This has been a crazy season of unanticipated disruptions. If you have been knocked off your feet and are trying to recover direction, here’s some encouragement: Focus on the right thing.
One thing you learn quickly when you live near the ocean is that you can’t just go out and swim anywhere you find a beach. Some areas that seem quite benign have rip-currents that will knock you off your feet and pull you out into the open sea. Fighting against the current is the worst thing you can do – the force of the water will sap you of your strength and you will drown before getting to the shore. Your best chances of survival depend on you fixing your focus on the shoreline, and swimming parallel to the shore until you are out of the reach of the rip-current’s pull Even if it carries you further out before you can start swimming back to land, don’t fight the current. Swim through it, focusing on staying aligned with the shoreline.
The same is true with unexpected, overwhelming change. My goodness, what we have all seen this past year! Most big change used to be planned. Leading change in organizations was primarily about creating buy-in for the planned changes of the leadership, and “readiness” – if it was discussed at all, gauged the speed of implementation. Today, many would say that the biggest changes we face personally and professionally are not changes planned internally by leadership. They’re thrust upon us all, without buy-in and with very little warning. They look more like hurricanes than grand openings.
There you were, playing blissfully in the shallows, when your foot was snagged by a riptide – and suddenly…
- your company is being forced to restructure or your clients have put their engagements on indefinite hold. You don’t know how this will impact your livelihood.
- you’re working (and possibly helping your child learn) from home….sometimes feeling like doing both has made it impossible to do either.
- you’re unable to spend time in person with loved ones, and the extended months of isolation has triggered intense moments of anxiety, depression, and loneliness.
- you’re facing realities you never imagined – social and political polarization, friends and loved ones turning on each other, not knowing what you can believe, feeling vulnerable, misunderstood, afraid to engage or make a mistake.
What can you do when you find yourself suddenly knocked off your feet and being swept out to sea? Get oriented. Ask yourself:
In your final moments, what will still matter? How will you be remembered/ By whom? What will you leave for them to build or repair?
You are shaping your answer right now, as you struggle in the waves.
Focus on your surroundings – the noise, the chaos, the raging elements – and you can be swept away. Focus on your orientation – who and what you want to honor in life and in death – and you’ll have clarity and focus even when you don’t have control.
Orient yourself to the shore.
How far have you drifted? How quickly? Pull back. Simplify. Stop and remember – what really matters? Let it shape your decisions – all your tiny decisions. Right now, be the person you want others to remember. Start with finding your shoreline and swim parallel to it:
- Who do you love and value most in life? How do they know? What would they point to as daily proof that they matter?
- What kind of a human being do you want to be? Write down the values and characteristics you want to be known for, the legacy you hope to leave. How are you living right now to honor each of those values in practical, meaningful ways?
- Close your eyes. If you could strip your life down to only the things that will always matter, what would be left? How do you honor those simple things?
- What is sapping you of your focus that didn’t make any of these lists? Fighting to keep those things in your life has the power to pull you out to sea to drown. Give yourself permission to let them go.
Swim parallel to the shoreline.
Lay what’s most important to you as a lens over your life. How do you need to adjust your daily routine, your leisure choices, your social media engagement? What needs to be intentionally added, intentionally protected, intentionally eliminated to honor your most important things? When you cannot focus on anything else, this is your moment to really get intentional with building your life in a way that clearly honors, embodies, and reflects the highest you want to be.
What did you discover as you reflected on your focus? How will it impact your energy and orientation moving forward? Join the conversation!
Keep swimming. I’m cheering you on. – jo