Before I launch into another year of productivity-enhancing suggestions and ideas, here’s one thought that I hope you take to heart. My eTips aim to help you to live and work with greater ease. They aren’t trying to “fix” you because you aren’t broken. When you feel frustrated at work, when you have negative thoughts about yourself or brain, I hope you…
Casey’s eTip: Put Your Challenges in a Bigger Context
Sometimes a focus on self-improvement can lead you to think that you’re alone with your problems. You are not. In fact, that isolation may keep you from seeing the bigger forces that may, in fact, be what need improvement. When you see yourself as part of a history, community, culture or system, you realize that some of your struggles may have less to do with your capacity and more to do with the contexts in which you find yourself.
Here are just a couple examples…
– You have a creative ADHD brain and wonder why it’s a challenge to function in a world designed by the neurotypical majority
– You are a mother expected to be the primary for child care and blame yourself (not the lack of affordable child care, for example) for the impact of missed time on your career advancement
The list could go on regardless of your age, sex, gender, orientation, skin color, genetic background, nationality, and so on. Contextual awareness enhances self-compassion and enables you to focus your energy on moving towards what you desire instead of what’s wrong with you.
This eTip brought to you by the Drive link in your Productivity Chain.