September reset
Of late, I’ve been working with clients whose schedules are jam-packed with meetings and deliverables, crazy hours and crazy demands. They’re in start-ups, they’ve returned to the work world after a few years away, they’re changing jobs, they’re heading up their own small companies, all of them on accelerated paths with high expectations and little give.
“Julie, how can I get it all done?” they ask. “I don’t have to give anything up, do I?” they ask.
As we move into September, the year’s reset button, with students returning to school and parents sighing a sigh of relief, my clients ask, “How can I set up this next quarter for success?”
That’s a good question, and one I’ve been pondering myself. I’ve just spent the last few hours thinking about my priority projects for the final four months of 2021, and planning out the month of September. It helps me to look at the big picture:
- What did I want to accomplish in 2021? | This is a great time to go back and look at my End-of-Year Review for 2020 and my high-level aspirations for 2021. 📆
- How far have I come? | This is a great time to celebrate everything that has happened so far. Why wait until December to take a bow? 😅
- What would make me over-the-top happy if I accomplished it by the end of 2021? | Again, my aspirations for the year help, but a lot has happened since January. Some new things have popped up. How can I account for those and adapt my expectations? What needs to be let go of — or moved to 2022 — to make room for the new? 😏
Moving from “what did I imagine” to “where am I now” to “what and where can I shift”, there’s another critical piece.
Looking back on the last eight months, it’s helpful to me to ask:
- Where were my valleys?
- When did I get tired?
- What was happening?
- What was I juggling?
- Is there something I could have done to create more space for rest and recovery?
Goodness knows, life is what happens when we’re busy making other plans, but thinking about one’s peaks and valleys, and the choices we make to double down during a crisis or take care of ourselves when a crisis arises, is well worth the awareness that comes of examining our patterns. One of the first steps to carving out new paths is a keen understanding of the old, comfortable ones.
To my clients who ask if they have to give anything up, I’ll offer this:
- I know you think you’re strong and you can do it all. You are, and you can’t. Our energy is still a limited resource. 👼
- Ask for help. Give your team, your family and your friends an opportunity to lend a hand. When you don’t, they feel helpless. You are robbing them of the opportunity to grow as humans and yourself of closer relationships.
- You will have to give up something. I suggest it be sleep exhaustion, stress and anxiety. To give these up, you’ll need to think about and commit to the essential, whatever that is for you. If essentialism is new for you, here is a great place to start.
- Rest and recovery are the keys to productivity and creativity. Take a look at your month to come, at the four months to come. Slot in rest and recovery now, before you get crazy busy again. Plan a weekend — or two — away. Plan walks in nature at lunchtime with your favourite colleagues and your best friends. Think about creating a solid bedtime routine that will set you up for extraordinary sleep every night.
- Plan not just to make headway on your aspirations for 2021. Plan to play. Who are your favourite playmates? How can you make sure you’re playing with them? It’s great that you have goals and objectives and plans. Make sure to include fun in them — go sing, go dancing, climb a mountain, break out the Legos, paint a picture. You’ll be amazed at what play will do for your “quarter of success”. 🙌
Connect with me to learn how to design your life so you can do your best work here.
