Cary L. Cooper

Managing Workload Pressure

Workload is simply the amount of work we have scheduled with our name on it, through employment, academic demands or domestic pressures. But it’s not quite as simple as that. It’s rare that we have complete control, management or authority regarding the demands placed upon us.

Looking After Yourself and Self-Care

We spend a lot of time looking after other people, whether this is a child, an elderly parent or relative, someone at work who needs support or a friend in need. In some ways it’s easier to take care of other people. We might get a feel-good factor knowing that we are very much appreciated for our efforts. And helping others does make us feel good, undoubtedly.

Personal Stress Management Toolkit

We experience stress when we perceive that the demands placed upon us exceed our ability to cope. Our perception is our reality. An issue, circumstance or event may not be stressful in itself, but the way we perceive it determines whether we interpret this as stressful.

Problem-Focused Resilience

We cope with struggles and crisis situations in a range of different ways, though we rarely adopt a logical, consistent approach. Sometimes we might need to adapt to circumstances, so one method of coping isn’t always going to deliver the best solution. But introducing a repertoire of coping and resilience-focused styles gives us the choice to select a more appropriate one for the situation.

Managing Conflict at Home and Work

We all have our own views and opinions shaped by our upbringing, people influences and past work and life experiences. These can be political, social, environmental and economic based on how we see the wider world, or closer to home about how we get on with others at work.

Parenting Pre-teens

This chapter covers the child’s journey from being a toddler, through nursery and primary school in readiness to becoming young adults.

Changing Negative-Thinking Patterns

There are many reasons why we think negatively. We may have low self-worth, low self-confidence or low self-esteem; we might be self-critical or self-blaming; we could have depression or a mental or physical health condition; or it might be a learned behaviour habit or life script.

Embracing a Mid-life Crisis

The term ‘mid-life crisis’ can be a bit misleading. You’re unlikely to wake up one morning and suddenly find yourself in the throes of such a crisis. It’s more likely to be a dawning realisation, emerging over a period of time. Even the ‘mid-life’ bit. When is mid-life these days; when you are in your 30s, 40s, 50s or 60s? It’s about our perception of age. How young do we feel? By referring to a ‘mid-life crisis’ we feed a potential inevitability that we will all experience such a thing, when many people will not.

Constructive Criticism and Managing Rejection

The reason why we bunch together ‘constructive criticism’ and ‘managing rejection’ is that we often confuse the two as the same.

Setting Meaningful Goals

The ability to create and meet goals is a useful way of building up our resilience. It’s about getting things planned, then getting the jobs done. Without this, we can grind to a halt in a frenzy of inertia. Call them goals, aims or objectives they represent specific tasks which we set out to complete and achieve.