Check In Before You Check On
Step One: Take responsibility for your own state of mind.
Check in before you check on.
Checking in means having a meaningful conversation.
Uncertainty tends to breed anxiety, and for most people, uncertainty is the only certainty there is at the moment.
We all thrive on a bit of uncertainty; it spices up our lives. But it needs to come as just that—a spicy addition to an otherwise solid foundation of certainty.
When there is more uncertainty than certainty, it’s easy to drift into victim mode—which is what we also call going below the line. If we do, it tends to spread as we suck others into our drama triangles.
If you have two or more people reporting to you, you’re a team leader. As a team leader, you need to think about what you can do to keep yourself mentally fit and above the line because the last thing you need now is for a victim atmosphere to spread to your surroundings.
The only thing more contagious than COVID-19 is a negative emotion. It spreads...
Keep It Together When Things Fall Apart
Post Emergency Apathy
Refocus your way out of the regressive phase.
Did you notice anything peculiar with your colleagues lately?
In the sense that they are sort of—well, how can I put it—regressing, not showing up at their level of maturity as constantly as they normally do.
From a developmental point of view, regression is mostly something we notice in smaller children. Here they were, doing so well at going to sleep, eating their porridge or whatever, and now suddenly they are back to behaving in a much more immature version of themselves.
But if you think about it, we all regress from time to time—probably more often that we would like to admit.
Essentially, we have three levels of functionality:
- Our normal way of being (The way we operate most of the time);
- A higher level (A peak level something we are trying to learn or aspire to and that we experience from time to time, but not on a consistent basis); and
- A dysfunctional level (A less...
