Karl Edwards presents Working Matters

Tag: choices

  • Loving Monday: Addressing One Problem… Today

    loving_monday

    The great thing about Monday morning is that we get to begin our week any way we choose.

    We can choose our attitudes, we can choose our priorities, we can choose what will get our attention and what we will avoid.

    Problems, more often than not, fall into the category of what we choose to avoid.

    I‘d like to suggest that for this Monday morning, we each select a problem we will address.

    Very few of us love problems or look forward to confronting them. Problems, though, exist no matter what we might feel about them.

    The opportunity we have here on Monday morning is to begin the week differently.

    What is one difficult issue, recurring problem, or awkward relationship that you have been avoiding?

    Have been avoiding up until now, that is.

    While addressing a problem may be an unpleasant, awkward, and difficult experience, at least you got it over with. You are now on the road to building a different way forward.

    As long as the problem is avoided, though, it is still hanging over your head, lurking in the shadows, laying like an unexploded land mine upon which you or someone else will eventually step.

    It’s your choice, of course. Would you rather do the difficult work of diffusing the bomb or the difficult work of recovering from its explosion?

    This Monday, let’s try diffusing one difficult issue so we can spend the rest of the week building a constructive way forward.

    What issue will you choose?

    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.

  • Loving Monday: The Future Cannot be Postponed

    loving_mondayAspirations are fuel to the soul.

    Aspirations reframe our current circumstances into terms that tap into our dreams and hopes for the future.

    Aspirations, though, have to touch ground somewhere.

    That somewhere is Monday morning.

    That somewhere is in the choices I make today.

    Aspirations may be fulfilled in the future, but they always require engagement in the present.

    My point in this post is just this: The future cannot be postponed.

    All futures, if they are ever to take form, involve taking action today. Action postponed is future postponed.

    When it comes to our aspirations, though, we are dealing with matters of the spirit and heart. We are dealing with deep desires and ambitious hopes.

    We are dealing with all that makes us come alive and willing to work day after day and year after year in order to realize.

    Hence the urgency to live some portion of that dream today. To choose to take one step—however small or however far away from the goal it may feel—today.

    Maybe it’s a telephone call to make. Maybe it’s a essay to write. Maybe it’s a skill to learn. Maybe it’s a character trait to adjust. Maybe it’s a desktop to clear. Maybe it’s a problem to confront. Maybe it’s a mistake to correct. Maybe it’s a helping hand to extend.

    Just as long as it happens today. Something, one thing, anything, today.

    The future cannot be postponed. It will be here before you know it.

    What about your aspirations? Let’s make sure by taking a practical step 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.

  • Loving Monday: Mustering Energy When The Tanks Feel Empty

    loving_mondayWe all have Mondays—even seasons of Mondays—when we aren’t sure whether we can muster the energy to face a new week.

    (I’m not in a position to speak to the darkest seasons of depression or chronic anxiety. The best gift you can give yourself if such pervasive darkness or fear handicaps your life is to seek a professional counselor or therapist.)

    Here are a few suggestions that I find helpful when I struggle to stay in the game.

    Build in some personal achievement benefits to your job. Learn a new skill. You might learn a bit of html so that you can communicate better with your IT department. You might learn how to read a financial statement so that you can better understand how your performance affects the bottom line.

    Set a secret objective. In addition to reaching your sales goals, increase the caliber of client you’re seeking. Besides solving the disgruntled customer’s problem, try sending them away thrilled and thanking you like you’re a hero.

    Do something refreshingly kind. Treat everyone to ice cream or  a bottle of specialty soda. Offer to complete an unpleasant chore for a struggling co-worker.

    Contribute to building a healthier office culture. Write an article for the company newsletter. (Or start a company newsletter!) Publicly and personally thank co-workers for a job well done. Communicate and coordinate work flow changes more quickly and more often.

    The main characteristic of all these tips is that they get your mind off of your foul mood and onto your interests, aspirations, co-workers and office culture. In each of these small actions you experience that you are worthwhile, have something valuable to offer, and that your choices make a difference.

    If you had a hard time getting going today, try one new thing tomorrow. Experiment. Discover what helps shift your focus, fosters a different attitude, or offers a fresh perspective to you. 

    Instead of waiting for a massive mood change, try making a small action change.

    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.

  • Quote to Consider: Creating Your Own Alternatives

    quote-to-consider“It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves.”

    Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  • Loving Monday: Kids Pulling in Different Directions

    loving_mondayImagine that each of the tasks you need to complete today is a small child pulling at your arms. Not only pulling, but all pulling in different directions.

    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.

  • Free or Trapped?

    Ever think about how you ended up in the job or career path you are in?

    You might be participating in a family business. Maybe a friend recruited you. You needed a paycheck and grabbed something that pays the bills. You wanted the prestige that goes with your profession. You chose to climb the corporate ladder to get the responsibilities, pay, and status that goes with doing so. You are trying to finance a certain lifestyle. Someone once told you that you would be good at this sort of work.

    What is your story?

    In particular, and the focus of this morning’s reflection, how much choice did you have in the matter?

    Was it the only job that was available? Would any other choice have felt demeaning or less prestigious? Were you responding to family expectations? Were you competing with peers? Were you desperate for any paying work? Were you protecting your job security?

    Whether we feel free or trapped is a huge factor in shaping how we deal with situations at work. Especially all that is complicated and unpleasant in our jobs!

    If we feel free (i.e. we chose our situation and feel we have a choice about whether or not we will stay in our situation), we are much more likely to be able (more…)

  • Quote to Consider: Choosing Boldly

    quote-to-consider“When you cannot make up your mind between two evenly balanced courses of action, choose the bolder.”

    W. J. Slim

  • Loving Monday: Facing Hateful Duties With Grit and Grace

    loving_mondaySome 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…)

  • Loving Monday: What Matters? Your Choice

    loving_mondayThere’s a lot on your plate.

    There usually is.

    Of all that is clambering for your attention, what matters today?

    What matters in general, sure, but more pertinently, what matters enough to get you to put everything else down?

    It comes down to choices. It’s nice to identify many things as important. It’s nice to have deep convictions, core values, and clear priorities.

    But when all is said and done (or, said and said again, more commonly), a choice needs to be made.

    The choice to apply my efforts to something in particular and to do it now.

    Questions of convictions, values and priorities are only meaningful and helpful to the extent that they help us make choices.

    In fact, the question might better be asked the other way around: “What have you chosen to do today?” The answer to that question points to what your true convictions, values and priorities are.

    If today matters, (and I am assuming that it does), then we need to start making choices before the day slips through our fingers.

    What does your current choice tell you about what matters to you? If not consistent with your convictions, values and priorities, what adjustment might you make?

    Think about it maybe a little, but more importantly make your next choice. Today matters.

    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.

  • Loving Monday: Is Happiness on the Menu Today?

    loving_mondayIf only choosing one’s attitude were as simple as selecting from a restaurant menu.

    “Let’s see… I think I’ll have an appetizer of peaceful contentedness, a main course of focused determination and for dessert, some joyful spontaneity.”

    Yes, we choose our attitude. Theoretically, then, any attitude is available to choose any time.

    But no, that choice does not take place in a vacuum. Theory goes out the window, and the choice to work with focused determination right after your boss humiliated you in front of your co-workers becomes almost impossible.

    All the coaching or coaxing in the world couldn’t convince you that a constructive attitude is still on the menu. In fact, to suggest so feels insulting and insensitive.

    What to do then with the choice we need to make next? The choice about going forward. How we go forward. The choice of attitude.

    This is the problem with the menu analogy for accepting responsibility for one’s choices. It’s not as simple as choosing chicken instead of beef, or wine instead of beer.

    As much as many leaders might prefer otherwise, human beings are not robots governed solely by their logical inputs. Human beings are multi-faceted, (more…)