Giving Back - Corporate Wellness

Dance: One of my non-corporate passions!

I find my corporate life challenging, but I'm sure I'm not the only person who has other passions that aren't currently being applied to my core job.  

To give myself the chance to explore and grow in these areas, I try to find outlets to do what I love by giving back to the workplace community in the hopes that this will help my colleagues improve their own lives and perhaps contribute to others within and without the corporate realm.  

To do this, I volunteer my time as a faculty member of Google's internal education team, teaching courses on leadership, project management, and time and energy management. I am also a contributing writer for the company's internal health and wellness program, Optimize Your Life. Recently, I was named "Wellness Champion"!  

Below is the piece that ran in the monthly newsletter. Although it mentions a specific company, what I discuss below is applicable to anybody, anywhere. I hope that by taking a moment to read this, you'll 1) be reminded of what's most important in your life, and 2) think about how you can give these elements the attention they deserve.


This month’s wellness champion is Susan Lin! 

Susan has penned many articles  related to stress management for Optimize Your Life What motivates you to write articles for OYL?
As Googlers, we tend to be passionate about our jobs and everything we do in our lives; the commitment we bring to each is a wonderful thing.  However, the demands of our jobs, family, and other responsibilities can place a lot of pressure on us and we're constantly faced with decisions and tradeoffs.  

I've thought a lot about how to enable ourselves to do all the things we want to do while staying sane and even feeling empowered, while negotiating everything that demands our time and energy.  I'm always excited about sharing any insights and tips that have worked for me and for others, and OYL is the perfect platform through which to reach and hopefully help fellow Googlers!   

How did you become interested in emotional health?
Life can throw so many curveballs and it all comes down to how you deal with those ups and downs.  I've always tried to turn to myself to see how I can be stronger during times of challenge or hardship, and in the process learned that 1) a great deal is actually within your control, and 2) it's okay to ask for help!  

In other words, our peace and happiness levels are in large part determined by our own perspectives; it can be difficult (or impossible) to change other people or our surroundings in any given moment, but we can work with ourselves.  And sometimes, we need the support of others to help us figure things out.  This combination of strength and vulnerability is key, and I've been exploring how this can work in various situations to help us lead more balanced and happy lives.  

What is your vision for health (specifically emotional health) at Google?
I see Googlers who are passionate about their jobs and who allocate enough time and energy towards the things that are important to them: self, health, and family.  Work is important, but not at the total expense of these other elements.  

This means time at Google, whether at work or sweating it out at a G-Fit class, and time away from Google with friends and family, or doing whatever makes you happy.  That's what helps make an engaged and productive Googler.  It's that constant desire to achieve the right balance in life so that we feel refreshed and ready to tackle those stretch OKRs (goals) when it's time to work.  

If anything in my articles can help people make even a tiny bit of progress towards this balance, that will be the greatest reward I can hope for.

When Conversations Get Stressful - A Tough Look at Ourselves

Stressed Kitty is ... stressed! (Google Image Search)

We face a number of tough but important conversations in our everyday lives, not least of which involve the workplace and also our family members.  What’s different about these conversations is that if they aren’t handled well, the results could mean prolonged misconceptions, rifts in your relationships, and missed opportunities at breaking new ground in mutual understanding and collaboration.  These are what the three authors of Crucial Conversations: Tools For Talking When Stakes Are High discuss in this fascinating and useful book.  

I haven’t finished the book yet (I am giving myself time to absorb and re-read certain sections) but I want to focus on one of the earlier chapters “Learn to Look”, as it discusses the different styles we tend to exhibit when a crucial conversation is entered and we feel we can’t reasonably share our views without a sense of safety.  Most important, this serves as a guide for us to figure out what style we use when we’re under stress.  It’s one thing to be thinking rationally when we’re fully in control of ourselves, but it can be quite different when emotions run high!  

I thought I’d plunge right in, make myself vulnerable, and take a tough look at what I do when I feel trapped and frustrated in an important conversation.  By doing this, I hoped I could break my behavior down into elements and figure out how to overcome whatever cycle I tend to fall into.

There are two major types of behavior outlined by the authors:

• Silence - we clam up and withhold information in an attempt to avoid potential problems.  Three common types of Silence behaviors:
• Masking - trying to share our point of view but undercutting ourselves through sugarcoating or couching
• Avoiding - not bringing up the real problems that need to be discussed
• Withdrawing - walking away altogether

• Violence - we try to force our perspective and information onto others in an attempt to compel people to take your view.  The three common forms:
• Controlling - forcing the conversation to our point of view through various verbal tactics
• Labeling - stereotyping people or ideas for easy dismissal
• Attacking - starting to threaten others if they won’t come around to our ideas

I won’t go into details on the Violence portion, since I fall squarely into the Silence behavior when experiencing stress.  (For more, check out the book!)

The Analysis
When reading about the different elements, I thought about myself at work.  I tend not to exhibit Silence behaviors in my personal life, probably since I tend to feel more in control of myself and the environment, and I also know the people I interact with on a much deeper level.  Although the topics discussed can be very difficult, I feel quite comfortable here.  I usually do fine when I am coaching direct reports or colleagues at the workplace on sticky issues, although I did learn something I can be doing better - more on that shortly.

When I am in conversations with my superiors or high level stakeholders crucial to one of my projects, it’s not the same picture!  It’s painful to admit, but I can recall situations where I’ve exhibited all three types of Silence behaviors:

• I’ve postponed or even canceled meetings with people I’ve had problems getting on the same page with to avoid contact until I felt I'd developed a stronger argument/done more research (Withdrawing).
• I’ve put off returning phone calls and emails because I didn’t want to deal with the person who sent them (Withdrawing).
• When the situation was really stressful and I knew that people’s feelings or the relationship could be at stake, I’ve erred on the side of holding back instead of sharing my honest opinion (Avoiding).
• When I had to bring up a tough subject or ask for something, I’ve tried to soften it by prefacing or following it with a qualifier (Masking).   

Withdrawing
For the first two Withdrawing behaviors, not only does this make me feel awful (I know I’m doing it!), it’s likely for more misunderstandings to occur.  Worse, it can jeopardize the progress of my project and be a missed opportunity for a better working relationship with someone.  I’ve come to realize that it sometimes makes no sense to keep thinking about the situation in a vacuum.  10 minutes of talking to someone face to face or over video conferencing can solve many problems on the spot!  

Although it’s hard for me to get proactive about this when I’ve had a less than positive experience with the other person or people, I now understand that it’s almost always better to keep in close touch with those I need to work with and to talk often.  After all, the end goal is the success of the project, and without these folks I’m not going to get there.  And why not get there with everyone at least knowing where I’m coming from and up to date on the latest on my end?  I try to motivate myself this way, even when I dread the meeting or email response.  

I also tell myself, “This is an opportunity for me to make a better relationship.  This is an opportunity for collaboration and mutual progress.”  I’m a relationship-oriented person, so I try to find ways that naturally appeal to me to get me going.

Avoiding
For the third bullet point, I now realize that this strategy doesn’t help the relationship in the long run and I have come to understand that it’s entirely possible to share my candid perspective in a way that won’t be misconstrued as my passing judgment on the person overall. Conversation partners have thanked me for being honest, since they can’t read my mind (nor I theirs) and now have more context from which to work together with me.  And since I’ve shared, they now feel more comfortable giving me their full opinion as well.  

Safe environment = more information = better mutual understanding.  Voila!   

Masking
Finally, the Masking behavior.  There are two situations.  

• Situation A is similar to the Avoiding behavior; I want to protect the other person’s feelings and try to gently introduce something they may not like to hear.  

• Situation B is where I really want something that the other person can give, but am afraid of the answer or am afraid that I’m asking for too much.  

I now see that I’m undermining my own credibility and the message I’m trying to get across by sugarcoating or couching it.  “I know this is crazy, but …” or “Maybe I’m not the most qualified person to ask for this, but …” and so on.  These don’t help.  I need to be more direct, and stay open.  My strategy now is as follows:

For Situation A

1. State the previously made, mutually agreed expectation
2. State what I observed (facts)
3. Ask the other person what’s up - this gives him/her the chance to give his/her side of the situation without feeling like they’re being directly accused
4. State the impact of the person’s behavior  

For Situation B

1. Give brief context to set up my case
2. Directly ask for what I want
3. Do my darndest to resist saying anything to qualify or weaken my previous statement in the ensuing silence before the response!

My Main Takeaways

• When I don’t want to meet or talk to someone, I should ask myself why.  What is it I don’t want to deal with - what’s the main issue(s)?  After I articulate these, meet with or reach out to that person sooner rather than later to work these issues out, or at least put them on the table to see if it’s a problem for them as well, and if not, why.

• It’s better in the long run to give someone my honest opinion rather than to hide it; it can be done in a way that promotes a safe environment for the other person to share honestly as well.

• Tell or ask for things straight-up in a way that promotes an objective, safe environment for others to respond in kind.

Taking a closer look at my less than helpful behaviors when under stress helps me break them down and understand my motivations.  This in turn allows me to find a more objective way to identify and approach each situation.  Just seeing the outlines above gives me a sense of peace and satisfaction; I have a concrete and actionable plan!  

The point is, if we pay attention to the behaviors we exhibit and acknowledge them, we can be more conscious of ourselves and try to avoid our unhealthy behaviors - they won’t help us or anyone.  Knowing is the first step!  I’m still actively reminding myself that I need to apply these strategies each time I identify the situation I'm in and the behavior I'm being pulled toward.  It’ll take some time to learn and for this to become habit, but I’m satisfied that I am at least on my way.  Onward!

Know Your Body and Know Yourself

Have you tapped into your own personal Google?  

That’s a question that you may hear from Steve Sisgold, one of the warmest and most engaging people you’ll ever meet.  Here’s a person who genuinely cares about you, and wants you to know how all the answers you need to make your life better than it’s ever been are already within you - your own personal Google!

I can’t take credit for that unique turn of phrase.  I met Steve when he came to give a talk at Google last quarter (check it out on YouTube!).  

The main premise of Steve’s wisdom is that if we take notice of and listen to what our bodies are trying to tell us, we can then begin to understand where our anxieties are coming from and thus overcome them to find our truer, happier selves.  He is the author of the book “What’s Your Body Telling You?”, through which you can gain deeper insight on this unique way of assessing our personal wellness.

I find this a thrillingly simple way of “working with what you have”.  We were born with generations of “fight or flight” instincts - our brain and bodies are still wired to help us run away from a charging saber-toothed tiger in our prehistoric days, or to freeze when we see a snake in our path.  But what happens when these instincts kick in when we’re not immediately threatened by literal situations of life or death?  

The result is that we’ve  learned how to suppress these instincts to a certain extent.  But in doing so, are we neglecting the most important signal to understanding ourselves at that moment, to remain forever blind to the keys that could very well unlock our own potential in these crucial moments?

Let’s put it more personally: Have you ever felt a surge within you when you feel strongly about something, only to dismiss it?  Do you ever tell yourself, “That’s ridiculous - there’s no way this is possible,” even before you’ve fully articulated your deepest desires?  This is one way dreams are nipped in the bud.  

The key is to be open to possibility, and to make yourself vulnerable.  All it takes to begin this journey to self-knowledge is simply to notice what your body’s doing at any given moment.  Steve calls this your Body Quotient, or BQ.  

How does this work?  Take a moment and just breathe.  Focus on the quality of your breathing.  What do you notice?  Steve invited us to try this little exercise, and we all discovered something new.  I inhaled deeply quite easily, but found I could not exhale fully.  It struck me that in general I listen to others well and can absorb a lot of stress, but it can be difficult for me to relax and shake loose.  My breathing could very well reflect this. It was a wonderful moment of insight, shared by my fellow participants in their own way.

Our bodies our also like a database of all the experiences we’ve ever had.  If you don’t know why your mind is willing but the rest of you is not, ask your body: What are beliefs that I carry in my body that prevent me from doing what I want?  This is what Steve meant by tapping into your own personal Google.  

What do we mean by ‘beliefs we carry in our bodies’?  Steve told a story about a man who cringed whenever colleagues patted him on the back; they thought he was just weird, but it turned out that when this man was growing up his older brother would slap him on the back quite unpleasantly.  The man was mentally receptive to his colleagues’ good will, but his body remembered the negative experience associated with the gesture and instinctively he would shrink away. Once he realized what was causing his behavior, he was able to communicate it. To his relief, nobody thought this was strange at all, and his colleagues began to express their approval in a non-physical way.  This is the mind-body connection at work.

Focusing on your body is a startlingly simple way to understand yourself and to navigate life’s challenges starting with you: it’s about listening to your body, and what it’s telling you - right now!

So listen, and articulate what you’re feeling.  You may very well learn why you experience certain anxieties that prevent you from doing what you want, and thus unlock the keys to overcoming them.

Want to learn more about the mind-body connection?  Check out Steve SIsgold’s site and his book!  If you have read Steve's book, watched his videos, or have attended one of his events, please share anything you’ve noticed or learned as a result of applying Steve’s teachings - I look forward to hearing from you!

Embrace Your Fear

If you’re like me, you’re no stranger to the feeling of being scared of something, whether it was of the dark when you were a kid, of whether eating a durian really tastes like it smells, or of taking on a new challenge at work.  The fear can grow the more we shrink away from whatever we’re afraid of, until even the thought of it can be mentally and physically debilitating.  Fortunately, we can overcome this, or at least make whatever we dread less daunting!  In a nutshell, embrace your fear: knowledge leads to familiarity, which tends to lead to less fear since the greater part of the unknown is taken out of the equation.

Here are two main steps that I've found work well to chip away that fear and help you become more informed and confident.  

Acknowledge Your Fear
It’s okay to be afraid of something.  Don’t worry if you think you’re the only one afraid - other people probably share the same or similar fears, but just haven’t let on!  This is the first step to understanding what it is you’re afraid of and to enable you to take action.  

As an example, when I had the opportunity to really make a difference in my organization, I was gripped by the thought: “What if I don’t deliver to expectations? I finally have this chance!  What if I screw up?  What if something happens and we don’t launch?”  The list grew longer, and I had bouts of what felt like paralysis: my fear was preventing me from doing what I needed to do to get onto the road to success.  

The last thing I needed was a self-fulfilling prophecy driven by fear!  At a certain point, I knew this wasn’t going to work; it was exhausting me.  I took some deep breaths and tried to clear my mind of the clutter (listening to calming music beforehand was helpful).  I told myself, “I’m petrified that I’ll fail in this project.  That’s okay.  Uncertainty is naturally scary.  So why beat yourself up about it?  You won’t know how things will turn out until you really try.”

It sounds silly, but telling yourself that you know your fear is there and that it’s okay can have a powerful effect.  After I came to this conclusion, the fear no longer consumed me, but sort of rode alongside me like a sidecar to a motorcycle - it was there, but smaller, and at each milestone I was reminded me of how far I had come.  

Get to Know What You’ve Been Fearing
Baby steps are absolutely fine, and may even be the best option so as not to overwhelm yourself.  This step is what demystifies whatever has been looming ominously in your life, and will thereafter be cut down to its real size.  If what you fear is a skill that you’ve always avoided for whatever reason but want to have, for example, start by doing some preliminary research online, and maybe even work your way up to taking a course.

I’d always avoided anything having to do with finances like the plague - those cold numbers would stare back at me and my mind would go blank.  I wanted nothing to do with them.  And yet, I wanted to gain enough knowledge to at least be able to manage my personal finances intelligently, as well as to understand budget forecasts and participate in relevant discussions on the job.  I felt a sense of helpless urgency.

So, I started with a small step.  I searched online for the basics on personal finance to get to know a few terms and some best practices.  I took notes.  However, I soon found myself getting overwhelmed by all that financial jargon, and forced myself to stop before I burned out and put up a thicker wall between me and the object of my fear.  

I began to find ways to research that worked for me; I pinpointed a few sites that presented material in a way I could understand fairly well and allocated a short period of time each week to learn something new or review a concept I’d encountered the last time.  I started with just one session a week, for 15 minutes.  If I decided to research longer, that was fine, as long as I stopped before I got frustrated.  

You can do the same: experiment, and find out what works for you.  Then, set a little regimen for yourself.  The key is to set your goals achieveably low - this is not the time to set those aggressive stretch goals!  You want to make progress, not to hit the wall.

Eventually, I worked up my courage to enroll in a class on navigating finances in a corporate setting.  This presented a whole new level of trepidation for me - personal finance was one thing, but corporate finance?  I was afraid the material would go over my head, but I’d committed to giving it a try.  

The result was amazing - with a great instructor and useful activities, I was soon wielding equations and crunching numbers to analyze case studies.  With my initial fears, I never would have thought this possible.  

What changed?  The numbers and concepts I’d been so scared of were brought to my level of eyesight for close examination, demystified, and voila, I could work with them.  Now, let me say that I’m nowhere close to being a finance whiz, but the key is that I’m not longer half as afraid of the concept and of the numbers as I was before.  

Take action!
The above steps are simple in nature, and yet not necessarily easy.  But, I've found them very effective for all kinds of apprehensiveness: learning a new dance form that puts me way out of my comfort zone (hip hop!), the thought of the disastrous results if I attempted play a piano piece I used to know well but could hardly muster after years of not practicing (so much easier to just not try!), to name two.  

Just make sure you’re not sitting on your hands, avoiding your fear and letting it grow - take action!  Acknowledge that your fear is there, then start taking the mystery out of it.  It can be as small as searching online for information, or to break down the activity into bite-sized portions so it's not as daunting.  

Fear is a natural, inevitable part of our lives.  It’s in our hands - we can keep pushing away what we fear and let it grow into a monster, or we can take control of our lives to gain valuable knowledge and emerge with that much more confidence in ourselves.

Are there any strategies, tactics, mantras, etc. that have worked for you deal with fear?  I'd love to hear from you!

Insights Discovery, Indeed! Personality and Development

Some months ago I took a program management class, at the end of the session, almost as a little coda or afterthought, we received our very own Insights Discovery Personal Profile.  We'd been asked to complete a set of questions beforehand, which looked like another one of those personality tests.  The result turned out to be one of the main learnings I took away from the class.

In the past I'd benefited from taking the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test to learn more about myself and how I interact with others, but I didn't expect much from this one.  Boy, was I surprised when I received my 21-page packet!  The Insights Discovery version tackles personality from an angle that is directly relevant to both personal and professional situations, and provides, well, insights, and guidance that are affirming, enlightening, and uncannily spot-on.

There were several themes that I'd always known about myself, but hadn't taken to this level of analysis.  The report's suggestions for ways I can develop further included the following:

• Developing short cut methods to meet deadlines
• This definitely speaks to my desire for perfection, regardless of the task.  Sometimes I even ask myself, "Why am I trying to do such a thorough job here when it's not necessary?" and I usually answer, "If you're going to do it, do it well!"  Unfortunately, I'm rather demanding of myself.  Although, let it be known that when there's a deadline, I'm definitely making it.
• Being less sensitive to the needs of others
• This is when I think, yes, yes, I know, but, as E.M. Forster wrote in his novel Maurice, "Can a leopard change its spots?"  Perhaps not, but I realize that it's possible to keep one's true nature and yet enact subtle changes based on one's own situational perspective.  On the flip side, this trait is one of my biggest assets that people consistently tell me about.  
• Taking the occasional risk by deciding only on the information available. It may be better to make a poor decision than no decision at all
• Really?  I'm not quite sure on this one yet.  I'm naturally given to action - I tend to feel a sense of urgency when something important to me is at stake.  And yet, a poor decision in lieu of no decision?  Isn't making no decision a decision in and of itself?   I think that's an important distinction.  Hmm.
• Articulating her ideas, rather than keeping them to herself
• Because it's in my nature to strive for harmony, I tend to want to hear what everyone says first, then do research, and then feel okay about saying what I have to say, because 1) I'll have the context of how people involved feel about the matter, and 2) I'll be able to back it up.  I've also noticed that sometimes if I don't say anything, it's taken as either tacit agreement or disagreement - this is not intended.  I just want to take it all in, and think about it. 

There were a few more, but I'd like to focus on the above, as they figure prominently in my mind.  I'd struggled with these personality aspects before, trying to analyze the reactions and feedback of others and finding out how they interpreted my actions or inactions.  Recently, I've felt my interactions in particular situations becoming a bit easier, and you know what?  The reason seems a bit like a dirty secret: I simply began to care less.  

Please don't take this to mean that I no longer care about what I do and those around me; since I start out by being super careful and sensitive to everyone around me, my caring less still means I'm highly primed to be aware.  The difference is that I no longer let it completely prevent me from expressing myself or taking action when I need to.  The second-guessing is no longer debilitating.   

I'm still working on it (everything in life is a work in progress - onward and upward!), but it's reassuring to know that the leopard can keep her spots and still hold her place in the jungle.  

Competition as Learning Opportunity: A Frame of Mind

You know the feeling: Someone got a nod from the executive director for a good idea at a meeting and you think, "That could've been me!" Or, there's a dancer in your class or company who can seem to do no wrong *and* nail every triple pirouette.  These situations bring out your competitive spirit, which can grow from admiration to jealousy. You can let it eat you alive, or you can use it to help you be the best you can be so you can identify strengths, areas of improvement, and fire you up to form a game plan for continuous learning.  

In other words, what mindset you have can make a dramatic difference in your own personal outcome.  There's competition for the pure sake of it, and there's competition and progress.  To illustrate, the brilliant pianist Lang Lang's early childhood was dominated by the singular desire to be No. 1, whether it was to place first in every competition he entered, or to rank first at the conservatory.  When he didn't place in his second competition, the young Lang Lang beat up his consolation prize (a stuffed dog) in fury.  It wasn't until his mid-teens that his teacher, Gary Graffman, asked him to give up competitions and encouraged him to look inside himself and the music he played.  Until he could do this, the young pianist would not be able to learn the artistic depth required of a consummate musician.  Lang Lang is now considered one of the most exciting and engaging classical pianists in the world today. 

Whenever I feel that sense of urgency upon seeing excellence exhibited by another and that secret, terrible thought voices itself: "That could be me! ... Right?", I remember the below.  Give these a try when you're bitten by the competitive bug and see how you can grow!

Acknowledge the desire to be the best you can be.

It's natural to want to do well and to gain recognition for your talents and skills.  Understanding this and being okay with it is the first step on the path to learning!

Allow the performance, knowledge, and skills demonstrated by others light a fire under you.

Think about what you can work on - where does that other person shine?  What could you do to gain skill and/or expertise in that area?

Remember what you’re good at, and work on making these assets even stronger.

In doing so, people will see clearly where you shine!

For example, I have some significant shortcomings as a Chinese dancer in terms of technique and flexibility. When I'm in class, I always work on every aspect to try and improve where I am weaker to gain overall prowess as a dancer.  When I perform, however, I learn choreography that challenges me and yet allows me to show my greatest strengths - high energy, knee turns, and acting.  Similarly, in high school tennis matches I would try to set up plays so that I could be close to the net for low, fast hits since I regularly found myself noticeably shorter than my opponents. 

Use others’ competitiveness to your advantage. 

I don’t mean to go out of your way to hurt others; I mean to let the most negative parts bounce off you and to absorb the rest and convert it into positive energy for you.  That sounds remarkably new agey, so let me illustrate with an example.  

I was an underdog when I played competitive tennis in high school.  My opponents, usually tall, leggy girls, would see a short kid with socks pulled all the way up and a big hat my mother would make me wear so I wouldn’t get sunburnt.  In other words, I didn’t look like a tennis player; I looked awkward.  But the match would start and there would be surprise; I wasn’t a bad player, after all.  I would often face opponents who would grow frustrated as I gained points and won games in a set; I could feel anger searing me from across the court.  But, the more hostile an opponent got, the calmer and more focused I became.  I simply channeled her anger into quiet control on my part, and I would usually win these games.  I’d developed a way to take someone else’s negative energy and use it to help me focus.  

If you really have to compete with someone or something, compete with yourself.  

Accomplished something?  Set a new goal!  That way, you’ll drive yourself to achieve on ever higher levels, rather than allow admiration of another turn into envy or jealousy on dangerous levels (a little bit can be helpful to push you, though).  

Celebrate your successes.

Compete with yourself, yes, but remember to celebrate your successes when you reach a milestone; take a moment to stop and acknowledge what you’ve accomplished.  Otherwise, if you’re like me, you’ll just look to the next goal and risk driving yourself to exhaustion because you can ultimately never become a master of anything!  

For example, the last time I was promoted, I thought, "yes!" and then the next day it was, "what’s it going to take to prove myself, and what do I need to do to make it to the next level?"  In the dance studio, I hadn’t realized the extent of the progress I’d made towards executing a series of difficult "propeller" turns until my coach mentioned at the end of my rehearsal that even though I was far from perfect, I’d come a long way already.  I realized I could only see what still wasn’t working and had focused only on what lay ahead.  It was a lovely moment, to stop and realize that yes, I was no longer falling all over the place and feeling nauseous!  

Be aware that there will always be someone who can do something better than you, in some way. (And that's okay!)

We can’t be super or even proficient at everything, and that’s an incredible blessing.  When you feel that pang in your chest that someone is better than you, remind yourself that this person may be better than you at something - not that he or she is intrinsically better than you.  Therein lies the difference, and only when you believe this will you have the power to take a step back and assess what it is that person does well, and how you can learn from them.  That way, every situation is an opportunity to grow.  

That’s the beauty and mystery of life; if we could become absolute masters, we’d have to move onto something new lest we stagnate and lose that sense of possibility and learning.  Although I must admit that in my most down-trodden moments I wonder if I tell myself this only to assuage my bruised sense of self-worth, the tactic works.  Separate the self from the situation, as painful and difficult as it is, and seek to understand what you can gain.  In the end, I hope you’ll find, as I have, that a competitive spirit can be a surprisingly collaborative one at its heart. 

Daily Rituals

Chances are, there are certain things you do every morning when you get up.  Whether it’s drinking a cup of coffee, feeding the cat, or hitting the gym, these little rituals are what jumpstart you.  To get your creative juices flowing and ready for the workday whether you’re looking for a new way to spice up the steps in the piece you’re rehearsing or a new way to approach a solution with a client, it can be wonderfully grounding to apply some structure in your life.  

This structure can take many forms, and one of them is that of the daily routine, or daily ritual (the credit for this inspiration goes to Twyla Tharp, again!).  For example, a colleague of mine gets up at 5:30 every morning and swims for 45 minutes, after which he sits down and writes in his online journal.  It’s his way of getting in his exercise and clearing his mind, all before he gets to the office.  

Establishing a daily ritual can be especially important when traveling.  We work in increasingly global organizations, and sometimes we’re asked to travel to collaborate directly with our colleagues and partners in other parts of the world.  Perhaps you’re lucky enough to be touring with your performing arts organization or as a solo artist.  Being away from home can be stressful enough as it is, much less having to shoulder the responsibilities of preparing presentations for a meeting, getting bloated limbs to cooperate in rehearsal, and being your most productive when you’re fatigued and jet-lagged.

Figuring out your daily routine and sticking to it can give you the right rhythm to your days on the road.  When the environment is different and life presents greater uncertainties, your daily routine, if adhered to, can give you the psychological comfort of having at least one thing you have control over.  

During the past year I traveled to Beijing very frequently for my office job and spent several weeks at a time there.  Even though I became familiar with the area, being away from family and the familiar comforts of home (read: dance class, my piano) inevitably took a toll.  After a bit of experimentation, I figured out what I needed to do.  I got up every morning at 6:00 to do a full ballet barre and some center work, then headed to the office.  After work, no matter how tired I was, I exercised for at least another 30 minutes to sweat and engage my body after mostly sitting all day.  Then came my favorite part: the hot shower, then sitting in bed with my journal listening to music.  Sleep.

After I established this daily ritual, my energy levels improved and I felt that I’d finally added my own personal stamp to my life abroad.  

Of course, this can apply equally well to life without travel.  Life throws us surprises of all kinds, and it can be overwhelming to deal with them - work, family, friends, health.  But, if you have your tried and true daily ritual to return to, it can help remind you that you do have control over your life.  

Even if you wake up and wonder how you’re going to drag yourself out of bed and face your inbox at the office or engage your aching muscles at the dance studio, you know you’ll feel better after you’ve gone through your daily ritual.  You’ll be that much more ready to face your day and do what you need to do.  Who knows, maybe you’ll even exceed your own expectations!

Do you have a daily ritual that works for you?  Share a Comment; I’d love to hear from you!