Fight or Flight
Hello friends. Slightly tardy weeknotes from last week. If I’m totally honest, these were largely done by Saturday morning, but for whatever reason I’ve been dithering about instead of pressing ‘publish’. This is usually a good indication that I really *need* to get them out in the open. 🙂
What did I learn?
This week I ran towards discomfort by challenging a (largely irrational) fear. I won’t go into too much detail because a) I feel pretty stupid about it in retrospect and b) I don’t think it’s important for the purposes of extracting the learning.
So.. what made it tolerable?
- Initially my brain was running at 10000 miles an hour, creating all manner of stories in the form of wild worst case scenarios. I stopped, I slowed down, I breathed. It helped.
- When I went and did <the thing> I was open and honest about being nervous. I felt it helped because in speaking about it out loud, it loosened its grip on me.
- When <the thing> was done, it was nowhere near as terrible as my stupid fight or flight brain would have me believe.
Coming out the other side of this, I can see how <the thing> had insidiously shaped my behaviour and my thinking. This gave me some perspective about how fear & failure can cling to you and impose limitations if you passively allow it.
Fight it my friends! Find the reserves and fight. Life is far too short to live inside a box of your own (or others) creation.
What gave me a glimpse of the future?
Some changes on the horizon. Some people at work are moving on to other things to start new chapters elsewhere. That means the future roadmap in my head is being re-written.
In reflecting on this, I realise that I often presume stability is the norm. I’ve been fortunate enough to have quite a lot of stability as far as work is concerned. That’s good because it means I can devote time & energy to the meaningful challenging stuff rather than worry about where next month’s mortgage payment is coming from.
But of course, it’s all a bit of a temporary illusion. Circumstances can change radically tomorrow, either of your own making or via someone or something else.
So, with a small bit of trepidation but also a good dose of excitement I’m thinking about new possible futures on the roadmap and where those paths might lead.
I’ve been reading…
- Here’s a really lovely post about #OneTeamGovGlobal and the feeling of finding your tribe. Via Ioana Finichiu.
https://ioanafinichiu.writeas.com/boxes-are-for-moving-not-for-people - I also thought this Tweet about feedback was brilliant.
- I really enjoyed Sam Villis’s weeknotes, particularly her video on reframing situations to avoid falling into the trap of ranty reflective writing.
https://weeknot.es/weeknotes-s4-eps-12-504e5946bb69