It’s a great long weekend in Canada for Canada Day and I’m going to share a few posts I found helpful on dealing with STRESS and being happier.  You might find them useful too as you try to enjoy the summer and get some work done.

From HBR Blog Network:

How to Be Happier at Work

by Leonard A. Schlesinger, Charles F. Kiefer, and Paul B. Brown

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/05/how_to_be_happier_at_work.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29

Snippet:  “Between increased workloads caused by your [organization’s] reluctance to hire more people, or a change in management that has put less than stellar people in charge of your little corner of the universe, or maybe the fact that you have done the same job for a while now, you may be feeling….well, not exactly burned out, but fatigued.

What to do?

• Telling yourself to get more excited about the same old thing isn’t going to work. (It never does.)

• Retiring in place and simply going through the motions is not an option. (You’d be replaced a week from Thursday by someone who might not be better, but by a person who certainly has more enthusiasm.)

• And while looking for another job is clearly a choice, terrific jobs are hard to come by in this limp-along economy and you may not be ready to undergo that kind of disruption.

Let us suggest another alternative: Start something. More specifically, start something outside of work.”

From TED:

Shawn Achor: The happy secret to better work

http://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work.html

Acknowledge the failure and put it in perspective.  You can’t begin to bounce back from a mistake if you don’t admit you’ve made it. As obvious as it sounds, it’s clearly not always easy to do. Research shows  that owning up to their mistakes is the key factor separating those who handle failure well from those who don’t. Those who were derailed perseverated and didn’t talk to others about it. They made little attempt to rectify the consequences. Those who weren’t derailed did the opposite: They admitted their mistakes, accepted responsibility, and then took steps to fix the problem. And afterwards, they proceeded to forget about it and move on.

and another from HBR Blog Network:

Get Ready to Fail

by Scott Edinger

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/06/get_ready_to_fail.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29

Snippet:

1. “Look for causes, not blame.
2. Before you wrack your brain to think up an appropriate response, take a break.
3. Get some help. Feeling down is normal. Prolonged periods of depression and despair are not.
4. Refocus your efforts and take action.”

I try to remember that failures, both big and small, are learning opportunities as long as you know that no mistake is ever final and you learn something and then make a change to try again, differently.  Mistakes are doing things the same way over and over again and expecting things to turn out differently.

I need to practice these skills more too.  This month is the first annniversary of my exercise program.  I’d never exercised in my life until last July. (You don’t get a body like this just by wishing for it – insert irony here.)  So, for one year I’ve been swimming up to a kilometer a day and I’ve added some minor weight lifting and a track run for a Km too.  I feel healthier and I am 95 pounds lighter than my peak weight and about the same weight I was on my wedding day 34 years ago.  I seem to be dealing with stress and managing my hyperactivity a little better too. Bless the YMCA.

Stay mellow.

Stephen