This Job is Killing Me

 Have you ever wondered if your job is killing you?  Have you ever had a hard day where your boss/work/customer drove you to such levels of stress that you wondered if the work was actually shortening your hours on this earth?

I spent all last year and this summer denying that I felt death's raspy breath in the quiet, alone moments I spent finishing the paperwork (forms, grades, emails) all the daily crises wouldn't allow me to finish within the work day.  Until reality reared up and smacked me silly with impossibility.  It didn't matter how hard I worked, how efficient I was.  No matter what I did, there would always be more work than I could finish.

So, what does a person do with that?  Ignore it!  Ignorance was the key.  I needed to embrace ignorance.

Check out this link: http://t.co/rL8QNIHqlq

The basic premise: no matter how hard leaders work, how efficiently, how much they delegate, there will always be more work than can be done within a 24 hour period.  Those of us guilty that we took a 4 hour nap from 1 am to 5 am?  Never sleep again, and it won't matter.  THERE'S NOTHING WE CAN DO!  The answer is in what we choose NOT TO DO!

Great article.  Anyone in leadership, I know you have challenged yourself to be more efficient, organized and focused.  You never eat lunch.  You have long forgotten the taste of sleep.  Enough pointless masochism: read the article!  There are things in our work we just need to ignore.

Secondly, I needed to RETHINK stress.  Previously I thought stress was killing me.  But I recently came across a video that postulated it was how I thought about stress that was killing me.  My thoughts and not stress were killing me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcGyVTAoXEU

The YouTube title says it all: How to Make Stress Your Friend

It's really a great video, life changing in fact.  The basic premise?
Stress is good; stress is necessary.  The fact we have learned that stress is bad, causes the common cold, heart attacks and alcoholism (etc.etc.etc.) is actually a LIE.

It isn't stress.  It is what we think of stress.  If we can learn to appreciate stress, well, this is the mind-blow of the video, if we can learn to appreciate stress, all the medical harm DISAPPEARS!

Conclusion 
You're busy people; you're leaders trying to be more efficient, effective and competent.  If all you do is read the highlighted portions of this blog you will know all you need to know: ignore what needs to be ignored AND appreciate stress as a good and necessary part of your job.

And please, go to sleep.  This job isn't killing you.  It is saving you, just as you have promised your profession toward saving others.

Thank you leaders for every thing every day you do to make this world a better place.  We all appreciate you!