Karl Edwards presents Working Matters

Tag: attitude

  • Loving Monday: Which is More Work?

    loving_mondayWhich is more work: giving yourself fully to the task at hand or holding back?

    It’s a open question. It’s also a loaded question.

    My suspicion is that holding back takes more effort than working hard.

    Holding back requires constant reflection. “How much is just enough?” “Am I putting in more than I’m being paid for?” “Is anyone watching?” “What time is it now?”

    Giving your all requires no extra effort and involves no mind games. You simply go for it.

    You’re free and focused to a degree unavailable to the person holding back.

    Think about your own approach to work and working hard. Which days go by the quickest? On which days do you experience the greatest sense of achievement?

    Why begrudge going the proverbial “extra mile” with someone when I imagine we’d have already gone the extra mile and come back by the time we sweated through whether we were being taken advantage of or exceeded the requirements of our job description or won’t be appropriately appreciated.

    You can hold back if you choose. It may be appropriate. It may be fair. It may be justified. But it will certainly be a lot more work.

    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: Working Gratitude

    loving_mondayThat we have jobs is not to be taken for granted in this economy. Many of our friends, neighbors and family members do not.

    There is one sense where gratitude is an appropriate response to good fortune. Whether you direct your gratitude to the personal God of your faith tradition or somewhere else, we understand deep within that thanks are fitting… even necessary.

    In another sense we have come to experience that giving thanks is good for us. Gratitude helps us keep much that is difficult about our jobs or annoying about our co-workers in perspective. We find that feelings of overwhelm, discouragement and resentment are tempered when revisited from the point of view of the gift recipient.

    To live in a time where many people do not have work can heighten our sense of personal gratitude.

    We say, “Thank you,” not out of moral obligation, but out of careful stewardship of the human spirit… our own spirit… which cannot operate without refreshment.

    Functioning as a gift recipient is an entirely different frame of reference than functioning as an overlooked employee, a taken for granted team member, or a faceless cog in the machinery.

    Gratitude is good for the soul and invigorating to the spirit.

    For what might you give thanks as you begin this week?!

    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: Choosing to Choose

    loving_mondaySome Mondays we arrive at work to find that we’re behind before we’ve even started.

    If we came brimming with hopes of launching right into our next project, this can feel like quite the set-back. The energetic buoyancy replaced with enervating heaviness.

    After we’ve picked our respective selves up off the ground, this is the precise moment when we need to coach ourselves about choices.

    How we proceed forward is our choice. Will we choose to continue defeated or challenged? Give up or reengage?

    “Remember, self?” It’s a form of reminding ourselves. Reminding ourselves of the power we have as choosers of our attitude, perspective, and next steps. We are then better poised to address the feelings of disorientation, disappointment and frustration resulting from the difficult adjustments at hand.

    We need not function as the unfortunate victims of our circumstances when challenges arise.

    To choose constructively is to affirm and practice our own strength. We demonstrate that we are larger than the surprises that intrude into our day. We choose the interpretation of the facts that works best for us.

    It’s Monday. Whether you arrived floating or deflated the next choice is yours. Seize it.

    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 Impracticality of a Toasted Bagel

    loving_mondaySome mornings can turn on whether one’s bagel was toasted or not.

    Attitude is a funny thing.

    We too often dismiss the issue with a mature, rational adult voice that tells us that we’re being silly. Regardless of whether or not our bagel was toasted, we should be able to pull it together and give 110% of ourselves to our work.

    Sounds good in principle.

    In practice, though, most of us know that to get up, so to speak, on the wrong side of the bed is not a frame of mind one can simply wish away.

    I‘d suggest it is more practical to be impractical.

    If toasting our bagel will aid in the process of helping us choose an attitude that will serve us more effectively, then pause and toast the bagel! My gosh, who cares that it seems silly or takes some extra time.

    The time invested in navigating an attitude adjustment is nothing compared to the time wasted by dragging bitterly through one’s morning.

    We can wish we were more mature, more focused, more committed, more whatever all we want. Worse, though, is to refuse to face the facts about who we actually are.

    If we are moody, foul-tempered people in the mornings, then best to face it and do what it takes to work one’s way through the experience. The sooner we get it out of our system the sooner we can get on with the business of the day. The more simple and safe the means of working through a bad mood, the more likely we won’t act out on a co-worker or a loved one.

    So let’s hear it for the impracticality of toasted bagels!

    Let’s hear it for an extra five minutes at the toaster oven waiting quietly for the slight difference that will make all the difference.

    Let’s take on this Monday morning with our attitude working for us instead of against us.

  • Loving Monday: Get Flowers TODAY

    loving_mondayThis is a get flowers Monday.

    Purchase the most colorful bouquet you can find on your way into work today.

    As a gift to your assistant. As a complement to your lobby. As a perk for yourself.

    Start this week off with some beauty. Choose brightness. Choose vibrancy.

    Let the flowers symbolize the creativity and engagement you choose to bring to your work this week.

    Especially if you aren’t in the mood yourself, let the flowers do the work for you.

    Everyone will thank you.

    Let’s make this is Flowers Monday!

  • Loving Monday: From Milestone to Mundane

    loving_mondayReturning to one’s daily routine after a momentous weekend can be anti-climactic… to put it lightly.

    We celebrated a university graduation this weekend. A major milestone in the life of our eldest. A major milestone for my wife and I having an eldest who is celebrating such an achievement!

    Some events are huge, momentous, once-in-a-lifetime and/or dramatic. Most of work is routine, daily, repetitive and/or cyclical.

    The experience of the milestone is usually markedly different than the experience of the mundane.

    Getting back to minutiae after experiencing the momentous can be incredibly difficult.

    Even if we are returning to a relatively good job, it can feel like a big let down.

    It’s quite normal to have the let-down or come-down experience of descending from the mountain top. The valley floor is simply not the mountain top.

    The question, though, is are we bringing others down with us, or are we sabotaging our own re-entry into the routines of work by continually comparing the mundane to the milestone?

    It’s simply not a fair comparison. The mundane will always lose.

    Returning to the routines of work is not a bad thing because it is a disappointing thing. Routines are simply not as sexy or meaningful or intense as our milestone events.

    Let’s cut ourselves some slack here. It is possible to acknowledge the authentic let-down of re-entry without succumbing to the false and extreme conclusion that a bad thing has happened to us having to get back to work.

    A simple tool for making the adjustment back to work is to write a thank-you note to someone from the milestone event. A simple thank you note gives you an opportunity to articulate your gratitude and what you found meaningful from the event.

    Once written, sealing, addressing and posting the letter is a physical way to close the door on a momentous experience. Now you are in a better position to shift your attention to work without making endless and defeating comparisons.

    The mundane and routine can be a good thing again. As work should be… good, that is.

    On your side,

    – Karl Edwards

  • Loving Monday: Attitude Rehearsals

    loving_mondayYou want the week to begin well. You get up and prepare with good intentions. “I choose a positive, constructive attitude as I launch this fresh, new Monday morning.”

    But reality is not kind this week. Joe called in “sick”… again. Sarah won’t help a co-worker meet an important deadline. An important client wants to renegotiate your fee. Management unexpectedly slashed your budget mid-year.

    And what began as a positive, constructive approach to the week is rapidly devolving into an dark and ugly—however understandable—reaction to the disheartening choices of others.

    Here’s the deal, though. Attitude is not the same as emotions. We may feel discouraged, frustrated, or angry. Understandable and appropriate in the given examples.

    Attitude, though, is a choice. Attitude is a stance. Attitude is the stance I choose to take regardless of what I am feeling.

    Like any difficult choice, we need to practice and practice and practice embodying the attitude we choose.

    We don’t merely flip a switch in the midst of experiencing a serious setback (more…)

  • Loving Tuesday: Where Did Monday Go?!

    loving_mondayWhere did Monday go?

    It was here a minute ago.

    Or so I thought. Next thing I know my calendar is telling me it’s Tuesday. What happened?

    Do you ever have weeks like that? You have the best of intentions. The plans are in place. You are going to hit the ground running. You are going in focused, intent, and prepared.

    And then reality hits.

    A scheduled delivery is missing. An important deadline gets moved up. An important client wants an impromptu meeting asap. Two team members call in sick.

    By the time you look up, the day is over and your beautiful plans are in shatters.

    It would not be uncommon to be thrown for a loop. Our focus turned to confusion. Our intent undermined by discouragement. Our preparations tossed into the air like a deck of playing cards.

    Or we can adjust.

    Key, though, is not letting the unexpected sabotage us completely.

    I recommend beginning by giving yourself permission to go outside and scream your heart out or pound your fist into the landscaping. Pretending you’re not frustrated when you clearly are is patently unproductive.

    Express your frustration (safely, please). Get it out. But then… shake it off.

    While probably not possible to merely start over as if it were Monday when it is now Tuesday, we can adjust.

    Determine to adjust.

    Take a fresh look at your focus, your intent and your plans. How can they benefit from what happened yesterday?

    It’s Tuesday now. Gotta love it. Time to go for it.

    What’s your alternative?

  • Loving Monday: Verdict on a Rainy Day

    loving_mondayI hate the rain.

    Grey skies and rain-drenched highways evoke a spectrum of responses as we roll out of bed to begin another week of work.

    For some, including me, dreariness and traffic jams fill the imagination before we even get out the door.

    For others, thankfulness for the nourishing and cleansing water covering our desert metropolis fills our hearts, and we smile.

    It’s a matter of perspective. Same circumstance. Radically different experiences of it.

    Particularly powerful, though, is to realize that you get to choose what perspective you adopt each morning.

    Given that it’s Monday morning, and we’re trying to get our weeks off to a good start, I’d venture that anything we can do to read refreshment and gratitude into the precipitation would help set the brighter, more constructive tone we want for the busy week ahead.

    How aware are you of the perspective with which you interpret circumstances? Do you even realize that you are making a choice when you interpret circumstance as positive, negative or somewhere in between?

    Try an experiment with me. Next time something out of the ordinary happens: like a change in weather, a deadline change, an irritable client, an absent co-worker. Try noting your initial reaction. Then write down three other possible interpretations of the same set of circumstances.

    Now take another look at your original reaction. The choice is yours, and you are, in fact, making a choice. Will you stay with your original interpretation of the circumstance or will you choose to adjust it?

    The choice is yours. You have more power in how you experience of what happens around you than you think.

    I‘m still not particularly fond of rain, but I choose to be grateful for its gift of life and appreciate the clean skies that will result. My week is off to a much better start.

    What about yours?

  • Loving Monday: Lukewarm Coffee

    loving_mondayLukewarm coffee.

    If you’re a coffee lover like me, those two words can’t possible fit in the same sentence. For a beverage to be lukewarm, by definition, means that it cannot be coffee.

    Fresh, strong, and piping hot equal coffee. Nothing else.

    Sadly, as the morning progresses, my coffee slowly turns into non-coffee. Hot becomes lukewarm. Delicious becomes distasteful. Right becomes wrong.

    The work week can feel the same. We begin the week in an energetic sprint. We end the week with a weary limp.

    Lukewarm work isn’t any better than lukewarm coffee.

    How then do we keep our “coffee” hot?

    Drink it while it’s hot. Focus, stayed engaged and see things through. Play at 110%. It’s energizing to play at the top of your game. Don’t let chores accumulate. Confront problems as they arise. Impress yourself.

    Get a warm up. Take a break. Get up and walk around. Surf the web. Chat with an associate. Do something for yourself that recharges your juices.

    Pour it out and start over. What can I say? Sometimes there’s nothing else to do but pour out the cup of lukewarm blahness and begin again. Such a drastic reset could take the form of going home early and make a plan for how to begin differently tomorrow. Try sweeping everything off the top of your desk and allowing only items related to your current task. Or go for a long walk during which you do an attitude check and reset.

    There is nothing more foul than lukewarm coffee. To keep sipping is the worst alternative of all.

    Here’s to enjoying hot coffee!

    – Karl