Tuesday, November 01, 2005

things i need to remember...

The 10 A’s of Job Happiness
By Lorraine E. Fox
Relational Child & Youth Care Practice (vol. 17 no. 2)

Accept Responsibility for Your Career Choice
Acknowledge Individual Differences
Maintain an Assertive Approach
Attitude Control and Affect (mood) Management
Allow Empathy
Assign Appropriate Responsibility
Accentuate the Positive
Act – When Necessary
Affirm your Effectiveness
If you want to burn out…


“Take the low road to dealing with workplace stress. Adopt a defensive posture, keeping in mind always that nothing bad happens – nothing is your fault. It is always someone else’s fault – the kids, the other staff, management – funding sources, whoever. But not you. This defensive stance will allow you to deny your part in problems, and thus avoid having to do anything constructive to fix them. Keep it up for awhile and you will have more than your fair share of stress symptoms – both physical and emotional. You will then move into a reactive reflect, sometimes referred to as “crisis management”, and you will become truly miserable.”

By Lorraine E. Fox
Relational Child & Youth Care Practice (vol. 17 no. 2), p. 60.


If you choose to take the other road:

1) remember there is no book, no manual, no policy, no procedure, no program that can tell you exactly what to do with any given child/youth that will be effective.
2) give yourself a wonderful gift that you will frequently not appreciate. Promise yourself that you will have a couple of people in your life who are willing to tell you the truth. Self awareness is an important ingredient in burnout prevention.
3) Arrange your life so that you have some friends who are not as needy as the clients! Find healthy people and hang out with them!
4) Working within ourselves is very useful in building in positive longevity for our work, but sometimes it is important to actually do something about a situation that is bothering us. Talk to someone who has the authority to make necessary changes.
ahhhh....peace.
now only if everyone i work with understood this.