Life can get busy really quickly and before you know it you are working really hard to keep lots of different balls in the air.
Your work team needs these things. Your leadership team needs something else.
The kids have conflicting events at different sides of town, and you are the driver this week.
You and your partner are circling each other as you both focus on what’s right in front of you to get done.
Survival Mode – that feeling of trying to get through the next day when every single dayammmm thing seems to be going against you, day after day after day – hits.
Sometimes it feels a little like Ground Hog Day over and over, where every day seems to be exactly the same uphill battle, and you have forgotten what any kind of short-term planning feels like let alone medium- and long-term target setting.
It is a big, big hole to get into and an even bigger hole to get out of if you find yourself stuck there. Probably you have become unresourceful – where every single phone call or question is a bother and where the best thing about deadlines is that they give you a chance to make up glorious excuses for missing them.
Today – in part 1 of 3 – I want to share with you some signs that you may be cruising in survival mode and encourage you to check yourself for these.
- Everything has a sense of urgency about it – all the time
- Your normal is to cancel and reschedule meetings and phone calls – even those times you get together with friends
- It feels to you like everyone is in crisis mode – because it rubs off on your team and your family
- You are overwhelmed, lacking in sleep with an irregular heartbeat and erratic breathing pattern
- You know that your brain is fuzzy and even though you tell yourself you need to calm down – it is not working. Nothing happens
- There is little to no JOY in your life which means you are starting from rock bottom when it comes to planning an awesome day
- Everyone you know seems to have your Reactive Button on speed-dial and they have you bouncing from one emotionally draining reaction to the next
- Everything, especially those things you are overwhelmed with or have done little work on, becomes way, way too important
- Your standard of work slips with everything now delivered as “Good Enough” rather than high quality
- Your body aches – headaches, tiredness, sore joints and low energy
Over the next few days, review your behaviours and make some notes about what you observe. In my next blog I will give you some practical tips about just what you can do to begin building new habits and shifting yourself out of survival mode.