Ready to hold your feet to the fire?

Originally published 11 January 2012

I’ve always been fascinated with change – how we can adapt how we are to create something better, more powerful. Over the last year, working with some new colleagues, it’s become more visceral, more personal. And it feels like all the time I’ve spent studying yoga, meditation, mindfulness is coming back to the fore, bringing an awareness of the subtle signals that are golden threads to unlocking who I can really be.

Ever have that feeling of heightened awareness of certain things where you are suddenly noticing them everywhere? When sometimes it feels like whatever’s out there in this universe is shouting loudly ‘you need to learn this now, you need to learn this NOW. NOW’.

Until you can’t ignore it.

That’s sort of where I’m at.

I suppose the first moment of truth came a year ago (pretty much to the day. Spooky). I decided to sort out my bottom teeth (lots of time working with American colleagues with beautiful teeth combined with tales from the dentist of how they’d gradually crowd more and drop out if I didn’t). So, I leapt in and got a brace. Inman Aligner if you’re interested, but that’s another story.

So, the first weekend with my new brace I was in pain. Seriously, I was ready to tear down walls. And it was the first time in a long while when I thought: ‘I don’t know if I can do this. It hurts too much. It’s too hard’. And to be honest if it hadn’t cost me a lot of money I’d have given up. Suddenly I realised this is what a real shift in behaviour feels like, when you’re really pushing your comfort zone. It feels hard, uncomfortable, painful and you’re not sure if you can do it. Hm.

It was about the same time as I was leading some real behavioural change work in our firm. As I found myself standing in front of teams, sharing the vision for how we need to change and evolve, I realised what I was really asking of myself and others. To do something that feels really uncomfortable, a little scary. Letting go of what might have got you to where you are now and working out who you need to be to go forward and be the best you can be in the future.

I’ve been really lucky as many colleagues, clients and contacts I work with are in a similar place. And with their insights and support it’s helped me work out where I need to stretch to be the leader I need to be for tomorrow’s world.

A blog post from @leadershipfreak (Dan Rockwell) brought some wisdom that has also helped me. About not trying to fix people, trusting they can do that for themselves. And sometimes not rushing to get to the end and instead sitting, with one’s feet in the fire, and being OK with feeling uncomfortable is really important. Or it is for me.

Being OK with not being perfect. With experimenting. With not always being able to make others happy. With not letting unreasonable requests leaving me beating myself up. The fear of failing, falling. Sometimes the discomfort is so strong it’s like a physical knot that almost paralyses me and burns up my energy. Yet sitting with that feeling, watching it, observing it, bringing that detachment from meditation where you notice, don’t judge, seems to be moving me forward more than if I was fighting to get through it.

Each moment noticing, being alert and aware, slowly opening up a space to move beyond.

Feeling like a heavy weight I’ve carried for a long time is slowly lifting and lightness is coming through.

As I close I can feel that knot tightening, in the wax and wane of the fire, as it’s scary to share what feels so personal to me. Yet it also feels important somehow. So deep breath. Be bold. If people don’t like it, it’s OK.