Who's driving the vehicle? 🚗 🚙
To what extent are your current decisions being driven by fear and anxiety? How do you recognize it?
When you are disrupted into a state of anxiety, and especially one of survival, your nervous system naturally redistributes your resources into those functions needed to react quickly. These tend to be the physiological changes that prime your body for movement (e.g., fight or flee) or to conserve energy (e.g., disconnect and shut down).
In either case, the valuable functions of critical thinking, creativity, and communicating effectively become much more difficult to access. Problem-solving capacity takes a hit as well.
In a recent closing session, a client described how transformative the shift from reacting to responding has been in her life.
She expressed feeling proud of how she's been handling stressful situations. She noted how this has strengthened her relationships as well as her optimism and faith that things will work out. She described the clarity, even under stress, to focus on what she can control rather than how others are acting.
Her smile and confident posture mirrored what she was saying.
It's not that struggles are absent from her life...it's that she feels more secure and calm in navigating through the storms with trust in her abilities and her intuition.
She recognizes and responds to what she needs in the moment and she makes better decisions as a result.
If you're like most people I know, you'd love to feel this way more often, too.
Yet, when uncertainty, anxiety, or fear grab the wheel, it's difficult not to react with a matching urgency. And in this world of wars, oppression, and injustice along with financial pressures, career decisions, and worries about the safety and health of your loved ones, it's hard to keep a steady hand on the wheel when fear reaches in.
Knowing how your body feels when you are calm, clear, and confident provides a valuable tool to recognize the early signs of burnout, compassion fatigue, and dysregulation, and respond rather than react.
This was how my conversation started with Maria Ross, host of The Empathy Edge podcast. From there we dove into the ways in which empathy and compassion support solid decisions, constructive communication on hard topics, and effective, sustainable leadership. We talked about the role of emotions and psychological safety and how they benefit both employees and organizations.
At the end of our interview, Maria asked me to share a couple top tips for leaders in the current environment... can you guess what topped the list? 😉
Recognize that taking care of yourself is an absolutely essential part of how you show up to take care of the people and causes you care so much about.
You are the tool. There is nothing else.
Disrupt the isolation of leadership through support and connection.
What would you add?
And, importantly, how are you doing at prioritizing your wellbeing?
You matter. You make a difference. I'm so thankful you're here.
