It’s Not Work/Life Balance Anymore - It’s Me/Lifestyle Balance

Work/Life Balance implies a dividing line between Work and Life but as one participant in a workshop pointed out to me, the equation is not Work/Life but Me and Work/Life.

Or if you prefer: Me/Lifestyle

This is what I think most of us are struggling with these days; the fact that our Work/Life (Lifestyle) is out of balance with the part that we identify as “Me.”

Here are some signs that you are out-of-balance between your “Me” and your “Lifestyle”:

• a sense of being unfulfilled
• feeling over-worked
• feeling under-motivated
• feeling like you want to 'pack and leave'
• feeling trapped

So ask yourself: “what are you doing to cope with this?”

If you answer: "I am buying things I don't need, but when I do, it makes me feel better”, then you’re in a self-destructive cycle of behaviour that looks like this: you work, you purchase, you owe, and you do it all over again. It’s how you live your life, it’s your Lifestyle.

So what is it really doing for you, this lifestyle?

Well for most it is serving to ‘trap’ us in a cycle that ‘feeds’ that sense of imbalance.

You need to work to pay the bills and when you feel under pressure, you don’t look at ways to change this, you just look at ways to ‘feel better’ which in the example above is to go out and shop for things that make you ‘feel better.’

If you are to bring balance back between ‘me’ and your ‘lifestyle’ you will need to end this cycle and empower yourself. This can be accomplished by feeding your “me” side.

Begin by asking yourself these questions:

• What am I Passionate about?
• What really Matters to me?
• What's the One Thing I can't stop talking about?
• How do I See myself?

The answers may surprise you. Use the answers to begin adding some “me” time into your life. That time that is reserved just for you and is not a response to other pressures. It should serve to give you strength not compromise it.

Next, stop and look at ‘how you are living your life’; really look at it.

To do this try one or both of these:

• Write things down (journal, blog)
• Talk to someone (counselor, therapist)

Both of these methods are designed to help us reflect on our situation in a tangible way; a way that requires acknowledging what is going on, rather then just going into a negative cycle of coping behaviours (autopilot).

When we reflect in this manner we give ourselves something to look back on and a way to evaluate our choices so we can make changes that are measurable.

This requires alot of self-control and more effort then maybe a 'shopping spree' but until you do this, balance will not be something you have; it will be something you want.

Exercise:
Close your eyes. Sit in a quiet room. Call upon the memories of the most 'honest moments' you have ever had, try and hold them in your mind, then let them act like a compass, and let them point you in the direction that they lead.

Balance is found through empowerment of self.

Happy New Year!

Hello and Happy New Year! We took a break from blogging for a short time to fulfill the many Training requests we had.    Thank you to everyone for making 2009 a fantastic year!  We really enjoyed delivering these workshops and we look forward to expanding our relationships in the coming year.

We also took a break to spend quality time with our family and friends over the holiday season; all important in our Work/Life Balance plan.  Now we are back and ready to tackle a new year of topics that will help you and your clients work and live in better balance while facing all the challenges that come your way.

Some of the topics we are going to tackle this year include:

• Empathy and Sympathy, the approach that makes a difference
• Technology and the Impact it has on Communicating Effectively
• Work as part of our Life and how we see ourselves fitting in "Me" Time
• Culture and Anger, and many, many more interesting topics. 

If you have a topic that you want us to blog about, please contact me at mpotvin@johnhowardtor.on.ca we always love to hear from our readers.   

We don't learn unless we share ideas.

Keep up to date with our Monthly Newsletters by signing up at http://www.angertoronto.ca/ or visit past articles at http://angertorontonewsletter.ca/ 

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Stay well.

For all your Professional Development Training Needs visit our website at http://www.angertoronto.ca/ and sign up for our Monthly Newsletter!

Michelle Potvin
Corporate Training Coordinator
Anger Management Toronto
(division of The John Howard Society of Toronto)
mpotvin@johnhowardtor.on.ca
p: (416) 925-4386 ext. 227

“Mapping” our Work/Life Balance

“If we don’t have a map then we tend to just ‘Drift’ along and are unable to ‘Measure’ our progress.” This came to me when I was preparing to deliver yet again another workshop on Work/Life Balance. It seems a very popular topic these days. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, is talking about this concept of Work and Life and how to Balance the two.

I previously posted a blog on this very topic: October 01, 2009 - WORK/LIFE Balance?What is it? Why don’t we feel we have it? How do we get it?

In this blog I discussed the concept of balance as being directly related to a personal set of beliefs and values, and I said that if you are out-of-balance then you are likely living with someone else’s agenda and feeling ‘stuck’ as a result.

In this posting I want to look more at “How To”. That is ‘how to’ create the ‘MAP’ that gets us to balance and then brings us back when we are ‘drifting’ off-course.

The inspiration for this was a book I read recently called “Rowing the Atlantic” by Roz Savage. She was a professional working in the UK and like many of us she had a partner and a house and a good job, but she felt that something was out of balance. The book describes a journey of going from that ‘secure’ life to a life that was full of ‘risk’ and as I read this book I felt more and more that it had a message many of us could benefit from. Of course some of you might be saying, I am not really going to leave my ‘secure’ life for a ‘risky’ one so how is this book going to help me?

I am not proposing that, like this woman, we all leave our jobs, our partners and sell our homes so that we can find a balanced life; however, I am asking that we look at the incredible lessons that this individual learned on her journey. For it is in these lessons that I see a true ‘MAP’ that all of us can use to achieve our own balance in life.

• The first lesson that this individual learned, was to trust herself, to realize that she could make this journey but only if she trusted herself.
• The second lesson that she learned, was to admit she didn’t have all the answers. Once she understood this, she was able to ask for help.
• The third lesson that she learned, was to realize it is not what others think of you that matters, it is what you think of yourself that matters most.
• The fourth lesson that she learned, was that there will be obstacles along the way and that even if you have planned for all the possible ‘disasters’ that there will always be something that pops up to challenge you, what you need to remember are lessons one, two , and three when this happens.
• The fifth lesson and my personal favourite that she learned is that ‘how we think’ is as dangerous as what we do, and if we cannot change that thinking then we can put ourselves at risk and set ourselves up for possible disaster.
• The sixth lesson she learned is that sometimes being alone is a good thing and not something to be afraid of. When we are alone with our own thoughts we have a great opportunity to really listen to ourselves and understand our needs, wants, and fears and draw on our own strengths and improve on our weaknesses.
• The last lesson that she learned on this journey, is that expectations are things that can make us feel like we failed when we set them unrealistically, or when we are too rigid with them.

With those lessons in mind, I am going to propose that when you feel that something in your world is not right and you are indeed out of balance, that you imagine yourself in a ‘row boat’ rowing the ocean. You are in fact so far out at sea that you cannot see any land masses and that there are no other boats on the horizon.

Next I want you to ask yourself a series of questions:

• Where am I rowing to?
• How long is it going to take?
• What did I bring that will help me?
• Do I have anyone I can ask for help?
• Is my Rowboat built to withstand the elements?
• What personal beliefs am I holding onto that are going to work against me? Or work for me?
• Can I do this?
• Do I want to do this?

Now of course it is pretty easy to answer some of these questions because lets face it you are only imagining yourself in the rowboat. Your life, the one you are living, is still around you when you open your eyes, so the risk seems to be less. But what if you were actually in that rowboat, alone on the sea with only what you brought: limited food, limited access to the outside and not much experience, what would your answers be then?

The point of course is that in order for you to answer the questions and then use them to form a MAP for yourself, you have to first recognize that you are imagining this from a place of relative safety, a place where the life you are currently living is safe and known and this influences how you think about making change.

So, if you are feeling out of balance then the only way to get that back, to stop the endless ‘drift’ is for you to take a ‘risk’ and imagine a life that does not have the things you have surrounded yourself with in it, but has the things that you have brought along with you that serve a purpose to get you from one side of your life to the other, just like that row boat.

‘Entitlementia’- It’s an Epidemic!

“The very nature of ‘how’ we work and play has changed irrevocably in the last decade, becoming ever more present-focused. Listening to the radio – an archaic pastime these days – means wishing, and hoping, and waiting with no guarantee for your favourite songs to play. Sometimes they don’t forcing you to endure songs you dislike (which teaches tolerance) and forcing you to hear songs you have never heard before (expanding your horizons to potential new favourite songs). Compare that to iPod. Songs download at your command. Other technologies have similar effects. Voice mail, email, and caller ID liberate us from real-time conversations. We need not conform to schedules imposed by others. We need no longer care when shops and libraries ‘open’ and ‘close’. The web is ‘open’ 24 hours a day. We teleconference, telecommute. How much time did your grandparents spend on the ferry, streetcar, subway, the highway?”- (excerpt from the book: Stuck, by Aneli Rufus)

As Ms. Rufus points out in this excerpt from her book, the rise in technology has played a part in creating an environment where we don’t have to wait for things, because technology has made that possible. However, this technology also seems to have played a part in what seems to be a rise in rudeness or what some people are calling “entitlementia.”

I recently read a journalist’s article in which they characterized “entitlementia” as, “(people feeling) entitled to express (their) point of view whenever and however (they) feel like it, no matter if it's the right time or place.” I agree that this is a more frequent experience for many of us, especially if we read media sites or take a train or bus to work and technology has played a large role in this. People have come to feel entitled as a result of the way they interact with the ‘just in time’ technology they have access to. Let’s face it, if you can get things given to you at the push of a button with minimal effort on your part, then it stands to reason that you will expect this same reaction from all the things in your life. And when you don’t get your way, your anger will erupt, fueled by your sense of entitlement because you see no reason why you aren’t getting your needs met.

Wow, this sounds like the attitude of some of the anger management clients in my groups. They aren’t getting their needs met so they get angry and exhibit a sense of entitlement in the process. In fact that sense of entitlement is something that we discuss in the anger management program when we are talking about ‘problematic thinking’ patterns. If you feel entitled, then you act entitled, and if you are presented with a barrier to meeting your needs, you feel it’s unfair and you react negatively; anger fueling your rage against the injustice of the whole affair.

This feeling that it is ‘unfair’ is a problem and it seems that we are surrounded by things like technology and media that are reinforcing the idea that - “ we should have what we want, when we want it and if we don’t get that then it’s unfair and we should speak up regardless of the circumstances.”

Of course we see this play out in the frequent displays of impolite behaviour toward strangers and even friends and family on a daily basis now. This does not occur only on public transportation or in the media, but it is also seen in the office, in our homes, on the school yards, in the classrooms, and well pretty much everywhere there are people.

So if this is being fueled or at the very least influenced by our ‘instant needs met’ lifestyle and the technology that has facilitated this, then what can we do to help ourselves get back to that place where politeness and respect are the norm?

Well like anger management clients we need to go back to the roots of the problem and stop blaming everything else. We need to hold ourselves accountable for our behaviour and increase our awareness of the people around us who are affected by that behaviour. We need to learn to respect other people’s space in the way we want them to respect ours.

A scenario that comes to mind that really reflects that last statement is the experience of getting on public transit, sitting down in a seat that is built for two and having someone come along and sit down beside you, put their bag on their lap and yours and have them pretty much make it so that your pressed up against the wall of the vehicle all the while they are playing their personal music device at a volume where you and people not even in the vehicle can hear it.

This is the kind of thing that people are experiencing every day and it’s starting to take a toll. Just look at the number of people getting into verbal altercations on your way to and from work. These altercations or near misses in the case of people who mutter their displeasure under their breaths, are growing more frequent.
It would seem that this “entitlementia” is really beginning to fuel the number of aggressive and passive-aggressive episodes that we experience in a day. Anger management clients aren’t the only ones showing this type of behaviour anymore, it’s an epidemic and unless we start taking time to be accountable for our behaviour and increase our awareness of the people around us, we are likely going to end up in an anger management program or worse.

So what are some ways to increase our accountability and our social awareness without giving up our cell phones, personal music players, and email? Well we don’t all have to attend Anger Management classes but we can learn to do the following:

• Be a good listener in order to understand the feelings and perspectives of others.
• Be tolerant and cultivate opportunities with diverse people.
• Read the political and social currents in an environment.
• Happily offer appropriate assistance to others.

All of these things can help you to become more empathetic, improve your social skills, and help you to increase your success in all your relationships. And the good news is you can still have your cell phone, your email, and your personal music devices, just now you might be more likely to think about the people sitting next to you on the bus before you turn up the volume on your personal music device; because you realize now that we are all entitled to a little peace.

Please visit our website for information on our Workshops in Anger Management, Work/Life Balance and Emotional Intelligence. http://www.angertoronto.ca/

Imploding and Exploding (The destructive Cycle of Passive Anger)

Imploding is the Passive Anger Response - you feel unable to confront so you hold your anger, seethe in silence, and then tell yourself that you let it go, when actually you just stored it for later.

Exploding is the Aggressive Anger Response and is the action of Anger Release but with destructive results.

Problem solving is the Assertive Anger Response and involves communicating our feelings while respecting the feelings of others.

In my experience I have encountered many clients who come in with the Passive Anger Style. In fact many of the clients I see, which are primarily from marginalized populations, present with this style more often then any of the other four styles. Societal expectations and 'norms' have long dictated that people should not express themselves in aggressive ways. As a result many people struggle with expressing their anger and frustration in a constructive manner. This has led to the suppression of feelings which can have a direct negative impact on their emotional, mental and physical health. People who have a Passive Anger Style have been documented as having more physical health issues, including gastrointestinal disorders and cardiac issues.

The mental and emotional effects of a Passive style can be seen in the deterioration of the person’s personal and professional relationships and the tendency to ‘numb’ their feelings through poor coping methods, including alcohol and drug use.

When you hold onto your feelings and do not process them you 'fill your bucket' one drop at a time. Soon the bucket will overflow causing you to 'explode in anger' and this is known as the Imploding/Exploding cycle. This cycle can have negative results, such as damaged relationships, lost employment, and conflict with the law.

To better understand why someone might be Passive in their Anger Style we should look at the reasons that are often cited by the person for not ‘dealing’ with their anger in a healthier way:
- Fear of retaliation
- Fear of rejection
- Fear of hurting another person
- Fear of being seen as “aggressive”
- Fear of losing control
- Fear of “looking like a fool”

A good practice to get into if you feel your anger style is Passive, and you are in the Imploding/Exploding Cycle is to:

- Balance your load (personally and professionally)
- Set Boundaries and don't give into other's unreasonable demands because you feel you have to.
- Set realistic expectations for yourself and don’t try to be "All Things to All People" in your life
- Use Assertive techniques such as: being direct, being honest, and actively listening, to express your anger in a constructive manner for a win/win outcome.
- Channel your anger into problem solving

This last suggestion, the act of channeling your anger towards problem solving, plays a major role in developing your Assertive response to your anger triggers. It requires you to change your thinking about your anger and choose to assert yourself, instead of reacting passively when you are angry.

When you change your thinking it changes HOW you do things.

If you can direct your anger in an assertive manner you will reap the benefits in your mental, emotional, and physical health, because you will be processing that emotion to solve problems, not bottling it up.

Ways to express your Anger Assertively:

- Maintain eye contact as this demonstrates your interest in what the other person is saying
- Maintain your body posture in a way that communicates non-verbally to the other person your interest in the exchange (i.e. sit up, lean slightly forward, maintain an open body posture).
- Use appropriate non-verbal communication that is not aggressive (i.e. neutral expression on your face, no abrupt hand gestures)
- Maintain an even tone of voice
- Be aware of the timing of messages you deliver, make sure they are delivered to increase receptivity, (i.e. don’t cut the other person off when they are talking).
- Use “I” statements to demonstrate your non-blaming position in the discussion (i.e. I feel frustrated when this situation happens).

The Benefits of Acting Assertively:

- Promotes equality in your relationships
- Helps you to act in your own best interests
- Helps you to stand up for yourself
- Helps you to express your feelings honestly
- Helps you to respect the rights of others

See our Website for Professional Workshops for your staff: http://www.angertoronto.ca/

Work/Life Balance?

“Throughout history, pleasure deferrers were the ones who lived long enough and well enough to reproduce and raise their young, who took after them physically and mentally and learned these same values. Reinforced thusly by natural selection, the ability to defer pleasure evolved into a prominent human skill. Our ancestors got so good at NOT living in the moment that – some might say – they almost forgot there was any other way to live. In their world, living in the moment…was alien, foreign, dangerous, the province of infants and sages and the insane.” Anneli Rufus

That is thought provoking. Provoking to me because it sums up what I witness when I meet with groups and deliver Work/Life Balance workshops. The individuals in those workshops, mostly the ones that are over 35, mention this ‘work now, play later’ concept when we start talking about balancing our work and our personal life.

They tell me about their ‘obligations’ and frequently in direct contrast to their ‘desires’, and often they describe a feeling of ‘guilt’ that I feel almost hangs in the air around the group. That’s what that statement by Anneli Rufus sums up for me, a sense that if we aren’t deferring our pleasure in favour of living for the future – working to pay the bills that inevitably accrue each month, and the RRSP that we’ve been told is the answer to our retirement dilemma, then we are going to be in trouble.

This is a serious issue. If a large part of the over 35 workforce feels that they must ‘defer their pleasure’ because it’s the way they ensure their ‘security’, then HOW are they going to balance their work along with their life so that both aspects are providing them with a sense of balance?

My answer is that we each need to work within our own set of values and beliefs.

HOW we value our personal life and our work life is the key to making sure that what is ‘balance’ for us is being achieved.

However, as I find more often when I go out to talk to people, there are increasingly more individuals feeling ‘out of balance’ in their day-to-day lives and they don’t know how to bring that balance back into their lives.

These same individuals report that they are struggling with ‘guilt’ for not working hard enough, and ‘guilt’ for not spending enough time with their friends and family. Few mention ‘feeding’ their souls with things that bring them pleasure, outside the usual answer when asked how they de-stress, (baths, long walks, and exercise).

For me this conflicting set of guilty feelings, as described by these individuals, are the source of their sense of being ‘out of balance’ yet these same individuals think that to ‘fix this’, they need to apply a ‘formula’ to the problem. That is to say, we need to achieve balance through that concept of 50-50; 50% for my work, 50% for my life.

The reality is, as I have said, lies in where we place value in our lives. If someone places 75% of the value on work and 25% of the value on personal life, and they are HAPPY with this, then I would say they are in balance. The equation might be 60-40 or 20-80…it doesn’t matter as long as this equation is driven by your values and beliefs and not driven by someone else’s. That’s the key.

Unfortunately, as we see in the quote at the start of this blog, our values are significantly influenced by societal norms. For the over 35 crowd, there is still a lingering work ethic that says work as much as you can and retire at 65, then you can have time to play and be with your family. In contrast for many of the under 35 crowd there is an inclination towards putting a greater emphasis on their personal life. If you don’t believe me just speak to the younger workers in your office, or better yet, just observe their behaviours in the office. Many are wired to their social networks throughout the working day, (i.e. MSN and Facebook).

The question is, which approach is balanced?

I think both approaches to work and life have merit and that we need to be aware that balance comes in all shapes and sizes, as long as you are determining your idea of balance against your values and beliefs and not that of others.

It is also important to note that balance is fluid. This month it may be 80% work, 20% personal life, and next month it may be 60% work, 40% personal life. You just need to make sure that you are okay with the balance because unless you are okay with it, you will not feel balanced between your two worlds, you’ll feel like your on the ‘train to burn out’.

See our Newsletter Articles at http://angertorontonewsletter.ca/

Office Rage

The irony of work is that the very place we find meaning and security in our lives is also the place where we run into so many anger-provoking events.

The ability to recognize, to avoid, or to reduce stressors and triggers of anger is a worthy goal for management and employees who find themselves in ‘unhealthy’ work environments.

Recent publicized incidents of workplace violence (the arrest of a colleague in the death of Annie Le, a Yale University student), have put the topic of “Office Rage” back into the spotlight, and rightly so.

Here are just some of the statistics I found on the internet citing anger in the workplace:

• Studies show that up to 42% of employee time is spent engaging in or trying to resolve conflict
• 45% of us regularly lose our temper at work
• Up to 60% of all absences from work are caused by stress
• 50% of us have reacted to computer problems by hitting our PC, hurling parts of it around, and screaming at the screen
• 65% of workers have experienced office rage
• 53% of workers have been victims of bullying at work 

Anger and stress in our offices is clearly an issue as demonstrated by these statistics. But let’s look at more specific behaviours that employees are experiencing that are inciting more and more acts of ‘office rage.’

• 85% of workers report being annoyed by coworkers who do not turn off their cell phones during meetings
• 75% of workers report being annoyed by coworkers who don’t load the photocopier/fax machine when empty, or jam it and leave it for the next person to fix
• 60% of workers report being annoyed by coworkers who spend their day gossiping or spreading rumours
• 50% dislike colleagues talking loudly in the office, often about their personal lives
• 50% dislike people taking items from their desk and not returning them
• 30% complain about colleagues untidiness in the kitchen and rancid milk in the fridge

Couple these complaints and annoyances with the following stressful events,

• Rush Hour Travel
• Increased Workloads
• Managing Work and Home balance
• Finances
• New Technology

and you have a recipe for workers who if they aren’t able to handle these challenges effectively, are prime candidates for being the person behind many incidents of Office Rage.

So what are organizations doing to help employees address these very real issues in the workplace?

Well I know from research and from working in the field as an Anger Management counselor and trainer that few corporations are offering anger or stress management training outside of the traditional access to EAP programs.

Why is this the case? Well a number of HR Professionals I have spoken to tell me that their companies don’t like the word Anger or Stress Management as it implies that their workplaces are unhealthy, so they will often deny requests to bring anger management or stress management workshops into their organizations.

However, the following statistics demonstrate the need of employees for anger and stress management training:

• More than 1 in 10 (12%) employees say that the have trouble controlling their anger
• More than 1 in 4 (28%) employees say that they worry about how angry they sometimes feel
• 64% of employees say that they ‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’ that coworkers are getting angrier
• Fewer than 1 in 7 (13%) employees say they have sought help from their employers for their anger problems
• 58% of employees wouldn’t know where to seek help if they needed help with an anger problem
• Of those employees that did seek help they were most likely to do so from a health professional (such as a counselor, therapist, General Practitioner, or nurse), rather than from employers, or Employee Assistance Programs offered by an employer.
• Many agencies and businesses refer problem employees to Employee Assistance Programs (EAP). Unfortunately, EAP programs are often not adequate to meet the specific needs of employees with anger because anger management is not a core skill in the training of most EAP professionals.

In an ideal workplace employees are internally motivated and self-regulating, (Emotional Intelligence – see our September Article on this topic at http://angertorontonewsletter.ca/), because they are hired with care, placed in jobs that serve them as well as the company, and are supported with the resources required to accomplish their jobs.

This is not the case for the majority of employees today and this is the reason we are seeing higher incidents of ‘office rage.’

So what do employers need to do?

In order to address anger in the workplace or what is now known as “office rage” it is important for employers to move outside their traditional methods for handling problem employees, such as referring them to EAP, or worse ignoring the issues and then firing otherwise valuable employees. They need to start embracing the idea of providing training in the areas of anger and stress management more readily and openly discussing these issues with employees to de-stigmatize seeking help for anger problems in the workplace.

Empowering employees through training in Anger Management in the Workplace, Emotional Intelligence, and Work/Life Balance are all good places to start.

For more information on training in Anger Management/Emotional Intelligence, and Work/Life Balance please contact Michelle Potvin at mpotvin@johnhowardtor.on.ca or visit our website at http://www.angertoronto.ca/

Tips for Overcoming Workplace Negativity:

• Understand that negativity is a symptom of the unmet needs of employees
• Identify the ‘root causes’ of the problem behaviour
• Create a respectful environment
• Encourage the constructive expression of negative emotions (assertiveness, problem solving)
• Provide a safe work environment
• Discard “one-size-fits-all” schedules and work hours
• Empower employees with ‘change management and stress reduction skills’ using anger management, work/life balance, and emotional intelligence workshops
• Create a workplace filled with humour and fun

This month’s article “Emotional Intelligence” appears on the website http://angertorontonewsletter.ca