Stress – Page 2 – mardihumphreys.com

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.

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.

Battered Budgets

The COVID-19 pandemic has the world at HPCON C. It’s assaulting every aspect of our lives especially our finances. Do NOT panic. Since the pandemic has blown up our budgets, we’re forced to take a long hard look at our expenses and ruthlessly cut out what isn’t necessary for survival. We’ll feel better if we take control and devise a plan. Let’s start by figuring out what our resources are and what we can do to bring in cash fast.

Do Something

Did we lose our jobs? Apply for unemployment ASAP. Benefits vary by state, most states have increased them for job loss due to COVID-19, and now they provide for the self-employed.
The good news is companies are hiring. The bad news is probably not for the positions we want. When this is over our willingness to pitch in during a crisis can help us stand out to hiring managers and get us promoted faster.
Our inboxes are overflowing with emails from our banks, utilities, and services offering safety nets. Are our banks deferring mortgages and loan payments? Are utilities assuring us they won’t cut off our electricity? Is satellite radio offering free entertainment? Let’s take advantage of the relief so we can temporarily divert funds to basics like diapers and formula.

Don’t do Anything

Let’s not turn to Amazon for retail therapy. We don’t need new clothes to couch surf.
It’s tempting to withdraw money from our 401ks in this emergency, but let’s resist the temptation. We’d not only have to play catch up paying it back, but there’s a 10% penalty for early withdrawal and we’d have to pay taxes on it. That’s three strikes.

Remember the Accounts we Usually Forget

Need healthcare? Let’s be sure to pay for it with our HSAs. Here’s a list of acceptable things on which to spend HSA funds.
The due date to file our tax returns is now July 15, but if we’re getting money back, let’s file now.
Do you have a cash back credit card? We have one that gives us a percentage back when we use it to purchase gas, groceries, or at restaurants. So we do because those are all things we’re still using during the Coronapocalypse.

Live Simply

How many streaming services (Netflix, Hulu, Disney +) do we really need?
While in place, we can clean our own shelters (cancel the cleaning service), cook our own meals (stop DoorDashing), and use the library’s online app for entertainment (no buying books, music, movies, etc.)
Let’s look at our monthly subscriptions (e.g., Stitch Fix, Blue Apron, Pickles Every Month Club). We probably don’t need most of them (or maybe any of them) right now.

Be Kind

Does someone owe us money? Now is not the time to collect.
Do we know someone who lost his job? Hyping him on our social media platforms and reaching out to people in our networks who are hiring doesn’t cost us money.

What are some adjustments you’ve made to your budget to get through COVID-19?

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.

What’s Wrong With Being Confident?

Here are a few women-in-leadership questions capturing my attention lately:

Q: In the churches I attended growing up, I was taught God created women to be men’s helpers so men are leaders and women are followers. I’m all about helping and my worldview is Biblical, but it often clashes with my ambition. I read about The Wife of Noble Character and get confused. She’s obviously a leader in the workforce, so why is it negative for women to lead?

A: You know how I love my data. Here’s a study of 19 key leadership capabilities. Women scored higher than men in 17 of the 19 capabilities, so why aren’t there more female CEO’s in America? Men assume they are competent to lead. Women assume we are not. This unconscious bias is ingrained in us and society just takes it as gospel. (See what I did there?) When hiring managers read a resume, they need to stop and think, “Based on track record, is this the right person for the job?” and avoid focusing on whether the person’s name is Joe or Joann.

Q: American society needs strong women, but when one steps up, we tear her down. The female 2020 Democratic Presidential candidates come to mind. Why do we do that?

A: In spite of progress women have made in the workforce, society still isn’t used to confident women. To rise in an organization, women must be both likable and outspoken. That’s a difficult tightrope to walk. To be likable, women are advised to share credit for a project’s success. This waters down our contributions and gives us no accomplishment to note at promotion time. On the other hand, women who excitedly speak up in meetings to promote our ideas risk being perceived as overbearing personalities; forfeiting our chances to pitch them to the client. This is a blow both to women’s confidence and to the company’s revenue.

Q: When a woman is vocal about owning her achievement, she’s usually perceived as aggressive. What can we do to support confident women?

A: Women typically approach a job like we approached school. We found out what our teacher wanted and gave it to her. On the job, we find out what our boss wants and give it to her. Then we wait to be rewarded with higher stakes projects, a pay raise, or a promotion, but because we’re quietly working no one notices. Women need to get brave and own our contributions. Will we be judged for that? Yes. Should we let that stop us? No. Haters gonna hate whether we speak up or not. When we see a woman tooting her own horn because she achieved success through hard work, we should pick up a megaphone and amplify her because the whole organization will benefit.

We (men and women) get further together than we do on our own. Let’s look for ways to build each other up instead of trying to one up each other. We spend so much time on the job, wouldn’t it be more pleasant to work under conditions like that?

What are some ways you support confident women in the workplace? Please share your tips in the comments section.

Tidings of Comfort and Joy

And just like that…it’s December. Welcome to the end of the year! As we push to make our quotas, thank our customers for their business, and prepare for holiday celebrations, let’s schedule time in our calendars for play. You read me. I wrote p-l-a-y. There are plenty of opportunities this month for frivolity and we should take advantage of them for a very practical reason. Play helps us work.

Lynn Barnett, a professor of recreation, sports and tourism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign says, “At work, play has been found to speed up learning, enhance productivity and increase job satisfaction.” In this article, she also says, “Highly playful adults feel the same stressors as anyone else, but they appear to experience and react to them differently, allowing stressors to roll off more easily than those who are less playful.” In his book, Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, Dr. Stuart Brown says, “Respecting our biologically programmed need for play can transform work. It can bring back excitement and newness to our job…work does not work without play.”

For example, when we concentrate on figuring out a problem, our minds can get stuck in an endless loop going over the same details. If we take a break and focus on something else, we get new data to process. Although it’s counterintuitive; the more stress we’re under, the more we need play in order to function. When we get up from our desks and move around, blood flow to our brains increases and we think better. If we walk to the break room and enter a conversation, we foster teamwork. These activities refresh our energy and can prevent burnout by letting our brains reboot and receive input that has nothing to do with our problem. We naturally apply this new data to our challenge. We start to think creatively. We stop thinking about how we’ve solved problems in the past. We stop worrying about the consequences for a minute and imagine what would happen if anything goes. This permits us to relax and look at it from another angle. The situation looks totally different if we’re standing on our heads instead of our feet. When we see something differently and present it in a new light, that’s innovation and it might just trigger a solution. Gymnastics anyone?

For play to have a positive effect on our work we should do it everyday, so we need to schedule it and give it priority. Play is an activity that has no purpose and is considered non-productive. We can do it alone or with others. Here are some examples of play that don’t necessarily cost money:

Read a book
Pet your pet
Watch your favorite artist’s concert footage on YouTube
Drive around looking at neighborhood Christmas lights
Toss a football
Crossword puzzles
Board games

George Bernard Shaw said, “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” This holiday season when kids are defined as from one to ninety-two, let’s make time to play.

Please share how you’re going to incorporate play into your seasonal celebration in the comments section.

There’s Nothing More Scary Than Losing Your Mind

Have you ever been gaslighted at work? The term, taken from the title of a 1938 play, refers to the process of someone slowly driving someone else crazy through psychological manipulation. It’s a specific pattern of emotional abuse and is considered workplace harassment. When it’s done by your manager, it’s very similar to Corporate Stockholm Syndrome. Since the manipulation is customized to the target, there’s no one-size-fits-all description, but here’s what gaslighting could look like coming from a coworker.

Behavior:

They consistently manipulate your perception of reality and refuse to talk about it (e.g., “I didn’t touch you inappropriately. I don’t have to listen to this.”).
They break the rules and claim you’re the one who broke them (e.g., you catch them lying and they blame you for forcing them to lie).
They withhold information you need (e.g., “The client meeting is today. Did you forget again?”).
They are ambitious, smart, critical, and have low self-esteem.
They can’t handle negative feedback, jockey for leadership positions on the team, and sabotage your work (e.g., change deadlines after you start working on the project).
They make passive aggressive comments that come off as funny.
They are charming and have great people skills.
They are office gossips; getting others to engage so they have more dirt on more coworkers.
They take credit for your ideas and when you call them on it, they say they had to tweak your idea to make it work, so it was no longer yours.

Why it happens:

They see you as competition. To get ahead, they gaslight you to make you look incompetent to management or to get you fired.
They want you to behave the way they choose while avoiding responsibility for their manipulation.
Controlling you makes them feel powerful.

Signs:

By its very nature (done slowly and sneakily), it can be hard to identify.

They make you doubt your skills, intelligence, and/or your sense of reality.
They give you backhanded compliments (e.g., “Great job on the presentation. I thought for sure you’d choke.”).
If you feel paranoid all the time (not just at work), confused (second-guessing your memory), too sensitive, overreactive, guilty, and/or depressed, you may be a victim of gaslighting.

What you should do:

Document everything; seeing the abuse in words helps you decide if gaslighting is actually happening (i.e., you are not imagining it) and it gives you proof to take to HR if you choose to.
Keep gaslighting emails they sent you in a folder under your inbox and forward them to your private email account, so you have a backup. If your company has access to your work email, just keep the evidence in your private email account.
Write down descriptions of inappropriate interactions as soon as they happen before you forget what was said, done, and where it happened. Email these documents to both your work and private accounts so they will be time and date stamped.
Ask your coworkers if it’s happening to them too. If so, ask them to document their interactions also. HR is more likely to believe you if you can prove the gaslighter is treating coworkers the same way they’re treating you.
When meeting with the gaslighter, have at least one other person in the meeting to verify what was said.
Call the gaslighter out on their behavior and words. Know your worth and expertise and hold your boundaries.
Remind yourself that you are smart and capable.

Please share your experience of being gaslighted in the comments section below.

Corporate Stockholm Syndrome is Real

While researching last week’s post, I stumbled across something I’d never heard of before: Corporate Stockholm Syndrome (CSS). It’s when an employee becomes deeply loyal to an employer who is abusive (e.g., yells at employees, expects employees to work long hours, requires employees to handle his personal errands). For a good example of this, watch the movie (or read the book), The Devil Wears Prada. Stockholm Syndrome is a phrase first coined in the 1970s to refer to a hostage who felt empathy toward her captor because even though she was abused, the captor was also the source of food, water, shelter, etc. Since a manager can also be viewed as a source of those things, when the manager is abusive, the employee experiences CSS.

1. Problems

As employees, we get a great deal of self-esteem from our jobs. This becomes problematic if our manager habitually mistreats us. An employee suffering from CSS is emotionally attached to the company and puts its needs before her own; even if that means she gets traumatized in the process. The employee is micromanaged. Her work is scrutinized and, if it displeases the manager, criticized. When she wants to advance within the company, especially to another manager’s team, her manager refuses to allow the move.

2. Symptoms

Physical: headaches, insomnia, fatigue
Mental/Emotional: fear, distrust, anger, shame, denial she’s being mistreated.
Company: the manager isolates the employee from upper management, coworkers verbally abuse each other, the company offers fringe benefits that promote loyalty to the company

3. Results

The employee is stressed out, her reputation possibly tarnished by her manager, and afraid of what will happen if she complains to Human Resources. She thinks telling someone will get back to the manager and make things worse (e.g., lose her job or not get promoted). In 2017, the Workplace Bullying Institute discovered more than 60 million employees in the US had been affected by bullying or abuse on the job. CSS is contagious. Coworkers who witness the abuse may not speak up for fear they’ll be mistreated too.

4. Solutions

It’s important to maintain healthy relationships outside of the office. Get a reality check from one of yours. Ask, “Do you see this happening?” “Is this normal?” If you’re a victim of CSS, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to change your manager’s behavior. Your best alternative is to get a new job. (That sentence makes it sound easy. I know it’s not.) Look for a company that rewards supervisors for promoting high performers. While you’re searching, take time to heal. Write down your achievements. Seek validation and encouragement from friends and family. Consider visiting a psychologist who does cognitive behavioral therapy to undo the thinking patterns created by the abuse. Be good to yourself outside of work: exercise, use a meditation app, plan something to look forward to (e.g., a concert, a vacation, the next five books you want to read). Be as good to yourself as you would be to a friend who is going through these circumstances.

Have you ever been the victim of CSS? Please share your story in the comments section below.