A: You are going in a wrong direction.
B: Honey, I know where I’m going.
A: … in a wrong direction.
B: Honey, pleeease!
A: …
B: O Gosh! I went in a wrong direction.
Only “A” would not be quiet after “Honey, pleeease!” and “B” would not admit that he was wrong.

Ok, I made my decision: ‘I’m writing today about getting feedback, asking for feedback, accepting feedback and avoiding feedback. First thing I did was to google phrase “Do you need feedback?” I clicked on the first link that popped up on my screen, it was Wiki Answers and what I’ve read next was: “THE QUESTION HAS NOT BEEN ASWERED YET”. I bet it has not.

Let’s make some experiment. Imagine that someone you know from your work or previous work (think about real person and put her name in blank space) …… (he/she) approaches you and says: “I would like to give you some feedback”.
What is your first reaction? Do you feel happy? Exited? , Anxious? Or Scared? Not everyone reacts exactly like you’ve reacted. I know people who would be exited. I know ones who would be anxious about getting feedback. For some people getting feedback is related with learning and development and for some people it is related with being criticized and that is why they want to avoid it.

Psychologist made some researches proving that it may be correlated with our self esteem. In simple words people who experience low self esteem (who are also experiencing instability in their life) may develop self-protecting strategies like not accepting negative feedback. For ones with high self –esteem (who are also experiencing instability in their life) positive feedback may encourage them to perform even better.

In my practise I met people who had high self esteem and was not accepting or searching for feedback. Those people were very decisive managers and they were very effective in crisis situations. However when the crisis was gone, the cooperation on the daily basis with such persons seemed very difficult, not to say impossible.

I met people whose self esteem was very low and because of that, they did not trust their own decisions. They had tendency to keep asking and confirming their opinions with the supervisors and colleagues which made crazy the last ones. They simply were not able to take decisions independently if they did they felt discomfort. They usually continue to ask and confirm with others if the decisions they took were the right ones. Those people though were achieving very good results improving their self esteem through coaching sessions, because they were learning quickly.

It was more difficult to change their self esteem for ones with the low self – esteem and low tolerance to feedback. It was longer process however it was still possible.

Managers who were assessing by their subordinates as good leaders able to motivate their team were in 80% managers with high self- esteem and high preference for accepting and searching feedback. (source: my own research conducted on 70 managers for one of my clients – private corporate company).
If you want to check how your self esteem is correlated with openness to feedback feel welcomed to write to me and I would be happy to send you questionnaire assessing patterns that measure it.

Right now you can do short self – assessment:
Do you think you need feedback?
Are you interested in searching for feedback?
Would you accept every kind of feedback?
Would you accept feedback from everybody?
Do you like to discuss with someone your decisions before you will take them?
When was the last time you asked someone for feedback?
Do you think your opinion is important?
What do you do if you have different opinion than others?

After answering to those questions what you would say about your openness to feedback and respecting your own opinions?

He is so successful …He has a good job, lots of money and beautiful wife. She is also very successful … She has him. Their friend is even more successful he has no job, some money and he is single. His sister made her dream come true … she has a baby. What is success? How do you define it? A few years ago I was asked to prepare presentation on the conference dedicated for women and it was called: “Women of Success”. The presentation was supposed to be about … SUCCESS. At the beginning I was trying to define what the success was and in what moments of my life I felt the most successful. The first answer that came to my mind was …”when I hug my child”. I felt the most successful in my life when I was hugging my child. I thought to myself, “this is not what they are expecting”, “they asked me to have presentation on success and they invited a lot of businesswomen ….. I bet they don’t want to hear about hugging the kid”. So I started to call my friends: “Hi, this is me, I know you’re busy, but can you just quickly tell me when you feel the most successful? And what success is for you?”. Imagine that you are my friend, who wants to help me with my presentation for the conference. Can you just quickly tell me when you feel the most successful? And what it means to be successful for you?
The success is something different for everybody. For some people a divorce will be a failure and for some it will be a sign of success, for some people accepting CEO position will be a sign of success and for some it will be a sign of weakness, because “I could not say NO, even though I knew I was not ready”; “I could not say NO, even if I did not want this position.” “I did not want to work in corporate world in a first place, but it does not matter because I will retire in two years.”

Successful people are not only FOCUSED on what they want, they also KNOW WHAT THEY WANT and that’s why they have a VISION OF their SUCCESS.

It was another common thing for all successful people that I met in my life, that they all had ….a VISION of their SUCCESS. You won’t believe me how different those visions were, but again there were a few things that were the same and common in all cases.

WHAT EXACTLY? – DETAILED VISION OF SUCCESS

Their VISION could be well described by them, because they actually could SEE IT in their minds. Some people could see themselves in expensive suits, in a luxury car with a beautiful wife sitting in a car. Some of them saw themselves in a T-shirt and shorts, doing nothing, resting on the beach (and knowing what they had to do to be in that place). Some of them were seeing themselves with family and kids around. The common thing was that they all had a VISION which they could see, and see in details.
What kind of car? Which beach exactly? How many kids?

HOW EXACTLY? – STRATEGY OF SUCCESSFUL STEPS

They all knew as well HOW they are going to MAKE a VISION come true. They knew what their STRATEGY is. They had small visions of each step of that strategy in their minds.

WHO EXACTLY … CAN DO IT? – YOUR INFLUENCE ON YOUR SUCCESS

They also knew they could do everything that is depended on them. SO if they wanted to earn a lot of money, the question they asked themselves was Does it depend on me? Yes, I can do it. What I need to do is to increase sales in my company.
Hmmm, Increase sales in my company means I want my customers to buy more. Does it depend on me? Hmmm … It depends on your customers how much they buy…BUT you can make it depended on you. You can ask yourself a question: What can I do to make my customers buy more? Now, this is something you have influence on….

WHAT EXACTLY WILL HAPPEN NEXT? – CONSEQUENCES OF THE SUCCESS

What I’ve learned from successful people I talked to, they always think about the “good” and “bad” consequences of their successes. They think: “What will happen if I achieve what I want?”; “What will happen if I don’t achieve what I want”; “What will not happen if I achieve what I want?”; “What will not happen if I don’t achieve what I want?”.

The CEO guy would know what to do years ago If he had asked himself that four last questions.

What I said during the presentation was that: “Success is a state of mind. You can be successful all the time no matter what you do. Once you feel successful, it is so easy to see your vision, it just comes to your mind with all its successful steps, with all answers what you need to do to convince others and it’s so easy to do that and so easy to see all the consequences of it and feel exactly what you want to feel right from the beginning.”

What do you do when you meet very successful people in your life? I ask them the same question: How do you do it? They don’t know that I’ve already asked this question many, many times (lucky me!). I’ve been looking for things that are common in their answers and I’ve found something. BEING FOCUSED! That’s what I heard most often.
You can ask: But HOW can I BE FOCUSED? I know that some of you will say: I am focused, I do many things, I’m focused on my work, family, friends, my studies, my husband’s studies, my children, my career, my hobby, my music, books, movies, my emails, my calls, shopping, jogging, drinking water, watching news, watering flowers, losing weight, having shower, having sex, reading blogs and brushing teeth. Maybe the only thing hard to BE FOCUSED on is sleeping, but besides that I am focused … on many things. Believe me, people I asked the question, they sleep well, because THEY ARE FOCUSED. THEY A R E F O C U S E D.

NOW, I want you to tell me three criteria you use when you are committing yourself to something. What are three things you consider when undertaking and activity. Sometimes those criteria are called values. It does not matter how we NAME THEM if only we can NAME THEM now. You can WRITE THEM DOWN. 3 words!

I’m waiting ________________________________You’re writing._______________________________________________________You’re writing _______________________________________I’m waiting _______________________________________________ You’re writing _____________________________________________________ 3 words ______________________________________________That’s ok! _______________________________I’m waiting ____________________________________________ And You’re writing them down.
I’ll give you an example: development, fun, result. Another example: pleasure, money, respect. What about yours? ___
If you cannot NAME THEM, spending some time to define them would BRING YOUR LIFE to the track YOU WANT TO CHOOSE.
If you’ve you found them, you can filter every single project, every single task and each little thing that you spend your time on using your 3 criteria.
I’m focused on my … and it gives me …
Work development – YES, result – YES, fun – NO Decision?
Family development – YES, result – YES, fun – YES Cool!
Friends development – NO, results – NO, fun – YES Decision?
My studies development – YES, results – YES, fun – NO Decision?
My husband’s studies development – NO, results – NO, fun – NO Decision?
Even if your results are YES, YES, NO or NO, YES, NO you still can continue with BEING FOCUSED on the task or thing because one YES can be enough. However if you put 3 times NO with some projects or tasks, my question is: Are there any decision you want to make? BE FOCUSED and SLEEP WELL unless you decide differently.

I understand, but WHY me? I understand rationally, but I keep myself asking WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? My question to you is: Where it leads you? Where ‘WHY’ question leads you? What happens when you ask yourself a question: WHY? WHY leads you to the PAST. WHY focus your attention on things that already happened. Your mind starts analysing past experiences when you ask WHY questions. Is that what you want? Do you want to live life in your PAST or you want to live life NOW and build your FUTURE.
It’s your choice. You can choose where you want to live in your PAST, PRESENT or FUTURE.
If you choose to live in your PAST, continue to ask yourself Why questions. If you choose to live in your PAST stop breathing. If you choose to live in your PAST stop feeling. If you choose to live in your PAST be critic to everything that’s new. If you choose to live in your PAST forget about your FUTURE.
IF you choose to live NOW take care of how you FEEL. If you choose to live NOW make sure YOU FEEL GOOD to ACT. If you choose to live NOW HAVE A GOAL. If you choose to live NOW TAKE ACTION. If you choose to live NOW, FEEL GOOD BECAUSE YOU HAVE A GOAL AND TAKE ACTION. If you choose to live NOW BUILD YOUR FUTURE.
IF you choose to live in FUTURE, THINK ABOUT IT NOW. If you choose to live in FUTURE, RAISE YOUR HEAD AND LOOK AHEAD. If you choose to live in FUTURE LET GO OFF PAST. If you choose to live in FUTURE, START NOW!
How much time do you spend thinking about PAST? Is it good for you NOW?

London Heathrow Airport is a very good place for the reflection and writing a post. I’m here again and I’m writing an entry for my blog sitting on my suitcase again. On my plane from Warsaw to London I met a wonderful person. She’s English, but her grandparents come from Poland. Her parents were born in UK and she was born in UK and…..she speaks Polish fluently. She read the title of my polish book. She reads and writes in Polish. What do you say? I know also Swedish Australian. He did not want to learn Swedish from his Swedish parents, because he did not want to …’be different’ at school. He regrets today. ‘I could have learnt it so easy back then’ he says. And I also know couple that has been living in Sydney for 5 years now and when they speak their mother tongue language they speak with the foreign accent right now.
No judgements. Everyone’s case is different. However I want to ask you one question: Do you have a goal? Is there anything you REALLY WANT? Is there anything you think you could have / achieve….BUT … (…).
Everything that comes after BUT …is important, isn’t it?
I want you to say at loud: ‘I want to…… (put your goal here)’ , BUT… (put your reasons for not doing it here). After each reason say ‘AND THAT IS A VERY GOOD REASON FOR NOT DOING IT’.
And again say: ‘I want to ….. (say your goal here)’ , BUT… (say your reasons for not doing it). After each reason say ‘AND THAT IS A VERY GOOD REASON FOR NOT DOING IT’. Say it in a very convincing way, because YOU ARE convinced THAT IS A VERY GOOD REASON FOR NOT DOING WHAT YOU WANT, aren’t you?
Let’s see example:

‘I want to learn Spanish, but….I don’t have a talent to study foreign languages’
AND THAT IS A VERY GOOD REASON FOR NOT DOING IT.
‘I want to learn Spanish, but….I cannot find good teacher.
AND THAT IS A VERY GOOD REASON FOR NOT DOING IT.
‘I want to learn Spanish, but … I don’t have money.
AND THAT IS A VERY GOOD REASON FOR NOT DOING IT.
‘I want to learn Spanish, but … I don’t have time.
AND THAT IS A VERY GOOD REASON FOR NOT DOING IT.
‘I want to learn Spanish, but … I don’t have iPOD.
AND THAT IS A VERY GOOD REASON FOR NOT DOING IT.
‘I want to learn Spanish, but … I have noisy neighbours.
AND THAT IS A VERY GOOD REASON FOR NOT DOING IT.
‘I want to learn Spanish, but … I am too tired after work.
AND THAT IS A VERY GOOD REASON FOR NOT DOING IT.
‘I want to learn Spanish, but … I will never speak like a native speaker.
AND THAT IS A VERY GOOD REASON FOR NOT DOING IT.

What was your goal? You want to give me excuses for not doing it or will you answer to this simple question: ‘WHEN WILL YOU START?’

Is it possible to start it earlier? NO? Why not?

‘You cannot start it earlier, BECAUSE …
AND THAT IS A VERY GOOD REASON FOR NOT STARTING IT EARLIER.

I’ve lost my job and I’m angry, I’ve lost my job and I’m scared, I’ve lost my job and I’m depressed. I’ve lost my job and I don’t know what to do. Before you will do anything try to understand your emotions. Don’t be afraid, they will help you to go through that difficult time. That’s right! Your emotions, ones you want to get rid off, they want to help you and they will! Because of the recession unfortunately you are not the only one who is in exactly the same situation. There are reactions to the situation of loosing job that are the same and emotions that are similar (anger, fear, anxiety, sadness, depression or mobilization), but the level of awareness how to manage your emotions in that difficult situation is different for each person. Since last November the amount of people who needed help in the transitions of their careers has been growing. I’ve been observing different emotional reactions of my clients to what happened to them. And each client is different and requires unique approach. But what I’ve noticed was that those clients who chose to listen to their emotions through the process of transition, they were dealing with the situation much, much better than others who jumped into action without understanding what they felt. Those who acted against their emotions often came back after few months and we had to start the process from the beginning, from understanding what their emotions were telling them in order to get ready for career transition. If you don’t listen to your emotions and you simply ignore them they can call for your attention even lauder in the least expected moments. If you for example ignore frustration that you are experiencing because of not getting job you want, the signs of frustration can appear during the interview where you maybe don’t want to look too determined or desperate. It is important to know how to manage your emotions during that difficult time of being unemployed. It will be much easier to go through the transition if you know how to make emotions work for you and support you in everything you do or plan to do. The whole recipe for “how to manage my career transition” is within each person. Emotions tell us what to do in order to be effective in finding job or setting up company or gaining new qualifications. How to choose the direction? How to start life again after being redundant? All information is in your emotions. Just listen to them! If you are coach who is assisting the client to go through that difficult time, OBSERVE and LISTEN to your client’s emotions and you will know what to do during coaching session with your client and how to guide him through the process of all changes. Let me give you some examples.
Some people start to look for a job the next day they found out they did not work anymore. And that is ok. Taking action is always good in such situations, however if the emotions that naturally occur will not be heard, they can boycott activities of seeking new job. Here is what you can to avoid this.

1. WRITE DOWN WHAT YOU FEEL – Try to write down all emotions that you are experiencing. You can put your names and labels on them. Be honest with yourself. Nobody will see what you write. Don’t be scared to be scared, because this is what people feel when they don’t feel safe. Write down positive emotions if there are any and negative emotions as well.

2. READ POSITIVE MESSAGES OF YOUR EMOTIONS – Concentrate on each emotion separately and listen to the message it has. Ask yourself a question: What is that this emotion wants for me? What is positive message in it? It is easy to know it with positive emotions, for example MOBILIZATION – the positive message of mobilization is ‘to be focused and ready to action’. With negative emotions it can be more difficult so that is why I’ve prepared some help here:

FEAR – if fear is on your list of emotions, it means that you don’t feel secure, which is normal in that situation. The positive message here is FIGHT or FLIGHT and it means FIGHT or RUN AWAY. Positive message of FIGHT is ‘be strong’, ‘go for it’ and positive message of RUN AWAY is ‘protect yourself’, ‘find a shelter’. Take only positive message of your emotion and write down, what you will do to ‘be strong’ and ‘go for it’. Write down all your resources and things, persons that can support you in ‘going for it’. And here is one secret concerning FEAR: It is emotion that is useful in situation of life threat, when we have to FIGHT or FLIGHT to survive. However, whatever you think right now, losing your job is not that kind of situation. You’re alive! There are millions of people in such situations and nobody will let you die. Repeat to yourself: “I’m alive and I’m safe”; “Everything is ok, I can feel safe”; “Whatever happened, I’m safe now”.

ANXIETY – if anxiety is on your list of emotions, it means that you are afraid of your future, which is also normal in that situation. You are afraid of your future, because you don’t know what will happen. I know that you don’t know because nobody knows, but I know one thing, EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE. The message of anxiety is a question: “WILL I BE OK IN A FUTURE?” The answer is: “YES, YOU WILL”. Here is how you can check it by yourself. Imagine yourself in a future just after the period of time concerning which you are feeling anxiety right now. (read it again: Imagine yourself in a future just after the period of time concerning which you are feeling anxiety right now.) YOU ARE in your future right now. The period of time you were worried about is finished. It’s over. You don’t know what exactly you did in order to be here, but you’ve managed. It’s over. Anxiety is gone! And now, whenever you feel anxiety again just jump into your future just after the period of time concerning which you were feeling anxiety and it will be gone.

SADNESS – if sadness is on your list of emotions it is a very good sign. I mean what I wrote. The positive message of SADNESS is ‘something that was very important to me is OVER and IT’S TIME TO GO TO THE NEXT STEP’. I’m sad, because it’s over. I’m sad because it was important to me and IT’S OVER. Because IT’S OVER, it means that it’s time to MOVE ON. That is why it is a very good sign when you’re feeling sad, because it means you are ready to MOVE ON. Your emotions are telling you to MOVE ON. Sadness is needed to MOVE ON. You need to feel sad and know IT’S OVER (even if it was important) to BE ABLE TO MOVE ON. Mourning is needed to MOVE ON. Sadness knows for how long it needs to stay. If it was a big lost, the sadness will last longer reminding you that IT WAS IMPORTANT…..and still the message is IT’S OVER, you can MOVE ON. Whenever you feel sad just read the message IT’S OVER – MOVE ON and MOVE ON.

ANGER – If anger is on your list of emotions …that is very good, because ANGER gives POWER to BE STRONG and GET TO ACTION and GO FOR IT. The only thing is that you skipped one step. Before ANGER, the FRUSTRATION appears. ANGER appears if we cannot get what we want and we are FRUSTRATED. The positive message of FRUSTRATION is CHANGE THE STRATEGY, what you are doing is not working, CHANGE THE STRATEGY. When you CHANGE THE STRATEGY you can GO FOR IT.

DEPRESSION – if depression is on your list of emotions …it means that you need to REST first before you will start action. The message of depression is ‘I don’t have energy’ which means ‘I need to cumulate energy, I need to REST’. The message of depression is: ‘I don’t have energy to do anything’ ‘I want to stay still…I want to REST’. Listen to this message and REST as much as you need. Once you gather a little bit of energy YOU WILL TAKE ACTION.

So listen to your emotions, they want to help you. That is the first step you can take on your career transition path. I will assist you on your journey with my posts. Write to me if you have questions or if you want to share your story with us. Maybe your story will help someone else.

Top 100 Blogs

Coach Your Life blog was included on the list of TOP 100 DECISION SCIENCE BLOGS by The Daily Reviewer. Check it out here:
http://thedailyreviewer.com/top/Decision-Science
Thank you very much and Enjoy!
Alina Tyl

“It is cold today. No wonder, it is winter.” You will read that words and say: “wait a minute, it is not true!”. Maybe it is not true, if you are not in Sydney, because in Sydney it is winter. And maybe it is not true if you believe that “cold” is the temperature in which water freezes. It is winter in Sydney and it’s only 20 degrees …and it is cold for me. In Europe it is summer right now and it’s warm, because it’s 20 degrees. If you are in America you will probably say: “20 degrees of what?” What it’s “cold” and “warm” depends on our perspective.
How are you feeling today? Are you feeling great? Empowered? Or down and depressed? I’m not asking about reasons. I’m asking if you are aware that …feeling down is only a perspective. If the way you feel it’s empowering, so why to change it, if it is a perspective of feeling bad, why keep it? Even if you feel blue today, once you know it’s only a perspective, it will be difficult to keep it blue any longer. You would probably have to put additional efforts to feel as down as your maybe felt before reading these words. “Feeling great” or “Feel down” depends on our perspective. Even what’s blue … may depend on the perspective of …gender (man could say green on blue).
Are you pleased with your life? Your answer to this question is also a matter of perspective. Think about your life from the perspective of year 2030. In 21 years will you be bothered with things that bother you today?
It is only a perspective however a perspective must be TAKEN by SOMEONE. If you don’t TAKE a perspective, you will be PUT in a perspective…not necessary the one you want. And be careful, because you may believe that this perspective is true. Everything is a perspective, even time. You don’t believe me? On my mobile phone it is 1:40 pm right now (this is my European mobile phone), on my Australian mobile phone it is 6:40 pm (but this is current time in Bangkok, because my mobile automatically changed the time when I was travelling through Bangkok a few hours ago). I am sitting in front of the big clock at the Heathrow airport in London. The clock shows 12:41 pm. It is my decision which perspective I will TAKE and which time I will choose. It is my choice. My goal is to be on time at certain gate to take a right plane to Brussels, where I want to be in a few hours. So it would be useful to TAKE perspective of time from the clock that’s in front of me. And what is your goal? What is that you really want today? Is your perspective (feelings, thoughts) empowering you? Who decides about how you feel and think? Who decides about your perspective?
It’s 12:51. London. I’m on the Heathrow Airport. I’m sitting here with thousand people around. They are all in my journey to Brussels. Are they? Or am I in their journey to Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Dusseldorf, Manchester, Houston, Zurich, Bangalore, New York, Miami, Paris, Tokyo, San Francisco, Stockholm, Shanghai, Nice, Mexico City, Rome or Geneva. Some of them are dressed properly, it’s good, because “it’s cold today, no wonder it’s winter”.

If I ask you if you hear voices, you will think, “What? Ok I’m done with reading this blog” …So I won’t ask you that question, but ….. you’ve just said something to yourself, haven’t you? You thought something about what you’ve read. I know it was thought and you did not say it at loud, however ….you said it in your head!. Is that a problem? No it is not, but don’t tell anyone (just in case). The good or bad news is that it happens to all of us. Internal dialogue that’s what it is ….Talking to yourself… all the time. Some people talk so much that they do not even notice it.
Have you ever driven home from work and being at home you realised that you didn’t remember how you got there. I was focused on my thoughts, you say. You were in your head talking, talking and talking, that’s what I say.
Is that a problem? No it is not …. if only you speak to yourself nicely. What do you usually say to yourself? (“Oh, you’re so stupid”; “you did it again”; “you will never make it”). Would you say that in the way you say it to yourself to anybody you know? (boss doesn’t count). If the answer is NO, so why you treat yourself in this way? It can be easy to change it or difficult to change it. Easy – if you change it right now. Here are three simple steps
1. Recognize your internal voice!
2. Play with it!
3. Turn it off!
4. ……………..do it again tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and the day after.
How to recognize your internal voice?
Can you count from 1 to 10 …in your head, right now? Can you DO IT now? (…) There it is, your Internal voice.
How to play with it?
Can you do your counting veeeeeerrrrryyyy slooooooowlyyyyyyy (….) and FAST .
Do IT , right now, If you don’t you won’t be able to pick up the main idea.
NOW, I want you to pick up the sentence that you don’t really like when you say to yourself. Can be for example “I’m lazy” or “I don’t like the way I laugh” or “I am not so clever” or “I’m not very good in planning” or whatever. When you picked up something you wanted or rather didn’t want. Saaaaayyy it sloooowlyyyyyy to yourself. Now, say it FAST and FASTER. And now say it in a very sexy way. Just imagine how it would sound “I don’t like the way you laugh” when said in a very sexy way. It won’t sound like something you don’t want to listen to. I would even risk the statement that you will like it. If you are not laughing by that time, you need to do the exercise again, but this time identify where exactly is the source of your internal dialogue. Is it on the right? left? above you? In your head? Where exactly? Now, when you identify location of your internal dialogue,…..change it. I want you to hear, how you say to you “I’m not so clever”, but hear it from the big toe of your right foot! That’s right! You need to take seriously your big toe, he is always with you, he knows what he is talking about.
Right now, you probably don’t even want to turn off your internal dialogue, but just in case your really want to hear silence listen to this recording:

“So you want a day off. Let’s take a look at what you are asking for. There are 365 days per year available for work. There are 52 weeks per year in which you already have 2 days off per week, leaving 261 days available for work. Since you spend 16 hours each day away from work, you have used up 170 days, leaving only 91 days available. You spend 30 minutes each day on coffee break which counts for 23 days each year, leaving only 68 days available. With a 1 hour lunch each day, you used up another 46 days, leaving only 22 days available for work. You normally spend 2 days per year on sick leave. This leaves you only 20 days per year available for work. We are off 5 holidays per year, so your available working time is down to 15 days. We generously give 14 day vacation per year which leaves only 1 day available for work and I’ll be darned if you are going to take that day off!”
There will always be many people interested in you not having day off, not resting and not celebrating. There will be people that will tell you: “You didn’t deserve” or “You haven’t finished yet” or “Celebrating is a waste of time, think how much you could do instead”. Many people are motivated to convince you to work hard without a break. “This is the only way how you can achieve something”. “If you want to be someone, you have to work hard”. Maybe you don’t need to have other people saying those things to you, maybe you adopted those beliefs as yours and now the person from whom you are listening that stuff is you.
But “where would you like to go by a car without petrol?”; “which mountain would you like to climb, having flu?”; “how much money would you like to have saved, when in grave?”; “will you go and sing feeling happy, when too tired to do that?“; “would you enjoy being high achiever, without knowing what for?”….and everything because of n-o-t-c-e-l-e-b-r-a-t-i-n-g. Have you seen flowers that were left without water for days and died? When I was buying my gold fish the shop assistant told me that fish need to sleep at least 8 hours, otherwise they can die. I would die if I were a gold fish. But HOW to celebrate? Even if I would decide “I want to celebrate”, I don’t know HOW.
“HOW……to celebrate?” is a very good question for the beginning. Maybe, take a day off.