Exhaustion
Hi team, this week for my routine share here are some things that have popped up worth sharing with you over the past 7 days smooshed into 1 email. Enjoy, share or delete I don’t mind 😊 But as always I’d love to hear your thoughts or any of your recently discovered brainfood. See below.
Hands up if you’re exhausted – I know I am – and that’s ok because it’s circumstantial and doesn’t define me. But I think too often we are afraid to say we’re struggling as if we have to smile & pretend that everything’s hunky dory. If you’re struggling too it’s ok. The concept that we need to feel happy & good all the time is a fallacy. It’s been a big year. And its no over yet. And there’s no clarity on what 2021 brings, so expecting everything to suddenly get easier soon is a bad idea. Rather, adapt, change, evolve. There’s a Charles Darwin quote flying around that ‘it isn’t the strongest species that survive, but those most adaptable to change’. Whether he actually said it or not, I like it. Check out the links below fyi.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/news/struggling-to-juggle-it-all-us-too-4219801
For me the challenges this year centre around the concepts of priorities and balance. Having a 1 year old and a 4 year old, starting a new role, COVID, my wife returning to and transitioning to fulltime work, and trying to juggle it all has been tough but arguably a first-world problem. We are very lucky in many ways so then of course comes struggle guilt where I feel like I just need to get some perspective and toughen up! Doesn’t help the struggle, but keeps me moving. COVID has impacted our support network and that is a bit isolating, but we press on! With parts of the public sector WFH up to 100% and some being required to wear masks if they need to go in to the office I think we’re again quite lucky. I had a ‘cat’s in the cradle’ moment (if you don’t know the song do yourself a favour and listen to the words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=QLOFnCfG_uo&feature=emb_logo ) the other day at home where in a moment my future flashed before my eyes and it jolted me to make some changes. I was at the dinner table with my daughter and she had fashioned a book to pretend it was a laptop, as if typing on it, then proceeded to talk on a phone saying “sorry I can’t talk right now I’m too busy I’ve just got some important emails to do” and hung up. I looked at my wife & it shook me to the core. What type of shadow have I been casting?! So I’m now taking a good hard look at myself.
On that note I hope all the dad’s out there had a great Father’s Day last Sunday. I did! Even got some new socks & jocks! But I realised it’s not always a happy day but it can be difficult too. Growing up in a single parent family I saw first-hand how difficult Father’s Day was for my mum, and recently I’ve had a friend lose his fight with cancer, leaving kids behind, and now Father’s Day is so painful for his kids and his wife. So Father’s Day is about others too – mums & wives, etc. I saw the below pic and thought it was worth a share.
This feeds well into RUOK Day which is of course today! See attached email for reference but I genuinely encourage you all to make asking RUOK a part of your BAU. Use today as a start if you haven’t been doing this already. Or see the RUOK material to get even better at it.
This year, Kit-Kat is an official R U OK? Chit-Chat Partner. The R U OK? Special edition packaging is set to be available in major grocery stores at the end of August for a limited time. This could be a great way to take a break and have a Chit-Chat, initiating meaningful conversations with friends, family and colleagues. Check out the four conversation steps to gain the skills and confidence to navigate a conversation with someone you're worried about.
And I thought I’d share a trend I’m noticing in my talking with others internally and across the Sector, this shared overwhelmed exhaustion, always being ‘on’, trouble switching off, moving from burning platform to burning platform, and an overuse and overreliance on email. Some people think their jobs are simply waiting for the next email to come through to attend to & the sad reality is that’s what some jobs have become. All of our jobs have a purpose, a function, even without the emails. Though I admit even I get ‘full’ sometimes just with emails alone. So if you do too I remind you to pause, step back, reflect, think about how you manage your email rather than letting it manage you. Remember there are 4 levels we can focus on (in order of priority): Culture, Strategy, Operations and Reactive emergent work, which hopefully aligns to the other 3. I know some people who are completely consumed by the last of these 4. Keep your focus on the big picture! There is nothing more important than Culture so don’t lose sight of this for the burning trees or bouncing balls. Resist!
This week I’ve been having development conversations and the questions I’m asking include ‘how have you grown this year?’, ‘how have you changed how you work?’, ‘have you evolved or reverted?’, ‘how have you changed your management or leadership practices to align to a hybrid/virtual team dynamic?’ and I’ve been reflecting on those myself. I’d encourage you to too. Hybrid or virtual team dynamics aren’t going anywhere so we need to adapt to make sure our practices are inclusive. We might be more ‘tolerant’, but are we embracing inclusion? And if we’re not constantly growing and evolving over time are we slowly becoming obsolete? This year has given us insight into high-value skills that will be highly sought after in the times ahead so I’d encourage a focus on these for development priorities.
Keep well and prioritise that which matters most! 😊