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The Book is Here!
Relax
Focus Succeed -- A Guide to Balancing Your Personal and Professional
Lives and Becoming More Successful in Both
by Karl W.
Palachuk
Click Here
to learn more, download a free chapter, and Order today.
Or you can always buy at
Amazon.com.
The Blog
www.RFSblog.com
Other
Recommended Reading:
The Relaxation Response
by Herbert Benson and Miriam Z. Klipper.
Don't Just Do Something, Sit There
by Sylvia Boorstein.
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff at Work
by Richard Carlson.
Look for the authors above
on
Amazon.com, at book sales, or at your favorite web site.
Amazon and others offer used books and tapes as well as new.
Balance is the key to personal and professional success.
Knowing your goals and the path to achieve them is essential.
Being successful takes practice and dedication.
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Pith
Pith . n.
The essential part; gist. Pithy. adj. Terse and full
of meaning.
"Where you find
consistency between your values and your actions, there you will find
personal fulfillment and happiness."
-- Karl W. Palachuk
"Good is the enemy of
great."
-- Jim Collins
"Everything living strives
for wholeness."
-- Carl Jung
Contact
sales@relaxfocussucceed.com
Contact Info:
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#200 / PMB 234
Sacramento, CA 95834
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800-822-3585
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click here.
Copyright © 2007 Karl W. Palachuk.
Relax Focus Succeed® is a Registered
Trademark of Karl W. Palachuk
### RFS ### |
RFS™ Notes
Last week in September is gone! I'm sorry this is late. We normally get
the newsletter out in the last week of the month. But the last week of
September was just way too busy. It literally came down to the last few
hours of the month -- and then my plane was delayed.
October should
be more mellow.
Where did this
year go?
Same place
they all go: We make one choice at a time. We inch a bit further along
every day.
. . .
Fall is always
a busy season. But it's probably my favorite time of year,
because our whole society takes a deep breath and admits that we really
do value family events and taking some time off.
In my
technology business, I get to see a lot of workstations. And in the
Fall, that means little toys and candles, posters and decorations.
People put out bowls of candy for their fellow workers, and string
lights around their desk.
Between
Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, it's like America has a low-key,
three-month party going on!
. . .
I've had a
number of magazine interviews lately regarding the philosophy of Relax
Focus Succeed®. In fact, I'll find out any day now whether I'll be on
the cover of Channel Pro magazine. It's down to two faces: That's not
good news for me! Anyway, that magazine is for people who run small
consulting companies. So it's nice to see a bit of business philosophy
compete for space with the normal mix of hardware and software.
. . .
This month
we look at the topics of Consistency and Stress, and how they're
related to one another.
I welcome your
feedback. Thank you, as always.
-- Karl P.
karlp@relaxfocussucceed.com
Consistency and Stress
By Karl W. Palachuk
I have been interviewed by a few magazine
reporters recently regarding Relax Focus
Succeed® (the book, the newsletter, etc.).
It's very interesting to me where people
have confusions about the RFS philosophy.
Granted, most of these folks haven't read
the book, the newsletter, or the web site. But
time and again the question comes up: How does consistency affect
stress?
 Here's the quick overview:
 |
We
all play different roles (parent, employee, manager, neighbor, spouse,
etc.). |
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Each of these roles is like a mask we put on for an hour, a day, or part of
a day. We rarely get to put on one mask and wear it for any length of time. |
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Which means we're changing roles (changing personalities) all the time. |
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In
some sense, each role we play is some "distance" from our true self or our
default personality. |
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And in another sense, our true self consists of the combination of all the
roles we play. |
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Stress is reduced when the personality we use in each of these roles is
consistent with the personality we use in each of the other roles. |
A
key element of stress, in this scenario, is the act of changing roles. When we
put on the "work" role and plug away for eight (or nine or ten) hours, we get
very comfortable in that role. This is true even on a bad day.
When it's time to change the role and put on the "family" role, we might not
have much energy for that. Instead, we'd rather pull back into ourselves for
awhile and recharge our batteries.
This is all very normal. But
sometimes we can't recharge. We leave work, pick up the dry cleaning, hit the
grocery store, take the kids to an event, go to some meeting, eat dinner
somewhere along the way, and finally settle down at eight or nine PM.
So
the personality switch didn't go from work to family. It went from work to
customer, to parent, to community member, to family, and maybe to spouse. Yes,
all that busy activity contributes to stress. But so does taking off one hat and
putting on another, and another, and another.
Even in the simplest change -- from work to family -- the less you need to
change, the less stress there will be in that change. There will always be a
difference between these two versions of your self.
 So here's your
homework for the month: Take some quiet time each day and think about how
you might build some consistency into the various roles you play. How can the
"you" at work be more like the "you" at home?
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Another area of stress is the values differential.
In each role we play, we try to maximize a set of values (love, productivity,
profit, etc.). So as we switch roles, we also adjust the values we're balancing
at any given time. Again, this switch causes a certain level of stress.
One of the interesting features of the human mind is that we're capable of
holding two (or more) opposing views at the same time. Even in one job you might
be nurturing a client in one meeting and turning a client over to collections an
hour later. We love our clients, but they need to pay their bills. :-)
Switching roles at work creates one level of stress. But even there you'll have
a certain level of consistency in the roles you play. When you switch to spouse,
parent, or community member, the values can be quite different.
Another interesting aspect of the human mind is our ability to "change reality"
by changing our focus or perspective. You've seen examples of this: If you go
into something with a positive attitude, you'll have positive results. If you go
in with a pessimistic attitude, your results will be less positive.
If you apply this same approach to the roles in your life, it can have a strong
positive effect. Here's how: Don't focus on the differences in your roles or the
different values that have to be maximized. Instead, focus on the similarities
and the consistencies.
To the extent you focus on differences, you will create stress. To the extent
that you focus on consistencies, you'll reduce stress.
And remember my old rule:
Whatever you put your attention on,
that's what you're going to get better at.
So if you focus on
differences, you'll get good at recognizing the differences. If you focus on
consistencies, you'll get good at seeing consistencies. And if you put your
attention on building consistency between the various roles in your life, you'll
have more consistency. And less stress.
Good Luck!
Focus:
"A problem only exists if
there is a difference between what is actually happening and
what you desire to be happening."
-- Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
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Please also see the related articles below:
If you like pithy quotes, check out the Pith Page
at
www.relaxfocussucceed.com/Pith.htm
### RFS ###
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