Habits & Rituals

How Do You Think About Socks?

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One of the best pieces of advice I got when I first got married was:  “Treat socks as disposable.”

This advice worked well for years for me. I did not get upset when our socks wore out or got lost and it gave me permission to purge orphaned socks on a regular basis.

Then my youngest daughter became obsessed with high quality socks and the obsession spread to the rest of the family. I am now willing to spend more for a good pair of socks than almost any other article of clothing. This is because I am extremely frugal and buy most of my clothes at consignment shops or on clearance.

As the cost of our socks increased, I became less willing to treat them as disposable and became frustrated when expensive socks would wear out quickly or get lost. I have had a couple pair of Darn Tough socks that are over a decade old that I wear several times a week. And Darn Tough offers a life-time warranty on their socks. Now, I only buy Darn Tough socks.

This was a complete shift from how I thought about socks. I am willing to pay a lot of money for comfortable, long-lasting socks.

As our socks have become more permanent, I am now faced with the dilemma of what to do when a single sock goes missing. I just realized that I could easily get rid of my frustration if I gave up on the idea that our socks need to match.

When our attitude about something changes, a behavioral shift is imminent. It’s harder to “live and let go” when you are putting more time, effort or money into something. Rather than dwelling on a problem you can’t fix (like finding a missing sock), get creative with how you face the dilemma and allow yourself grace in the process.

How do you think about socks?

Resetting for a New Year

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Hand turns dice and changes the expression “old habits” to “new habits”.

Instead of creating new year’s resolutions, I use many of the tools that I have written about to imagine the best possible outcome for the coming year and to examine my habits to see if I need to adjust them to live my imagined story.   

The first step in creating a new story for myself is reflecting on the last year. I do this by journaling and allowing myself as much time as I need to process and record what I have learned over the previous year. 

The second step is to write a Positive Intention where I describe in past tense the most positive and successful year I could imagine. 

The final step is to identify any habit changes I want to make. For this year, I want to: 

  • Enhance is my ability to Focus and Finish.  For me, this means being fully present and attentive to whatever task I am doing.  As I imagined what this would look like if I was successful, it would mean that every person I interacted with would feel seen, I would limit my Work in Progress (WIP) to 1, and I would only do activities that couldn’t be effectively delegated to someone else. As I get better at Focusing and Finishing, both my professional and personal life will be transformed. 
  • Read something spiritual each night before I go to sleep. I will use a checklist that I leave on my nightstand to track my progress. My husband teases me that I get endorphins from checking things off a list, so this method of tracking should help me add this step to my nighttime routine. 
  • Re-establish my weekly blog. I stopped writing my blog when I took a medical leave last September and gave myself the time I needed to recover. Over the break, I thought long and hard about a process that would help me and my amazing communication team do this more effectively.  I hope it works! 

This process is based on what I have found to be effective and works for me.  

How do you reset for a new year? 

Turning Off the Zoom Mirror

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It has been almost two and a half years since the start of the pandemic and the permanent shift to a more virtual world. The shift to meetings over Zoom and Microsoft Teams has increased efficiency and allowed much needed flexibility. However, there is still room for improvement when it comes to potential distractions during virtual meetings.

In my weekly check-in with Dawan Stanford, Director of Innovation and Design in the Office of Academic Affairs, he referenced a Harvard Business Review article stating that looking at yourself on Zoom was cognitively taxing. He shared that he had found success removing his own image from the video feed to focus on the other meeting participants.

He informed me that it is extremely easy to hide yourself in both Zoom and Teams. The ellipses (…) on you picture in both applications allows you to turn off the mirror, so that others see you while you do not see yourself. I immediately decided to turn off the Zoom/Team mirror as an experiment to see whether it made a difference in how tired I felt at the end of the day and how engaged I was during meetings.

It was a resounding success for me. I know that I am at my best when I am focusing on others rather than myself. What I discovered was that having the video of myself on during meetings shifted my focus to myself. I was constantly checking in to see how I looked and was worried about how others perceived me. Turning off that virtual mirror more closely simulated being in person, where you can’t see yourself.

I looked up the HBR article on How to Combat Zoom Fatique and there were several other suggestions like having agreements about when to turn off your camera during meetings and going for walk-and-talks without video.

I would encourage you to see if turning off the Zoom mirror helps you, and would love to hear about other things that help you focus on others and manage your energy.

Discomfort Helps Us Grow

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Woman gardening

Examining the stories we tell ourselves has been one of the themes that I have found in many of the most effective leadership tools. As humans, we instinctively create explanations (stories) that reconcile what we are seeing (facts) to what we are feeling (emotions).  This happens so instantaneously, that it is unclear whether the stories create our emotions or if our emotions create our stories.

For many years, I avoided talking about emotions, thinking that they just needed to be managed or ignored. I am coming to see emotions as clues that can help me know when I need to examine my stories, assumptions and core beliefs. This is especially important when I am uncomfortable and feel ungrounded in some way.

When I am uncomfortable, I often find myself looking for someone to blame for my feelings of discomfort, and often I blame myself. My experience is that this is untrue, unhelpful, ineffective, and completely normal and human.

What I know is that my feelings of discomfort are about me, not about the situation that I am facing; I create my own suffering. Recognizing that gives me back my power and points me to doing my own work to understand myself. This is the deep work that each of us must do ourselves if we want to transform and grow.

For me, discomfort can mean many things. It might mean that I am avoiding a conversation that I need to have with someone on my team. It may mean that I am hangry and need to get some healthy food. It may mean that I am tired and need better sleep. It may mean that I am feeling self-doubt and fear of my own failure and need to focus on serving others.

Instead of viewing discomfort as something bad that I need to end as soon as possible, I know that it is temporary and a clue to helping me figure out the best path forward. How do you deal with discomfort?

Finding The Right Tool

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Image of tools hanging on a wall

I love tools and am constantly looking for resources that help me do things more efficiently in every part of my life. My husband teases me that I have used the chop saw I bought him as a gift more than he has. At work, my quest has been for tools to help me manage change. This ultimately led me to tools that helped me grow as a leader because I learned that WHO I AM is my most powerful organizational change tool.

I believe that all of us are leaders if we choose to be. At a minimum, we are the leaders of our own lives. You choose to be a leader when you step up to improve the world around you.

I am just starting to dig into a tool that I am really excited about because I have found that in my new role, I don’t have the right tool right now for the level of complexity and ambiguity. The tool is a book called Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization by Kegan  and Lahey. The adult development model described in the book has already helped me. I am planning on doing all the exercises in the book for my own development and growth.

 

Here is the short list of other tools and why they have been so instrumental in my own leadership journey.

What tools have you found to be helpful in your leadership journey?

The Power of Meditation

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I recently took part in a leadership panel with three fellow CIOs and the last question we received was, “What is something you wish you would have known when you were younger?” My answer was different than the others and probably unexpected. I said that I wish I had practiced meditation earlier in my life because it has made me a better leader and person.

I started meditation about ten years ago when a friend sent me a link to a 21-day meditation by Oprah and Deepak and asked me to do it with her. I didn’t imagine how important committing to a 21-day program would be fulfilling my dreams personally and professionally.

Both of us really enjoyed the messages and the practice and noticed an immediate difference in how much better our days went when we did meditation. I have meditated almost every day for more than a decade.

The 20 minutes I dedicate each day to guided meditation helps me practice being fully present in the moment and helps stop my racing mind. Each day is different, and some days are better than others. But the consistency and focus on improving have remained over the years. Meditation has helped me to better examine my narrative, generate insights, and recenter myself for the purpose of developing positive leaders and organizations. It has changed my brain, my life, and the energy that I bring to the world.

Because meditation has been so helpful for me, I serve on the board of Inner Strength Education, a non-profit organization in Philadelphia that has taught mindfulness to more than 16,000 high school students. I would challenge you to try it. Inner Strength developed a mobile app, VIBE, that might be helpful to you to learn about mindfulness and try different types of meditations.

What has been your experience with mediation?

The Power of Consistency

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Since the change to daylight savings time two weeks ago, I have been exhausted. It took me almost two weeks to realize that while I had shifted my wake-up time to match the new time, I had not changed when I was going to bed. That meant that I lost 14 hours of sleep over two weeks. The effect was cumulative and noticeable.

Once I noticed that pattern, I committed myself to starting my bedtime routine an hour earlier. Of course, I have not done it perfectly, but I have gone to bed earlier in the few days since I made that commitment, and I feel better rested and focused.

The impact of small consistent changes over time must not be underestimated. It is the most effective way to move us forward.

One of my favorite books is The Power of Story by Jim Loehr, which talks about how energy is the foundation of excellence for individuals and organizations. First, we create habits to save energy. Being aware enough to understand whether our habits are undermining our energy and goals is the first step. The second is making a small adjustment to move us toward our ultimate goals.

This ability to make small, consistent changes is a superpower each of us can develop. What minor changes have you made that have had an enormous impact? What minor changes can you make this week to move you and your team toward your goals?

Fighting Fatigue: Stop, Collaborate and Listen

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The last few weeks have been tough for me. I felt like I was slogging through and not making much progress on several fronts. Part of the reason that I write this blog is to self-reflect and check in to see if I am being the leader that I want to be. When I checked in for the last several weeks, I was not feeling like an incredibly positive leader and instead of forcing it, I did not write any blogs. 

Last week, as I was preparing to teach a leadership class about energy and habits, Jenna Price shared concerns that she had been hearing from the group about the overwhelm they and their teams were feeling. She also shared a link to this video(link is external) about managing ourselves so we can creatively solve problems. Both were so helpful! I developed an exercise so that the leaders could identify the root causes for why they felt overwhelmed. And before we did the exercise in the training session, we watched the video(link is external) that Jenna shared.

This experience of co-creating the training and then using the training session to co-create solutions reminded me that so many people want to help and contribute their amazing insights, skills and passion. Unleashing that potential was so much fun and made me very happy. 

The next time you feel like you are slogging through, how can you invite others to co-create solutions with you? 

Shift Your Focus from Fear to Freedom

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I recently visited my son and his wife, and each night we played a new board game. It was so much fun! One of the reasons that I was able to enjoy playing so much was that I didn’t expect to win (or fear losing) because I was focused on learning a new game each night. 

I was able to contrast that feeling of fun and freedom I experienced learning and playing board games with the feelings I experienced attending a couple of Ohio State basketball games recently. The team struggled in both games, losing one and winning the second in overtime.

I recall being extremely distressed during both games, which I attended with the intention of having fun. As I analyzed why I was distressed, it became clear that I wanted to be associated with a winning team and had tied the outcome of the game with my own self-worth. Any sports fanatic would be able to relate. 

So much of my sense of fun and enjoyment comes from learning new things, meeting new people and solving new problems. It’s easy to feel this way when I am new to a job or situation, but that fun can turn into distress when the things that are being criticized are things that I had a hand in creating because they are tied to my sense of self. 

This insight is helpful to me in two distinct ways. First, it gives me empathy for the people who created the things I am trying to change. Second, when I feel distressed, it becomes a cue for me to change my focus from myself to the impact I want to have on others. It is an opportunity for me to move from fear to freedom.  

What gives you a sense of fun and play? What causes you distress? How can you use your distress as a clue to change your mental habits? 

Desperately Seeking Friends and Endorphins

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My husband claims that I get endorphins from checking things off my to-do list. In the last couple of weeks, however, I have felt exhausted as I have been running at full speed trying to check things off my list. Even exercising, something that I normally love to do, was feeling like a burden or obligation rather than fun and energizing.

I was grateful for the recent winter storm because it forced me to stay home for a couple of days and gave me time to relax and reflect on why I was feeling so exhausted. When it came to my exercise fatigue, I realized that not having friends to workout with was at the core of my exhaustion.

I am an avid exerciser and have cemented friendships through physical activity. My best friend is someone I walked with almost every day for over a decade. I have made friends in new places by joining a local cycling club.

The pandemic, a recent move, and winter have all made finding friends to exercise with difficult. Knowing this is the root of my exhaustion has helped me feel better because I know this is solvable. I am now starting to think of opportunities to combine finding friends with my exercise. Can I invite an acquaintance to walk or cross-country ski with me? Can I find a new exercise class or gym that is more social than what I am doing now?

Thankfully, we have a trip planned to go skiing with my son and his wife. Again, combining exercise with spending time with people I love.

For me, understanding what motivates and energizes me is helpful so that I can take better care of myself.

What reenergizes you?