I'm the boss of me

Did you know that you lose most of what you learn from training within a week?

I didn't. I don't know I completely believe it either (depending heavily on the content and quality of the training), but in an effort not to lose the benefit of my Seven Habit of Highly Effective People (SHHEP) I thought I'd document some of my efforts here. I have a 'contract' with one of my classmates to follow up weekly but truthfully...as someone who is a known performance-oriented person I will not fail in front of my contractee and will only admit to carefully scripted failure if forced.

(Um, the fact that shortens down to sheep is not lost on me)

Alrighty, so this week is about circle of influence versus circle of concern. Those things which I can directly influence versus those things that might effect me but I have no control over. As an example, my flight being late is in my circle of concern (affects me but I cannot make it be on time) versus my decision of what to do with the time I've 'gained' because of the late flight (e.g., drink, make friends with co-passengers, read).

Things in my circle of control:

• How I spend my time - right now, I spend too much time on FB. I could be spending that time one things that will benefit me like reading, writing, spending time with actual friends not virtual friends, sleeping more, working out more).
• What I put in my mouth - seems now that I've reached my goal weight and reset a new one that I'm not totally buying into new goal weight. The key here is I need to decide if current weight is satisfactory, or if I want the lower weight. Because, if I don't really want the lower weight, I am mentally beating me up for my eating habits unnecessarily. So, in the meantime I'm being less careful about my calories...which leads to the next thing...
• Degree to which I work out - last week with having to be into the office earlier my morning workouts dropped off. And, because I wasn't going to bed earlier to make up for the earlier hours, by the time I got home I was too tired. But the thing is, working out is finally to the point where it feels good and I want to get back to it (course, massive fail this morning because I didn't set my alarm and by 9am when I woke up it's just too hot to go run).
• How clean I keep my stuff - the house being clean is a regular point of contention in my household. But, I played a little game with myself a few weeks back and just picked up my stuff. I decided, I can't really complain at PC if my stuff was laying around - so to be able to make the point that PC needed to pick up more while making sure my kettle wasn't black, I picked up only my things. I'm a little embarrassed to tell you how much cleaner the house was. Um, yes, I am guilty of being a slob.
• How I perform at work - ok, this is a tough one. I don't like my job. I don't like the bureaucracy of the organization and I think it leads to inefficiency. I don't think high performance leads to improved chance of promotion (because there are no promotions available) or raises (raises are based on tenure). Further, I seem to be praised regularly for doing nearly nothing so I'm not terribly motivated to perform more when I'm already seemingly well appreciated. All that being said, as a professional. I am not behaving well. I can blame it on my environment. But in truth, I know better. If I was a boss, I'd expect better. So, less FB at work, less socializing at work, and less fanning the flames. More doing the things that they send me a paycheck for. And you know what, even if I don't get promoted or raise for it, I can feel less fear that I'm going to be reprimanded for performance reasons every time my phone rings and every time an email pops up and I can STOP FEELING GUILTY.

And, lastly. Stop trying to influence others' behaviors.

Did you hear that?

This week I had an opportunity to take the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I can't tell you how thrilled I was to get picked to get to attend for work. Granted there's a large chance I won't ever have a chance to use it with them...but...well, I've got nothing...it does in fact suck for them and their resources.

Anyway, one of the skills I'm practicing is this empathetic listening. I gotta admit. Empathy isn't a strong point of mine. I'm very guy like in the sense that I hear the problem, listen, and then move into fix it mode. In fact, I often find it hard to be listened to empathetically because I don't want someone to 'hear that I'm frustrated', I want to hear what the solution is.

This approach hasn't worked well with PC and his job troubles - to the point he often won't discuss work with me because he knows it will lead to me asking what he plans to fix it, accept it, or find a way out. Which to me is the most logical set of responses.

Basically, the skill is about listening and reflecting back the emotion that you hear in an effort to let the person feel heard and understood. I've been using it for the last few days with some limited success. The hardest things for me are to 1) not move into solutions and 2) not give examples of similar experiences unless asked.

I'm finding it even harder as I watch the person I love engage in behaviors that scream "BURNOUT!!" and not be able to help him prioritize. When I watch him perform tasks that are important to others but that do not align to what is important to him or us it is frustrating. I want to share with him the skills and lessons I've learned in the last week...but instead I sit and try very hard to empathetically listen.

Cleaning out the cobwebs

It seems counter intuitive to continue unpacking when I may be repacking in about 2 months. But, I am. Mostly now in an effort to reduce the amount of crap I have. I've been reading this book - Find More Time at Home - which turns out to be an organization book. Based on a little quiz (I love quizzes like these), my biggest time suck is paper and clutter.

Shocking. I know.

Anyway, when I think about it I'd say that I easily have 4 boxes alone for my office that contains papers and notes I used to study for my qualifying exams about 4 years ago. Honestly speaking, I have in fact referenced them since I finished the exams.

Once.

For PC because he wanted to become familiar with a particular area that is common in my industry. And, given that all my notes are divided up across 25 areas of my specialty, it was actually pretty handy.

So, I've decided to compromise. I don't want to lug these damn massive notebooks of notes that I might reference once every 4 years for the rest of my life. I especially don't want to pay to have them moved should we move to Dream State, or even dream house (if we stay here but get a new 'our' home). The compromise is (and this isn't necessarily advocated by the book, and may be a huge time suck of its own) is to scan all my articles and notes. That way, I have them and if need be reference them. But they'll be a nice compact file.

And, to make sure this isn't a huge waste of time that is lost when my computer (God help me) crashes some day, I even bought a little external hard drive to back up my stuff.

I know, I know. This is big.

One in a million?

First, let me say, thank God for the preparation. Seriously, I woulda screwed that one up.

Second, let me just say, I just rocked that interview. I accidentally answered things that turned out to be exactly what they were looking for.

Me: "So, as I was saying I love cucumbers."
Them: "We have so many cucumbers here, we don't know what to do with them!"

The job sounds perfect. It's in Dream State. The conversation about how quickly I can move came up. Wanting to give my current projects time to finish, give PC some time to look for work and someone to rent his place (or sell it), us to pack up and move...I asked for two months. Which, is kind of like really three months when you consider that we have our annual week and a half vacation coming up in the month I'd theoretically start.

I have no concept of whether we can do this in two to three months and be ready to report to work.

I'm in full force ignore-that-I-will-leave-all-my-friends-behind as well.  Other things I'm currently supressing...we won't go there.

Hoping, hoping, hoping this is my one-in-a-million chances and I get it.

Preparation is apparently key

Huh, I don't think I thought about preparing for this phone interview. I think I figured - well, based on the 5 minute description of what they are looking for and rereading my answers to the on-line application...I'm perfect. In fact, most of time has been spent looking at apartments in Dream State, discussing how PC and I were going to swing two mortgages in Current State, and how soon I could start.

Thankfully, a few close friends at work asked me what I planned to answer to particular questions. Then, I started reading common answers to those types of questions. Which, logically led to me reading articles about phone interviews - which it turns out seem to be becoming more heavily weighed than in the past. And, I don't know why I hadn't considered that given that it is out of Current State so the decision to do a face-to-face for either party (me or them) will be more seriously considered than if I was walking down the street. But alas, at least it isn't too late. I still have time to prepare.

Reviewing my resume. Reviewing my answers to the online application (thankfully I saved a copy). Seeing if I can find anything online about the company (so far, pretty limited). And, preparing some common answers about:

Why this job?
Why not current job?
Where do I want to be in 5 years?
What's my weakness?
Why hire me?

Aside from this sounding like my dream job....I've gotta admit that after two reprimands today about things that are completely stupid...I can't wait to get out of this environment and into one where at least the work is rewarding.

Holy ship

I have a job interview in Dream State.

Which is a nice change for the 4 rejections I got for one of the other jobs I applied to around the same time. Apparently they'd wanted to make it abundantly clear that they really didn't want me.

Anyway, the news was especially good, what with it being PCs birthday and we were still on vacation for me to get the call. The entire day we spent talking about all the exciting things we'll do in Dream State.

Since we've been home, the reality of the pain in the ass it will be to relocate has been inching in.

I'm trying to ignore it.