Today's Woman January 2012

Survival Skills: Claiming “Me” Time

Stacey Vicari

by Marie Bradby

W

e live in a very career-centered culture, says life coach Stacey Vicari, founder of Ideal Life. “Everything is dominated by our job. I love my job, but I still don’t want it to be my whole life.”

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and personal priorities into your day. When you don’t plan, you are in a reactive mode and things that matter often get bumped. Know in advance that you’re going to an exercise class so that you pack your gym bag. It’s creating the expectation that life continues beyond the work day. Your body is in attentive anticipation, a self-fulfilling prophecy on the positive side.

Rule #2: To claim me time, establish boundaries. We need to

have boundaries in our work day, what we say ‘yes’ to. Can we follow through with the things we say ‘yes’ to without feeling resentment or drained? If the answer is no, then the responsibility is ours to pause and reevaluate our boundaries.

Rule #3: Expect that it won’t all get done. Ever. So, do the

best you can and let go. It will all be there tomorrow. Even if we stay late, it will never all get done. We can enjoy life by doing the best we can and letting go of the rest.

Rule #4: “Unitize.” It’s a term I coined. “Take big things

and break them down into smaller parts so life feels less overwhelming.

In a work environment, you might tell yourself this is going to take two hours, so I will wait. If we break it down into smaller units, when we have 15 minutes in our schedule, we can take on part of that project. That helps us with procrastination because we aren’t waiting for that two hours of time.”

photo: Melissa Donald

And it isn’t. Stacey, 43, who started her life-coaching business 11 years ago, works three days a week for a total of up to 15 to 20 hours a week. “It doesn’t feel like I am working,” Stacey says. “I feel like I’m retired. I have tons and tons of time and energy left over. It’s great.”

Most people think they need a career coach, Stacey says, but they need a life coach. People want a balanced life, so their career doesn’t claim as much power, but they don’t know how to get there.

“I’m helping people get physically and emotionally healthy. I have people step back and look at what they want their life to look like. Looking at that holistic life, we look at what career would support that,” Stacey says.

The quality of life in American society is going down because we place so much emphasis on our career, Stacey says. We make our career our life support. We don’t exercise, meditate, recreate, or have quality connections with family and friends.

People aren’t pursuing hobbies and passions.

“But our jobs aren’t meant to meet all our needs.

Career shouldn’t be everything. People are putting so many eggs in their job basket. At six o’clock, people say, our day is over. No, that part of my day is over.”

The disproportion is reflected in how we talk: “People say, ‘How was your day?’ Instead, ask, ‘How is your day?’ I still have hours before I go to sleep,” Stacey says. “There are hours to be lived.

They have to make sure that their life outside their career is meaningful. If all you do is work and recover from work, you will be burned out. That’s the habit you are in. You aren’t refueling. Living outside their workday, people actually get more energy because they are doing more living.”

In the evenings, don’t veg-out in front of the TV, Stacey suggests. “TV doesn’t inspire us, living our lives inspires us. After watching TV for two hours, people don’t say, ‘Oh, I feel really energized now.’ Talk with someone who had a dinner party.

They say, ‘Oh, that was so great! I had such a fun night!’ That brings life.

Exercise, take a walk in nature, have a dinner party on a week night. Do a craft on a week night, instead of looking at it as only having fun on Fridays or Saturday, she says. Really, you can only have fun on the weekend?

“We need to have fun in our lives. That’s why people are so stressed. People aren’t having enough fun. Pursuing recreation is the solution for stress.”

Rule #1: Plan your day the night before. This is where you can bring professional

Rule #5: Be conscious of wasting time on things that don’t matter. Get off

of Facebook if you’ve been on too long. Claim the things you want to do in life that you feel you don’t have time to do. Prepare healthy meals, exercise, get a hobby.

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When You Are Challenged I

by Bob Mueller

f you are facing a challenging situation, if you are having a hard time, I want you to remember three things:

Don’t become overwhelmed; Do what you can, as much as you can; Keep your focus on the now.

I don’t care if your self-worth is as small as a mustard seed, as the Good Book says, you can move mountains.

Don’t worry or stress about the next few hours. Forget about tomorrow and don’t even think about the day after that, let alone the weeks to follow. Just push all that undue, unneeded stress, useless worry out of your head and flush it away. Find something that makes you feel safe, that protects you, and helps to pull you through. The list is limited only by the scope of your positive attitude. For me, it’s sitting outside after a long day at the office with my dogs, Sadie and Stella, listening to that favorite song in my car, having a heart-to-heart talk with my wife, Kathy, or a quick prayer that lets me vent but more, provides me with comforting solace.

And as you’re performing your comforting routine, as you’re being proactive, maintain a good attitude. Keep telling yourself, “I can do this. I can get through this.”

Now I know this is going to sound a bit lame, but when you find yourself in a corner and feel the walls closing in around you and you begin to think you’re not going to make it, I want you to state out loud (not inside your already cluttered, frantic head, but announce to yourself) in a convincing, no-nonsense tone, five simple words: “It’s going to be okay.” Spit it out. Take a deep breath; maintain your attitude; and say, “It’s going to be fine. I can do this!”

There are a fair number of folks, especially middle-aged folks, who, because they feel defeated by bad luck or hard times, feel they have no esteem. They either believe or force themselves to believe, through nothing more than their very own brainwashing (though they refuse to admit it) that they have no worth.

In a sense, they program or contaminate their own minds, and after a length of time, it’s an automatic defensive behavior. They believe that something or someone robbed them of something — that they are now forced to shuffle through life with the mind-set that they will never, ever be able to succeed.

I don’t buy into the concept of a person having absolutely “no esteem.” Low esteem, sure — but no esteem — I don’t buy it.

And at one time or another, all of us, and I mean everybody, for whatever reason or situation, has felt lower than dirt. But doesn’t drawing from those real-life experiences, learning and adapting in other ways, in fact, get us through whatever struggle faces us?

Doesn’t the experience make us a bit stronger or wiser, or, at the very least, provide us with some foundation, some form of a base to build upon? It sure should.

If you can perform the everyday function of walking, at anytime, to any given place, with little to no regard or mere thought for the thousands of impulses that transmit from your brain, signaling precise commands to the rest of your body to accomplish said feat — well, simply put: you, my friend, possess esteem.

Esteem is having faith that you trust, accept, and realize the outcome before and during the process, no matter how large and insurmountable or small and seemingly insignificant a situation may be.

I don’t care if your self-worth is as small as a mustard seed, as the Good Book says, you can move mountains. Look at it this way: It’s something to draw from, something to grow from, a framework to build upon.

In other words, I want you to go back and reclaim your mojo. I’m not preaching for you to go out and conquer Mt. Everest, run the Boston Marathon or discover the cure for cancer. Heck, no. But I want you to believe in yourself, in a certain cause, any cause. Just believe. To do something, anything; whether it’s taking that one class at night school, putting down one soft drink and walking around the block once a day, or taking some loose change and tossing it into that jar until it’s filled and you have enough to go out and buy — you get the idea. Point being: All achievements, whether great or small, take root in the belief in the act itself.

As an adult, let go and relearn how to trust in yourself — bit by bit, day by day, block by building block. Build that bridge over troubled waters. Right now the best thing you can do for yourself is stick to what works for you. No matter how challenging it may be, at least it works for you. At least you have the knowledge, the trust within yourself, to choose, to live your own outcome. And that’s esteem, and that’s how you meet the challenge.

Bob Mueller is Assistant Vice President of Mission & Stewardship at Hosparus, the community hospices of Louisville, Southern Indiana, and Central Kentucky. He has three books available: Look Forward Hopefully, The Gentle Art of Caring, and his latest, Create a Better World. Find Bob online at www.bobmueller.org and email him at bobmueller@insightbb.com.

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