Burnout Part 7: Persistence

"And still she persisted." It's so much more than a quotable, meme-able political moment - it's also a truth for many people and for most women. I feel this deeply. When things get tough, what do I do? I try harder! There's beauty to this persistence, and I value my own doggedness. I also can look back in my life and see times that letting go would have been much wiser and healthier for me. 

My challenge to you is to admit, in one small corner of your heart, that unending persistence isn't always the road to success. 

But "no!" our hearts scream back! If we let go, what are we? We're failures! We're quitters! We can't do that! 

Those feelings are real. Many of us value grit and persistence so much that we see letting go of a goal as equivalent to weakness or failure. So, if we get frustrated or if more obstacles arise, we persist even harder. As Emily Nagowski asks in her book Burnout, when we feel like our two choices are "frustrated rage and helpless despair," maybe there's a third option. Maybe there's a quiet voice within us suggesting that we've done all we can and it's time to move on. 

If you need a little help determining whether it's time to persist or release a particular goal, you can try evaluating your options through a quick exercise. Take four quadrants of a piece of paper and list, both for the short and long term, some:

• benefits of continuing
• beneifts of stopping
• costs of continuing 
• costs of stopping

It's not failure to consider where in your life letting go could be success. That's wisdom, and that's burnout prevention. 

I'm a persister - I'm good at holding on and bad at letting go. And I recognize that there are areas in my life that have left me exhausted and depleted. Sometimes holding on is beautiful. Sometimes it is foolish and a waste of energy and passion you could invest in so many other places.

Where do you need to consider letting go?

Burnout Part 6: Dealing with Stressors

Last week we talked about dealing with stress - how do we help our bodies discharge the energy and anxiety we're holding internally? Now, let's continue to follow Emily Nagowski's Burnout advice and figure out how to manage our stressors better. 

Stressors can be categorized into two main groups: those we can control and those we can't. 

The way to manage stressors we can control is planful problem-solving. As professionals, we're generally pretty good at planful problem solving - identifying the goal and creating a plan to fulfill that need, and the stressor is diffused. Now, we may still need to deal with residual stress in our bodies, but at least the stressor is addressed. 

The harder stressors to manage are those we can't control or abstract, intangible, long-term goals. At the end of the day, these end up feeling the same to us: they're too complex, uncontrollable, or far away for us to get our hands around. 

We have three basic tools to deal with these stressors:

1. Positive reappraisal - this is the process of finding value in the journey. The key here is that we're not trying to silver-lining the challenge. We are trying to find ways that dealing with all of the stress actually feels worth it. An example here could be, "there is no way I'm going to find my 1 hour commute motivating or worth it, but I can enjoy the time to decompress and listen to a podcast or call a friend."
2. Change expectancy - that means redefine winning in this case. This is appropriate for goals that are too squirrely or long-term to really feel motivated by "finishing." So, instead, you get to find an incremental, specific, concrete outcome that is personally motivating and rewarding to you. Perhaps completing the year-long goal feels way to far away to be rewarding, but a goal to come away from our next planning meeting with achievable goals for the next two weeks feels more controllable and tractable.  Great, that's your new definition of winning!
3. Redefine failing - for stressors that are super challenging and perhaps unwinnable, how can you redefine failing to identifying inadvertent benefits along the way? There's more to success than just winning. Perhaps as you job search, you've found a bunch of places that don't feel like good fits and you're feeling defeated. But perhaps redefining those "failed" opportunities as chances to learn about the industry and/or identify what you *don't* want in your new company feels motivating to you. This is a way to quiet those stressors that are nagging at you so loudly. 

Abstract and uncontrollable stressors are hard work to find your way through, yet it's so worth it. These can be some of the biggest drags on our lives and our mental health. Through positive reappraisal, changing expectancy, and redefining failing we can satisfy our goal-seeking brains and find relief from the burnout of unsolvable stressors.

Burnout Part 5: Dealing with the Stress

 After four solid weeks of writing about burnout, I thought I was done. This was clearly a very silly notion - burnout (and stress management to prevent burnout) has played a profound role in my life. I keep learning more and then I get so excited that I just have to share it with you. So, let's keep working with burnout! 

In Emily Nagowski's Burnout, she draws a careful line between the effects of stress and the effects of stressors. Stressors are the things that cause us stress - an impending deadline, friction at home, fear of underperforming, etc. We spend a lot of time and attention on our stressors; these are the problems we seek to solve. 

We also need to pay attention to the stress itself. The why is locked deep inside our evolutionary history: way back when our stress skills developed, stressors almost always required a physical response. The wolf was attacking us and our stress response got our bodies ready for the big expenditure of energy needed to run or fight (the sweating, clammy hands, pounding heart, dilated pupils, etc). Stress got us ready for big movements, big responses, fighting or fleeing.

However, in the present day, the story becomes more complicated because our stressors are usually not things we need to physically fight or run from - they don't require physical exertion.  We don't get to stand up and punch a deadline in the face or flee it by running as fast as we can back to our village. Yet our bodies still rev up the same way that they did when we were running from wolves. 

It turns out that dealing with the stressor isn't enough to discharge the stress. We all experience some version of this - we made it through the performance review, yet we still feel anxious and agitated. We have to work through the physical stress just like we had to work through the mental and emotional work of processing the stressor. We must discharge the stress that's stored in our bodies - simply removing the stressor isn’t enough. 

What do our bodies need in order to process stress? Here are a few options:

• Exercise, especially with more intense intervals
• Breathing mindfully
• Progressive relaxation exercises, tensing and releasing different parts of the body
• Positive social interaction, even just exhanging niceties with your barista
• Expressing and receiving affection
• Crying (yes, a good cry is cathartic!)
• Expressing yourself through creativity

The stress doesn't automatically go away just because the stressor is gone. Our bodies need to process stress just like our minds need to process the stressors. Engaging in these activities consistently will help gradually release the body's stored stress. And, eventually, the anxiety that came with the stress will also be released. 

For me, I think this is a reason I enjoy mountain biking so much - not only am I outside in nature's beauty, but there are tough moments that get my heart pounding when I can almost feel the stress working its way through and out of my body. What releases stress for you? What do you notice when you work to process the physical stress in your body in addition to working through the stressors?

Burnout Part 4: Reduced Personal Accomplishment

The burnout research continues to emerge, and I find it compelling, so I want to share it with you. I am more susceptible to some of the indicators of burnout - for example, I find emotional exhaustion particularly challenging. Yet the granddaddy of them all tends to be Reduced Personal Accomplishment. 

Reduced Personal Accomplishment is that persistent sense that you're simply failing at work. It's not about any specific interaction or project, but rather a loss of the sense of professional competence. Work takes energy and active involvement, and the less effective you feel, the more you'll sense nagging doubts about your self-worth and personal accomplishment. And the downward spiral continues...

The way through Reduced Personal Accomplishment is to get specific. Identify where your personal accomplishment is being eroded and identify what is within your control to change in that area. Fight that general sense of failure by identifying specific areas where you are accomplishing meaningful things, as well as specific situations where you are underperforming.

• In areas where you are underperforming, get detailed - do people you trust think you're underperforming in those areas? Are there skill gaps you could address through training or mentorship? Could you negotiate the amount of that type of work that you have to do or the timing of that work? Could you trade work with a coworker who is strong in that area? 
• What areas of work are within your control? What are your opportunities to make choices autonomously, solve problems, or contribute to fulfilling goals?
• Are there areas at work that feel unfair, such as inconsistent or inequitable rules for everyone, or a lack of quality justice and respect at work? If you identify areas that are eroding your sense of accomplishment, how can you address those?
• Where is your work having a beneficial impact on people? What fuels a sense of accomplishment for you at work and how could you do more of those activities?

The markers of burnout are emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. Each of these is challenging, and together they create a toxic burnout soup. You can get through burnout with careful attention over time to what you need to refuel and reset. Remember, it took months or years to get here, and it will take time to get through it. 

Burnout Part 3: Depersonalization

 Continuing our conversation about burnout, let's talk about the second indicator: depersonalization. I distinctly remember a few years ago when I read about this burnout symptom, and I thought to myself, "Oh my God, this is me. The people I set out to serve have become a 'them' to me." That was a crystallizing moment for me; I knew I had a problem. 

Depersonalization compounds emotional exhaustion (last week's post) by creating a lack of passion for work and a lack of care for "them." In burnout inventories, we see depersonalization when someone experiences cynicism, insensitivity, or negativity towards those they serve. This happens when the job has become a burden and is challenging to stay engaged in. Depersonalization sucks. 

For me, depersonalization looks like losing passion and enthusiasm. The job has become more of a chore than an engaging way to serve the people around me. And, like emotional exhaustion, I find depersonalization disturbing when I sense it in myself. In the corporate world, I chose my roles and teams based on the ways I wanted to serve, grow, and help others grow. And when I finally burned out to the level of depersonalization, I felt like I was failing at living out my values. 

The solutions to depersonalization, like the solutions to all of burnout, take slow and deliberate healing. Here are a few patterns that can help: 

• At the end of the day, review what you accomplished and make a list of what you need to do tomorrow. Prioritize the items on your list so that you know what is most important. This keeps you focused on your priorities rather than an endless mountain of potential work.
• As you leave work, check in with your body. Are you exhausted? Are you standing erect or bent over? What expression is on your face? How do you want to leave the building? What would it look like to leave that way?
• Before you get home, think about leaving your work behind. Be aware of the transition of "coming home." Be ready to make eye contact and relate to people positively. Try changing into other clothes when you get home to help your body truly transition from work to home.

The last one has been especially helpful to me over the years. I used to feel silly for changing out of perfectly good and comfortable clothes when I got home to put on other perfectly good and comfortable clothes. But it was a comforting ritual that I decided to keep despite the fact that it created more laundry. When I read burnout research, I felt vindicated - changing clothes was a research-indicated pattern to help reduce burnout. Turns out my body knew something valuable that my mind was unwilling to accept!

What about you? What are your simple transitional ceremonies that help you protect against burnout?

Burnout Part 2: Emotional Exhaustion

A few weeks ago, I started writing about burnout. Ok, it was technically just shy of 2 months ago, but life got a little hectic... preventing me from writing about burnout... the irony is not lost on me.

There are three key elements of burnout, and the first is emotional exhaustion. Emotional exhaustion signals the depletion of emotional energy - the emotional demands of the job overwhelm the individual's inner resources. 

Emotional exhaustion is very jarring for me when I experience it. I am a born carer - I care deep and I care hard, even when whatever I'm caring about clearly isn't worth the kind of emotional effort I'm putting into it. When I feel emotional exhaustion, I feel like I'm not myself. I've lost the care that I love to invest in whatever I do, and it's disturbing. It also means that I can't cope well when I hit resistance or speed bumps; my emotional reserves are simply all spent. 

Rebuilding from emotional exhaustion takes time and purposeful re-filling. After all, if you continue to pay out more emotional currency than you're taking in each day, the deficit will continue to grow. To heal and rebuild, you have to end the day with something in the tank. 

What can you do to heal from emotional exhaustion?

• Take real breaks that are actually relaxing
• Before walking into an emotionally taxing situation (or before going to work!), affirm that you're choosing to walk in and why
• When things feel stressful, check in with your body. Do you feel tension in your shoulders, forehead, hands, or back? Take a moment to let go of the tension, relax your breathing, and balance your posture. 

This takes time! Remember, it took months or years for you to get to the point of emotional exhaustion in whatever situation you are in. It is normal and expected that it will take some time to heal as well. 

Week of Me

Last week was my self-proclaimed "Week of Me." I was coming off my final week of classes and felt very stretched, so I decided that the next week would be a "Week of Me." Mostly, it was a way to get me through that hard final week of class - I kept telling myself to hold on because my Week of Me was coming. But, of course, a promise to ourselves is only motivating if we can trust ourselves to keep it, and keep it I did! 

During the preceding week, I made a list of all sorts of things I thought would feel good or exciting or nurturing. Every time I thought of something I wished I was doing instead of slogging through that final paper, I added it to the list. And I'll tell you, it felt so good to add things to a "Week of Me" list rather than just pushing those desires aside because I had to study.

My goal during my Week of Me was to do ten things from my list. I didn't have to do them all (this was about freedom, not burden), and I was ready to hit the week with a list chock full of things that would feel rejuvenating. 

Here's what I learned:

1. Whether or not something qualified for "Week of Me" was totally subjective. There were plenty of things on the list that would look to anybody else like soul-sucking chores. But I thought they would feel sweet to do, so they made the list. Honestly, with many of these things, if I told myself I "had" to do them, they would have felt depleting, but since I told myself I "got" to do them, they felt like kindnesses. This isn't just a brain hack; it really did feel different when I put something on the list and thought about how it would feel good to do it.
2. Knowing that I had a "Week of Me" coming sustained me through my final week of class. It felt motivating and kind that I had healing time coming.
3. It was really important to me that I kept this promise to myself. I take the commitments I make to others very seriously, but sometimes it's easy to let commitments to myself slide. Lately, I've been working to carefully consider and then purposefully follow through with commitments to myself. I'm worth it. If I were going to promise this week to myself, then I was going to take it. 

It was a lovely experiment, and I'm still ticking things off the list because those things still seem like kindnesses to myself. Except for climbing Mt. Timpanogos... I don't know who I think I'm being kind to with that one...

Serving in Belize

As I complete my MA in Clinical Mental Counseling Program at Concordia University Irvine this fall, I will participate in an impactful and exciting service opportunity. I will travel to Belize from November 9-15, where we will provide much-needed mental health services to a local community.

Purpose of the Trip

During our time in Belize, our primary focus will be supporting students and teachers of an underserved community by providing mental health counseling and teacher support. Based on the needs identified by the local school’s principal, we will deliver counseling sessions to make a powerful difference in the local community. We will offer effective and immediate support, helping students and educators manage stress, improve well-being, foster a healthier school environment, and learn ongoing skills for improved mental health. This community experiences many effects of poverty: violence, instability, and chronic stress. We get to partner with local aid organizations to support kids and their caregivers in their deep need.

Impact and Learning

This trip is an opportunity to invest in a community in need and an invaluable component of our professional development as future mental health counselors. Coming alongside communities in need in Latin America has been a big part of my life and my family’s story over the past decades. I am excited to expand that focus to Belize this fall.

How You Can Help

Every team member has agreed to build a prayer and financial support network. The cost of this trip comes in addition to our regular tuition payments, and there are a lot of costs to cover. I would be honored if you would join my support team. You can support me by making a one-time gift using Venmo @Jamie-Morningstar or PayPal morningstarje@gmail.com (or contact me to help with the trip another way). I will use any amount, large or small, to invest in the local community and make this mission trip successful.

I am deeply grateful for any support you can provide. Your generosity will aid me in my professional growth and make a lasting difference in the lives of those we serve in Belize. After I return, I look forward to sharing my experiences and the impact of our work with you.

Thank you for considering supporting our mission. Together, we can bring hope, healing, and empowerment to a needy community.

Sincerely,

Jamie

Burnout

Burnout feels like one of those topics people mention a lot but few people take the time to understand, kind of like trauma or NFTs. We throw the word around, we have a general sense of the meaning, but we (ironically) don't pause to dive in. So, here's my short treatise on burnout, because it's pretty interesting and very applicable. 

From a clinical perspective, Burnout came of age in the 1980s when researchers identified three core elements of burnout:

1. Emotional exhaustion: no more f**ks to give
2. Depersonalization: cynicism or low care for "them"
3. Diminished accomplishment: feeling ineffective or losing confidence

Burnout sucks. It sucks for the people going through it; they feel like failures and empty shells. Burnout is this sense of constantly being out of synch at work, where no amount of effort can dig you out.

Burnout sucks for organizations and teams as well. There are many correlates between burnout and workplace success. For example, burnout scores in teachers predict educator-coworker harassment, student misbehavior, and the quality of the teacher-child relationship. Similarly, professional accomplishment is related to job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Exhaustion and cynicism are related to turnover and work-to-family interference.

It usually takes a long time for us to find our way into burnout, and it can take a long time to recover, restore, and make our way through it. But it can be done! We can find our way to the other side of burnout. Here are a few things that can help with burnout at work - we may not be able to do all of these things, but we can all do some of them:

• Workload — negotiate the amount of work to be done in a given time.
• Control — find or advocate for the opportunity to make choices and decisions, solve problems, and contribute to the fulfillment of responsibilities. 
• Reward — increase financial and social recognition for contributions on the job.
• Community — raise the quality of the social context at work.
• Fairness — create consistent and equitable rules for everyone; ensure the quality of justice and respect at work.
• Values — identify what matters to the individual in their work. Find ways to increase the degree of consistency between personal values and the values inherent in the organization.

Burnout is directly linked to our performance and enjoyment at work. We can do something about it, one day and one decision at a time. 

What’s your most powerful tool in protecting against burnout or recovering from feeling burnt out? For me, it's all about control. If I feel like I have a voice in decisions that affect me, then I can make it through almost anything. But if I feel like a pawn in somebody else's chess game, that's a fast path to burnout. What works for you? 

What is Enough?

When I stopped working (for money) last November, I experienced a wild mix of emotions. I was thrilled to move on to this new chapter of life, excited to actually do what I had spent the past two years prepping to do in my master's program, curious about how I would spend my days and how my life would change, looking forward to more time outside, and, of course, plenty of fear that I wouldn't have enough. 

I was in a privileged position. We had been planning for this transition for years. Both Steve and I were capable of working full-time if that's what we needed to do. We had been saving a chunk of our income for our entire careers. And, still, it was easy to slip into fear. 

To stop the swirl, I found it very grounding to pause and define "enough" for myself. And when I stopped to list out what was enough, it was a pretty short list: 

• 
  Close and growing relationships with spouse, kids, and a couple of friends
• Time to move my body outdoors
• A faith community where I am learning and serving
• Daily quiet time to read, listen, reflect, and ask
• Enough money to not stress about food or shelter
• A way to invest my skills and gifts
  

When I start to spin out in fear or concern, I can return to this list and recognize that I have more than enough. 

What's on your "enough" list? How does it make you feel to return to this list?

My Ideal Schedule

I am in a unique time in my life. I am enjoying the rewards and blessings of years of structured work and have more schedule flexibility than I have ever experienced. I'm loving it, and I am committed to learning more about the most fulfilling ways to spend my time so I continue to savor this season.

A friend gave me a copy of Do Nothing, and one of the exercises suggested in the book is to write out your ideal schedule. Frankly, it seemed like a dumb thing to do. I was already enjoying my time, so why bother? But it seemed painless, and I gave it a try. 

I have two basic types of days: work days (where I'm basically at my counseling site from 9 am until 8 pm) and home days (where I may have a few things scheduled, but essentially have full control over my day.

I have been delightfully surprised by how much I enjoy sticking to this schedule! Let's be clear, the point isn't that each day will look like this. I have appointments and other scheduled activities just like everybody else. But understanding what my ideal day feels like has nudged me to preserve these daily patterns. Time outside in the morning is a highlight of my days. And knowing that I have 12-3 reserved for homework and other computer tasks helps me mentally let go of those tasks, knowing that there's still ample time to do them.

Here's your challenge - within the constraints of your "normal" life, what would an ideal day look like? The point isn't that you have the full power to sculpt every day this way, but you probably do have opportunities to nudge your days to look more like your idea.

Lessons from the River: Point Positive

Over the past few years, we've cultivated a deep love for multi-day river rafting trips. I mean, single-day trips are good, too, but multi-day trips are just better because there are more of them. 

The river gives many lessons, usually about going with the flow (ha ha) and non-attachment. If it's you versus the river, the river wins every time. 

Another favorite lesson is "point positive." The idea here is that when directing others, you always point where you want them to go. If there's a big ol' scary obstacle you don't want them to hit, you point away from that obstacle. Point positive. 

I've learned similar lessons in mountain biking - your bike will go wherever your eyes go. So, if your gaze stays fixed on that rock or that tree, that's precisely where you will end up. 

The goal in both cases is not to live with rose colored glasses. You need to know there's an obstacle. You need to have the skills to avoid it. And then you need to focus on where you want to end up, not the obstacle. If we stay transfixed on the obstacle, we can't help but be drawn to it. 

This is also true in my life - it's only a little helpful to know what not to do. It's a whole lot more helpful to know what to do. So just think of your friendly river guide and point positive.

Transferable skills

I am midway in a pretty major career transition. After 20 years in software, I started on a master's in clinical mental health and am now in year three of the program and midway through my counseling internship. I get a lot of cross-eyed looks from folks on both sides of my life (tech and counseling), confused about what seems to them like a radical transition. 

I recently went through a bunch of exercises in What Color is Your Parachute (man, is it a good read) that helped me clarify how I see counseling and coaching as a natural extension of what I loved in the first half of my career. It was a bit of a time-consuming exercise, but it was super helpful and informative. I would recommend the exercise to everybody who just wants to understand themselves a little better. It is a powerful thing to understand your transferrable skills and imagine how you could apply them in a variety of roles. 

Here's the exercise - it's challenging and super rewarding:

1. Write 5-7 stories of your life when you felt like you were doing great work and you felt great doing it. These can be short, but choose a variety of environments and ages.
2. Read through your stories and identify the skills represented in those stories (examples are consistent, assertive, open-minded, tactful - and the full list from the book is here)
3. Now, rewrite those skills as sentences. For example, "I use my intuition and experience to make decisions quickly and solve problems iteratively" or "I speak, guide, and mentor from knowledge and experience to increase individual and team effectiveness."

This is a list of transferrable skills that you bring to any situation - and it's a powerful list! This is what makes you unique in your role, and it's the special stuff you bring.

What I loved about the first half of my career has led me into this dynamic second half. I excel at breaking down ambiguous needs, creating individual growth and clarity, and solving problems iteratively - all special skills that I now get to bring into counseling. 

What are your top transferable skills? Any surprises in your list?

Where I Work Best

In the first half of my career (i.e., up until now), I didn't put a lot of thought into my best physical work environment. Working in tech, I never felt much control over my space. I always had a small cubicle or the dreaded open office space and just made do with what I had. 

However, at this career pivot point, I took some time to complete the exercises in What Color is Your Parachute and realized it was healthy for me to identify where I work best. I may not totally control my physical work environment, but if I identify the environments in which I work best then I can nudge my workplace to feel more comfortable. 

In What Color is Your Parachute, the exercise is to list the attributes that you don't like in a work environment, prioritize those from most hated to least, and then write down the opposite of those traits as what you are seeking. It's simple, yet so powerful to recognize your favorite environment. 

Here are things I enjoy:

• Full control over my schedule
• A mix of independent, small-group, and group work
• Chances to move my body
• Healthy, good food
• Chances to be outside with a view
• Bonus points for a soft, beautiful space with a variety of work areas

It was illuminating to see the things on this list that I didn't get in my average days in tech, and also the things that I sought in my next chapter. 

For example, as a tech executive, I didn't get a lot of time working in small groups - I was either in/leading meetings or 1:1 meetings. I didn't mind these activities, but they left little time for partner or small group work. As a result, in my final months in tech, I started reaching out to peers and specifically scheduling small group working sessions, which I find invigorating and connecting. Now that I am counseling two days per week, I get plenty of 1:1 working time, but I miss larger group times and decided to seek out more group experiences. 

In another example, schedule control was a major catalyst for my career change. In tech, I had a bunch of schedule flexibility, but I lacked the ability to create the weekly rhythms I yearned for. 

What have you learned about where you work best? How have you used that understanding to sculpt your work over time?

Who do I like to work with?

I'm at a career inflection point, which brings me ample opportunity to use the advice that, at other times, I would be dishing out to others. It's lovely to have the opportunity to step back and define what I want rather than simply coping with what I find before me.

I recently completed several exercises from What Color is Your Parachute (a classic for good reason!) and found the "people" exercise particularly interesting. In the past, I did not invest energy into defining the kind of people I love to be around and seeking them out. I think I had an implicit understanding of people I enjoyed working with, but completing an exercise specifically designed to help me identify "my people" was helpful and interesting. 

Here's the exercise:

1. Write down the kind of people who drive you nuts to work with. Identify the behaviors or traits you find particularly challenging or frustrating.
2. Stack rank the behaviors you don't like (the book has a nice tool for ranking here)
3. Now, use this list to write traits that are the opposite of your highest ranked frustrating behaviors. This is a list of the kind of people you love to work with.

I like this exercise because it's often easier to identify specific crazy-making behaviors in others than it is to write a profile of the ideal coworker. And it's an easy way to transform a list of "nos" into a list of "yesses" that you can seek out. I also like this exercise because you're describing the behaviors of folks you enjoy, and this leaves tons of room for diversity of perspective, background, and viewpoint in the teams you surround yourself with. 

Here's what I learned in this exercise: I like people who

• Prioritize the common good over personal agendas
• Do what they say they will, without being chased down
• Are introspective and interested in growth
• Are sharp

Will I have to work with folks who do not bear one or all of these behaviors? Yes, of course! Yet, I also have a lot of influence over the teams I work in and the work groups I create. And knowing the kinds of folks I thrive with helps me be happier and higher performing in the team. There's power in knowing what I like - I've spent a lot of time working with what I'm given (good skills) and it feels empowering to also identify how I work best.

How We Spend Our Hours Is How We Spend Our Lives, or, 55 Days on Skis and Counting

This weekend, I hit 55 days on skis this season. It wasn't a great season - we had a rough early season, a great March, and then the snow stopped coming. Also, it was the best possible season - I had time to ski and I prioritized it! 

I know 55 days is far from a record season for die-hards. But for me, it symbolizes a new level of freedom and independence in my schedule. As soon as I stopped working, my husband asked me, "You're getting an Ikon pass, right?" And I hemmed and hawed because it was a lot of money and I was worried I wouldn't use it enough to "make it worth it" (whatever that meant to me). And, bless him, he looked at me and said, "No, this is the year, you're getting an Ikon pass."

It was hard for me to make the call to invest in joy and put the money and time into something that has little pragmatic return beyond just being fun. I've spent a lot of time training myself to search for the highest level of practical outcome from my activities. 

Now I have the delight of being able to prioritize joy. To me, joy looks like 55 days on skis. It looks like time with friends. It looks like time on my bike. It looks like cooking (occasionally), working in the garden, and hanging out with my kids. 

I still have lots of responsibilities: school, internship, family, MTB coaching, taking folks on orphanage work trips to Mexico, and general adulting. Responsibility is cool. And prioritizing joy is cool, too. I can choose both.

Time Without Someone Else's Voice

Last week, I wrote about how not selling my time has changed my perspective on my priorities. Another thing I've been thinking about a lot is how noisy my life is. And I've been working hard to quiet my life down. 

Years ago, I read Digital Minimalism. One question that the author, Cal Newport, asks is: How much time do you spend without someone else's voice talking in your ear? This question stopped me in my tracks because my life is *noisy.* A lot of that noise is borne out of a desire for efficiency - listening to a book while folding laundry, taking a call while on a walk, talking to a friend on the phone while driving. Those aren't bad activities, but they left me with very little time when I was listening to my voice and my voice only. 

So I've been trying to embrace a little more quiet in my life; a little more time with nobody's voice in my ear. This could be driving without taking a call, exercising without watching TV, or walking without listening to a podcast or book. For me, it often looks like leaving my phone at home when I take the dogs for a walk or starting skiing or bike riding without listening to music (and adding music when and if I feel like I've had the quiet time I need). 

My question is, how much time do you spend without someone else's voice in your ear? And if you're unhappy with the answer, how could you spend a few moments each day with just your voice?

My Time is My Own

The past six months have been a unique experience in many ways, and I realized a few weeks ago that most of the difference boils down to one stark fact: for the first time in my adult life, I am not selling my time. No one has a claim on my hours. I am not exchanging time for money. My time is my own. 

Before we get overly dramatic, my time has always been my own. But I have chosen and needed to exchange my time and energy for money for my entire adult life. I have received tremendous benefits from this exchange: a prosperous career, profound professional growth, the ability to provide for my family, and now the privilege of *not* exchanging my time for money. 

My time feels uniquely my own in a very new, different way. Recognizing this as a unique season leaves me fiercely protective of my time. I have worked hard to gain autonomy over my schedule, and I won't let myself squander it or anybody stomp on it! I recognize that I invest my time differently when it's uniquely my own; that's neither better nor worse than investing it in a company, but it sure is different.

Right now, I get to revel in this window of my time being my own. I invest in quiet time with myself, going outside, writing and journaling, and creating comfort and ease for myself and those around me. My relationships are fewer and deeper. I enjoy just being around and having margin and space that I did not have while in career mode. I cook (occasionally). 

It's an awfully nice privilege to not need to exchange my time for money right now, and I am determined to relish this freedom. 

Have you had a time when you had a unique experience in your relationship with time? What did you learn about yourself? How did that period change your approach to time and priorities? 

Growing our Lives

Ok, I promise this is the final Parker Palmer-inspired post (for a while), but this guy really has me thinking! Let Your Life Speak is a simultaneously gentle and profoundly challenging read.

There's a short discussion at the end of the book about "making" versus "growing" our lives that I've been mulling over for weeks. My default white western point of view is that we make our lives, as if they are constructions. We build resumes, create opportunities, construct plans. I understand the desire to approach life as controllable ("build"). There is a certain amount of comfort in thinking that if I do the right things, lay the right foundations, and select the right building materials, then my plan will be realized in the end. 

But a built life, a constructed life, is a harsh perspective. And it doesn't reflect the complexities of a life. Our lives, circumstances, and relationships are not predictable, like assembling a Lego structure. We don't make our lives; we grow them.

Growth is a better analogy for a life's journey in so many ways. Growth is a mystery - sure, we can plant a seed and create good conditions for its maturation, but there's nothing we can do to make a seed grow. It simply does. 

Similarly, we cannot control the exact nature of the growth. We can merely respond to it and add the best ingredients we know of to shape and encourage that growth. We can fertilize, prune, and support the growth. But we can't control it. 

I've been thinking about this a lot - what would it look like to cultivate my life? How could growing a life make my perspective on my life more gentle and more aligned with reality? How much more generous would my self-concept be if I saw my life as a precious, delicate seedling to nourish? Would it be easier for me to approach my failures with kind curiosity about how to tend to this unexpected change and how to incorporate it into my overall structure?

I've spent a long time building my life. I am ready for a kinder season of nurture.

What does growing your life mean to you?

Learnings from Hogar de Amor

I spent the last week leading a team of volunteers and loving on the kids and caregivers at Hogar de Amor orphanage in Colima, Mexico. This is the 13th year we have traveled to Hogar de Amor, and I learn something different each year. I also learn many of the same lessons year after year (because I need a lot of repetition!). 

Every year, I am reminded of how sweet it is to take things a little slower and focus more on people and less on doing. This is not my default state or that of my culture; I am generally focused on "doing" and efficiency and accomplishment. Over the past years, my perspective has slowly shifted to taking more delight in slowing down and savoring the relationships. 

As the trip leader, I find this especially difficult, and all the more important. My days can be overwhelmed by the details: schedules, shopping for the next meal, picking up needed supplies, answering questions, and figuring out where we are supposed to be, when, and how to get there. It is tough for me to savor the moment when I feel the week's weight on my shoulders. 

And so it is all the more sweet when I can put all that noise and busyness down for a moment and just be in this place I love so much with people I treasure. My primary job for the week is to handle the details to facilitate those moments of connection for each team member... so my primary work is in the logistics of the future. Yet I also get these beautiful pauses where I sit in the moment's sweetness. I treasure that, and I love that I am getting (slowly, progressively) more practiced at finding and savoring those moments of presence. 

Spring

Last week I shared my wintering lessons, and now as temperatures get a little warmer and the very first early blossoms are peeking out, let's talk about spring. 

I recently re-read Parker Palmer's Let Your Life Speak and especially appreciated Palmer's musings on the seasons. In writing about spring, he points out the we all love to celebrate the jubilant awakening of spring - riotous blossoms, new life bursting all around. 

But before all of that budding and buzzing, spring is really messy. Early spring is wet and muddy and mucky and pretty gross. It's cold and damp. It's unpredictable. 

Eventually, the flowers, buds, and leaves burst out and carpet the earth, and we all celebrate the renewal of life. But don't forget - it was messy before it was beautiful. And, in fact, the messiness is necessary to create the beauty. Without the wet and the decay and the mud, spring wouldn't have the ingredients it needs to bloom. 

We need decay to fuel the blossoms. Spring is messy before it's beautiful - that's not an unfortunate side-effect but a requirement. It's part of the design. 

So, if you're feeling muddy and mucky right now, maybe it's all fuel and preparation for the blooming.

Winter

I have been doing a lot of thinking and reading and musing about winter lately. One, it's winter. Two, this is a challenging transitional season full of a lot of inward focus and less outward blooming. So, the focus works on both the allegorical and literal levels. 

Two major influences for these musings are Parker Palmer's Let Your Life Speak and the less creatively named Wintering by Katherine May. 

The takeaway is that all seasons matter - we need them all, and they all carry their own lessons. 

Palmer says that winter is clarity. Everything's out there in its stark nakedness. It's hushed; it's quiet. Winter has its own beauty, and it's a crisp one, sometimes desolate. 

In winter, all the growth is on the inside, under the surface. Roots grow deep, and trunks strengthen. The world is healthier for winter, but all of the external growth that comes as a result happens in other seasons. Yet, without winter, the external outpouring of energy of the showier seasons could never be.

We get social messages that our lives should be all summer all the time - all fun, all productivity, all blooming. But there is no summer without winter, and the needs and growth we experience in winter are profound and essential. 

What are your lessons in the clarity of winter? This winter, I am taking in the truth that blooming all the time is unhealthy. It is healthy and necessary to rest and grow deep roots and gather strength. That outward stillness has a beauty all its own. That's the beauty of this winter to me.

What was Special Today?

One thing I've added to my day's end journaling is a mention of what was special about that day. It doesn't have to be something huge - maybe I tried a recipe for the first time (cooking is new to me), overcame a challenge, saw something interesting or noteworthy, or experienced a milestone. But I look for something in every day that was special. 

Here's the theory: when our days are largely the same, our brains collapse them in memory as, effectively, duplicates. That's why when we think back over the past few months, it seems like time has passed so quickly - if our days are largely following the same pattern, they are collapsed down into more like a single typical day, and looking back, they just feel like a fast blur. Our brains love efficiency, and this is a way they can make storage easier. Our brains are so smart and lazy; they're wonderful. 

That's why time really sticks out when you think back on vacations or special events - those days aren't collapsed in memory because they're novel and different. 

Now, there's nothing particularly wrong with this, and there's nothing wrong with patterns. I loooooove patterns and habits. But, if you're looking to slow down your experience of time and savor your memories a little more, one way to do that is to record something special about the day. This helps the day to stand out a little more in your memory and reduces the sensation that your time is a blur in the rearview mirror.

Here are a few examples from my journal: 

• Today was special because I went to the eye doctor with my daughters. It's not a big deal, but I know I don't have many of these times left when I'm helping them out and it was a sweet little time.
• Today was special because I did my 4th ever intake! I really love that everything about counseling is still new and filled with firsts.
• Today was special because we went to our first ever Utah Hockey Club game! So fun. And I made gyro meat for the first time - nice work.

If you want to slow time down a little and savor your memories, try jotting down why the day was special in your evening journal. Bonus points if you can even take a moment to notice yourself enjoying the thing while you're enjoying it - that savoring will slow down time even more!

ps - this content was inspired by my application of Laura Vanderkam's Off the Clock, which is a fabulous book that you should totally savor and enjoy.

End of Day Journaling

For years I've had a regular practice of morning journaling. It's a time for me to reflect, pray, introspect, and think about the day to come. I used to journal in one big morning chunk, but Laura Vanderkam's book "Off the Clock" challenged me to change up my journaling routine by splitting morning and evening journaling. 

I found that in my morning journaling, I was spending a lot of time thinking about the previous day - my gratitude, feelings, frustrations, etc. I don't think that's particularly wrong or bad, but I wanted to be more present-oriented in the morning. So, I started journaling about the day at the end of the day (I know, it sounds obvious, but it took a whole time management book for me to get the idea). 

Here's what I journal at the end of each day:

• How today was special
• How I felt today (I have to do special concentrated work to stay connected to my feelings)
• Three people I'm grateful to and why
• What I'm grateful to myself for today

It's a lovely close to the day and helps me bookend whatever happened that day before I head to bed. 

I'm curious - what journaling approaches have you been using lately? What's working for you?

Personal, Relational, and Professional Goals

Last week we talked about my maniacal dedication to the goals I take on and how I have to be careful what I commit to because I will either kill myself achieving the goal or experience bitter disillusionment in my failure. It's a wild ride. 

A few months I started using a goalsetting approach invented by Laura Vanderkam (who has the best approaches to time management in the whole world). I'm super motivated by goals, I like setting (and achieving) goals, and I want my goals to support the kind of life I want to build, so I think a lot about my goals. 

Each week, I set three goals: a personal, professional, and relational goal. I may set two in one category, but no more. The goals may be related to something coming up that week, something that simply needs to get done, or a place where I want to enrich my life. And they have to support my values. This isn't a to-do list, this is what I want to prioritize my week around! 

Here are some examples of goals I set:

Personal goal examples:

• Go outside every day
• Journal three times
• Spent solo quiet time alone
• Exercise vigorously three times

My relational goals are generally around how I want to show up for somebody or a conversation I want to have with someone. I use my relational goals to prioritize and incentivize me to invest in people in a deeper way. 

And the professional goals are generally pretty easy, my professional goals are around networking or blogging or some big project milestone I want to hit. 

In all of these, I try to choose the "important" goals rather than the urgent ones. The urgent stuff will get done without needing special prioritization. It's the important but not urgent stuff that I use these goals to focus on - the stuff that I probably wouldn't naturally organize my week around but, if I stepped back, I really want to.

Here are my goals for this week:

• Personal: Journal three times
• Professional: Write a blog (check!) and outline my posts for the next 10 weeks
• Relational: Go on a date with my husband and set a schedule for our check-ins

Your turn - how do you think about goalsetting? How do you use goals to change your mindset or prioritization?

Strength and Shadow Side

As I'm in a career counseling class for my master's in counseling, I've been thinking a lot about my strengths and also the shadow side of those strengths. I'll give you an example - 

I am a goal-oriented person. I take my commitments very seriously; once I'm in, there's no going back. Last month, my yoga studio ran a fun little contest to see who would come 15 times in the month of January. The prize was a t-shirt if you did it. I decided I was in, and I was the first one to fill in my card. I will wear my shirt with equal parts of pride and amusement that I took the whole thing so seriously. 

This may at first read like a brag. I mean, don't we all value and respect people who keep their word? But there's a shadow side to this strength - I get a little compulsivey about things once I commit to them. Not truly "compulsive," but let's say overly committed to the goal. I think about it and plan around it. I schedule my days around it while simultaneously reminding myself that goals like the yoga challenge aren't really a big deal (because they're not! but I will, by God, get that t-shirt). 

For these reasons, I choose my goals carefully. In my younger years, I chose goals that were "good for me" - productivity-related goals to get more things done. They were goals for things I felt like I "should be doing". There's a time and a place for those goals, but my experience is that they tend to irritate me: I feel compelled to do them, but they don't make me happy. 

Now I try to use my commitment to commitments for good. I make goals around journaling, going outside, blogging, or just quiet and peaceful space. If I'm going to overenthusiastically overcommit to something, I want it to be something I really want to do. Something that lines up with my values and aspirations.

What's another example of a superpower you have that also has a shadow side? And how have you learned to channel that power for good in your life?

The Confusion of Knowing Thyself

I'm in a career counseling class right now, which is a fascinating meta-experience being in the middle of a career transition. 

In many ways, midlife brings clarity I did not possess in my early career. I know the kind of people I like to work with: interested in the group's good over personal agendas, do what they say they will, introspective and invested in personal growth. I know the environment I like to work in: independent work with some team collaboration and plenty of chances to get outside and move. I know that I really don't like commuting more than a 2-3 mile bike ride and that I plan to stay in Utah. 

Yet the wide experiences of midlife also muddy the waters. I know now that there are many careers and jobs in which my skills can be used well and I can find fulfillment. My list of specific skills has expanded into a large set of transferrable skills that I can use in many settings (prioritizing, clarifying ambiguous needs, perseverance). 

All of this introspection and self-inspection is an odd experience in middle age. It feels profound and, at the same time, trite and obvious. It feels clarifying and confusing. I think it's because I know myself better, and I have seen enough to realize there are a million ways to use my skills and passions that are fulfilling to me and bring light to the world. I guess I just need to get comfortable in the ambiguity. The irony is, of course, that most of my life and career is about creating clarity in complex, ambiguous problems! My superpower is in conflict with the very thing I need to reconcile with.

And the circle continues...

Goodbyes are Odd

It was a strange thing saying goodbye to Qualtrics. I was thinking about it, and 10 1/2 years is longer than I've been a part of almost any organization; only my time at CenterPoint Church outlives my tenure at Qualtrics. 

I was lucky enough to get a sweet, simple goodbye party, and one of my former teams dropped by to say our farewells. As we posted for a photo, one of them pointed out, "You hired all of us!" And, by goodness, they were right! It was a stunning experience. 

I didn't set out to spend a decade at a single employer, but we were good for each other for a long time, and it just worked out. In an industry where it is normal to change employers every 2-3 years, there's a strange and solemn privilege for this one relationship to work out for so long. You learn different lessons than the ones you learn from job hopping. One path isn't necessarily better than the other, they're just different. Staying at one organization, you learn:

• That your internal reputation counts for a lot in the long run. Yes, your fortunes may rise and fall with the organization's whims, and the company may chase after shiny new people. Yet you also get the chance to prove your character over the long haul.
• To create internal opportunities to move adjacent and diagonal in ways that seem exciting.
• That karma usually does win out in the end.
• To dig deep and weather the storms (and maybe even steer the org through them) rather than moving to an easier set of problems somewhere else. 

After spending so long in one organization, it's an odd thing to release both the triumphs and the heartaches after I've spent so long holding tight to both. Odd. Good. I'm grateful for what has been and I'm also ok with letting it go. 

Two Months Post-Employment

It's been just shy of two months since I said goodbye to the corporate world and stopped working full-time. Lots of people ask me how it's going and how I'm adjusting, and those are hard questions to answer. The last two months have been chock full of adjustments - I stopped working full-time, Steve started working full-time, the kids were off school for the holidays, the kids went back to school, I finished the semester and started a new one, I started working at my clinical mental health practicum site. Oh, and Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's were all mixed in there as well. There's been little stability to adjust to - but the reality is that's the way of life, there is no such thing as a "normal" season. 

I don't feel like I've hit a "new normal," but I have discovered a few things in the last two months. Here's my list so far:

I am pleased with how I choose to spend my days. I go outside, I do yoga, I walk the dogs. I do homework and meet up meet up with friends. I ski. I go to practicum and learn to be a competent and attuning counselor. I work on Creating a Family and our Mexico service trip trip plans. Sometimes I just sit and knit or journal. I believe that "How we spend your days is how we spend our lives" (Annie Dillard), and I am pleased when I look at how I am spending my days.

I'm a little surprised at how much I crave quiet, alone time. When I have more control over my schedule, I tend towards large periods of being quiet and solo. It's interesting because that's so very different from my days over the last 5 or 8 years, with meetings pretty much all day every day. My natural tendencies build in much more solitude.

I don't miss my old rhythms. There's a ton that I'm grateful for, and I can feel nostalgia for the especially sweet moments of my tech career, but I don't crave it. This is a good place to be, and I want to invest the time and attention into this season and these new rhythms.

Three cheers for the revelations and learning that a new season brings!

2025: Delight in Simple Contentment

After all of the change and movement and extended periods of concerted hard work of 2024, I'm looking for something different in 2025. In many ways, 2025 gets to be the fulfillment of the first half of my career. I get to enjoy the space and self-direction that I have worked hard to earn. And I am keenly aware that it will be easy to return to old habits and fill this wealth of time with "stuff to do."

In 2025 I get to be rich in unexpected ways. We'll make substantially less income, and we'll gain flexibility. And I get to decide if I'm going to be content in this new wealth or if I will pine for the old kind, with its recognition and busyness and undeniably nice accouterment. 

In 2025, my focus is to delight in simple contentment. I get to enjoy that I have enough and that having enough is lovely. 

The word I keep returning to is "chuffed" - a quirky way of expressing the experience of pleasure, satisfaction, or delight. I get to be chuffed with my life and where I'm at in 2025. 

And wouldn't you know that my Bible readings brought me to the perfect verse to focus on in the new year:

"You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought."

Matthew 5:5

2024: A Year in Motion

Mountain biking with Chewbacca

It's wild to look back over 2024 and marvel. 2024 was a year in motion! 

• We spent a full 7 weeks out of the country between trips to Mexico, Kazakhstan, and China
• I almost completed the classwork portion of my Master's in Clinical Mental Health (42 credits done!)
• Sam moved out of the house into his own apartment
• We renovated the entire main floor of our home (i.e., no kitchen or living room for 4 months)
• I closed the full-time corporate work chapter of my career
• Within a week and a half, Steve and I had completely switched roles, with him working full-time and me working none paid hours.
• I still managed to clock 1800 miles on a bike!

Receiving a Decade of Impact Award

My focus for 2024 was to attune inwards more. Even though the year was a blur of activities, I feel like I was able to ground more and handle the bumps and turns because I had specific goals to pause and look within to how I was feeling and what I wanted. I still want to learn to listen to myself better, but I've come a long way. 

Looking back on all of these changes leaves me with two big feelings: gratitude and empathy. I feel wildly grateful that time and schedules and budgets and desires all aligned for us to take three big international trips, two of which were homeland trips for the girls. As the kids grow, I recognize that these big family adventures will probably become fewer and farther between; the kids will have their own schedules and homes, and I won't be able to assume they'll come on every family trip. So I'm wildly grateful that 2024 was the year we were able to make all that travel happen and spend time together all over the globe. It was hard work and a ton of money and we made it happen.

Exploring the Forbidden City

Secondly, I feel empathy and tenderness toward myself. The anticipated and unanticipated adventures of 2024 were a lot to handle. I managed to work full time (for 11/12 months), complete 15 hours of graduate coursework, travel a ton, and stay pretty darn healthy. That's a big deal. And when I look back and remember the stress or the anxiety or the times that it all felt like a lot to carry, well it was! And I have more empathy for that gal who was coping with so much change in so little time.

Another birthday in Mexico!

So, farewell 2024 with your high highs and your low lows and all of your stressy stresses. You were a wild ride! I feel grateful for what I've learned and experienced, and I enter 2025 as a wiser (and more tired) person.

Quality time in nature with the puppers

Drinking fresh-milked mare's milk in the Kazakh steppe. I told you 2024 was an adventure!