Change Management – Crisbie Coach

Festive Stress: 5 Tips to Embrace the Holidays Season

The joy of Christmas brings back cherished memories from my childhood, eagerly awaiting the midnight unveiling of presents with my family. As an expat, returning home during the festive season allows me to share this serene time with loved ones. However, the holidays can also become stressful, from last-minute gift shopping to preparing elaborate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day meals.

Here are five tips to maintain a positive mindset and truly savor the holiday season.

Connect with Loved Ones: Despite the distance, staying in touch with family and friends back home is crucial. A simple phone call or a few minutes of virtual conversation can make a significant difference, lifting both your spirits and theirs. Don’t hesitate to reach out – it’s a meaningful way to share the festive joy, and you won’t feel guilty about missing out.
Embrace New Traditions: Adjusting to new holiday traditions may evoke mixed emotions, creating an emotional struggle. Release yourself from excessive pressure and strive to embrace the new while preserving a sense of tradition in your current surroundings. Finding this balance can contribute to a more fulfilling holiday experience.
Resist Media Pressures: The media bombards us with images of the ‘perfect’ holiday season, fostering unrealistic expectations that can lead to emotional and financial stress. Avoid succumbing to these pressures and steer clear of comparing your celebration to idealized depictions. Remember, the essence of the holidays lies in genuine joy and connection, not unrealistic standards.
Seek Emotional Support: For those facing challenging situations like grief, loss, or relationship struggles, the holiday season can intensify emotional stress. Acknowledge your feelings and don’t hesitate to seek support from specialists or counseling services. Analyzing your emotions and coping with overwhelming struggles can make the season more manageable.
Find Your Personal Balance: Reflect on what truly matters to you. Whether you choose to visit relatives abroad or celebrate in your host country, align your decisions with your personal priorities and needs. Striking the right balance is essential for your mental well-being, ensuring a holiday season that resonates with your individual preferences.

Wishing you a joyful and stress-free holiday season! May these tips empower you to embrace the festivities with a positive mindset, creating lasting memories during this special time of the year.

How And Why Reinventing Yourself. Find It Out by Following These 6 Steps

Have you ever wanted to reinvent your life? Have you tried several times but failed? Reinventing yourself professionally or personally can be a challenge but also a great adventure. Follow these 6 steps to succeed.

First step: find or wake up one of your passion.

Concluding one phase and starting another one is not easy. Reinventing yourself requires more commitment than a simple change. Consequences may impact vital aspects of your daily life and a lot of courage and determination are needed.

The pandemic phase has forced all of us to look within and it is possible that many of us are dealing with the need of reinventing ourselves. There will be some who feel empty and need to do something to fill the empty spaces, others who have been forced to reinvent themselves due to the loss of a family member or a friend, others due to difficulties with their work.

For one reason or another, these are times when you need to stop to reflect and make decisions. Let’s see how to deal with this situation.

Reinventing yourself in a satisfactory way presupposes confronting yourself with one of the most uncomfortable emotions that exist: fear. You will be forced to leave your comfort zone and take a leap in the dark. The best antidote to fear is passion. It is the first success factor in a “reinvention” phase. Finding your passion, or awakening it, is only possible if you are honest with yourself. You have to ask yourself questions like:

who I really am;
what I want to do;
which of my passions can help me in this moment.

An honest reflection and re-discovery your old dreams are the fundamental ingredients to neutralize fear and not fearing the future.

The second factor that will help you is not to assess uncertainty as a danger but as an opportunity. It is a question of letting go nostalgia and opening up to the experience of the “new”, so that to focus on what you want and not on what you fear.

To achieve this, you must be willing to learn with humility. If you think you already know everything, it is difficult to be able to start over in any area of your life in a satisfactory way. The success of those who are successful is only the tip of the iceberg, behind there are hours and hours of training and mistakes that are barely seen.

Facing the future and uncertainty also requires a great deal of creativity and imagination. When reinventing yourself, it is important to keep a compass to map the path you are taking. The future is not written anywhere, it is up to you to create it and to do so you need our imagination and hard work.

Reinventing yourself means knowing yourself from another perspective and being surprised by the opportunities that suddenly begin to present themselves. If we want your new self to be successful, you need to go out and make yourself known. For this, it is essential to strengthen your network of contacts.

The final ingredient for your success is to be self-confident, because you are capable of doing things you do not even imagine. But you need to learn to use the resources you have and find others available around you.

To conclude, here are the six ingredients to successfully reinvent yourself:

find / awaken your passion to neutralize fear;
transform difficulties into opportunities;
learn, learn, learn;
use great creativity and imagination;
make yourself known;
be self-confident.

Are you ready to reinvent yourself now?

Dealing with Difficult People

Starting from the assumption that each of us can be a difficult person to someone, there are big categories of difficult people to which you can relate in different ways.

Let’s start with what we can call the “tanks“. What are the characteristics of these people? As the name suggests, they are people who crush others. How? For example, flinging pointed barbs and making bitter jokes. They decide instinctively and become impatient easily. They attack to intimidate, they claim to be right and threat the others. How can we react to similar behaviour? You can try, for example, to stand up to them without claiming to be right. It may be useful calling them by name to get their attention, asking them if they are serious, trying going beyond the joke to understand the intentions behind this behaviour. Another technique may be to be friendly, that is behaving in a diametrically opposite way to theirs. You could also manage the pauses and try to confront them alone to unmask them without humiliating them.

A second type of difficult people are those that can be defined as “explosives“. They are people who easily lose control and tend to offend. They generate silence in the interlocutor who should try to look them in the eye to make them understand that we are taking them seriously. To calm them down, you could look for a moment of intimacy, like having a drink together, to clarify what is wrong and offer your help.

A third category of difficult people are those who always complain. Who doesn’t know anyone like that? These are people with an external LoC, that is with little control over their lives. They put their problems on others and often use “but”. The antidote to use with these people is listening to make them know that we understand but without showing solidarity. We need to stimulate them to find a solution by themselves and ask them if they have ideas on how to solve the problem.

We then have “silent” people, who are closed and barely react . They could be confused because they don’t understand but at the same time they don’t dare to ask. In reality, by remaining silent they could gain an advantage, as silence offers them protection. With these people, you may try to show empathy, looking at them in a friendly way and going into informal conversations, out of the usual context.

A fifth type is represented by the “unreliable” people, that is those people who, in order to please, make commitments knowing that they will not be able to comply with. You would need to make clear with them how things are and offer a compromise on an equal level, to find a win win solution for both.

Then there are the “negativists“, that is those who say no to everything. They also have an external LoC and often tend to be distressed. The antidote for this type of people is based on a positive and realistic opposition. It is better not to discuss with them but to propose alternatives without offering solutions, to allow them time to make informed decisions.

The seventh category of difficult people is that of the “experts“. They are divided into two groups. True experts and fake ones. The first have the right answer for everything. If you tell them that it is not true they may become upset. They feel strong and think they don’t need anyone. With this kind of people it is important to repeat what they say and ask precise questions to get operational answers. The fake experts are those who are informed but do not go deeper. You would need to explain things as they are to these people but in a face-to-face context so they don’t lose face.

Finally, the last category of difficult people I have identified are the “indecisive“. These people do not have clear ideas and are blocked by excessive concern about others’ sensitivity. They are emotionally involved and think that problems would disapper on their own if you let some time pass. It is important to help these people make things clear, offer them a solution and support without putting pressure.

And you, have you found a category of difficult people besides these ones? Let me know!

The Process of Decision Making

It may be difficult to take a decision, both private and business related. There are many options that you need to take into account.

First, you start with the assessment of your purpose, by asking yourself: is it worth? Does it serve your dream? Or vision, if it is business related?

To get a clearer dream or vision, you can use the five whys technique that will connect you with your highest purpose and then you will be able to act accordingly in your everyday life.

The five whys technique works like this: take something that it is hard for you to decide. I take as example going to the gym. We all know that going to the gym regularly is healthy, but often it is easier going out for a drink, or sitting on your couch.

The first question would be: Why should I need to go to the gym? The answer might be because I will feel healthier.

Second question: Why feeling healthier is important to me? Because, I will get more energy.

Third question: Why having more energy is important to me? Because I can do more things and I can do them better.

Fourth question: Why would I need to do more and better things? Because I will achieve faster important results.

Fifth question: Why is it important achieving results faster? Because I will approach faster to my ultimate goal.

Now that your decisive goal is clear, you can ask yourself: What will happen if I do not take that decision? What impact will it have on my life, if I decide to go that way? What is holding me back? Do I have the personal competencies to take that decision? Can I make a risks and benefits analysis? Do I have the financial resources?

Decision-making involves a range of personal talents from creativity to intuition, enthusiasm and courage, determination and persistence. You do not need to have them all; you can always ask me to help you out!

Keeping Your 2019 Resolutions

We are still in January and many of us have decided about their objectives for 2019, the so-called resolutions. The new year brings with itself the desire of change, the need of renewal. We would like to spend more time with the family, to take that trip that we have been dreaming about for so long, to change job, to enrol in a gym club, to lose weight, to stop smoking…the main goal is feeling better with themselves and with the others.
Why does it happen then that along the way we forget about them or we abandon them?

Here are some questions you should ask yourself.

Are your objectives too much ambitious, vague or simply they are too many? In this case you are putting too much pressure to yourself. If you have decided to stop smoking or to lose 10 kilos, you must ask yourself why you have started smoking and why you are always hungry. Are they not ways for relieving the so many daily tensions?

Are you positive in comparison to the achievement of your objectives? If you think that you will never make it, it is sure that you will never make it. Henry Ford used to say: “If you believe you can make it or if you believe you cannot make it, you will be always right”.

Is your goal appealing? You have decided to lose weight or to stop smoking. As such, they are great objectives. But find a bigger reason for which you want to achieve these objectives. For instance, you want to stop smoking for being able to recover breath faster when you go jogging or you want to lose weight to put again on those beautiful pants that suited you very well.

Bad habits are difficult to lose, above all you need time. As I said before, if you have been sticking to them for years, you have your good reasons (to protect you from stress, for example). You cannot change your habits in some weeks. Some time ago, studies told us that you can take up a new habit in 21 days. Now, neuroscience has found out that you need at least 60 days! Take you your time then, establish a new habit with calm, don’t stretch your body too far, your body is comfortably used to the old habit and it doesn’t feel like to replace it. You must make it understand, day after day, that another way is possible and it is also healthier!

Besides, remember that the path won’t be always linear and you may find obstacles. There will be some easiest moments then others but losing a battle doesn’t mean losing the war. Accept the ups and downs: your body will learn to adapt slowly.

Choose an objective that won’t sound like an obligation, in the sense that it must represent a real choice, a thing that you want to do, not that you must do. Control your thoughts, remember what Henry Ford said. Don’t focus on what you still have to achieve, but celebrate what you have already achieved. List the small victories and congratulate yourself. Stay positive!

Think about the strength that a seed has to become grass. It must come out from the soil to be able to live and flourish. It works slowly under the soil, up to when one day it comes out and sees the light! For you it is a kind of the same thing. Work slowly and one day you will see the results, because you are stronger than you think.

And now the four tips:

1. set one objective at the time, but define it well, use the SMART model (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound). Even though this model has been created for organisations, it may be helpful also to individuals engaged in goal setting.

2. Adopt the strategy of small steps by dividing your objective in some smaller objectives.

3. Celebrate achievements: the first kilo you have lost, the first whole day without smoking. Put some post-it all over your place with your success on it. Tell yourself “Well done!”.

4. Inform your family and friends about your goals and ask them to help you with this. Getting their support will help you in achieving the results. Look for some groups on Facebook that share your same goals, participate in forums on the Internet. Remember that you are not alone, there are other thousands of people that may have your same goals and exchanging ideas with them can be helpful to you. You can create yourself a blog, that can become your journal (a journal on paper is also okay).

Always remember that you are stronger than you believe!

5 Tips to Avoid Stress During the Festive Period if You Are an Expat

I like very much Christmas holidays. They remind me my childhood when I used to wait for Midnight opening the presents with my family. Now, that I am an expat, I like going back home at Christmas time, because I like to share this peaceful time with my dearest.

However, I can understand that it can turn out in a stressful period. Buying presents at the last minute, preparing dinner for the Christmas’ Eve or lunch (or both, as we do in my family, not to miss anything…). Wishing Merry Christmas to all your relatives and friends, hoping not to forget anyone.

Here are 5 tips to keep a positive mind-set and enjoy yourself. Follow these tips for coping with some of the stress that the holidays can cause.

Reach out to loved ones

Family and friends back home may want to spend time with you during the holidays, and expect a visit. You can try your best to keep in touch – a phone conversation or spending a few minutes chatting with a loved one can make a big difference, and lift both your and their spirit. And you will not feel guilty 🙂

2. Make the most of it

Adjusting to new traditions can bring up mixed feelings and emotional struggle. Try not to put yourself under too much pressure. Embracing the new, while maintaining a sense of tradition to your new surroundings, can help you feel better.

3. Don’t let the publicity affect you

You may feel surrounded by images and ideas of what the perfect holidays should look like – but the truth is that holidays can be stressful emotionally and financially. Don’t let the media get into you and avoid comparing yourself to unrealistic depictions.

4. Seek support

People who are going through difficult situations, such as grieving, the loss of a loved one or dealing with the break of a relationship, can be particularly vulnerable and experience further emotional stress with the holiday season. It’s important not to ignore your feelings. Reaching out for support from specialists or counselling sessions can help you analyse your feelings and cope with overwhelming emotional struggle.

5. Find your balance

Take time to reflect and think about what works best for you. Whether you can or want to visit relatives abroad or spend the festive season in your host country must be in tune with your personal priorities and needs. Finding the balance that is right for you is essential for your mental health.

Happy Holidays!

I am going on holidays too. Look for next post in 2019!

Procrastination

To procrastinate is a fashionable word nowadays. We procrastinate for invoices to be payed, for the dentist, for the rubbish to bring down…

Waiting too much can have serious consequences. Think at the climate change, for instance. Or at illnesses. If you don’t’ try to find out what you have as soon as you noticed the first symptoms, it may become too late. The doctor may say: “You would have come at the beginning, it would have been different. We would have been able to deal with it, the chances would have been better… ”

Cras in Latin means tomorrow, pro means for. Therefore, pro-cras means: it is for tomorrow.

Statistics show that in the United States about 20% of the population, post-pone the boring tasks to the next day, as if the tasks in question had then the virtue of disappearing or becoming less boring (in reality, isn’t it rather the opposite)?

A study carried out by Chinese researchers shows very interesting results: procrastinators have certain hyperactive intellectual regions, that are a part of a network of mental wandering: when it is time to take an appointment with the dentist, to pay the invoice or to bring down the rubbish, these centres make the person think at something else. And, let’s say it, to try to find out excuses on how unpleasant would be carrying out these tasks.

Besides, in procrastinators’ brain, another zone is weak. It is the zone that blocks the activity of wandering and that allows to remain focused.

People who work in advance according to a planning, in order not to be taken by surprise at the time of an examination, or of the fiscal term, they have a high activity of this area, so that the wandering zone is blocked.

When the mind gets loose from the planned purpose and begins to wander, the brain gets vulnerable in that area, which is very sensitive to all that is uncomfortable or disagreeable.

What to do?

The brain is a muscle, let’s train it and exploit its plasticity!