Fixing the Hole in the Roof When the Sun is Shining

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Are You Protecting Your Wellbeing?

No-one is completely immune from the stresses and strains of balancing the many different aspects of our work, home and social lives in today’s complex, uncertain and often fast-changing world. 

A number of things however are clear beyond this simple observation i.e.:

  1. Most individuals who are ambitious and career orientated thrive on a certain degree of pace, urgency and stress to motivate and energise themselves to achieve great things. There is a definite buzz, excitement and intensity involved in participating in or leading a highly challenging and worthwhile job or project.  

  2. Individuals have quite different tolerance levels as to the amount of stress they can deal with and over what time period. Some people, maybe through early experience, have developed instincts and coping mechanisms which allow them to apparently absorb considerable stress in their lives for quite long periods. Others are less resilient and whilst maintaining outward signs of coping are actually experiencing (sometimes without fully realising it) quite harmful damage to their wellbeing.

  3. If all things are going well and in balance across the different spheres of our lives then, we can cope, thrive and enjoy the benefits of a life well-lived. However invariably if something unforeseen arises and places a considerable strain in one important area of our life, this can be very destabilising for us in all aspects of our daily living.

  4. There is for all of us, however resilient we might be, a combination of factors at some point that might just push us from what we might call optimum levels of energising and productive stress into a much more unhelpful period of strain where the intensity and pace of things simply becomes intolerable, starts to overwhelm us and negatively impacts on our effectiveness and productivity in many areas of our lives.

Anticipating periods of acute turbulence, imbalance and strain in our lives is not an easy thing to do. When things are all going well for us then we tend to adopt an assumption that this will continue and even if it doesn’t then we will be able to cope when the situation changes. When the realisation dawns that the pressure and strain is becoming acute and we are losing control, then it might be already too late to avoid the harmful consequences. 

Preventing the worst aspects of stress and strain is therefore rather like fixing the hole in the roof whilst the sun is still shining. Protecting your wellbeing by adopting strategies, skills and coping tactics that will make you more resilient to intense pressure and strain is an anticipatory investment that will both alert you to the early signs that pressures are beginning to tip from positive and optimum stress to potentially damaging strain. Alternatively if you have already reached a tipping point, then you may need to ensure quickly that you have strategies available to wrestle back control of the situation. 

As an experienced career transition coach, I observe many senior leaders, executives and professionals enjoying both the excitement and sometimes the pain and hurt of challenging and often turbulent career journeys. Based on these observations Brosna Career Consulting has recently added to our mix a specific coaching approach entitled “Wellbeing Coaching” aimed at helping talented individuals to navigate their way through tough periods of pressure and strain with the focus being predominantly on anticipation and prevention rather than retrieval and cure. 

We offer this Wellbeing Coaching either as a stand alone series of private sessions or as an integrated part of our wider career coaching services. 

In this regard, we only work directly with individuals in an entirely private and confidential capacity. Whilst your organisation might be sufficiently progressive to offer in-house wellbeing services, our clients tell us that when it comes to talking about their own wellbeing they would rather deal directly and privately with an independent coach who has no direct connection with their own employer. Indeed that employer might well be the cause of the intolerable levels of stress and strain. 

So if you fall broadly into one of these categories you may wish to talk with us privately about how we might help: 

  • I am a very busy, engaged professional who generally deals well with the challenges of my work and in other areas of my life, however I see signs on the horizon where the pressure might increase significantly and where I might benefit from some specialist coaching to prepare me for these tougher times ahead.

  • I am experiencing an insanely busy time where the extent of stress and strain is beginning to take its toll on my effectiveness and I would value some help to navigate myself through and out of this situation. 

  • I am beyond the tipping point where the stresses in my life have begun to overwhelm me and are placing intense and harmful strain on my performance and effectiveness. I need some urgent help on ways to adjust and adapt in order to retrieve the situation before it gets much worse. 

If you identify with these type of situations and would value some discrete help, please contact me in confidence by emailing or connecting with me. 

Tim Chapman

Managing Director

Brosna Career Consulting Ltd

www.brosna-consulting.com

tim@brosna-consulting.com