Written by Bev Jenkin Tuesday, 30 November 2010 00:00

For most, this is the busiest season of the year.  Everyone is hustling and bustling to try to get everything done, setting unrealistic expectations for themselves and afraid they will fail to please.  Often what happens in our personal life spills over into our professional life.  We constantly undermine ourselves when we fail to remember the old adage “Attitude is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it.”  It is inevitable (Murphy’s Law) that something will not go as planned, and that we can’t always control. Whether or not we let it upset us, or choose to view it as a challenge and continue to move forward, is something we CAN CONTROL.

As the year draws to a close and the December Holiday Season leaves us totally unprepared for what we thought we’d already have accomplished by this time, our stress level always seems to elevate.  Everyday, as I view my emails, I see at least 4 or 5 articles on how to handle personal holiday stress, and each is packed full of wonderful suggestions on how to get others to carry some of the burdens.  My philosophy is that we need to take these ideas and implement them into our professional lives as well.  The less stress, the greater the chance of success.

Perhaps it is time to take a step back, assess the situation, and reinvent the method by which we do things. As managers and administrators we feel we are responsible for everything – and usually we are.  But remember, we cannot let someone else’s lack of planning become our emergency.  Many times we become our own worst enemy and sabotage ourselves.

We can fail to meet our own deadlines because we are too busy helping everyone else meet theirs. We need to learn to say “No.” We have to set boundaries and stick to them.  “I know you’re asking me to do that for you, but I can’t right now, perhaps you can start the project and I’ll jump in where I can,” or “Why don’t you put together a rough draft and I’ll be happy to review it and help you tweak it?”   These are responses that can work, if we remember to use them.  Staff sometimes become so used to running to us to “do the task” for them that they don’t even try to figure things out for themselves.  And we often feel that it is easier and quicker to just take whatever project it is and do it ourselves – we need to end this mindset.

Although it can be a challenge, we need to set boundaries with employers as well.  Year end means deadlines for them too, and they may not realize what is on your plate, or how long the tasks actually take you to accomplish them correctly.  Take the time to be organized.  It may seem like another time consuming task, however, providing your physicians or upper management with an outline and timeline of projects you need to complete before 2011 will hopefully cause them to stop and think before adding more tasks to your day, that could be delegated elsewhere.

My final piece of advice is NETWORK.  Become part of a management organization that can provide you with forms, manuals and support to get your job done quicker and more efficiently.  Why “reinvent the wheel” if others have been faced with the same dilemmas and developed tools to overcome them.  Having a network of other professionals, who walk in the same shoes you walk in, that you can turn to and verbalize some of your stress affords you the opportunity to turn a negative situation into a positive learning experience. – it is 90% how we react to things.

I wish everyone a healthy and stress free holiday season!