The focus of our newsletter over the next few weeks will be flexibility and the ability to pivot. If there has ever been a time to exercise this leadership muscle, it is now! Old ways of working don’t suffice, and we truly have no idea what lies around the corner.
Building or strengthening a new muscle requires practice, and we’ve created an exercise plan for you below: The Flexibility Challenge! Pick one item off of the Stretch List below (or come up with one of your own) and commit to doing it within a time frame that makes sense for you. We are volunteering to be your accountability partners.
Flexibility Challenge Stretch List
- Learn and use a form of technology that is not familiar to me but useful during (and potentially after) the pandemic
- Take an online course (Coursera, Udemy, YouTube, for example) that enables me to enhance or develop capabilities I can market after the pandemic ends
- Experiment with a way to use social media to enhance my life (which may include NOT using it at all for a period of time or only checking profiles and pages that bring me energy vs. drain it away)
- Create a personal budget for next month (even if I’m not typically a budgeter)
- Experiment with a new method of managing my anxiety (meditation, exercise, allowing myself to worry for no more than 1 hour/day, etc.)
- Give myself permission to engage in an act of self-care (going for a walk, reading a book, etc.)
- Implement a new parenting practice or approach that may make quarantine life more pleasant (a behavior chart, an hour of quiet in your room, a ritual at dinner, etc.)
- Organize a part of my life (or house) that I’ve been avoiding
- Interact with my work team in a new or creative way
- Ignore or skip a chore I don’t want to do
- Ask someone for help
We are committing to this challenge and have chosen the stretch item — “learn and use a form of technology that is not familiar to me” — by utilizing Zoom to facilitate a session of Transforming Success. (We’ve used Zoom for virtual coaching calls but have never facilitated a group session with it.) We dive into this challenge on Thursday, April 16, so we’ll let you know how it goes.
We can’t wait to hear what you choose! You can email us at julie@mcdonaldgraham and/or lisa@mcdonaldgraham to share your commitment, or better yet, join our community on Facebook at www.facebook.com/groups/MGPsychologyatWork/. We will share the Flexibility Challenge in our Facebook group where you’ll have LOTS of accountability partners, and you can see how others are stretching themselves.
We look forward to watching you achieve all of your stretch goals.
