L. Eric Culverson - www.EricCulverson.com
This discussion series is an excerpt of my book: The Competence Myth - Why your technical skills are no longer enough and what you can do about it (based on Chapter 8: Becoming a Master of Change
There are four steps to you becoming a master of change, the first was Acceptance, and the second is to Connect –Proactively.
With whom? Your family, friends, and loved ones.
This may sound obvious. But the fact is that during periods of prolonged stress and uncertainty, like when we’re dealing with rapid and constant change, it’s easier than you might think to become emotionally isolated. That’s not to say that we stop loving those around us. And we certainly don’t stop needing their love. But, ongoing anxiety has an insidious side effect. It robs us of our energy and vitality, and this may be reflected in both the quantity and quality of time we spend with those closest to us.
The sad irony is that those same connections can bring us strength and a renewed sense of purpose and determination. Look, for any of us to operate at our highest individual levels of productivity and effectiveness, we need to be emotionally and psychologically balanced. There’s no getting around that!
We’re only human! Even though we have the capacity to do amazing things, and although we have already accomplished so much, the fact remains; we are only human. None of us can endure ongoing anxiety and uncertainty without it taking its toll.
For guys, this is especially true because we don’t typically discuss our feelings. No thank you! What would be the fun of that? Instead, we persevere, continually trying to right the ship, “fix” the problem. In our own noble but short-sighted perspective, we try hard to make things okay for everyone else around us.
Admittedly, I’m one those guys who, in the past, was notorious for not discussing my feelings. If something was wrong, nobody knew about it until the problem was fixed, somehow resolved, or permanently swept under the rug. Oh yeah, we all know how that works!