Mr Menow catch-up: Rebuilding, recovering and looking to the future.
My stress levels have started to come back down, and vacation time is so close now I can almost taste those sun-smart drinks. Perhaps when I return from travelling I'll feel recharged at work. More importantly, I hope to have the energy to be more supportive of the people in my life who need my love, devotion and energy. And that includes me.
It's been a busy and stressful few months, but it's time I got back to doing things I love. And that includes writing. So for those of you still following me and wondering what I've been up to, let me fill you in.
Perceptions of time and space can become strangely warped when you find yourself dealing with a combination of stress, fatigue and doing too much work. It produces what I call 'taffy time'. Time becomes like sticky taffy, it seems to slow down and hold you in it, but at the same time everything blends together making individual moments indistinguishable and just part of the overall sticky mess.
The last couple of months have included a lot of 'taffy time'. Just as with this time last year, work became a heavy load to bear. In particular, the group assignment we had to do as part of a work related course became a ravenous beast that fed not only on my hours at work, but also nibbled, gnawed and ate away at the precious time I have away from the office.
With less time for the things I enjoy, I found myself in a stress inducing spiral. The more stressed I became, the more effort even little things seemed to take. Before long I was stressing over how stressed I was, and worrying over the impact my anxiousness was having on those around me. I was at the wheel, trying to steer my life, but mostly doing so in a state of post adrenaline fatigue.
With my senses impaired, it’s fair to say I probably wasn’t picking up or responding to all the cues that I normally would from the world around me .Like a drunk driver, I did a poor job of steering through situations that a more relaxed me would probably have handled better, including some personal decisions I made during that time.
Now I'm back with my business coach trying to rebuild. I'm hopeful it won't take as long this time. I don't feel quite as depleted as last year, though Rainbow and Mrs Menow may have their own view on whether I ended up in a worse place or not this time. And having the benefit of the tools and knowledge developed with my coach previously, I'm arguably starting this journey in a better place.
Once again I need to go through the process of placing importance on, and making time for, the things that make me happy. Things like;
Spending time with Menow Jnr, Mrs Menow and Rainbow,
Reading for leisure, not just work,
Creating - be it writing, photography or something new,
Getting back to running or riding so I can feel fit again.
And now that I don’t have a head exploding from work induced stress, I may just have the mental and physical capacity to at least attempt to do the whole “possibly seeing someone new” thing the right way.
My stress levels have started to come back down, and vacation time is so close now I can almost taste those sun-smart drinks. Perhaps when I return from travelling I'll feel recharged at work. More importantly, I hope to have the energy to be more supportive of the people in my life who need my love, devotion and energy. And that includes me.
Now what cat, now what? Thoughts on life after coaching
When I wrote the previous post about my business coaching experience, I’d assumed I was heading in to my last session. But it seems I was mistaken. So to wrap things up, I’m sharing my responses to the closing questions I was given for my final coaching session.
Who do you believe you’ve become in the process of coaching?
Who have I become?
I actually feel I’m more like the me I was when I was younger. I’m not talking teenage or college age younger, but the me I was about seven or eight years ago when I worked for a growing internet provider (a subsidiary of my current employer).
Clearly I’m not the same person I was then. Mrs Menow and I were only in the early stage of our personal journey back then, and Menow Jnr was just a toddler. Rainbow wasn’t even in my life back then. I also hadn’t been through the dark patches in my work life - the first when the company restructured and I was almost laid off, and the second when I had to work for a “challenging” boss.
So certainly I’m a different person to who I was when I was younger. But in terms of how I feel at work, I’ve got a lot of the same good feelings about myself and my work as I did then. It feels like my work and my contribution is both valued and respected. Coming to work is enjoyable because I’m part of a fun and intellectually stimulating team. Even working a few extra hours here and there is something I (mostly) don’t mind doing because I’m enjoying the work.
But what role did coaching play in this? I think coaching helped me rediscover those feelings by helping me feel more content at work and giving me a bit of a kick along to do some of the things I enjoy - both in and outside work.
So what have I become? More resilient, happier, more conscious of bad habits and so hopefully quicker to adjust and deal with challenging situations. More inquisitive - if that’s possible. I’ve become the younger me, and more, is probably the best answer I can give.
What knowledge and skills do you believe are among the most valuable for you that you’ve learnt through coaching?
As I've discussed in previous posts, there’s a shopping list of things I’ve learned along the way. Things like:
Developing increased consciousness of my behaviors and habits,
The importance of managing my personal energy and understanding the things that create and consume it,
Why it matters to put your energy into succeeding,
How important learning new things and creating actually is to my personal happiness,
Learning to think like an entrepreneur. What would I do if this was my business?
New tools, apps and ways to stimulate my creativity,
How to mentally change gears when I need to get innovative,
The role of keeping an open mind in managing energy,
Learning to unleash my creativity and let my ideas by fully explored before I engage my analytical ‘editor ‘ mode,
Taking on the idea of work-life congruence, rather than “balance”,
How I can combine skills and experiences from my work and non-work spheres to enhance each other,
How our own self-perceptions can be holding us back. Or in my case, how the way I've typecast myself might be narrowing my options more than they really are,
That “how you want to work” can be a valid career goal,
An assortment of other tips, tools and techniques for dealing with different situations and challenges at work.
Which ones are most valuable is something that varies from day to day depending on what life is throwing at me. I’d say what’s top of mind today are that I learned
...how to be more resilient. This is probably a confluence of things like managing my energy better, adopting a more open mindset, learning to reframe challenges and how much impact being creative and learning new things impacts how I feel.
... that 'how I work' is a valid goal. I know I keep coming back to me this, but it has helped me be a lot happier with where I am at in my career and provides an extra lens for looking at future opportunities.
How would you describe the coaching approach and how effective has it been for you?
When I first started working with my coach, I’ll own up to a few instances of mentally going “ this sounds like some sort of hippie trip”.But I think even the pre-coaching me was open minded enough to give it a fair go and not ultimately judge it until I could see the results.
The coaching ultimately worked for me because the approach my coach took, not just because of the content.
Firstly, it was a collaborative approach. There was no coming in and telling me what my goals should be . Rather, a lot of the journey has actually been about working together to discover what the goals should be and exploring options for getting there. The collaborative approach also meant there was enough fluidity in the the program to adapt to changes in what I wanted to get out of our time together.
The coaching was also done in a way that didn’t feel judgmental. There was no “your music is bad and you should feel bad” (Futurama fans will get the reference). The whole process was undertaken in a way where I felt supported, even when sometimes I felt in myself that I hadn’t delivered on what I set out to achieve in a given week.
Lastly, being given these reflective tasks was a benefit to me on a couple of fronts. Obviously, like with a lot of courses and training, reflective journaling is a good way to consolidate what’s been learned. But for me there was obviously the added bonus that it always gave me a writing prompt and an excuse to spend time out of work at the keyboard.
Has this coaching allowed you to set a more daring goal for You and if so, what might it be? .
In my previous coaching post, I highlighted the importance of keeping on creating. That’s not just at work (where it's kind of mandatory in order to keep my job), but also outside of work - where there’s competing interests for my time.
So what does a daring goal look like? At work I’m still probably thinking that through.
Outside of work, daring looks like making the sort of commitment to my writing that I’ve made over the last few years to my #yearofreading and #bookbacklog challenges.
Individually, reading a book a month, or clearing down half my backlog in a year, don't seem like big goals. But the result of setting those challenges is that I’ve read over fifty books in the last three and a half years. Which is a big step up from the previous ten years where I could have counted on my fingers the number of books that I’d read.
So I need to set myself the same sort of goals goals for writing, and push myself to stick at them. Like with the reading goals, individually they might be small, but it’s the cumulative effect we’re going for here.
It’s very much eating the elephant one bite at a time, but it worked for my reading so it may just work for my writing. And eating an elephant sounds like a suitably daring goal.
As I’ve posted about previously, one of the great things my new manager did was hire a business coach to work with everyone in the team.
Before Christmas, I wrote about how the limitations in our career development can be ones we impose on ourselves. Sometimes we imagine ourselves typecast far more narrowly than is actually the case.
Reframing the way I was looking at my career goals was another big “ah-hah” moment for me too. Viewing my ambitions in terms of “how I want to work”,instead of the job title, was a big change for me. It’s probably been the most profound change in my thinking throughout this exercise.
Today I wanted to reflect on four other fabulous things I’ve gained from my month of coaching so far.
Learning to think like an entrepreneur.
Although I’ve only been in the current iteration of my role a couple of years, I’ve been in this line of work nearly a decade. When you've been doing the same thing that long, it's easy to get stuck in a rut. That's especially so if you’ve been working for a controlling manager who couldn’t generate an optimal environment for innovation.
For that reason, I’ve been working with my coach on creativity and innovation. How do I get better at coming up with new ideas and new opportunities?
“I want you to think like an entrepreneur” was the week one advice. “Imagine this was your business, this job your team does. What would you do differently if you were running this like your own business?"
And so for the next few weeks I tried to look at what we do with a different perspective.
Although I haven't come up with any world changing ideas, I have developed new habits that are helping me to be more effective in my job. One of those is using post-it notes to jot down ideas when I have them. Not all the notes turn in to implemented ideas. But that exercise seems to be opening me up to a different mindset - one where I’m looking for new opportunities to shift things up a gear. And at least the ideas get captured in a visible manner, at least for a while
Thinking like an entrepreneur was also the foundation for some of the other changes that would come later for me, in terms of my energy and creative thinking.
Lets get creative
Innovation requires being able to tap into your maximum creativity.
In my “dark places” post late last year, i described how spending a large chunk of 2014 in a place where I simply could not muster any creative energy. Working for a new manager has helped me walk in to the light. Now I’m there, the coaching I’ve had is helping me make the most of the brighter conditions.
I’ve probably always had a tendency to go in to “editor” mode too early when I’m writing. This was something I was already aware of, but was brought home when I described how my creativity seems to flow best late at night when the analytical part of my mind switched off.
To deal with this, we’ve worked on strategies for switching off the editor when I’m not tired, therefore enabling me to access that creativity more readily.
Some of the strategies have included;
getting away from my desk and going for a walk,
taking some photos or doing something else visually creative,
developing mental triggers for switching to creative mode,
simple exercises I can do at my desk to unleash creative thinking, and
playing with apps like StoryCubes and OFlow to help boost creativity and
I’m finding these strategies are helping me to access my creativity better. And I’m learning to switch off the internal editor until I've finished writing, even during the day.
Openness and Energy
Being more innovative requires being more open minded. The nature of the work I do is that we are, to be honest, paid to be somewhat cynical. But it's important that the cynicism is applied to the analysis of the data and business problem, and not to the work itself.
When I was challenged on whether I approached new work with an open mind, I described my behavior as being a bit like a trampoline. My first responses can be negative, (sinking down into the trampoline), before rebounding back up in to openness and positively.
One of the things I've been working on is trying to ensure that bounce happens quicker, or that I jump straight into a state of positive energy straight away without sinking into the trampoline first.
Compared to when we started the process, I think I'm more aware of this 'bounce' behavior. That’s helping my initial energy levels when I get new work. Sustaining my energy can still be a challenge, but at least I feel like I am on the right path.
Work-life congruence - bringing together the best of both worlds
When I started these coaching sessions, My prevailing view was that work and life should be kept separate. This attitude was influenced strongly by the prior negative experience I had with work stress spilling over and impacting personal time.
Around October last year we had a guest speaker at work who talked about aiming for work life congruence, rather than work life balance. His advice was that rather than thinking about work and life as separate things on opposite sides of a scale, imagine them as two different sources of energy. If those two energies are pulling you in opposite directions, it's going to create tension.
His take out message? To avoid stress, you need to find work that aligns to your values and how you like to work.
From my coaching I've been able to take away a slightly different perspective. That is, the idea of leveraging the best of each sphere when doing the either activity. One of the things we have discussed is whether I can bring more of the sorts of things I do outside work - the creative things that give me energy - and bring those things into my work. On the flip side, I've opened myself up to the idea that certain skills I have at work - analysis, planning, the way to ask questions - these are things that can be useful outside of work too.
Bringing about greater congruence between the two has helped me feel more positive generally, and to look more optimistically at the world. Mrs Menow remarked that I’m going through an “I should” phase at the moment; “I should do x, I should do y”. I think that’s a positive sign for me because I’m looking at the opportunities of the world, rather than the limitations. The ‘Twelve Days of Kiva’ challenge I set myself was another example of having a new level of energy and new outloook.
Next steps - keeping the momentum going
We’re half way through the coaching program now, and already I feel lI’ve gained a lot of value from the exercise. And yet we still have another a few weeks to to go. I think the challenge for me is going to be consolidating and sustaining all the great things I’ve learned. But i’m optimistic about what’s to come, and looking forward to my emaining sessions.
I've always viewed my Tumblr theme as being part of the way I brand myself online, so I'm reluctant to change it too often.
But a new year seems like a good time for a new look.
Choosing a new theme wasn't too difficult. I post mostly text based content mixed with the occasional photo, so I favor themes that are relatively simple and minimalist. That's how I ended up picking the Optica theme for the latest iteration of my Tumblr.
Deciding on a new cover photo was a bit more difficult. There's so many photos I have taken that I would love to share, but simply can't because they would give away my identity or location.This sent me looking back through photos I have already used.
Given the simple black and white theme I'd chosen, the 'city cat' photo I Tumblred a couple of years ago seemed like a good fit. I took the original photo in one of the older parts of the city while waiting for a friends birthday dinner.
So until I find something more fitting, 'city cat' will watch over us in quiet contemplation.
It's ok for your career goal to be about HOW you work, rather than what job you want to get.
That was the interesting comment from the career coach our new manager has hired to work with our team.
This week the coach and I spent most of ours session trying to nail down just what goal we wanted to be working towards over the remainder of our coaching sessions.
"Yes, I am sure that <job x> is the goal I want to be working towards" I said a few times.
"How sure?" she asked.
"7/10" I replied.
"Really, so why don;t you sound more sure?"
"Because I keep getting distracted by other stuff that seems interesting."
And so we went around for a while still trying to work out what my career goal actually is. Was it <job x>, or was it just something like that?
And then it dawned on me that the thing that has been most constant through my recent working life is this vision I have of what my ideal working day looks like.
It's a day where I start out with a run, maybe even by the ocean. I come home and eat my breakfast, then make sure Menow Jnr gets off to school safely. Then I work for the morning, but duck out during "lunch" from a swim. After lunch, I settle in to my air conditioned home office and sip away on my 'Coke on the rocks' as I work the afternoon away. In the early evening, I hang out with Menow Jnr. Once he goes to bed, its time for Mrs Menow and Rainbow. But not every evening. Some evenings maybe I work. Others I write. And sometimes I just unwind and play games.
And you know what the coach said after she heard all this.
"That sounds like a goal. That could be your goal that you work out a plan for."
I think that's the first time that I've ever felt like that could actually be a legitimate career goal. That HOW I work, or a particular way that work fits in to my life, is a legitimate goal. Just now, a career goal doesn't have to be reaching a certain level of seniority or a particular role.
So now I need to think about what that goal means and what would need to happen to achieve that goal. Because maybe it's something that's more achievable than I'd previously considered.
The last month or so has been something of a challenge for me. In fact, take out the couple of weeks holidays I had in July and and the last four months have been a challenge.
And not necessarily a good challenge.
More the sort of challenge that has you every day wondering when you'll feel yourself again.
It began when my boss stopped showing up - at first mentally, then physically. It meant our team was not only short a person, but that for most of May I was landed with doing a lot of the writing for our team, and writing to very short deadlines.
Then I was enrolled in a staff development program. That should have been a positive thing. Indeed, the few days we spent out of the office learning new skills were a welcome break from the busyness of day to day work. But part of this program was a a "stretch" project. A stretch in that we were expected to do most of the work in our own time, even though the output of the project would primarily benefit the business.
This project arrived just in time to coincide with my boss mysteriously no longer working for our organization. So now my days were busier, and I began to lose some of the evenings to work.
Even the evenings where I wasn't physically working, mentally I just wasn't there the way I should have been. I was either too tired or still stressing over just how "stretched" my project was. No matter how many times Rainbow or Mrs Menow tried to point out this project wasn't really a big deal - knowing it was there to be delivered and we were being judged on it was stressing me.
"it's meant to be a stretch" my acting boss, who I count as a friend, kept telling me. But no matter how many times I said that it was over stretching me, I don't think she ever really understood just what the combination of events was doing to me. I don't think she ever really understood how close I was to telling her and the company to fuck themselves and then curling up in the park and crying. Or how close I came to just walking out some days and taking myself off to see the corporate physch.
In hindsight, perhaps I would have been better had I done that. Perhaps it would have spared Mrs Menow and Rainbow from having to deal for so long with the tired and empty automaton I became. Perhaps it would have spared them from the endless complaining about the project. Perhaps I may even have been there to notice the changes going on in their own lives and the challenges they were facing. But I didn't go and persisted in soldiering on. Another day in the trenches, clocking in but never really clocking off. And the end I survived, and the project was delivered. But I'm not it was worth what it has done to me, and what those who I care about most have had to endure.
Writing in the dark
Both Mrs Menow and Rainbow have commented that I haven't written much lately, at least not much of the sort of thing they enjoy reading. But writing when my mental fuel is all spent just isn't possible. And to write with the necessary sense of imagination and playfulness for the sort of thing they enjoy, I need to be standing in the light.
And for much of the last few months I haven't been.
I've been standing in the dark. Or perhaps more leaning than standing. A pale and washed out figure in a long dark coat struggling to prop himself up against the grimy tiled wall of a poorly like subway pedestrian tunnel.
In those places the story ideas I have had have been equally dark.
I imagined a scientist, slowly descending in to madness as he separated his consciousness in two, who then began to torture himself in order to ethically understand such torture. But is he really a man at all? As he slices in to his arm he discovers not bones beneath his flesh but metal rods and wires. So if not a man, why the torture? What is the purpose behind the experiments.
There is another story in my head based on the idea of outer body experiences. Would we still act morally if we could live and experience a life through the mind and body of another, whilst fleeing to a new body when the time came for consequences? How long can one escape the consequences of ones actions for?
And then there is Dmitri, stuck in a parallel universe somewhere. I know Rainbow would like to see Dmitri find his way home eventually. But I fear for how dark Dmitri's path might have been had I tried to write his story these past few months. And so he stays where he is. Somewhere between here and there.
It's not that I don't want to write. I really do. It's something I enjoy. But writing when I felt I was running on empty was too hard. And Im not sure writing in the dark would have been a good idea anyway.
Stepping in to the light
Which brings me to this week and the end of the project. Of course Rainbow and Mrs Menow were right. The project is insignificant and will no doubt be forgotten long before the next time anyone reviews my pay or promotion prospects.
There's still plenty of work to do of course. There always will be.
But it's time for me to step in to the light. Time for me to come home and enjoy curling up with Mrs Menow while we watch some Heston. Time to throw off those heavy dark ropes that have tied me down and get my creativity going again. Time to smile, stand tall, then bend over for a good spanking from Rainbow.
And time to pay more attention to what's been happening in the lives of the people I care about. To make sure I am present for them and can care for them the way they have cared for me these last few months.
So will there be more writing here? Perhaps. I'm throwing off the heavy coat and taking the steps to walk out of that dark tunnel and in to the light. And when I get there, who knows what new stories I will have to share.
I'm generally not one for trying to read too much in to my dreams, especially ones that are once off and somewhat random. I have no idea if there is actually some sort of hidden message buried in them, or if they're just my unconstrained mind exercising the extra freedom to be creative.
But in the last week I’ve had a couple of interesting dreams.
Anyway, in the first dream;
I'm sitting on a sofa with one of my former coworkers from about ten years ago. I say, sitting, but it's more like reclining, my arm wrapped around her. Wherever we are, it's nice and bright. There's a glass wall behind us, and a glass door, so maybe it's an office. But the atmosphere seems too relaxed for that. Someone's modern style home perhaps?
I kiss her and as I slowly pull my lips away from hers, I realise that I've never really appreciated until this moment just how attractive she is. Her smooth black hair and dark brown eyes have me captivated and wondering why I never saw her this way before.
I'm feeling thirsty. Apologizing for my impending absence, I tell her I'll be back shortly, shooting her a smile as I walk out.
And then I wake up.
In the second dream:
I'm in the city, in the mall not far from where I used to work. The sun is shining, but the buildings cast long shadows this time of the day and I'm shivering in the chill air. I'm here to deliver an important document, something to do with a court case or dispute of some sort.
I meet my contact and follow him into one of the buildings. As we walk through the lobby, I hand him the document. The lobby is crowded, and as we make our way to the lift I'm jostled out of the way by a mob of people in suits.
"It's ok, you can wait here." Calls a voice from behind a desk. I turn around and find I'm now in some sort of open plan office, but one that appears to be set up like a classroom.
Sitting at the front of the room sits a woman in her fifties or sixties. She is dressed in a suit and black robes. I think she may be a judge or senior lawyer. I seem to have arrived in the middle of a study session or informal test. The 'judge' up front is asking questions and the dozen or so people at their desks are busy scribbling notes on paper pads.
A woman with blonde hair catches my eye and motions for me to sit at her desk. Her blonde hair isn't uniform. It's more like a faded, washed out sandy color with occasional streaks of even lighter hair. We strike up a conversation and before long she has me laughing. She's a few years out from finishing law school, but still a junior at the firm.
She smiles at me as she tears a small strip of paper off her notepad. Hurriedly she scribbles down her phone number on the paper and passes the it to me, suggesting I call her for a date. Then she smiles again. Its a smile that I’m becoming increasingly addicted to.
I leave the office-classroom. I’m excited because not only have i met someone new, I’ve got a date with them. I’m excited because I can't wait to tell Mrs Menow and Rainbow that I actually have a date - or at least dinner.
And then I wake. I wake up, and as I realize it was all a dream a wave of disappointment washes over me, scouring away the excitement and enthusiasm of only moments ago.
So in the last week I've had two dreams about being with someone new. Which is odd because until those dreams I'd not really thought much at all about adding new people to my life. Mrs Menow and Rainbow both bring so much joy in to my life that findinding someone else isn’t really a high priority for me. If the right opportunity for some fun arose - then I might take it, but I’m not really actively out there looking.
So what’s with these dreams?
They’re probably just random thoughts. Pleasant random thoughts.
Except…
...it started me thinking.
I started to think about all the changes and ‘newness’ that’s happened around me over the last year or so. And then I started to think about how little I feel I have changed.
In the last twelve months, Mrs Menow and Rainbow have both moved on to new and awesome jobs.Mrs Menow has been promoted, and it was only when she was telling me more about her new job on a recent road trip that I realised just how senior her new role is. Meanwhile Rainbow has taken on a challenging, but also very interesting sounding role. Even if Rainbow decides to go back to her old job, she’ll at least have had the experience of doing something new and an extra line on her CV.
Relationships wise too, things have changed for both of them. Both have new partners - wonderful guys who I also enjoy having around.
And like Mrs Menow before her, earlier this year Rainbow finished her Masters. That’s a wonderful accomplishment considering she did it while being a single mom and holding down a full time job. Should she choose to do her PhD, that’s something I will also be behind 100%, despite the impacts it will have on her time for me.
Meanwhile, I feel a bit like I’ve gone nowhere this last year, as though I haven’t grown or achieved much at all. I’m still in the same job, doing much the same thing. When you’ve been doing the same job a while, any incremental growth is only small and there’s not a whole lot of praise because its simply expected that you’ll deliver because that's what you’ve always done.
It’s also a long time since I went through any training or further education, with the exception of a two day business writing course about this time last year.
And in some ways I feel I’ve gone backwards. Twice in the last twelve months I have felt very broken. Broken to the point of curling up on the sofa in tears and feeling like I need someone’s arms around me to hold me together and stop me falling apart, or tearing myself apart. I’ve been very grateful to have both Rainbow and Mrs Menow to help me through those strained and stressful times.
But I guess my point is that I used to feel so self assured and confident of being able to take on any challenge that work might throw at me. Now there is always a certain amount of fear stalking me. “Will this be the tasks that’s too much? The project that takes me past breaking point?” And I wonder how much that fear is holding me back from being what I once was.
So perhaps there was a message in these dreams.
Not necessarily that I need a new relationship, but that I do need something new or some accomplishment for the year ahead. I need something that reminds me I still have it in me to be productive and grow. Maybe a new job? Return to study - even if its a MOOC or some other short course? Or maybe I just bite the bullet and actually set aside time to write more often, rather than continually putting it off.
I need to hit some home runs, or at least get a few batters home safely.
Now that I’ve worked out I need to do something, it’s time to work out what that something is.
