Crina and Kirsten Get to Work

Own Your Mornings–They Matter More Than You Think!

Today on Crina and Kirsten Get to Work, our duo digs into mornings!  Don’t mornings mean hitting the snooze and leaping out of bed at the last minute?! Of course, and that is what 69% of us do.  However, how we start the day influences our well being and productivity for the rest of the day.
 
SHOW NOTES
Nancy Rothbard of Harvard and Steffanie Wilk of Ohio State University found that the start-of-the-day mood can last longer than we might think—and has an important effect on job performance. They studied the moods of customer service representatives (CSRs) as they started the day, how they viewed work events such as customer interactions throughout the day, and their mood during the day after these customer interactions. How a CRS started the day was the mood that stayed with them throughout the day.  For those CRS who started out the day in a calm and happy mood, customer interactions tended to enhance those positive feelings.  Those who started the day in a bad mood did not really climb out of it even after interacting with positive customers.  Quality and quality of work was also better among those who reported more positive feelings.  How Your Morning Mood Affects Your Whole Workday
 
Owning our mornings means we start our day in meaningful activity. To have time, we need to wake up earlier, but that does not mean we should cut back on sleep, it really means we go to bed earlier.  Over 60% of Americans hardly ever wake up feeling energized or rested, according to a 2020 survey conducted by RestoreZ.  We are already tired so moving our bedtime earlier is essential to preserving sleep and having a morning routine.
 
To wake up earlier …”we’re trying to not just shift your bedtime, but actually shift your entire circadian clock to be earlier,” said Kimberly Fenn, a cognitive neuroscientist.   This is a gradual process, say 15 minutes earlier to bed every night to allow our bodies to adapt.
 
Now that we are up, bright-eyed and bushy tailed with time before we have to be at work, what do we do with that time?  And here is the beauty of this - we get to create a routine that makes us happy, that is meaningful to us.
 
For some people a morning routine may be five minutes - a glass of water, an affirmation or intention for the day.  For others, a routine can be an hour - or even two - and include meditation, journaling, exercise - and a really good breakfast.  A morning routine is about priming our brains for positivity.  For women with children at home, caretaking obligations or lots of overtime, the five minute morning routine may be perfect.  The opportunity is to begin the day in a way that brings positivity to our day - and maybe even joy!
 
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
 
5 best morning routine ideas of productive people | Trello
Psychologists: Morning habits to help you be happier, more productive
Perfect Your Morning Routine With 10 Research Backed Steps
My Morning Routine

Overwhelm–Settle Down, Sister!

Overwhelmed means that you are experiencing intense emotions you don’t have the capacity to fully manage or process. Most people are overwhelmed by negative emotions, like anxiety, fear, anger or shame. These feelings leave little room to figure out what is the next best step.  When we are overwhelmed, performing every-day tasks is difficult - and it compromises our ability to act rationally, remember things, solve problems or think. 
 
The “overwhelm” has physical, cognitive, and behavioral effects. Our bodies can feel shaky, or have those anxious sensations such as a racing heart or an upset stomach or that antsy skin-crawling sensation.  Cognitively, we can be slower to process information and even become confused and our judgment can be affected.  Our behaviors can also be impacted - we may eat more or less, we may treat others poorly, we may procrastinate or isolate ourselves.  In short - just feel and act in a way far from our best selves.
 
Overwhelm is a significant issue for women at work and about a third of us seek professional help to deal with overwhelming stress.  
 
Some strategies for dealing with overwhelm are:
Make time for the emotion, as we know, strong emotions usually only last a few minutes
Consider how the emotion feels in your body
Consider the emotion in the context it arose, was is it a reasonable response to the situation or was it really about something else 
Emotions are messages, which may be as simple as being tired or hungry - or something much deeper
Be careful not to “grind” on this think piece - sometimes we just need to let things go
Be really kind to yourself - we are not alone on overwhelm - it is a common experiences
 
Sometimes calling a friend can help manage and strategize through overwhelm.  Kirsten has “borrowed a brain” from a friend when hers was not working.  Sometimes completely mixin’ it up can also help - like heading out the door for a walk in the fresh air - or even just in different surroundings.  We can change overwhelm into something different - or at least alleviate its intensity - a critical piece to ease, meaning and joy at work.
 
Women Continuing To Face Alarmingly High Levels Of Burnout, Stress In The “New Normal” Of Work
Stress in America 2022: Concerned for the future, beset by inflation

Friendship at Work--Your Direct Line to Ease, Meaning and Joy!

Friendships at work make you feel better about your job, more creative, able to solve problems more quickly and so much happier. Having friends of any kind–from casual acquaintances to besties–will lead to more ease, meaning and joy in your job and in your life, not to mention help you feel less lonely in this crazy world!
 
SHOW NOTES  
Revisiting the very first episode of Crina and Kirsten Get to Work, our hosts take a deeper dive into material they discussed so many years ago. First, let’s review the three types of friendships, all of which contribute to the ease, meaning and joy we experience at work.
Friendships of utility: which exist between people who are useful to each other in some way. 
Friendships of pleasure: which exist between people who enjoy each other. 
Friendships of the good: which exist because of mutual respect and admiration. 
 
Our hosts wanted to take a deeper dive considering what is something of a loneliness epidemic in the United State.  Three decades ago, Gallup reported that three percent of Americans had no close friends.  In 2021, an online poll put the number of people with no close friends at twelve percent.  And over the pandemic thirteen percent of women report they have lost touch with friends over the pandemic.  
 
Loneliness at work can keep people “out of the loop.” Interacting with other people at work makes the office more enjoyable, it also provides a conduit for critical information. The informal conversations and communications we have with people at work is how information is shared - and friendships really “grease the wheels” of this communication.
 
Friendships at work create more committed employees, who are more productive and are better communicators.  According to the 2021 Workplace Friendship & Happiness Survey by Wildgoose, 57% of people say having a best friend in the workplace makes work more enjoyable, 22% feel more productive with friends, and 21% say friendship makes them more creative. 
 
There are some key strategies to creating friendships at work, according to research by Shasta Nelson, friendship expert, there are three principles behind any strong relationship:
 
Consistency: how regularly and frequently you interact with each other. 
Vulnerability: how you get to know and feel close to each other. Sharing, revealing, let people “in,” 
Positivity: how much you enjoy each other’s company….kindness, validation, gratitude, affirmation, acceptance, love.
More good reads:
 
The State of American Friendship: Change, Challenges, and Loss
 
How Many Close Friends Do You Need in Adulthood? - The New York Times
 
The 2021 Workplace Friendship & Happiness Survey | Wildgoose USA
 
Why Having a Best Friend at Work Matters - businessnewsdaily.com
 
The Power of Work Friends
 
Frientimacy: The 3 Requirements of All Healthy Friendships | Shasta Nelson | TEDxLaSierraUniversity

Rest Requires a Revolution

Our Western culture has created a focus on work and accomplishment - to the detriment of our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being.  Instead, we offer that each and every one of us need…deserve…or rather, should demand more rest and relaxation. In the words of the Nap Bishop herself, “rest requires a revolution.” 
 
SHOW NOTES
 
Dr. Trisha Hersey, known as the Nap Bishop, is spreading the good word about rest. Hersey’s movement on rest was inspired by studying slavery and realising that slaves working to exhaustion was part of the brutal origin of capitalism - and her own inheritance.  Hersey says her rest work is not just about the treatment of Black and Indigenous people, but fundamentally how Black and indigenous people are treated is a  bellwether for how society is functioning.  She believes everyone benefits when we question our attitudes around the “grind culture” of work and productivity.  Hersey’s message is literally about taking naps, but also about other kids of rest.  Her ministry comes with four tenets:
 
Resting pushes back on and disrupts on white supremacy and capitalism.  We’ve been programmed to believe that the more we produce, the more worth we have, which has negatively impacted our well-being.
Our bodies are a site of liberation. 
Naps provide a portal to imagine, invent and heal. 
Our dream space has been stolen and we want it back. We will reclaim it via rest.
 
Saundra Dalton-Smith is a medical doctor who was raised with the message that as a Black woman she would always have to work harder than others.  As a physician, she listened to her patients talk about fatigue and realized that her patients were not resting, which she turned inward to address her own deep fatigue.  Dalton-Smith, who wrote Sacred Rest - Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore your Sanity, focuses her work on the different kinds of rest we need - emotional, physical, social, spiritual, mental, social, sensory, and creative rest; and the gifts that come from that rest, such as boundaries, reflection, freedom, acceptance.  
 
The message is rest, listeners, rest.  It is good for all the parts of our human-ness.
 
The Nap Bishop Is Spreading the Good Word: Rest - The New York Times
Sacred Rest - Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore your Sanity

Goals: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

As the end of the year approaches, many of us turn our attention to defining our next big achievement; new areas of focus; things we want to check off our list next year. But what if goal-setting isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be? 
 
SHOW NOTES
 
A Harvard Business School Study found goal setting can create a narrow focus that neglects other areas; cause a rise in unethical behavior, erode the organization culture, and reduce intrinsic motivations.  The authors of the study suggest goal setting should be treated like pharmaceuticals, carefully dosed with attention to harmful side effects and under close supervision. It is with this research in mind that we consider goal setting for the new year.
 
We know that goal setting can be an effective way to create ease, meaning and joy in our work lives.  We also know that there are strategies for increasing the likelihood we will achieve our goals.  For example, writing down goals increases the chances of achieving them by 42%; people who follow a schedule of actions to achieve a goal are 76% more likely to achieve their goals; and presenting weekly progress reports to a supportive audience increases our success rate 40%.
 
Given all of this data and the importance of carefully choosing goals, what is a woman to do about goals?  Spoiler Alert - work on identifying and setting goals for more of what you want in your life.  It is important to be very intentional about what you are creating because we know that goals are also limiting.  
 
Step 1 – Make a list of what’s important - consider the financial and professional aspects of life; consider relationships, and of course physical, spiritual, emotional well-being.  For example, what is important may be more time with friends; or more financial security; or more engagement with community.
Step 2 – Ask “why is this important?” for each item on your list.  If more time with friends is on the list - answer the why.  Is it because friends are fun, supportive, interesting?  If you want more money in savings, ask why?  Does more financial security allow you to be better prepared and feel safer?  Does engaging with the community give a sense of purpose or meaning?  Maybe it just feels good to contribute.
Step 3 – Use the answers to identify your values.  The answers give us insight into the values behind what we want.  What we want may reflect that we value comfort, or fun, or helping others - or whatever.
Step 4 – Use your values to set your goals.  If we set goals in the context of our values, we are more likely to succeed in creating more of what we want in our lives.  Our goals should engage and inspire us.
2023 is an opportunity to create more ease, meaning and joy in our lives - goal setting is one way to intentionally direct our energy and resources.
Additional Resources:
Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Over-Prescribing Goal Setting - Working Paper - Faculty & Research - Harvard Business School
Journal of Applied Psychology
Compared to men, women view professional advancement as equally attainable, but less desirable | Gender Action Portal (harvard.edu)
How to Find Your Goals in Life

State of Women in the Workplace 2022 (thanks LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company!)

In this 100th episode of Crina and Kirsten Get to Work, our hosts check in on the annual Women in the Workplace study and report from LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company.  Women in the Workplace | McKinsey
 
This year the study includes information from 333 participating organizations employing more than 12 million people, and surveyed more than 40,000 employees.  The study included women of diverse identities, including women of color, LGBTQ+ women, and women with disabilities.  The pandemic has changed what women want from their companies, including the growing importance of opportunity, flexibility, employee well-being, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
 
What runs through all of the findings is women of color, LGBTQ+ women and women with disabilities are significantly more impacted than white women.  This  data point that runs through every finding in the report.
 
Women are breaking up with their employers in record numbers, particularly when it comes to women in leadership.  More women in management are leaving than can be recruited.  Why?  We know women want more flexibility at work.  The study confirms women leaders carry more of the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) at work than men.  It is ironic women leaders do more DEI work, which improves retention and satisfaction for employees, but results in these women leaders being overworked - and in many cases unrecognized.  And let’s not forget about the second shift many women carry at home.  Women leaders want a workplace culture that prioritizes employee well-being and DEI.  Finally, women experience less support and more bias in the workplace, which makes the workplace more challenging for women.  
 
For the 8th consecutive year, the “broken rung” at the first step to manager continues to hold women back.  For every 100 men who are promoted into management, only 87 women are promoted, and only 82 women of color are promoted. As a result, men in management outnumber women, and women can never catch up. Fewer women in lower management, means fewer women to promote into senior leadership.
 
Women in technology industries are underrepresented and struggling.  These women are twice as likely to frequently be the only woman in the room at work - and they face higher levels of bias based on their gender.  Tech roles are among America’s fastest-growing and highest-paid job categories.  If women in these roles have negative day-to-day experiences and don’t see an equal path to advancement, it could lead to larger gaps in both representation and earnings between women and men overall.
 
While the workplace for women is similar to the last eight reports from McKinsey and LeanIn.org, this study reports good and bad news.  The good news is women leaders are pushing back and not accepting the status quo.  The bad news is disparities for women of color, LGBTQ+ and differently abled are still significant and we are not making progress for women in leadership or in technology.  There is more work to do - so the podcast continues!
 
Women in the Workplace | McKinsey

Why You Procrastinate, and How To Overcome It

Procrastination is not just the act of delaying an action, it’s unnecessarily postponing things in a way that doesn’t make sense, and may even cause you harm.  Sound familiar? Of course it does! Turns out that  95% of us admit to procrastinating (and the other 5% are probably lying).
SHOW NOTES
Procrastination has negative effects to all aspects of our well-being – from financial to physical health.  But like all things, there is a reason we do something that is not so good for us.  After a study, Drs. Pchyl and Sirois concluded procrastination is really about avoiding negative moods and emotions associated with a task.  And the task may be negative because it is hard, boring, frustrating, meaningless, ambiguous etc.  We just do not want to do it. Sooo, we delay because we want to avoid those negative feelings.
The delay creates something identified by many experts as the procrastination cycle.  We have an expectation of ourselves that we are supposed to do something, we have some discomfort about what we are supposed to do, which in the moment is rewarded by avoiding the discomfort associated with the task, but then we have not done what we expected of ourselves – and we feel bad. 
When we are in this cycle, we have a hard time imagining what it will be like when we do not meet the expectation we have set for ourselves – or let someone else set for us.  Our present self feels great avoiding the discomfort – and is not considering that our future self will be stressed, lose opportunities, get disciplined or fired by our boss, feel awful we let down a co-worker  . . ..
What does the research say about procrastination:
Get in touch with how your future self will feel if your present self procrastinates
As always, be gentle with yourself.  Students who forgave themselves for not studying for a test ended up procrastinating far less on the next test. Solving the Procrastination Puzzle
Get curious about why – what is the negative feeling?
Remember getting the thing done will relive the negative emotion 
Be OK with “not being in the mood.” It is okay not to feel like doing something, but still do it
Break tasks down into smaller bits
Make is easy for yourself - set a specific time to do something, combine it with something you like, break tasks into smaller bits
Bribe yourself – i.e., if I get this done, I will treat myself 
5 Research-Based Strategies for Overcoming Procrastination
The real reasons you procrastinate — and how to stop - The Washington Post
Why You Procrastinate (It Has Nothing to Do With Self-Control) - The New York Times
Vicious Cycle of Procrastination.pub
fMRI scans of people’s brains

Belonging at Work: Honoring Our Own Experience and Engineering Each Other’s

When we talk about belonging at work, it means we feel seen for our unique contributions, connected to our coworkers, supported in our daily work and career development and proud of our organization’s values and purpose.  When we feel a sense of belonging at work, we are more likely to stay, to be engaged, to be loyal, to be proud, to be better at our jobs  and to experience psychological safety.  
 
SHOW NOTES
In this episode, our hosts consider what may be the most important element in creating ease, meaning and joy at work - belonging.Belonging is both external and internal.  Dr. Geoffrey Cohen from Stanford says, “[w]e are the engineers of each other’s experience” Geoffrey Cohen from Stanford.  Brene Brown says “[belonging] requires us to be who we are.”  Belonging is the result of integration of these external and internal elements.  
 
Thirty-four percent of people feel their greatest belonging at work - not family, not friends, but work.  How do we create belonging at work?  We revisit the paradox that we first spoke about - the internal and the external.  What can we do as organizations and what can we do as individuals?
 
As individuals, we can work on our ability to show up in the workplace as we are - which as we know from Brene requires vulnerability and courage.  We can then create alliances with a peer or supervisor who sees and values your contributions, we can engage in high quality interactions with our peers, we can look for and be courageous enough to enter into empathetic relationships with others.
 
As leaders and part of organizations, we can respect outside commitments, doster inclusive leadership, make our own connections, recognize work and its value, provide honest and regular feedback, respond to concerns, empower others, communicate openly and honestly, and show up as our authentic selves.
 
More good reads on this very important topic.
 
Speaking of Psychology: How the need to belong drives human behavior, with Geoffrey L. Cohen, PhD on Apple Podcasts
The Power of Belonging: - Coqual
The Value of Belonging at Work
Here’s How to Build a Sense of Belonging in the Workplace (betterup.com)
Belonging At Work Is Essential—Here Are 4 Ways To Foster It (forbes.com)