by Annika Sorensen | Jan 6, 2019 | Leadership & Corporate, Stress
Welcome back to the Ask Dr Annika blog in this early part of 2019. In my weekly dose of calm, I help stressed-out business leaders to calm down and do a better job.
It’s now the beginning of January with the whole of 2019 in front of us. It’s a time to reflect and the time to think of “what do I want to make of this upcoming year and what can I change from last year.”
I read an article the other day that was a guide for new leaders, for young leaders and people who have not been leaders for a long time.
There are two different ways to look at being in authority in the workplace, there’s being the boss and then there’s being a leader. When you’re in a position of authority you are the “boss” and being the boss doesn’t necessarily make you a leader. If you are a boss you have the authority but to be a leader you need to have a different kind of authority among the people that you are supposed to lead. A great leader does not have the authority just by the rules they set but by the heart of the people.
That’s what I love to help people to build into their leadership or position as “boss”.
Let’s get back to the article and the points that I feel will help you approach your leadership in 2019. I read a few things that I think that everyone who is in this position can reflect on and maybe you’ll even be reminded to apply these points again if you have forgotten along the way.
I want to take some of the points that they talked about in this article the first thing was that:
Leadership or career is not a sprint race it’s a marathon, a long-term one. You have to take care of your energy so that you will last all the way to the end. So you have to stop and reflect every now and then and don’t just run, run, run. Sit down, take a deep breath, let your journey take it’s time because if you do work consistently and you do the hard work and not just the hustling then you will be good at what you do, because doing things over and over again in a good manner, well that’s good practice and that makes you good at what you do.
You have to do it over and over again to be the best. Take for example all the people that are musicians, they need to rehearse and rehearse and rehearse and then they are the best in the end and it’s the same way with leadership.
The second thing that I think was very important in this article was that leadership is about people not about things. You have to handle people not lists of things to do because the way you handle the people that’s the result you’re going to get. So you need to practice to listen to what other people say. You are still the boss and you are the one that has the final decision but if you listen to your people then your decisions are probably going to be better for the whole organization.
So that’s the second thing I wanted to point out – it’s about people so take care of the people.
The third thing that was also very good that I think is especially important for young leaders but also for everyone really is that you get yourself a broad spectrum of ages in the network that you have. Have friends or colleagues in all age ranges because then you’ll get new ideas from young people and you’ll have the wisdom of experience from people that have been a great leader for some time.
You should also find people that that’s that are the same kind of people that you are, in that sense that you feel fine with them. I’m not telling you that you all should be exactly the same because that is not a good workgroup in itself because then you will not see or hear new ideas because you are all of the same mind.
You need people from with different kind of views but you have to have people that you like and you can like people with different views than the ones that you have or people seeing things from different views that you do on an everyday basis.
Finally, let’s look at mistakes. Mistakes are something inevitable in life and in the workplace. If you make mistakes or if your people make mistakes see it as money for learning because everyone does mistakes it’s it’s inevitable and everyone will do it, even you. Even if you think you’re perfect you will do mistakes every now and then and that’s fine as long as you stand for what you have done and you can say excuse me I am sorry if it was hurting someone or costing someone else something. You’re only human and making mistakes is human.
These are the things that I wanted to reflect on before getting fully into the swing of 2019. I wish you a very very happy new year and a very prosperous one and I hope that my little tips will start helping you to reflect on what is important really because it’s people that’s important in the long run and don’t forget your family of course they are more important than anything.
Remember if you do need help with anything when it comes to stress management for yourself at work or in relation to your work team then feel free to connect. You can click the link below to connect and we’ll have a chat. Until next time.
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by Annika Sorensen | Dec 23, 2018 | Leadership & Corporate, Sleep, Stress, Your Health
Happy Holidays to everyone! I hope you’re enjoying the season of good will and being good to yourselves?
Just in case you’re not being so good or getting caught up in the stressful side of the holidays here’s three tips to keep your energy levels up and stress levels down:
Today I am out on my early morning walk and it’s not that bright outside here in Sweden. We are now past midwinters day which is the shortest day of the year and I’m really looking forward to the days and especially mornings getting gradually lighter!
At this time of the year where I live it’s usually raining and really dark and I’m so looking forward to this changing but I want to discuss is that even though it is dark and kind of tough to get out of bed it doesn’t serve you to stay in bed and quit the morning walk because the morning walk is your way to get the energy. For those of you who do that.
Also the the exercise you get from it and the moving of your body has so many other good benefits because your brain is made for walking and movement so don’t quit the morning walk or the lunch walk or the afternoon or evening walk., whatever you do even though it’s dark and raining outside like it is here right now.
The second thing that is for this time of the year, because the holiday season is coming up, is the food . We tend to overeat in the holidays because there is food everywhere. Lots of good food with a lot of fat in it and sugar and that tastes so much better. But that is cheating your energy levels..
Be careful of how much you eat. You can eat whatever you want but be careful out of the amount.
There are actually studies showing that the people who grow very old they eat less. I’ve heard so many of them being interviewed and they say they eat just below the level where they feel full.
When you do get over full from food you get tired because all your blood is going to your guts to digest it and you’ll get so tired in your head that it’s hard to do anything and that’s why we take a nap after lunch, right?
It’s ok to do it once or twice but if you do it all the time you’re cheating on your own energy.
The third thing that I always talk about this is the sleep, and I guess sleep is not the big problem at this time of the year, in this part of the world, because when it’s dark outside it’s easier to sleep a lot.
So for that reason I don’t think I need to discuss a lot about sleep today from this perspective.
It’s good to remember that things work the same way at any time of the year and so it is the same in the holiday season as it is the rest of the time. Your body wants to have regularity. That goes for both physical activity, food and sleep. So if you do change your sleeping pattern a lot during the holiday season you have to redo the work to set it in the right mode afterwards.
You can make that decision for yourself depending on how much hard work you want afterwards – that’s how much you can cheat on yourself. For me in the long run and in the end it’s always about having good energy, to live a full life every day and not just sit there and be tired because I’ve done too much of things that I really don’t enjoy that much or enough to make me feel drained so to speak.
When it comes to work at this time of year now that we are heading rapidly towards the holiday season it’s important to remember that you only need to do what’s really important.
Take a look at what you have on your to do list and figure out what’s really important and put things that can be postponed on another list. I call this list my list “parking lot” for things to happen and to do later. By doing this you won’t forget it but you don’t have to do everything before Christmas or the new year if you don’t really have to do it because now it’s also time to take care of your loved ones, all your family and your friends and whoever else you care for.
With that I just want to wish you a very happy holiday season and a Happy New Year.
See you in 2019!
by Annika Sorensen | Nov 21, 2018 | Leadership & Corporate, Physical Activity, Sleep, Stress
As I record this video I’m here on my last day in the States for this time and the snow is pouring down. I have had a fascinating time here and I just want to tell you a few thoughts about my trip around this TEDx talk that I did the other day.
When I found out that I was going to be able to do TEDx talk I was so happy. It’s been one of my dreams and it came true.
I started to work on the talk and make preparations for the trip with only six weeks to go!
There was a whole lot of preparations to do actually which was on times a little overwhelming but also exciting at the same time.
The closer I got to my trip and the real test of the whole thing – the actual talk, the more nervous I got. Of course we all get nervous when we do a big thing like this.
So, I wasn’t just preparing for the talk by writing it and rehearsing it daily, I was also more careful about getting good sleep every night and going to bed at the right time so I would not just have good sleep but enough sleep.
I was also making sure to eat regular and to do my exercise so that I would keep fit and stay strong and have the energy I needed when I finally got here.
I met with all these beautiful people at the event. Most of the other speakers and with all the people organising it all, just lovely people.
Luckily it was so well organized but I was still getting more and more nervous.
In cases like that, I tend to decide to have some free time for myself to rejuvenate because that’s how I do it. Some other people they might go into the crowd because that’s where they get new energy and those are mostly more the extroverts. I’m more of an introvert so I tend to like to have some time for myself.
The day of the event was fantastic and being on stage was such a marvellous experience. It’s hard to describe.
You stand there and you have all the lights in your face and it’s pitch dark in the audience. You have no idea what they think or what they do because you can’t see them, so you just do your talk and try to speak to someone afterwards.
I got so many good reviews and everyone said it was very interesting and that they related to it and that they learned something from it. Which is of course exactly what I wanted.
Now, I’m just hoping to be able to spread that word all over the world when the actual video is edited and it can be released.
As I record this video I’m on my way home reflecting on what has been such a great experience. I would never have wanted to be without it but it was testing my limits compared to what I have done before, but that’s the way you grow so I encourage you to also test your limits because that’s how you too will grow.
We’re hoping for the video to be released at the beginning of 2019 so until then if you want to dive into some stress related knowledge then please go to this link and get my free book or browse through my blog where you can find lots of free information.
If you feel you need help right now for yourself or for your workforce, please don’t hesitate to connect with me through my website or social media.
by Annika Sorensen | Sep 8, 2018 | Leadership & Corporate, Sleep, Stress, Your Health
In this blog, I am going to talk about work-life balance. I’m just actually going to say that there is no such thing as a perfect work-life balance.
When you think about it you’ll probably agree because everyone is trying to figure out how to do it the best way and it’s supposed to be perfect and there is no perfect work-life balance. Work-life balance or balance in life is always up and down, and up and down and if you’re always striving to get it perfect you are going to miss life because it’s going to happen on the side of you while you are trying to get the perfect part of it.
Like I said there is no perfect part of it so what should you do instead?
What I hear from so many of my clients is that they talk about missing out on this work-life balance and they’re trying to figure out how to get it perfect.
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by Annika Sorensen | Aug 31, 2018 | Stress, Your Health
In this episode, I’m going to talk about something that you have probably seen many times before. I’m gonna talk about what you would call a test.
Imagine I have a bottle of milk in my hand right now and it’s fair to say it’s not really heavy and it’s not that hard to carry around with me.
Like I said I wouldn’t say it’s heavy but if I keep carrying this around all day, every day do you think it will feel heavy after some time? I’m Sure you’ve seen this analogy before but this is a good reminder for us.
If you keep carrying even small stuff for a very long time it gets heavy whether you want to believe it or not.
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by Annika Sorensen | Aug 10, 2018 | Leadership & Corporate, Stress, Your Health
Hi, Dr. Annika here. Today I’m out as usual out on my daily morning walk and the weather is just so good.
I’m back home at my ordinary home and it’s kind of nice to get back in a regular schedule because for the last few weeks I’ve been staying in our summer house and we’ve had a lot of visitors which has been great but also a bit tiring. We’re here back home for a full year of new good work working with stressed management and helping you to deal with your daily stresses.
Today I want to talk about a small little word that is not used that much or enough at least, and that is the word “sorry”. To admit that you did something that was not correct, that you made a fault is a really positive thing. You should say I’m sorry because if you as a leader dare to admit your mistakes it’s going to open up for all your staff to do the same.
If they are allowed to make mistakes they will be more comfortable, and yes they will make mistakes but you can always sort that out, but they will also be more creative and try new things and that’s just going to be so much better for you.
I know this from my personal experience where I’ve had bosses that have been so-called perfect and I have usually hated them because who wants a perfect boss? Can anyone even be a perfect boss?
No I don’t think so.
You can be very good at being perfect with no faults but that’s not human!
So what I think is that if we dare to see the faults if we dare to say “I’m sorry it’s my fault. I didn’t do it on purpose.”.
“This happened to be this way we’re going to fix it. You are so good to tell me about it and I thank you so much for telling me that it was a fault because I didn’t see myself.”
Then you seem like a more genuine person.
As a leader, I hope you’ll want to be seen as a genuine person. That’s where I would like to be anyway.
I read this very interesting article on this subject the other day and that’s how I got to think of it. I know this is a problem in all industries and also in private lives.
Where I come from in the hospital world it is very common that people think that they are perfect or rather they are so insecure they don’t dare to admit that they have wronged and they try to keep up something that is not right. It just makes it ridiculous in the end because you are you, a normal human being no matter what job or position you have and all human beings make mistakes.
It’s okay to say you’re not perfect.
In my personal life I really learnt this early in my career when I had this very tragic thing in my private life with my baby who didn’t make it. People were so I would almost call them mean around me especially in the hospital world because they couldn’t admit that things were hard and tough, even in tragedy they were pretending that world was still perfect, and they didn’t want to talk about it. And me, well I really wanted to talk about it because that was my way of getting through the tragedy. So I use this as an example that you don’t have to pretend that everything is ok when it’s not ok or skate over the surface of someone else’s problems to pretend that the world is perfect and that everything is ok. It’s ok to say sorry, this situation sucks do you want to talk about it?
So I learnt very early to say I’m sorry and I have tried to use that all my career when I’ve done something that I couldn’t stand for I would say “I’m sorry I didn’t know” or “I’m sorry it didn’t work the way I thought” and then we were fine.
In this article that I saw, I found five tips and I want to give them to you:
- To make mistakes is not a shame, but to try to be seen as one with no fault that is kind of tiring because you don’t want to have stories with people that are too perfect.
- Real people that stand up for their mistakes, they seem more genuine and more trustworthy and I can sure agree on that one.
- If you dare to show your weakness it can give other people the courage to show their weakness too and that is a gift that you can give to them.
- Science shows that we will learn more effectively from other people’s mistakes so be generous with your mistakes and have other people learn from them because that is also a gift.
- If You dare to speak about a mistake directly you can even get a good perspective on it and you can see it’s not that bad, it’s not that dangerous. If we look back at old mistakes we can usually just laugh at them.
Who wants to be led by Mr. or Mrs Perfect? No One!
You want to be led by a genuine person who stands up for what she’s doing and if she makes mistakes that’s fine as long as she can say I’m sorry.
If you’d like to learn how you can let go or just need a little help just reach out for a free chat by clicking the link below.
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Til next time.
