Relationships – Page 2 – mardihumphreys.com

Teamwork Makes the Dream Playlist Work

After so many times asking each other, “Have you heard this song?” my best friend, Kelly, suggested we start a playlist in Spotify to keep track of them. Because we’re both rule followers and goal oriented, we had a couple of guidelines. The originals were: Listen without distraction (no driving, working, social media, etc. on first listen), preferably through headphones, and post at the same time every week. We inadvertently stumbled onto something deeper than trading songs. In this new world of COVID-19, people are turning to music and using it almost as a healing balm to our psyches.

Our original intent was to have fun in sampling each other’s taste in music, but after being at it for over a year, it’s evolved into a means of communication. We use it for commemoration and encouragement. We acquire a clearer understanding of each other’s worldview because our song choices reveal our personalities. The anticipation of new music (I’ve heard artists I never would’ve known otherwise), and trying to guess what the other is going to add, makes it a game. An unexpected side effect of building our playlist is how it’s affected my job.

Teamwork

Team members have to know what the goal is. I asked Kelly what she thought the goal of building our playlist was. She said, “…to share ideas, thoughts, and feelings that we may have had during the week through music. Doing this often generates conversations we may not have had otherwise, and can get us thinking about various things in ways we might not have before.” A team works toward the goal together, but we come at it from different perspectives. Building our playlist helps me be open to my team’s opinions on how to reach our goals.

Perseverance

I keep my ears open throughout the week and seek unusual sources for songs to surprise her. At work, this translates into pushing me to seek new and unusual ways to help my company grow.

Communication

We often ask each other why we chose that song this week, usually via text. We have to corral our thoughts and boil them down to those most important and present them briefly. I find myself editing my work emails down to short active sentences; a hallmark of good communication.

Deadlines

Sundays come with excruciating regularity. So do work deadlines. Our playlist helps me remember not to wait until the last minute to research my share of the project.

Relax

Our playlist reminds me to take a break from working. It’s something fun to look forward to instead of thinking about COVID-19 all the time.

One of the reasons humans love music so much is because it helps us express our feelings. Why try to put them into words when a musician has already done it so eloquently? Sometimes there aren’t adequate words to express our feelings. We need a crunchy guitar (or maybe a plaintive violin) solo to do it for us. Let’s think about adding music to our self-care routines. We can intentionally build a playlist for lifting our spirits. If we need some ideas, we can ask a friend to build one with us.

Do you have a song that makes you happy every time you hear it? Please share title and artist in the comments section.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

I’m equipped to work from home, so when COVID-19 turned the world upside down, I thought it would be easy. But now that we’ve been quarantined longer than Noah was in the ark, the loss of routine is getting to me. I had comfortable pre-pandemic habits: packing a lunch, listening to a podcast on the morning commute, and driving thru Starbucks once a week. Now those customs don’t work and I’m off-kilter without them.

I’ve read now is a good time to develop new habits that can remain after a vaccine for COVID-19 is developed, but I don’t think they’re referring to wearing slippers instead of heels to work. Why should we develop whole new routines when we’re going back to the old ones any day now? Because any day now keeps getting pushed back. We’ve fallen into new habits whether or not we want to admit it, but do we have to completely overhaul those routines to feel balanced again?

The research I’ve done suggests small adjustments may be enough to restore harmony. We can take breaks (play with the kids), set boundaries (dedicate a workspace, start and end the workday at the same times everyday), and follow a dress code (real clothes, not pajamas). So I guess it’s time to actually eat a snack, take the dog outside, and focus my eyes on something beyond the computer screen, instead of complaining about nine-hour-without-a-break work days. I suppose I should put the card table I’ve been working from back in the garage and get a legitimate desk. I’m willing to change out of pajamas for work, but I’m not giving up the slippers.

We’re drifting into the realm of self-care which is taking on a more serious face during this pandemic. The stress of COVID-19 information overload, loss of freedom, job loss (or a never-ending workday), and the whole family trapped in residence together, forces us to add self-care our already full to-do lists. It’s become a mental health issue, so let’s prioritize it. This pandemic is like an airplane cabin losing oxygen. We have to put on our own masks before we can help anyone else with theirs. We need to model self-care, especially in front of our children, because they’re watching what we do. By managing our own peace of mind, we’re teaching them how to manage theirs.

There are plenty of choices to maintain mental health. This can be overwhelming. So maybe we employ the Butterfly Effect and choose one thing we can do to make ourselves feel better. We don’t have to do the same activity every day. Today, we could take the kids for a walk in the neighborhood and practice physical distancing. Tomorrow, we could make our weekly staff meeting a virtual coffee. The day after that, we could go to the grocery using the appropriate precautions then drop off the supplies at our local food bank.

What is one thing you can do today to pivot to a positive change? Please share in the comments.

Waiting on the World to Change

Mother’s Day has me reflecting on how different the workforce was when our daughter entered it in 2019 than when I became her mother in 1997. By then I was 10 years into my career and enjoyed it, but it was hard to be a Mom in the Workforce (MitW). I hoped it would be different by the time our daughter got her first full-time job; unfortunately, not so much. In 2019 only 66.4% of moms with children under six years old had jobs outside the home. Here are three things I think she should know about being a MitW.

You Will be Judged

MitW are expected to shine at both work and home. Society holds mothers to different standards than fathers. E.g., if a father does not take time off work to attend his child’s school function, no one thinks twice, but if a mother doesn’t show up, she gets labeled as a bad parent. Isn’t this belittling the father’s role (that’s a whole ‘nuther post) and overestimating the mother’s? Best practice is to ignore other people’s opinions of our parenting. Choosing between attending an important client meeting and our child’s science fair is a decision only we can make.

Work Life Balance is a Myth

COVID-19 has revealed a dirty little secret; MitW are still expected to handle the job, the kids, and the household. It’s time for conversation (divide up the chores), boundaries (stick to our own chores and resist the urge to redo things our way), and lower standards (dirty dishes in the sink overnight is acceptable). With everyone home we’ve fallen prey to Parkinson’s Law. There’s always something to do for work and there’s always something to do at home. That doesn’t mean we have to spend the same amount of time writing emails as baking banana bread (or whatever your form of self-care is). When we feel temporarily satisfied with the state of our inbox (no matter the time of day), if we feel like baking banana bread, it’s okay. Maybe you’d rather bake two loaves of banana bread, then tackle email. Best practice is to strive for work life harmony instead of balance.

It’s Not One and Done

Child rearing is an 18 year (at least) conversation between us, our co-parents, and children. Minds and circumstances change. Best practice is to decide what our non-negotiable boundaries are and occasionally revisit them with the affected parties before we say or do something we’ll regret. If quitting our jobs to raise our children is going to make us bitter, it would be better to keep working (if possible) even if it means enduring the stink eye from onlookers.

Does a woman have to be a wife, mother, sister, daughter, aunt, employee, cook, custodian, accountant, churchgoer, pet owner, and volunteer simultaneously to be considered “good?” Who has time to do all that? What happens if I don’t? Who made these rules? Do women aspire to be all that?

Please share the challenges you face (or faced) as a working parent in the comments section.

Going the (Physical) Distance

Even we introverts are over this whole sheltering-at-home sequestration. Boredom has officially set in. The value of teachers, the healthcare workforce, truckers, and sanitation engineers is proved. The struggle with guilt is real. We’re asked to stay home with our snacks, entertainment, and stimulus checks, but we want to be out with our friends. We feel survivors’ guilt working from home (WFH) while 1 out of 10 other people in America have lost their jobs thanks to COVID-19. Instead of pining for what we can’t have, let’s give attention to what we can do.

Each Other

Let’s take a break from supervising our children’s online learning, WFH, cleaning, laundry, cooking, etc., and make virtual coffee dates with our families and play virtual games with our friends. It gives us peace of mind to see our loved ones safe and healthy. By the way, we have to initiate these. I posted offers on my social media for all comers to hang out and no one took me up on them. But, when I invited specific people to meet, they all accepted. This also goes for networking. Is there someone you want to connect with, but couldn’t pre-COVID-19? Plenty of people are now open to spending a few minutes on a meet and greet teleconference. Everyone just wants to know there’s life out there.

Emotions

Are you journaling more since sheltering at home? It’s good to empty our heads of negative thoughts and drag them into the light where we can see them more objectively. Our fear of the future can be analyzed. Our guilt over whining about WFH while our friends are furloughed may be admitted. Our anger sparked by the abrupt annihilation of our routines has a place to go. Then, we can deliberately relieve these negative emotions with positive actions. (E.g., help your first grader write a thank you note to his teacher for adapting to an online classroom.) In a few months we can revisit these journals and determine if we developed habits in quarantine worth keeping.

Envision

We can start thinking about life after lock down. We can update our resumes and LinkedIn profiles. We can touch base with warm contacts. Networking is easier right now because COVID-19 gives all of us something to talk about. We can plan a vacation for October, make a menu for Thanksgiving dinner, and start a Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa gift list. We can think about what scheduling adjustments we want to keep, what lessons we’ve learned, and what technology we need to implement to improve our future work life balance.

My late maternal grandmother was famous for the catch phrase, “This too shall pass.” I hear it a whole lot these days, which is good. It’s a statement of hope. The world will probably never go back to the way it was before the pandemic, and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. But right now, let’s focus on helping each other get through today.

How are you encouraging hope during the pandemic? Please share in the comments section.

What Comes Next?

We talk about what we’ll do after COVID-19. What changes to work life will we keep? How has our perspective changed? How much weight will we have to lose? What will we do next? Like Inigo Montoya after he finally got revenge on Count Rugen, next can leave us feeling lost, bereft, or untethered. Fortunately, Westley had a goal to offer him, but since the position of The Dread Pirate Roberts is currently unavailable, what should we do after we’ve reached a goal?

Celebrate

We can take a break and pat ourselves on the back, but let’s put a time limit on the celebration; somewhere between the length of a nice dinner and a week’s vacation. We should thank everyone who contributed to reaching the goal; especially those whose help we’ll need to reach future ones. We could reward ourselves with a gift card to a local business (e.g., coffee shop, independent bookstore, salon). That would both support a small business struggling to survive COVID-19 and give us something to look forward to.

Reflect

We should push pause and ponder. What did we do right? What could we improve? How do we maintain this new level? Who helped us get here? When in the process did we mess up and why? Where can we put triggers in that process to prevent mistakes from happening again? What is our next logical goal? The answers to these questions give us data to analyze. We can use this for refining our process and determining metrics.

Another one

Do we go after a bigger client? Start grad school? Lose another 10 lbs? If we have simultaneous goals set in different areas of our lives, when we achieve one, we have another one to work on. This helps us maintain dopamine levels to stay motivated and avoid the arrival fallacy (A theory introduced by Tal Ben-Shahar). Another option is to come up with a two (or five or ten) year plan so once we reach our current goal, we can immediately start on the next one even if it’s a preliminary activity (i.e., research, gather materials, etc). If looking that far down the road doesn’t make sense, we could set both short term goals (e.g., be the team leader on the next project) and long term goals (e.g., get promoted next year). When we achieve the short term goal, we could focus our energy on the long term goal while setting another short term one.

Help others

Is it time to be a mentor? Teaching someone else a skill we just learned reinforces it for us. We could also share what we learned by writing a white paper or case study and posting it on our companies’ websites.

Remember Why

We can achieve goal after goal, but still feel unfulfilled. If this happens, stop and ask, “What do I want to do with my life?” Do we want to end domestic violence? Affect climate change? Make sure every dog has a home? When we determine what we want our world to look like, we can align our goals with our life’s purpose and make that world a reality.

What comes next for you? Please share in the comments section.

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

Sheltering at home has made me lose all track of time. COVID-19 didn’t take my job, so working from home means I’m always at work. I stress over emails. Do I ignore them outside regular office hours? Do I answer them because I’m bored? If I reply, does that set a precedent to answer email 24/7 when this is over? Where are my boundaries? I’m struggling with distraction, overthinking, and TMI. Do you feel the same? Here are some things we can do to exercise a bit of control over our time.

The Obvious

We know what we should do, let’s just do it. Make a new routine. Get dressed. (Slippers? Yes. Day time pajamas? No.) Eat healthy. Move our bodies. Start work at the same time every day. Connect with our teams. (And not just about work; how are they coping emotionally?) Take breaks (suggestions: listen to a podcast, walk the dog, study with the kids). Quit at the same time every day. Don’t work seven days a week.

Encourage

Until in-person networking events resume, we can spend more time on LinkedIn. Let’s wish someone a happy birthday, like an article a connection posted, thank those in healthcare, grocery, and other essential critical infrastructure for their hard work. I’m concentrating on both cheer leading for my connections and amplifying those looking for work.

Practice the Tech

We have to learn how to teleconference, decipher how our kids’ elearning platform works, figure out how much bandwidth we need, and which entertainment streaming services to use. It’s okay to take our time experimenting with features and figuring out what works best. Let’s not beat ourselves up for not being immediate experts on the new technologies all coming at us at once.

Communicate

Everyone who lives in our residences are home ALL. THE. TIME. And everyone is confused. Let’s ask for help. Can we stagger online meetings? Can we claim our own private work/school space? Can we respect a do-not-disturb note on the door when we need to work uninterrupted? Can we tag team supervising online learning? When our spouse has a virtual meeting, can we take the kids outside for recess?

Be Kind

There’s plenty of opportunity right now. We can check on our parents. Ask our neighbor if she needs something from the store before we head out. Video chat with our bestie. Stick a piece of paper on the refrigerator and ask everyone in our home to write one thing they’re grateful for on it everyday. Investigate ways our company can volunteer (e.g., help the local food bank or give blood). Hug the people we live with and stay six feet away from everyone else.

With our normal structure blown up, I think we feel pressured to be productive so we can prove our worth. But I think the source of that pressure may be ourselves. Our employers ask us to use our time wisely and that’s a big enough goal during this pandemic.

What are you doing to take control of your time during isolation? Please share in the comments section.

The Uns

James C. Collins coined the phrase, “Good is the enemy of great.” He suggests we have to remove some good things from our lives so we can focus attention on achieving bigger goals. Since we are stuck sheltering in our homes a little longer, (Thank you, COVID-19.) maybe now is an appropriate time for evaluation. Are we satisfied with the state of our lives? Do we need to take a hard look at our priorities? Should we trim some good items so we can excel? Are we ready to make some uncomfortable but necessary choices? If so, how?

Uninvite

We are highly influenced by the people who surround us. They can determine the quality and direction of our lives; much like the wind influences a sailboat. People treat us the way we let them, so let’s make respect one of our boundaries. Let’s be intentional about networking with positive people who have standards we admire. Let’s treat coworkers the way we want to be treated and associate with those who reciprocate. This can be hard. We don’t always have the luxury of choosing whom we work with and our emotions can get in the way, but let’s not reward bad behavior (e.g., our opinions and/or feelings are ignored). If a team mate consistently gossips in the break room, shoves her busy work on us, or complains about how she never gets high-profile assignments, it’s time to uninvite her from our projects.

Untie

Time flies when we’re making a living. In our efforts to keep moving forward, we neglect to stop and assess where we are, what has changed, and how outdated thinking may be holding us back. Do we believe we can’t do something just because we’ve never tried it? Thanks to technology, what was unthinkable 10 years ago is now normal. (Think Lyft, Instagram, Amazon Echo) Are we making choices based on what our circumstances were then? We can’t use the same decision making criteria on our first full-time job that we used in college. We can’t use the same criteria as a spouse that we used when we were single. We can’t use the same criteria as a parent that we used before children, but we can untie ourselves from the past by using a filter like: Is it worth my T.E.A.M.?

Unexpected

We can’t predict there is anything better than what we have now and we don’t realize we’re settling for good. Going for more requires change and we don’t like what we can’t expect. Maybe we start by asking ourselves what we do better than anyone else. If we don’t know, we can ask a friend or trusted coworker. We’re usually counseled to build up our weaknesses in order to succeed, but I think we should spend more time cultivating our strengths. Getting less weak at something takes more time, energy, and attention (for marginal improvement) than getting better at something we’re already good at. Let’s stop binging Tiger King and read a leadership book, listen to an industry podcast, or take an online class.

What are some good things you need to eliminate to make room in your life to pursue great things?

Here Comes the Judge

We judge situations and people every day: Is this job the best fit for me? Is this guy going to hurt me? Should I hire a math tutor for my son? Often, we have to assess them with very little information. We’re also on the other end of evaluation. We look in someone’s eyes, feel them examining us, and assume we come up short of their standards. That doesn’t make judging bad. It’s our mindset that’s in question. What happens when we judge ourselves? Why do we judge others? What habits can we adopt to turn our negative judgement into positive?

Ourselves:

We are inclined to be our own worst critics. If we weren’t, affirmations would not exist (e.g., “It’s okay to be a powerful woman”) We have to intentionally remind ourselves we’re good enough, we’re smart enough, and doggone it, people like us because we face adversity every day and we think we’re the cause of it. Yes, we reap what we sow, but sometimes life just happens. We can be really good at our jobs and then a pandemic comes along and our company lays us off. We habitually blame ourselves for the random misfortune in our lives, “If I were smarter, I would’ve sold my quota of widgets this month.” After a while, we maintain a low level of self-induced anxiety and it can be addicting. Why do we do this? Are we trying to protect ourselves from failure? Are we trying to use criticism to motivate ourselves to action?

Others:

Confession time: I’m judging people’s reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic. I find myself thinking negatively about those who: aren’t in high risk categories being scared, are vocal about the inconvenience of their favorite doughnut shop being temporarily closed, or say our state’s leaders are overreacting. Then my own words slap me in the face: “Don’t judge others by the way you think.” I feel like fear is at the root of judgement. We’re jealous of what others have. We have to get along with people whose opinion is very foreign to ours. We think someone wants to take advantage of us. We’re afraid we’re wrong, we won’t have enough, or we’ll look stupid. Fear is useful when we use it as a warning system, but how do we keep it in its place?

Habits:

Realize we’re doing it. When we have a judgmental thought, we can stop and label it. Is it true? If not, let’s cast it aside and purposefully replace it with a true and positive thought.

Meditation. Whether it’s prayer, mindfulness, or quiet time, stopping to breathe, catalog thoughts, and decide which ones need redirection or discarded strengthens our accuracy in judging both situations and people.

Forgive ourselves. Everyone makes mistakes and they usually aren’t as consequential as we initially assume. Our culture pushes us to be better and do better; but if we do our best, that’s enough to feel good about and try again tomorrow.

What do you do to keep judgment in its place? Please share in the comments section.

I Ran So Far Away

Erma Bombeck was right. The grass is always greener over the septic tank. At some point in our careers we’ve all had managers we loathe for any (or all) of these reasons:

He lives in his own reality
He takes credit for our success
He belittles our opinions
He doesn’t respect our boundaries

Then, we get a job offer. It’s:

More than 40 hours a week
Less money
A longer commute
The benefits aren’t as good as our current job
The required skills aren’t exactly in our wheelhouse

We impulsively quit the job we hate instead of asking ourselves, “Is it worth our T.E.A.M.?” Taking a job out of desperation to get away from the job we have allows our emotions to make the decision, and putting them in charge is usually not a wise choice. We should run to a new job, not from our current one.

We tell ourselves:

We can make it work
It’s not as bad as our last position
We’ll talk the boss into quickly advancing us

But after a couple of months, it’s not looking good. Now that we’re stuck, what do we do?

Give it Time

If we can stand it, we should stay in a job for one year to get through the normal growing pains of getting used to a new routine, new people, and a new environment. For example: we’ve joined an already established team. We won’t make friends on day one. We have to research:

Who is territorial?
Who is threatened by our being hired?
Who is jealous we got the position they were going for?
Whom can we trust?
Who pushes their own agenda?

If we assume an attitude of learning and ask how we can make our team mates’ projects easier, we’ll quickly find out what motivates them and how to best communicate with them.

Do a Self-assessment

What drove us away from our last job?
Was it only our toxic boss or were there other factors?
Was the environment dysfunctional?
Was there no diversity on our staff?

Make notes. If this job doesn’t work out, we don’t want to repeat history. We need to figure out our strengths. At our last job, were we in the field visiting clients the majority of the day and now we are tied to a desk and hate it? As for the current job, we should think about why we are unhappy and what it would take to make it work. Can we mold the position into something fulfilling? (Can it be more client facing than Excel facing?) Does it give us access to a better network? (Can we leverage networking events to find out who is hiring?) Will it pay for professional development opportunities? (Mastermind groups, Leadership cohorts, or an MBA?) Let’s consider what we really want from a job, so we can form a plan to move forward.

Talk to Someone

Vent to a friend, trusted coworker from our last job, or mentor; then ask them to objectively analyze our situation. Their encouragement and support will help, but the most valuable thing they can do is repeat back to us what they heard us say about our job. It will take some emotion out of the situation and help us think more objectively about our next steps.

Have you ever taken a job because you were desperate to get away from your current one? Please share how that worked out in the comments section.

Financial Fidelity

Before we marry we discuss money: Am I a saver? Are you a spender? How much income do we need to live comfortably? But after a year or so, we conveniently forget these well intended discussions because life happens. We discussed what we’d do in a perfect world, but we live in an imperfect one. We can’t predict the future and we change our minds. Since opposites attract, it’s much more likely we have very different attitudes toward money; mostly thanks to the way we were raised and how our parents managed it. We can’t agree to terms at the beginning of the marriage and not ever talk about money again. Finances are a recurring conversation.

Listen

We need to set a limit we both consider large and not spend over that amount without discussing it with our spouses. When our partner comes to us wanting to make an expensive purchase, we shouldn’t immediately say no. We should listen to why they want to buy. It’s rarely about the purchase. It’s about how the purchase will make them feel.

Boundaries

Pinching pennies too hard is as harmful to our relationships as spending too much on luxury items. Whether it’s: living debt free, having an emergency fund, tuition saved, and building retirement funds, or two vacations per year, luxury car, designer clothes, eating out every week, and monthly concert tickets; compromise is key. You want a Jaguar, but a Honda will get you to work. He wants a $2000 emergency fund, but $1000 will suffice. It helps to quantify both spending and saving. No one wants to feel deprived.

Transparency

Speaking of not feeling deprived, we need to agree to set aside a bit of disposable income we’re free to spend on ourselves without obtaining permission from our mates. These are not secret accounts. We should not hide what we do with money. It’s lying and will cause us to break our spouse’s trust. It’s cheating, much like being sexually unfaithful is cheating, and is easily revealed. Our transactions are all tracked and available online (but that’s a whole ‘nuther post). Each partner should keep an eye on the joint finances. If we have separate accounts, we should make information on those accounts available to our spouses (e.g. ask if they want to see the monthly statement; not necessarily give them access to the funds).

The whole two-becoming-one thing is a push and pull of give and take to make a whole new third identity out of two people. Sometimes we want to do what we want to do and we don’t want our spouse to have a vote in the decision. But since the traditional wedding vows say, “for richer or for poorer,” when our behavior impacts that status, we have to inform our mate. It’s no longer a matter of money, it’s a matter of trust.

How do you and your spouse compromise on money decisions? Please share in the comments section.