The small habits I’m leaning on (and sharing with teams)
It’s a busy time of year (it always is.) Deadlines, year-end pushes, calendars filling up fast.
So before you read on, I’d like to invite you to pause. Take a breath or two. Take a moment to reflect on the year so far, how you feel in this moment, and how you want to mindfully move into whatever is next for you.
In a workshop last week, Dr Shauna Shapiro shared three core components of Mindfulness: intention, attention and attitude. Why you’re doing something, noticing what’s actually happening, and how you meet it.
Her reminder that “what you practice grows stronger” is one I keep coming back to. With so many competing priorities at this time of year, and maybe always in our modern world; being intentional about how we prioritise our time and energy is ever more important.
“The most important thing is to remember the most important thing.” ~ Suzuki Roshi, Zen Buddhist Teacher
Creating the space for us to remember the most important thing, has been a primary focus of my work in the last few weeks. Here is a peek behind the scenes of what has been inspiring, informing and shaping my work lately.
- Nature holds attention
I’ve been preparing workshops for a variety of different teams; Engineering, Product, HR teams and journalists, and no matter the team, I keep reaching for nature-inspired techniques.
In a world of distraction, holding our attention is one of the biggest challenges. Yet noticing our habits and autopilot tendencies is the first step to mindset and behaviour change.
Often teams are too ‘change fatigued’ to work through and engage with a typical change process.
So I have been leaning into nature-based metaphors and techniques to help challenge our thinking about how we navigate not just the change, but the transition, which is the human experience of change.
Dr Marc Berman shares in his latest book Nature and the Mind, “the kind of stimulation that holds your attention needs to be ‘softly fascinating’, and natural environments tend to have softly fascinating stimulation.”
Nature-inspired techniques have been central to the theme of my workshops. For example: creative exercises using a Life Garden and using a tree as a metaphor for letting go.
Try this: Look at the trees releasing their leaves, what could you release to make space for growth?
- Curiosity is a mind-care practice
“Taking care of your mind involves cultivating your curiosity, growing your knowledge, and producing new thoughts.” – Anne-Laure Le Cunff, a neuroscientist at Ness Labs
For years my week was packed, fully focused on delivery or reacting to what was happening in the day to day. There was seemingly no time for curiosity.
Now with AI, there is a clear shift to lean into our uniquely human capabilities, particularly the 5 Cs as shared by Aneesh Raman, Linkedin Chief Economic Opportunity Officer, which include curiosity.
In the last few months, I have been experimenting with a group of managers to see how we can incorporate space to build on critical human capabilities.
This has meant thinking about how a coaching mindset, workshops, 1:1s and other spaces can be used to support individuals and teams to think critically, curiously and courageously about how their work takes shape.
Our unique perspectives are what sets us apart, but we all need the space to build the confidence to share it.
Try this: What have you read, heard or learnt lately that made you think or do something differently?
- Intentional time changes the conversation
Over the last two weeks, I have been part of a “Pause Pairs” experiment, led by Megan Reitz and Robert Poynton. Each week, the idea is to set aside time with another person to talk about anything beyond the day to day.
My pause pair, Gabriella Di Maggio, and I have had two sessions so far. At first we got distracted almost immediately with work and it was only in the last few minutes we realised! Ahead of the second session we made a clear boundary to not talk about work but rather simply be present to whatever came up for us.
The space to do that was refreshing, somehow it felt longer and gave us some much needed mental clarity.
It reminded me of a phrase by Stefan Klein, Physicist and Science Journalist,“By giving more life to our time, we give more time to our lives.”
A pause doesn’t take time away from the week. It gives the week more life.
Try this: Who could you set a regular pause with? Try it for a couple of weeks and simply observe what you learn.
The takeaway
I am learning that we don’t need a big overhaul to change how we work. The intention is key. Then the small things, practised often, will do more than we expect.
“What you practice grows stronger.”
