Tools for
Work/Life/Leadership
Employees
in medical settings need specific work/life skills. If
you are a typical healthcare worker, you will absorb
stress from at least these three areas:
To begin
lowering your stress, try to acquire one or two stress
management skills per week. Build your set of stress
reduction skills over time.
Here are three simple tips that
can produce life- changing results:
1.
Monitor your voice tone. How you speak to others will
affect your own emotional well- being.
For
example, talk to your spouse and children in assertive,
but friendly, ways. Your goal is to gain more
cooperation—while
not making
sensitive issues worse.
A nurse we’ll call Vicky
confesses she often yells at her teenage son for leaving
dishes in the sink. “I sound like a terrorist,” laughs
Vicky.
A better approach: Vicky needs to
stay calm and voice a
consequence
if the dishes aren’t done. For example, Vicky might tell
her son, “If I come home to a sink full of dishes, you
will be grounded on Saturday night.”
2.
Give
better instructions. Enlist and empower others, when
possible.
This means
you take the lead when problems arise by painting clear,
workable options for others.
For
example, if you’re tired of your spouse never coming up
with plans for fun, offer him or her some desirable
choices. State that you’d like to see a certain movie or
go to community theatre next time you’re off from work.
Just
complaining will probably get you nowhere. Some spouses
are not gifted at planning recreation or fun. So, paint
clear pictures of choice and ask your spouse to choose.
This gives both you and your spouse some control.
3.
Examine
your support system of people. Fine- tune to strengthen
your support.
All people
in your closest circle of life—friends, family, doctor,
hairdresser, baby sitter, auto mechanic, co-workers—
constitute support needed to run your life productively.
Consider
this: Do you need to get a different doctor,
hairdresser, or babysitter to make your personal life
easier or more productive? Having undependable or
inappropriate people in your support system can weaken
your ability to have a quality life.
