• Overwhelmed with current workload.
• Lack of forward planning or clear strategy.
• Ongoing tension and conflict with other team members.
• High staff turnover.
• Employee absenteeism or lots of sick leave taken.
• Low productivity or morale.

Each of these examples are telltale signs of resilience issues. If you can relate to any or all of these, then here is a practical externalisation planning exercise that you can do in 30 minutes that will help you identify the causes and map out a practical way forward.

Clean up your MES

Our blueprint, which we call ‘clean up your MES’, is a tested technique which we teach in one of our popular workshops – Going from Stress to Strength.

MES stands for map, explore, and support. It’s a good way of externalising or downloading your thinking around what might be happening and gaining some fresh perspective. Then you can map out a strategy that will help you to increase resilience and deal with some of the trigger points that could be happening in your team.

Mapping the triggers and causes

Let’s look at map first. The map stage is essentially all about identifying the triggers and the causes. We’re talking about the stress triggers and then the causes or the drivers of those moments of stress. What we would really recommend you do is spend about 30 minutes reflecting and documenting all the things that you feel are triggering team stress on an average day. It could be many things that are doing this, but here’s an example.

Let’s say one stress trigger is up line task expectations, or what more senior people or supervisors are expecting of the team. There’s task pressure there. Perhaps individuals aren’t meeting deadlines and therefore causing some negative impact to other people’s responsibilities during the day. Once you’ve identified what those main triggers are, then we’ll move on to the causes.

This is where we once again write down and start looking at what we might believe are driving those stress triggers. Perhaps there might be lack of up line understanding of current workloads, which are creating an unrealistic expectation. That could be a driving cause. Or perhaps there’s some poor planning practices with certain members of the team or individuals, therefore, that’s what’s causing the deadline issues.

Exploring the situation

When you’ve identified what the driving causes are, you can move on to the next part of the process, which is to explore. Exploring in this context means we’re investigating what can we do about this situation, or as we like to call it, ‘solve or surrender’.

What we mean by this is that many of these issues can be resolved through a bit of creative thinking – this is the ‘solve’ part of solve and surrender. Of course, it’s also possible that after some brainstorming, you realise that there’s nothing within your power that you can do, or that there are external forces inhibiting a solution. Therefore, we take on a mindset of surrender. This might sound negative at first, but it’s not.

Solve

Where possible, think of different solutions that could bring about change or solve the issue. For example, if we take the up line workload expectations, perhaps we can meet with the particular people concerned and explore ways that workflow could be improved. We may be able to set new expectations, or create fresh boundaries and consequences for the individuals who aren’t meeting deadlines.

Surrender

When we get to the surrender stage, it can feel like having open-ended tasks on your checklist that are difficult or impossible to cross off. It can be an uncomfortable feeling. What surrender means is finding a way that we can gain emotional closure over things that aren’t able to be solved. So, let’s say there’s an issue that can’t be resolved, and it is what it is. For example, your marketing team wants to be known as ‘The Marketing Mavericks’ instead of ‘Marketing & Communications’. You’ve approached the leadership team and their response has been a resounding no. Therefore, we need to find a way we can support the team and ourselves with ways of diffusing some of that frustration. In other words, finding somewhere we can rest our mind and find closure. Once you do that, it creates some level of boundary with your emotions, which can help to reduce the emotional pressure. Additionally, it helps to offload it rather than allowing ongoing anxiety around things we can’t possibly control.

Support your people

The last part of MES is support. Support is about acknowledging hope and encouragement. It’s about people’s motivation and internal strength and trying to increase that. Because we know that when people feel encouraged, supported, and acknowledged, they’ll generally start to grow in their resilience. They’re able to move forward more effectively. Even in situations where they can’t do anything about a situation, and it’s an ongoing frustration.

The key real strategy here is to find ways to support the emotional weight of your team and create practical strategies to achieve this. For example, perhaps regular debriefs will allow your team to vent. Or perhaps you can point out a few things each week that people are doing well as individuals or as a team. This can go a long way in helping to build resilience levels. When we feel acknowledged, respected, and valued, it can help us to pick ourselves up, gain some light at the end of the tunnel, and give us the strength to keep moving forward positively.

How will you clean up your MES?

Using the MES strategy is an easy way to gain some mental clarity, to put some practical strategies in place, and build resilience in the team. We hope this has been of high value to you and that you find the ‘clean up your MES’ technique useful in approaching some of your team’s stress triggers, as well as finding some positive techniques to move forward.

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Laser focus principles

So how does it work? Well, laser focus is built on two principles. 

The first principle is something called an adaptive strategy. Think of it like a GPS. If you plug in a destination in your GPS and you get off course, the GPS kindly reroutes you and gets you back on track. So having an adaptive strategy is like that, where you’re able to deal with the unpredictables or the unexpected things that happen in your day and reroute and get back on track quickly.

The second thing is to have a system. Most of us have tools and methods we use, and it’s easy to fall into the habit of reacting to the traffic that comes in on those devices, rather than having a system that helps you manage that traffic. Having a system is about becoming the master of your tools and methods rather than the slave. So let’s have a look at this in a little bit more detail and in a practical example.

To-do list prioritisation

Many of us benefit by having a daily to-do list because it helps us to get rid of task clutter that might be holding up our mental faculties. There are different ways to do this, but the most common way is to write your to-do list down on paper. This is partially explained by the therapeutic value of reducing your stress levels by physically writing things down and downloading the task clutter that can sit in your head. Of course, there are also digital task management systems. The most effective tool is the one you’ll use, so choose what works for you and stick with it. 

Once you’ve written down your tasks, prioritise them. The basic prioritisation levels are normally high, medium, or low. If you use a task management system, you’d also know that the other prioritisation element is the date. For example, if meeting with Rob is a high priority, then you know that needs to be done on the first of December. Same thing with the client call, first of December. That is the deadline and that is the priority. 

Using a priority system of high, medium, and low:

• High stands for critical, things that have to be done today, and can’t wait until tomorrow. 
• Medium means important, but not critical. If you get to it today, great, but if not, you can do it tomorrow. 
• Low being trivial, things that you could either do when you’ve got extra time or you can put off for a few days.

 Alternatively, you can use the ABC type approach. So rather than calling it high, medium, and low, you use A, B, and C. Let’s have a look at that in a rejigged task list, the same task list before. You’ve translated those highs, mediums, and lows into ABCs. The only problem is you’ve got five high priorities without any distinction. How do you decide which of the high priorities on the first of December to tackle first? This is where you ring in another level and where laser focus comes in.

So for example, let’s say the client call is your most important task out of all the A tasks. So you’d call that your A1 and then prioritise all the other A tasks based upon their order of critical nature. So you’d then have an A1, an A2, an A3, an A4, and an A5. (If you’re sticking to the high, medium, low system, you can call these High1, High2, High3, etc.) 

Laser focus kicks in because what you need to do becomes crystal clear. You can only focus on one thing at a time and you’ve mapped out your task list from a productivity point of view to reflect that. When you have multiple things you’re trying to focus on, it starts to degrade productivity and productive energy. Using an A1 strategy means that all you’ve got to do once you’ve mapped this out, is just focus on that A1 task. 

Making your to-do list adaptive

Here’s the adaptive part. Things can change with little notice, for example, a manager unexpectedly says there’s a new critical task that has to be done, and you have to rework everything. All you need to do is re-prioritise the numbers according to what is the new A1. For example, there’s an issue with the CRM and your most important task is now updating the CRM. That becomes your new A1, and all your other tasks are reordered accordingly. If your role is hugely adaptive, and you need to reorder priorities multiple times a day or week, make sure you’re using a task management system or to-do list layout that is easy to alter. 

Remember, all you need to do is just keep focusing in on what your A1 or highest priority task is. This helps you to manage the rest of the task clutter and feel less overwhelmed, because all you’re required to do in any one moment is focus on that A1. If that changes, you reorder what that A1 is, and then you get going with that.

Laser focus is a quick strategy that’s definitely useful to helping you order your tasks and gaining that laser focus. Happy tasking!

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But why do we use this word specifically? Well, when you think about it, we use busy as a coping mechanism to help us verbalise how we’re feeling at any given moment in our day, when the stresses of people and task pressure are upon us.

Busyness and stress perception are enemies of productivity

When you think about how words create our world, it’s possible that we’re programming ourselves with this perception of busyness and reinforcing task stress and chaos around us. “I’m too busy right now,” is a state of mind that can contribute to a stressful or busy reality.

Now, the real question here is – what mental and emotional state are we bringing to our tasks? Are we making it easier for ourselves, or unwittingly, are we recreating more task stress? Increased stress or stress perception is the greatest enemy of productivity and can sabotage the time we do have through wastage and lack of mental focus, resulting in procrastination and thought fragmentation.

If we started with a different focus in our mindset, what would that do as far as making a difference to our productivity?

Six ways to create a less busy workflow

Think momentum over task. If we start our day with a primary goal to focus on creating positive momentum versus pushing through a busy task list, what impact might that have? Research tells us creating positive momentum is the best breeding ground for productivity and achieving increased outcomes. Here are six ways to achieve that practically.

1. Rather than creating a task list to begin your day, think about working on things that support a positive momentum mindset. Then integrate those practices into your day. An example is changing your self-talk. Stop saying, “I’m too busy,” and start saying, “I always have time for the important things.” This is how you create a new reality.
2. Build space into your day for regular breaks. Stop thinking you don’t have time to do this and push through without a break. Even though it may feel counterintuitive time-wise to take a break, it’s ultimately more productive momentum-wise to take breaks and you’ll likely boost your productivity.
3. Negotiate deadlines. The biggest issue with big workloads is when you don’t negotiate deadlines or test when the real deadline is. In our culture of busy, we must practice breaking through the noise and asking – when does this need to get done, really? As soon as possible isn’t an acceptable answer. Once you’ve been given a definite deadline, it’s also important to communicate your ability to achieve the deadline. If it becomes apparent that you can’t deliver a project by its due date, let stakeholders know as soon as possible and let them know what you need (time away from other projects, resources, money, etc.) to achieve the deadline.
4. Develop focus work zones and find spaces for block-out work. Increasingly, our days are taken over by admin and overhead tasks. Making space for deep work is critical if we want to work on meaningful work rather than busy work.
5. Create healthy boundaries. This is a tough one, but if you truly want to become less busy and give yourself that essential breathing room, you need to manage relational expectations, balance your workload realistically, and stop creating ambitious task lists.
6. Take deep breaths often.

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Working for a period of time in the caregiving field, carries the risk of developing “Compassion Fatigue”. This sounds negative. However, it is an affirmation of a truly caring nature. We need to understand the issue and how it can be managed.

What is Compassion Fatigue?

Compassion fatigue is caused by the weight of constantly supporting and listening empathically to those who are experiencing loss or traumatic experience. It can be a heavy emotional and physical burden for the supporter to bear. Unmanaged, it will have implications on health and wellbeing.

How do you recognise the signs of compassion fatigue?

Over time, diminishing compassion, self-doubt, anxiety, and depression can lead to illness and industry burnout. If you are working closely with people in a caring role, it is vitally important to have an awareness of how you are feeling and behaving:

Do you feel:

• disconnected from your work, the environment, and the people you care for?
• exhaustion, particularly emotional exhaustion?
• that your work performance has dropped?
• cynical, apathetic, or disconnected from others?
• a decreased physical, emotional, and spiritual energy?

All of these are potentially signs of Compassion Fatigue. Onset is usually quick and confusing for everyone.

Who experiences Compassion Fatigue?

Compassion fatigue can often be associated with people in high stress jobs such as firefighters, police officers and doctors. Although prevalent in these professions, compassion fatigue is just as relevant and present for nurses, counsellors, disability workers, aged care workers, teachers and lawyers, as well as those who work in the domestic violence, drug, and alcohol arenas.

Compassion fatigue is not limited to our workplace experiences. Indeed, the home environment can be the catalyst for developing compassion fatigue. There are countless instances of families who express confusion and loss when someone withdraws from the family. In a lot of cases, the individual has been the primary carer for the rest of the family during a traumatic event and has forgotten to practise self-care, depleting their emotional energy stores. In order to function in the carer role, whilst protecting physical and mental health, the carer needs to find a way to replenish their depleted emotional energy and to find a way to replenish it.

The Solution:

Awareness is the first step, prevention the second, with self-care being the anchor.

We need to be aware of our feelings and emotions, our level of empathy and how much is being asked of us. Keeping a balance is important.

Compassion fatigue can start when you work long hours or over a long period of time, dealing with people in abnormal, stressful or traumatic situations. Taking time to practice self-care becomes critically important.

Counsellors, and other professions, have a process called Professional Supervision. The Australian Association of Supervision (AAOS), defines supervision as “a professional contracted relationship between a trained supervisor and a practitioner”. This relationship allows time for reflection, problem-solving, and development of professional competence, resilience, and confidence.

If you are working in an area where this structure doesn’t exist, you may like to consider finding a coach or mentor or creating self-help groups with some of your work colleagues. Time for critical reflection is crucial, as is the opportunity to problem-solve with others.

Yes, talking with someone who can understand and explore issues with you is a fundamental action.

There are many self-help techniques in addition to this:

1. Reduce your workload or see fewer clients.
2. Take time away from work, without viewing this as an indulgence.
3. Establish clear work-life boundaries.
4. Calendar time for things you enjoy – talking to friends, reading, going to the cinema, skydiving etc.
5. Eat healthy meals.
6. Do regular exercise.
7. Practice mindfulness.
8. Set clear boundaries (no one should be on call 24 hours a day).
9. Avoid taking work home – if you must work from home, create a space separate to your living space, so that the work does not encroach on leisure/family time
10. Seek help.

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