Sleepless nights? Headaches? Muscles ache all the time.? Pain all over? Can't remember where you parked your car or the information you just read? Are you a high performer? Does your family need more of you, both in time and money? Expectation high at work? Goals for 2019 unachievable?
I never understood what stress could cost me in the first half of my life, until I diagnosed myself with an auto-immune disease two years ago. The source? Stress!
Don't underestimate the effects of stress, whether from work or life, can have on you physically. It affects your ability to think, carry out daily tasks, and steals relationships. The unfortunate thing is that you don't even see it coming. It's like sand in the hourglass. Only until the sand has reached the other side of the hourglass do you find that you have run out of time. Now, you have to make adjustments and decisions which were hard to make a year ago, or two years ago, and are even harder to make now.
There were signals! Always a driver, ignoring the warning signs. I was still driving for better performance as a manager; everyone and everything was competition. I played every competitive sport growing up, and I was successful at most things, getting a volleyball scholarship to go to college and being the first person to go to college on both sides of my family.
When I was growing up, life was like a sport - you trained, you executed - until one day your execution was not the same. You wonder what happened, and you were forced to look at your behaviors. I believed that the more I gave, the more I would get, until about four years ago. The stress of not knowing if you have a job until the closing day of the acquisition fearful of elimination, tossed aside like trash. It's just business, right?
Wake up! Take a hard look at your motivations and your physical well being. Be the first person to recognize your personal warning signs. Stop and reassess. I defined my purpose in life after I was tossed aside and decided my mission was to inspire the human spirit, for people, processes, and performance. It's always been about others, and how to serve, I just forgot about myself along with my journey. You can't do anything in life that brings enjoyment or even success unless you are intentional about taking care of "YOU."
Here are some steps that may help you:
1. Identify the times in your life when you were at your very best. What were you doing, or "not" doing, and what you are doing now?
2. If you find you have physical signs of stress, take one minute every hour, to stop to empty your head, and do deep breathing.
3. Focus on the one thing that brings you the most joy in life.
What can ACE Coaching Company and Dina Readinger, MBA, do for your Team?
Dina transforms under performing Corporate teams by inspiring the human spirit for people, processes, and performance; increasing collaboration, accountability, and strategic execution.
Dina is an ICF Team Business Coach, coaching teams and their C-Suite leaders for over ten years with exceptional results. She has coached and consulted, pharmaceutical, biotech, healthcare, manufacturing, trading, non-profits, real estate, IT, policy, and project management teams. For further information, please visit www.acecoachingco.com or contact Dina at dina@acecoachingco.com
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