Happy New Year!

With the beginning of the new year, you know that you’ve already started thinking about your GOALS, DREAMS, RESOLUTIONS and more; all those things that we get so excited about setting in the beginning of the year, and then we begin to lose that excitement by the time January’s over.

I once heard an executive from Cisco Systems make an interesting comment. He said that we are in the season of expressing gratitude that begins with Veterans Day. He's right. I find myself having a stronger focus on being thankful during this time of year than any other. It also caused me to wonder how well we do in saying "Thanks" to others in the workplace. I was disappointed by what I found. Consider the following statistics from a study at Berkeley:

Even before you achieve the big win, or have your team running like a fine tuned machine, I think there are some strong indicators that you’re growing as a leader that you need to stop and celebrate.

See if this sounds familiar. You sit (or stand) to begin a new workday. Fresh from a good night's rest and fueled up with the appropriate food and/or beverage, you are ready to change the world! As you prepare to take on your first task, you remember an email you didn't respond to yesterday so you start with it.

When I am working from home, one of my favorite places to go when I need a break is my daughter's apiary (bee yard). I am absolutely fascinated by these amazing creatures. Between their work ethic and how they function together as a colony, I think I could sit and watch them for hours (and I might have on a couple of occasions)!

Lately I have to admit I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed with all the things I have going on. And when I get into that mode, I start looking at the things that aren’t happening, and all the things that are going wrong, and all the things that I wish were different. And what I really find myself doing is not having an attitude of gratitude about the present moment.

Open your calendar (app or otherwise) and look at last week. As you reflect on the meetings, activities, and reminders from the past seven days, would you say the focus of your time was on getting things done or becoming a better person than you are now. Sure several activities play a dual role, but what's the "feel" of where your time is being spent?

One of the things I’ve been focusing on a lot lately is resiliency, and how to build it in both myself and in others. It is such an essential tool in our toolbox in this season of uncertainty. "Resiliency is defined as the ability to effectively cope with, recover from, or adapt to, changing life situations." Those ‘changing life situations’ can affect our work-life balance, our productivity, our stress level and so much more. But how do we go about building resiliency?

I walked into the kitchen recently and I immediately noticed, there on the counter, a huge bag of yellow squash from a friend. I jokingly thought, “Wow. Look at all that yellow squash! I wonder if they grow anything else?” And of course I know that they do, but it got me to thinking about gardeners and leadership.

Over the past week, it seems like I have had conversations with so many individuals who are procrastinating about something in their life. The situations range from a job change to taking different actions with the care of a loved one to writing a book. I immensely enjoy these discussions because it's motivating to me to hear people talk about their passions and goals. Too many people accept the status quo for far too long, and when they are finally moved to take action, it's too late.

In a past blog, best-selling author Seth Godin wrote:

“We say, ‘I am afraid’ as if the fear is us, forever. We don’t say, ‘I am a fever,’ or ‘I am a sore foot.’ No, in those cases, we acknowledge that it’s a temporary condition, something we have, at least for now, but won’t have forever.

I don't know about you, but the workday after a holiday has always felt a little disjointed to me. On one hand we should be ready to take on the world after an extra day or two of rest from work, but on the other hand, I find myself longing for more of that personal or family time that I got during the day off. If I'm not careful, I can find myself meandering through my day and not getting anything of real value accomplished.

"My life is a lump!" The person on the call was a colleague who was lamenting how their work-life satisfaction had shifted so much in the past few months. She even had the audacity to challenge the three rings model I share in my book, Juggling Elephants (No offense taken). "Being confined to home while I was already working remotely with a global team requiring extended work hours has reduced my life to one ring-WORK!" To be fair, she did also mention that she was grateful to have a job in these uncertain times.

t's been cool and rainy for so much of the past two weeks in my community, making it difficult for people to mow their lawns and work on their landscapes. A couple of days ago, however, the sun came out, the temperatures went up... and BAM! I think every mower, leaf blower, and grass trimmer within two miles was running at one time this weekend. People were ready to get out and get things done.

Each workday seems packed with a variety of activities, meetings, and phone calls that tend to stack up until we get overwhelmed feeling of overload. However, as I work with coaching clients and talk with others I have realized that often people experience some fairly significant difficulties with their coworkers. These situations and at times particular people can be an immense drain on you and your time. In fact, they can cause mental and emotional overload which pours into our ability to get our work done.

Workdays can be such a blur and, if you are like me, there are days that you may leave work feeling like nothing of real value got accomplished. Maybe your attention was scattered in so many different directions that your focus was too diverted to get things complete. I’ve certainly been there and want to share some ways to utilize time blocks effectively in order to get more done each day.

You know the type of days where you are super focused on an important task, making immense progress, and then all of a sudden, WHAM, you get interrupted and feel completely derailed? While we’ve all been there, it’s certainly not our preference and going from productive to sidetracked is frustrating.

As leaders we have questions, often many of them. However, I’ve been learning through David Marquet’s book, Leadership is Language, that we could be asking better (and perhaps fewer) questions. Working to improve this area of communication with our team, we’d likely produce better-quality results and outcomes.

I laughed out loud when I read the article, Farts, Cats, Naked Bodies: People are failing hilariously at working from home. So many disasters in video conference calls. I’ve also had several intense conversations with people working remotely who are ready to sell their children, strangle their spouse, and even sell their pets. They are learning what I have known for over 25 years… working from home is TOUGH!!! I could list lots of reasons why that’s the case…

Procrastination is a word that’s frequently tossed around to explain our inclination to put things off until “later.” For over two decades, I’ve given tips, techniques, and solutions to help people with their procrastinating tendencies. To define, it’s simply the action of delaying or postponing something. Depending on the situation, I’ve encouraged others to break their tasks down into smaller pieces or to find a time slot where you have mental and emotional energy.