Take for instance my hypochondriac son. The trouble started when he read that dreadful book: “Ouch: How Your Body Makes it Through a Really Bad Day”. The goal of the book is innocent enough – just an introduction to your human body. Unfortunately it’s an introduction to a human body that is attacked by a bee, invaded by ear parasites, pathogens, lice, asthma attacks, vomiting and choking. Rich fodder for a boy with a vivid imagination. The book shamelessly lists and goes into details on the things that can go wrong with a little boy (around the age of 7!) from dawn to dusk. My son was drawn to it like a moth to a flame. He could not stop reading it. He did stop other things like sleeping and eating, which I found far more damaging and immediate than the tape worm he imagined suctioned to his large intestines. His anxiety and paranoia rose with each new factoid.  He was really scared. He was filling his mind with graphic stories of his body being attacked. His sisters thought he was going insane.

Surely some parallels can be drawn from this for moms that have been out of the work force for a long time. Moms that have never stopped working probably don’t understand what the big deal is. You worked before, just get up and do the same thing.  When I was in the corporate work mode I really didn’t give it a second thought either. Get up, get dressed, go to work. No problem.

There is however a remarkable shift after you have been a stay at home mom for an extended period of time. The working world has changed as have you. Things are a little more complicated now and frankly since you have taken charge of all the household activities, unburdening yourself is not trivial. The thought of transitioning back to work is terrifying to most and your fears might be so powerful that you are immobilized by them.

There are some things you can do to get mentally prepared and get over the fear:

1. Focus On What You Bring To The Table

It’ is pretty common to have low self esteem after being out the work force for an extended period of time. Don’t be fooled into thinking you have nothing to offer. Sure, you might be a little rusty, a little rough around the edges, but why dwell on that? There will be hurdles you will need to overcome. But be certain about what your strengths are and what you offer, that is what will sell you.

2. Focus On What You Will Get Out Of The Job

It amazes how some people have no expectation of getting anything but a pay check out of a job. If you are looking for the right job for you there is going to be far more than the financial compensation to get you excited. The job you are looking for is going to excite you for what it will mean to you. The intangible rewards and benefits could be meeting more people, travelling, selling a product you really believe in or working with a company that aligns with your values.

3. Start Visualizing Work

I’ll admit I love day dreaming. I think I picked it up from my kids. They day dream about fairies, magic doors and other impossible magical creatures and events. They can tell you every detail they see in their mind. It doesn’t matter that the events will never happen, in their mind they already have. Start day dreaming about a day at the office (or whatever that environment looks like for you). Seeing the image in our mind makes us less anxious and prepares you emotionally for the change.

4. Talk To Those That Have Recently Made The Transition

In hindsight it’s lucky that I was a fearful child and can easily relate to my son’s fears. I was scared of the dark, being left alone, my parents dying and a long list of other fears that I am sure were based on some piece of information I had learnt somewhere. So when my son pelleted me with questions about asthma I listened (mostly patiently). He wanted to know how I would know if he was wheezing. He thought he felt dust mites in his throat and he had read that those could lead to asthma. His eyes grew really large when I revealed to him that his sister had cold induced asthma and she seemed to be surviving just fine.

So talk to a mom who made the transition and lived to tell the tale. They might have suggestions of what they did and what they would do differently.

5. Tell Yourself A Different Story

My son was telling himself such a powerful story about the ailments in the book that he started feeling tummy aches, he felt lice crawling in his hair (and eye lashes) and one day he was sure his appendix had ruptured. That is powerful. He actually had real physical and emotional changes as a result of his belief in his own story. He shyly told me the other day that he thought his stomach aches had gone away because he stopped reading Ouch. Precisely. Maybe your current story goes: “Going to work is going to be so terrible. There are so many logistics to think of. My skills are really rusty.” A new story could go more along the lines of: “Going to work is going to open up opportunities I currently don’t have access to.” “I want to work in a fun and vibrant environment that puts my my skills and talents to use.” You might need help to make such a really powerful mind-shift so that it has staying power and a lasting impact.

I finally got rid of the book. My attempts were obstructed repeatedly as my son continuously retrieved the library bound book from the car. After getting rid of the offending book I brought home a book called “You Are Weird: Your Body’s Peculiar Parts and Funny Functions.” This time he was learning about his body and laughing so hard he didn’t have time to worry. The mind shifting chapter was titled “Bacteria Bed and Breakfast” and the powerful lines read: “Most (bacteria) pay well for the room and board you provide. And by fighting off other microscopic beings, they may even save your life”. Well that’s all the boy needed to hear, the once dreaded bacteria that were about to take his life were a life saver! All my positive, supportive talk could not have changed his mental story as fast as reading that one line. Sometimes we just need a little help to jostle us out of our current mindset.

What stories are you telling yourself about going back to work? What are your greatest fears about the dreaded office? Any words of encouragement from working moms or moms that recently transitioned? How do you deal with your kid’s fears?

According to a study by working mother, more moms feel guilty about keeping a clean house than not spending enough time with their kids.

Could this be where most of us are headed?:

“Here lies Fez, our dearly departed. She kept an immaculate house. Known for her eye for detail her windows were spotless. She polished her wooden floors to a brilliance that radiated an unblemished shine. When visiting her lovely home you could count on dust free table tops and pristine base boards. ”

Put that together with the fact that if you are 100, you are probably a woman, that could mean another 60 years of mopping and dusting for me.

“You could have eaten off her toilet seat and her vacuuming could not be matched. She invested her time and energy into creating a pristine, spotless home.”

“P.S. She is survived by three children.”

Ladies, what do you think … bliss and a life well lived?

You are invited to a FREE workshop

for moms transitioning from staying at home.

The Workshop will Address Challenges Unique to Stay at Home Moms.

Presented by Fez Saige

Pick a morning that works for you:

January 24 or 26 from 9 to 10:30.

At the Chatsworth Clubhouse

(4456  Derwent Drive)

RSVP on  Facebook @coach2accomplish or complete the contacts form on www.coach2accomplish.com

The Saige Trio

My babies are turning seven today. It seems like it was just yesterday that I remember them crawling around … No wait, actually that’s not true. I don’t remember much of the first two years of their lives. I was sleep deprived, changing diapers, scraping food off the floor and doing the non stop ever time consuming washing and filling of baby bottles.

I have struggled since then to answer basic questions like: when did they start to crawl or when did they say their first words? Are you kidding me? Was I meant to be walking around with a clipboard taking notes? Well I didn’t or more like I couldn’t. It was a period of trying to meet basic primal needs: eat, sleep and potty.

What I have a strong recollection of are waves of terror. Terror about wether it would be humanly possible to care for the lot and sheer terror at the thought of being left alone with the whole bunch! But we managed. By God’s grace and a lot of help from some amazing friends and family.

It’s early days yet but already we have entered a new phase. A phase of constant companionship and a ready made play date. Ah these are the good years. If I try really hard – although I think the strain has less to do with the triplets and more with aging, I can now recall some milestones! For instance I recall when they all learnt to ride bikes without training wheels, I recall when they stopped sucking their thumbs and my personal favorite: when they could load and unload the dishwasher.

If you are ever having a dull day come over to our house, there is never a dull moment thanks to the Saige triplets. Happy 7th birthday my precious babies.

So how can we capitalize on our insatiable appetite for NOW? Is there any good that can come from impatience to see immediate gains and rewards?  What if we demanded to see immediate results in our new year’s resolutions? What if we took a look at our list of resolutions and took one resolution that we could accomplish immediately? That would be great for the psyche. We would immediately feel we gained something and we would be eager for more.  To stay in that positive, I’m changing my life for the better cycle, we’ve got to see some immediate results and corresponding benefits.

So spur yourself on and give yourself a boost by picking some low hanging fruit. Achieving this goal should be almost effortless. Note the insertion of the word – almost. It will require some, albeit a little, effort – maybe a click of a few buttons or a phone call and then puff – just like that, it’s done.

It’s not the setting of the resolutions that’s problematic, it’s more the way we set them. I alluded in my post, Only Read This if You want to Achieve Something, how thinking of and setting lofty goals the night before the first day of the next year never really results in anything. By the time the hangover wears off we have no clue what was said, done or promised and frankly we really don’t care.

If you are going down the path of resolutions being awesome ways to make life improvements, here are some helpful hints that can make your resolutions achievable:

1. Make concrete goals. Somehow it’s acceptable to make resolutions like, I want to lose weight, but yet we never set appointments by saying, I want to see you. The first is perfectly acceptable and everyone seems to understand exactly how it will be met, yet we demand more details with the second. When are we going to meet, where, who else should we invite? Why not apply the same method to setting our goals. Lose how much weight, over what period of time and how?
2. Write your resolutions down. I once passed over a piece of paper to a friend of mine who was telling me her resolutions and  she had the hardest time putting them on paper. Writing things down requires a lot more thought. As she was writing she started revising and clarifying what she really wanted to do.
3. Write your resolutions on your forehead! If you keep them to yourself, you’ll be the only one that ever knows you didn’t succeed. Making your resolutions publicly known gives them a burst of life as you publicly, if only with your friends, let someone know what you are going to achieve. You will also have the added benefits of being held accountable.
4. Don’t go it alone. It’s hard to make meaningful changes. Even if we break down the goal of losing weight into concrete steps, it still requires some real effort to make the necessary changes. Take along some friends for the ride. Build in the new goal into your calendar and see if a friend will come with you. You will be surprised that someone else might have the same goal and would be happy for your support.

2. Lousy relationships. Easier said than done. These are the people that suck the life right out of you. Some of the ways they thin the air is by complaining, being needy, demanding or rude. These aren’t bad people, just not the right people for you. We should always learn to get along but we certainly don’t want to intentionally spend our precious, limited hours on people that drain our energy. So if it’s not possible to let go completely, cut back.

3. Complaining. Unless you like spending your time with complainers, to attract quality people, stop complaining. It seems so fun at the time but really achieves nothing.

4. Procrastinating. It gets you nowhere. I am so bad at procrastinating that I have to come up with systems to get things done. You saw the tolerances thing I did last week, that’s the system. What I like to get done, always get’s done. It’s all the rest of the icky stuff that seems to hang around waiting for me forever.

5. Over committing. You don’t want to be that person that no one can count on do you? Always late. Never sending the information you promised. The only way to stop over committing is to take the things you have committed to extremely seriously. Even the little seemingly trivial commitments you have made.

6. Making excuses. There is a powerful question in Jack Canfield’s book, The Success Principles, that helps with this one: “How did I create this situation?”. Ask this of everything. Some are blatantly obvious: I’m rushing because I didn’t plan ahead properly. Others are not so obvious: a stressful work environment or misbehaving children. There will always be external factors, everyone has to live with those but there are always choices we make that either get us closer to where we want to go or further away.

7. Comparing. You to anyone else. Your kids to any other kids. Your friends. Your family. I guess what I am saying is don’t compare.

8. Being grumpy. Let’s definitely leave this one behind. Nothing fun about hanging out with grumpy people. In fact once you have let go of your own grumpiness, avoid being around any grumpy people. They might infect you back.

9. Multi-tasking. You know how I feel about this one. Studies have shown yada yada yada …

10. Stuff. It’s a terrible word but is so apt for our accumulations. I walk into my storage area and wonder where all this stuff came from. What is all this stuff doing here? It can’t possibly belong to me because I don’t use it. Heirlooms you say. Yeah, right, that gold plated pendant I got from my great great grandmother. It needs a whole room.

11.  Resentment. The feeling of displeasure or indignation at some act, remark, person, etc., regarded as causing injury or insult (dictionary.com). There are people out there so ready to be displeased that they will even get displeased in your stead. I say, leave it to them.

12. Anger. Tough to let go. But possible (sometimes with professional counselling). Be mad. Be very mad. Then move on.

13. Self doubt. It’s so debilitating. It should be classified as a medical condition because it can render you helpless and unable to act. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt and believe.

14. Guilt. I think this is so important I am starting a new Facebook page: Guilt Free Mama. Moms seem to walk around with heaps of this stuff. We feel guilty about going back to work. We feel guilty about not going back to work. We feel guilty about having fun. We feel guilty about not having fun. For heavens sake, just let it go!

15. Past failures. What’s worse than failure? I can think of a lot of things but for the purposes of my point: carrying the failure around like a medal. Worse yet (I wanted to use worser!), making it the reason for not trying.

If you like my list and are on Facebook (guilt free) to get away from your family (just for a minute) tell me what I left out and what you are planning to let go off.

With your help, I am going to demonstrate a couple of things:

1. The power of a community.

2. The impact of taking care of tolerances.

3. A successful transition to 2012 is going to take more than just writing resolutions.

4. As much as we can wish it, some things won’t go away on their own.

I have written plenty of articles about tolerances already. So enough talk. Time for action.

I am going to pick three of my biggest, ugliest (to me), most annoying, long standing tolerances and I am going to take care of them. I have till next week, this time (check the time stamp on when this blog was published). So here we go, I will upload the before pictures of my top three tolerances on my Facebook page. Look for the after pictures next week.

If you are brave enough, upload your pictures on Facebook. When you upload your pictures, tag yourself on the picture so we know who is on the line for delivering. This will be one less thing (or two or three) you will have to think about, worry about or carry into the coming year!

Get Your Priorities Straight

If I looked at your calendar over the past month, would I be able to tell what your priorities were? Pretend that for a minute everything you did was on your calendar. The time you spent working, with your significant other, your kids, your friends and by yourself. What would the numbers look like? If you don’t know I dare you to find out.

“What get’s measured, gets managed”, Peter Drucker. I have applied this to raising kids, losing weight, increasing my ranking on Google and to my financials. If I start to measure it, I start being in control of it! Once you have determined your values, as we did in Step 1 Re-igniting Our Values on our eight step journey then we can start managing our priorities to match our values. We might be feeling overwhelmed by the demands being put on us and wonder where all our time is going, only to find out it’s being wasted by unimportant activities.

This is not a trivial exercise. Setting priorities is the topic of so many bestsellers. There is a whole genre of books, and I am sure you own a few, on how to manage your time and spend it wisely. Steven Covey coined the phrase “First things First”. After applying Covey’s lessons, you will always have time for the important things in your life. The bestseller by Laura Vanderkam, You Have More Time than You Think, boils down to analyzing your day and matching it to your priorities.

So let’s take a value that you might have ignored for the past couple of years and see how it can fit into your priorities. Let’s say Fun is one of those values you really want to exercise but are always finding excuses. Fun for you could be hanging out with friends or going out with your significant other. You know it’s important but is it as important as spending time with your kids? Denying yourself the things you need makes you more miserable in the long run. The needs don’t go away, they just go unmet. Get your needs met and keep your family healthy.

So prepare. Look for the things you want to do: find a dance studio, sign up to receive information on what’s playing at your local theater, take up that art class. Buy tickets. Put it on your calendar. Look after your priorities.

The good news for you, we have timed this perfectly. New Years is a time for personal growth and transitions. Christmas is about gift giving. Give yourself a gift that will last. Take out your calendar and schedule the things that you need to do. Make your calendar reflect your priorities and point to your values.

What is that feeling of unease as you are about to say yes to yet another volunteer opportunity? Is that tension in your jaw as you are about to embark on a big project that is going to take you away from home and keep you up late most nights? Is it guilt, doubt, anxiety?  That feeling is your body giving you feedback that you are about to do something that does not reflect your values. You are communicating to you, that you are in danger of going off the course.

As important as values are, few of us take the time to understand them or intentionally give them the attention they deserve. But we ignore them at our own peril. To understand how to map your path forward you need to know what is already in you. Some people are ok with having their day, weeks, months, years planned by other people. They take on other people’s priorities, emergencies and problems and generally go from day to day fulfilling requests. That is definitely one way of doing it. You will be loved by your friends, neighbors and family as you help them fulfill their goals. But don’t be surprised that you have an empty feeling that something is missing.

Another alternative to that is knowing and understanding your values and using them as the basis for your decisions. Coaches spend time working with clients on values because they cannot be ignored. Even if you don’t know what your values are they are continuously giving you feedback when they are not being met. Take the example at the beginning of someone who is about to embark on a big project that is going to involve a lot of travel and late nights. If their top value is family, they will  feel uneasy about the project because that value is about to be violated. This doesn’t mean they shouldn’t take on the project but a succession of these kinds of decisions that continuously go against their values will leave them extremely miserable. The thing about values is they won’t let you go. If they are true values and not just a whimsical wish, they will continue to hound you until you make the necessary changes to live by them.

How does knowing and re-igniting your values help you make resolutions that you can stick to? Purely by picking things that you want to do for the new year that align with your values you will be both more successful in meeting those goals and you will be happier. One of my values is being connected, this value gives me a lot of energy. So one of my goals or resolutions for next year to satisfy that need, is to start a support group. I love support groups. The ones that I have investigated don’t quite meet what I am looking for, so I am going to start my own. The very thought of it makes me giddy. How much more when I actually get it done!

Values can be a wonderful guide to living a rich and fulfilling life or they can be a total drag as they drain your energy clamoring for your attention. As we get ready to transition into the new year, let’s do it right. Let’s first take time to understand our values so we can know where our decisions will be coming from.