Cut Yourself a Break! How Perfectionism Could Be Your Career’s Fatal Flaw

Perfectionism! Do we have this in common?  If you’re like me, you have taken on an unrelenting drive to make sure everything about you is beyond reproach, criticism, or correction. You always deliver and strive to exceed expectations of all.  Your appearance is just so. Your weight is perfect (or you obsess about why it’s not). Your … Read more

Authentic Joy at Work: How Your Career Can Help You Heal Your Life

As a society, we’re used to hearing negative messages about how our jobs and workplaces are hazardous to our health. There are endless studies about our worklife promotes stressful lifestyle habits, invades our restorative family and personal time, stresses us out through being at the mercy of toxic bosses and coworkers, compromises our privacy, etc. … Read more

Bumper Car Moments

You know the feeling I’m just about to describe. You’ve been there too. You’re at work, and everything is going smoothly. You’re sailing through your day. Work is getting done. Meetings are productive and blessedly short. Everyone is smiling at each other. You can hear laughter in the halls. Your boss thinks you’re fantastic. And … Read more

IRRATIONAL REACTIONS!!!!!! How to Protect Your Career From Blasts from the Past

We all have emotional buttons – those areas of sensitivity that, when touched, set our teeth on edge, make us bite our tongue before we say something that we can’t take back, force us to count to 5 or 10 or 75…whatever it takes to make sure our response is measured and reasonable. I’m not … Read more

The One Question That Can Change Everything for ASDPs

When we were children just learning about life, the people with the most influence on our beliefs were the adults in our immediate circle – usually our parents, sometimes guardians, possibly other influential adults. But what if they were adult survivors of damaged pasts (ASDPs) themselves? The adults from their childhoods taught them harsh lessons … Read more

“I’m Not an ASDP But….”: How Your Damaged Past May Be Blocking You From Your Joyful Future

“I’m not an ASDP but…your message really resonated with me.” Yes, I’ve heard that before. I’ve read that before. Heck. Even I still have trouble admitting to one person, never mind a whole audience, that I’m an ASDP myself. There are times I still stumble over the acronym. Adult Survivor of a Damaged Past.  But, … Read more

How Your Past Lives Rent Free in Your Present (Part 2)

“Life is difficult.”  M. Scott Peck opened his 1983 book, The Road Less Traveled, with these three simple words. And all over the world, hundreds of thousands of readers opened this landmark book, read the first sentence, and exhaled. As universal as the experience of a difficult life might be, to see those words written … Read more