Over the last few years, I’ve spent a lot of time working with people with increasing workloads. I can probably hear the word ‘busy’ being used at least 10 times each week.
This week I read something that really struck me this week – that being busy isn’t actually linked to how much work you are doing. Instead, it’s a state of mind.
Now I’ll be honest – such statements can get people’s backs up – ‘how dare you say I’m not busy, after all look how many tasks I have to do over the next 3 days?!’
Tag: #change
Our anxiety is stopping us from making positive change
Through my professional and personal life, I’ve come across many extraordinary, driven individuals who want to make a positive impact in the world.
Unfortunately, what I also see is a lot of stress, anxiety and overwhelm. There is an increase in the amount of burnout which is negatively affecting people’s personal sense of wellbeing. This is sad in of itself – everyone deserves to live a happy, fulfilling life.
But also, when we are stressed or burnt out, we are also becoming far less effective in making the change we want to see in the world. This means the positive change is severely limited.
But the great news is that we can change our outlook. One of the big revelations for me was recognising that the barrier to my own performance was the way I treated myself.
The Life and Times of an ‘Author’
One of life’s great achievements is to write a book. But what happens when you achieve it?
I started my book, Make Diversity Matter to You in 2020. After the events of Black Lives Matter, I wanted to do more to make a positive change in the world. I had previously worked in Diversity and Inclusion in the UK government. My experience demonstrated that the way in which diversity was polarised made it inaccessible to many people who would care.
So writing a book, what an amazing achievement right!? In fact, when I told people they frequently told me how I should be extremely proud.
Except, I wasn’t.
I thought 2022 would be less remarkable than 2020-21. I was wrong.
I’ve found this holiday period a good moment to slow down and reflect on the year – and what better day to do a reflective article than on 31 December?
I’ve firstly noticed how much residual fatigue I’ve been building up, particularly in the last few months. I got hit by an illness for the first two weeks of December, and since then I’ve felt myself battling to return to my previous routines of productivity. Of course, this isn’t a real battle, instead it’s one being waged within my mind.
Looking further back through 2022, I thought this year would be a period of stability and foundation-level building. After 2020 and 2021, years which felt like a period of survival (and physical upheaval for me moving to Belgium) I was hoping for something a little more solid but a bit less remarkable.
Spoiler alert – 2022 felt very different to what I thought it would – it certainly was more remarkable than I expected.
How much have you been overcommitting?
As we head towards the end of 2022, I found myself in a race against time to complete the commitments I had made myself – I wanted to finish a number of things before the end of the month.
But who am I really racing?
I notice that I have a habit of creating smaller commitments for myself that when put together with all the other things I want to do become a gargantuan task. It’s also interesting at how I put a very short deadline.
On the one hand these smaller goals feel more targeted than ones in the distant future. Yet they also give little flexibility – most of these commitments I had made to myself in the last few weeks, essentially giving myself little space to take a break. In hindsight, I gave myself little room for manoeuvre in case life hit.
Life lesson 101: the more you give, the more you receive
This is article no. 101. So I thought I would share a life lesson 101: the more you give, the more you receive.
Giving is so powerful, yet we often get caught up in worrying about what is in it for us. Even when we want to be generous people, this falls away when we are stressed or lose sight of the bigger picture.
When we get in the mindset of thinking about what we are taking, we lose sight of the reciprocal nature of humanity.
How often have we experienced that friend who only reaches out to us when they need something? We can label these people as the ‘takers’ – we learn their patterns, and quickly become suspicious whenever they sporadically contact us. ‘What do they want this time?’. Whether it’s money or one-way emotional support, the conversation is about them and their problems.
I wrote a post earlier this week about how I’ve given out over 30 copies of my book, Make Diversity Matter to You for free. Economically, this does not make sense. I’ve already spent more money giving out this book then I have earnt from sales.
Birthing the creation of a book – Make Diversity Matter To You
The events of the killing of George Floyd shocked the world, and triggered a renewed and profound focus around the Black Lives Matter movement. Although the events took place in the USA, it was clear that this was the tip of the iceberg on a long-awaited discussion about race issues across the world.
I was locked up during the pandemic when the events took place. But like many people, I was keen to do something. Also, like many people, I wasn’t really sure what I could really do to make a change.
Then, in November 2020 I had an idea to write a book.
The book itself is a manifestation of my commitment to love and serve others. I wrote it with the genuine will to help people understand the topic of diversity and inclusion for themselves. I truly believe that the book will be a powerful tool to help anyone who picks it up to understand themselves better and be an actor for change.
You can check out the site page on Amazon where I’ll be self-publishing. The Kindle edition is currently available to pre-order, but there will be a paperback version on the site shortly.
There is no past. There is no future. There is only now.
I generally like to keep on top of my work, but recently I’ve found myself procrastinating. Sometimes I know a deadline isn’t coming for a while, so I can put it off. I believed that the time to do it was sometime in the future.
But it’s not just the future – it’s also the past. I found myself lingering around past thoughts. A conversation someone had with me. I relive the frustration or anger, as if it were happening today. Suddenly these emotions are seeping into the feelings I’m having right now.
Most of us tend to see-saw between these alternate realities. Either we are stuck in the past, or wondering about the future. But what if neither of them actually exist?
The limits to intellectualizing our life decisions
When we make decisions, many of us try to look at things very logically. We research information or ask friends for guidance. Maybe we’ll write a pros and cons list.
But can we really make a pros and cons list to as big a life decision as getting married? How about having kids? How about moving country? How about doing what you love?
One of the biggest downwards spirals I had with my life was trying to logically decide what I wanted to do. I would turn my brain to overdrive to figure out what the answer to my career and life were. I saw life as a puzzle – if I simply stared at it longer and spent more time trying to figure it all out, I would know what I was meant to do.
I learnt that the mind is not always the best tool to understand or decide bigger things in life.
Life is an ever-shifting enigma. Embrace it.
What is change?
There’s been quite a few notable events in the UK over the last week – The Queen’s passing, Liz Truss as the new Prime Minister, and most dramatically of all, Thomas Tuchel being sacked as Chelsea Manager.
The more I’ve focussed on the idea that everything is changing the more jaded I feel. The human mind looks for patterns to explain why I feel the way I’m feeling – if I feel a sense of insecurity, I look for a reason.