The person who is taking the initiative or the person who is doing the bare minimum?

Who would you give the job to? The person who believes in their ability to make a meaningful contribution or the person who is trying to get away from a bad supervisor? The person who is eager to jump in with both feet, or the person who wants to know how much overtime is expected?

We need a way to hold ourselves with poise and a comfortable confidence. We need a way to stay interested and engaged. We need a way to restore our energies and inject new life into our efforts.

Denying our weariness, our anger, or our frustrations is not a realistic path forward. Pretending to be someone we are not usually is pretty transparent and awkward.

Our best bet is to be totally honest with ourselves about the reasons and causes of our low spirits. Get it all out on the table. (A private, confidential table, of course.) And then begin addressing those factors one at a time.

Two things will happen.

One, you will immediately feel better about yourself merely because you are taking action. Before any of the difficulties have even begun to be resolved or changed, you will find energy in the dignity and power of choosing to take care of yourself and take decisive action.

Two, your focus will shift off of the debilitating fatigue, bitterness, or other feelings that are overwhelming you to developing ideas for changing the underlying causes of those feelings.

It is one thing to feel fatigue and be honest about it. It is another thing altogether to identify that the feeling arises from non-stop busyness. I can do something about being busy all of the time. I can commit to taking breaks. I can plan a relaxing weekend away. I can buy tickets for next summer’s vacation now, so that I will be financially committed before circumstances can talk me out of yet another vacation.

I am not suggesting that these choices are either obvious or easy to make. I am asserting that once they become specific choices  instead of vague feelings, your experience of your feelings will change from that of overwhelm and powerlessness to one of possibilities and personal power.

The shift will show up in your attitude. Your approach will become more constructive. Your energy levels will pick up. You are no longer a passive victim of a difficult job. You are an active player who has a difficult job.

How about you? What do you do to stay in the game even if you feel like you’re losing? What do you do to restore your energy levels and adjust your attitude when the job and life weighs heavy on you?

On your side,

- Karl Edwards

Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.