There are a number of sayings and phrases used to describe this … “work/life balance” … “work smarter not harder” … but they all boil down to being kind to yourself, taking time to “not work” (whatever that means for you), to rest and recuperate so that when you do work, you’re delivering the best results you can. There are people, a very small number in my experience, who can constantly operate at full speed and not end up in a bad state with a much reduced quality of work.

Ah, growing up. As a kid you want nothing but to be “a grownup” so that all the rules stopping you doing what you want don’t apply. Then as an adult you wish for the simplicity and free from responsibility that being a kid offered. I feel like I’ve finally grown up. It’s taken a lot of hard learnings, mistakes and regrets to get here, and I’m sure I’m not done yet.

We all have hopes, dreams, goals, aspirations and intents in our careers. Some of us will achieve them all. Some of us will achieve more. Some of us will fall short. None of these things are “good”, none are “bad”. They are just … there. I have achieved more than I could ever have imagined as a small country town boy from a small nation at the bottom of the South Pacific.

I’ve never managed to really establish a “meditation” practice, but I do find value in some simple mindfulness aspects like breathing and taking small breaks during the day to reset. This last week I’ve been using my Apple Watch to prompt me to Breathe and Reflect, the two modes it has. Is it simple? Hell yes it is. Is it effective? Actually, quite. When you open Mindfulness on your watch, you are prompted to choose a mode.

In this post, “Bridgett” shares her story, in her own words as part of the Voices series. As a reminder, sharing with anonymity is still authentic, the act of sharing is what matters. I am sitting on a plane, leaving vacation. My first trip to Europe in over 25+ years, frankly. You want to talk about work stress. I almost cancelled this trip of a lifetime. Why? Oh, well see there is this massive tech event.

In this post, Newsha Taheri shares her story, in her own words as part of the Voices series. I’ve been a worrier all my life! I moved to Los Angeles around 20 years ago, still a teenager. What I imagined about immigration wasn’t aligned with reality, and immigration to the U.S was more complicated than I thought. I felt very lonely; although I had all my immediate family here, I wanted to have my best friends around me, and I was too young and naive to build my support system.

This has come up in 2 conversations in the last week, and so I thought, why not explore this! “Living Your Best Life” … it’s a phrase that gets said in various ways, but essentially boils down to a philosophy of focusing on the positive aspects and leaving behind the negative or less desirable aspects. But how do you actually do that? Here are 3 ways I have used and seen work with others that might help you think about it …

I’ve always been a nervous person, worrying about things, overthinking, finding it difficult to “trust the system” or “trust by default”. It has lead to situations where behaviors kick in that are … suboptimal. In 2012 after a particularly intense series of situations at work, I started to have physical symptoms like sweats, racing heart, thudding heart, feelings of impending doom, low level agoraphobia. I went to my doctor and neither of us understood what was happening.