Staving off a relapse.

Even if you manage to get through a tough time in life there is no guarantee the same situation will not occur again in the future.

As a senior manager in the corporate world I suffered mental exhaustion in 2010 working 84 hours a week, the time out and counselling helped me understand what had happened but it was difficult not to fall back into the same trap again.

I had to work on coping strategies understand my vulnerabilities and move forward.

Writing down my situation, the causes and the emotions I felt in a journal and visualising better days ahead were key to getting better.

Understanding what went wrong becoming more aware of my surroundings and building a positive group of people around me was key.

Practicing mindfulness helped me become more in tune with my life so much so I was able to exercise for my mental health and became a marathoner and an ultra marathoner, a better dad and husband manage my reactions to my house burning down in 2013 and the death of my mother in 2018 in a more positive manner even though they were significant negative experiences.

Painful experiences are part of life taking time to slow down, live in the present and practice gratitude can help you deal with the ups and downs of living.

But if you want to change your life to be more positive, to build your career then you must spend time in contemplation where you will identify what you really want to do.

Find your determination, your true desire to make the change in your life. Make the decision to stop the bad practice that is causing self sabatoge.

When you have made the change spend time ensuring you are on track and maintain your positive approach to your determined goal.

Practice mindful awareness so you can stop yourself sliding into bad practice, this gives you the ability of an early warning system.

Believe you can do it and with the right support you can.

How to be an inspirational leader.

As a senior leader in my corporate career it was my job to inspire my team to meet the business goals.

So how do you inspire?

Take the analagy of sport and marathon running. In the picture that accompanies this blog are 3 colleagues and great friends of mine, all of us at one time while employed in same organisation have been responsible for leading and inspiring large teams to performance.

Several times a week we would lace up our running shoes and squeeze in a 5 mile run at lunchtime.

During these runs we inspired each other to meet our running goals. Our confidence and self belief increased as we got faster and supported each other on days when someone was off the pace on a particular day.

Showing and displaying the belief we had for each other inspired our commitment to our running goals regardless if it was a marathon or an ultra marathon we were aware of all our individual goals.

We took responsibility for our running commitment and would be out in all weather sometimes the wetter the better.

We inspired commitment, self belief and capability in each other along with responsibility for the training plan we were on to meet our individual goals.

We gave each other guidance on healthy eating for running distance and celebrated success and laughed when at times we over carb loaded or drank too much water.

It’s fair to say we built an understanding and a trust and listened to everyone’s views as we ran which helped us build our own learning curve.

We learned to understand issues or injuries if you like and we learned techniques to avoid injury so our running plans were not affected. As a result every person in that photo became a marathon runner.

All in all as a group of leaders and colleagues and most of all friends I have shown how through running we have demonstrated the true competencies of leadership.

Achieving excellent results

Influencing

Inspiring

Communicating

Building trust and understanding

Developing capability

Collaborating for success.

Finding solutions.

Bringing all those qualities into our corporate leadership roles helped each and everyone of us to build successful teams and deliver performance with the respect of our teams.

If you have been promoted into a new role in management the first 90 days is crucial to success. I have a plan to help you succeed in your new position just contact me through bjkennomotivation.com

Believe an you can too.

Looking after your mental health must be a priority.

Looking after your mental has to be a priority given the challenges living through covid 19.

Taking time out to find some inner peace to let go of the past and to think positively for the future is key.

Taking time out to see how far you have come on this journey and learn to Believe in yourself, really believe by giving yourself some credit.

Do someone a favour and catch up with a friend and have a laugh.

Take some time for light physical exercise, not everyone wants to run a marathon. Physical exercise can engage the positive chemicals in your brain that make you feel good.

Dopamine - the reward chemical when you meet some small steps to a goal.

Oxytocin- The love hormone, spend time with friends and do something nice for someone.

Endorphins- The pain reliever through exercise. You can also get it through meditation and laughter and having fun.

You can look in the mirror and believe in yourself and be proud of yourself while acknowledging you are a work in progress.

Believe.

Are you working hard to prepare yourself for the effects of work!

The green signs are there more and more companies are trying to help employees with their mental health.

Why?

Companies have recognised how important their employees and leaders are and as a result are changing the culture in the organisations to be positive and not toxic.

Some cynics say its the effect on the bottom line that has awoken some companies, that may be but its positive progress.

There is a responsibility on the company, the leaders and the staff to build a culture of trust, a culture that has clear responsibilities and roles and a clear number of corporate priorities that have to be achieved and to ensure they are communicated clearly and understood.

Every job will have a level of stress but a workplace that has constant changes in priorities, champions working long hours as a badge of honour and believes the employees that are in back to back meetings all day are their most valuable are slowly coming to the realisation that they have a new leadership team every few years, poor performance levels and high absence levels across the organisation.

It’s important to note that in any job one must perform to a level that is expected based on clear and achievable objectives. If a person is struggling a company that has leaders that will give their time in meaningful 121 discussions will provide guidance and assistance to help the employee be successful and with that support most employees and leaders will knock the objective out of the park.

With that approach across an organisation leaders will be seen as positive role models and approachable. The company will gain a reputation pushing a positive culture where people achieve high performance without burnout.

Being mindful of you mental health to avoid burnout is very important and I urge everyone to analyse why they may be struggling and ask for help. Most organisations have an employee assistance program so ask for help.

In any job you will have to perform to a standard and meet set agreed objectives I make no excuse saying that. The challange is the standard must be clear and achievable and if a leader or staff member is struggling there must be support for every level to help them succeed.

Your most valuable employee or leader is not the one in back to back meetings.

Your employee who constantly works long hours and wets it as a badge of honour will I am afraid burnout.

Your leader who shows up overworked and stressed is not your role model for the future.

The structures for Leaders to provide meaningful 121 time to encourage, praise and sometimes have the courage to tell someone what they don't want to hear but need to, in the right way is important to build a positive meaningful culture in an organisation that will reduce absence and eliminate burnout and ultimately add to the bottom line of the business.

Even the motivational speaker gets nervous. It’s great to be back in the room.

As life is getting back to some type of normal post covid I was reminded recently having delivered a talk on stress by being asked, Do you not get nervous talking to all these people, gosh I could never do it, I wouldn’t have the nerve she said.

We took a moment, we agreed some of the stuff I shared showed my vulnerability but it also showed strength. The truth is I explained everyone gets nervous, i’ve looked at almost every room I have spoken in when it was empty before the audience arrived and thought what if nobody comes or boy that’s a big room, I hope I do it justice.

I accept those thoughts and immediately remember why I have been invited to talk, because what I have to say is important to every one in the room.

Having the nerve to get up to speak to put yourself out there is like any challenge you will face in life it requires one to be steady and show courage in a demanding situation.

To mentally prepare for these situations I use

-Guided imagery, where I view what the room will be like full and the appreciation I will receive at the end. I choose to believe it will go well.

-Mindful meditation to build my confidence

-I slowdown and take deep breaths to calm myself.

It works for me and it can work for you in any situation in business or personal life, if you slow down and live in the present moment you can have the future you dream of.

It’s great to be back in the room.

Why your relationship with yourself is key to a happy life.

If being a cynic in life works for you then great but you don’t know what you are missing.

In 2010 when I suffered mental exhaustion I learned that our relationship with ourselves is crucial to a happy life and our ability to achieve what we want to achieve in our business and personal life.

I look in the mirror each morning and tell myself I am great and I will have a great day and I will not to let anyone piss me off.

The truth is I believe it and live it.

Really looking at the person in the mirror and I mean really taking the time to look , learning to love that person you see will change your whole outlook on life and help you to believe in yourself and stop focusing on the things that have gone wrong and to be more positive.

There will always be cynics and critics to try to make you feel bad in both your personal and business life but while being a cynic the truth is they don’t know what they are missing in their unhappy life.

As you experience these synics you may feel you don’t have someone in your life to have your back.

I can assure you that by looking in the mirror and building the relationship with yourself you will realise you have your own back.

Make your own waves in this life and have fun in reaching your goals.

If you would like some coaching in meeting your goals get in touch.

World mental health day - tips to deal with stress.

On world mental health day I have decided to share some tips on identifying and managing stress.

Firstly please tell yourself you are great and believe it.

Stress occurs when the demands of our life outweighs our ability to cope. It kicks in because it’s a survival strategy to try to keep us safe, the problem is we are living our lives at 100 miles an hour we don’t realise it, until its too late.

Stress can have short term benefits but devastating long term effects.

Many of the most stressful situations come as a result of unplanned changes in our business and personal lives. Changes that we could have seen coming down the track but we did not have the self- awareness to identify it.

It’s important to understand that different events and situations cause different levels of stress for each individual. What stresses you may have no effect on me what so ever.

In business stress can be caused by

-to many interruptions

-to many fixed deadlines

-little guidance or coaching

-to many stressful situations in work

-clashes with boss

To reduce stress try the following.

-Write down your thoughts and priorities and be honest.

-take time out to step back,

-focus on what’s important to you and be grateful for what you have.

-set short term goals for yourself and keep track.

-get some exercise

-build your emotional strength

-identify your core values

-clarify your roles and responsibilities

-build your relationship with your boss

-work on having a positive attitude and laugh a lot.

-ask for help.

Slowing down in life by living in the present moment can help you build a work/ life balance and reduce your worry and stress.

Meet some people you admire and say hello.

Believe you can do it and you will.

bjkennomotivation. com

Take the pen and trust the author

Take the pen, trust the author and write your story.

The secret of change is to focus your energy on building the new and banishing self doubt.

Most of the challenges of self doubt which develops into Imposter syndrome are developed by our experiences and learnings from childhood.

Replacing your negative thoughts with positive thoughts will help to banish Imposter Syndrome, build self confidence and guide us to success and a sense of inner peace.

Know you are worthy

Maybe we are in a better world post covid.

Maybe just maybe we are in a better world post covid.

After a number of days in Spain with fantastic weather great company, good food and craic I managed to suffer a reoccurance of my back injury the night before I was due to leave.

Marcus Aurelius my pal from 180 AD once said "No where you can go is more peaceful, more free from interruptions than your own soul. Retreat to consult your own soul and then return to face what awaits you"

The teachings of Marcus taught me how to seek stillness through guided meditation, body scans and breathing techniques that reduced anxiety and to tune into the physical body.

It helps manage the pain and be grateful for what I have. It keeps me in the present moment and acknowledge my perseverance and resilience. It also helps me learn from what has happened to me during the day.

A big thank you for the assistance and compassion from the Spanish security lady who brought me through a special security lane in 2 mins as she saw my slow pace and walking cane.

A big thank you to the aer Lingus cabin crew who put my bag in the overhead and carried it off the plane and down the steps for me.

A big than you to the OCS truck operator in Dublin who saw me come off the plane and knew I had a 15 minute walk from plane to passport control and offered me a lift in his airport assistance van.

A big thank you to Martina my rock who has seen me through this before and has done so much more than put my shoes and socks on me and tie my laces. ❤️

Compassion and assistance is there if you ask for it and even if you don't.

For Marcus, the ability to show kindness and compassion toward others, rather than wallowing in anger, was one of the most important signs of true inner strength.

Maybe we are in a better world post covid.

Why Rest?

Why rest?

Rest is vital for better mental health, increased concentration and memory, a healthier immune system, reduced stress and improved mood.

Taking a break in Marbella to rest and work on my recuperation on back injury.

Have a great weekend what ever you are doing.

bjkennomotivation.com