REPOSSESSING YOUR SANITY IN THE WORKPLACE
A workshop that will create a self-care plan to increase positive emotion during the work day, while finding meaning in work and life
WHAT MOTIVATES YOU?
As a leader of an organization, how do you motivate those around you? As a worker in an organization, where does your motivation come from and can you change it toward being more positive? Do you ever take the opportunity to understand the meaning the work has for you or your teammates by understanding:
- Why they’re excited about a particular project;
- What skills or knowledge they might gain as a result of the work;
- The process or procedure they are excited to introduce and how your colleagues can make everyone’s lives easier; and
- How work allows people to create better lives for themselves or their families?
Work can be deeply rewarding and can contribute to positive emotion at your place of employment and in your own family and community. However, work can also create an awful lot of negative emotion, such as anxiety, anger, envy, fear, and paranoia, can also leak into your family relationships and into the broader community. According to Dr. Leah Weiss, an internationally known Professor at the prestigious Stanford Graduate School of Business, nothing provides more opportunities for negative emotions than the dynamics of the workplace. But the good news is that these feelings matter and can be changed. How we feel at and about work matters – to ourselves, to the quality of our work, and ultimately to the success of the organizations for which we work.
According to Weiss, the path to productivity and success is not to change jobs, to compartmentalize our feelings, or to create a false "professional" identity, but rather to listen to the wisdom our feelings offer.
Using mindfulness techniques, we can learn how to attend to difficult feelings without becoming subsumed by them; we can develop an awareness of our bigger-picture goals that orients us and allows us to see purpose in even the most menial tasks. In her book How We Work, Weiss offers a set of practical, evidence-based strategies for practicing mindfulness in the real world, showing us not just how to survive another work day, but how to use psychological strategies to sharpen our abilities, enhance our leadership and interpersonal skills, and improve work satisfaction.
OUR WORKSHOP
Building on Dr. Weiss’ work and research, and using his skills and academic labor, the various workshops offered by Dr. Rodney Dieser will offer psychological strategies to develop soft skill-based leadership to prevent burnout and change toxic workplaces. In addition, the strategies outlined will help transform the daily grind of work into labor that sustain us: meaningful contribution and a sense of belonging. These workshops will offer practical strategies for bringing courage, purpose, and compassion to our work.
This one-day interactive workshop is focused on how to feel greater positive emotion at work, which extends to greater positive emotion in life. The morning will focus on discovering your specific purpose at work and how to use free time outside of work to develop an optimal leisure lifestyle that can also lead to meaning, but also enjoyment, pleasure, and relaxation. The afternoon session will focus on how to reframe your thoughts when feeling negative in your work setting, gaining compassion toward yourself and your work colleagues, including how to repair ruptured relationships, and learning how to calm yourself when upset.
PARTICIPANTS WILL LEARN TO
Craft a workplace mission statement
Focus on what they can contribute
Practice compassion towards colleagues
Perform self-compassion
Use mindfulness to stay calm
Use reflection & problem-solving techniques
Identify realistic work goals
Develop an optimal leisure lifestyle outside of work
This all-day workshop can be broken into a half day workshop focused on (1) discovering your specific purpose at work and how to use free time outside of work to develop an optimal leisure lifestyle that can lead discovering to meaning in life, but also enjoyment, pleasure, and relaxation or (2) learning how to reframe your thoughts when feeling negative in your work setting, gaining compassion toward yourself and your work colleagues, including how to repair ruptured relationships, and learning how to calm yourself when upset.
Rodney B. Dieser, Ph.D., LMHC is the author of six books and over 100 articles on the topics of wellness and mental health. His writings have appeared in USA TODAY, Chicago Tribune, Des Moines Register, Counseling Psychology Quarterly, International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology, Leisure Science, Lancet Psychiatry, and Mayo Clinic Proceedings. He is a Professor of recreation, tourism and nonprofit leadership and professional counseling at the University of Northern Iowa, is a Diplomate Clinician (therapist) with the Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy and works 10 hours a week as a Licensed Mental Health Counselor at Wartburg College.
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