Tag: life

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

Today’s tip is to thank three people you feel grateful to and tell them why.

It’s always good to thank people that help you or make life better. It’s also really easy.

I’m picking three people that I think help me feel gratitude for them being in my life. I’ll send them my own notes, and these aren’t the only ones I am happy to have around, but these are three I wanted to thank.

First, I have a friend that I don’t see enough, mostly because I’m busy. However, we have lunch, sometimes ski, or get the families together for dinner. We’ve known each other for 20 years, and I appreciate every time I get to see him. He makes my life more joyful and pleasant.

Second, the director where I coach volleyball. A charismatic person who makes me think, teaches me things, and loves kids. I am very grateful I met him and he gave me opportunities to work with kids.

Third, someone in the community that provides a sounding board, educates me, and finds time to chat with me. I see this person all over the world at events, and I always enjoy the time we have to chat.

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

Today’s tip is to be gentle with someone who you feel inclined to criticize.

We all get stressed, we got busy, and we are trying to achieve something. It’s easy to criticize others when we feel they aren’t making our work easier.

Recently I was a little stressed about a project at work. I felt a little short with someone, and I really wanted to complain to them in a meeting. I tried to step back and be a little light-hearted about the situation, though I’m not sure I made anything better.

I did decide to not criticize the person, either there or to others later, but examine the situation and what would make it better. In discussions with my boss, I pointed out that there were a few things that were not clear and not communicated as I wished, but that this is a hard project and I’m not blaming a person. Rather, we need to figure out how to work better in the future.

I also apologized to an individual, which hopefully goes towards my being gentle.

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

Today’s tip is to give sincere complements to people you talk to today.

This was easy for me, mostly because I try to find positives in life. Just a few days ago I was at a larger volleyball tournament, and I went to see some kids that I have coached in the past. I got the chance to talk to some of them afterwards, and I complemented them on things that they did well, reminding them to be proud of the good things.

They had plenty of negatives to say about themselves, and I don’t coach kids who are on other teams, so I only had complements.

It was good to see the parents as well, and I thanked them for continuing to support their kids in volleyball, even though they aren’t on my team.

I started to add a daily coping tip to the SQLServerCentral newsletter and to the Community Circle, which is helping me deal with the issues in the world. I’m adding my responses for each day here. All my coping tips are under this tag.

Today’s tip is to make a plan to change your daily routine for a day and see how you feel.

I tend to follow the same routines often, usually work, gym, cook, maybe some fix or chore. Changing up a routine is good, but it can be hard.

For me, I don’t sit still well. I usually have plenty of things to do, and I try to tackle something when I have free time. This might sound strange, but I don’t do well with taking days off. I’m either doing chores, fixing something, or coaching. Even my breaks for something like watching a football game are while I’m cooking or looking at the condensed game while playing guitar.

I wasn’t sure what to do with this tip, but last weekend we didn’t have plans. Or I didn’t. My wife had to work, but we had a weekend off from coaching, no plans, weather wasn’t great, so I decided to relax. I read in bed, watched some Netflix, played some guitar, but didn’t work on anything new.

I had a relaxed day, went to the gym later and sat on a bike for an hour, pedaling relatively slowly. Just taking it easy and doing a little work. I went to the store for groceries and had a relaxing time cooking dinner.

It was an odd, low stress, no hurry day for me. Unlike most of my life. I enjoyed the leisure, but felt the next day like I hadn’t done enough. I’d wasted time.

I accepted that, didn’t chastise myself, and moved on. Not likely to take many of those days, but I will take a few.