It’s not them, it’s YOU!
What if you don’t achieve it?
Who is responsible?
Is it possible?
What does it look like?
Why do you want it?
What is it going to take?
It is always an interesting space when people set up shop and start working as their own business with dreams of delivering their own product or service, only to find out the business of hiring and managing and leading people is another whole business (beast) in itself. Your skills are in accounting right, or [insert your service], not in psychology!
I got a bit fired up or impassioned whilst attending a workshop in Brisbane this week titled, Bringing Happiness Into The Workplace, run by FCB group, workplace relations specialists. There was a room full of HR companies and experts and six engaging guest speakers. All speakers were inspiring. OMG, one speaker was a Lawyer, is a Lawyer turned rap artist! Simba Mak. Great story and on a side note, as a fellow musician, I was BLOWN.A.WAY! I told him he absolutely disrupted me. Disruption is a good thing right!
Do you REALLY want to know how to bring happiness into the workplace?
If you answered a genuine ‘no bull’ yes to that, then you’re halfway there!
Your own intention and energy and biology, and emotion and mood and chemicals and neural pathways and beliefs are impacting those around you and VISE VERSA! We can’t fake energy. Sure, you can wear masks, but if your inner world is in conflict or out of integrity with your masks, your words, your outer world, you will experience resistance in the workplace, and within your own health, but that’s another story. Anywhere you or anyone for that matter, is showing up with your inner world being out of integrity with your outer world, you will experience resistance, pressure, anxiety, conflict and all things opposite to happiness.
It’s damn hard work when your inner self is out of integrity with your outer self. You know that moment when you have been holding this crazy tension in your shoulders or any body part and all of a sudden you just relax that body part and there is a beautiful release. Same thing! Being out of integrity internally and externally is holding a tension you are not conscious you are doing. You just experience the tension and you behave and react accordingly. Then, your actions and tensions influence those around you. You then judge people’s responses to you, and wonder why they behave how they behave! Enter blame, the most ineffective, disempowering known to mankind!
Whoaw, what happens when we are all doing this in the workplace or in any place for that matter?
We get breakdowns, miscommunications, personality clashes, conflict, resignations, dismissals, divorces. It’s not happiness that’s for sure. You can see how far reaching our own integrity imbalance reaches. DO. THE. SELF. WORK! You can see the value in it right! Whatever time it takes, whatever effort it takes, whatever investment it takes, do the self-work. Then, encourage your team to do the self-work too. And, YOU FIRST! Otherwise, you get trapped in putting out spot fires and spending time, effort and money in dealing with the symptoms as opposed to the root cause.
My encouragement:
If you care about being an effective leader/human and if you care about being the best version of you, do the self-work first! Deep self-awareness work. You can’t begin to know how to shepherd the flock and maintain happiness in the workplace if your inner world and outer world are out of integrity. Hell, most people don’t they are operating out of integrity. What happens though is, subtly, energetically, you will create a sense of psychological unsafety in your relationships. Psychological safety was one of the key subjects in the FCB one day event. People don’t feel genuinely safe with you. They won’t trust you enough to be open and honest with you. People will adjust their and their language around you in order to give you what they think you want, in order to keep themselves safe. Trust, deep truth and honesty will be greatly compromised. That’s impossible to manage effectively.
Wow, how do you lead a team or run a business with all of that smoke and mirrors going on? You almost can’t, it’s hard and it’s frustrating, and tiring, just like herding cats. You can give up and even feel like a failure.
Symptoms that can indicate you are out of integrity with your internal world and external:
Resistance from anyone in your team or from your associates. A degree of stress when presenting your case/opinions, almost as though you need to prepare for an argument or a conflict. You don’t say what you REALLY feel or think, you let your mask speak. People say one thing but then you notice they do something different. People talk about you behind your back but seem nice to your face. You think someone’s happy at work or anywhere but, then they resign unexpectedly or divorce unexpectedly or submit for mental health leave.
I attended this event as Roslyn Loxton Coaching in order observe and gauge the language and the vibe of what is going on out there right now. I am not claiming to be an expert in human resources, or change management or onboarding, or any kind of Leadership trailblazing. I am claiming to be an expert in getting your internal self and your external self into alignment and into integrity. From that place, you can sail off into the sunset as opposed to navigating the minefields of human behaviour when operating in misalignment with yourself, when you are out of internal-external integrity.
Please reach out to me if you are curious about aligning your internal self with your external self. I’d love to hear from you.
Brisbane Life Coach | Mindset Coach | Counsellor
