Note: Scroll down to see my September Offer.
This is a guest post written by Carolyn Matheson, MCC , President of PeopleWorkBest.com
“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out”. Robert Collier
Continuing to working with cancer or a chronic illness is very important for many people.
It is one of the few parts of life that a person can feel they have control over. Having a sense of normality is essential when treatments, frequent visits to hospital become an unwelcome part of everyday life. Working can provide a welcome relief from daytime TV.
Here are 5 tips for supporting individuals working with cancer or chronic illness:
1. Treat them as a normal person; they are still the same person and not defined by their illness. They may look different, but it is the inside of them that matters most. Make them feel part of the team again.
2. Meet more regularly. Involve them in agreeing manageable workloads. Break tasks down into smaller steps. This makes any job more manageable and encourages a sense of achievement. It gives a great sense of personal satisfaction to leave work each day having achieved something meaningful. Prioritize together so individual knows the most important tasks to concentrate on.
3. Many illnesses are invisible and you will need to weigh up the individual’s right to confidentiality and disclosing to the team. The individual is the best person to guide you. It can help to be open with others close by who can better understand absences and also be more in tune to support the individual.
4. Consider a buddy scheme. With the permission of the individual it can be very successful to partner them with someone who has also experienced cancer or a chronic illness – even if they are in a different office. It helps to share how they manage daily activities which might seem manageable to most but impossible for the person who is unwell. It can be a chance for them to share how they manage life outside of work as well.
5. Each person is different and keeping the conversation open in vital. As a manager you may have experienced many people with illnesses but no two people are the same. Each one of us copes differently and need to be managed accordingly. All the answers can be found with good communication with the individual.
Picture Source http://www.flickr.com/photos/21898360@N07/3164436284/
NOTE: For the month of September, I’m got a special offer to my subscribers. The program is “Get Your Butt in Action” and it’s a very special fee to encourage you to get the help you need to change your job, find a job or develop a new career direction. Sign up for 3 months of coaching and get 50% off the standard price! Want to learn more? Email me with “Special Offer” in the subject line.
Broken ribs heal
A chronic illness is not the same as a broken bone. Sounds obvious – - but have you ever thought about how they’re different?
I’ve broken a few bones in the past few years. And I’m always struck by the fact that although my body hurts with both, there are some really big differences between illness and injury.
First, a chronic illness diagnosis is completely overwhelming. You haven’t got a clue what this means for you — unless, of course, you’ve already been living with a different disease. No one can predict what the course of the disease will be for you – how sick you’ll get with it or the timing.
But break a bone and any good orthopedist can give you a window of time for the healing. Even friends who have had knee replacements can get a pretty realistic estimate of the healing process and time.
When I broke a few ribs and bruised various parts of my body in a bad fall this week, I knew the ribs and bruises would heal. It was clear what was wrong and how to treat it. It might take weeks,even months for the pain to go away. But it will and I will return to my “normal” state.
What a difference from all the chronic stuff I’ve lived with – - the nerve pain and bad balance (multiple sclerosis), the dry eyes that scratches my corneas (Sjogren’s) , the severe sinusitis that gives me brutal headaches (allergies) . Or the horrible ulcerative colitis that left me unable to leave a bathroom safely or get out of bed. When these diseases “flare”, there’s no way to guess how severe the symptoms might become nor if it will even get better this time. Nor can anyone predict if I will develop new and even more disabling symptoms that come with these diseases.
Living with broken bones disrupts your life temporarily. Living with unpredictable and disabling symptoms can be a formidable challenge -they influence every plan you make, disrupt your activities and affect your mood.
I’ve always found that work, in whatever way I can do it, eases the loss and helps me live with the pain. So do loving relationships, a delicious meal, a beautiful sunset, the hug of my child.
What helps you?
Do you tell yourself your chronic illness would be more manageable if you had more control over the rest of your life?
Do you believe that if you could find a job, influence your boss or be more effective at work, you’d feel better?
Yet, do you feel powerless to take action, worried it might not be the right one? Do you believe that the only thing you have control over are your own emotions, so you focus on only that?
Chronic illness can do that. Even the most determined people can feel powerless to impact their lives when unpredictable and difficult illness gets in the way.
But I humbly disagree that there’s nothing you can do. I fall frequently. Poor balance and numb feet (from living with multiple sclerosis all these years) must contribute. Last night I took a really nasty fall – the 3rd in 6 months. This morning the pain was so bad I was sure I had broken something. But experience told me it was muscle not bone pain. I forced myself to exercise lightly (stretching, small steps, shorter time) to get blood moving. Reading my email, I forgot how painful it is to move my right arm. Writing a note to a client, I realized I could even type with the arm, although I didn’t think so when I woke up!
I’m not healed – the bruises will grow and I’m limited. But I don’t feel disabled (from these injuries at least!) or sorry for myself.
Now I’ve read (through a fellow traveler, Kathy Ibettson, who produces a terrific newsletter about multiple sclerosis items of interest) about a study that examined the coping mechanisms of MS patients living in Northern Israel during the Lebanese War affected their disease course.
The results show that “ those who used ‘direct coping and planning’ – preparing shelter areas, adjusting medication appointments, stocking up on food and medicine – did better than those who focused on the situation on an emotional level, using relaxation techniques, support from others or prayer.”
“Patients who focused their coping on emotional well being when a more direct approach was necessary, suffered more flare-ups of the disease than patients who identified the challenges that the falling missiles were presenting, and regarded the situation as an opportunity for planning and direct action,” noted Professor Eli Somer, study author.
This means that people who took action to improve their situation did physically better than those who relied on internal, “transformative” experience. Although this research was on patients with multiple sclerosis, I suspect we’re safe generalizing this to all chronic illness.
Are you trying to figure out a new career, find a new job, tell your boss you can’t work at this level? Do you wake up thinking: Today I’m going to do something about this“? But instead, bury your head under the covers.
How is that going for you?
You might ask yourself, “What action can I take?“ And if you can’t figure that out or get motivated to do that, consider this research from Stanford Medical School that shows that people with chronic illness experience significant benefits from coaching.
What works for you when you’re in a difficult, dis-empowering situation? How is it going?
Can You Make Work Work For You?
Even when the economy was thriving and there were more jobs than workers (remember those days?), most people described work as stressful. It meant fewer people doing more work, tighter deadlines. And worst of all, blurry lines between time at work and personal life.
The demands have only gotten worse in this recession.
A young woman, in her early 30’s, recently expressed to me her deep resistance to returning to work. After 6 months on disability leave, she said that she believes that working will make her sick again. She’s afraid that she won’t be able to stop tasks when the pain gets bad and that the inevitable pressure and unreasonable deadlines will aggravate her overall condition. She finished by saying that all of the people she knows are unhappy from the stress of their jobs.
I was surprised by her deep rooted fear and negative outlook, especially since there was much she enjoyed about her last job. Yet she doesn’t believe it’s possible to control her sense of stress or influence her workload. I was also struck that she doesn’t know anyone who is relatively happy in their jobs.
If her experience is that relatively young and healthy people feel stressed and unhappy at their jobs, how can someone who lives with unpredictable health find happiness at work? I don’t have an “answer”. But let’s explore it.
In Does Work Have You In A Stranglehold, Maggie Mistal offers 3 tips for breaking the stranglehold of work. This is useful because it challenges the way we view working. But her tips assume that a person can take charge of her time. What if you don’t see this is possible?
If you believe that you can’t influence how you work or how much you work, how will you survive of decades of working? If you agree with me that this doesn’t seem like a useful outlook, consider how you can develop your capacity to:
- Manage difficult situations before they blow out of control. It’s much easier to set limits and persuade a manager that you need to breaks or hard stops in the day while you’re still a valued worker, rather than after you’ve messed up.
- Identify your limits. Even if illness means you’re more limited in some ways, know what those limits are and be able to explain them – without anger or remorse.
- Create empathic relationships with others so they want to support you and work with you around your needs. But don’t stop there. Look beyond yourself and notice what others need as well, including your boss. You might be surprised by how healing this can be.
As I’ve written often, I believe that working is good for you (Does Working Help You Be Healthy?). It’s the premise of my book (Women, Work and Autoimmune Disease: Keep Working, Girlfriend!). I also work often with people who are looking for work so I know firsthand how hard it is to find jobs these days. But I have no doubt that if you don’t believe that you can work, you won’t find a job.
What do you think?
Networking: as easy as 1,2,3
This month’s CareerCollectiveBloggers topic is : NETWORKING. This is a terrific opportunity to get input from many experts on this topic so scroll down to read what other bloggers write about this subject.
From what I’ve seen, most people think that networking means showing up at an event where potential employers might attend. They bring a boxful of their business cards and hand them out to anyone they can grab. Or maybe it’s about creating a LinkedIn presence and reaching out to anyone who comes up in a word search.
So tell me. When was the last time that you or anyone you know got a job that way? I’m a career coach and I’ve yet to hear such a story.
Having spent a lot of my time discussing this subject with clients and friends, I’ve concluded that networking requires one thing: the ability to build and sustain relationships. (Actually, that’s a good rule of thumb for life, isn’t it?) It doesn’t matter what your skills are, the type of jobs you’re looking for or whether you’re healthy or not. The process is basically the same.
To make this easy, I’ve designed a program, ” 3 Circles of Networking©” :
1. The inner circle are your Advocates. Start by capitalizing on your existing relationships- you don’t need a bulging contact list. Choose a select group of colleagues and friends whom you trust, who trust you and appreciate your value. Probe your Advocates and you’ll be amazed what you can learn. When you talk with each:
- Explain what you’re up to and what you’re looking for.
- Ask if they have any other ideas that you haven’t thought of.
- Find out who they know who might have ideas for you in the industry or job market you’re looking in.
- Most importantly, ask if they’ll make the introduction for you so there’s a personal connection to make sure the meeting happens.
2. The next circle (middle) are the names list your Advocates give you. They are the Connectors. They:
- Like to help people,
- Know people and your industry and,
- Are willing to make introductions to the next group for you.
Connectors really get networking. Most likely they can’t offer you a job but they’re likely to know where you should look. When you speak with them, you want to be sure to prepare your questions in advance and listen carefully.
3. Finally, Connectors will link you directly to the outer circle, Job Prospects. Now when you learn about a job, it won’t be from a list where you’re competing with hundreds of others. You’ve learned something specific about an employment prospect from the connector. And, a Job Prospect is more likely to notice you and be favorably inclined because someone he/she trusts has connected you.
You don’t have to be the life of the party to do this or even particularly extroverted. More importantly, hone these skills:
- Set clearly defined desired outcomes for yourself before you walk into a networking situation. Know what you want to get from this.
- Ask questions that will give valuable information. Know what you want to learn.
- Develop and maintain connections with people who will help you meet more people and expand your circle. Know how to stay in touch over time.
Finally, before you speak with anyone, consider whether you want to talk about illness – or debilitating symptoms you live with. If so, decide what you want to say. Even if your Advocates know you live with illness, they might not know how it impacts you and it might be important to the conversation.
For a much more detailed description about my © “3 Circles of Networking Strategy I’ve described, check out my e-workbook, “Keep Working with Chronic Illness.”
I wish you the best and hope that if you use any of this, you’ll let me know how it goes for you!
- 5 Little Secrets About Networking, @Careersherpa
- How to Take the Intimidation Out of Networking, @heathermundell
- Networking for the Shy and Introverted, @KatCareerGal
- A tale of two networkers, @DawnBugni
- Introvert or Extrovert: Tips for the Job Search No Matter Which ‘Vert’ You Are, @erinkennedycprw
- Networking for Job Candidates Who Hate Networking, @heatherhuhman
- Networking? Ugh! @resumeservice
- Network, Network, Network, @MartinBuckland @EliteResumes
- 3 ways to make networking fun for introverts and extroverts, @Keppie_Careers
- Grow Your Career Networking Seeds Organically, @ValueIntoWords
- Networking: It’s a Way of Life, @WalterAkana
- Social Media Networking & Your Career, @GayleHoward
- Networking for the Networking-Phobic, @JobHuntOrg
- Networking: Why Who You Know Doesn’t Count, @Chandlee
If chronic illness impacts your work life, a job interview can feel like a massive hurdle you can’t climb over. But I’ve seen how much easier this becomes when you normalize your situation.
What’s normal about chronic illness you ask? Nothing, really. But isn’t there more to you than just this illness? Here are two examples of what I mean.
Jody,33, has 3 young children and a husband whose work requires constant traveling. She also lives with multiple sclerosis (which is relatively mild at this point) and has recently had cancer. Jody’s current job is very demanding and the organizational culture doesn’t support creating boundaries between job and personal time. Jody has come to realize that this pace isn’t healthy for her. She needs a job with flexible scheduling and clearly defined hours. She realizes that most likely that means underemployment.
Jody panicked at the thought of interviewing and describing her reasons for change. But once she saw that she doesn’t have to talk about illness in an interview, she felt comfortable. Although her family’s demands won’t work in her favor, most hiring managers are familiar with the “mommy juggle” and will accept the realities that come with it. Jody doesn’t have to bring up illness at this stage. It’s unnecessary because she already has understandable reasons for her choices.
Jim, 58, plans to take advantage of a different cultural shift. Severe chronic asthma forced him to leave a good job as a mid level manager in a Fortune 100 a few years ago. He wants to return to work but understands he needs to be in a physically protected environment. This has meant reinventing his career self by capitalizing on what he knows and gaining new experiences. He’s volunteered extensively for two years in the “green” tech field to learn a new industry and make new contacts. This gave him the credibility to get a part time, short term contract job in a “green” tech firm.
Like Judy, Jim’s life situation means that he doesn’t have to give much detail when asked about his unemployment and why he’s changing careers. It’s not unusual to lose a job at his age in this economy. Encore careers are becoming accepted and older workers reinventing themselves are the norm. Now he’s ready to start interviewing for more permanent work in this field.
Both Jim and Judy have looked beyond illness. They’ve normalized a difficult life situation and seen how they aren’t so different. To do this, you have to:
- Be willing to take what is available, even if it’s “underemployment”, if your goal is to keep working.
- Recognize your skills and limitations so you can apply for jobs where you can succeed.
- Create your story that allows you to be truthful about what you want and need without jeopardizing your prospects.
Can you do that?
(Please note: I change the names and details of clients to protect their privacy.)
FYI: If you’re a mom with chronic illness, Cafe Mom know has a knew discussion board on Mom’s with illness. I hope they address working moms with illness, too!
I’ve noticed a trend. Over the past few years, the number of inquiries that I get from people looking for help with their career has increased. But until recently the mix was pretty equal between the currently employed and unemployed.
Over the past year, the requests I get are overwhelmingly from the unemployed. I’m wondering: what’s that about?
Yes, the unemployment rate is high. But most of the people who write have been unemployed for a year or more. Nothing about my online presence – my website, my content or the press I get – has changed. Trying to learn more, I checked out another career/illness site, the Cancer and Careers website (see my most recent suggestions to a nurse returning to work and requesting accommodations). The questions seem to reflect a demanding and inflexible workplace.
Clearly, a declining economy puts strain on employers to get more from employees. Are employers cutting staff back and taking advantage of workers with few options? Does this lead people with illness to leave the workforce rather than risk asking for flexibility and accommodations? Do you see this happening?
When you’re already struggling with illness, it’s harder to see your options than your limitations. You lose hope that you’ll feel better again and be able to work. You become convinced that working is making you sicker and the best thing for you is unemployment.
But what you might not know or even believe is that bad health often doesn’t stay static. And, some jobs, supervisors and org culture are worse than others. Finally, once you leave the workforce and have gaps in your work history, it’s that much harder to return.
Why don’t people seek help to stay employed? Why not “look” before you leap out?
FYI – My book, Women Work and Autoimmune Disease: Keep Working, Girlfriend! got a nice review from a working mom on the blog Living It Loving It.
A new client, I’ll call her Judy, is in the 3rd “flare” of Hashimoto’s disease in 5 years. She told me that she learned about me when a friend forwarded my article, 5 Things I Want You to Know About Working While Living with Chronic Illness. Judy told me in our initial conversation that she was torn between the worry of losing her job and the desire to quit.
Wait a minute. This isn’t a newly hired “20 something” with few skills. She’s a very successful senior health care executive with a proven track record at the same company for 20 years. You wouldn’t think she would worry about losing her job because she’s sick. Or that she’d want to leave. But both are true.
After Judy did some “self observing” exercises, she realized that it’s not the symptoms that make working so difficult. It’s how others respond and the need to keep explaining. She wonders about the comments that seem to imply she’s a slacker. She gets angry thinking about those who ask how she is and look away when she tells the truth — or those who don’t respond when she says she’s not feeling well. There are those who ask too many questions and give advice when all she wants to do is work. And others who drip with empathy. Finally, she’s amazed how often people seem to forget that she’s ill and keep piling on the work when she’s said that this a bad time for her.
In the ten years of so that I’ve been working as a chronic illness career coach, the concerns of talking about illness at work continues to stay at the top of the charts. FYI - Here’s an article, To Tell or Not to Tell, written by a lawyer that explores this issue, from both a legal rights point of view as well as employee satisfaction. His primary point is you have to be prepared.
But it’s the on-going conversation that happens when you live with illness. Even if you disclose with “positive” results and get what you need without losing your job, illness isn’t predictable nor does it stay the same. This means you have to keep talking about it. Are You Talking, part of my Career Thrive Guidebook Series, offers tips and strategies to help you with this.
In the final analysis, even those with the best of intentions often don’t “get it right”. That’s because, as another client said recently, “Living with chronic illness is living with a moving target”. That means that we’re often as clueless as anyone about what we need.
How is it going for you?
Getting out from under chronic
This week’s post is part of the Monthly Career Collective Bloggers. This month’s topic is: How to Heat Up Your Job Search. Scroll down to see what my fellow writer’s suggest!
Is being unemployed feeling like a chronic condition? Chronic — it’s not sexy, exciting or fun. Worse, chronic means it’s not changing and won’t go away. Those of us with chronic illness know all about this chronic syndrome. It weighs you down and keeps you from being “light on your feet”.
So, how do you find hope when you’re feeling your condition is “chronic”? Perspective. What do I mean? Check out American World Soccer Cup Team goalie, Tim Howard.
Here’s a guy with a very difficult to manage and off-putting chronic illness, Tourette Syndrome. Living with this, he’s risen to world class athlete status. He’s the focal point of media attention that makes his visible, and to many oft-putting, symptoms very public. FYI – I read somewhere that his mother said that she thought that playing soccer goalie, which requires supreme focus, helped his Tourette’s symptoms. He didn’t twitch as much when he played. My bet is he played often!
Few of us, even if we were healthy, have the stamina or determination of Tim Howard. But I believe that there’s usually something to learn from people who achieve the extraordinary that we can apply to our own lives.
When you look at your job opportunities and the employment landscape, do you think, ” I’ll never find work”? Are you blaming it on a lousy job market, a difficult illness, your age or even the time of year? They could all be true.
But — and here’s the thing — can you find something that you are good at and you can do and work this angle as hard as possible?
OK – most likely you won’t be playing for the Soccer World Cup or the NBA. You might not get to be president of the company. But your challenge is to get out of the chronically unemployed syndrome. Can you do it?
Let’s face it. You can’t do as much as you’d like to impact your chronic illness. But you can take charge of taking care of yourself as best you can. The same is true with your employment. What are you going to do about it?
CareerCollective Bloggers have this to say:
- Turn Off The Computer, Tune Into What’s Happening, & Heat Up the Job Search, @chandlee
- Heating up the Job Search-How to Stay Motivated During the Summer, @erinkennedycprw
- Light the Fire Under Your Feet, @careersherpa
- Cool Job Seekers Heat Up Their Search in the Summer, @barbarasafani
- Some assembly required, @DawnBugni
- Summertime, Sluggish Economy Provide Strong Motivation for an Updated Resume, @KatCareerGal
- 9 Ways to Heat Up Your Job Search This Summer, @heatherhuhman
- Getting Out From Under Chronic, @WorkWithIllness
- Upping Your Job Search Flame; Be ‘Needed, Not Needy,‘ @ValueIntoWords
- Is Your Career Trapped in the Matrix? @WalterAkana
- Put some sizzle in your job hunt – how to find a job now, @keppie_careers
- Summertime – and the Job Search Ain’t Easy, @KCCareerCoach
- Heating up your job search. 5 ways to dismiss those winter blues, @GayleHoward
- Hot Tips for a Summer Job Search, @MartinBuckland @EliteResumes
- Treasure Hunt—Yo-ho-ho! Heat Up Your Job Search, @resumeservice
What follows is an interview of Therese Borchard, blogger and author of Beyond Blue. This interview was done by Christina Gombar.
Therese Borchard struggled with manic depression during college, earned a master’s degree and established a stellar career in journalism and book publishing. But the hormonal shifts of motherhood, a geographic move, as well as the switch from sociable on-site office work to an isolated, home-bound freelance life, created a perfect storm of factors for mental illness to burgeon once more.
After a harrowing, months-long stay in an institution, she returned to home and children and went on to author the hit blog, Beyond Blue on Belief.net. Here she shares her continuing struggles with anxiety and manic depression from her own particular Catholic perspective. This year she published her memoir, Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression and Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes, along with The Pocket Therapist: An Emotional Survival Guide which offers concise techniques for living with a chronic illness get through the demands of a day.
I spoke with Therese about how she manages to work and raise a family while living with manic depression.
Christina Gombar: What are your biggest challenges in navigating your health condition, your job and your home life?
Therese Borchard: I suppose my biggest challenge is managing my health sufficiently so I can concentrate and meet my work deadlines. My flexible schedule means I can write extra blog posts on a day when I’m feeling good and bank them for the days my head isn’t good for anything. But I’m always nervous to commit to a meeting in person because I don’t know how I will be feeling that day. I often fake it as best I can. I’ve had to do that a lot lately with the book publicity efforts. I’ve plastered a smile on my face and spit out nice sound bites while I’m thinking that I wish I were dead.
CG: What is a typical work day like?
TB: I drop off the kids at school at 8 and usually work out for an hour. From 10 to 2 are golden hours when I try to write posts or follow up on a story I was supposed to write for other magazines and newspapers. When it’s sunny, I take 20 minutes to eat outside because it’s crucial that I get sunshine and fresh air. My work window is small. By 2:30 I usually pick up the kids, start homework, organize for lacrosse practice, etc. And two days a week, I usually go to doctors’ appointments, blood work, and therapy.
CG: What, if any accommodations do you/your employers make for yourself? (I know you have to stop yourself from overwork sometimes!)
TB: My editor understands that things like Twitter tutorials and SEO (search engine optimization) training can sometimes activate my inner energizer bunny that I want at rest. It’s difficult, especially in the blogosphere, not to make writing my life — and tweet all hours of the day. I need boundaries between work and home life. I try to shut off the computer when I’m not working, and to leave it closed during the weekend. I try to be as prudent as possible.
CG: Your blog is about coping with mental illness, so your employers knew of your condition. But your illness is “invisible” — you look super healthy, you run, etc. Do they really know what it entails, how hard it is, that it could ever become overwhelming?
TB: That’s a good question. I think they’re as understanding and empathetic as any editors could be. They want me to publish the real stuff – like the video where I sobbed and said depression wasn’t always pretty – as that is what best speaks to people in the throes of depression. Sometimes I need to write pieces a few weeks in advance to give myself a little time of rest in a depressive cycle – not a great formula for search engine optimization
CG: You started out with great qualifications. After you had your kids and a breakdown (no connection there!) — you had to rebuild. Can you detail those challenges a bit? How did you negotiate with your prospective employer?
TB: I had to take it in very small steps. I was unable to produce anything for about six months. Sitting down to write was awful. I would just cry. So I relied on my great aunt’s advice to take it very slow, one step at a time. First I signed up to be a writing tutor to see if I could concentrate for three hours a week. That gave me the confidence to ask for my assignment of bi-weekly columns. The tutoring and bi-weekly column gave me the self-assurance to pursue “Beyond Blue,” the blog, and then later, “Beyond Blue,” the book.
Negotiating is VERY hard, especially when you are feeling so unsure of yourself. I spoke with anyone who could help me learn to negotiate. I pretended I was a friend who had just gone through this and came out with favorable working agreements. I told myself that it wasn’t me doing the talking, but my friend. That made it easier.
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