Patterns Archives | CEOptions

Gutsy, Leadership, Leadership Strategies, Patterns, Success

Are You Ready to Stop Self-Sabotaging?

Sylvia Lafair
October 8, 2019

I have received a rash of emails from women executives who are being plagued with self-doubt and a non-stop inner critic telling them “You fool, stop pretending. Business is never going to change.”

Does doubt keep you awake at night? Does that self-sabotaging voice get louder as the night becomes quieter? Do you know deep inside that you are destined for a more fulfilling work-life that just won’t ever happen?

Too many women are giving up and leaving great opportunities at work because they are self-sabotaging. There are such frustration and disappointment, and the results are to replay the old way: be passive and placating.

Here are the big questions: “How can that damn voice be tamed? What do I need to do to be fearless? What is the cost of being authentic?

Here is my response to all the ambitious, determined, creative women who are just getting tired waiting for the world to catch up with them and who are running out of patience, running on empty and still stuck in a cycle of self-sabotaging.

First, never give up!!!!

OK, I’ve been told: “That sounds good. Superficial and meaningless. If that’s all you can offer, you may as well stop right here.

Wait a second. There really is more.

WE MUST LOOK BACK BEFORE WE CAN BUILD FOR THE FUTURE.

What has been lost, trampled on, ignored, or avoided in your HERstory?

Here is the exercise that has helped thousands of women begin the journey to be fearless, authentic, stand out, be clear and ready to take on the world.

From my book GUTSY: How Women Leaders Make Change (pages 9-13)

My client Kathy is typical of many modern women. She is well educated and knows how to be politically correct in today’s highly competitive business world. She can be direct and clear, commanding attention most of the time. She can lead a team to success and gain the respect of her direct reports.

Yet, there is a heavy steel door that appears almost impossible to open. It is about pushing past a mind-set that is generations old. One that still labels and demands females to be nice, appropriate, and domesticated so they do not get a reputation as a bitch!

Here is what Kathy did to see how deeply her mindset had been set when she was still a little girl.

I had her buy 3 children’s books, books that are for and about little girls.

Now it’s your turn. Browse Google to find 3 books that will help you figure out where you personally got stuck. Here are some hints: Did you read these as a kid? Cinderella, Snow White, Nancy Drew, Eloise, Fancy Nancy, Olivia. Find 3 and like an anthropologist read them to see how they helped you become socialized.

Yes, what you read did impact you. Yes, it did.

Then answer the following questions:

Little girls should always ____________________
Good little girls would never _________________
You should never associate with girls who ________
Girls who are popular because they _____________
The perfect life includes _____________________

Want to do a real deep dive into the role culture plays in your present mindset? Contact me and one of our coaches will lead you through what needs to be changed so you don’t get trapped with outdated ideas.

AND men…..give the gift that will give back to you in positive ways. Buy your favorite ladies a copy of GUTSY.

Conflict Resolutions, Leadership, Leadership Strategies, Patterns, Success

Is being a leader a good idea?

Sylvia Lafair
June 12, 2019

Have you ever wondered if being a leader is such a good idea? Or, if you are in a strong leadership position, have you ever wondered if you made the right choice.

Leadership sounds so great. However, it’s not the ‘piece of cake’ so many people think it is.

Recently I got an email from one of the graduates from our Total Leadership Connections Program who had a seemingly perfect promotion as the COO of a major company. All was good during the honeymoon phase and recently all hell has broken out.

“Sylvia, I made a dreadful mistake…

This job is high profile and pays well. However, I am now learning it’s like living in a hornet’s nest. There is more in-fighting going on and office politics than I ever expected.

Damn!

Instead of being able to step into the role of a leader, my life has morphed into simply being both the fire marshal and the fireman.

Every day there is scorched earth because of the backstabbing and nastiness. I didn’t know the person I replaced had left so much negativity and nastiness behind for me to clean up.

I don’t know if I can handle this crap.

My wife said I am sullen and introspective all the time and even the kids are asking why daddy is always in a bad mood.

I know we learned a ton about how teams operate when I was in TLC and that has helped. However, it’s the day in and day out fires that have me annoyed and frustrated. Question: How long will it take till I have a team of people who can collaborate and create together without the turmoil.

HELP!!!.

Hope to hear from you soon,

Dan

Here was my reply to this very capable and competent leader:

Dear Dan,

You are expressing the thoughts of so many leaders who must use the ‘ROTO-ROOTER’ method to clean out the ‘stuck plumbing.’

We can go into the details of office politics later.

For now, I really want you to take a really deep breath and think about the core of what it means to be a leader. You can’t address the specifics until you rethink your personal mission statement and why you were so excited about taking this job in the first place, money, and prestige aside.

I hope you find this helpful.

Leading is not for the faint of heart. Leaders live dangerously, all the time. Frankly, it’s something you just need to get used to. Yes, it’s romantic and dramatic and exciting to be a leader. You are looked up to at work, in the community and hopefully at home also.

Leading can be inspirational and you can have a major impact on the lives of those who work with and for you. You can help to build fortunes and increase the bottom line.

Now, onto risk assessment.

You can and will take risks that may even jeopardize your career and impact your personal life. This is a tough place to be when most of us have been taught not to rock the boat.

Leaders need to learn how to meet resistance while disrupting the status quo. For, I promise you, there will be resistance to change. And when the resistance comes most leaders will revert to playing it safe and the old way.

I can tell you that as you sort through the office politics mess and decide you are ready to take the risk to plunge in and make the changes, you may get burned while attempting to put out the fires.

I want to suggest that there are ways to make a difference, strategies that can help with the turnaround.

You learned many of them when we talked about the 13 behavior patterns that come with us from our first organization, the family and into our present organization at work.

Now, you are ready for the advanced session of how to get your team to be more accountable, more productive and well….. just plain nicer with each other.

Please review Chapter 7 in Don’t Bring It To Work.

The title of the chapter is Talking Together. After reading we can reconnect. You just need a bit of a refresher on how to help your team surface the hidden conflict that has them so riled up.

Leadership is complex, challenging and creative. I know you have the core strength to make your job and your team spectacular.

Keep going and keep growing,

Sylvia.

Goals, Growth, Patterns, Success

How to break through the patterns holding you back

Sylvia Lafair
June 6, 2019

I want to talk to you about how to break through the patterns that are holding you back.

Get a rubber band. Well, you can wait till you read why you need one.

A rubber band around your wrist (any color you want is fine) can help you breakthrough the annoying outdated behavior patterns that get in the way of success.

“Oh” I hear you saying, “It can’t be that easy.”

I didn’t say easy. All I said was “Get a rubber band.”

Here is how the OUT Technique I have developed works.

Observe your behavior patterns and they automatically lose the vast hold they have.
Understand where they started and they fade even more into the background.
Transform them to their positive opposites and watch the magic happen.

So, what’s with the rubber band?

It’s a reminder that the time for change is now. Right now while you are in the middle of the change process. Next time you catch yourself being a pleaser or a procrastinator the rubber band can remind you to stay strong and not fall back or even lean back.

Let me share a quick story about how Tom used the rubber band technique was able to break through the patterns that were holding him back.

Tom who was a procrastinator and was always waiting to finish a project tomorrow he learned the rubber band trick and now, he will stay with a task till done. Tomorrow is for what is fresh and new. No more guilt and excuses, he is really using his time wisely.

Find a pattern you are sick and tired of repeating. It can be from mood eating to keep you from feeling sad to angry responses when your buttons get pushed.

Have a thick rubber band comfortably over your wrist. It needs to be loose so you can snap it. No, not to hurt yourself, just as a reminder.

When you are doing the same thing over and over without getting the results you want it’s time for a snap!

Like Tom, every time he would make an excuse about getting his work done he would pull the rubber band back and yes, there would be the ouch factor and sting.

So what, it’s not life-threatening. It’s life-enhancing.

Right after you snap it tell yourself you no longer want the negative in your life. Be very clear and keep it simple. For example, Tom would say “I am good enough to finish my work and not be afraid of criticism.” He would then add an important positive sentence “I am a creative person and my work is valuable.”

When Tom learned the OUT Technique he needed a stimulus to remind him not to stay in the outdated negative place of feeling he was always making mistakes and his work would not be appreciated. That was what used to happen in school and he told me “I hate handing anything in at work, even though I am good at what I do because now I see how I am reminded of the red marks on my homework that made me feel like crap.”

Memories are never truly buried and when a strong stimulus comes along to tap into old, hurtful thoughts it is so easy to go back to being the child or teen who was not good enough or afraid to speak up.

We do, all of us, bring to work in our computer bag what was in our school backpack. Here is one way to help you stay on the positive side of the road. Try the rubber band technique to help you break through the patterns holding you back and let me know what you think!

More good techniques to come so stay tuned.

Business, Business and Life Patterns, Leadership Strategies, Leadership Styles, Patterns

Are you a maximizer or a satisfier…take this simple test

Sylvia Lafair
April 24, 2019

How do you decide what to decide? There is a great line in the play Into the Woods that we have used in our Total Leadership connections program that shows how so many of us wait to let others make decisions while we stand on the sidelines waiting for a signal for our next move.

Picture Cinderella all dressed attending the fashionable royal ball and having a wonderful time with the handsome and charming Prince.

She is not used to making decisions and so leaves the ball to catch her pumpkin home before the clock strikes midnight. Talking later she says she was not sure how to tell the Prince she wanted to see him again. Her comment was “I left him a clue, my shoe and now he has to decide what to do.” (Yup it rhymes.)

In any case, she is so proud of herself because her decision was not to decide.

Any out there relate to this?

How many time have you held back waiting for someone else to make a decision so you can’t either be blamed or regret?

Do you, like Cinderella bide for time or do you have a clear idea of what you want and need and simply state your preference?

There are two main ways to decide. You can either be a maximizer or a satisfier.

Here are some questions to answer to find out which style you prefer:

Answers are from 1 which is strongly agree to 5 which is strongly disagree. Please answer quickly since your first thought is usually coming from your subconscious and will tell you more about yourself than you realize.

Are you happy with your life right now? Remember 1 strongly agree, 2 is agree, 3 is neutral, 4 is disagree, and 5 strongly disagree.
I like to learn from my decisions rather than get angry if things don’t turn out well.
I always live up to the highest standards I set for myself.
I have trouble deciding what I want to eat at a restaurant, especially if I am with other people.
I pivot to blame others if my decision leads to a poor outcome.
I don’t like to expect a positive outcome; I just don’t want to be disappointed.
I love to look back and constantly revise my history with lots of ‘if only’ or ‘it was not the right time’.
I aim low so I won’t be disappointed.
I am more right than wrong when making important decisions.
I tend to delay (like Cinderella) and prefer others to make the choices.
I am proud of myself for being strong and standing for what I believe.
I do lots of research before making decisions.
I ask at least a dozen people their opinion to be sure of what I decide.
No one in my family ever taught me how to make effective decisions.
I was a rebel and would make snap decisions rather than listen to others.

Add up all the strongly agrees.

If you have at least 6 or more, good for you, you tend to be a maximizer and have a positive and healthy way to look at life decisions.

Add up the strongly disagrees and know that if you have more than 5 you need to practice making decisions on a daily basis.

Start with something small in the morning, like choosing what you really want to eat for breakfast and keep going through the day. Notice what happens to your breathing each time you make a decision. Those who are Minimizers often feel a tightness in your gut, almost as if you are waiting for something awful to happen or that you will be judged or get yelled at.

The rest of you can be considered Compromisers and pleasing others is a major priority for you. Yet, while you may take more time to make a decision, often it turns out well for all parties involved.

My theory is that each of the three ways to decide is right in different situations.

We are all complex human beings and deciding what and how to decide the next steps is both exciting and curious. The fun is to go where you have not gone before and keep learning and growing.

Business and Life Patterns, Communication, Confidence, Patterns

Gaslighting and how it can impact you

Sylvia Lafair
April 17, 2019

Gaslighting is a hot topic these days. Many people are victims of gaslighting without even knowing it. It affects your sense of self-worth, your confidence, and your sanity.

Have you ever spent time with a narcissist or a sociopath? You can sense them from their cunning and self-importance. They are the opposite of fine wine. They get worse with time!

Spend enough hours with those folks and soon you will begin to question your sanity.

Like Don.

He called me requesting some meds for anxiety. As a psychologist, I do not prescribe medication. As his executive coach, we agreed to dig a bit deeper. It soon became clear that he was moving far south of healthy functioning from mixed messages at work.

In my book, Don’t Bring It To Work I talk about the 13 most common behavior patterns we learned as children that we bring into the workplace. The one that is always considered the most difficult to work with, the most difficult to change, I call The Splitter.

Don soon learned that his boss, the CEO of the company was making Don question his own sanity.

Splitters are master manipulators. They are the best of the best in the narcissist and sociopath realm. Splitters are masters at deflecting problems onto others and knowingly give wrong information. They convince you that you just didn’t listen to the right information. They have the ability to really drive you nuts, as in totally crazy and you begin to question everything you say and think.

These Splitters, narcissists, and sociopaths are also the best of the best at gaslighting.

Gaslighting is making the rounds these days and an old film from 1944 gives us the story. Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer is a classic worth watching. It’s like an older version of Game of Thrones showing the misuse of power, revenge, murder, and intrigue.

It’s all about human behavior that seems to be part of our human destiny (until we finally say stop). So, read on and learn.

Gaslighters are compulsive liars (think about any you know personally). My best is a woman who worked for us years ago named Janet. She was a master manipulator and it took some time to figure out what was really going on. I owe her a debt of gratitude since the term Splitter came from her insane behavior. It took time for our entire staff to see how destructive she was (and sadly still is).

Here’s what the Splitters, narcissists, and sociopaths do:

They use gaslighting to gain power and control

They convince you they are right and what you think happened was wrong

They minimize their role to one of being insignificant (“no big deal”)

They conveniently forget and never can remember what they did as abusive

They play the victim while inside they are smirking at you

They are never accountable for their actions

They always vote by including others to convince you they are right

They will back out on promises and say they never ever agreed

They make up conversations that make them look good and you look awful

Problem is they dress well, speak effectively, and will talk to others about you and tell you they “have your back” while they tell you that others don’t care for you.

Want to know how to handle splitters (aka narcissists and sociopaths)? Please read my book, especially pages 83-84 and 156-157.

Now, there is some good news. Splitters who can transform their very destructive behavior become Peace Makers. It takes work to drill down to the root of where and how this started. Then it takes time to change behavior. It can be done.

No Janet never changed and she has had maybe 5 more jobs since she left out organization. However, I can spot a splitter, gaslighter, narcissist, sociopath within minutes these days. If you are working (or living) with a gaslighting splitter, give me a call and I would be honored to help you find your way out of the maze of misery they create.

Call 570 233 1042 to set time to talk.

Leadership Strategies, Leadership Styles, Patterns

How the Pattern Breakthrough Process Creates Change

Sylvia Lafair
February 6, 2019

Here at Ceoptions we have been using our signature pattern breakthrough process to create lasting change and help today’s leaders prepare for the inevitable challenges that come their way.

Question: How does a 13- year- old boy scoring points for his basketball team connect with his mother climbing the corporate ladder?

Here’s the story recently told to me by CEO facilitator and coach, Joanne LaMarca Mathisen.

“Our son had joined a basketball team in town that many local boys had been playing on for a couple of years. We noticed our son, who was no shrinking violet when he played with his close friends in our backyard, seemed to be a very passive player on his new team. Instead of shooting the ball, he’d most often pass it to another team member. The more we watched him play from the bleachers, the more we realized the confidence he had competing with his friends in our yard, didn’t translate to the court playing with new boys.”

“Initially, we did the typical parent thing, telling him he was as good as the rest of the team. It fell on deaf ears.”

“But then one night while watching him, it came to me. My son was exhibiting the same behavior patterns I grew up with. These patterns show up in the generations that follow us unless we identify and break them. Then I had an idea based on what I had learned as a leadership coach. I wanted him to see the larger picture about something as subtle and complex as what it means to have confidence. I grew up in a house where my dad was boss and what he said, went. What my sister and I had to say didn’t matter much. It “wasn’t my place” to speak up because in our house my father often joked “children should be seen and not heard.” It was no surprise I let others take charge and now so was my son.

So I sat my son down and told him my story. When I first began my career at NBC, I believed, because I was so new to the company, it “wasn’t my place” to speak up if I thought I had a good idea that would improve our product. I assumed everyone else who’d been with the company longer, knew better. That came from my upbringing. But when I went through my leadership training, I learned it was not only my place to speak up, it was also my job. That’s when I started to steadily rise up the ranks.

I continued to tell him that as I watched him on the court, I saw myself. Someone who was too timid to take charge. After all, the other boys had been on the team for years. And I told him just like it was not only my right to speak up, it was my responsibility, it was his right and responsibility to take charge on the court and shoot the ball. Just because he was the new guy, didn’t mean he had to take a back seat to the rest of the team. He owed it to the team to be the best he could be.

“He was really, really listening. Not the typical teen telling me to hurry with my story. I let him know that once I realized this was a family pattern and that I had the ability to breakthrough and move up the corporate ladder from a place of confidence and that he could do the same.

“That was it. Each generation has the ability to change old, outdated ways of thinking and reacting and he could strengthen his confidence muscles by using them even if it was uncomfortable.

“The next game, he scored 15 points.”

This is when The Pattern Breakthrough Process can assist each of you to have amazing things happen in ways you least expect.

Leadership strategies are not just for the workplace. All relationships need the benefit of learning the way OUT (Observe, Understand Transform) what gets in the way of success. Once you see how the impact of family, culture, and crises shows up in your life you can pass this knowledge to those around you.

If you would like a strategy session with Joanne please contact me at 570 233 1042 or email sylvia@ceoptions.com to get you started.

Communication Rules to Break Old Patterns

Communication, Patterns

Communication rules to help you experiment and break the old patterns

Sylvia Lafair
January 1, 2019

The new year is the perfect time to start looking at breaking old patterns on communication. In this post I cover a few communication rules that will help you to have your best year.

Do you ever pay attention to how we greet each other? Like, ‘how are you’ and the answer is almost always ‘fine.’

What do you say during the first 2 weeks of each new year?

‘Happy New Year’ of course. Did you ever want to stir things up a bit to get new and different responses when you talk to someone? Maybe, just maybe, it’s a good time to experiment and break the old patterns of communication repetition.

Think about this for a moment. What do you want as the result of talking with someone?

If it really is merely to be polite and move on, that’s fine. Then, just a ‘Happy New Year’ with an extra sentence or two could be fun. You can add ‘have a year filled with (you can just pick one of the following: high adventure/grand experiences/deep learning/or whatever you think is appropriate to the specific situation).

I would venture to bet that you will get more than a numb nod. Maybe a smile or two or even some words of appreciation.

I’ve heard it said—- this is important—-that the good will you gain in those first two weeks of the year will predict how the rest of the year will go. Good start, good year. Bad start, well you know the rest.

Here’s one communication rule that you may already know.

This is just a bit of a reminder, so you can be sure to get the appreciation you require for a good year.

Ask questions. Better yet, ask open ended questions. Open ended questions are the ones you cannot answer with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no.’

I would bet that if you start the year by asking questions, you’ll want to continue to ask. It shows you are interested in others, and that you want to hear more than just your own point of view.

And one of my other favorite communication rules is that if you listen without interrupting, you will be appreciated beyond belief.

Another communication rule that will bear fruit is to ask people, during the first weeks of what we all see as filled with possibilities, about their hopes and dreams for the coming year.

Again, you don’t have to add your point of view or feel responsible to give helpful comments. Just listen.

This being said, my hope for all of us, is that we all continue to learn, to blossom, to be kind and helpful, to keep going and keep growing.

And, I’d like to be among the first to acknowledge all of you for the wonderful work you are doing in the world.

man thinking about how to sustain growth

Business, Business and Life Patterns, Leadership Strategies, Patterns, Success

How to sustain growth and become a better version of you

Sylvia Lafair
December 26, 2018

In this article I share my thoughts about how to sustain growth and become a better version of you.

Are you hearing bells yet? There will be a lot of people chanting, ‘Ring out the old and bring in the new. That’s the motto I am starting to hear with only a few days left to embrace this year.

It’s a similar pattern all over the world.

Let’s take a few minutes for a deeper look at what that means: Do we really want to ring out the old? And what is the new we all talk about?

Recently a client told me she was sick of seeing and hearing so many superficial comments about how to make the new year a great one. She said:

“Every year I make the same promises to myself. I promise to be more caring and kind- hearted at home and to be more of a cheerleader to my direct reports at work. And yet, by day 7 of the new year, I can feel myself falling backwards, into the old behaviors that I specifically want to change.

I think of myself as a boomerang. Not good!

What is the magic formula, or if not magic, at least a formula that will keep me on track for more than a few days?

And by the way, did I mention that I also want to lose a few pounds?

My question is: what can I do to sustain growth throughout the year and see really productive changes in 365 days?”

My response: We’ve all been there. Change is annoying, uncomfortable and often fearful. And, I believe, it is human nature to want to do better and be better. It’s in the how, that we slip and fall.

First, you need to get prepared. Louis Pasteur, you know the guy who invented the technique for treating milk and wine to stop bacterial contamination. His famous quote “Chance favors only the prepared mind” is one you can print out and put somewhere at home and at work.

There are way too many people and products on the market these days that promise instant transformation if you just do ‘this one thing.”

Won’t work over the long haul.

I suggest you begin the new year preparing for change. You can’t wish for the magic of change to happen until you figure out what patterns of behavior you keep repeating so you can break that frustrating cycle of pattern repetition.

Start by taking the Leadership Development Quiz to see which of the 13 most common patterns in the family and in the workplace have your name on them. Then comes the hard work to take the time to observe yourself without judging.

This is how the mind gets prepared for change and getting into a place where you can sustain growth.

I believe the process of deep, long term change begins with preparation. Think of it this way: prior preparation cuts the time to success in half. Take the opportunity at the beginning of the year to search inside yourself and observe before you make half baked promises to yourself that kid you into thinking you will have important changes handled in a week or two.

Research indicates that, at best, it takes 90 days for real change to lock in. So, by end of March you should be able to evaluate your progress with being able to sustain growth and become a better version of you .

My Pattern Aware Success Guide is surprise surprise, a 90 days program in an ebook, to help you sustain growth, make the changes you choose, like the woman above who wants to be more caring and kind-hearted at home and more of a cheerleader to her direct reports at work.

Check out the Pattern Aware Success Guide on Amazon.

And I have a special gift for all of you for the new year. It’s a copy of my webinar Give Change a Chance.

All you have to do is send me an email and it’s yours to help prepare you for what looks like a powerful roller coaster ride in 2019.

Here’s to being able to sustain growth and become a better version of you!

Business, Gutsy, Patterns

My thoughts about the major change in gender relationships

Sylvia Lafair
December 18, 2018

Here’s an idea for a special gift for the gals in your life. It’s one of those gifts that keeps on giving for the rest of the year.

Now, I’m not bragging (although I do teach women that it is okay to ‘toot your own horn.’ It’s just that I received an email from a man recently that got me thinking about the next new wave in male-female relationships.

Here’s part of his email:

“I bought your book “GUTSY: How Women Leaders Make Change” for my wife after she found some of your webinars on line and loved them. Out of curiosity I started to read. She didn’t get the book till I was finished. What is amazing is that I truly understand her better now. And that age-old question “What do women want?” is not as foggy in my mind as it used to be. I know one of the answers you provide is that “Women want to be seen, heard, respected and appreciated.”

I know that we all, men and women, want to be seen, heard, respected and appreciated. However, the trek little girls make to become strong women is so different from the one that I, as a male, experienced.

The book was an eye opener.

Even more, I can be a stronger ally in helping my teen age daughters navigate the rough waters of adolescence. And, even more than that, I communicate differently at work (who knew that men have fewer words to use daily than women and I now have important meetings earlier in the day when I still have most of my words to use)…😃

Keep up the good work and tell men to read GUTSY.”

So, here’s the deal. Any man who buys the book and lets me know will get the GUTSY Success Guide as my gift to you.

Here are just a few more of my thoughts about the major change in gender relationships.

The headlines in 2018 have been filled with story after story about how the role of women in Western society has dramatically changed for the better. From politics to entertainment and everything in between, we have watched history unfold as women have stopped asking for equality and instead have taken charge, stepping into leadership roles across all segments of society. Women no longer talk about change, hope for change, or ask permission to change – they instead make change.

It is NOW, yes NOW, that we finally have a new map to build a future unlike the past.

I believe we are at a tipping point to redesign relationships between men and women for the benefit of all of us. I am in the process of making additional information available as an on-line educational program in 2019. This will give women (and men) from all walks of life the opportunity to take my work forward, which blends knowledge from business and psychology to awaken new ideas and possibilities.

Happy gift giving,

Sylvia

Business and Life Patterns, Gutsy, Patterns

Which one are you: Overwhelmed, Overworked or Frustrated?

Sylvia Lafair
December 11, 2018

Did you ever wonder if men feel as overwhelmed, overworked, and frustrated as women do, on a daily basis?

I did some digging to find the answers.

I spent time looking at the three areas of what it means to be overwhelmed, overworked, and frustrated.

Here is what I found.

OVERWHELMED

Let’s look at being overwhelmed first: Those of us who are pleasers (and women make up the majority of pleasers) who stay in that place of feeling like there is not one more ounce of energy to do another thing. This can bring tears, anger, depression, and all types of physical symptoms like headaches, heartaches, and hypertension. The list is long.

Look, when you can’t say NO it’s just like any other addiction. It takes over and leaves little room for honest thinking about what you should be doing. You become a puppet to the pattern you developed, that began when you watched and reacted to your parents or caretakers who helped mold your responses.

Saying YES to please others can be very comforting initially. You are liked, you are talked about in flattering terms. You are “the good one.”

However, like any addiction, the stakes keep getting higher as people want more and more from you and you have no more to give. Tough spot to be in.

Full disclosure. I, myself, am a recovering pleaser.

Here’s what I discovered as I began the journey from pleaser to its positive opposite, being a truth teller.

I had to learn that to NOT SPEAK UP is eventually destructive. It takes time and practice to think of yourself first, or at least, not ignore your personal wants and needs.

So, as far as overwhelmed, women win the title.

OVERWORKED

Let’s move to overworked. In our world the typical 9 to 5 job is virtually a myth. Just about everyone works more than 40 hours a week. Many who are in positions of leadership work an 80- hour week.

When stress is high, we all, men and women, tend to finally “blow our tops.” That is when the drama queen and king show up. One way to reduce stress is to yell and make the situation look much worse than it is. For a brief time, the release of spewing out not only the annoyance of a situation, also using colorful language really does help. At least, for the moment.

However, this is a defense mechanism that can only go so far. After the initial explosion, there is always debris that must be cleared away. Sure, it feels good to take a plate and smash it to make a statement. However, then the splattered plate must be cleaned up. And words said in anger with lots of finger pointing also must be cleared up.

In the realm of overworked, where the drama queen or king does NOT SHUT UP, it’s about equal for men and women. Those who can harness this energy can become great storytellers and use the energy in a positive way.

FRUSTRATED

The third area I considered are those who are frustrated and yet, do NOT OWN UP. This looks different for men and women. However, when you don’t own up to what has happened and are unwilling to be accountable the results are equally disastrous.

Women who do not own up to their part in any situation are seen as victims. They tend to bow their heads, say they were never told what to do, or some other lame excuse like that. This is the ‘deer in the headlight’s’ syndrome.

When women see their part in any given situation, they can become explorers who will look for better and new ways to handle what is going on. This is a great energy boost to get up and get going. Frustration melts away as more creative and purposeful ways of handling life’s situations are explored.

Men who do NOT OWN UP, when they are frustrated, become persecutors (aka bullies) and tend to point their index finger at everyone else. It becomes, “he said, she said, they said” with no looking inward at oneself.

If men can finally see their part in any given situation, they become visionaries. They take that finger pointing at others and point it toward the sky, painting a picture of future possibilities.

Thus, when it comes to frustration, women and men handle the situations differently. Yet, I say this one is also a toss-up on who is the more frustrated.

I would love to hear your thoughts about how you and those around you handle being overwhelmed, overworked and frustrated. This becomes even more apparent during this holiday season. So, it’s a great time to begin to observe your behavior and make a commitment to change.