Some tasks feel like we’re being tortured and mocked at the same time. Some of the things we have to do are truly hateful, and we wonder whether we’d rather walk barefoot across hot coals or lie unprotected on a bed of nails.

Postponing these life-sucking responsibilities does little more than prolong the anticipated pain without eliminating the impending eventuality.

What is one to do?

I wish I could make a case for procrastination. I am certainly an expert.

I wish I could make a case for blaming management. They certainly excel at mandating waste.

I wish I could make a case for a positive attitude. It would be so simple if we could change reality by mere force of will.

The fact is that our jobs, all jobs, have nasty components to them.

How to face those nasty components with grit and grace becomes the issue.

One tact might be to turn them into a personal challenge or contest. Create a (more…)

Who’s setting the tone at work today?

Anyone?

If someone isn’t setting the tone intentionally, then it is probably being set by the first three things that happen this morning.

Should the first three things that happen be an unexpected deadline change, an angry client, and an assistant gone AWOL, you’re in for a rough day!

What if, though, you set the tone for your day? What if you were to choose—before even arriving at work—what sort of attitude, perspective and demeanor with which you were going to approach your day?

Instead of waiting to react to whatever might be going on at the office, you would be taking the initiative to be one of the actors that everyone else reacts to.

You would be taking the initiative on your own behalf and also on the behalf of the entire office culture.

In this scenario, when the unexpected deadline change gets announced, the angry client yells at you, or the assistant goes AWOL right when you needed their help, you will deal with these unfortunate and difficult experiences from the healthy, positive, and constructive frame of reference you chose earlier.

It’s your choice either way you look at it.

You can choose to let circumstances set the tone for you, or you can choose the tone from which you will set into the day’s circumstances.

Which brings us back to the original question: Who’s setting the tone at work today if you aren’t?

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.

Nothing like a brief vacation with the family to raise deeper questions.

Life on the blog has been quiet this past week because I am enjoying my family on a California road trip.

Away from schedules and deadlines and expectations and demands, my heart and mind free up in refreshing ways.

Present with the people who are most important to me, I am reminded that one of the reasons I work has to do with their well-being. One of the reasons I take a job that is a crazy mix of positives and negatives is their provision.

Vacations are good for perspective resets.

Do you need a perspective reset? Are you caught up in a whirlwind of activity and feel like you’re losing sight of what it’s all for?

Try taking a break.

Get away for a weekend. Go away for a week! Whether brief or extended, step away. Spend some focused time with the people who are most important to you.

It will recharge and refocus your work. I’m certainly benefiting from mine!

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.

June gloom is what we here in Southern California call the coastal phenomenon of having our mornings blanketed in clouds and fog. They eventually burn off about midday to unleash the sun’s warm glory that we love so much.

But until then it is chilly and grey.

If it were winter, then we’d probably not give the cloud cover another thought.

But at the beginning of summer?! Right on the heels of a beautiful spring?! It depressing. It shouldn’t be.

Ever come to work ready to dive in and find an unexpected mess waiting for you? It’s depressing. It shouldn’t be.

It’s also partially a matter of perspective.

We expect it to be summer and the cloud cover becomes an unwelcome intruder.

We expect things to run smoothly or pick up where (more…)

Nothing beats a vote of confidence in yourself.

Sure the confidence of others is impactful and inspiring, but it pales in comparison to the lift and strength and sheer power of believing in oneself.

My reflections today are not the frothy overflow of a series of easy successes. (If I hear one more consultant talk about where they are vacationing, I’m going to scream.)

On the contrary, these thoughts arise from having to reach deep into the well of courage, character and inner strength when instead of riding on the crest of the wave I feel like I’m being crushed underneath it.

The problem with relying on others to undergird one’s confidence is that it risks assuming that their estimation of you matters more than your own.

The thinking goes something like this: While believing in oneself is “nice”, it’s others’ positive opinions that truly validate your value, competence, or performance.

Do you see the irony? While receiving a feel-good of sorts from the positive feedback, you have inadvertently ceded authority of your own worth to others. A small emotional lift at an exorbitant personal cost.

In tough times, when reality seems to conspire against you and confidence flags, it’s important to find ways to assert, nurture, and/or muster a word of confidence to yourself before turning to others.

When turning to others (of course we need a supportive network of friends and colleagues), you want their support to build and corroborate your confidence, not replace or overrule yours.

The distinction may seem subtle, but it is significant.

Give yourself the gift of a vote of confidence 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.

I’m out of my routine.

Not that I’m much of a person of routine, but even I feel adrift.

This week was already structured. It was structured around an out-of-town visitor who is not coming to town after all. It was structured around certain tasks from last week being completed… which they are not.

I find myself having to practice what I preach… I have to adjust.

I could let it be discombubalating (yes, that is a word). Or I could quickly settle on a new structure.

It’s easy to allow oneself to be thrown for a loop by unexpected changes. The mind is still trying to figure out what happened, trying to recover what should have a happened, and speculating on what might have happened next.

The sooner we can settle on what we choose to happen, the sooner we can be on our way and back to effectiveness.

I don’t need to start my planning all over again. I simply need to make an adjustment. I simply need to make another choice. I simply need to make my next choice.

The longer I dwell on the changes and their effect on me, the greater their effect will be and the longer it will take to return to effectiveness.

I‘m going to shake this off and begin a different project now.

Let me know how your Monday morning adjustment went.

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.

Bad bosses. Stultifying office cultures. Boring job descriptions. Suffocating bureaucracies. Ambiguous career paths. Petty co-workers.

There are plenty of triggers for a bad day at work. There are plenty of perfectly understandable justifications for a bad attitude.

Plenty of reasons but no excuses.

What?!

That’s right… no excuses. There are no excuses for the attitude we choose to wear each day.

Lots of impacting factors… yes. But excuses… no.

The point is not to be harsh, but realistic. I am not trying to lay blame, but embrace responsibility.

When circumstances align themselves against us, we always have a choice as to how we will respond.

No one can take that choice away from us.

Here’s the key take-away: there is enormous power in being able to choose one’s attitude. That’s a good thing.

The realization that I have the power to choose in spite of all that might be happening around me, is hugely uplifting, empowering and renewing.

Think about it.

At the very moment when we might be feeling powerless, picked on, or buffeted, we still are the only ones who can choose with what attitude we will proceed.

What attitude have you chosen to wear 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.

Usually the weekend restores us.

We have an opportunity to rest, take care of personal chores, and have some fun with family and friends.

Usually the weekend restores us so we have the energy, poise and presence of mind to face our many responsibilities at work again.

Usually.

Some weekends, though, exhaust us. Some weekends deplete us. Some weekends aren’t very fun, and we go back to work feeling down and diminished.

The idea of “Loving Monday” can sound trite to the weary or hurting. It’s all we can do to face Monday, much less love it.

But it’s when we feel like we need to dig ourselves out of our weekends before we can step into our work weeks that the idea of “Loving Monday” is so crucial.

Not a superficial “rah rah” cheer  that pretends the weekend never happened; but the years of careful nurturing of a career that we love, a job where we can (more…)

It’s true, your boss should have noticed your initiative and responded with a promotion or a raise. It’s true.

It’s true, your client should have noticed that your project came in on time and under budget and paid you promptly and given you promising referrals as well. It’s true.

It’s true that your co-workers should have noticed how you help out and responded by returning the favor. It’s true that your spouse should have noticed your hard work and responded with more affirmation and confidence.

It’s true.

While it is true that others often get it wrong about you, it is not true that they need to get it right about you before you can move forward, find your way, or achieve success.

The bigger truth about you is that you have to step to the plate again even if you aren’t being noticed, appreciated, rewarded or supported.

The bigger truth about you is that no one can either be you or fully grasp what having you on the team means.

Therefore, if in your discouragement you pull out of the team, withdraw from the game, or withhold what you have to contribute while everyone will miss out, only (more…)

This morning I’d like to introduce Overwhelmed to Obsessed.

You know who you are.

Overwhelmed, you come back to work on Monday and are dizzy before you have even started. All the tasks and messages, piles and people are a fuzzy blur, and you have a difficult time choosing where to begin.

Obsessed, you come back to work with only one thing on your mind. That one project that has captured your imagination and consumed your attention. You don’t even see the tasks and messages, piles and people waiting for you.

Overwhelmed meet Obsessed.

I want to introduce you because I believe you have something to learn from each other.

Instead of merely being annoyed by the weaknesses and pitfalls the other brings to the table, what if we could pick up a tip or two from their strengths?!

Overwhelmed, notice the determined focus Obsessed brings to their efforts.

Obsessed, notice the alert awareness that Overwhelmed brings to the process.

You need both sets of skills… an alert awareness of the dynamics and issues unfolding and changing around you at all times, AND a determined focus to make real progress toward real results on real projects.

We tend to major in one style or perspective more than the other. Some of us are more sensitive to the dynamics around us, while others of us are more sensitive to the task at hand.

Why not take advantage of the differences with which we approach work? Instead of surrounding ourselves with people like us in temperament and style, why not befriend someone with a different approach?

Not only will you benefit from the strengths the other brings to the working relationship, you will be well-positioned to see and experiment with those approaches as part of expanding your own repertoire of work skills.

Overwhelmed meet Obsessed.

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.