Calm
It’s a beautiful morning – the sun is shining brightly, the humidity is very low, even the temperature is lower than normal. It’s a work day so I have my coffee, protein bar, and am ready to get things done. I decide to take a few moments and open the Calm app to listen to a short meditation session I have been listening to lately. The speaker usually picks a small topic, has a story and a “lesson” then moves into the meditation part. Overall it is about 7 minutes and a good way to start the day. Today instead I click on a different session that is titled “working with irritation”, and since that seems to be a norm I decided to give it a shot. Keep in mind this is for meditation – a way to relax before the day gets going. It was a good program, really focusing on breathing with just a brief discussion of handling irritation and not letting it take over. The ironic part is that since the Calm app is embedded within our corporate Teams app the entire time I can hear various alert, bings, and bongs telling me that there are things happening. That my day has started whether I want it to or not.
I am not a rocket scientist or a heart surgeon, my job is not saving lives, or solving world peace or hunger. But people do rely on me, and I need to keep improving. Myself, my work, and my partnerships. I have to keep finding ways to improve what and how I do my job, so it does not become stale. My customers may be internal, but they are customers all the same. And if they do not want to “buy” my product they can and will go somewhere else. But I am getting off topic. The topic that I was thinking about was how to manage a busy day while trying to achieve your goals despite all of the irritations. Some of them may be small – a file is to large and takes more time to finalize the formulas. The systems don’t talk to each other so some of the data elements are different. And then there are the big ones – for example, people not worried about something that seems so incredibly important (and not just to me) or a system being changed and the output no longer works for what I need. My point about irritations is that some of them will be big – stop work kind of big, and others will be small – barely a speed bump. The key is how to handle them. I truly wish I had all of the answers, and I don’t but I do have some ideas.
Think about the irritation for a moment and allow yourself to feel it. Get mad, frustrated, or sad but then take the next steps. If it is a true road block – figure out the next steps. Get others involved to help you figure it out. If it is barely a speed bump, shake your head, run over it, and keep moving. In either case don’t let it completely stop the work. Perhaps pause, look at your list for the day and reprioritize. Someone you need is out of the office – okay either push the meeting and project out, or schedule it anyway and bring them up to speed later. If this thing does not seem that important to others, then ask yourself why it bothers you more? Is it anything you can control? If you can control it then do so, if not then you have decisions to make. Does it need to be “fixed” or just develop a work around? Take notes – paper or mental – so the next time it is less of an irritation. These can also be opportunities – to learn something new, develop a new process, or just build new relationships and partnerships. One “last” thing – you have to decide what this irritation means to you and only you. Because if you ask someone else about it and its not important to them it makes your feelings less important, even just to you.
One thing to keep in mind, I have framed this as something we have to deal with at work. But that is not always true is it. We have plenty of irritations in our day to day life. Calling a service center to investigate a charge and thirty minutes later you hang up no closer to a resolution. Or something doesn’t quite fit or work the way you hoped. The “answer” is still the same – accept your feelings and then move on. You may not solve world peace or hunger in that moment or two, but you will feel better later. Instead of stewing over it for hours accept it, make the decisions, and keep moving. Moving on does not mean away from a solution, it may just mean finding a new solution. Or finding an entirely new way that does not cause the same irritation. Remember only you can control your feelings and only you can decide how your day is going to go. Mine is already behind – not because of the ten minutes I took, but because there are things to be done from yesterday. But hopefully I – and you – can now make a conscious decision about how to handle that next irritation when it comes knocking. Or at least I hope so.
