Sara Orellana
By Sara Orellana
As we prepare to move to a new year and create new strategies for our businesses and careers, I would like to challenge you to create a strategy which encompasses all aspects of your life.
For years, I bought into the idea that we should leave our emotional baggage at the door of the office, and that no aspect of our personal life should affect our professional life.
When you have a teenager who refuses to get up for school for the 14th time in a row, making you late to work, feeling like a failure as a parent, and stressed that they will not graduate, you cannot enter work like nothing happened.
We spend more time at work than we do at home, and oftentimes our coworkers are our friends. We have become such slaves to the grind, we struggle to have an identity outside the workplace.
Learning about emotional intelligence taught me several things. The most profound was the need to take a fully mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual diagnostic daily. Sadly we pay more attention to the needs and maintenance of our cars then we do ourselves. When I started completing a full diagnostic on the way to work daily, and mini-diagnostics throughout the day, I learned two things: my home life directly affected my professional life, and I was not anywhere as healthy or in touch with myself as I thought I was. I suspect the same could be said for my co-workers.
Experiments are frowned upon, as is talking about our emotions. But what if it was normal to acknowledge when we were struggling? What if we no longer had to leave our luggage at the door? What if we could bring it in, say today is not a great day, put our bags in the corner, and then move forward the best we could?
I tried it with my coworkers and with my child. It worked. Rather than pretending everything was perfect, we reclaimed ownership of our emotions. We could then process the emotions, think of solutions and move forward. If we knew someone was irritated, we could do nice things for them, not tiptoe around wondering if/what we had done wrong.
The shift has been incredible. We are no longer run by our emotions, and I hear conversations where people are saying, “I need to eat and then I can address the questions.”
As personal needs are met, emotionally charged responses are becoming fewer and fewer.
Moving into this next year, instead of creating a strategy for your professional life and what you would like to accomplish, create a strategy that encompasses all aspects of your life. Choose to look at the whole picture, addressing all your needs. The growth you experience will be exponential.
Sara Orellana is an independent entrepreneur who specializes in strategic planning, leadership, and grant writing. She can be reached at sara@3raptorconsulting.com.