Life Tips Daily

(For part I, please read here)

If you spend the Christmas season worrying instead of enjoying, here are some worries and ways to combat them.

Worry: You can only afford to spend about half of what you normally spend on your gift recipients, or only a few dollars, and you’re afraid they’ll be disappointed.

Antidote: Let people who might be expecting a gift of a certain price range from you know that you cannot afford to spend a lot this year. If it would lighten the load of stress that this situation can bring, you can ask if people would mind not exchanging gifts this year. Alternatively, why not suggest a gift exchange of hand made (by them) things (if you need ideas for Christmas gifts that can be made, visit the Creative Mom Cafe)? A suggestion that will either be loved or hated is to suggest re-gifting something that you received previously, but think someone else would enjoy far more.

Worry: It’s one week before Christmas and you haven’t mailed out Christmas cards yet

Antidote: I have personal experience with this one and there are a number of ways that you can takcle this. You can decide to give yourself a break this year and not mail cards at all. You can mail them anyway, with the premise of “better late than never”. Some creative alternatives are:

• mail them a Happy New Year card instead
• call them on Christmas day or a few days before to deliver a personal greeting
• send them a centrepiece flower arrangement for Christmas dinner (make sure to get a guarantee that the flowers will arrive before Christmas!)
• send an e-card expressing your wishes for a merry Christmas

I thought that since I am one of the worst offenders of the crime known as worrying, I’d let you in on something that I just read.

Apparently something like 90% of things that you worry about don’t come to pass! For the chronic worriers among us, this is a very eye-opening statistic! So, join me and let’s stop worrying together. Instead, let’s do some of the following to make our countdown to Christmas much more pleasant.

Worry: Christmas dinner will be a disaster because the two siblings who always make a scene by having a huge fight will be coming, and their grudge has only grown worse over the past year.

Antidote: Send both an email or call them both up and let them know that you are expecting them to treat the other guests with respect, and they can do this by allowing Christmas to be about family, love and warmth, instead of being another stage on which to play out their feud. Let them know that you will do your part and ensure that they aren’t seated close to each other, but other than that it’s up to them to be mature about it. Tell each that you don’t want them to explain themselves to you; you have told them all you plan to say on the topic. Then drop it and count on them to do their part.

Worry: Someone you haven’t thought of will stop by at your house and drop off a present for you and you won’t have one to give in return.

Antidote: First of all, remember that Christmas is about warmth and love, and if someone gives you a gift, your job is to accept it and be appreciative of it. Christmas is not about feeling guilty and upset, so instead of exclaiming “but I didn’t get you anything!”, and ruining the moment by making about you, express genuine gratitude and let that be your gift to the other person.

If you absolutely must give a gift, you can do what some have gotten in the habit of doing: buy some neutral gifts, wrapg them and affix a gift tag to it with your name already signed (keep the same pen handy so you can fill in the name of the recipient before presenting the gift). This can backfire though: if someone presents you with a gift that they obviously spent a lot of time and effort to select, and you present them with a box of chocolates, no matter how carefully chosen and high in quality they are, you might feel even worse! A more genuine idea in my opinion is to give them a gift, but in the new year. Why not call them up to go for dinner in January, or invite them over for wine and dessert in February? The fact that it might be unexpected might make them appreciate it more.

Just over a week ago, coworkers (who are always such good examples of how to be healthy at the workplace) mentioned that they wanted to start a running group for those of us who wanted to begin running. The coworker who was responsible for setting up the group was a seasoned runner who has run marathons in the past, and two of her colleagues were also regular runners. When this idea was mentioned in passing, I expressed interest because I had wanted to try running for a while. A few hours later I was told that the first running session would be in a couple of days!

I went for my first run just over a week ago and it was hard. My legs cramped, I was out of breath after what seemed like an eternity but was probably less than two minutes of running. It was a humbling experience, which I describe in more detail on my personal blog.

Since the first day, I’ve been making a deliberate effort to go for a run/walk (rulk) every other day. Some days are better than others, but the important things is that I make the effort. Even though it’s been only a short time, I noticed a difference in my capabilities after the first few rulks. It still isn’t easy, and the cold weather we’re experiencing certainly doesn’t make me bound out of bed, or come home from work eager to go outside, but running and walking are healthy habits that I want to have, and nothing builds a habit better than repetition!

With the cooler weather coming to those in the northern hemisphere of the world, it can be tempting to spend your free time curled up and keeping warm. Instead, why not take this often quieter time of the year to develop a more active lifestyle? Your body will thank you (once the aches have faded!).

Have you ever made a lifestyle change? How long did it take you to make a habit out of it? What are the benefits you enjoy from this change?

For some Americans, it won’t truly feel like Christmas is here until Thanksgiving has passed, but for Canadians who celebrated Thanksgiving over a month ago, and people who don’t have another holiday before Christmas, Christmas is approaching a little too fast, and the number of things to be put into place before December 25th are overwhelming.

When you find yourself starting to become overwhelmed, instead of letting thoughts of all that you have to do swirl around in your head, stressing you out and possibly causing headaches, give each its moment in the limelight and write them down on a list. A list can be an easy cure to being stressed because you’re giving your mind permission to stop thinking about it and taking a small step towards the completion of the task.

You can create a general list of all that needs to be done, and then create smaller mini lists for each task or sub-task. Once you know what you do, you can tackle crossing items off your lists!

Other great things about writing and having a list are:

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Yesterday’s tips will help you when you’re mailing your cards or packages, but do you need some help organizing Operation Christmas Card Write-up? I’m happy to help! Here is how to make the most of this repetitive but hopefully rewarding task.

Start early
If you give yourself plenty of time to write your cards, you will avoid feeling stressed and feeling put on the spot to come up with something suitable for each card. Hopefully by having a lot of time, ideas will be able to flow, and you will be in a good mood which will inspire positive thoughts and plenty of goodwill as you write the cards.

Get it together
As with any task, nothing is more irritating than having to get up every three minutes to grab yet another needed tool. To that end, make sure you have the following before sitting down to write your cards:

• plenty of cards and envelopes (including extras for mistakes!)
• nice pens that write well (you may want to use different and festive coloured pens too)
• scrap paper for testing pens, or for writing out practice messages
• water to seal the envelopes if you don’t like licking envelopes
• tape if you like to use that to seal envelopes
• correction fluid if needed
• a cleared off area with good lighting and comfortable seating.

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Christmas will be here in no time and if you have to mail anything out of your city or country, you may want to pay attention to some of the following.

Consult the post office and postal service
My local post office produces a flyer every year that gives me the deadlines for mailing card and shipping gifts to other countries and I find it handy. I take all the dates on that flyer that apply to me and put them on my calendar and then I give myself reminders so that the due date doesn’t hit without me having planned what to buy as a gift.

If you’re a last minute sort of person, and you don’t mind spending (a lot) extra, there are services in place that guarantee (in many but not all cases) that your package will be received before Christmas. Keep in mind that not all services can guarantee this, especially if they have less than one week’s notice (and you may have to pay dearly for the convenience!). In any case be sure to ask before assuming.

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Do you ever get stuck on the phone with a friend who keeps talking and talking and talking? If your problem is the length of your telephone calls and not that you no longer want to speak with them, here are some tips to get off the phone with a chatty friend minutes faster!

Set a time limit on the conversation and inform your chatty friend of it
You don’t need to start the conversation with “I have a stopwatch and once 10 minutes have passed my phone will automatically hang up” but you can let your friend know ahead of time that you really only have 5 minutes to talk. You may be uncomfortable setting a time limit on the conversation, especially if you’re the one who called, but the fact that you called means you want to keep in contact with and talk to your friend, and that is what your friend should focus on.

Listen more
If you’re stuck on how to be a good listener, read this. If you allow your friend to do most of the talking during the conversation, when the conversation ends, he or she will likely feel that it was a good (albeit short!) conversation, compared with if the talk is dominated by you and then cut off by you. If your call is purely to catch up, allow your friend to spend more time talking about what has been going on in her life (you probably won’t have to twist her arm to get it out of her!). Ask questions but let the majority of the talking come from your friend.

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If you have ever poured your heart out to a listening ear, only to look up and see that your confidant is otherwise occupied—sending a text message, watching television or actually talking on the phone to somebody else, you have felt the hurt of talking to someone who wasn’t listening to you, and it’s not a good feeling.

When we talk, we like to think people are listening, especially if we’re sharing something that makes us feel vulnerable. Good listeners are perceived as friendly people, the sort of person that people want to befriend. How can you make sure when it’s your turn to listen, you give it your all?

Make a decision to pay attention
This is simple enough: if someone comes to you and asks if you have a minute for them to run something by you, or if an upset friend asks if the two of you can talk, if you decide to say yes, a good listener will realize that they are also making a decision to give that person their full attention. If it’s not a good time for you to listen, don’t say yes—you will only shortchange the person coming to you, and they don’t deserve that.

Eliminate all other distractions
Once the decision has been made to be a listener, you should physically turn to the person and turn off or silence any gadgets that might cause a distraction or intrude in your conversation, including beepers, telephones, and computers. If you need to excuse yourself from other people or your children, do this too. Find yourself a quiet place (or create one) where you will be able to pay attention. Even if you are not speaking face to face with someone, and they have no way of knowing who is in the room with you, it is a good practice to remove distractions and force yourself to focus on the speaker alone.

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Image courtesy of hopee

Early on this week, I saw that the week was getting away from me, but I thought I might be able to find time to share some insight later in the week so I didn’t make a formal announcement that I’d be away for a week. Well it has been a week and I never did get around to writing. I apologize. This week has led me to contemplate the importance of taking a break every now and then. If you don’t, you may find yourself ending up on a forced one.

With Christmas coming, a season that guarantees that your busy schedule will get even busier, it’s important to give yourself plenty of moments to relax. The key is to start early of course, but sometimes you have to admit that you just can’t juggle everything, no matter how hard you try, and take some extra days off. I took yesterday off from work and even though I only managed to do two tasks, these are tasks that I didn’t have to work into today’s to do list and it has been nice.

How can you tell that you need a break?

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Last week we looked at some questions about workplace and this week’s Your Turn is no different! What are your answers to the questions below:

1. A coworker has gotten into the habit of telling you all of his or her problems, all because you asked him/her one day how s/he was doing, and listened while s/he gave his/her life story. How do you extricate yourself from this position of constant confidant?
2. A coworker dresses inappropriately for the office (in your opinion). How do you go about addressing this?

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While we’re on the topic of work, Here are some indicators that it’s time to leave your job.

You hate waking up (to go there)
(Of course, the caveat is that you didn’t always hate waking up to go to work). If all of a sudden, the thought of waking up for work fills you with dread, start looking, right away.

Every coworker gets on your nerves. Every day.
We don’t always get along with our coworkers, that is why workshops like “Getting along with difficult people” are offered by a local work training centre where I live. However, if you feel like every coworker exists to annoy you, there isn’t one person you can tolerate talking to, working with or exchanging pleasantries with, it may be time to say sayonara.

You have received multiple warnings about your attitude or your performance
When you are not enjoying your work, you may find it hard to put any effort into it, resulting in a decrease in the quality of your work. Alternatively, you may continue to produce good work, but your attitude, in a word, stinks—you’re sullen, rude and sarcastic and don’t treat others with respect. Perhaps you stopped dressing in an appropriate fashion for work, or your personal grooming skills have plummeted. These are all indicators that you need to leave.

If you find that you are exhibiting any of these attitudes at work, it is time to reconsider your future with the company. However, if you find you have these feelings about all aspects in your life, you may be suffering from depression. Please seek out friends, family or a professional who can help you.