Time – Page 6 – mardihumphreys.com

You’re Asking For It

Our daughter called to tell us that a high-profile initiative she discovered and shepherded right up to the president of the international company’s office was approved. We celebrated then asked if this could lead to a promotion. She reminded us she was promoted in the last round of reviews and no one receives consecutive promotions. I suggested that may be because no one brings this level of business development to the company until now. (You expect her mother to say that, right?) Our conversation reminded me how difficult it can be to ask for promotion.

Problem

Society conditions us to believe our work should speak for itself and our employer will automatically reward us. Your manager’s job description may include developing you professionally, but they don’t have time to ask themselves, “Did my direct reports do anything promotion worthy today?” You are in charge of your future. If you’re doing next level work, you deserve promotion. Just because it’s not normal doesn’t mean you shouldn’t discuss it with your manager. You may be a catalyst for change.

Solution

Study the job description of the position you want. Do and document that next level work (especially your successes), then ask for the promotion at the appropriate time. Prepare for it by answering these questions:

Who profits from it? Promotion has to benefit your team, manager, other departments, the company, your clients, and you. What do others gain from your promotion? Leadership? Loyalty? Labor? Are other people going for this promotion? What makes you different? Do you have more: Certifications? Creativity? Connections? Be prepared to address how you’ll arrange handing off clients, working with teammates who may be jealous, and prioritizing multiple projects.

What have you done to earn it? Know the metrics by which your job performance is measured and track them weekly, quarterly, and yearly. Use this data to quickly and easily build your case. For example: How much money did you save the company? How much revenue did you bring in? How innovative is your solution to a perpetual challenge? What are your department’s KPIs?

When is the best time to ask for it? Traditionally, formal annual job performance reviews are the best time to present your case. If your company evaluates more frequently, don’t let receiving a promotion last time stop you from asking for another this time. If your company doesn’t do annual reviews, request one. You need to know at least every 365 days if you’re doing the quality of work that leads to promotion.

Why should you get it? Think of the objections your manager may raise and prepare for them. For example: Objection: No one receives consecutive promotions. Your Answer: No one brings this level of innovation to the company. Know your company’s top goals. Explain what you did to move the organization toward them using specific illustrations from your data.

How should you ask for it?

Do:

Act confident – make eye contact, sit up straight on the edge of the chair, speak in a conversational tone of voice
Control your emotions – if you feel nervous, convince yourself you’re excited
Be positive – you’re offering your manager the opportunity to shine by recognizing a rising star when they see one

Don’t:

Apologize – you aren’t imposing on your manager; your professional development is part of their job
Give your manager an out – Example: “Maybe this isn’t a good time, but…”
Play the victim – Example: “I need this promotion because (insert personal problem here)”

Result

If you receive the promotion by the end of the discussion, congratulations! But, don’t be stressed if you get a cliffhanger. It’s a good sign when your manager wants to contemplate your case instead of immediately saying no. If this happens, follow up in a week’s time. If you’re denied promotion, ask why. Is this a bad time for the company? Schedule a follow-up meeting for next quarter. Is there something lacking in your current job performance you need to work on (e.g., emotional intelligence, project management, leading a team)? Ask for projects showcasing those abilities. Do you lack the skills or certifications required for promotion? Set goals to obtain them. At the very least, this conversation makes your manager aware of your desire to contribute at a higher level.

What do you think is the most challenging aspect of asking for a promotion? Please share in the comments.

Knowing Me, Knowing You

Even though Presidents’ Day honors all U.S. presidents, we usually focus on celebrating George Washington and Abraham Lincoln; holding them up as examples of honesty and integrity. They aren’t remembered as salesmen, but wouldn’t you have to be an excellent salesperson to lead a country through war? The hallmark of a good salesperson is being known, liked, and trusted. Discussing all three would be lengthy, so let’s take the next three weeks to break them down. First up, how do we want to be known?

What They Know

Before the internet was born, consumers had to rely on a salesperson to learn about a product or service. If they were lucky, they had friends who used it and could ask them about their experiences. Even here in the digital age, recommendations, word of mouth, and reviews are the most trusted facets of marketing. In terms of information availability, we’re on a level playing field with our customers. People can quickly and easily fact check the stories marketers tell them, and they expect sincerity from everyone: big corporations, small businesses, healthcare providers, higher education, etc. Consumers don’t want to waste time listening to our sales pitch when they can go online and find out all they want to know about us with a quick search. Businesses can no longer put up a front. We can’t say we prize a certain value then behave like we don’t. Thanks to social media, there are no secrets. Customers have the power and they know it. Ignoring that fact makes us tone deaf, so our outreach should reflect our respect. People want to purchase from businesses that share their beliefs. We have to state ours in our media messaging, then live up to them every day. For example, if a company says they are earth-friendly, but 25% of their product includes petroleum-based ingredients, they will get backlash. People notice when we don’t mean what we say, and they remember when it comes time to purchase.

What We Want Them to Know

Not practicing what we preach leads not only to customers mistrusting the product, but also mistrusting the company and its employees; especially its sales force. People are smart and self-interest is obvious. They want to know the company they give their hard-earned money to is worthy of their trust, and we want to be that company. We get to know each other through conversation and connection. We need to answer the questions they aren’t necessarily asking, but we can see on their faces: Is this business ethical? Reliable? Transparent? Genuine? Honest? Does their representative seem different in person than her online presence portrays? Why does she work for this company? For example, I see people in pain and I’m driven to relieve it. The company I work for is in the IT space. Everyone has data. Eventually, managing it becomes cumbersome, especially for SMBs. My company gives me the freedom to relieve those burdens. As a result, I don’t see potential conquests. I see colleagues with challenges I can help solve.

What’s in it for me? A rising tide floats all boats. If they succeed, I do too. Am I a nice person? Yes. Do I need to make a living? Yes. Are these two goals mutually exclusive? No.

Does the public have the impression of your business you want them to have? Please share in the comments.

Still Dreaming

On Monday, January 17, 2000, all 50 states began recognizing the third Monday in January as a holiday. Most celebrate it exclusively as Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Media typically highlight one of King’s most famous speeches. We haven’t yet realized his dreams. We still have lots of work to do. My dreams revolve around the American workforce. Here are five of them.

Earnings

I dream of equal pay for equal work. The disparity we hear about most is probably the wage gap between women and men. The latest statistics I found are from 2019 when, on the average, women earned $.80 for every $1.00 earned by men. But, employees of color, employees with disabilities, and LGBTQ(IA+) employees experience even wider wage gaps. The U.S. Department of Labor has been trying to fix this since the 1960s and is still working on it; which leads me to my next dream.

Child Care

I dream of safe, dependable, economical, quality child care for every family. Since the 1950’s, the number of women entering the workforce (including mothers) began to rise steadily, peaking in 2000. The cost of living meant a significant number of families required more than one income to survive. Consequently, parents had to pay someone to watch the kids while they were at work. In 2019, around 10% of a family’s income went to pay for child care. There is plenty of research out there on this topic. Here is an insightful article about why child care is so expensive. Here is an article on why America resists universal child care.

Health Care

I dream of available, affordable, and accessible health care for all workers. I have no answers; only questions and research. Why is this so hard? Why does it cost so much? Other developed countries have figured it out, why can’t we?

Inclusion

I dream of every employee having the opportunity to not only voice their opinions, but also have them heard, acknowledged, and taken seriously. It’s time to make diversity in the workplace a given. American companies should employ genders, religions, ages, races, other-abilities, etc., at least as varied as our clients. Our companies’ workforces ought to reflect the people we serve. How can we produce relevant user experiences if we limit our knowledge to how someone like us uses our product? We need to take the next step and embrace inclusion. This goes beyond diversity. If our workplace is diverse, but only one or two group’s opinions matter, the marginalized groups will take their talents to our competition.

Work Week

I dream of workers being compensated for results instead of time. With so many of us homing from work, er, I mean, working from home; haven’t we proven the forty-hour-work week is as dead as the Wicked Witch of the East? The eight-hour workday was invented by Henry Ford in the early 1900’s to recruit talent who were used to working 12-hour days. With the availability of technology, project-based solutions, and team-based problem solving, the current model is no longer best practice. The organizations who develop compensation criteria for productivity based on results will likely attract the best workforce talent.

How would you revamp the current conditions for America’s workforce? Please share your suggestions in the comments.

Another Christmas Story

Once upon a time, December was the busiest month of the year.

Holiday parties – my husband’s work, my work, our daughter’s school
Gifts – making a list (and checking it twice), buying, wrapping, personally delivering or shipping
Christmas cards – buying, writing the end-of-year-family newsletter, addressing, buying postage, mailing
Cooking – planning the menus, making a grocery list (also checking it twice) purchasing the ingredients, cooking, serving
Decorating – pulling decorations out of storage, repairing the damaged, purchasing new
Miscellaneous traditions – driving around to see Christmas lights, baking and delivering cookies for first responders, attending Christmas Eve service

My fingers are tired from typing this. At the time it was fun. We love putting on ugly Christmas sweaters, gathering with friends and family and coworkers and celebrating the season, right? Or do we just love the idea of it? We downplay the stress of its reality. Our brains exhausted from holiday office party small talk. Our savings account spent on gifts for neighbors we barely know. Our cupboards bare from constantly replenishing the buffet at our extended family’s feast. Our vision of the perfect holiday is rarely realized since we can’t control the players, and this holiday season, there isn’t much of anything we can control.

During our first holiday season in Georgia, my husband was a worship leader, our daughter was in elementary school, and I was a teacher’s aide. By the morning of Christmas Eve, all three of us were exhausted from, well, see the list above. Working multiple Christmas Eve services, my husband was unavailable from early morning until late evening. Our daughter and I attended the first service. We grabbed tins of cookies the congregation baked for first responders on our way out. In the car, we ordered pizza before leaving the parking lot. By the time we dropped off the cookies at the firehouse located between the church and the restaurant, our pizza was waiting for us at the drive-thru. We got home and put on our jammies (it was only about 1:00PM, btw). I found White Christmas on TV. We ate pizza. We sang “Happy Birthday” to Jesus, blew out the candles on His cake, and ate slices for Him. We napped. When my husband got home, we repeated the process. We watched Christmas movies, stuffed our faces, and napped for the next 24 hours. Christmas Day ended with a drive through a local coffee shop for lattes and hot chocolate and meandering through neighboring subdivisions to look at their Christmas lights on the way back home. We did not answer the phone or check social media the entire time. It was the most relaxed the three of us had been since Thanksgiving. When the next year rolled around our daughter asked if we could do it again. I dubbed it “cocooning” and it became a tradition for the rest of our Georgia residency.

Several of our holiday activities aged out. I no longer send a year-end family newsletter. I refer everyone to social media. Email makes sending season’s greetings both quick and inexpensive. Because of COVID-19, more traditions are canceled this year and if I’m honest, I’m sorry, not sorry. We have plenty of options to cocoon. We can:

have food delivered either from our grocery to make our favorite treats, or from a local restaurant. If we order through a food delivery service, we keep a local driver employed
stream most any Christmas movie ever made
have decorations and jammies delivered from a local department store
stream holiday music playlists from our chosen service
send a cookie gift basket to our nearest firehouse through a local bakery
watch our church’s Christmas Eve service on their website
make our own lattes and hot chocolate and tour neighborhood Christmas light displays from our couch thanks to YouTube (For my Dayton, Ohio friends, you can see the old Rike’s holiday windows virtually)

This global crisis has given us a holiday gift: a reason to celebrate small. Do you usually:

travel 312 miles to stay with the in-laws? Can’t this year; COVID
spend hundreds of dollars on gifts? Can’t this year; COVID
attend your partner’s office holiday party? Can’t this year; COVID.

The pandemic has taken people we love, employment we need, and freedoms we cherish away from us. But, it has given us a reason to stop, be grateful for what we still have, and act on it. Let’s celebrate through our words and (maybe virtual) presence the people we’ve leaned on, both personally and professionally, to get through 2020. Isn’t that the essence of the holidays? Making sure people know how much we appreciate them?

How are you adjusting your holiday celebrations this year? Please share in the comments.

Gratitude Works

Thanksgiving is the time of year we discuss gratitude, but 90% of Americans started talking about it a few weeks into the quarantine as a way to fight stress. COVID-19 has given us plenty of time to think. If we dwell on what we’ve lost instead of what we’re grateful for, we’ll get depressed. Research indicates practicing gratitude has physical health benefits like better sleep, a stronger immune system, and lower blood pressure. It also benefits the health of your business.

With a Bit of a Mind Flip

Pre-COVID-19, gratitude in your workplace may have looked like Free Doughnut Fridays, employee of the month awards, or celebratory team lunches at the country club. Those are nice, but they don’t inspire company loyalty. Historically, work is a place for competition. Everyone battling for the same promotion or the biggest percentage of the limited raise pool. Would it surprise you to learn the key to retaining talented people is expressing gratitude, exhibiting patience, and excusing mistakes? When these habits are ingrained in a company’s culture and practiced by everyone from the C-Suite on down, they create a place where employees want to work. Why should you thank someone for what they’re paid to do? Studies indicate employees who feel valued are not only more productive, but also support the company’s goals. Gratitude reinforces trust. It bonds teams and reduces employee burnout which are especially important right now during the pandemic. Expressing gratitude is not only good for the person receiving appreciation, but also for the person giving it. Using positive words, recognizing a coworker for their contribution, or thanking a direct report’s effort, alters the mindset of the praise giver. You feel good when you see you’ve made someone else feel good.

I Have to Praise You Like I Should

The holiday season is a logical time to begin the habit of a company-wide gratitude practice, but don’t stop January 2. Put triggers in place to keep it going throughout the new year. Gratitude isn’t a feeling, it’s an action, so you must choose to express it and can give it anytime. The key is consistency. Think about putting someone in charge of identifying employees who deserve recognition and determining how they should receive it. For example, if an individual contributor is shy, putting him on speaker view at the company-wide teleconference to thank him may backfire. Being the center of attention may embarrass instead of appreciate him. Something else to consider: it’s logical to praise success, but you can be grateful for failure too. Every failed iteration of your process brings you closer to the solution. This allows you to thank team members for their soft skills (e.g., patience, perseverance), as well as their job performance. It’s work to give sincere thanks and make sure everyone is included, but the ROI can be huge. An employee who feels appreciated does more than the bare minimum her job requires.

COVID-19 Era Gratitude Suggestions:

Thank you emails – to individual contributors from their managers
Thankful Thursdays – managers send reminders to individual contributors to thank a team mate for something they helped with this week
Begin 1:1s with something you appreciate (e.g., unique insights, positive attitude, critical thinking, sense of humor) this can come from either the manager or the individual contributor
Create a page on the company’s website devoted to staff thanking each other

How does your company thank its employees? Please tell us about it in the comments section.

What Are You Afraid Of?

Photo by Gantas Vaičiulėnas from Pexels

There’s an old adage: if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room. When it comes to work, let’s just say, I’m in the correct Zoom room A LOT. I like to think it’s just a diversity of gifts. My coworkers bring the technical knowledge necessary for building solutions and I bring them challenges to solve. But every little mistake I make feeds a low grade lack of confidence and makes me wonder, “What if I fail?”

When the thought occurs, I have to stop and remind myself that everyone fails. In fact, failure is a necessary step to success. If I approach projects with curiosity, seek to understand, and demonstrate I’m both listening and learning; then failure becomes part of the problem-solving process. It can even help bond the team. Failure presents opportunity to highlight everyone’s unique roles and particular skill sets. This allows me to frame failures as experiments I need the team’s talents to finish. We can analyze where things went wrong, gather data, and move on. We want to fail fast, forward, and with feedback. Not every piece of code is written correctly the first time. It’s why development, staging, and production environments exist. Development and staging are places designed for experimenting, testing, and failing before putting the final solution into production. This method doesn’t have to be used exclusively for software development. It can apply to any project team.

Development: This is the brainstorming phase. Wacky ideas are welcome in this no-judgement-allowed preliminary formation of plans. Blue sky thinking happens here. At this point, we know where the client is and where he wants to go. Now, we figure out how to get him there. Everyone is encouraged to contribute then go test their ideas on their own. Think proof of concept.

Staging: This is the evaluation phase. Still a no-judgement zone, everyone brings their idea that passed testing and combines it with everyone else’s bit; much like connecting to a network. The results of wacky-ideas testing are discussed. Would this idea actually work? Do we have the necessary resources to make it happen? The team looks for obstacles to the solution’s success and adjustments are made. Will the client be able to afford this? Does an off-the-shelf solution already exist? Think prototype.

Production: The individual experiments have been combined, vetted, tested, run, and are ready to present to the client as a solution or at least a road map. Think demonstration, or, if more fully evolved, think deliverable.

This approach produces more ideas and more solutions more quickly. Business moves at the speed of trust. If we create a safe environment in which to fail, it not only saves time, but also creates a more compassionate, patient, and bonded team. Embracing failure can turn smart people into leaders, mentors, and coaches who will help the team build sustainable trust. Shifting to this mindset frees us from the fear of failure. It inspires us to use failure as a tool and puts us in the same category as Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers, and Sara Blakely. Talk about great company to be in!

What tricks do you use to get over your fear of failure? Please share in the comments section.

Tick Tock Your Life is a Clock

You don’t have to make sweeping changes to the way you work to be more productive. COVID-19 has already brought sweeping changes to the way you work. Whether you are back in the office or still remote, little tweaks to your processes can have big results by the end of the week.

Concentrate

Multitasking is a myth. Even if you only spend five minutes concentrating on one task, you’ll get it done faster. You can’t prevent interruptions, but you can minimize distractions like silencing your phone and putting it out of reach so you can’t hear the social media notifications going off. Be proactive and don’t instantly react. Let the phone call go to voicemail. Let the email that just arrived sit in the inbox. Refuse the ad hoc meeting. Turn off instant message. Mute the computer. Are you a procrastinator? If your manager does not do regular accountability meetings, assign yourself project deadlines and write up your own weekly status reports. Take the last half hour of the day to determine what can be put off until tomorrow. The list should be both specific and realistic. For example: achieving inbox zero is not an acceptable task. Return Boss’s email regarding corporate holiday gifts, is. Calendar tasks that are important, but not urgent for times in your day you can count on having a quiet space in which to work.

Control

Most of us are really bad at estimating the passage of time. Keep track of how much you actually spend on tasks, including checking social media. An app may help. If the task is something you can do in less than five minutes, do it. Is there a task you’ve been dreading? Do it first and get it over with. When you receive a meeting request, ask yourself if your presence is necessary. Can you request an email summary or delegate someone else to attend? Speaking of email, most of it is someone adding a task to our list. Check your inbox at regular intervals. (Because you’ve muted the notification, right?) As soon as you log on, reply to every message that takes no more than two minutes to answer. If the message takes longer, write a rough draft, but don’t send it. A couple of hours later, refine it, and send it if you’re satisfied, then, repeat the process with the emails that arrived during that time. Schedule tasks according to when you feel most alert. Do deep work when you have the most brain power and routine tasks when you have the least.Take a break. Get up and stretch, walk around the block, or check social media. Change your scenery. Going outside or even just to a different room can boost your productivity.

You will get distracted and you will get mad at yourself for it. Forgive yourself and move on. Don’t overthink. Complete is greater than perfect. Do it. Leave it. Return to it. When all you’re changing are nitpicky details, submit it.

What are your productivity tips? Please share them in the comments section.

The Right Blend

When I purchase a coffee mug, it has to meet very specific requirements. It must hold (about) eight fluid ounces, be dishwasher and microwave safe, have a large(ish) handle, designed on both sides, and fit on my mug warmer. Building a project team is a lot like looking for the perfect coffee mug.

The Right Size

If my mug is too large, the coffee gets cold before I can drink it all. If it’s too small, I spend too much time refilling it. Likewise, if the team is too large, we have too many voices, opinions, and egos to manage. If it’s too small, we don’t have enough diversity of thought. We need various races, genders, ages, etc. represented on our teams.

Dishwasher and Microwave Safe

I’m not hand washing coffee mugs and I need to be able to reheat my coffee once it’s in the mug. Team meetings can be like dishwashers and microwave ovens; they can get hot. Meetings are for discussion and debate. When someone presents a concept, they are both invested in it, and in a vulnerable position presenting it. Rudely shooting it down (or not stepping in when a coworker does) is not an option if we want that team member to keep bringing ideas to meetings. Establishing a rule for kind and constructive feedback at the first meeting can create an environment where the team feels safe sharing.

A Handle on it

I need fairly large handles on my coffee mugs so I can control them. I need teammates with fairly large handles on their emotions for the same reason. Work can be a pressure cooker. Shouting, blame-shifting, and gossip are counter productive to problem solving. When we choose team members, we should consider people who have demonstrated emotional intelligence.

Designed on Both Sides

I like a mug that looks the same no matter which hand I hold it in. If it doesn’t, it feels unbalanced. A team should also be designed for balance. Consistently communicating goals and KPIs helps. In other words, where are we going, how are we getting there, and when do we know we’ve arrived? We not only need a communication loop with our teams, but they also need to communicate with each other. Well-designed communication includes plenty of modes for interaction: in person, teleconference, phone calls, texts, emails; and not just about the task at hand. Making time to find out more about each team member, (maybe an ice breaker to begin a team meeting, or a casual team lunch off site, or a team virtual coffee talk) bonds the team. We want the people we like to succeed. It makes sense to like the people on our team.

Fits the Warmer

When choosing a new coffee mug, the bottom must be less than 3 1/4” in diameter so it fits my mug warmer. When assembling a team, the people must fit the work and each other. What is the job description? What skills do our current teammates possess? What skills do we need? What temperaments need balanced? Is the team diverse? We should assess the culture and look for someone who will not only be comfortable in it, but contribute to it.

A good team, like a good coffee mug, meets the goals we’ve set and if we take care of it, can last for years.

What’s your framework for building a good team? Please share in the comments section.

Remember the Future

I discovered Chronesthesia while listening to Adam Grant’s WorkLife podcast. He interviewed Astronaut Scott Kelly who used it to deal with living at the International Space Station for 340 days. Grant described how it can help us cope with both living and working at home during COVID-19. Here is the article Grant wrote about Mr Kelly. It goes into more detail than the podcast episode. Chronesthesia was first proposed by Endel Tulving in 1985. It’s the concept of mental time travel. Now that we’ve lived in this pandemic over four months, it seems like a good time to acquire this skill.

What Is It?

Chronesthesia is the theory our brains are constantly aware of the past and future simultaneously. It combines episodic memory and mental time travel. Episodic memory is linked to time and provides data from our past. Mental time travel is the ability to use past events to conceptualize future events.

How Does It Work?

Like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland who remembered the future, Chronesthesia involves two sets of processes. One set pertains to space: the who, what, and where of an incident. (E.g., we remember eating lunch yesterday: what we ate, where we ate it, whom we were with) The other set of processes pertains to time: the when. (E.g., did we eat lunch, yesterday, today, or tomorrow?) Chronesthesia theorizes the second set of processes is subjective. It’s mental time unmeasured by clocks or calendars. Consequently, our brains can travel in it and use it to shape our futures.

What Can Happen When We Try It?

Cons:

Worry – Chronesthesia offers plenty of opportunity to dwell on the negative. For example, looking forward to traveling to Orlando, Florida for vacation, but worrying about catching COVID-19 because it’s a hot spot.

Frustration – Our visualization may not be flexible enough. For example, a client agreed to an in-person brainstorming session. We mentally rehearse for a week prior. We see ourselves at a whiteboard using a rainbow of dry erase markers. At the last minute, the client wants to switch to a teleconference.

Overthink – Pondering what could happen denies the pleasure of living in the moment. For example, fretting over the pipeline instead of celebrating a finished project.

Pros:

Adjusting – We can learn from the past and use that knowledge to change future behavior. For example, if we know a coworker gossiped about us last week, we’ll be very careful what we say in front of him today.

Marketing – Remembering the future is great for storytelling. For example, recall how your company helped a client. List the facts, their problem, and your solution. Then, think about the result. How did it make the client feel? Tell their story in a case study. Attach the positive emotions they felt to what you can do for future clients.

Goal Setting – Chronesthesia is a natural exercise for setting goals. For example, your career isn’t going the way you want. Travel back in your memory. Was there a project/client/offer you turned down that negatively altered your career’s trajectory? Think about why you turned it down. Imagine accepting that offer instead. What would the work be like? What skills/certifications/contacts would you need to succeed? Set S.M.A.R.T. goals to get them. Envision yourself achieving those goals.

What memories can you project into the future to help you keep moving your career forward during this pandemic? Please share in the comments section.

Control is an Illusion

For many of us, it’s a long holiday weekend to celebrate Independence Day. But thanks to COVID-19, I don’t feel very independent. I walk out the door then stop to make sure I have my mask. Before setting an appointment for a one-on-one, I have to call coffee shops and ask if they allow indoor seating. To go to the office, or not to go to the office; that is the question. Maybe I should take some time between Hamilton viewings to reflect, reality check, remaster, and renew.

Reflect

Gratitude is my default setting for pulling out of rumination. I keep a gratitude journal and write in it as part of my morning routine. I record one thing I’m grateful for from the previous day. When I start down the rabbit hole of feeling sorry for myself, I pull out the gratitude journal to snap out of it. I habitually focus on my goal and ignore the journey I’m on to reach it. Achieving the goal is fabulous, but wisdom comes from what I do daily to accomplish it.

Reality Check

Have you seen a bunch of memes on your social media feeds that say the most useless purchase of 2019 was a 2020 planner? It’s funny because it’s true. The goals we set at the beginning of this year are mostly impractical now. Yet, we beat ourselves up for not being on track to reach them. For example, my company planned to grow our new division this year. We’re having difficulty getting traction and I blamed myself. So, I turned to my best networking friends for a reality check. I felt better when they validated business is slow for everyone. This prompted me to refocus my outreach. What are my clients’ biggest needs right now? Can I provide a resource for them even if it’s not my company? If I can help my community get through the pandemic, then they will still be around to talk business post COVID-19.

Remaster

Much like a rock band re-recording an old hit song to improve its quality, let’s revise our yearly goals. We can break them down into smaller goals to help us stay motivated. We can concentrate on short term goals. (E.g., ask ourselves, “What is one thing I can I do today?”) We can break our revised goals down into actionable steps and calendar them so we’re triggered to action. When contemplating a new goal, we should ask ourselves,“Is this reasonable during COVID-19?” We can track our efforts (you know I’ll use any excuse to start a spreadsheet) and review them after Q3. We can identify someone willing to be an accountability partner and check in with each other weekly for progress reports.

Renew

Surviving COVID-19 is a marathon. Small daily acts of self-care (take a walk, read an article, listen to a podcast) can be rewards for taking another step toward our goals. Setbacks feel more painful right now, but let’s hold on, keep trying, and support one another.

How are you reflecting on the first half of 2020 and preparing for the second? Please share your ideas in the comments section.