The Biggest Lie You've Been Told

Time to read: Less than one minute

Dear Rebels,

When you were young, did you dream of your future? Maybe a job that earned a good living. A family. Time to pursue your passions and interests. Travel. Then, once you got that job, you poured yourself into it with gusto (or not). You played volleyball after work. You took painting classes or sang in a choir. You slept in on weekends and had dinner regularly with friends.

Then maybe you committed to a partner. Perhaps you built a family. You got promoted or changed jobs or went back to school. Your parents got older. Maybe you bought a house. Life got more complex and even though it happened over years, it seems like overnight you became exhausted, overwhelmed, and focused on life as a checklist of transactions. You used to feel like you had it all together and now balls are dropping, friends are a distant memory, exercise was first to go, and the "few tips" you've tried to regain control lasted all of a minute before everything snapped back to the relentless new "normal."

Does some version of this sound familiar?

I grew up in the 1980s when young people were fed the biggest lie of all time.

The lie?

You can have it all.

It's total crap.

Also total crap is the feeling that there is something wrong with you if you can't manage it all.

A wise mentor once said to me, "You can have anything. You just can't have everything."

Cue one of my favorite themes: Choices.

You get to choose your priorities. When you're trying to stuff 15 pounds of life into a 5 pound bag, you get to choose what to let go, what is non-negotiable, what can wait, and what you'll prioritize.

Stop beating yourself up for not being able to manage it all. No one can. It's a lie.

With rebel love,

Christina

P.S. Know someone who needs to let go of the lie? Send them here to find relief.

How to Get Out of Exhaustion and Overwhelm

Time to read: Less than one minute and fifteen seconds

Hello Rebels,

It's 6:00 am. Your feet are barely on the floor, and you're already behind. You stayed up after your children's bedtime to empty your stuffed inbox and get ahead on that presentation you couldn't finish during your back-to-back day. Then there is summer scheduling, end of school activities, and picking up the slack while your colleagues take spring vacation. Remember exercise? Ha!

You're exhausted before you've started, and although some days are more packed than others, they all mush together in one long string of busy-ness.

Feel familiar?

You think that if you find the right productivity strategy, you'll be able to fix this. You get creative with your company's insistence that you "do more with less." You only check email once or twice a day. You focus on the three most important things you need to get done. These strategies work to some extent, and nothing seems to change.

I love productivity tips as much as the next busy person. And, organizing your desk differently or making prioritized lists is only going to get you so far.

What will actually get you out of exhaustion and overwhelm, is a change in you.

To help you experiment with this idea, I turned to a process I use in my own life. I have this amazing set of cards full of empowering choices and beliefs. I pull one every day to anchor how I will be with whatever is happening that day.

Today, I pulled three cards for you. (See the photo above.) Your three cards are:

Willingness: This is one of my favorites. You have to be willing to do things differently today. To slow down. To stop worrying. To get into action. Even when things suck, we're often not actually willing to change it.

I am creative: Where can you lean into your wild creativity to bring more joy, new solutions, or less stress to your work?

I choose trust: I pull a card everyday, and I seriously trust 4 out of 5 times. Seems like this one might be kind of important. Where do you not trust yourself? Or others? Where can you lean into more trust to bring ease to your work and relationships?

Pick one of these cards and use it to navigate your day. Then hit reply to this email and tell me what happens.

I always love to hear from you.

With rebel love,

Christina

P.S. Please share these cards with a friend or colleague who needs a little more trust, creativity or willingness. They can join our merry band of rebels here.

Struggle vs. Ease... Which Do You Choose?

Time to read: 1 minute, 35 seconds

Let's all move into Hotel Ease!

Hi Rebels!

This week, I had a fun email exchange with one of your sister rebels who asked me about the time it takes to write these newsletters. She writes a blog and said it sometimes takes her 10-12 hours to produce a blog post and that "writing is hard work." That got me thinking about all the things you do every day that feel like "hard work."

I had to really think about that before I replied.

1. Because I wanted to say something useful.
2. Because over the years, I have developed a very different relationship with writing and work.

For years, I was mired in a story that work was hard and required struggle. Think: No pain, no gain.

To produce a dissertation, I became unreliable to my friends, unavailable to my partner, and worked many, many hours because I believed "hard work" was the only thing that would get me that darn PhD.

In my corporate job, I believed that long hours and "hard" work made me successful and got me recognized as a top performer. Toward the end of my time at my corporate job, I was working late at night, struggling to keep up with email, and working "hard" while sacrificing time with my family and frankly, my sanity.

The truth is... this "hard" work got me a PhD and did get me recognized as a top performer. And, there were huge costs associated with my choice to see work as "hard" and as a "struggle."

A couple of years ago, I decided to change my perspective toward work, and it has made all the difference. Here's what I said (among other things, like it takes me 20-30 minutes to write a newsletter) in the email exchange. I share this because I'd love for you to be able to shift from "hard" to "ease."

"I hold writing these newsletters (like I hold most things) as fun and easy. It’s part of my personal practices to let go of struggle so I practice ease (not struggle) with things like my newsletter. Holding it with ease liberates the process to take less time and actually be easeful. Sometimes, I don’t have a clue as to what to write, and then it takes a little longer."

Think about a place in your life where you believe "hard work" and struggle are the key to your success. Where can you breathe ease into the process. (Notice, I'm not saying "easy." Even ease has elements of challenge. The question is, what would it be like to drop the struggle and do the same work with ease?)

Give it a try then write and tell me all about it. I love hearing from you.

With rebel love,

Christina

P.S. If you love this newsletter, please share it with your friends and colleagues. The more, the merrier. Just forward it to them. They can join us here.

Overwhelmed By Stuff? 4 Tips for Gaining Control

Time to read: Because you want bonus time to clean your desk, 1:08.02 minutes to read

The storage room in our attic. Many of those boxes are going to go!

Hello corporate rebels!

Every year at Christmas, I feel the need to purge my house. I feel stressed about the number of gifts that come in the door during the holiday so in preparation, I want piles of stuff to go out first. This urge got me thinking about you and the gifts you feel you can't send to Goodwill, your cluttered desk, or your filled basement. How are you effected by your stuff?

For better or worse, Christmas in America heavily features things. So, as holiday gift-giving fast approaches, here are some tips for dealing with the stuff on your desk and in your home.

1. Stuff takes energy. Recognize that stuff isn't neutral. Your stuff requires management, sorting, and organizing. The crap on your desk takes attention, focus and time that could be freed for more creative and productive activities.
2. Manage the in-flow. Minimize the amount of stuff that comes into your life. You know all those freebies given away at conferences? Resist. Does your mother show love by showering your kids with toys? Talk to her. You don't have to manage stuff you never get.
3. Prioritize space over stuff. Empty shelves, clear counters, and a clean desk feel like a giant exhale. Create space so you can breathe and open your creativity for meaningful work. Space lets energy flow more freely. More of that, please!
4. Trust the future. I've heard that holding onto things because you "might need it someday" is a vote of no-confidence in your ability to trust the future. You can trust that you can handle whatever happens in your life and that you will be ready for anything. Releasing things you don't use now is a testament to trusting yourself.

So, in those precious hours when the office is quiet during the holidays, use these tips to help you clean out your files and create space on your desk. The you who returns after Christmas will be grateful!

My commitment is to throw out boxes of mementos and files from my dissertation that I haven't opened since 1999. Hit reply to this email and tell me your commitment to creating more space in your life this holiday season.

Happy purging!

Christina

P.S. Have a friend who likes Christmas as much as I do? This December's theme is gifts. Forward this newsletter to them. They can join us here.

I Email (Text), Therefore I Am

Time to read: Email Mastery - Part 2 of 2. 1 minute and 15 seconds to read.

Last week I wrote about email as a distraction that we call "work." This week, I want to highlight another way that email invades your consciousness. First, a little background:

As an executive coach, I work from home, and I spend a lot of time with my dog alone. As an uber extrovert, I've been surprised at how ok I am with this arrangement. And, I love connecting - with friends, on the phone with clients, the person at the checkout counter, and other parents at my children's school. I love email. Email gives me an easy way to connect with all of you, and a great way to keep in touch with friends in countries far away.

And, email can get out of hand.

Geez, I hate to even admit this.

At times, email gives me a reason for being. Texting does, too. Tell me if you've ever experienced this (please really do tell me so I don't feel so weird): It's the weekend and you check your email more frequently than perhaps is necessary since no one is online, except they are, and when you receive an email (or a text), you get a little dopamine hit that says, "thank goodness, I matter."

Wow. Did I really admit that?

Here's the thing. I'm saying this as much for my sake as for yours. Your email does not equal your mattering. In fact, you matter just because you do, even if you never received another email in your entire life.

What does matter is your ability to connect. You matter because you show up, you're kind, and you make a difference in the communities you occupy, at work and in life. Your presence makes a difference to the people you love and even to the strangers who cross your path. That matters.

Your email has nothing to do with it, even if it feels like it sometimes. So, you really can put it down.

With rebel love,

Christina

P.S. Wanna share the mattering with your friends? You can! Just forward this email to them and they can join us here.

Are You Distracted?

Time to read: Part 1 of a 2-part series on email mastery. Less than one minute to read so you don't get distracted!

Today is newsletter day, meaning I set a goal to write 3 newsletters. Here is what I have accomplished thus far: walked the dog, marinated chicken, went to yoga, ate lunch, unloaded the dishwasher, folded laundry, scooped litter boxes, and checked email, like 6 or 7 times. When you work from home, the danger is distraction.

And, if you work in an office, the danger is distraction! Tea, anyone?!

Email is a special form of distraction. When you chat in the hall with your friends or I clean out the garage, we know we are not working. (I mean, yes, you can make a case that you are building relationships and still getting things done, and it's not writing a newsletter or attending to that big deadline you have at the end of the week.)

Email, on the other hand, has the illusion of working. If you spend an hour replying to requests and setting up meetings and cleaning out the old inbox, it feels like working. Sometimes, cleaning out your inbox is a worthy activity, but it is not moving you forward on the creative, thoughtful, innovative projects and ideas that will advance your career. "He did a great job crafting emails this year" or "She really kept her inbox in check" is not going to get you promoted.

So, what to do?

1. Close your email and focus on the innovative and creative projects that need your full attention, even if only for 25 minutes.
2. Check email once or twice a day at designated times. (I have never been successful at this one. You'll learn more next week in Part 2 of Email Mastery).
3. Only use email for quick responses. For longer, more nuanced situations, and certainly in conflict, pick up the phone.

Get off your email. You have creative things to do!

With rebel love,

Christina

P.S. Please forward this newsletter to your friends. They want to be happier at work, too. They can join here.

This Is For All the Overachievers!

Time to read: A reasonable, not-overachieving one minute and thirty-six seconds

(No photo this week because I'm not overachieving today!)

Hi, my name is Christina, and I'm an overachiever. It's been 2 months since my last overachievement, and it's been going ok. Well, if I'm honest I've been jonesing for another overachievement and fighting the weak parts of myself to not fall off the wagon into overwork and stress.

It's nice to meet you. Can you relate?

Over-acheiving is an addiction because your brain gets a delicious hit of dopamine every time you check one more to-do off the list. Ahhh…..so good.

So, in the absence of over-working, I've been uncomfortable. I don't mean the pillow-on-the-couch-is-squished-in-a-weird-way uncomfortable. I mean a deep down in my gut uncomfortable. I feel antsy and discombobulated. I have more than enough work right now, and I'm learning a ton about myself and my emotions in an advanced coach training course. There's a lot going on at home, too, so it's not like I'm sitting around eating bonbons and watching Oprah all day (and, hey, no judgment if you eat bonbons and watch Oprah). My plate is full, and I'm uncomfortable because it is not over-full, and I'm not ploughing ahead on a big project.

If you are a chronic overachiever and cycle through burnout and exhaustion, here are some thoughts:

1. The messages around you state that more is always better. Bigger portions. More with less. Faster results. Higher salaries. More responsibility. You find yourself on a constant hamster wheel in pursuit of "more." I'll tell you this, it will never be enough. There is no "ahhh…I made it" at the end of that game.
2. Notice if you use work to avoid discomfort. A friend of mine once observed, "Christina, you work to manage your anxiety." You may be using work to numb uncomfortable feelings (like fear, doubt, or uncertainty).
3. Notice how your sense of self-worth and value is wrapped up in what you produce. Overachieving has made me successful. It got me a PhD, corporate promotions and a successful coaching business. And each time, there has been a price to pay to my relationships, wellbeing, and happiness. The price isn't worth it anymore (and probably never was), and I'm determined to learn how to be successful without the overworking.
4. See what it happens when you give yourself permission to stop overachieving and just be with the discomfort, even if it's only for 2 seconds. Start small and work up from there. I have a feeling the secret to peace, flow, and ease is weirdly in the discomfort.
5. Ask yourself, "for the sake of what?" What's the purpose behind the achievement? Is it joy and learning or is it the outcome and recognition? Align your work to your values and align your daily choices to what you want for your entire life, including family, self-care, hobbies, and relationships.

I don't have the answer to this one yet as I'm on this journey with you. When I figure it out, I'll let you know.

For now, you are enough. You have enough. You're doing enough.

More soon!

Christina

P.S. Think of 2-3 friends who need to hear the message that they are enough and are doing enough. Send them this newsletter with your love and this link so they can sign up to hear more!