I’m writing this sitting on a bus heading towards St Andrews, a lot of memories and some very good friends who have made it very clear that I need to stop and unwind and take a breather.
The last 6 months has been long and complicated with a lot of work and personal crisis. However there comes a point when you can’t keep living your life in crisis mode. One busy few days very quickly runs into the next busy few days and things put on hold have a nasty habit of coming back and becoming urgent at the worst possible times. Missed chances leading to more work for everyone.
I have two wonderful daughters and their lives don’t go on hold because I happen to be busy at work, and similarly work does not go away and make room for personal crisis – so everything has to be juggled. The rusult increasingly shoddy results on all fronts recognised by me, recognised by groundhogmum, recognised by my friends and perhaps most embarrisingly for me recognised by my boss who pointed out in the nicest of ways that the best of intentions are great but when it creates more mopping up for everyone else it’s the results which count more.
As groundhogmum pointed out the problem of crisis mode is that judgment and learning are the first things to be counted as optional extras. The obvious thing is to deal with this prediction to lead life in crisis mode all the time but for a couple of weeks that’s felt like “there’s a hole in my bucket”…
To get out of the crisis I need to do less and do it better. This means having the confidence to say no . This means not relying on others sprobation because sometimes no will be an unpopular answer. The means having confidence in my abilities and judgment. While I’m in crisis mode these are the vey things that I’m finding difficult and I’m having criticised.
Which is the point that everyone very gently said – time to stop, have a few beers and start again fresh.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
