How To Maintain Focus On Your Priorities In The Current Environment
We are in challenging times right now, and yet life still requires us to keep going, to focus and to put one foot in front of the other. So if you’re like me, you have consistently been asking yourself, what should I be focusing on now? Should I be re-prioritizing in light of the current environment? Most importantly, how do I even maintain focus during these times when challenges are at every corner? How do I maintain compassion as a human being while continuing to strive for my business and professional goals? These are excellent questions. You may feel like you can’t keep going in the same direction that you have been going, yet it is unrealistic and perhaps even undesirable to expect to stop.
In today’s blog I will walk you through a three step process to identify what you really want during these times, process how you are feeling, and take action on the areas that are absolutely within your control while releasing the rest.
1. Identify what you really want
In order to move ahead, we have to be very clear about what we really want in our lives. When we are 100% clear, we will begin to see opportunities regardless of the situation that will get us to the destination that we want to get to. When we are confused, we simply remain stuck. The voice of self-doubt may come to introduce confusion, which will impair clarity and will paralyze us from moving forward. To get out of that cycle, let’s get clear. The best way to quickly get back to what we deeply desire is to go back to our values. Values anchor us to help us see and keep the first things first. When we keep the first things first, we won’t fall into trap of climbing the metaphorical ladder and realize that it was leaning against the wrong wall.
Values are simply a judgment of what’s important in your life, and if you connect to a powerful enough value that you have, you will get instant clarity on what your focus should be regardless of the situation that you face. Three of my personal top priorities are health & wellness, relationships & contribution. Those have not changed, in fact they are even more important now - perhaps in the past I would have allowed contribution to rise to the top of the list but things happen that help us re-prioritize our focus to make the first things first and it is good to remember that without health & wellness, at least for me - the level of my contribution will be drastically limited. My contribution is in many ways, but the biggest opportunity is for me to share my talents, my expertise, and my experience to the benefit of others. I have learned that so many others can benefit from our story and lives if we are willing enough and courageous enough to share it. The same goes for you! So I invite you to allow your values to re-anchor you in your priorities and ask yourself what’s truly important to you, the most important for you, now?
2. Expanding Our Emotional Intelligence Through Empathy, Naming & Honoring
One of the most powerful opportunities that we currently have as leaders in this environment is to expand our level of emotional intelligence. As many of our peers, direct reports and ourselves are experiencing overwhelming situations in their lives, we can provide support not by solving but just by offering a listening ear.
Empathy: Sometimes just listening and being empathetic allows the other person to process emotions and to get unstuck rather than suppressing and allowing the emotion to linger on unaddressed, which can severely impact productivity and innovation. We are all learning to get even more comfortable to create a safe space at work for people to bring their full selves. Those leaders who are quickly able to adapt and provide the environment as well as tools to their teams to be able to process and get unstuck will be the ones with the most engaged, and highest performing teams, because trust and loyalty is built through the support given by the leaders in these unprecedented times.
Naming the emotion: One of the most powerful ways to allow a person to process and become unstuck is simply to help the person with vocabulary to name how they are feeling. We don’t have to be therapists to do that, a simple tool such as this Plutchik wheel of emotions is a great reference tool to help with this task, especially because most people have limited vocabulary and experience with naming or clarifying exactly how they really feel, even if it is in just stating it in their own minds. Once the naming happens, positive movement can begin to happen as well.
Honoring: There has been so much talk about shame and the impact of shame, but not a whole lot of discussion about the thing that brings healing to shameful experiences, which is honor. People sometimes feel shame that they are not always upbeat, positive and optimistic, but as I have said in a previously blog, it is ok not to be a badass everyday especially in the current environment, and one of the best ways to bring empathy to ourselves, aka practicing self love, which is to bring honor instead of shame. Honoring how we are feeling, honoring ourselves through words of affirmation, honoring ourselves by engaging in activities such as journaling or meditating, and honoring ourselves by giving ourselves permission to be human.
Powerful coaching question for you:
What’s one way that you can honor yourself today and release any lingering feelings of shame?
3. Focus on the things within your circle of control
The above diagram is a powerful tool to help us move forward with positive action once we have identified what our priorities are and processed any emotions that we or our teams have been experiencing. The next step is to proactively move to the path of problem solving and innovation, which, as you know is what business is really about. Yet we cannot effectively get to this end without taking the necessary prerequisite steps outlined above. Remember (yes I really have to say this because some tend to forget!) in organizations we are not dealing with robots but human beings and as such we have to become holistic managers able to inspire and support the FULL self. The above diagram is from Stephen Covey’s Classic book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In summary, it shows that progressive, problem solving, proactive oriented people are focused on the things that are directly within their control, which is their circle of influence, while releasing the areas that are not within their control - the circle of concern.
Areas that we are concerned about but that we have no control over include actions from the government, the macro-economy (fluctuations in the stock market), whether or not there will be job layoffs, people that we know falling ill, how long the quarantine will last, when there will be a medical breakthrough regarding this virus, etc.
What is within our control and within our circle of influence include things like what we eat, how we practice self-care, our daily routines, how we show up in our jobs or businesses, how we interact with our work teams and families, etc. and as I stated above GETTING CLARITY on what it is we truly want.
The beautiful thing about this diagram is that as we focus on the things that we can control, our circle of influence begins to expand into our circle of concern and our impact actually begins to increase beyond our direct area of influence. For example, when we start focusing on building our businesses and take action to support that, if we are effective, our own personal finances begins to improve, we end up having more disposable income, we can then spend it on goods and services, which in turn supports small businesses and other aspects of the economy and we begin to contribute to a small economic stimulation in our community which could have a far reaching ripple impact beyond ourselves. Perhaps even with the extra income we have, we are able to contribute to charitable causes to help feed the disadvantaged during these times (connecting to our deep values that we identified above). This is just one example, but it can be applied to many different areas. The point is that proactively focusing on the things we can control rather than the areas of our concern over which we have no immediate ability to impact is the best way to make a difference in our own lives and eventually beyond ourselves. However, when we are reactive it is counter productive and our area of influence and impact actually decreases.
Stephen Covey doesn’t have these two points in his book but I have found these two perspectives to help me forward moving and problem solving oriented during the times of COVID19, and I hope they have a similar impact on you.
Stay present: you maybe tempted like me to keep looking into the future and estimating, thinking what if this happens or that happens, what am I going to do? There is a difference between planning and worrying. So I have found it helpful to bring my thoughts back to the present and asking, what is the lesson for me now? What is the action this situation is telling me to take now?, and releasing the what if speculations that may or may never come. Always coming back to the now also allows us to focus on the gifts that are right in front of us - right now. If we are just worried about the future we could miss these gifts and opportunities. From a personal standpoint that may look like instead of worrying about what if something happens to the at-risk population in my family we focus on cherishing the time we have now creating memories and enjoying each others’ company. From a professional standpoint this could look like how am I stepping up as a leader to see new opportunities that are right in front of me that can create a level of innovation and income earning potential that I would miss if I was just looking at the what if’s in the future. Career tip my friends, in difficult times we have a unique opportunity like no other to differentiate ourselves. How can you find the opportunity to contribute like you have never contributed before and stepping up and playing bigger than you have ever challenged yourself before? If you look for the opportunities - you will find them.
Trust in your abilities: The final perspective that has been helpful has been to reflect on all the challenging times that I have experienced in the past and how resourceful myself and frankly the communities that I have come from have been, and have risen above. Even if tough times do come, you have a long list of examples of how you have dealt with them and overcame them or at least survived through them. The same person who figured it out then, is the same person staring back at you in the mirror!! So stay present to the current gift in front of you, while remember that you already know how to be great and you are stronger than you could ever imagine.
If you found this post helpful I have an invitation included below that I know will be useful as you figure out what to focus on for your professional development.
Join My Free Masterclass this Thursday April 16th 7pm EST
Advance Your Career Confidently: 3 Essential Skills To Conquer Self Doubt At Work That ONLY the “Select Few” Have Been Taught
I am excited to be offering this Free Masterclass and it will be live & interactive. It will be delivered on Thursday April 16th at 7pm EST (not pre-recorded so you can ask questions!)
To find out more about the masterclass and to register you can click on this link.
Thoughts on why it is still important to continue focusing on your career:
You already know that breaking through to the next level in your career is going to require consistent action regardless of the environment, which includes clarity, focus and an effective strategy. While many are wondering about what’s next, I’m scrolling through Linkedin seeing that people are still getting hired and promoted even now! One friend of mine went through a whole interview process virtually and got hired to work from home for now. Yet, if self-doubt and fear has held you back from reaching your potential, getting the most out of your career aspirations, and truly OWNING your career, you will still have that challenge when things return back to normal unless you get some strategies to start working on that now.
You…
Have two options:
Stay stuck in the same cycle that has held you back professionally for months or perhaps even years
or, you can understand why now is THE time to move forward and equip yourself with tools and strategies that will prepare you to advance in your career
If you are in camp number two, I recommend your attending the free LIVE Masterclass “How To Advance Your Career Confidently” (Thursday) at 7pm Eastern / 4pm Pacific. I'll be on LIVE walking through my framework and answering your questions. You can register right here... Class registration link
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