Reset and Moving on

A few weeks ago  I was pretty frustrated as it became increasingly clear that I had overfilled my plate and was feeling stuck.  Then as I walked into my office, I received a text message that I incorrectly scheduled an important meeting. Immediately, I stopped in the doorway of my office, I  let out a big groan and started tapping the door frame of my office back and forth with both hands.  In my mind I was alone, and I was tapping the door frame lightly as I tried to center myself and figure out what to do.  While I was definitely frustrated, I eventually laughed at myself, regrouped and moved on to the rest of my day.   However, my assistant who was not in the near vicinity at the time, later asked me if everything was ok.  Clearly, my frustration was more public than I had previously thought.  Usually, when I need to reset I close my door, take a few deep breaths.  But that day, I was moving too fast, I had too much to do, and as a result, my frustration was more apparent.

Acting in this way, publicly felt like a mistake and I was embarrassed.  Additionally, I felt like I had too much on my plate to be productive.  I subscribe to the belief that one of the most essential parts of the principal's job is to be energized and to energize others.   But at the same time, it's also important to show people that we are humans as well.  And that day, I was vulnerable, made some mistakes, and demonstrated my humanness.

In yoga teachers remind us that when we fall out of a pose, we should just get right back into it.   There is no benefit to dwell on why you fell out of the pose or get annoyed with yourself.  If you don't get right back into your pose, you miss an opportunity for growth. 

During this moment in my office there as no reason to dwell on my frustration, but to reset and problem solve on how to resolve my mistake and move forward.  After chatting with my assistant, I reflected on that moment and I was able to regroup.   I'm thankful for my meditative practice that I have learned to allow for my frustrations to surface but to also to let my frustrations leave as well. After that moment, I began to focus on one problem at a time.   By the end of the day, I realized that I had resolved several of my situations and more importantly felt good about how they were concluding.

Leadership Lessons from that Experience:

• Allow your frustrations to bubble up, but then let them go
• Make mistakes, but then reflect and reset
• When you are having a bad day, remember you have a choice to dwell on what's going wrong or move on

Embracing the The Process During A Change

As I read Donna Farhi's Bringing Yoga to Life, I've reflected on how much my yoga practice over the last 18 years has helped to shape my leadership practice. Also, I've reflected on how much leadership is about setting goals and celebrating when we achieve these goals.  But vision setting seems to miss the opportunity to celebrate and enjoy the day to day work and how much this work impacts our potential to reach these goals.  During the change process, I wonder if it is too easy for us as leaders to keep our eyes set on the end and we avoid what is hard about focusing on the process.

Embrace what is uncomfortable:
My yoga practice has taught me to embrace the positions that are most uncomfortable and hardest to pay attention to.  The best way to remain in an uncomfortable position is to breathe.    We can learn a lot from this concept of breathing into the most uncomfortable situations during a change.  Find those places where resistance exists--listen, engage and BREATH!

Stay in the moment  
In yoga, it is easy to focus on the challenging posture that we just accomplished or worry about the difficult posture we are about to do.  When I'm distracted in my yoga practice, my current pose is messy, or I fall out and get frustrated with myself.   It is so easy to worry about the past or the future, and then we disrupt our focus on the present.  Similarly, in leadership, it is so easy to become distracted during our individual conversations and lose the opportunity to use those conversations as an opportunity to strengthen trust, talk about the change, or improve a relationship.   It's common to avoid hard conversations with those who are most resistant to change.   While it is essential to support earlier adopters, we need to engage with those who are ambivalent, resistant and undecided.   Communication is as much about listening and acknowledging feelings as it is adjusting and tweaking based on

We learn when we fall
Just this morning as we were in airplane pose, my yoga teacher commented, "you should get extra points for falling."  Now obviously there is no such thing as point scoring in yoga, but I appreciated the comment to continue to grow our pose and not worry about tipping over.  In leadership, there are so many opportunities to pull back our values and avoid specific topics, and then we look back and wonder why the change was not as successful as we hoped.   When we are in the middle of the change, it's important to stretch ourselves and others.  We need to be fearless to make mistakes. 

As leaders, much our work is to keep our eyes on the future, but focusing too much on the future can prevent us from enjoying the pleasures of the process.  Just as in gardening, as the quote describes, there is so much to celebrate in the work that we do to reach our goals.