Month: April 2021

Work Trends: Coaching at the Office for Mental Well-Being

/ Coach Sandra Dillon / 3 Comments

Today there’s a lot of talk about mental health in the workplace. COVID has taken a measurable toll on people’s lives and their capacity to cope and remain resilient. Depression, fatigue, and loss productivity are only a few outcomes for those struggling to keep jobs, do more with less, parent, and work from home. How are people responding? Prescriptions for anti-depressants, anti-anxiety, and insomnia have increased by double digits.   

Medical intervention has its place, and companies should be applauded for offering Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) and other counseling services through their benefits program. However, there’s less medically evasive solutions that can help workers not only to cope but find ways to thrive in the new normal. The best tool in the tool life kit may be coaching.

Many times, people don’t need a pill to calm their nerves, they need a coach to help them see a different picture: set a vision, strategize on options, develop a plan, learn new tools, adopt a different mindset, find support, and partner with them through the journey to the opposite side of the continuum of mental well-being. Many people already have the solution inside of themselves. They need a coach to help them untangle the thoughts into a well-conceived plan or share some tools that will make them the master of their lives.

I applaud those businesses that offer coaching to their employees as an alternative to medical intervention. If your company doesn’t offer free or nominal fee coaching, there’s nothing stopping you from hiring your own coach. Coaching isn’t therapy, it’s targeted support. Do you need a pill, or do you really need a coach?

About the Author: Sandra Dillon is a professional life coach with an extensive background in leadership, sales, and business consulting. She has a passion to help people be the hero of their own life story. She administers assessments, designs, and facilitates workshops, and coaches individuals, teams, and businesses. You can learn more about Sandra or engage her as your coach by reaching out to her at coach.sandra.dillon@gmail.com or by visiting her website at www.shinecrossings.com

Work Trends: Living Your Values at Work

/ Coach Sandra Dillon / 1 Comment

I have a forecast! All the disruption going on in the world today is forcing people to reflect on who they are and what they stand for. I believe now, more than ever, people will seek to find companies that align with their values. In the past, living your values was reserved more for the domain of family, friendships, churches, and community. Where you worked was more about the best place to make money, advance a career, build for retirement, and have fun while doing what you loved.  

In America, companies are taking more of a role in shaping the country’s culture, belief system, and citizens’ values. For instance, Amazon is now paying certain employees to take time off to reflect on their white privilege. Others are dictating COVID vaccination as a basis of employment or as some of my clients have experienced—coworker bullying if they haven’t chosen to take the vaccine. Other companies, with a servant heart, require or put pressure on employees to serve as an employee group in charitable endeavors.

With more companies flying their value flag and requiring employees to be part of what they represent, they influence their employees’ attitudes, personal belief system, and behaviors. I forecast a trend toward more businesses bringing their values to the forefront and attracting those employees who share similar views. Your decision to work for a specific company or an employer hiring you may be heavily decided by a value formula more than other historical factors.  

If you are searching for work, perhaps it’s time to get clarity on your values and how to search for companies that align with them. If you’re a business, today may be the perfect time to get clarity on your values, how to promote them, and then screen potential candidates. If you are interested in exploring this topic further, reach out for a conversation.

About the Author: Sandra Dillon is a professional life coach with an extensive background in leadership, sales, and business consulting. She has a passion to help people be the hero of their own life story. She administers assessments, designs, and facilitates workshops, and coaches individuals, teams, and businesses. You can learn more about Sandra or engage her as your coach by reaching out to her at coach.sandra.dillon@gmail.com or by visiting her website at www.shinecrossings.com

The Second Wave of a New Normal: How Will You Respond?

/ Coach Sandra Dillon / 1 Comment

People keep talking about a new normal and asking: what’s the new normal going to look like and will life be anything like pre-COVID? The reality: we’re moving into a second wave of “a new normal”. The first was exclusively working from home, fighting for internet bandwidth, home schooling while working full-time, learning how to cook versus eat out, finding a closet to work privately, wearing masks, obsessing over pandemic statistics on TV, entertaining bored children, and keeping teenagers from consuming even more technology. These were the struggles for the lucky who still had jobs. As if we didn’t have enough imbalance, we added several more responsibilities to juggle in new ways. Some people are mastering the change, while others are still trying. Now…

…the pendulum is swinging back. Just when you felt like you’d gotten command of this new way of balancing work and home, your employer talks about bringing you back into the office. But this isn’t about stepping into the old way from a year ago. Not everyone is going back at the same time, the work environment is setup differently, and some services you depend on for the old normal aren’t available or they cost more. You’ve restructured life during the regime of COVID. We are entering the second wave of a new normal, which…

…brings on a new set of problems and possible anxieties. Perhaps even your pets are having separation anxiety thinking about you returning to the office and leaving them home all day. What can you do?

  • Acknowledge that it’s okay that you’re feeling overwhelmed and recognize it’s because we are entering into a second round of trying to create a new normal. Give yourself credit for weathering through the first round and have faith that you can do it again. This isn’t as easy as picking up where you left off.
  • Decide what mindset you’re going to adopt? Are you going to have a fixed or growth mindset? If you’re not sure what mindset you have, you can learn more about mindset by reading The Power of a Growth Mindset and the Risk of Holding on the Fixed. How will you look at the change? Will it be an opportunity to create something new or will you grudgingly look at it as “woe is me or why me”? Will you see this change as an opportunity for growth or an excuse of why you have it so bad?
  • Find your tribe and support system. You weren’t designed to go it alone. We were built to live in community, to support one another, and to be supported. We need to be both givers and receivers of support.
  • Consider hiring a life coach to be your partner to help you develop a vision of your future, design a game plan, hold you accountable, and be your cheerleader.

We won’t be going back as we move into the future. Tomorrow brings a new set of struggles never seen before. Stay confident, have faith, set a vision, create a plan, and take action.

About the Author: Sandra Dillon is a professional life coach with an extensive background in leadership, sales, and business consulting. She has a passion to help people be the hero of their own life story. She administers assessments, designs, and facilitates workshops, and coaches individuals, teams, and businesses. You can learn more about Sandra or engage her as your coach by reaching out to her at coach.sandra.dillon@gmail.com or by visiting her website at www.shinecrossings.com