A client’s daughter was very excited about an upcoming game. She had been working hard in soccer practice and this was the first time she would play forward. It was a big event for her and she was excited that her parent would be there to support her.

But as the game heated up, the energetic tug began. From their pocket my client’s phone began it’s gentle humming, calling, nagging. They stayed with the game for a minute, attention split in two, one on their child struggling to contribute and the other towards the machine. Unable to resist, they took a look. It was a senior leader looking for answers. They put the phone away. But now they knew.

The heat and intensity we all know so well grew and unfurled like a hot inner dragon, crawling up through their core and towards their arm until it jerked into motion. The arm grabbed the phone and the legs carried them to the parking lot to make the call.

It was only afterwards that it came: the heavy feeling in the stomach that settles in after eating all of those frosted doughnuts that looked so good at the time. There were eight other people that could have answered those questions. Eight other people could have made that call. But for their daughter, there was only one.

What makes this hard?

Why is prioritizing so hard? Neurologically there are plenty of reasons. Recency bias has us assign false urgency and importance. Availability bias has us prioritize things that come more readily to mind. Impact bias has us do a terrible job of anticipating the impact and duration of outcomes.

But this is the planning phase. What about acting on priorities in the moment? When the choice comes? When the phone moves? Then we are hyjacked by another swarm of demons including supernormal stimulus, reduced executive function (from stress, lack of sleep, willpower overuse, decision fatigue), social pressure and more.

Much more importantly: why is prioritizing, or remembering and acting on priorities in the moment, hard for you? What is the system, the story, the impulse that is unique to you that says you can’t say no or “have to” rush in?

These are deep rooted and, for many, invisible drivers of our behaviors. If you’ve ever stumbled out of a burnout crash because you worked yourself off a cliff, chances are that a younger part of you was driving – a younger part of you that couldn’t let go, stop, or say no.

Check it out for yourself

Here is one experiment that may help you get a glimpse of how this works for you in particular. First choose any task or project on your plate. Then ask yourself this question, but only after really slowing down for a moment. Put the phone down. Turn to face out a window. Do a few straw breaths. Now allow yourself to really listen to what comes up, especially the responses that seem “silly.” Ask the question like dropping a pebble into a still pool of water. Follow the ripples of reaction. Have you really paused? Do it. Really. Take the pause first and then come back to this paragraph. Now gently release this question like a drop sinking into your chest and belly: “what would happen if I didn’t do this?” Listen for whatever it might be. Just notice. Is there a physical reaction? An emotion? If there is fear, what does it say? “They would leave me.” “I would get fired and be on the street.” “People would see I was incapable.” “Someone would be alone.” “Someone would be disappointed.” “I wouldn’t be free.” “It would be incomplete.” “I would never have peace.”

Now maybe you have a glimpse of the child behind the steering wheel. What’s next?

As you look over your list of possible actions for the day, take a moment to notice: who is deciding right now? Is it your inner leader? Your expansive, centered adult self? Or the fear or anger or child? Sometimes it is helpful to take a moment and place a hand on your belly or chest. Acknowledge the fear you feel there. Appreciate that it’s there for a reason, trying its best in a childlike way to protect you. And let it know that, for now, you need to take the wheel. Imagine letting this child or part of you know they can sit beside you, but not drive for now. Sometimes making a small physical gesture of setting them there can help. After doing this – now what makes sense? What seems possible? Has it changed?

I’ve had clients make significant career moves after working with this simple exercise. It takes practice, but can be worth the pause.

In the future I’ll write more about what I’ve learned from over a decade of supporting leaders and professionals as they navigate challenges like these as part of a series on productivity.

References

Gilbert, D. (2006). Stumbling on happiness. New York, NY: Vintage Books.

Cialdini, R. B. (2007). Influence: The psychology of persuasion (Collins business essentials) (Revised ed.). HarperBusiness.

Cialdini, R. B. (2016). Pre-suasion: A revolutionary way to influence and persuade. Simon and Schuster.

When I returned to America after carbon monoxide poisoning, I couldn’t think clearly enough to work on most days.

For the first few weeks after I got to safety I kept thinking, “I’ll just rest here for a few more days and then fly back overseas and get to work.” I would try to do a yoga pose or pedal on a stationary bike. After 30-60 seconds (I timed it each day) I would collapse against the wall, dizzy and overwhelmed. But I “knew” that if I just kept at it, I was about to be “back.”

As the weeks went by I grudgingly made a small adjustment, a little token offering to reality. I decided that my return to life as usual might be, “a month from now.” Month after month. Every month. My recovery took more than a year.

As I began to let go, at least temporarily, of being able to do the old work in the same ways, I began to take on smaller, flexible projects and coaching and leadership trainings that let me schedule my own time. On days when my brain wouldn’t respond, I could wait it out.

The changes to my experience of the world were significant. Instead of being fueled and enlivened by human contact, I would get drained and have to mumble an excuse to leave and recover. Instead of raving about projects, I was quieter and leaning into meditation and personal growth. During this time I found myself repeating often a line that expressed how it all felt: “this is a strange time in my life.”

Six years later I found myself deep into my journey of developing myself and supporting others. I was also going from training to training and swimming between tech work and sitting on the floor with groups of people in tears. I was in yet another new city (San Francisco) where people came and went as it hollowed out and gyrated to the industrial jams of tech excitement and cost of living. I had no certainty about what was next for any given week and sometimes any given day. I was having to make it all up as I went along. Nothing felt solid. There was nowhere to stand. And I continued to tell everyone I met the words that best reflected the temporary and rapidly evolving feeling of the experience, the excuse for it all and the promise of a more grounded future: “This is a strange time in my life.”

Until one day. One day I woke up and heard myself saying those words to someone yet again. And I realized something. After more than six years this wasn’t a strange time in my life. This was now my life.

…

I recently worked with a client who struggled with social connection. When we listed her friends and she could only count two, she wryly observed that it wasn’t a very, “fault tolerant system.”

In a side conversation about her history she began describing the elaborate events she used to throw and all of the people that used to come; of birthday parties filled with support and excitement. Stunned, I asked the obvious question. “What changed?” She didn’t know. It didn’t make any sense given how certain she was that she was an awkward loner. She hadn’t even been aware of how shockingly different this story was until we went through it together.

“When did this change,” I asked. The moment she said it, we both knew. Two and a half years ago. And what happened two and a half years ago – was a global pandemic. Her identity had begun to form about not knowing how to make connections with people. About being isolated. That it was her fault. That this is how, and who, she was. Like the carbon monoxide slowly and silently worked it’s way into my system and began to twist the knobs of my personality, she, like so many others, didn’t even notice the change.

She is not alone.

By mid 2020, 14 percent of Americans were experiencing serious psychological distress, more than triple the rate in 2018.

According to CDC and NHIS data, in 2019 10.8% of adults 18 and over had symptoms of either anxiety disorder or depressive disorder or both. By November 2021 it was 42.6%.

…

When the pandemic began tech companies responded. They began dumping coaching and L&D programs like sandbags off a hot air balloon as the basket skimmed a hilltop. Six to eight months later, my practice was full again. People whose lives had been put on pause were asking big questions about what they had been doing for so many years. And why. Many came with feelings of anxiety that they couldn’t manage. Some could name the loneliness. Even introverts were whispering that lockdown was perfect at first, but soon they were craving contact. Many couldn’t name the source of their struggles and, instead, blamed themselves.

Many of our challenges today are normal reactions to stress and isolation. As one biological marker, the APA notes that weight change commonly correlates with mental health challenges. By 2021 a majority of adults (61%) reported experiencing undesired weight changes.

It is not your fault. When we can all see this we can allow ourselves, and support each other, to shake the dust off and share some awkward conversations. We can allow each other to make a few grating sounds as we get the gears turning again. We’re going to need practice and support to recover. And we’re going to need each other as the stresses continue in our ever unfolding, ever evolving, never quite landing, never quite “normal,” world.

Twelve years after my experience my brain is back in action. But the capacity I was forced into, my ability to ride the waves of life with adjustments instead of trying to force them into rigid shapes; to accept loss and uncertainty; to start with what is instead of pretending for what I wish: these have been gifts.

The ability to be comfortable in VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) is an essential leadership skill in the best of times. (More in a future post.) Can we use the opportunity of these extreme circumstances to finally, while still feeling the terror of it, let go of our grip on normal? To fall into not knowing? To stop pretending? To embrace where we are and each other? From my experience, so far, it makes for a much smoother ride.

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for Health Statistics. Anxiety and Depression Household Pulse Survey Data. Retrieved February 15, 2023, from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/pulse/mental-health.htm

American Psychological Association. (2021, March 11). One year later, a new wave of pandemic health concerns. https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2021/one-year-pandemic-stress

American Psychological Association. (2021, March 11). Slightly More Than 6 in 10 U.S. Adults (61%) Report Undesired Weight Change Since Start of Pandemic. https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2021/march-weight-change

Kira M. Newman. (2020, August 11). Seven Ways the Pandemic Is Affecting Our Mental Health. Greater Good Magazine. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/seven_ways_the_pandemic_is_affecting_our_mental_health

This has to be said so often that it’s worth its own post. In fact, you were probably nudged here from another post as a reminder. Most importantly:

It’s only a model.

In discovering the DNA helix, James Watson and Francis Crick relied on a pile of toys. Despite having an x-ray photograph of DNA taken by Rosalind Franklin in the 1950s, to make the breakthrough that has so radically changed our world they needed help. They played for several days with, “a chemist’s equivalent of a child’s Tinkertoy set,” and, thorough their work with this wooden approximation, what was unclear became clear. They had the crucial insight that DNA was a two-stranded molecule twisted into a helix.

Distinctions and models are fingers pointing towards reality, and a way to seek out truth in reality. The useful question to ask of a model is not, “is it true” but rather, “what can I see now that I couldn’t see before – just by asking if it was true?”

A model only has to be good enough to get us to the next model.

Are people really just introverts or extroverts? Of course not. There is a spectrum of experience that itself changes for individuals over time, sometimes based on alcohol intake. But knowing that an experience different from your own exists offers the chance to take a closer look at those around you. Maybe you, or someone you know, could use a quiet break to collect their thoughts. Or a wild crayon-on-wall brainstorm and a Archimedes-style naked run down the street. Or perhaps when your friend wants to head home early after the first two parties of the night it’s not a reflection on how they feel about you.

But taking the distinction literally can also limit what we can see. If someone is “just” anything (just another liberal, conservative, extrovert, or Enneatype 3) our vision narrows yet again and the opportunity is lost to see more of people, the world, and future possibilities as they vanish behind the cardboard sign we’ve put in front of them.

Models help us to zoom in for a moment on that dot on the horizon that we hadn’t noticed, to reveal that it’s actually fresh water. But if we get fixated on it we’ll trip over the goat in front of us.

What becomes visible by trying on a model or distinction for size? Where have our existing models become limiting and ready to be questioned? How can we stay open, curious, and inquiring into the ever changing truth of what is here now?

PS

One final note: metaphor matters. I’ll caution more about the self persuasive power – and potential lion’s jaws – of metaphor and frame in a future post.

References

Palca, J. (2023, February 28). 70 years ago, a scientific discovery changed the world. NPR All Things Considered. Retrieved March 3, 2023, from https://www.npr.org/2023/02/28/1160157729/70-years-ago-a-scientific-discovery-changed-the-world

Chang, A., Kelly M.L. (2023, March 1). Correction: Rosalind Franklin’s crucial contribution to the discovery of DNA’s structure. NPR: All Things Considered. https://www.npr.org/2023/03/01/1160457184/correction-rosalind-franklins-crucial-contribution-to-the-discovery-of-dnas-stru

Wikipedia contributors. (2023, March 1). Archimedes. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes

Hirshfeld, A. (n.d.). Archimedes: The Original Naked Scientist. Science Features | Naked Scientists. https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/science-features/archimedes-original-naked-scientist