Reduce Stress By Avoiding The Holiday Blues

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Improve Your Credit Score By Avoiding These Top Credit Blunders All Americans Make

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Strive For Perfection By Avoiding These 5 Misconceptions Young People Tend to Believe

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Avoiding the shadows

The Lancet has a powerful essay on children born from rape and the social and psychological consequences for mother, child and community.

I’ll let the article speak for itself as it carefully articulates how the relationship between mother and child can be affected by these tragic events.

There is one point worth highlighting, however. The piece notes that when affected women do have contact with healthcare professionals, clinicians often avoid tackling problems with childcare because they are denied or ignored by the mothers who, understandably, find it difficult to address problems linked to such a violent and painful event.

The article notes that the wellbeing of the child is often not well addressed as “Many practitioners who care for women who have been raped maintain this silence because either their focus is on the well-being of the mother or they genuinely believe that the interests of the mother and child are not served by articulating relational difficulties”.

Mental health professionals rightly identify avoidance as one of the key factors that maintain problematic behaviours. It’s a strategy that places short-term comfort above longer-term well-being and we all use it, but when we rely it to manage serious emotional or behavioural difficulties it can mean we never recover.

But what is less admitted is that healthcare professionals also suffer from avoidance. We don’t like making people distressed, even when it is necessary to overcome serious difficulties. Consequently, we also avoid addressing painful issues, which is something that can also help maintain the problem in the person we are working with.

Ironically, it is very difficult to get healthcare professionals to recognise that they themselves are affected by this. We are much more comfortable when the problems are safely situated in the patient.

Link to Lancet article ‘Child in the shadowlands’ (via @EvaAlisic)

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Avoiding The Butterfly Effect, The Supersaurus and Procrastination

In Chaos Theory, “The Butterfly Effect” explains how small changes in conditions can produce results very different from predictions. If good weather is predicted on a day at one side of the world and a butterfly flaps its wings on the other, this could actually cause a storm rather than the good weather as predicted. The flapping of the wings changes the air pressure very slightly causing a weather pattern completely different from the one originally forecast.

Sometimes one simple action can lead to great results — or avoid catastrophic ones. Have you ever delayed paying a bill, resulting in a fine? The next day you have to leave the office to pay the fine. As a result you miss a meeting, delay handing in your reports and your hair gets wet because you were caught in the rain…and you were supposed to go out for cocktails after work! One simple action could have avoided the storm that followed.

There may also be a project that you just can’t seem to get started on. You postpone picking it up, make excuses, distract yourself with menial tasks in the hope that it will disappear. Why do we do this?

One of the chief reasons we avoid work is fear. We are afraid the task may be too big or too difficult for us.

The task looks enormous. Never mind an elephant — this is a Supersaurus! You see yourself as a tiny dot looking up at the largest dinosaur that ever roamed the earth and think:

“How in the world am I going to get this done? This is impossible, it scares me so much that I’m now going to pretend that dinosaurs (especially the Supersaurus) never existed and I’m going to start ticking all the nice little tasks that I enjoy off my list. Call Mary, yes I can do that, have a little chat and arrange the social club outing much more pleasant that super lizards…”

But what happens? The super lizard won’t go away. He plagues your dreams.  You push him back into your subconscious and you pretend there will be no repercussions — but, alas, one day you are reminded.

You are called to a meeting. A meeting in which you are reminded that, in fact, the Supersaurus does exist and all of the other people at the meeting know of his existence. You have no choice now but to face him head on…so what do you do?

The fear comes from ignorance. Not having defined exactly what that the Supersaurus is, you sit down and open the files, you look at his size, you understand his form and composition, and then you assess its greatness and then break it down.

What exactly needs to be done? How long is it going to take? When can this be scheduled into the day? Once you are clear about the size of the task then you can begin to break it down into a manageable size — you know, like a cow or a goat rather than a massive dinosaur.

The most important part of avoiding procrastination is the “Do Habit”. The planning and the scheduling is important — vital, in fact — for the smooth running of any project. But without actually standing up and doing something about it nothing will ever progress.

Create a habit of doing. If it’s a project in work or a book you are writing, stop planning and start doing — even if you can only do ten minutes a day. Just do it. After all, ten minutes a day adds up to more than one working day a month. Every little bit helps, so make a plan and create space for the task every day.

As Bob Marley (and probably someone equally as important person before him) said:

“Every little action, there’s a Reaction”

Start the momentum.

Don’t allow your wings to flap aimlessly and cause a tornado.

Start consciously fluttering…and the small little actions may just create amazingly big results.

(Photo credit: Lesser Gull Butterfly via Shutterstock)

Ciara Conlon is a Personal Productivity Coach and author. Her mission is to help people achieve their best through working efficiently and being positive and present. “Through Productivity and Positivity I believe there is little we can’t achieve” go to Productivity & Positivity and get Free eBook called Clear the Clutter; Find Your Life

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Have A Safe Holiday Season by Avoiding These 3 Dumb Things

Safety first!

Watching the news about a recent horrific automobile accident inspired me to write this article.

The holiday season is upon us and we all want to have a joyful time as well as remain safe. So here are three dumb things that I’m sure you have seen people do over past holiday seasons and it’s still worth reminding everyone to avoid them.

This (of course) should be general knowledge by now, but it’s still shocking how so many people from all adult ages still drink and drive! The incident I saw on TV involved a young driver who slammed into another vehicle on a city street, not a highway. Yet this guy must have been going really fast — his car ended up completely upside down.

It’s a miracle that this driver and his passengers got only very minor injuries but unfortunately those in the vehicle that was hit were not so lucky. A woman in that car had minor scratches but her baby was in critical condition. Even worse is that her husband did not make it.

So a young wife lost her husband and a baby will never get to know her father because some drunk driver was stupid enough to get behind the wheel after a night of heavy drinking. His friends were also irresponsible for allowing this guy to drive in the first place.

This is no way to celebrate the holidays for all parties involved. While it’s perfectly okay to have a good time, have the common sense to know when not to drive. Don’t destroy somebody else’s life (or lives) as well as your own because of this major act of irresponsibility.

I know that it might seem wonderful to see the faces of absolute joy on kids or a significant other when they hold that cute little puppy or kitten they just got as a holiday gift. But let’s face it folks: live animals, no matter how cute, are not stuffed toys.

Animals, particularly young ones, need a lot of training since they will chew up everything in sight and use the entire house as a toilet. It’s a real tragedy how many cases there are involving unwanted dogs and cats abandoned at animal shelters because humans did not foresee just how much effort it takes to care for a pet.

As a dedicated dog owner since 1979, I along with many other pet owners will claim without hesitation that pets contribute immensely to happiness. However, the reality of pet ownership also involves getting educated enough to be a responsible owner willing to put in the time required for training.

If you are not sure whether a prospective recipient can be a responsible pet owner or not, please don’t give a live pet as a gift. If you are planning to give into your kids’ wishes for a dog or cat, get ready to take on the bulk of the actual pet care responsibilities yourself. Young children will not be in a position to properly care for a pet no matter what they say. Teens, on the other hand, may be able to prove themselves since pets can teach responsibility to them — but use your discretion.

The holiday season is a time when many folks in winter regions try out snow sports like skiing and snowboarding for the first time. In the warmer regions, people might try out their new surfboards or another piece of sporting equipment they got for Christmas.

A dumb thing that many people will do is try out some new sport without taking a lesson from a qualified instructor. Instead, they try to copy what their friends are doing but the attempts are unsuccessful.

Although many look hilarious as clumsy beginners, some unfortunately end up with injuries. One thing to understand is that just because a friend happens to be good at a certain sport, it does not mean that he or she is qualified to teach you safely. Qualified instructors, on the other hand, can teach you without skipping any important steps to keep you safe while learning new skills.

Waiting in the emergency department and going home in a cast is no way to spend your holidays. You need to take extra care — especially if you happen to be a late bloomer in any sport. So if you are going to take up a new sport this holiday season, do the right thing and take a beginner lesson from a qualified instructor.

I’m sure that there are other dumb things that people do out there during the holiday season. The whole point is to enjoy the holiday season with your friends and loved ones without putting a danger to another life, whether human or animal — or to yourself. I realize that much of this is common sense, but it’s still mind-boggling on how many incidents of dumb acts still occur. That’s why it is still worthwhile to remind us all that such acts are totally preventable.

If you know of any other dumb things that people should avoid this holiday season, please share them below to remind us. Have a wonderful and safe holiday season!

(Photo credit: Retro Silver Metal Trunk via Shutterstock)

Clint Cora is a motivational speaker, author & Karate World Champion based near Toronto, Canada. Get his FREE 3-part Personal Development Video Series on how to expand your comfort zone and finally conquer even your most daunting goals in life.

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