We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sharon Mccall. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sharon below.
Sharon, we are so appreciative of you taking the time to open up about the extremely important, albeit personal, topic of mental health. Can you talk to us about your journey and how you were able to overcome the challenges related to mental issues? For readers, please note this is not medical advice, we are not doctors, you should always consult professionals for advice and that this is merely one person sharing their story and experience.
My personal challenge has been chronic stress and workaholism that was rooted in worth wounds from traumatic experiences. Recovery continues day to day, but I’ve been able to overcome how stress and work overwhelmed my life, tore at relationships and damaged my health.
After a visit to the hospital with sky high blood pressure due to work-related stress, I began my stress recovery journey. I believed I just needed stress reduction tactics and a healthier lifestyle, yet that was not enough for me to consistently reduce stress and improve work-life balance. Despite all the yoga, mindfulness, and healthier eating I was cramming into my week – I was still working 60-80 hours per week. This was really hard to change! Commitment to work was a socially acceptable reason to put my health and relationships second.
Even when I received ultimatums from a loved one to make them a greater priority and was regularly collapsing from exhaustion by the end of a tough workweek, I could not maintain 60 hour work weeks. Setting and maintaining healthy boundaries with work required, I cultivate greater self-awareness, commit to personal development, and find faith in something greater than myself.
I realized that what was keeping me stuck in cycles of stress and overwork was my belief that my work was the source of my value, purpose, and identity. As part of finding a safe way of navigating life after being raped and during abuse, I had hidden in my career – defining myself by my achievements and protecting myself from challenging and vulnerable relationships. Belief and behavioral patterns were set that lasted for years after I was out of the abusive situation. With self-awareness, I was able to start challenging and changing these patterns.
True freedom and transformation finally occurred when I restored my Christian faith. It completed the shift from a work-centered identity to one of higher purpose. Recovery and maintaining a lower level of stress and greater work-life balance became much easier to sustain. I’ve even been able to get off of the blood pressure medication!
While it took me a long time to figure this out, I now realize that stress and overwork can be reduced in a much simpler journey than I took. Greater work-life balance and ongoing career success are possible for everyone!
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Despite my struggles with stress and workaholism, I achieved my corporate career goals by becoming an executive in a major health and wellness company. When an opportunity arose, I shifted my focus to coaching individuals with their health and well-being. As a result of my personal journey of stress recovery, I decided to specialize my work in reducing stress and improving work-life harmony.
Within my life and with others I work with, I’ve seen how stress and overwork:
* holds them back from accomplishing everything at work and home
* leads to exhaustion that impacts concentration, work performance, mood, and health
* increases tension in relationships
* drains energy, causing feelings of isolation and disconnection
Between exhaustion and fear of negatively impacting their career or financial success, they are still determining how to make effective changes to relieve stress and adjust their work-life balance with as little time and energy as they have. I enjoy helping people get out of this perceived rock and a hard place.
It’s so fulfilling to see my stress recovery coaching clients take positive steps to reclaim their time, restore their energy, or regain their focus as they relieve stress and spend more quality time at home. It positively benefits them, their loved ones, co-workers, and their work environment.
My faith-based strategy of making small, targeted changes in habits can lead to significant changes over time. After they work with me, it is so heartwarming to hear how their lives continue to change.
Even if you are not looking for coaching but are working on self-improvement, I’d love to see how I can help you. I offer free support and mentoring on navigating a stressful work environment, challenging work relationships, and or get you started with a few tips. Please join my Facebook Group, Grace Over Grind: Stress Recovery for Christian Professionals (www.facebook.com/groups/graceovergrindreducestress).
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Over the years, in my own stress recovery, I tried a lot of things. With what I’ve learned, I like to keep it simple, practical, and faith-centered. Here are three key pieces of advice for people seeking to reduce stress and improve work-life balance:
A) Identity-focused changes are more effective than outcome-focused changes.
For example, if you have tried to reduce your working hours from 60 to 55 per week by a certain date, that goal is not very motivational. It certainly is specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timebound, like the SMART goals you make at work, but an outcome-focused change like this can take a lot of work and willpower to achieve or sustain. Suppose you reframe this to be about becoming a loving and supportive spouse who makes quality time each day after dinner to go for a walk or do specific tasks together. In that case, it is much more energizing and motivating. It can still be set up as a SMART goal, yet getting a clear vision of who you are with that extra 5 hours per week can help you better navigate stressful or difficult decisions. When these are also anchored in faith, they are even more empowering.
B) Keep changes small and focused!
When you are drained and exhausted from stress and working too much, it is not the time to go through a major overhaul. You may have this beautiful and powerful vision of who you want to be with less stress and greater work-life harmony, but you won’t be successful if you try to achieve it all at once. Break it down into tiny behaviors that can turned into habits and routines. Focus on implementing one behavior successfully and then slowly add the next behavior. In time, this leads to a major transformation. This works whether you are applying it to habits at work or home.
C) Learn your stressors & recognize your coping behaviors
Stress is about perceptions. The same situation can be perceived differently when you are well-rested or when you are hungry, angry, anxious, lonely, or tired. Through journaling and self-evaluation, identify your pattern of triggers so you can better determine what changes will be most effective in your stress management plan.
Also, note your pattern of automatic responses to these stressors. Sometimes, changing your coping response may be easier than avoiding a stressful situation at work. By recognizing both patterns, you can develop proactive and reactive tactics in your stress management and tiny habit plans.
Who is your ideal client or what sort of characteristics would make someone an ideal client for you?
In recent years, work-related stress has been on the upswing. Companies are doing more with less, resulting in more stress and longer hours. This has been an acceptable price for achieving career success, and stability in the past few years. To stay on top of everything at work and home, they’ve been taking action to squeeze in more activities into the day. Yet it has just led to exhaustion as sleep and self-care get sacrificed.
My ideal client is a salaried individual contributor or leader who realizes that this lifestyle of putting work first can’t continue. With work demands, they feel like they are always running on empty. They are exhausted and drained from stress and overwork, which has taken a toll on their daily lives. For example:
* Difficulty focusing and concentrating, leading to mistakes and loss of productivity.
* Headaches or muscle tension requiring regular doses of aspirin to relieve pain.
* Upset stomach from too much caffeine & sugar and eating on the run.
* Moodiness and irritability with co-workers.
* Too many missed family events for a work deadline.
* Relationship tension from lack of quality time and how work frustrations bleed into homelife.
* Disconnected from self and Christian faith from having no time or energy beyond work and most pressing needs at home.
Yet, despite the pressure and stress, they love their work and want to ensure they can continue to fulfill their responsibility to their family to ensure a secure future. There’s only so much time and energy in a day to get everything done, so they are still trying to figure out how to break free of this cycle of stress, overwork, and exhaustion.
When they are ready to seek DIY solutions, this is where my free Facebook group can help them by providing:
* mentoring and support with stressful work situations.
* integrating faith-driven work habits to improve work-life balance & reduce stress.
* adopting healthy habits to restore energy and focus so you can thrive at work and home.
When they are ready to seek a little more assistance and go deeper into addressing the issues that make it hard for them to reduce stress and improve work-life harmony, I have one-on-one stress recovery coaching packages.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://whisperingfieldswellness.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/graceovergrindreducestress
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharon-mccall-whispering-fields-wellness/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Whispering-Fields-Wellness
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