Monthly Archives: February 2014

You are the boss of you!

28 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by in Advice, Attitude, Stress

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I had a rough week with my son last week because he was ill all week.
And then I had a rough week with him this week because he was so stressed about catching up all of the work that he had missed last week on top of his usual drowning in mountains of homework.
Or so I thought….
The stress was a vicious cycle because he would get stressed and then I would get frustrated with him.  Then he would shout at me and I would shout (louder) at him.  And back to square one.
Until I took a step backwards (with a friend’s help) and realised something big.
He was stressed about catching up and getting the work done.  But not as stressed as I was about him getting it done.  And about what his teachers were going to say (it didn’t help that I was already getting negative feedback from them).  And about how my son was going to cope.  And what would happen in the future if he fell behind in his Grade 5 maths….
Who’s stress was it?
All mine! Or mostly all mine.

It is an important lesson that we all need to learn and that I needed reminding of:
Sometimes when we externalise an issue (ie. we look at who is stressing us and who’s fault it is), we forget to look inwards.
We forget to take responsibility for our own feelings and emotions because it is just so much easier to blame someone else.
It is so much easier to say “this is not about me” than to take a good hard look at yourself and see what you can do to change.
It is a real challenge because you have to admit your own weaknesses – but as soon as you are able to do this, you are able to start taking the steps to changing your behaviour.
You are not going to change the world – or your kids, or your partner, or your manager.
But you are going to change you.  Start with just focusing on what you can do now – in this moment. In my case, stressing how my son was going to graduate from high school when he is just working on getting to his 11th birthday is not helping with the stress of the moment.
And as difficult as it is to change yourself and the way that you deal with your stress, it does come with a certain peace that you are taking the control back.

You should be the one in control of your life!
You should manage the way that you deal with stress.
You are the boss of you!
And isn’t today a great day to start doing it?

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You have choices

21 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by in Attitude, Life Lessons, Positivity

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This story was doing the rounds and I have no idea if it is true or not but here it is:

My friend Jerry was one of the most positive people I had ever known. He was always in a good mood and always had something encouraging to say.

He was a manager at a restaurant. If his employee had a bad day, Jerry always helped him to look on the positive side of the situation.

Jerry‘s attitude truly amazed me. So one day I asked him: “How can you be so positive all the time?” He replied:”You see, every morning I tell myself, that I have two choices for that day – to be in a good mood or in a bad. I choose the good one. And when something wrong happens, I can be sad and angry or I can learn from it instead. I choose to learn. Thus I choose the positive side of life”. I said: “It is not that easy”. He replied: “Yes it is. Life is all about choices. You can choose how people or situations will affect your mood, your life”.

One morning Jerry left the restaurant‘s back door open and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. He tried to open the safe, but his hands shook due to nervousness and he slipped off the combination. So the robbers shot him. Fortunately, Jerry was quickly found and brought to the nearest hospital. After many hours of surgery and long intensive care, Jerry was released home.

When I met him, I asked, what were his thoughts during the robbery. “I thought that I should have locked the back door”, he replied. “Then, when I laid on the floor, I remembered about my choices in this case: a choice to live and a choice to die. I chose to live.”

I asked, if he were scared. Jerry continued: “When they wheeled me into emergency room and I looked at the faces of doctors, I got truly scared. I knew, that I need to do something. So when the nurse asked me, if I was allergic to anything, I replied “Yes” Doctors and nurses stopped working as waited for my answer. I took a deep breath and yelled “Bullets”. They started laughing and I asked: “My choice is to live, operate me as I am alive, not dead”.

Now Jerry is alive owing to skills of his doctors, however his amazing attitude played an important role too. I learned from him, that every day we should choose to live fully no matter what.

I know that some of you reading this have had to make such a choice – one of life and death.  And you are still here, reading this – a true survivor.  For the rest of you – may you never have to be faced with such choices.
No matter what we go through in our lives, we always have a choice.
We may not have a choice about what happens to us but we always have a choice on how to deal with it.
You have the ability to deal with everything in a more positive, optimistic way.
And when you choose to be positive – you will really start to shine because you can do this, you can get through this.
Just choose to do it!

Braving a new door

13 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by in Advice, Being brave, Change, Life Lessons, Self growth

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I’ve spent a lot of time this week watching the Winter Olympics.
I am in awe of those athletes who get to that level of excellence.  They drive themselves to get to that level of their sport and aim for the very top.
What amazes me more though is the athletes who get to the Olympics knowing that they are not going to win medals.  They go just for the experience to be an Olympic athlete, to have the opportunity to beat their own personal records. Believe me I certainly tried, and failed, to get to that level.

How do we make it through life when we have all these wonderful goals and dreams that we can’t achieve for whatever reason?
Is that a failure?
Is it a sign that you were on the wrong path?
Or maybe you need to ‘fail’ in order to give you the much needed opportunity to grow and get out of your comfort zone.  You need to live your life and experience it to the fullest in order to reach your goals.
The thing is that your goals may be your focus but maybe it is not where you are meant to be.
I will tell you this: when my Olympic dreams started fading I thought that I would never be ok.  But once I had been miserable for a while and then picked myself up, that failed dream opened up a whole new world for me. And here I am!

Always be open to new opportunities, knock on any doors that you find and don’t ever be afraid to go through them because you may be surprised at what is on the other side!

What I learned:

07 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by in Advice, Coping skills, Lists, Stress

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Before I even start, my humblest apologies for the severe lack of blog last week.
There was a good reason for it – it was my son’s barmitzvah and I was essentially running around like a headless chicken with my stress levels elevated.  I was basically running on adrenalin.
And this week I am exhausted because I’ve run out of fuel but I’ll like to share some important lessons with you that came up for me in the past week.

1.  Some stress is good stress – it is not about terrible things happening to you. The world is not falling apart and it is all about amazing life experiences, yet it is still stressful.  I think that we tend to forget that.  When things are going badly, you wish that time away by hoping for better things but the reality is that there is always going to be stress – good or bad.  And you have to learn ways to manage your stress no matter what life is throwing at you.

2. Never be afraid to ask for help.  Nobody is going to say “wow, this amazing and you did it all yourself!”  It is not worth stressing over things that could get done by someone else, or with someone else’s support.

3. During stressful times, you need to learn to let go of the small things.  Focus on what is important, make lists to help you prioritise and leave the little, unimportant details for another time.

4. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again.  Don’t have high expectations of who should be supporting you.  It hardly ever works out that way.  People are going to disappoint you and people are going to surprise you.  There are going to be people that make you angry and people who touch your heart with their kindness.  Accept it all gracefully.

5. You don’t need as much sleep as you think you do.  If you can’t sleep, stop worrying about it and rather get up and do something productive.  When your body really needs sleep, you’ll get it.

6. Time happens whether you like it or not.  It doesn’t matte how prepared or unprepared you are. When the time comes, things will happen.  And you will always look back in wonder at how you had managed.
You will manage, you will get through this!

Have a wonderful, restful weekend!