The Traveling Introvert

Are you having feelings of imposter syndrome when applying for jobs or when at a new job?   Imposter syndrome at work is especially damaging and can affect you in many ways. Holding you back from promotions, being known as the person that can't be handed an extra task, long hours at work, and overall added stress. Imposter syndrome needs to be dealt with before it derails your career entirely.    Almost everyone has suffered from imposter syndrome at one time or another.    When having this feeling, you need to analyze why exactly you have this feeling. Are you in the wrong department, do you not understand the assignment, are you in the wrong career, or do you not understand the assignment right now? Once you know why then you can address the problem. Create a plan for your particular reason. Maybe you need more training, or you might have a bad manager, or you need time to settle into your career, or it could be time to look for a new job?    Having imposter syndrome can cause us to overcompensate a

The lost art of doing nothing   You should be scheduling time out to do nothing.    On your days off, you might find that you have lots of things to get done. Whether it is doing chores, seeing people, side projects. You might often find yourself scheduling out your days off instead of allowing yourself to go with where the day takes you.    Due to the nature of technology nowadays, with notifications and easy access to our phones, we gravitate toward that instant gratification, and we have a large fear of missing out. This makes it hard for us to do nothing and plan nothing.    Don't feel guilty for not being "productive"  all hours of the day. Our bodies and minds are not designed for that. If you continue to push yourself without a "do-nothing" break, you build up a deficit that can eventually lead to burnout.    Don't even plan things that will make you feel better. Truly let your body or mind take you through the day.  Does your body need more rest, does it need to meditate, does it need Netfli

Prioritizing yourself   One of the worst things you can do is feel guilty about prioritizing yourself. Prioritizing yourself is a need, and you should not feel guilty about your needs.    People who care about you will respond healthily to you putting yourself first.  Set boundaries or time for yourself and explain why this designated time is important to you. It May take time, but the people around you that care about you will understand why this time is important to you.    Sometimes friends and family don’t mean to take advantage of you. Instead, they assume that if you say yes, it’s because you wanted to say yes. Instead, try saying no, not right now, let me check my calendar, or I would rather do…   Set boundaries and help yourself prioritize yourself.    Block out the downtime to prioritize yourself by doing the things you like. Walking, reading, painting, meditating, coloring. If you allow yourself this time, you will be a happier person and enjoy life more.    It is not optional for you t

Balancing self-esteem  Having healthy and balanced self-esteem is key to a happy and healthy life.    Sometimes people assume that introverts don’t have high self-esteem or even that they have low self-esteem. And then, there are times when self-esteem morphs into ego or overconfidence.    There is healthy self-esteem. Here you have the confidence to be honest with yourself. You know your strengths and weaknesses, and you love yourself. Healthy self-esteem encourages you to live your life to the fullest, make good measured choices, and keep going even when mistakes happen with a lesson learned.    Then there is low self-esteem. Unhealth low self-esteem leaves you with no confidence and a fear of making mistakes. Often this leads to a poor quality of life where you feel scared and trapped. Here you take in a lot of what people say about you, especially if it is negative.     Then there is the overinflated self-esteem. This is also unhealthy. Overinflated self-esteem can trick you into thinking tha

As an introvert, you likely like to have alone time.  There are benefits to spending time alone.   Schedule into your days alone time. Here are some benefits to a healthy amount of alone time.   It is important to enjoy your own company, alone time enables you to just be in the moment with yourself. This will overall give you more peace and can make you a better friend    Time alone can encourage creativity. When you are alone and centered you will find that this is when your best ideas will come to you due to the lack of distractions.    You might find that you get more done. Without distractions, you will be surprised at what you can get done in a short amount of time.   Spending time alone is a great way to recharge. Even 10 minutes to yourself can be beneficial. Find something that revives both your mind and body.    Spending time alone can help you clear your mind. A few deep breaths alone can recenter you.    Ideally, you can find an hour of alone time each day but even 10 or 30 minutes c

We all multitask, so being aware of when you are multitasking and why can be very helpful.  Everyone might think they are good multitaskers, but our brains are not wired to multitask; it's not designed for it.  It is important to avoid multitasking when doing specific tasks. (ie. Reading, driving, learning, writing).  What we call "multitasking" is actually task switching. Meaning you go back and forth between tasks. You aren't really doing both at the same time, more so not focusing on either task. Multitasking also causes you to be slower. When you don't give 100% focus to one task, it will take you longer to complete your tasks.  Multitasking can also cause you to make some mistakes. Mistakes can range from deadly, like in instances of texting and driving, or just an unneeded mistake.  When completing a task with multiple steps, be sure to focus on your task at hand to avoid mistakes or inaccuracies.  Multitasking can make you stressed. When things are taking longer or mistakes are being made, this a

Have you been thinking about time management and how you block out work time? Are you blocking out your week, month, quarter, year? One of the most important things when planning is creating a time management plan. A time management plan helps you avoid procrastination and make the hours you have count. It can alleviate pressure and let you enjoy your downtime because you know you have put in the hours needed to get your tasks done.  Having a plan ensures you get things done more quickly and can allow you to spread your tasks out accordingly.  Create a plan that is unique to you.  Think about the following:   Be realistic with your planning. Listen to your internal clock for when you best complete tasks. Suppose you are not a morning person or night person, don't schedule out work time during that time frame.    Set time limits: with tasks you like and dislike. Sometimes tasks we like can keep us procrastinating from tasks we don't like.     Avoid distractions. Plan ahead on how you will deal with

We only have the capability to make so many decisions in a day. Little daily tasks like choosing outfits or meals count towards this capacity to make decisions.  It is important to cultivate an environment where you trust yourself to make good decisions.  If you trust your decision-making, you know that everything will be alright or that a good lesson will come from a bad decision.  Here are some ways to start trusting yourself.    Connect with your gut instinct, quiet your mind, find the voice of compassion and respect and listen to that voice. This skill takes practice, so keep at it.    Avoid people who weaken your self-trust. “Naysayers”   When you make a promise to yourself, keep it! When you don’t do something you say you are going to do, you slowly erode trust in yourself.    Be kind to yourself, don’t be an inner critic of yourself.   Forgive yourself when you make a mistake or make the wrong choice, and trust that you will make a better choice next time.    Keep a list of the times that

Do you have trouble with productivity consistency?  Some days you can get a lot done and then other days you lack the energy to get small tasks done?  A reason for this could be the type of work you are doing or that needed to be done the next day. It could also be mental fatigue. You could be pushing yourself too hard past your work stopping point. Your mind like your body can’t work all out, all the time. Slow and steady will give you a better average of work completed. Get into a good rhythm that works day after day.    Productivity also includes taking quality breaks. This will take some trial and error to find what kind of break works best for you.  It could be a 5-minute break when you are in a good rhythm, or a longer break when you are switching to a different type of task. What you do during your break is also important. Stay hydrated, eat a snack, take a walk. Do something that will allow you to recover. Remember to be mindful of what works or take notes for future reference.   Don’t max out on

Problem-solving is a crucial skill. All success comes with challenges and obstacles to overcome.  Tips on how to problem solve  1) Be able to adapt and learn: No one has all the answers. Focus on what you have to do to learn the answers using your " Research Mindset." You will need different approaches for different problems.  2) Be confident in your abilities and welcome challenges: Success stories have obstacles to overcome. Remember that the challenge will help you grow and develop your skills. Experience will give you the confidence to get the job done.  3) Focus on Finding Solutions: Don't focus your time on the problem. Instead, come to the table with a solution. Use your time to test possible solutions.    Don't take challenges negatively. Instead, change your perspective to consider what valuable knowledge and experience and your organization will learn.  Don't shy away from challenges. They will help you achieve more than you ever thought possible.  Transcript  . I want to talk about how to

Hello and welcome to the Not So Travelling Introvert today I want to continue a conversation I started having actually at an event I was part of talking about work productivity, but more like how to relax and refresh and recharge at work and why so nearly 80% of work as a reporter to feel that they feel stressed at work and roughly half of them need help managing it and the other half just think that's the way it is and it doesn't have to be. Stressful. Environments do not breed positive productivity.   It hinders and store success and creativity, and your mind just doesn't work too well and de stress for long periods of time. So when you can't take a break or relax at work, you generally can't make the right decisions to perform.   At Ur best, you will always be underperforming, making it harder to focus on what matters and ultimately affecting your professional goals or tasks that you need to do. So one of the things I really recommend is recognise your triggers. Actively take notice of the things that

This week's topics: Making extra time and having a research mindset   Are you not scheduling time to review and do tasks after meetings?  Sometimes meetings require you to block out additional time after the meeting to review the slide deck or task for that meeting.  Are you going about your work with a research mindset? Doing so will eliminate the possibility of letting your assumptions guide how your work. Instead, when going about your work, confirm or research your assumptions. Sometimes you will find that what you believe to be true is not the case.    Hello and welcome to the not so travelling introvert. Today, I want to talk about making extra time. So I was in a meeting the other day and it was the usual PowerPoint presentation with lots of hyperlinks embedded within the presentation and the presentation hadn't been hadn't been shared in advance. You didn't know what was going on and then the person is like, so doesn't have any questions. And I said, Well, you know me.   I'll look at the pres

It’s easy to feel guilty, want to avoid conflict, or simply make other people feel good. However, you can’t consume your whole life on how other people react, nor should you stress about other people’s happiness. Your happiness is more important. In fact, saying no more often is crucial to accomplishing your goals and aspirations.   “No” Is Not Always Negative   Behind every no, there is also a yes. To explain further, when you say no, you are also saying yes to another opportunity that can better serve your life. Just because you are saying no doesn’t mean it is the end of the world. Saying no means that you are committed to your values and goals in life. If you always say yes without considering everyone, the sad truth is, you will always be living someone else’s life.   Stick to And Establish Your Boundaries   The only person you are responsible for is yourself, and you can’t expect others to know what you need if you don’t speak up. Practice assertive communication, always speak up about your boun

Controlling your emotions or possessing proper emotional intelligence is vital for a successful life. Feelings, along with rational thoughts, ensure you get what you need out of life financially, physically, and mentally. This is essential to understand your emotions and improve or possess emotional intelligence. The following five tips, when implemented, will improve your emotional intelligence:   Recognize Your Good and Bad Emotions   When you feel a particular emotion, recognize and label it right away. Don't push it away or ignore it. Allow the feelings to happen, good or bad. Let them rush over you. Then take a moment to recognize how it makes you feel and what reactions you took or want to take. To understand your emotions better, you need to experience them first, not avoid them.   Identify Your Triggers   A trigger is something that starts or causes you to react and experience an emotion or feeling. Before you feel something, there is likely a cause or culprit. Take note of the cause, how it m

I want to talk about self assessment or that can other both be sort as self view or a retrospective. This is something that this came  up recently with the clients that I work with, but also just myself. I'm very good at planning. I say that I'm fairly good at planning most of the time, but very, rarely do I take the time to review and look back and see what you know, what has happened and how it's happened and maybe reasoning why.   So I've all these data points, but I'm not really using them to the to you know, how I could improve things for myself on my business. And so some of my clients and now started doing retrospectives from products that they've done. But here's the thing about doing sort of self assessments or your views. It helps you to be honest and open and ask yourself challenging questions and the reason why you want to do this so you can learn. It's not just for you to do a workplace on annual sort of review to get a promotion or anything like that.   It's a great strategy to use on yourse

I realize that this is possibly a topic I haven't gone over whenever I am working with new contractors to taking on new staff. One of my go to questions always is, what does introversion mean to you? Because as we know, there's a lot of misinformation out there and I wanted to just talk about some of the things that people say when I ask them what introversion means to them, bearing in mind what I do and where they find me, where they hear my name.   So one person said to me, Introversion means being more comfortable, either alone or in smaller crowds, are not expressing ideas and thoughts outside of an inner circle. So I found this really interesting, that the thought process there wasn't necessarily about being aloof, it was just setting boundaries and knowing that very comfortable with a smaller group of people, people you trust and telling them about stuff which was interesting. And someone else said it's being shy and possibly not being able to or wanting to express oneself, always wanting to be alone

Today I want to talk about the difference between energy management versus time management. What I've found that working with my clients is so many so often they're trying to manage their time, which is great. All the projects and all the things that you have to do and figuring out what goes and what bucket and using line of house matrix or, you know, using get stuff done, flow whatever it needs to do. And that time management.   And they kind of forget that as an introvert, energy management is just as important. You've likely heard the old adage that life is a marathon, not a sprint. So if you're trying to manage your time effectively, but you are not paying attention to your energy management, you might end up with like sprints and sprints and sprints rather than like a long, sustained marathon, and that it could be fine if that works for you. But more than likely, it's better for you to do something in a sustainable manner than it is to sprint, get stuff done, burn out, have to stop for however long, an

today I'm going to talk about not doing something, I find that not doing something is the hardest thing of all to not do, to do. Not sure which way I'm not supposed to go. There's times where you might have a lot going on. You keep busy. Things are coming at you left, right and centre. You just want to go, go, go, go, go all the time and you might lose focus of what your overall goals and mission is because you're just kind of stuck in the weeds taking five minutes to just not do anything and look at a piece of paper.   Maybe that's on the wall or on your your board that says whatever it is you're famous for the year or the week or month or whatever it is, and be like, OK, well, the things my doing today or in this next hour that are working towards that goal or are in line with that mission is everything that I'm doing towards that yes or no. Also not doing something is really helpful when setting boundaries. For example, I have been known to not be good at setting boundaries with clients and if something

today I want to talk about something that happens a lot with some of my clients. They confuse a plan with a to do list. And so I want to talk about how these things are completely different. A to do list is basically a list of tasks that you want to do during the day, the week, the month, the year, etc.. Plan is what's the plan? OK, so this is what a plan could look like.   10 a.m. wake up 10 a.m. to 10, 30, some sort of loose morning routine, 10, 30 till one deep work, one o'clock. There's going to be breakfast probably in there somewhere, but it might be part of your morning routine, one o'clock till to go to the gym or sort of meditate or do something that is a self development wise, two to five more deep work. All right. So what I'm trying to show that is that a plan doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the tasks that you'll do during the day.   And I have a rough idea, but not necessarily. So you set the intention during the time frame, your work on your business or your career or your job or

still today I want to talk about days off. This came about because I was talking with a friend and we assume when people take time off work that it is full recharge and fun reasons. And let's be honest, it's not always the case. And when you come back to work, people like, oh, he must be now well rested after that time off. You took time off work.   Yes, that may be the case. But if you look at the last year, a lot of people have taken time off for funerals. A lot of people have taken time off for mental health. A lot of people have taken time off to deal with whatever it is they're dealing with. It might be you need to put down an animal. It might be you need to look after grandma. It might be the plumber's coming and you have to take the time off work.   So we were talking about how it would be great if there was a different way. There's two things. There's one is a different way of calling time off when you're doing something that isn't fun or recharging. And the other flipside of that is how to deal w