Hello Dear Friends,

How are you doing? Take a moment to think and reflect. How do you feel?

The Christmas Holidays is a time where you may get together with friends, family, and relatives. Everyone's experience is unique and valid, whether it's happy, sad, reflective or a joyous time.

Which brings me to the focus of this email, which is that the Holiday's can be an emotionally draining time. You and your employees maybe feeling emotionally spent, and in need of permission to just get back to being "You in non-holiday-mode".

Here are 3 tips to check in with yourself and your colleagues about how you're feeling mentally and emotionally.

The first thing before we begin, is to share with you about the notion of "holding a safe space" or "listening with non-judgement" so that your colleague can feel able to share what's on their mind. So that they can get the support that they need from you, or the help and support that, you sign-post them too.

Here are 3 ways to genuinely ask "How are you?" and encourage a non-tinned response.

1 “Prepare to listen” - Physically

So what I mean by this is get yourself into a comfortable seated position, put your phone on silent, depending on how you're speaking, close your laptop and pause notifications on your laptop/phone and find a place which is quiet and has a good reception. Be in a place where you're able to hear and makes you feel safe.

2 “Prepare to listen” - Mentally

Clear your mind of your own personal “to do list”, “issues” and create some space in your mind that is clear, “open and ready to receive”. Be aware that you really need to focus your mind on what is being said, so practice being present and growing in awareness of yourself. If you catch yourself drifting, acknowledge that and say to the person, “my focus on you was broken”, “please can you repeat yourself, thank you”.

3 Be Kind to yourself

As I always say, you’ve got to be kind to yourself and acknowledge that we're living in challenging times with the global health pandemic. You need to take care of yourself, so that you can take care of your family, friends, colleagues, and employees. Embed weekly, daily or whatever frequency works for you, of some kind of self care activity. 

Your emotional health is paramount to keeping you, your employees, colleagues and organisation thriving. So it's important that you support emotional health within your organisation, by helping your employees to understand that you and your organisation care about their well-being by providing support, opportunities to take part in well-being activities and creating a safe space for emotions to be shared and managed empathetically in the workplace.

Here are the top 2 Emotional Intelligence Tips for Making New Year's Resolutions or for Changing your Habits Incrementally for success in 2022:

1 Give yourself permission to feel your feelings.

"Listen to the emotions that give rise to your resolutions. Our joy, for example, can lead us to commit to spending more time with those who bring us joy. Our disappointment is a guide to avoid certain others. Our envy can lead us to work harder to achieve something. Our contentment when solo can lead us to a resolve to schedule quiet times." 

2 Try cutting down instead of cutting out.

"Try being flexible and moderate rather than rigid or extreme while you are trying to stop a habit or remove a behavior. If we try to eliminate entirely the habits we rely on throughout our daily lives, we may crave them even more. For example, if your goal is to stop drinking four cups of coffee a day, don't eliminate coffee entirely from your diet starting on January 1. Try having three cups a day for a week, then two cups per day the following week, and so on."  

Read the rest of the article: HERE

My insight would be don't make New Year's Resolutions. Instead commit to changing habits incrementally, or working towards goals that you set yourself for your career throughout the year.

And finally, the first of the HR Secrets MasterClasses will be happening on 25th Jan 7pm-8:30pm UK time. So save the date! If you'd like to choose the topic for upcoming MasterClasses cast your vote: HERE!

Hit reply and tell me, what's 1 self-care activity that you will engage in this week to look after your own emotional health?

In the next newsletter I'll be looking at HR trends and insights for 2022.

Until, we next meet again in this space: Be Bold, Be Brave, Be Marvellous, Back Yourself and be Your No.1 Cheerleader!

Warm Regards,

Ekua