Wow, can you believe it’s the first of December? What a year! But as it’s the first, it means that I can reveal my FOOD (Fixing the Out of Office Dilemma) Advent Calendar.

I hope you enjoy these little daily nuggets. I’ve baked them up into a ‘foody’ word to help you remember the techniques to manage each situation. I know from my workshops that making learning fun aids memory and that’s why I wanted to theme this in an engaging way.

As we’ve had so much uncertainty to manage this year, I thought I’d start there today using the POPCORN technique.

I use the first P for positiveness.  Often when we’re anxious we spend timing thinking about what we can’t do rather than what we can do which wastes a lot of valuable time.  List all your worries and then pick off the ones that you can do something about.

The O stands for one step at a time.  Don’t try to do everything at once otherwise you’ll become over-faced.  Think about what you can do today and tomorrow by creating bite size chunks.  And don’t plan too far ahead … because plans can change so quickly at the moment.

The second P stands for progress.  Make a note of what you’ve achieved each day/week/month.  Achievement, however small makes us feel more positive.

I use the C for contagion.  Emotions are easily caught, whether people are happy or grumpy.  Surround yourself with upbeat and happy people whenever you can.  If I’m on my own I either watch someone that makes me laugh like Lee Mack or Bradley Walsh or I ring someone for a chat

Which leads me onto the O.  Get the worry out of your head.  Share it with someone and get their perspective.  While it lives in our head rent free, it starts to become a monster

I use the R to recognise triggers.  Over the last nine months I’ve really started to understand the triggers of my anxiety for example the news doesn’t buoy me up so I don’t listen to it before I go to bed as I don’t want to go to sleep with all the negative thoughts in my mind

Finally, the N is about normalising it.  The reality is that we live in an uncertain world.  There‘s always going to be a level or risk in whatever we do so the more we embrace uncertainty it will leads us to discover new ideas, invent new ways of working.  You only need to look at what we’ve been able to achieve this year in keeping in touch with people.  Who’d have thought we’d have had so many video calls this time last year!