What follows is a piece from another project that was put out in January of this year, I’m bringing it over to my personal site for obvious reasons. It is fun to re-post this here, as a few of the things I was worried about at the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018 turned out to be sources of increased throughput. One relationship actually flourished here in 2018 – even as I did not do everything as I had intended during the final month of last year.
Here’s the material – largely as it was originally posted in the middle of January, 2018.
Late December, early January – this time of year is prone to stress at home and at work for many, myself included.
The end of year presents all sorts of interesting dynamics across many dimensions of life, navigating this time period this year was definitely a learning experience for me on a few different fronts.
In my Professional – Career & Work DOL – I had an incredibly important project delivery on a number of commitments during the month of December with the lead up to delivering the program a period of incredible focus, commitment, and long intense hours.
I would not have had it any other way, as the team I was a part of ended up delivering on the mission we had in front of us. The delivery was not without sacrifice by everyone on the team, myself included.
The false notion of ‘work/life’ balance was in an imbalanced state for quite awhile, and even as I write this post – it is still not back to the balance it was prior to the final quarter of the calendar year.
The imbalance with my professional life dominating the balance of my time for many days in Q4 was intentional and known to be headed my way before we entered that timeframe.
The intentional imbalance continues even today, as we remain in a heightened delivery posture on the program, and this will likely continue for another month or two. The point here is that the imbalance was an intentional one, that I chose to wash over myself morning, noon, and many nights.
There were a few days where even my most prioritized daily habits and routines suffered due to the intensity of the action. I am happy to say that this unintentional overwhelm happened 3 days out of a possible 90.
Many days, I knew what was going to be happening, and I structured things accordingly.
When my structures, routines, and calendars were overtaken – it felt very unnatural – prompting me to recalibrate things to ensure the next day was more protected in terms of the intended priorities.
A number of my commitments that I thought would be wedged in towards the end of the year, were flat out on the floor when I looked down at the end of December. As I write this in early January, I have yet to pick up many of those things that slid off the table and hit the floor.
You know what? A great couple of lessons were learned in those final two months of the year.
- The intention behind a commitment has become a strong indicator of focus, of delivery, and of relentlessness. The most critical commitments that I had at work, many of the non-work related commitments were delivered – intentionally.
- The continued focus on being with those that are the priority in my life enabled breakthroughs, even as I was imbalanced, intentionally – in a select Dimension of Life.
- Doneness and completeness must be balanced with clarity of your intention and of your focus – this negotiation with others and with yourself is a skill that can be cultivated. This ability to negotiate and renegotiate is a skill that separates winners from average and uneven results.
A quick recap as I look at things that I let hit the floor…
Doneness – outwardly speaking
- The most important shit got done.
- Work deliverables, nailed those.
- Holiday to do’s – did those with aplomb.
- Coaching for a couple soccer teams – yeah that happened.
- Rocked out a few deliverables that will come to fruition in 3-6 months, fired up!
Doneness – inwardly speaking
The time I spent outside of my professional priorities was poured all over those activities that were the priority for myself. I was quite selfish with a continued focus on my health and physical upkeep, and NOT wasting my downtime.
- Lifting heavy 4-5 days a week, crushed it many of those days.
- Cardio a few times a week – yeah I got that done.
- Getting into Church more regularly, that happened too.
- Seeing a few more shows before the year closed out, wow – found some new bands that still have me blown away.
- Actually taking a few days off at the end of the year to truly disconnect, let’s talk about some fireworks in the snow down in Austin sometime…
Beingness
The time I spent being with others was directed at some incredibly important relationships in my life.
I took some actions intentionally that I had been building towards for quite awhile, and the outcomes of these actions are still unfolding. What I do know, is that I have been incredibly honest with these people in my life, and to do so while everything else was raging around me says that clarity has arrived in a few new ways this year.
So maybe my need to achieve all the stuff I had in mind on October 1 was a misdirected set of needs, regardless the targets identified then – the to do’s definitely did not happen.
A couple of commitments have languished, and I’m hopeful that those that I owe will understand. If I put these folks in a bad spot, I understand their position given my lack of follow through on a few promises. Those instances are few in number, and by the time this gets published – the goal is to recover on those promises – via some renegotiation.
The most critical stuff that was the focus of my intention got done and the ‘beingness’ is also arriving in my life – very much as a promise towards an even better year in 2018.
I’ll be posting a broader recap of 2017 shortly as I sweep up the stuff on the floor, and scheme on the 2018 OYM.
More to come. A lot more.