Comfortable Chaos. Carolyn Harvey & Beth Herrild

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СКАЧАТЬ “I need to feel like all my children are taken care of and are happy. It’s important that I am doing something positive and that makes a difference in order to feel like all the chaos is worth it!”

      Most people need to feel that what they are doing makes a difference in some way. How individuals define “making a difference” varies vastly. For some people, it may mean doing something that is socially conscious and affects the greater good. For others, it may mean doing a job in which they feel they are a “player” and can impact the business. Still others need to always feel they are learning something. Ask yourself if your priorities are being addressed. Are you clear on what those priorities are? If not, go back to the earlier section on identifying your priorities.

      In addition to being able to name the positive force that is keeping you going, it’s normal to want to feel like you are making strides in the right direction. Liz is a stay-at-home mom with two children. Her CFC is in the mid to low range. She puts a lot of energy into conscious parenting and child-centered activities. She says that she can handle a fair amount of chaos, but “I need to feel like I’m making progress, meeting some goals.” Like Liz, most people need to feel some sense of forward movement.

      Only you can really know if your chaos is supporting or sabotaging your priorities. We all have to put up with certain tasks, situations, and struggles to live the life we have chosen. Having children is a perfect example. If our priority is to raise healthy and well-adjusted children, we accept that sick days, cranky days, and sibling rivalry are part of the package. The trick is knowing whether you have orchestrated the right environment and approach for your coefficient for chaos. Before you can do that, let’s assess one more aspect of your current chaos.

      Tipping Out of the Raft

      You know the feeling: You start your week with a fine-tuned plan without much margin for error, and it all works great until something unexpected happens. As soon as a child-care plan blows up, the dog gets sick, or an aging parent needs help, the whole world is upside down and it feels as though it will take a miracle to right yourself. Even seemingly minor events such as heavy traffic or an unexpected telephone call can tip you over. If you are always teetering on the edge of overwhelmed, then when something unexpected happens you simply don’t have any reserve brain space, energy, and of course, time, to handle it without great physical and emotional stress.

      Katherine is involved in a start-up software company with her husband. She has two young children and was making everything work reasonably well despite a horrendous schedule until her babysitter quit unexpectedly and her children got ringworm. “I felt as though my whole world had caved in,” she recalled. Katherine is a low CFC. She had been operating past her threshold for chaos for quite a long time, but, given the progression of events, she was making it work pretty well and really did not want to pull back — until it was too late and she was tipped out of the raft. Now she is slowly recovering, but the toll it has taken is visible when she speaks. She still believes in what she is doing but she is tired, both physically and emotionally, and a little bit of the spark that was there when she first described her new venture in the software company has been temporarily dimmed.

      Not only do we schedule ourselves to the maximum, like Katherine, and fail to leave room for problems and delays, but many of us have also fallen prey to the contemporary social pressure that busyness equals importance and status. We book an exhausting amount into every day, relying on adrenaline and drive (and sometimes caffeine) to get it all done. Where is the point where busyness tips over to insanely out of control and unhealthy? That point is different for everyone. But a key question to ask is, “How often am I tipping out of the raft?” Because it takes a great deal of energy to right yourself while in the rapids, this is an area to really scrutinize. Would you rate yourself as a frequently tipped out of the raft? (At least once a day.) Occasionally tipped out of the raft? (Once or twice a week.) Or are you rarely tipped out of the raft? (Once or twice a month.)

      If you are frequently soaked to the bone with cold water and have to go through the process of righting your raft, bailing out the excess water, and then drying your clothes and gear, then it’s time to learn how to recognize the warning signs that you are about to capsize.

      Recognizing the Warning Signs before Capsizing

      It’s very easy to get caught up in the activity of the moment, and not notice that you are close to capsizing. Another way to think of this is learning to read the signals that you are reaching the edge of your tolerance for chaos. Again, your coefficient for chaos can play a role. High CFC people will take longer to reach their tolerance level than low CFCs, but everyone has limits and signals. High CFCs have to be a little more careful in this area because they tend to ignore the signals and push on because of the sheer excitement of what they are doing.

      People have a variety of signals that let them know they are reaching the edge of their tolerance. Scott, a manager at a high-tech company and father to two elementary-aged children says, “I know I’m reaching my threshold when I start losing track of what needs to be done. Whether it’s work related or personal, I need to stop and try and get organized again. I will sit down and reprioritize my task list.”

      For other people, the signs can be physical. Mark is an attorney at a telecommunications company with two small boys at home and says one of his signals is a muscle pain in his back. Mark also has nonphysical signs. “I get in a total reactive mode and am not doing anything proactive. I find myself flitting around putting out lots of little fires but not really completing anything.” This feeling of being like a hamster on a wheel, running but not actually accomplishing much, is a common response to feeling overwhelmed.

      In place of feeling physical symptoms or focusing on tasks, some people show their frustration in their interactions with others. Instead of calmly answering a question they may respond abruptly or with sarcasm. Many of the people we interviewed cited “being snippy” as one of their most common reactions to surpassing their tolerance for chaos.

      What are your personal signs that you are about to tip out of the raft? You may have one signal in particular or feel it on many different levels. If you are not clear what your signals are, then make an effort to observe them next time you start to get overwhelmed. Recognizing these warning signs can be a huge help because next time you notice them you can stop what you are doing and regroup. Take a five-minute break and ask yourself, “What can I do to stabilize my raft?” Try to calm yourself and step back from the situation for a few minutes. This may mean getting up from your desk and taking a walk, going to the restroom, breathing, or whatever else works for you. By shifting your focus, the next steps will seem more obvious and you can congratulate yourself on avoiding being capsized.

      In this chapter, you have discovered where your time goes, where you would like it to go, and your coefficient for chaos. Understanding your own personal preferences and tolerances, all part of individual, is the critical beginning for moving along the continuum toward achieving Comfortable Chaos. In the next chapter, we shift our attention to the pressures and challenges of today’s world and learn some tools that fall under the second I, imperfect.

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      Taking Charge in a High-Speed “Suck You Dry” World

      Carolyn will never forget the time she was working in a very challenging job and learned the hard way that more work does not equal more appreciation. She was in a unique job called skill team support manager — a human resources position where she was required to coordinate staffing issues with managers from various programs by bringing them together in weekly or biweekly meetings. The problem with this job was that every manager considered himself or herself to be a customer and a critic. As you can imagine, it was nearly impossible to satisfy all of them since they represented very different СКАЧАТЬ