Wise Wednesdays

My good friend James is a lead scientist at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research. They’re the first to get warnings of catastrophic weather events. It’s a high pressure environment and tough psychologically. But like any frontline scientist or clinician you have to be detached. Not everyone can or even wants do this work. Some of his top performing colleagues left to do completely different jobs even though they loved the work – they burned out.   I asked him what helped him stay the course.   He said this: one day I realised I was meant to be here and stopped trying to prove myself. What does that mean? He still works hard and loves his work. But he doesn’t add to the already enormous pressure to continuously generate ideas, bring in funding and advise government and insurance companies. He approaches it as a marathon rather than a spring. That mindset means his life feels more balanced and his career is sustainable. As you may know, the feeling of having to prove ...

  Time needs more love. We talk about it, plan it, measure it and make judgements about whether we have enough or not. We think we can control it somehow. But it wasn’t always like that. Our ancestors looked to the seasons to organise their work and functioned beautifully without knowing exactly what hour of the day it was or which year they were born. When I was at school, we’d write down both solar and lunar year dates on the blackboard. It turns out about 40 calendars remain in use in the world today. For example, the Berber calendar (I’m half Berber) which celebrates its New Year today – Happy 2972! Photo: Posing in Berber outfit - Algeria, many moons ago. With the industrial revolution, factory owners tried to make everything into an efficient process and time was turned into a stick to squeeze more work from everyone and everything = the extraction of value. It’s an unfortunate cultural shift that now fuels the epidemic of burnout and other discontents in organisations and b...

Reflecting on coaching conversations this past month brought me to a conclusion: we believe in guilt too much. Guilt says: You should be doing more/better/faster. What you’re doing is not enough!   And while sometimes that’s true…   …most of the time it’s not.   Distinguishing which one is wisdom. But there’s a catch 22… To discern the true message behind guilt, you need to take time to slow down and reflect on it.   But then you feel guilty for taking time and don't go deep enough!   And then you get stuck in a cycle that you might call “procrastination” or “laziness” or look for hacks to “beat procrastination” (which can be sensible).   This is particularly the case around the holidays when there’s a collective permission to pause. You might wonder if it’s OK to pause, how long to pause for and when to get going again…   Your intuition (and body) might want more rest but guilt says: No!   So what can you do?   In 2019, I remember worrying t...