We were sitting at the kitchen table, discussing the challenges of leading this spring when she shared with me an interesting observation.
“Geery, people are taking time off from work to go home and to rest for a couple of days. The past two years have been grueling and intense. And when they come back to work, they are still feeling overwhelmed. Resting is not enough. It is not yielding any form of recovery from what we have lived through.”
I nodded in agreement.
“I think the problem,” she continued, “is that people are just depleted at their core. And they do not know how to recover or how to find the pathway to restoration.”
When she shared this with me, I knew she was spot-on and 100% correct. I knew the feeling personally, and I had seen it professionally. It was a brilliant observation.
Her comments reminded me of an ancient Chinese poem by Chia Tao (777-841):
“I asked the boy beneath the pines.
He said, “The master’s gone alone
Herb-picking somewhere on the mount,
Cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown.”
I believe that many of us right now are feeling “cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown.” We want to restore an inner and outer sense of balance. We want to have enough energy to move forward with clarity and confidence, but we have no idea how or where to begin. We just feel drained by life.
Marshall Goldsmith in his book, Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts - Becoming the Person You Want to Be, (Crown Business, 2015) writes, “It’s one thing to engage in depleting activities, but there’s another dimension: how we behave under the influence of depletion. Doing things that deplete us is not the same as doing things when we’re depleted. The former is cause, the latter effect.”
The outcome to living in a constant state of depletion is that we surrender to status quo, and choose to do nothing. Or we make careless choices, not thinking through the impact or precedent that we are setting as leaders.
After many hours of reflection, I think the restoration pathway has many stages to it. I also recognize that each of us as people and as leaders start in different places along the path and move through the different stages of restoration at various speeds.
While I wish I could clearly map out the whole restoration process, I do know a couple of things about restoration from my own personal experiences, from being an executive coach, and from visiting with people who are helping others along this path.
First, stoping to reflect is critical stage. We need to pause and take stock. We need to step back and look at the whole of our life, at work and at home. We need to discern if we are living to our fullest potential and in a healthy manner.
Second, this act of reflection often results in a stage of remembrance and mourning. We have to grieve what we have lost and experience the normal but, at times, uncomfortable stages of grief that come with acknowledging these losses.
Third, we need to begin the process of learning and understanding new ways to work and live. This special time of restoration may include partnering with friends, coaches and mentors who can offer perspective, insights and support.
Finally, we need to give ourselves some grace along with some permission to keep experimenting on how to live and work in a new and healthy manner.
The restoration pathway is not linear. Instead it is a dynamic and iterative process where several of the steps can happen simultaneously and continuously. Still, I think it is critical that we prepare ourselves for this work and then commit to doing it. We need to create new beginnings as move through the rest of 2022. Now is the time for restoration to begin.
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