Reset Your Rhythm. Rebuild Your Routine.
Use this simple question to create leverage in your work and life amid the current uncertainty.
“In these times I don't, in a manner of speaking, know what I want; perhaps I don't want what I know and want what I don't know.”
― Marsilio Ficino
“The rhythms of my life are just … unfamiliar.”
“The daily routines are disrupted and disjointed.”
“Nothing feels the same as it did three months ago.”
“So many are struggling.”
Those statements capture an undertone from many recent conversations, email exchanges, and social media posts.
Sound familiar?
Let’s admit it.
The ongoing uncertainty sucks because we can’t control it, right?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
We can control the way we think about it.
We can take responsibility for how we respond to it.
We can rebuild the rhythms and routines it has delivered.
Please understand none of what I’m saying here is intended to blame, shame, or ignore the way this stressful period is impacting any/all of us.
My objective is rather to suggest how we can work our way through it by balancing two things…
The way we think.
The way we act.
Everything we do in either of those cases is a choice that we get to make, every day. In fact, at every moment of every day.
In conversations with professionals, business and non-profit leaders, and friends over the past several weeks, there’s one question that’s helped open the door to shifting both thinking and action: What does this make possible?
That’s been a go-to question for me in planning and advising for the past few years since I first heard Michael Hyatt share it on his podcast (Note this is not a link to the episode where he shared it…just to his excellent podcast).
I love the way it shifts the mental (and interpersonal) conversation from what’s wrong toward …
What can I learn?
What can I do differently because of what’s going on?
What am I deciding to create from this moment?
Where do I want to be when this moment is over?
ACTION RECOMMENDATION: If like me, you’re looking to make the rhythm and routine of the moment feel more like the one you’re familiar with, I encourage you to make the decision to answer this powerful question today: What does this make possible?
And do yourself a favor — write down your thinking to help sort it out and to make it easy to repeat the process the next time you’re hit with uncertainty.
P.S. If you’d like a bit of positive stimulation for your journey through the exercise, watch this first: