Karl Edwards presents Working Matters

Tag: attitude

  • Loving Monday: Who’s Setting the Tone If You Aren’t?

    loving_mondayWho’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.

  • Loving Monday: Who’s It For?

    loving_mondayNothing 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.

  • Loving Monday: Fighting June Gloom

    loving_mondayJune 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…)

  • Loving Monday: Choosing Self-Confidence When Struggling

    loving_mondayNothing 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.

  • Loving Monday: The Power is All Yours

    loving_mondayBad 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.

  • Loving Monday: Digging Yourself Out of the Weekend

    loving_mondayUsually 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…)

  • 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…)

  • Loving Monday: Facing Distasteful Realities

    loving_mondayTaxes are due today. Los Angeles City business taxes. While the procrastinator in me wants to postpone the unpleasant task until April 15th when the Federal and State personal income taxes are due, such is not the reality I face.

    In principle I can say that it is easier to face reality than to avoid it. I can also say that the earlier one can face any given reality, however distasteful, the better off one will be on a number of emotional and practical fronts.

    In practice, though…

    Let’s just say it’s easier to talk the talk than to walk the walk.

    Distasteful realities are just that… distasteful. We want to complain about the unfairness of it all, the wastefulness, the extra work, the boring work, or the awful people involved. We want the situation to be other than it is. (At least I do.)

    There is no other way to cut it. No way to make some tasks pleasant. No way to add sugar to the bitterness. No way to remove the sliver.

    The key, I have found, is in learning to receive and accept reality, however (more…)

  • Tip the Desk: Simplifying the Cathartic Way

    A fun gift the less organized among us should give ourselves occasionally is to “tip the desk.”

    Not only is it a lot of fun (yes, I have indulged), the combination of a clean desk and the catharsis of acting out so dramatically makes for a powerful attitude boost.

    A bit impractical you figure, until, of course, you realize that your piles could not become any less organized on the floor than they are already on top of your desk.

    After prudently removing breakable items like the computer, telephone, and paper-clip sculpture your son made for you, plant your feet firmly, hold your back erect, and lift the desk to that precise angle where the mountains of paper go careening onto the floor.

    As you set your perfectly clean desk down and settle back into your chair, you will notice that those unseemly mounds now lie conveniently out of view.

    After reacquainting yourself with its sleek, smooth surface, step around the desk, select one item from the “differently organized” piles on the floor, and return to your seat to enjoy an uncluttered, focused effort.

    On your side,

    – Karl Edwards

    The Simplify Journey

    Cheryl Smith hosts a wonderful blog over at CultureSmith. If you aren’t a regular visitor start today.

    Today’s post is in response to her “The Simplify Journey” column and call for contributions.

    Join the conversation.

  • Loving Monday: Bring It

    loving_mondayFew things are more frustrating than the obvious oversights of those with whom we work. Even more frustrating is when those oversights, blind spots, or shortcomings are with those who have more power than us on the organizational chart.

    They create unworkable situations and then blame us for them not working out.

    We kick the wall, curse the gods, and accuse the incompetents around us of making our jobs impossible. Yes, we blame them right back.

    What if, though, you had eyes to see something that they were blind to? What if you had an ability or capacity that they did not have?

    What if they needed you to bring your eyes and ability to that problematic situation, and all you did was stand back and blame them for not being able to (more…)