An eye-opening habit which keeps me sharp at work?

Casting a beady eye over my esteemed banking colleagues.

Some people might call this casual stalking. But I like to think of it as research.

Like any good researcher, I set my question up front, try to stay objective & unbiased, collect all the relevant data and then share my findings.

The question I’ve chosen for this particular stalking research project?

Why are some of my colleagues so stressed, frazzled and caught up in their head while other colleagues have such a lightness and flow about them - even though these colleagues are all sitting at the same desks, tapping the same keyboards, going to the same meetings and doing the same work?

Clearly it’s not the desks, the keyboards, the meetings or the work which holds the answer to this particular puzzle.

If it was, all my colleagues would react the same way when a big project lands on their plate or when the shit hits the fan.

But they don’t. Their reactions vary.

It’s not down to how senior my colleagues are too. My most chilled out colleagues are a mix of newbies and veterans, juniors and seniors.

And I can’t pin it on how much my colleagues love their jobs. Some of my colleagues get a kick out of their work and are always chilled out. Other colleagues love their work too, but stay stressed out instead.

From what I can see, it’s also got nothing to do with how often colleagues set boundaries, meditate, take breaks, leave work on time, drinks gallons of coffee, plan their day to the minute, listen to music, use productivity tools, practice gratitude, vent their frustrations or gossip with their work wives & husbands.

So is there even an answer to this question? Is there a thread which determines how and why we experience work the way we do?

Actually, I think there is.

And the only reason my research project hasn’t thrown it up is because this thread is invisible. I’ll never be able to see it.

That thread?

Thought.

The Scottish mystic Syd Banks wrote about thought as “the missing link” between the world we can see and the world we can’t see.

You could say that thought is like a paintbrush we all use to colour our experience of life.

My take on my research project is that my easy breezy, chilled out colleagues are those who paint their own canvas moment to moment whereas my frazzled, stressed out colleagues are those whose canvas paint dried up a long time ago.

Said another way:

The more real, solid and fixed our thoughts look to us, the more trapped we are by the pictures they paint.

That was certainly the case for me. 

All my thoughts about work had hardened into a rigid, unchanging picture of stress, overwhelm and frustration. And there was no room for fresh perspectives or possibilities.

But what I see now is that our thoughts are only as true as we think they are. 

Which means we can always repaint our canvas. We can always wipe the slate clean and create something fresh.

But before I wring this metaphor dry, let me bring things to a close.

If every day at work feels tiring, tiresome and totally relentless, the paint might’ve dried on your canvas too.

If you’d like to stop feeling stuck in the same old picture, I can help.

All the info is here:

https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com