I was lucky enough to be given an ARC of Ellen M Bard’s book Your Work Wellness Toolkit in exchange for an honest review.
Bard’s toolkit is exactly that; a way to focus one’s mind on
the how and why of our working lives as well as the what. Chapters cover a wealth
of areas including your physical working environment, mindset, working from home,
doing the hard stuff, productivity and focus, breaks, time management, work
relationships, development and growth, and handling change. The mantra
throughout is very much one of “take what resonates and leave what does not”,
therefore taking any pressure off the need to do everything and try out
everything from the very outset! This worked very well for me as, otherwise, I
tend to be the type of person who feels the need to try everything out even
when I know it does not work for me.
So, pressure lifted, into the book we go! I really like how
Bard starts her book with some personal insights. Hearing her story and her
moment of clarity in realising no one is indispensable really struck a chord
with me and immediately made the whole book seem more relatable. Defining work
wellness from the outset is also incredibly helpful. I always try to be as
kind to myself as I am to others, but it is hard; we tend to be much tougher on
ourselves. This reminder that it is perfectly fine to treat ourselves kindly is
worth explicitly stating and remembering.
Although parts of this book were less relevant to me, I
still found the overall ethos and the exercises incredibly useful. While I am
not working at home and I have very clearly defined breaks, I very much enjoyed
the chapters on mindset, doing the hard stuff, productivity and focus, time
management, work relationships, and development and growth. I realised that my
main values are being ethical, being helpful, being honest and striving to strengthen
the service that I provide; I did not fully realise how deeply these values
were ingrained within my daily practices until I started examining them in the journaling
aspect of this book. Identifying my weaker areas is a positive step because it
will allow me to strengthen these aspects of my working self; we cannot improve
on what we do not understand. I really want to thank Bard for providing me with
the tools to be able to self-reflect and identify the next steps for my working
self as I develop within my chosen pathway.
Five stars!
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