Live Life, Love Work E-Book

Kate Burton

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 234

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

The secrets to reclaiming your personal life and enriching your professional life--for the overstretched, overworked, and overanxious With the boundaries between professional and private life increasingly blurred by mobile technology, most people are simply finding it tougher to enjoy life either at home or at work. For those looking for a way out of the frustrating maze of daily life, bestselling author and respected communications coach Kate Burton offers the keys to achieving, in both one's professional and private life, a renewed sense of ownership, possibility, and meaning. In Live Life, Love Work, she poses such essential questions as "Whose Life Is It Anyway?" before offering readers an inspiring "Brave Action for Change." * Each step outlined in the book is linked to a discussion of one's physical, mental, inner, or spiritual world * Other books by Burton: Personal Development All-in-One For Dummies and Building Confidence For Dummies * Burton delivers custom-built corporate workshops and seminars for that boost motivation, self-awareness, communication, and health For those interested in enriching both their personal and work life, Live Life, Love Work offers practical, insightful tips on how.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Praise

Dedication

Title Page

Copyright Page

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Acknowledgements

Introduction

THE NATURE OF ENERGY

TIME AND PRIORITIES

TAKING ACTION

THE KEY PRINCIPLES TO LIVE LIFE, LOVE WORK

CHAPTER 1 - SETTING OFF

QUIT BATTLING AND SEIZE THE MOMENT

ACCESSING ENERGY

YOU DESERVE PLAYTIME

LISTEN TO YOUR INTUITION

TECHNOLOGY - FROM FRIEND TO FOE

FIND PEACE AND FREEDOM

SANITY AS YOU GO

CHAPTER 2 - PHYSICAL ENERGY

QUIT THE TOXIC SUBSTANCES

TUNE IN TO YOUR BODY

WAKE UP TO HEALTH

BUILD IN RECOVERY TIME

OPERATE BOUNDARY CONTROL

DISCONNECT THE DRAINERS

CREATE NEW RITUALS

CHAPTER 3 - MENTAL ENERGY

YOUR WONDERFUL MIND

ACCEPT THE ADVENTURE

168 HOURS TO SPEND

FOCUS ON YOUR STRENGTHS

PAY ATTENTION TO SIGNALS

FIND THE EXTREME HOBBY

CHAPTER 4 - EMOTIONAL ENERGY

LISTEN TO THE UNDERCURRENTS

WORKING THROUGH CONFLICT

YOU’RE ALREADY PERFECT

LET GO OF SELF-IMPOSED BLOCKS

CHAPTER 5 - PURPOSEFUL ENERGY

ACCESS YOUR PASSION

ABUNDANCE WINS OVER CONTROL

BREATHING IN THE POWER

GATHER ENERGY FROM THE NATURAL WORLD

DEVELOP DEEPER CONNECTIONS

CHAPTER 6 - BRAVE ACTION FOR CHANGE

TAKE OFF THE BRAKES

PREPARE FOR RESISTANCE

BUILD A PERSONAL DREAM TEAM

SHARPEN YOUR OBSERVATION

ONE STEP AT A TIME

RESOURCES YOU MAY FIND HELPFUL

INDEX

“When a book arrives at just the right time — it demands attention. Kate Burton cares about people and her observation and sensitive record of the hectic lifestyle so many of us lead means this outstanding book will resonate. With practical ideas and new thinking, you are inspired to take action to change your relationship with work and create a sustainable mix with the life you must own. This presents us the opportunity to ‘glow’ with energy at work, at home and at play. We’d be mad not to take it!”

Farren Drury MBE, Director LIW

“Live Life, Love Work really resonated with me. It’s precisely the type of themes explored in this book that have made a difference in my career as an Olympic rower.”

Steve Williams OBE, British Olympic Gold Medallist and Leadership Team Developer

“Kate Burton, author of the acclaimed NLP for Dummies, focuses this time on the importance of talent and values when building careers — so much more critical than just the right CV.”

Anne Watson, International Headhunter and Business Book Author

“If you need the inspiration to change your life for the better this is the book for you. Kate Burton invites us to take real steps towards our dreams and lights the path with excellent exercises and realistic advice from people who have made it happen for them, Now it’s your turn!”

Rosie Miller, International Executive Coach

To Bob for providing the rock solid foundation of love

This edition first published 2010

© 2010 Kate Burton

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Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

9781907312021

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Set in 11.5 on 14pt Adobe Caslon Pro-Regular by aptara

Padstow, Cornwall

Kate Burton is a well-respected, fully qualified international coach who challenges her clients to transform their personal effectiveness, leadership style and performance.

Her clients number many senior executives with a hearty appetite for development; people who value success, expect a high quality of life and measure the impact of coaching on their bottom line performance. Kate is a master practitioner in Neuro-Linguistic Programming and a full member of the International Coach Federation with PCC accreditation.

Also by Kate Burton:

with Brinley Platts

Building Self Confidence for Dummies

with Romilla Ready

Neuro-Linguistic Programming for Dummies

Neuro-Linguistic Programming Workbook for Dummies

Personal Development All in One

Job Hunting And Career Change All in One

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The stories featured in Live Life Love Work are based on real people. In some cases, actual names are used, with permission. In others, names are changed and composite characters have been created. It’s my hope that, through others’ stories, you will gain insights into creating the most healthy and productive life that you wish for.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank everyone who has seen this project safely on its journey, including those who freely shared their stories and experiences, and clients who allowed me to experiment with the ideas, as well as friends who provided quiet writing time, space and wonderful perspectives. My special appreciation goes to my commissioning editor, Emma Swaisland, at Capstone for her commitment to this work as well as Grace O’Byrne, Jenny Ng and Sarah Sutton for their professional expertise.

INTRODUCTION

This is a book for real people with real lives: people like you and me who need to earn a living and also want a great life. It came about because I dreamt of escaping to a beach house where life would be idyllic, and then woke up to see that wouldn’t be so much fun. The escape plan missed the point.

What became more attractive was to live a rich and full life that included the mental challenge of interesting work, the friendship of colleagues, the satisfaction of making a contribution to others’ lives. At the same time, to live this life and love work in a calm, healthy and sustainable way, having fun and spending time with those who matter.

Other people I meet want a similarly rich life and work that brings a sense of fun, adventure and being alive. They want to use their special talents and make a difference through what they do. Work gives us a huge sense of our identity, and quitting early often proves to be a disappointment. As David, a colleague, said: ‘I came to a point where I realised that I needed work more than work needed me.’ Good work, when we find it, yields wealth beyond financial rewards.

The heart of this book explores the question: ‘How do we stay sane, healthy and optimistic without chucking in our jobs, selling up our businesses, leaving friends and family to head to the beach, the mountains or the other side of the world?’ The answers are not always simple, nor do they lie in a one-off choice. Instead, getting to a place of satisfaction with life is a continual process of gathering information, making decisions, choosing a direction to follow and taking action as the world around us changes. As we sift through opportunities and blend the special elements of the mix that are best for us, then we own our lives.

My intent, as you travel through these pages with me, is that you gain fresh insights that create the difference for you between making a living and having a life; between simply existing or living life to the full. You will find these insights in various ways:

• By hearing others’ stories

• Exploring practical exercises for yourself

• Giving yourself space to ponder the ideas

ultimately, to shift from places where you feel stuck to opening up choices and new possibilities involves taking action. The insights remain in your head as pure ideas until you make the first step.

THE NATURE OF ENERGY

The journey we’ll be taking together focuses on harnessing your personal energy as a guide to getting the best experience and in Chapter 1, I invite you to check in with an Energy Audit to identify areas where your energy is blocked. This notion of energy is not something tangible that you can see or touch like oil, coal or an electric wire. Yet when you pay attention, you know when you have energy and when it’s missing; you feel the effect.

Energy is most likely to be experienced as a feeling. The positive stands out in contrast to the negative: excited rather than disillusioned; cheerful and happy-go-lucky rather than put upon and stressed. It’s the difference between feeling light and optimistic compared to weary and downhearted; between feeling valued or worthless; between feeling needed and involved or an outsider. Good energy that flows is about that sense of wellbeing and contentment that makes activity almost effortless and free-flowing.

Specifically, you’ll begin to notice your sense of wellbeing at the physical, mental, emotional, and purposeful or spiritual levels.

Physical energy — is about nurturing a healthy body, which we explore in Chapter Two.

Mental energy — is about following your intellectual powers and talents, which we explore in Chapter Three.

Emotional energy — is about tuning into feelings and taking control of them, which we explore in Chapter Four.

Purposeful energy — is about developing a clear sense of direction according to your passion and values, which we explore in Chapter Five.

TIME AND PRIORITIES

One life is not long enough for all the things we want to do. Energy is inextricably linked with time and setting priorities about how we spend it. Who ever has enough time? Getting more time is impossible - there are only ever 24 hours in a day, 168 hours in a week. Our thinking about time shifts when we allow ourselves the space to listen to our energy and then allocate time on the truly important things, saying ‘no’ to what no longer works, and a resounding ‘yes’ to what we really want.

While time management is important to provide structure and focus in busy lives, it can also become the logical activity that backfires on us, encouraging us to pack more and more content into lives that are already bursting at the seams, building ever-longer ‘to do’ lists. The important thing is not to attempt to manage time by being super efficient, but to allocate your time to those things that give you energy, rather than draining it, and trusting that setting the priorities in this way will take you in the best direction.

For example, if you were looking for a new job, the details on paper can appear idyllic, but to actually fall in love with that work involves allowing yourself to listen to your heart as well as your head. It’s in this space of awareness that great things happen.

TAKING ACTION

Have you heard the story about the three frogs sitting on a lily pad and one decides to jump? The question is: ‘How many are then left?’ The answer is ‘All three because none of them moved.’ The moral of the tale is that making a decision is useless without taking action.

In Chapter Six, we’ll be looking at taking action for change. Change is a process that requires you to:

• Set the intention about what you want. This is where goal setting around priorities comes in.

• Pay attention to shifting your energy towards that outcome. Here, planning your time and gathering your resources is important.

• Make a personal commitment to embrace change. This entails getting in touch with your true motivation.

• Take the first step. Yippee, then the action begins.

Aiming for the whole self

Our working lives are predicted to be longer than we expected a few years back. A UK survey conducted by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) in 2009 showed that 70% of those aged 55 and above anticipate to be working beyond state pension age compared to 40% two years ago. Younger people may not have thought decades ahead, but the chances are they will have inadequate funding for a comfortable early retirement.

Workers everywhere are likely to need increased levels of motivation and job satisfaction to sustain them for longer. Work brings with it the tension between opposing demands on us; this is a natural part of life In the ancient Eastern philosophies, the principles of ‘yin.’ and ‘yang’ suggest that the whole is always experienced as two parts that naturally stretch and pull each other: night and day, masculine and feminine, pleasure and pain, work and play. This tension keeps us growing and learning and the dynamic of life alive.

In the western psychoanalytic traditions, Freud and Jung suggested that splitting the world is not successful. When you split off part of yourself, it doesn’t lead to happiness. You can only be happy when you accept the shadow side, the part that keeps you awake at night and anxious. Then everything is in the open and you have nothing left to fear.

Just as Freud and Jung’s work was all about integration of the whole person, so this book is about being the whole of yourself, firing on all cylinders and moving in the right direction for you. In life, we split ourselves into many different roles and ‘parts’. There will be differences that lead to conflict between them, and the more we recognise that, go with it and stop trying to control it, then the easier life becomes.

There are clues to our motivation from our past. When my maternal grandmother brought up a family of five children in the 1920s, she had with no state support after her first husband was killed in the First World War. She worked late into the night making children’s clothes that paid the rent and bought food.

When I set up my own business after the birth of my first child, I also worked at home late into the night while the baby slept and, like my grandmother, was paid only for the work I delivered. Over the years, I switched and refined my work from freelance writing to marketing programmes, to soft skills training, communications consultancy and then professional coaching.

The original interviewing and writing tasks that I performed have evolved into doing work that I truly love, listening to people and helping to shape their lives and work. This work is so much a part of my identity that I can’t imagine not doing it in some shape or form.

From tension to strategies

If you’ve picked up this book, then I’m assuming that you too want work that works for you. You may identify with some of the stories that I will tell about the real physical, mental and emotional pressures that people face.

Tessa advises organisations about stress management. As her own business became busier and more successful, she found herself taking on a diary packed with commitments. One day, her body shut down with overload just as if her own laptop had run out of disk space. ‘I crashed and didn’t see it coming.’

With pressure pushed down the line from the Minister of his government department, James felt bullied by his boss making unreasonable demands on his time. Working crazy hours on constantly changing projects led to rows at home, and he walked away from his wife and family into the arms of a sympathetic colleague. ‘I just want to leave the job and move away.’

Brenda is passionate about her role as Chief Executive of a Charitable Foundation. However, her husband ’s progressive illness means he will soon be incapable of holding down his job, and her elderly parents need care too. Each night Brenda comes home from work, opens a bottle of wine: ‘I need to cheer myself up, and then feel so bad about it later.’

Just as life is not perfect, stories are not black and white. People have the natural resilience to find new strategies when life gets tough.

Amanda, a feisty, well-educated mother of three sons, runs a small consultancy yet allocates time to manage the costume production for the juniors’ school play each year. Each evening, she blocks out two hours for family time when the boys get her undivided attention. ‘I want to be there for my boys and give them each time for a proper conversation.’

Edwin runs a software sales team. When he encounters the person ready to dump their troubles on him, he diverts them to a similar negative soul with a graceful introduction. ‘I keep away from anybody or anything that leaves me exhausted,’ he says. By tuning into the effect certain people have on him, he sustains his natural enthusiasm and energy.

Fran’s learnt about creating her own calm space within work conflicts. Her reputation as a tough Human Resources Director has been built up over twenty years of leading negotiations with unions. She has the job of delivering news of further cuts and redundancies. Few people know that she endured an abusive marriage for many years. ‘It was my yoga and meditation classes that brought me through this and gave me courage to make different choices.’

Today, there is no set formula for a perfect working life, but a menu of options to choose from at different transition points. On a day-to-day basis, our ‘work’ begins with a series of tangible tasks, the things that we do for which we are rewarded. When we look at our work in the longer context of a career or a satisfying life, we move away from thinking of the immediate tasks, those items on the ‘to do’ lists, to consider adjusting the work we do so that it fits with our values, passion and purpose.

From these pages, you’ll take away an increased sense of what is possible for you and the ability to learn from others who’ve been on a similar journey. From other people’s stories, I hope that you will begin to write your own story, exactly the way you want it to be. Have fun.

THE KEY PRINCIPLES TO LIVE LIFE, LOVE WORK

• Physical energ y. Begin with looking after your health and maximising your physical wellbeing. This is the foundation from which everything else flows.

• Mental energy. Develop your intellectual and mental resilience, harnessing your talents and allowing space for your playful creativity to emerge.

• Emotional energy. Get your emotions in check. Notice your moods and what triggers an upset for you so that you steer smoothly through the peaks and troughs.

• Purposeful energy. Connect with your values, beliefs and sense of purpose. Knowing what’s most important to you enables you to follow the direction that is right for you and where you can make the greatest contribution to the world.

• Be brave and take action. Make changes and take risks, starting with the first step - that one you’re most reluctant to take.

From the stories I’ve heard, I’ve extracted these core principles to loving our lives which entail reclaiming our energy. Each of these principles is explored in depth in the following chapters.

CHAPTER 1

SETTING OFF

We often recognise what is ‘right’ in our lives only when we experience what is going ‘wrong’. It can be a painful experience to notice that we are stuck, that some intangible ‘thing’ is missing or blocking our way, that something is not fitting just right. This is a valuable warning signal that our energy is not flowing and therefore we are not going to operate at our best or be at our happiest.

This chapter will help identify challenges that we face where our energy could be stuck or blocked - and ways to free it up. Ultimately, the aim is to remain calm, strong and at one with ourselves as we travel rather than be shattered into thousands of small pieces under pressure; to take ourselves to an edge that allows us to stretch and grow by following what is right for us as individuals.

Everybody I interviewed for this book had their own good times/bad times tales to share. In the good times they felt integrated and whole; in the bad times they felt stressed and shattered. Right now you may be experiencing either extreme.

For many people, intense back-to-back working with long hours and no recovery time is their normal routine. They become like the proverbial boiled frogs, those little creatures popped into a pan of cold water. The heat builds up and up, and they don’t notice the gradual increase until it is too late and they’re cooked. Each year these people work that bit harder and longer until the work itself loses its excitement and the rest of life gets seriously infected. Often a crisis stops them in their tracks.

Remember that we are offered more opportunities based on our track record and thus set the pattern for our lives. If we want to create a new pattern, we have to make clear to others the new direction that we are following, rather than accepting more of the same.

Instead of being a boiled frog, you can choose to be the hero of your own life.

QUIT BATTLING AND SEIZE THE MOMENT

All of us will hit turning points where we have a strong sense that things aren’t working or where they can be better, and those points come at different times in our lives. Clearly age has an impact. As I get older, I have learnt from experience and been through the personal development that enables me to recognise that I want more from my work than money; I want a healthy, sustainable quality of life.

With age we also recognise that life is actually a very short time span. Even if we live to be 110, that wouldn’t be sufficient. One life is never going to be long enough to visit all the awesome places and do all the things we could do.

Each generation learns from the previous one what it wants and doesn’t. My own daughter, recently graduated from university, has a job in Europe that enables her to work with an international set of colleagues, build on her language skills, and be socially responsible. She knows she doesn’t want the kind of work that chains her like a young puppy to the same desk and computer in a faceless office.

Today’s young professionals are well travelled and confident. They don’t want to become part of what David Bolchover calls a generation of The Living Dead in his book of the same name, where ‘presenteeism’ is the name of the game and you are measured by hours at your desk rather than your contribution. What’s harder to work out is what they do want and that may only become clear as they travel.

Mapping your hero’s journey

As we mature, we discover that life offers us many different roles to play at any one time - lover, spouse, friend, student, employee or business owner, product developer, computer whizz, artist, reader, writer, fundraiser, gardener, adventurer, homemaker, fighter pilot, healer, parent or child - plus many more. One life comprises a unique combination of roles which don’t always fit together smoothly.

Our navigation through life and work can be likened to the stages in Joseph Campbell’s famous ‘hero’s journey’ from his classic book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Back in the 1940s, Campbell pointed to certain consistent patterns and structures in myths and stories which contained a central character - the hero, along with mentors, allies and villains.

Campbell’s work was subsequently developed by Christopher Vogler in his book, The Writer’s Journey, into a 12-stage framework which is often adopted to guide the development of fiction and film scripts. Most classic films and tales from The Wizard of Oz and Gladiator to Homer’s Odyssey or Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings can be mapped onto the framework.

Essentially, the journey begins in the hero’s home, then takes him off on an adventure in which he does battle until finally returning home, weary yet triumphant, as a stronger character. As you consider how you’d like your life to pan out, here are the most important stages that unfold in every hero’s story:

• The call to adventure- our hero begins in the ordinary world where he often denies or refuses to hear the call to adventure. He stays in his comfort zone until he can stay there no longer.

• Meeting a mentor - our hero meets someone to help him, a teacher or guide who will show him the way forward.

• Crossing the threshold - our hero takes the first brave step. He has accepted the challenge.

• The road of trials - our hero undergoes a series of ordeals that test him to the limit and meets a mixture of allies and enemies on the way until he achieves his goal or reward.

• Returning to the ordinary world with the elixir - finally our hero heads home, personally transformed by the experience.

The story of your experience at school, wrenched from home and out into the world is an example of a hero’s journey. So too is any stage of your life where you undertake a new journey - accept a new job, leave home to set up with a new partner, take up a new hobby. It involves heeding that call to the next adventure, and bravely stepping over the familiar threshold into the unknown.

The first and most difficult step is to make a commitment to yourself to own all of your life, being fully responsible for yourself and the results you get. Only then can you reclaim your personal life and enrich your professional one.

As lawyer Steve realised, ‘I have to make a commitment to myself, to own my life, because nobody else is going to take responsibility for it. Lawyer is only one of the hats I wear, and I was investing too much of my life into that one role. When I saw how some of the partners in the firm were just waiting for retirement to live, then I woke up and realised that my life is about what happens today, not in the future.’

Exercise

Your hero’s journey today

You are the hero in your own life; now’s the chance to develop your personal script. The starting point on any journey is to begin to assess your home surroundings and what is calling to you.

Imagine for a moment that the short story of how you live one aspect of your life and your work was captured in this book. What would it say about you? Here are some prompts:

• Think about the different roles that you take on in your life, not just work ones.

• Consider some of the best of times and the worst of times for you.

• Where is there any conflict or tension for you at work?

• How content are you with your home life? What might be even better?

• What is calling you to an adventure right now?

• What is the threshold you need to step over? Is this barrier within you or about the people around you?

• Who are some of the allies, enemies or mentors you have met or would like to meet on your journey?