Cynthia Corsetti

I had dinner the other night at a local restaurant. I noticed that the owner of the restaurant, who was also acting as Hostess, seemed to be in an especially foul mood. It was as if seating us was an inconvenience. It wasn’t the first time I had experienced this at this venue. The first time I just chalked it up to a bad day; the second time; it made me wonder if I was the only person who felt this way.

The next day I was speaking with a friend and I mentioned where I had eaten. The friend, without any prompting from me, spoke up and said that she didn’t like going to this establishment because the owner/hostess always made her feel unwelcome. I am almost positive this is not the message she wants to send. Yet, something must be making her appear stressed and somewhat negative.

When we are dealing with the normal stresses of our lives, we often become preoccupied in our own thoughts. While we may be interacting at work and going through the motions, our minds are somewhere else. This can cause us to become unaware of the visual cues that we are sending. If we are thinking about the check we bounced last week while we are speaking to a prospective client, we can very easily show a negative demeanor to this client. It may be very subtle, but it is there none-the-less.

While there is much talk about work life balance in today’s hectic professional landscape, we often fail to realize that this balance is as much emotional as it is physical. It is important to schedule time into your day to take care of home activities and it is important to factor your work priorities into your vacation plans. But, on a daily basis it is also important to get a handle on what is really occupying your mind. You are at work physically, but where are you emotionally?

Daily life causes all of us to push priorities around in our heads; for example, if you are the coach of your son’s soccer team you may be subconsciously watching the weather all day debating if practice should be cancelled. If you have a big project due at work, you may be highly distracted while reading the bedtime story to your child. This kind of shifting of focus is normal.

But, what happens when you are dealing with an extremely difficult situation at work, or a serious medical condition of a family member? How do you keep those big issues from disrupting the things you absolutely must be doing in order to maintain your career or business?

First, you start by acknowledging them.  Trying to ignore stressors is like trying to hold down a beach ball under water.  You can keep it down for a while, but eventually it will bounce up and smack you right in the face. You need to accept the fact that these stressors are in your life. You need to recognize your own ability to deal with them.

As a coach I run into situations all the time where people are dealing with significant issues that cross into all aspects of their lives. In order for these individuals to function at the level necessary for their careers, I often have them write down all of their issues. Not just the real concerns, but the perceived concerns as well. Our minds obsess about imagined problems as much as real problems. When this happens, it is easy to become lost in a sea of emotions that shows through in  expressions and body language even when we are completely unaware of it.

Make a list of things that are on your mind. Beside each thing, write down the worst possible scenario that could happen IF this thing were to come true. Then, beside that worst possible scenario, write down how real that possibility is, on a scale of 1 – 10. Often you will find that your worries are not as realistic as your mind makes them out to be. On occasion, you may find that they are. For those items that fall within an 8 – 10 level of reality, write down how you will handle the circumstance if and when it does happen. Having a clear plan of action, even if painful, will help you put it to rest, at least for a few hours so you can focus on the daily tasks that you must accomplish.

This exercise won’t make your problems disappear. But, it can help you put them into perspective. In order to be successful at work, it is imperative that you create a strong work/life emotional balance. It is this balance that will allow you to keep moving forward and not get stuck in a negative cycle where obsessing about one problem causes you to lose focus and creates an entirely new problem.  Emotional work/life balance matters even more than the physical work/life balance, so don’t ignore the stress.