Tag: Communication

Posted in Mental Health, Psychology, Self Help

How to prioritize more efficiently

Posted on by Bob Zima

Many of us believe that the key to good mental wellness is having the psychological fitness skill of being able to prioritize. And I agree. Having the skill set of being able to prioritize creates a sense of balance. Balance create stability. Stability reduces anxiety and depression and increases and uplift our sense of confidence leading to improved overall mental wellness.

One of the reasons people struggle finding stability and security when attempting to prioritize is it they have the wrong orientation. Most people think of prioritization as a totem pole, a ranking, a hierarchy. Prioritization isn’t vertical. It’s horizontal. Being able to prioritize and create balance isn’t about ranking things top to bottom or bottom to top it’s about rotating that access 90 degrees and finding a horizontal balance.

In order to find stability and balance we must first understand that prioritization isn’t about agreeing that my job is more important than my marriage or that my kids are more important than my job or that my self-care is more important than my kids and my marriage but not more important than my job.

Prioritization isn’t about ranking. It’s about finding balance. Balance comes when we are able to recognize that our job, kids, marriage and self-care are all important.

Prioritization is about finding the right portion sizes so that we create balance in our world. Portion sizes may change outside of our control yet we have the control then to adjust the portion sizes to other key areas of our lives in an effort to create ballet. It’s all about creating balance. It’s all about adjusting the portion sizes for the purpose of creating balance.

As an example, if I have a big project due at work then the portion of time I dedicate to work may need to increase. This means then that portions that I devote to my family, my self-care, my friends, my hobbies, my marriage, and so on may need to be decreased in order to create balance. Being an active alchemist by deciding on the portion sizes brings about a sense of control. I’m deciding, then sometimes negotiating with my partner or my children or my co-workers or my boss or whomever, what portion sizes I believe will lead to proper balance.

If due to an illness one of the children in my family develops now demands more of my attention, obviously the family domain portion will increase requiring me to strategically decrease portions in either my work, marriage, self-care, friends, hobbies, or any other domain that sits on my scale. Again, when I make the decisions on the portion sizes because I believe this will bring about the best balance, I’m in control. And again I may need to negotiate the portion sizes that I’m determining with others for the purpose of ensuring relational health and functioning with others in my life so that my attempts to create balance and stability don’t create tensions in other relationships.

So what’s review, prioritization is horizontal not vertical. It’s about determining the portion size of time, energy and focus that I give to any particular domain. I may need to communicate and negotiate with others so that my prioritization, my portion sizing, doesn’t create tension in other relationships that’s making this whole prioritization exercise futile.

Posted in Mental Health, Psychology, Self Help

Dealing with a Bully

Posted on by Bob Zima

We all have bullies in our lives. We all have those jerks and a-holes who, for some reason, because their life sucks like a vacuum, need to come in and wreak havoc in ours just to make themselves feel good. Loosers.

When dealing with a bully, I encourage people to engage in a two-step coping, problem solving and communication psychological fitness routine known as Empathize then Pivot. This particular skill allows you to maintain a sense of self-esteem, self-advocacy and, at the same time, control the situation not allowing the bully to get away with all of their crap and leave you feeling as though you’re a complete wimp.

The next time someone starts to blame you, shame you, attempt to make you feel guilty, attempt to make you jump through their Fiery Hoops I want you to empathize. Empathizing with someone is a basic and vital psychological fitness skill that helps us communicate to another person our awareness and understanding of their emotional state and why they feel that way. When a bully is blaming or shaming, say to the jerk in your life, “Sounds like that’s very painful.” Or perhaps you might say, “that seems like it would be very frightening.” The goal here for you is to focus on the bully so that you can reflect back the emotion you believe they are genuinely feeling; which b6 the way, is actually fueling their aggressive and often annoying behavior.

Once you have empathized with the bully, pivot. Empathizing with the bully will throw them off their game, bewildering them. You’ll see it written all over their face. Once you have empathized and thrown them off balance now take control of the situation by pivoting the conversation away from their agenda to your agenda or something completely benign such as the weather, sports, politics, or one of my personal favorites, movies.

Once you pivot you have gained control of the conversation. The bully may try to take control back from you by siezing the proverbial Talking Stick. If this occurs do it again, empathize than pivot. And keep in mind that your pivot can also be walking away. Empathize then excuse yourself and walk away.

When you engage this particular psychological fitness skill, you will see your general and overall mental wellness skyrocket. You will feel a sense of confidence and your anxiety will diminish.

Posted in Mental Health, Psychology, Self Help

Infidelity in Modern Times

Posted on by Bob Zima
Modern Take on Cheating

Who doesn’t love a TED Talk?

This one in particular is worth watching even if you’re not a counselor. Helps understand and break down the difference between infidelity and monogamy in 2021 versus of course these two concepts in 1981.

As we all know times have changed. So does our concept of marriage, fidelity, monogamy and all of the interesting trimmings that go with it.

Posted in Mental Health, Psychology, Self Help

What did you say?

Posted on by Bob Zima

If there is one single thing that gets in the way of most of us human beings enjoying our life it’s the fact that most of us suck at communicating. Most of us really suck at sharing what we think, what we feel, what we need and what we want. And the only thing we suck at more than communicating is being interested in hearing from another person what they’re thinking, feeling, and needing.

Welcome to the experience of humanity.

On the other hand, one of my favorite mammals of all time, the orca or killer whale, are awesome at communicating with each other. Here is a family, also known as a pod, that isn’t dysfunctional in any way. They work together, they communicate together, they survive together.

Why is it we human beings suck at communicating? I think it’s because we’ve learned, somewhere along the path of our life, that most people aren’t interested in what we are thinking or feeling or needing or wanting. In fact most people are only interested in what they’re thinking, feeling, needing or wanting.

And this is all so natural to us human beings.

We are after all a very selfish creature. Yet, because of our ability to rationalize we can learn skills, such as communication, in order to improve the satisfaction we get when interacting with others while increasing the likelihood will actually get what we want from the relationship and out of life.

So then I guess that’s the 30 million dollar question, do we improve communication skills so that we can improve the quality of our life? And noticed the focus there. The focus is on me or you learning to improve communication skills for the purpose of improving the dynamics in our relationship for the purpose of one and only one thing: meeting our own needs and driving satisfaction in our life.

More on this topic later. Or if you have a comment or thought please leave one at the end of this post.