For those following me on twitter you know that I flew to Calgary yesterday, landing here on a beautiful, sunny, cold day.  Today it is -24C.  Brrr. 

The reason I flew here in the middle of winter, which many of my friends and colleagues questioned, is I’m following a dream.

Something I put out in the universe, as The Secret tells us. Not so much because I was following the advice of the Secret, but because it just felt right.

Three years ago I worked with three very special women on a survey that would help  boomers figure out what they want to do next - after their careers.  We called it “Retirement Dimensions” and  our good friends at Career/Life Skills Resources published it.

I never met those three wonderful women I worked with. I called them the Dream Team because they were the best team ever! They each hailed from different cities  “out West”  so we did all the work electronically.  Whenever we would SKYPE or talk on the phone , we would say, one day we will meet.

Yesterday I had the joy and privilege of meeting two of these wonderful three women whom I have the privilege of calling “friends”. The three of us are in Calgary for a workshop. Yesterday we just “hung out” with one another. 

We laughed. We hugged. We chatted. We got serious. We laughed some more. 

February blahs?  What blahs.  Follow your dream. Do what you know feels right. And there is no time for the blahs.

Ten years ago when I discussed the idea of training soft skills with one of my Ryerson University professors she suggested that I look at hard skills instead.  Since then she has done a 180 degree turn around and currently agrees that soft skills have a place in the business world.

This week there is an article entitled,  “Developing Leaders in a Changing Army”http://ow.ly/40FEY in which we are told that the United States Army has had to add courses in interpersonal skills  to its roster of training tactics. Why? Because of the “unprecedented change over the next 30 years” the Army recognizes it is facing.  Its leaders will require interpersonal skills to “inform, persuade and inspire confidence”. 

The world in which we live is one that requires resilience and the ability to adapt to whatever new things are thrown at us. For the Army it may include stopping terrorists, while for local business people it may be learning to say “No” at appropriate times in order to create balance in their professional and personal lives. 

Beating the February blahs may be about being proactive in your professional or personal lives. Learning some new skills so you can be prepared for what is coming next can help.

Remember in school when you learned a new formula that you could just pop in a math question and then work out the answer?  We had one that we used so often our teacher called it “Charlie”.  He would say, “Well you know just use Charlie.” We’d all nod and away we’d go using the set formula to get the answer.

So often, since running workshops on interpersonal skills, I know people hope that I can give them a formula  -- like “Charlie”  -- that they could apply to their lives and know it will magically work out the answer for them.

Today’s Wall Street Journal features Prerna Sodhi’s article, “Career Journal: Seven Tips on Balancing Work and Family,http://ow.ly/3Z2Qr . Sodhi provides seven things to do but honestly tells the reader “there is no single formula to achieve work-life balance so you just have to keep striving for it daily.”

Now that might be a downer for some to think there is no set formula -- no “Charlie” -- and that you have to keep figuring out how to balance your life each and every day.

But, I like that there is no set formula.  To be honest, “Charlie” got a little boring after while. Having to “figure it out” every day provides opportunities to be yourself, to grow into  the unique person that’s you.  When given tips for balancing your day, or tips for reducing stress, or tips for parenting, etc. they are just that --tips.

You can then take those tips, mix them up, change them up, and create your own way of living  your life. After all, as I like to remind workshop participants, we are all unique. Learning what makes you unique is a lifelong journey.  

Thinking about how you can uniquely approach your life today may just help beat any blahs you have.  Happy weekend everyone!

Do you like dreaming about the vacation of a life time?  Or just the vacation you are taking this summer?  It is one of those wonderful things we can do on a February day when we have the blahs -- or any time we just want to de- stress -- if only for a few minutes.

Do you remember as a kid looking out the window in your classroom and momentarily dreaming about something wonderful, forgetting all about the stressful math question in front of you? Until, that is, the teacher would scold you for “daydreaming”!  Now the “experts” call daydreaming  “visualization”, and encourage us to do exactly what we did as kids in order to de-stress. 

If you want to try it out for yourself, check out this article,  “Easy Visualization Exercises For Stress’ at http://ow.ly/3YfkO 

So it turns out that “daydreaming"...er..." visualization”  is a good thing! Just by directing our thoughts we can transport ourselves to a beautiful place and pretend we hear the gentle breezes blowing while the warm water caresses our feet. Or whatever else we choose to visualize when we check out the article above.

When I introduce Visualization in a stress management seminar, it is so calming to speak the words to the participants. I slow my speech. I breath deeply and I let myself go to that place of peace in my own brain.   And it is even more calming to observe each of the faces in front of me that have literally transformed from a stressed-out worker to the calm peaceful person that they become in that moment of tranquility. And all in just a few minutes.

Sometimes kids do know best.  Daydreaming..er... visualization  works! Want to beat the blahs this month, become a daydreamer...at least for a few minutes today.

So much is written by “experts” about kids, including temperaments and behaviour, that parents can feel overwhelmed. I know I was when our kids were growing up.

Now I enjoy reading columns like Rachel Love’s in Centre Daily Times, that  tells parents  to “Pay Attention to Child’s Temperament Style” http://ow.ly/3XIPt. But as a parent, I would have read this title and thought, “Oh no, something else I should do”. 

As someone who enjoys talking about “what makes people  tick” in terms of temperament, I want to encourage parents to “celebrate your kids’ differences!” 

Have some fun getting to know what makes your kids feel good about themselves. Take pleasure in learning what motivates them to be wonderful human beings. It isn’t one more thing to do, but something you can enjoy together, and yes,  chase away the February blahs. 

What do I mean? Personally I was never good at bowling. But, if you read my blog yesterday, you know that I went to the bowling alley with four kids the other evening.  It was so much fun watching them enjoy themselves that I forgot it was a cold February evening outside.  We laughed, we danced, we gave a “thumbs up”, and  we even  yelled “good job” if they just dropped the ball, never mind whether it hit a pin or not. They each approached bowling according to their respective temperaments. I wasn’t caught up in “paying attention” so much as just enjoying the moment, and celebrating with each of them differently.

It was a Friday night ... a night for two introverts to call it a week, stay in and relax. That is until the phone rang with an SOS that we were needed to help supervise four kids at a bowling party, including a 2-nearly- 3 year old.

Since I am a facilitator in temperament training, I love opportunities to observe little ones.  It can be fun to figure out at an early age what their behaviour is telling me about them.

Of course one can read lots of material on temperament, like this one from Ohio State University (the Family and Consumer Sciences Department) http://ohioline.osu.edu/flm02/FS05.html. Or one can spend an evening with a preschooler.

The article above starts off by reminding us that “Parenting is one of the toughest jobs around”.  That’s an understatement!  Especially when the preschooler has been inside most of the week due to extreme cold weather here in Canada lately.

She pushed through the door and took off. FREE written all over her adventurous face. It was like the comic strip where they show the kid’s trail up and around everywhere. Just moving from one thing to another.  Checking the entire place out, including every vending machine in the place.  Smiling.  Laughing. Saying “hi” to everyone. A free spirit. Lots of action. Lots of variety.

When she took her turn at bowling, she dropped the ball with glee.  Laughing. Doing a little dance.Then off to the water fountain to have a drink. 

Two hours of running and laughing with this preschooler provided me with some good ideas which  temperament group she might fall in. One thing I do know is her outgoing free spirit made her a fun person to be with on  an otherwise quiet Friday evening.

Valentine’s Day for some people is the highlight of the month, something to really look forward to, while for others it can be, well, a bit of a “downer”.  

One of my colleagues, an introvert and also a young widow, found Valentine’s day difficult. One year just prior to Valentine’s day she told me in confidence that she would just like  to call in sick every Valentine’s day. She never had liked it as a kid who didn’t receive a lot of cards because she didn’t have a ton of friends, and now being a widow didn’t help either.

I was reminded of that colleague when I read a posting in The Mansfield News Journal entitled “Shelby Students Test Compatibility Just in Time for Valentines’s Day” http://ow.ly/3UG1V. Evidently, the high school turns Valentine’s day into a fun day  for everyone -- with a questionnaire. Students can choose to complete the questionnaire as a way of discovering who in their high school a computer “thinks their best matches in the school are for dating and friendship”. 

Based on the answers, personalities get matched up. Apparently, new friendships have been made over the last 31 years that this questionnaire has been part of the school. The survey has “sometimes been a conversation starter to help students interact with someone they may not know well”. 

What a great way to create a positive atmosphere for all personality types, especially the introverts amongst us. While you may not have a survey to help you, this Valentine’s you might want to think of turning it into a day when you reach out to someone you may not know very well.

As for my colleague, I started an annual event that year -- give flowers to  someone whom I wouldn’t normally give something to on this day. 

What? you ask.  “Is there a positive side to pressure?”

If you’re anything like me, the experts need to write some pretty convincing material before I can accept it as truth.  Turns out the experts do agree that some pressure is good for us. For example, psychologist and author Philippa Davies entitles her book - wait for it - “Thriving Under Pressure”. 

Pressure apparently stimulates the mind which then produces a variety of advantageous effects. For example, argues Davies, when you know you have a specific  time crunch to complete a project  you will focus on that task more effectively. You get 

so absorbed in your project that you give it your full concentration and may even tend to enjoy it more; your energy rises, and your performance improves.

Huh! 

One particular temperament group tells me that this is the way they work the best. When the pressure is on they get going. I hear this over and over from participants in my workshop.

As for the rest of us, we wonder just how much pressure and time crunches we want in life.  Davies does admit that the pressure must be kept to a manageable level in order to be a motivator; the key word  being “manageable” .

So tomorrow morning when the alarm rings causing you to wake up, get out of bed, and start your day, that is the positive side of pressure.  Smile!

A colleague who works out of her home mentioned to a group of us that she starts work at precisely 9 AM and when a family member asked her to take 15 minutes to help in some way after 9:00  she answered “no”.  Another  colleague who also works out of her home said she would in fact have answered “yes” to the request since it would be more stressful for her not to help.

Each personality type has its own stressors.  A key to decreasing the stress for each of us is to know what stresses us out so we can then prioritize what is important to us and figure out whether we say “no” or “yes” to requests. 

In her book, “My Answer is NO”, Dr. Nanette Gartrell quotes author, presidential speechwriter, mother, and Wall Street Journal contributing editor Peggy Noonan, “Both No and Yes are important in life! NO to meeting the assertive agendas of others, YES to meeting the joys and pleasures and fun of life.”  

Two questions you can ask yourself to make your decision easier,  according to Noonan are: Do I want to do it? Do I have to do it? 

Do I want to do it? is an easy question of whether it makes you happy or not. It it doesn’t make you happy then you say “no”; if it makes you happy then you say “yes” and figure out how to get it done.  

Do I have to do it? If so, then I say “yes” and get on with it. 

The next time you get asked to do something, before you say “yes” or “no” answer these two questions:  Do I want to do it?  Do I have to do it?

When it comes to routines, including an exercise regime, there is one temperament group that thrives on it -- the Organized Golds.  But for the rest of us, we like to mix it up. The experts call it “cross training”. I call it a relief from the “same old, same old”!

So today, as part of my own research on stress for all personality types,  I tried a new exercise program with a kettle bell, which looks like a ball with a handle attached.  Hop on over to to http://www.KETTLEWORX.com  if you want to see it. (You Tube has some free videos too.)

I tried all three of the programs on the DVD featuring top trainer Ryan “Sgt” Shanahan. For a total of 45 minutes I breathed deeply and swung this little device around.  And you know at the end I felt great!  I felt refreshed and ready to get to work in my office.  

Kettle bells relieved my  stress, and helped make me feel great this morning, so still not feeling the February blahs.  I'll be adding them to my cross training routine.  As for those of you who like routines, this might be one that you'd enjoy daily.