Ferris Bueller wisdom

This week on the blog I am taking about changing energy and pace.

I have been super busy over the last six months developing my business offer, building the co-creative leadership coaching programme and communicating it.  It’s been an exciting and action packed process. I am loving it.

Tomorrow we’re at the halfway mark - Week 6 - of the 12 week programme and it’s amazing to to see everything that I’ve been working towards is out there in the world and having a positive impact. It’s what makes all the hard work worthwhile.

After such a big push to have everything ready, I feel like my energy is in a different place right now.  It feels like time for a ‘regroup’ a shift of balance to bring more nurturing, soaking up inspiration, slower pace type of energy.  But does anyone else find that a challenge, with feelings of guilt coming up because you’re suddenly not achieving so many tasks/goals etc?

Even after many years of de-programming myself from that hamster-wheel-style-relentless-need -to-achieve-at-all-costs mentality of the industry I was in, I still have a challenge with the ‘doing’ versus ‘being’.  And yet, I know, deep in my bones that after the PUSH, there needs to be a PAUSE. It’s a wondrous, rich and ultimately HUGELY productive thing.

Pausing in this context doesn’t mean booking a week by the beach and lying there for a week (although that would be nice and totally valuable too!) it means, slowing down in order to expand my energy and senses to take on the bigger picture, seek inspiration and also shuffle my priorities around. My work is still massively important but it’s not the only important thing to me.

Here are my thoughts on how I manage this - which is still (and probably always will be) very much a work in progress.  I’d love to hear about how you do it.

1. Mindset shift: Rather than thinking about this as giving myself permission to change pace I’m thinking about this as an essential and necessary part of my overall process. See the value of slowing down rather than seeing it as ‘less than’ achieving tons of tangible stuff each day.
2. Output shift: Move from thinking about the list of tasks that need to be achieved to simplifying this to: What are the ‘must do’s’? Let go of everything else and create space for an emergent journey where the outputs are unknown and yet to be discovered.
3. Prioritise curiosity:  Move from ‘focussed with the blinkers on’ to developing your 360 degree curiosity.  Take time to observe, experience and notice; to ask questions or listen to diverse range of thinking; bring your 5 senses to your curiosity - experience the everyday as if it’s all new and fresh. 
4. Seek inspiration everywhere: What around you is inspiring?  When I need inspiration I go to my bookshelf and see what I’m drawn to or I take all my notebooks (I have lots as I lack a good system for capturing my ideas!) and start by reading and looking through allowing myself to be taken on a journey, to explore to follow what I’m inspired by in that moment. This is a rich place for me. What’s yours?
5. Giving back: After a period of focussing on your own goals and work priorities, making a priority to give back to the people around you can be an incredible way to regroup and demonstrate to others what is really important to you.
6. Have a laugh.  Sometimes work and life can get too serious.  Sometimes we just need to have some fun too. Where can you find the fun?

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”   Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

As a leader, I invite you to consider how you bake this into your week/month/quarter/year.  What will be the benefits of enabling some PUSH=PAUSE balance in terms of engagement, wellbeing, creativity and innovation?