Take the day
Self awareness and self care is a daily leadership practice
š Hi, itās Mic. Welcome to my weekly newsletter on creating leadership practices that will accelerate your impact, ensure consistent high performance from your teams and ultimately foster cultures that enable you and your people to thrive!.
š§āš¾ If youāre looking to transform your impact and build a set of leadership practices for life read on.
Read time: 4 minutes
I am taking the dayā¦.meaning I stopped pushing to accomplish at all costs. Goals are important, being reliable and consistent in our performance is important andā¦.last night and yesterday I decided to take a day and not push to accomplish everything on my list including the things that I felt were most important.
I am driven, I like to get things done especially things Iāve promised myself - mini goals I set out for myself like getting this post out and done every thursday morning and yetā¦I found myself with no steam left. Iād had some suprises and they depleted me.
One was in the garden ā all my hard work and effort gone in one night. The deer came through and ate almost all of my cabbage. We are too late in the season now for me to replant with any success.
So I took a moment on that dayā¦to process what had happened. The loss, the frustration and sadness, the reckoning of what was to be and began asking myself what I could learn from this. What could I have done differently? What do I need to do now?
In those few moments of rest and stopping I could reflect. I could process the emotion, forgive myself whatever āmistakesā my mind was judging me for and get clear on the actions I would take immediately - cover the remaining with a strong wire fence, close the greenhouse doors at night ājust in caseā
Later the same day I received some big personal news - again requiring the same process, take a moment to be still with myself, allow the emotions to process - notice what they were and what I needed to let them go and then, a much later then as this was big, come back to the clarity of what I needed to do next.
In this case, because it was deeply personal (some tough news from my X about how he wanted to shift our financial arrangement), I needed more time to process the emotions and only then could I begin to reflect on what I was noticing about myself. My ādefaultā tendancies, what Iām aware of in terms of my attachment style, old belief systems playing in my head about what Iām supposed to do or not do.
Observing ourselves in success, failure and surprise is an incredibly important aspect to the job of being leaders and managers. Knowing how we work under duress, with surprise and great success too.
The only way we can lead effectively is knowing about ourselves and what we need to thrive.
Download our Leaders@Scale guide to get to know yourself or book a coffee chat, letās walk through a few questions to get you to clarity. Iām here for you - I want you to be even more successful!
I work with tech leaders on: getting to the next level, creating the conditions for consistent high performance for themselves and their teams. If youāre interested in how I can support you or your team, learn more about my coaching or book a free coffee here.