One of the biggest revelations for me was realizing that being well, looking after myself, is not something that I earn the right to only after working really hard for a long time. It’s completely the other way around. It’s a prerequisite to be able to perform. - Annastiina Hintsa
Not only Annastiina has come to this conclusion. It was me too a couple of months ago. If I had truly understood that by the beginning of 2020 and had been practising energy awareness and other critical skills, most likely I would have been able to circumvent burnout.
For Annastiina, what had been a crisis, turned into a business.
For the rest of us, we can learn from her mistake.
What is it that we need to learn now to stay one second ahead? And how do we perform in a sustainable manner - in the long run? What will help us thrive instead of survive?
Disclaimer: These are raw ideas only. My ideas. Take them and go figure out your own. Trust what feels relevant for you.
5 plus Pause - Critical Skills for a meaningful Life
Establishing a practice of Personal Energy Awareness is the prerequisite to sustained high performance in the long run (your lifetime!)
Start by having mindful, creative mornings
Receive insights from biofeedback gadgets
Practise Daily Gratitude
Discovering your Authentic Self Expression for building greater self-trust and self-realization
Get great at storytelling
Stop limiting thoughts and beliefs. Are they really true? Do The Work! And start telling yourself a better version of the story of you.
Make something remarkable and test different ways of self-expression: writing, scribbling, dancing, photography, podcasting … find your voice
Close the feedback loop: gain insights and repeat
Showing up with Kindness at Work empowers a culture of courage, openness for change, playfulness as well as ease. People will begin to trust each other again.
Contemplate kindness - what does it mean for you? What might be a deeper understanding of this term?
If being clear is kind, and being unclear is unkind, what could you be changing to communicate with greater clarity?
Implement a purposeful and systematic way to organize what you are making and get one percent better every day. Experiment with Deliberate Practise
Explore the philosophy behind Deliberate Practise (Thank you, Joseph 🤗 for showing me this just recently!)
The cost of task switching and fragmented attention is high. A speciality of Deliberate Practise is Deep Work, which provides relief. But ask yourself: how can I create an environment with greater enablement for Deep Work, less distraction and therefore more asynchronous communication and decision making?
Get fabulous at Scaling Depth to provide more meaningful, shared online spaces for deeper interpersonal connection
In times of home office and social distancing, people still crave deeper connection, greater belonging, higher purpose and togetherness. We have a heart and we need (virtual) spaces to nourish our soul. What can you do to enable this within your team or family?
Intentionally create online spaces and the possibility for people to have great fireside conversations, share experiences and learn in togetherness
That’s all beautiful, but, as we learn from nature, we need to pause too.
Not doing anything?
Yes. Just being.
Pressing the Pause Button gives us time to integrate, regenerate and level up. When we do the inner work, we need pauses to observe, orient and recalibrate ourselves.
Now, let’s leave this personal space and think of whole organisations. There is an urge to recognize, that an organization or a team also can’t be in continuous hard work or crisis mode all the time. These people need to pause too! Especially the ones that focus on knowledge work or creative solutions.
Because as human beings, we are not designed to run constantly all day long. Industrial machines are built for this purpose.
Hmm.
(Which, by the way, do need to schedule downtime too and get their service done.)
So then, for us, who want to thrive and live a meaningful life full of possibility, courage, integrity and lovingness, we need a more sustainable approach.
Let’s get better at these 5 plus Pause and other critical skills.
Together in community? And online?!
Who knew…!
With love,