Just Trying to Get Through the Week? (That Was Me)
Language is powerful and revealing. Especially the language happening in our head that no one else can hear.
Lately, I've been noticing the a phrase repeating itself in my mind: "get through". It'll be something to the effect of "I just need to get through tomorrow's meeting" or "I just need to get through this week and then next week I will have more time.
As coaches, we are trained to listen closely to language because it often reveals mindset, and then to reflect these mindset clues back to our clients. So when this mindset-reveal happened in my own head, it got my attention.
Get through to what? I asked myself. And: What is so bad about what's going on now?
These answers were easy — there was no rainbow on the other side of a busy day, and if all we're doing is striving to get through the week, well, we're on a hamster wheel that leads to nowhere. And the answer to the second question I asked myself was about what is so bad that I have to get through? Nothing was so bad. When I slowed down to appreciate each piece of my day, I reconnected to the richness and joy it contained.
The real problem, it turns out, is that the amount of time that my attention needed to be laser-focused — like in a coaching session or working with a team — was out of balance with the work time that was more akin to downtime. In short, my perform-recover cycles were not in balance.
So for me, the lesson learned from this phrase repeating itself in my head was two-fold:
Be more present with the joy and purpose in each block of time in my day
Plan mindfully about the energy recovery time I really need between high-focus events
I hope this personal story helps you pay closer attention to the language happening inside your head. There's likely a message there for you that will help you on your leadership development journey!
