All in Worries

The 7 Lies I Used To Believe About Being A Parent

The 7 Lies I Used To Believe About Being A Parent

Dawn Fiske
Parenting, Worries, The Strength of Women, Talk Through Emotions

Here’s a quick question for you…..

If you were offered a job, but they stressed that the job did not come with a manual, nor would they provide you with any training whatsoever, that although it would prove to be the most rewarding role you could imagine, should anything negative happen whatsoever, you would always feel that you were to blame and that lastly, if you accepted the role, it would be a role for life, you could never ever resign or walk away. Would you accept the role or would you run for the hills? Yet, this is the reality when we become a parent.

Here are 7 lies I used to believe about being a parent.

Is When As Important As How? Some Time Management Tips To Improve Your Results

Is When As Important As How? Some Time Management Tips To Improve Your Results

Dawn Fiske
Achieving Goals, Personal Improvement, Time Management Advice, Time Management Tips, Time Management, Timing, Worries

Researchers have known for some time that 80% of us commonly experience a peak in our concentration and focus in the morning, a trough soon after lunch, and a recovery period sometime before the close of business - or put another way; an up-down-back up.

It might not be too surprising to learn that certain types of tasks are better suited to one phase than the others and if we are aware of this, then we could use it to our advantage. Analytical work has been found to be much better suited to the ‘peak’ phase, or the first part of our working day. Brainstorming and creative tasks are often better performed in the ‘recovery’ part of the day, whereas mundane and un-demanding tasks, such as admin, are much better suited to the post-lunch dip phase of the day.

A shocking finding came when Danish researchers looked at two million standardised test scores in Denmark. They found that students who took the test in the morning scored significantly better than students who took the test in the afternoon. In fact, they found that taking the test in the afternoon is equivalent to missing two weeks of school.

Research reveals that time of day explains around 20% of the variance in how people perform on cognitive tasks, highlighting the importance of not just writing a plan or to-do list for our day, but crucially to also consider when we carry out those tasks. If we are able to consciously block out time in our calendar for certain tasks in order to fully maximise our peak concentration and focus phase, and again to ensure we get as much out of the ‘recovery’ phase as we can, we will find that our overall effectiveness and productivity will enormously benefit.

But what if we have no control over the timing? What if we have an important interview, an aptitude test, driving test, exam, or meeting that has been scheduled for us and we cannot alter the timing? Thankfully, there are things we can do.

People given a 20 to 30-minute break during which they ran or walked around outside, were found to not only improve their performance scores, but they were even higher than tasks carried out in the ‘trough’ phase without the opportunity to first have an active, outdoors, short break.

Furthermore, a 1 or 2-minute break was found to be better than none.

Moving was found to be better than stationary.

Outside was found to be better than inside.

What I take from this is that my daily to-do lists of high priority tasks are still very important, but if I go a step further and plan when I am going to carry out the highest priority and/or highly cognitive or creative tasks, I will surely maximise the amount of time I have, improve my productivity and get better overall results. Not only that, but if I build in a walk around the garden with the dogs immediately after my lunch, I will counteract the ‘trough’ or post-lunch dip, and will use all of my time in a much more efficient way - it is all about task and self-management.

I’ve always said that ‘time management’ is a myth, because we can’t actually manage time at all - it is a fixed commodity and we all have the same amount available to us in any one day. But what we can manage is ourselves and what we do in the time available to us and by making small changes, we really can make very large improvements.

Worrying about what others think of us is as wasteful as trying to catch the wind.

Worrying about what others think of us is as wasteful as trying to catch the wind.

Dawn Fiske
Worries, Worrying, Anxiety, Stop Worrying, Who Cares?, Other People's Opinions, It Doesn't Matter

A topic that often crops up when I’m working with clients is how much they worry about what others think of them.

As an executive coach, clients in the corporate world often worry about what their colleagues, clients or managers think of how they presented in front of an audience, what they thought about the comments or contributions they made during a meeting, or what their colleagues think when they can hear them on the phone having a difficult conversation with a customer. Some worry so much that they will do their best to avoid the situation. Waiting until the office is almost un-manned before making a call, not speaking up in a meeting at all if they can avoid it, getting out of making a presentation and missing the chance to impress.

Teenagers that I work with often assume friends or classmates are talking about them, judging them negatively, even laughing about them behind their backs.

1:1 clients mention many different scenarios that fill them with angst and worry, whether it is about their friends, family members, or colleagues judging them when they do something. They even worry about what total strangers will think of them.

This angst is exhausting, damaging, confidence draining and more often than not, misplaced.

The reality is we are really not that important. People have far more important things of their own to focus on - why do we think we are that interesting? Others are often just too busy to give us a great deal of thought. Perhaps a minute or two, if that, before moving on to more important things in their own lives.

And when they do think about us at all, it is often, in reality, not at all the sorts of thoughts we fear they are thinking. We are far more judgmental and harder on ourselves than other people are about us.

But more importantly, we cannot change what others do or don't think about us. None of us are going to be liked by everyone. Even the nicest people in the world annoy some - and that's absolutely OK.

We need to feel comfortable with not being accepted by everyone, by not being liked by all. When I first started running workshops, or presenting to large audiences and more recently, posting blogs - I too felt scared about some people not liking what I said, how I presented, who I was, what I wrote about, or how. It is frightening and we can feel very vulnerable. But it feels so much better when we feel comfortable being uncomfortable, when we stop trying to please and instead just do our best, be honest and authentic, and know that that is all we can do. Those that respond well to us are exactly the people we would like to be around, and those that don't will respond better to others. That too is OK.

There is room for us all out there, we just need to stop trying too hard and cut ourselves some slack. In fact the harshest critic we are ever going to meet is our self - but this one we can influence and change.