Wow – what a difference a week makes! How are you in this coronavirus new world? I am here on this journey with you, and hope to share something helpful as you manage yourself, your life and your teams through this unknown territory.
As usual, I’ll veer away from tru-isms and platitudes. Things are really rough out there and will only get tougher for many people. How we respond is where our source of power will be.
This is why managing my mindset is my #1 focus, and it should be yours too.
Practicing good mindset is a moment by moment proposition. This isn’t something we handle once and then think ‘good, that’s done.’
Like you, I’ve lived through and survived tough times – personally and professionally. And yet with the Covid19 pandemic and flow on effects for me (given a lot of my work is face to face) my mindset can be a real cry-baby throughout the day. Sometimes, with just the smallest impetus, my mindset either catastrophises, or paralyses.
However, I know this, and I have the distinctions and tools to catch it quickly and transform it. I don’t get stuck there very often or for too long. And that’s what makes the difference.
Without this ability to rigorously guard our mindset, our thoughts run off without direction. It’s then a slippery downhill slope to drinking whisky at 11am channelling Peggy (sans makeup, jaunty scarf and ciggie) from Mad Men like this…
Instead of wrestling our mindset, kicking down that Covid19 door of impending doom, and showing up like this…
The boss of our own life that we are!!
(Apologies if you’ve never watched Mad Men and don’t get the reference, but now you have a good binge watch ahead, so you’re welcome!)
Limiting mindsets show up as the excuse or fears we immediately live into. Things like ‘My business is doomed with this economy downturn”, or “Everything’s outside my control” etc etc.
Our work now is to activate a Leaders Mindset – one that recognises the current reality and chooses the most powerful, life affirming response. A leaders mindset inspires and activates others as well.
I learned this in the field from women and men living in incredibly difficult, entrenched conditions. With hunger, poverty and resignation so prevalent, they had every reason to drift in the current of fear and uncertainty. When their mindset was mastered from I can’t to I can to We can, pathways and possibilities emerged that weren’t available before. Actions were then taken and new futures created.
Developing a leadership mindset is not positive thinking!! I can’t stress this enough. One of the key ways we can build a leadership mindset is through acknowledging our fears, concerns and worries.
It isn’t about pretending things have not changed. It’s about choosing right now how we’ll show up despite the circumstances.
