How To Stop Missing Out At Home

Are you feeling overwhelmed at work? Chances are you’re extremely busy and end your day mentally exhausted and overwhelmed. Right when you need to be at your best for your family you are finding you have the least amount of energy, focus, and drive to invest in what you say is your highest priority. I get it. It’s extremely draining and life starts to be monotonous when you live in a less than healthy state of stress for extended periods of time.
 
What’s at the root of all of us being overwhelmed? The usual suspects, “them”, come to mind. The ones who don’t understand how busy you are and pile on more work, and those who ignore how you’re producing for the company despite being down a team member in your group. Being asked to produce above what is your capacity can certainly create unhealthy stress over time and it’s definitely frustrating when you believe you don’t have the respect of others who just see you as a resource to reduce their own load!
 
In my experience as a leadership coach, I have discovered these situations account for smaller than perceived amounts of the unhealthy stress we carry day in and day out. There is larger culprit and it hits really close to home. It’s you. It’s you and it’s me. It’s our inability to effectively lead ourselves that I have found generates the highest levels of unhealthy stress. It’s our low ability to lead ourselves that is the catalyst for depleted evenings at home, missed ballgames and dance recitals, and even our obesity. It’s me and it’s you and it’s all about leadership.
 
What are we missing? I believe our leadership ability determines our level of effectiveness. Leading ourselves is the first, and hardest, task we have when it comes to getting out from under the stress. Below are three ways you can increase your effectiveness and stop missing out at home. If you incorporate these into your routine on a daily basis, you will experience an internal relief and transform your relationships both inside and outside the office.

1. Learn to Prioritize: Activity doesn’t equal productivity. If you don’t have priorities, others will set theirs upon you. It’s true. When you lack priorities you will pick up someone else’s urgency and that leaves you overwhelmed. It’s time to define what your priorities are and be so clear and confident that you start to say no to more than you are today. One of the reasons we create stress is because of our inability to simply say no. When you have priorities, the things you say a resounding “Yes!” to, cause you to find your "No!".  
2. Learn to Navigate: Too many times I have carried the process I have for losing weight into the office. Rather than planning out my meals to guarantee I hit my daily calorie intake, I show up and discover I didn’t bring any food to work. Now what? I have to go out to eat. What- you want me to starve? This same wasted logic is what I’ve followed in planning my day. Rather than planning ahead and identifying key aspects of a project to be worked on along a timeline leading to completion, I just show up and tackle the urgent. This is my recipe for stress- is it yours? Instead try spending 1 hour prior to leaving the office or prior to going to bed to map out your plan for tomorrow in terms of major accomplishments you need to achieve tomorrow. Quit looking to lose weight while leaving your lunch at home! You get it?  I can help you increase your leadership ability and reduce your stress because I've walked the road of transformation that's necessary to see change. Schedule your free strategy session here.
3. Learn to Empower: Many managers and executives, including me, have failed to realize the importance of empowering others as a way to reduce their own level of stress. I’m not talking about delegating and I’m not talking about dumping on subordinates. If you aren’t empowering, you are increasing the stress in your life.  You’re lying in bed, attending a function at school, or going on a date and you aren’t all there! Most of you is watching the highlight real of the day thinking through who did what and what you need to do to keep the train on the rails. Stressful ! Empowering is about you and I giving up what we used to do as individual contributors in exchange for leadership. Secure leaders empower others and as a result they aren’t swamped with work that isn’t theirs to complete.  

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Maybe you’ve identified one way you’re currently creating an unhealthy level of stress in your life. If so, take a moment and write out exactly what you’ve learned about you and your ability to lead yourself. Next, decide what you need to change. What specifically are you going to do that you are not doing today in order to better lead yourself and create a more fulfilling day tomorrow? Finally, who is it that you can pass this blog to that will benefit, as you have, from gaining a new perspective on smoothing out the ride? Who can you add value to by opening up new possibilities that come from acting on what you’ve learned?

W. Shane McKenzie is The Leadership Transformation Coach. He helps leaders achieve greater effectiveness and become more fulfilled in their work by facilitating positive changes in their leadership behaviors. Join the Leadership Transformation Roundtable to get your copy of the questionnaire Shane uses to discover how close his  intentions match the reality of those he leads.
 
What others are saying about W. Shane McKenzie
 
"I’ve worked with Shane for several years. He possesses a unique and highly effective combination of strategy, team leader and great communicator, a rare combination. He has a very strategic mind so he makes connections and sees disjointed paths where others do not. This allows him to both plot direction and execute the path to success. He’s truly committed to the greatness in others. He listens fully, asks the right questions at the right time, and gives us the space to both think and respond." - Linda Lindquist-Bishop, Strategic Facilitator, Speaker, Exit Planning for Business Owners, and World Champion Athlete
 
“Shane has the ability to frame a conversation in a way that brings a thought or concept full circle. He’s excellent at tying each session together, which helped me recognize a pattern of growth. He’s not a “teacher”; he’s a discussion facilitator…in other words these sessions aren’t built around Shane teaching concepts. This method of facilitation opens the door for personal application, which is critical to this development process. He asked questions that forced me to think with intention.”- G. Williams, Product Manager

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