Happy New Year – Ready Or Not!

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTITIONER

Title: Getting Your Act Together

Competency: self-management, self-development, achievement orientation, stress management, resiliency  

Who benefits: all employees

Consultant Usage: first heal yourself, then help others, EAP counselors

What’s it about? Ah, the new year is upon us.  Today being the fourth day of said new year, it is time to review your new year’s resolutions: (1) Did you make any? (2) how are you doing?  Keeping them?  Give up smoking … start again (it has been 4 days)?  Keeping to your new exercise program?

One very big reason we don’t keep our resolutions is that this week is very much like last week or last month.  We still have our same old habits.  Don’t believe you still have your old habits?  Watch how many times this month you write “2011”.

For many of us one of those old habits is being overly stressed.  Our most frequent and least effective response is to WORRY.  Unfortunately, despite our advanced skill in this response, WORRY rarely brings about change.  And if you want to eliminate at least some WORRY from your life you do have to make some change or changes. 

So welcome to the new year and here is a book and an article that can assist you in meaningful change, if so desired:

First the book: CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap! Strategies for Handling Your Fast-Paced Life.  If the title looks vaguely familiar, it is because I reviewed it quite some time ago.  But I assume you were too busy then to take a look.  Maybe with the new year you now have the motivation.  Let me give you a couple of quotes that may pique your interest: 

“The greatest damage from being too busy is that it prevents people from setting their own temperature, controlling their own lives.”

“Being too busy is a persistent and pestering problem, one that is leading tens of millions of Americans to feel as if they were living in a swarm of gnats constantly taking bites out of their lives.”

Now the Article: How to Accomplish More by Doing Less.  It is about the law of diminishing returns.  The law can’t be repealed, so you might as well obey it.  It is a 5 minute read, only slightly longer than this post.  And if you don’t have a full 5 minutes, at least read down to the part about airline pilots sleeping on the job.  That might jar you!

Have a great new year filled with positive change.

Catch you later.

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.