Amidst the chaos and flux of our daily lives, it’s quite common to find ourselves entangled in the web of unforeseen events and challenges. From the mundane mishaps to the more significant setbacks, each instance can feel like a disruption to the rhythm of our existence. But as we take a moment to pause and reflect on the broader scope of our journey, a realization begins to emerge: perhaps these disruptions aren’t as defining as they initially seem.
Consider this: how do these events and challenges fit into the vast panorama of our existence? Do they truly hold the same weight as we assign them in the heat of the moment? It’s a question worth pondering. Will tomorrow be dominated by the same concerns that consume us today? And what about a week from now? Or a year?
The truth is, that very few events retain the same magnitude over time. What seems like a catastrophe today may fade into insignificance tomorrow. Our lives are a series of ebbs and flows, with each challenge molding us into stronger, more resilient individuals.
In the grand scheme of things, our experiences are just small fragments of a much larger picture. They shape us, they teach us, but they do not define us. The setbacks we face today will soon be overshadowed by the triumphs of tomorrow.
So, the next time life throws a curveball your way, take a step back and put it into perspective. Embrace the lesson it brings, but don’t let it overshadow the beauty of the bigger picture. After all, in the globality of our lives, very few events are truly worth the worry and stress we invest in them.
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In the grand narrative of life, resilience is the protagonist, the unsung hero that we all need at some point. It’s not just a buzzword; it’s a remarkable quality that can transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. Join me on a journey through the winding pathways of resilience, as we explore its meaning and its profound impact on our lives.
The Anatomy of Resilience
Resilience isn’t about being invincible; it’s about bouncing back when life throws its curveballs. Think of it as the flexible branch that endures the strongest winds without breaking. Resilience isn’t something we’re born with; it’s a skill we develop over time, shaped by our experiences and challenges.
The Power of Adversity
Adversity is the crucible in which resilience is forged. Our struggles, setbacks, and failures serve as the raw materials that mold us into stronger beings. Each setback is an opportunity to learn, adapt, and grow. In the end, it’s not the adversity itself, but our response to it that defines us.
The Resilience Mindset
Resilience isn’t just about physical toughness; it’s a mental game as well. Cultivating a resilience mindset involves embracing change, maintaining a positive outlook, and believing in your ability to overcome obstacles. It’s about turning setbacks into stepping stones.
The Support Network
No one is an island, and no one builds resilience alone. Our support network—family, friends, colleagues—plays a vital role in our journey. They offer guidance, encouragement, and a safety net when we stumble. In times of crisis, seeking help is a sign of strength, not weakness.
Resilience in Action
I am sure you know individuals who overcame life-threatening illnesses or entrepreneurs who bounced back from business failures. Their stories illustrate the incredible human capacity for resilience. They are inspiring examples that remind us that adversity is not the end. It’s often the beginning of something extraordinary.
Resilience and Personal Growth
Resilience isn’t just about surviving. It’s also about thriving. When we harness our resilience, we unlock our potential for personal growth and self-discovery. We become more adaptable, compassionate, and empowered to face life’s uncertainties.
Cultivating Resilience
To cultivate resilience, we must practice self-care, develop problem-solving skills, and maintain a growth-oriented mindset. In this way, you can ensure you’re well-prepared for life’s challenges.
As we conclude the journey through the landscape of resilience, remember that it’s not about avoiding adversity but facing it head-on with courage, tenacity, and hope. Resilience isn’t just a trait; it’s a way of life. So, embrace your setbacks, celebrate your strengths, and keep moving forward. Your story of resilience is still unfolding, and its pages are waiting to be filled with your triumphs.
In this period of mobility restrictions caused by the pandemic, the time when we could travel freely seems a long ago. Last year for Easter, I had planned a trip to Berlin and I would not have expected to cancel it. This year too, I would have liked to leave for the Easter break, but the virus is still among us and it is better to stay where we are.
Covid has changed many aspects of our life and going on vacation is one of them. It is obvious that going on vacation is very important for physical and mental health. You should think about taking rest periods even without being able to travel.
When we work we look forward to the weekend but it is not long enough to fully recharge ourselves. To be able to really disconnect from work we need more time.
Holidays are a period of time that we need, we need it as well as sleep, eat, drink, in short, they are a necessity. If we want to stay healthy, we have to take vacations.
Waiting for the pandemic to pass and then taking a long vacation is not a good idea. It is better to take shorter vacations but more often.
Of course, we cannot travel now, it is strongly discouraged, but this does not mean that a period of rest at home or close to your place, depending on what you can do in the country where you live, will do some good. Holidays allow us to recover and when we come back, we often feel better, full of energy and even more creative.
Photo by Wee Lee on Unsplash
It does not matter where you go on vacation. The main thing is that you can rest and put aside your daily worries. Choose what to do, with whom and when to do it. Not everyone likes travelling. Some like to have time to read more, do more physical activity, spend time outdoors. Others like to take small hikes, without straying too far from home. Some people enjoy long trips, some other like only short ones.
With the health crisis, many of us had their vacations at home. Let us see the positive aspects of it: definitely less pollution, you saved some money and also the stress of travelling.
However, there are people who do not like being at home. They do not know what to do, they get bored, they do not want to tidy up the house (but for this one could call someone to help), and the children (when they are there) need care and attention. They have to think about many things, as if they were working. On the other hand, they may simply want to change air and get to know new places, or return to places they have loved before.
If, however, you are forced to stay at home due to travel restrictions, take some days off and try to take advantage of your free time anyway, as doing so will make you feel better. Moreover, think that the pandemic will be hopefully over soon.
If you find yourself in the position of having to stay at home during your holidays, try these tips:
1. Don’t read professional emails;
2. Do little housework;
3. Establish rules and times for being at the computer or television (both for you and your children, if you have any);
4. Look for new places to discover in your neighbourhood;
5. Spend time in nature because nature is a source of energy;
6. Make a list of what you would normally do on vacation, eliminating the things you cannot do due to anti-Covid rules. For example, in Belgium, where I live, you can ride a bike, but you cannot go to a restaurant;
7. Organize a movie marathon with friends and discuss with them to find out which ones you all liked the most;
8. You can do the same thing with a book. Choose with your friends a book you all would like to read. When finished, you gather together (on-line if not possible a real gathering together) to comment on it;
9. Why do not you sign up for an online course to learn new things? There are many possibilities even for free!
10. Indulge yourself with little vices: buy some chocolate (soon it will be Easter, the best moment to buy it), a good bottle of wine, or have a three-course meal delivered.
“She asked me to put her in copy to all emails, even the most trivial ones. Sometimes she would knock on my office door to ask me if I was okay because I had spent a lot of time in the bathroom, when actually only five minutes have passed. She checked when I walked in and when I left my office to see how long I had been way. The pressure she exerted by checking every detail of my work was suffocating, more than exaggerated and above all counterproductive.”
This is just a testimony from an employee who used to work with a micro-manager. What exactly is micromanagement? It is a managerial practice through which the manager exercises exhaustive control of the actions, tasks, functions and responsibilities of the people subordinated to him / her at a hierarchical level.
This type of managers may also ask to see an email before it is sent, and they may want to be informed of all the decisions that employees need to take, because they think that their staff cannot take decisions. A micromanager combines impatience and distrust with absolute control of the tasks assigned to their subordinates.
The situation look like the schemes used by the “Thought Police” to scrupulously monitor every moment of the characters in George Orwell’s “1984” novel. As in that book, the consequences of this practice of strict control on employees are devastating. The boss gains in peace of mind but staff suffer from it and are also less productive. Actually, this system creates bottlenecks that cause a slowdown in all activities. This type of manager wants to earn a good reputation and prevent a supervisor from blaming them that something was wrongly done.
Photo by Michal Jakubowski on Unsplash
But the worst part falls on the employees. Many times they do not know how to give priority, because the boss constantly changes their priorities based on the urgency that arrives, or because a superior asks him or her or it is the market requiring that. Employees lose creativity and self-esteem. A culture of fear is established, where everything is subject to the orders of the superior. This can lead to sickness absenteeism.
Apart from real psychosomatic diseases that can arise, psychological situations can also develop for which the person feels worthless, becomes smaller and smaller until they doubt their abilities. You begin to ask yourself: “Am I capable of doing it? ”,“ Am I in the wrong job? ”,“ Why do they control me like this, what have I done wrong? ”. And it can also happen that you quit your job, even if you have a good salary. When a situation cannot be changed or accepted, you have to leave it, and, in this case, you leave your job.
It is important to know that people do not quit jobs, they leave bosses.
But why do managers fall into this trap?
If micromanagement spoils the work environment, employees’ health, and it is harmful even to bosses who lose productivity and may lose also staff, why can’t this total and constant control be avoided? The bosses don’t have enough work to do?
Let’s see the possible causes.
First, managers themselves suffer pressure from the environment, be it from their own bosses, shareholders, markets or competition.
Second, incompetence. Either managers feel unsecure because their staff perform an excellent job compared to their own, or the employees are not suitable for that type of job.
The third cause is clear and straightforward: the boss’s obsessive personality making them unable to organize and manage the work.
Whatever the cause is, it is necessary to analyse what is happening in order to put an end to the situation as soon as possible. First, you should go to the human resources of your company. I have worked in human resources for over 10 years and have seen a lot of micromanagement.
As an alternative, you could turn to your superior and ask them to implement one or more techniques, perhaps with the help of a coach. One technique could be that of the traffic light. Together with the boss, you define the admissible and acceptable control limits, that are not to be exceeded. If these limits should be overcome, some signals will be sent to the manager. When the manager receives them, they identify their behaviour and try to control it.
Another strategy is to define the profile of the boss and of each team members, analysing their personal, professional and communication style and characteristics. Once this “x-ray” is completed, the boss shall answer the following questions:
1. What leadership style they use with each employee;
2. What leadership style each employee would need;
3. Which leadership model they would like to use with the each employee.
By doing so, the boss can realize that the type of leadership they are using is in line with that person’s role, but it is not what that employee, due to his or her personality, needs. By adopting this paradigm shift, the boss begins to think not from their own point of view, but from that of the subordinate. While this strategy may sound like science fiction, with time and a willingness to change, success is assured.
The pandemic has put us in front of an uncertain future and left us with negative emotions.
We have all experienced as children the disappointment of asking for something that was then denied. It could also happen that we started crying and this drove our parents crazy. They labelled this behaviour as a whim.
Actually, frustration is present in all stages of life and our success also depends a little on how we manage this typical human emotion.
A Zen master summarizes happiness in a simple formula: happiness is the reality that we live less than what we want or hope to achieve.
When what you want outweighs what you have, then you are faced with what Carl Gustav Jung used to say: “Life not lived is a disease from which you can die.”
In our society where competition and instant satisfaction prevail, frustration necessarily accompanies us more or less always, because as soon as we have satisfied a wish, another one comes.
This period of pandemic has made us move from unbridled consumerism to a culture of cancellation (cancellation of holidays, cancellation of dinners with friends, cancellation of medical appointments, etc.).
Has this sudden change affected your life? See if you have any of the symptoms listed below to understand if you have become a frustrated person:
you are often melancholic;
you experience increased irritability, tension and stress. Things that didn’t bother you before now make you jump up;
you have negative thoughts that come back all the time, stealing you energy and sometimes sleep;
you have increased consumption of alcohol and medicines taken without medical advice;
you want to run away.
Photo by Oscar Aguilar Elías on Unsplash
If you recognize yourself in one or two of these characteristics, then it means that frustration has taken over part of your life.
Here are some tips that will help you get through this moment:
cultivate patience. It may seem obvious, but it is very effective. As a child as well as an adult, frustration occurs when you don’t get what you want. If the parents don’t buy you the toy you want when you ask for it, but they tell you they will offer it to you over your birthday, that doesn’t make you feel better. In times of crisis, if we do not know when the situation that creates frustration will end (as now, which the spread of Covid has resumed in a rather important way) we could lose hope. Against this view, only a long-term perspective will help you. Although you don’t know how long the situation will last, knowing that there is light at the end of the tunnel helps you to live in the present moment.
analyse what you get from it. Just as energy is not created or destroyed, but it is transformed, even losses can bring you gains. If you could not leave for that trip you wanted so much, think that you have saved some money and as soon as you can leave again, you will have greater financial availability. If you have lost your job because the company where you used to work has closed down, you will be forced to evaluate other possibilities, to get back into the game and maybe you can start an independent business that you never would have thought of before and that finally it is worthy. To fight frustration you have to ask yourself: What do I gain from this loss?
think that everything changes. Nothing we have will last for ever. Even if we could satisfy all our wishes, it would always be a temporary satisfaction. If nothing remains as it is but everything changes, then the frustration loses its meaning.
The following thought is attributed to the painter Eugéne Delacroix: “Desire the best, avoid the worst and take what comes”. If you follow this motto, instead of holding on to expectations, you will take things as they happen. You will feel more in the flow of events, even chaotic, that life sometimes offers you.
Folding
1000 origami cranes is believed to bring good fortune. Today, this ancient Japanese
practice has spread around the world, embodying faith, hope and peace.
According to an ancient Japanese belief, folding 1000 paper cranes can bring good fortune in your life. According to the legend, the crane may live for a thousand years; each paper crane represents one year in the majestic bird’s life. After you complete 1000 origami cranes, your wish will become truth. The 1000 origami cranes suspended in the air are often made by groups of people who join forces to achieve this goal. This tradition often supports a good cause or a special occasion like a marriage. The latter is popular with the Japanese American community, which assigns meanings to different colours: red is love, white is purity, gold is wealth, green is health, yellow is creativity, blue is loyalty, and purple is spirituality.
The custom has spread all over the world thanks to Sadako Sasaki, who was just two years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. She developed leukaemia and, inspired by the senbazuru story, began folding cranes – first for her health, then, when she realised that she would not survive, for world peace. She made 644 origami, and her family and classmates completed the task and folded the missing cranes in her honour. To remember Sadako and the other children victims of the nuclear bomb, the Children’s Peace Monument has been built within the Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park. Around 10 million paper cranes are sent to the monument from all around the world every year – proof of how Sadako’s message of peace has widely flown, and an example of how one person can make a difference.
The beauty of origami is not only a practice. Ultimately, you will make something personal that you can give to someone you care about. Moreover, not only you can share the physical gift of origami, but also you can use the making process to think of your beloved ones.
He who becomes the slave of habit, who follows the same routines every day, who never changes brand, who does not risk and change the color of his clothes, who does not talk to people he doesn’t know dies slowly.
He who makes television his guru dies slowly.
He or she who shuns passion, who prefers black on white, and the dots on the “i” to a whirlpool of emotions, precisely those that recover the gleam of the eyes, smiles from the yawns, hearts from the stumbling and feelings dies slowly.
He or she who does not turn things topsy-turvy, who is unhappy at work, who does not risk certainty for uncertainty, to thus follow a dream, those who do not forego sound advice at least once in their lives, die slowly.
He who does not travel, who does not read, who can not hear music, who does not find grace in himself, dies slowly.
He who slowly destroys his self love, who does not allow himself to be helped, who spends days on end complaining about his own bad luck, about the rain that never stops, dies slowly.
He or she who abandon a project before starting it, who fail to ask questions on subjects he doesn’t know, he or she who don’t reply when they are asked something they do know, die slowly.
Let’s avoid death in small doses, reminding oneself that being alive requires an effort far greater than the simple fact of breathing.
Only a burning patience will lead to the attainment of a splendid happiness.
Today we speak a lot about Mindfulness. Do we really know what it is and why it is useful?
Let’s start with a small definition. Mindfulness is a mental training that makes you aware of your actions and bring focus on what you are doing in the present moment. It is a concept taken from Buddhism but it has lost the religious component and it is not limited to meditation, though meditation is part of Mindfulness.
Today’s life is sometime difficult and often very busy. We find ourselves more and more exhausted and breathless. Our mind is forced to focus on several tasks at the same time (the so called multitasking), at the expenses of our mental and physical well-being.
Practising Mindfulness helps us for sure with finding a bit of quietness and copying with events’ life differently, both in the work environment and at personal level. Mindfulness helps us with finding our own human and spiritual intimacy.
Practising regularly Mindfulness has a positive effect on stress and anxiety and it also helps us in developing useful mental skills that build capacity for:
Focus
Mental Clarity and Agility
Collaboration
Creativity and Innovation
Emotional Intelligence
Empathy and Compassion
Resilience
Happiness
Overall Well-Being.
Try a simple exercise: eat slowly a fruit, trying to taste it fully, to understand the consistency and find out the feelings it gives you. If you eat like that once a day, you will be on the good path for being mindful!
Somewhere in the countryside of a country of this world, there was a farmer who owned a very beautiful and strong horse. One day, one worker reported to him that his beloved horse, that had also a great value, fell into an abandoned well.
The worker was very sorry for that bad accident, because he knew that the well was very deep and not accessible. He called some other workers but they could not get the animal out, despite all possible efforts.
The farmer went to see the horse in the well and realised that there was nothing left to do, in spite of the fact that the horse was not injured.
He thought it was not worth saving the horse, the needed efforts would have costed more money and time than buying another one.
So the farmer decided to let the horse in the well and ordered his workers to cover the poor animal with earth, so to bury it. Then he left to go on with his business.
The workers started to throw earth in the well, according to the farmer’s orders. To their surprise, each time they shoveled earth, the horse shook the body and the earth fell to the ground under its legs. The horse walked over it while the well was filling up with earth.
A couple of hours later, the horse had its head out of the well and after some more shovels it jumped out happily.
Although sometimes it seems that some people want only to throw earth on you to make you collapse or desist, you have the same intelligence and willpower to go forward, just like the horse.
When someone tries to discredit you, shake yourself, walk above the earth and come out of that imaginary well. Stop and think why this is happening. Think about the good things of your life. Free yourself from those who want to leave you at the bottom of the well. Act like the horse!
I think that I am going to say something obvious now: being an entrepreneur or a business person is not easy. However, their personal and interpersonal characteristics and skills are not obvious. Some seem unrealistic and they are like myths. Here are five of them.
1. Entrepreneurs love risk. There is nothing more false than that. Apart from some people, such as those, for example, who do extreme sports, entrepreneurs and business people prefer trying to control risks, like most of us. They analyse potential risks and draft a management plan for each category of risk they identify.
2. Entrepreneurs and business people are visionaries. Actually, they test their ideas day after day. Entrepreneurs and business people are very flexible people with a great spirit of adaptation. Their idea can also change dramatically because of the market needs.
3. Entrepreneurs and business people know how to make predictions. I think entrepreneurs and business people trust more what they do. Any prediction they can make is destined to clash with the reality that changes more and more quickly. Entrepreneurs and business people learn to trust their own intuition.
4. Entrepreneurs and business people are not like us. Well, yes, they are like us, they were not born entrepreneurs or business man/woman, but they have became one. Like all things, you can learn the art or science, as you prefer, of entrepreneurship. What is important is the business idea to be developed, the rarer or more unusual, the better. It is not even important to know how to draft a business plan. You could learn it in business schools or even download it from the Internet. The business plan may be useful to guide you through the business process and if you want to ask for financing or sponsorship. Entrepreneurs and business people try daily on the ground their business model and they learn from the market, from their customers and potential customers.
5. Entrepreneurs are successful on their own. This is also false: entrepreneurs and business people shall be able to count on a team and work with them. Nowadays it is unthinkable to be able to do everything by yourself. The things to do are thousands and sometimes complex, you need to work with many people with different competencies and skills, and that can easily work with each other.
Do you think you have any business skills? Let me know!
Crisbie Coach 