Messy is the New Normal
This fall, my husband attended two reunions - one medical and one military. The gatherings were attended by some of the brightest minds working in healthcare and national defense, so I presumed there’d be a lot of mid-career posturing and ego flexes.
Boy, was I wrong.
Both gatherings accommodated candid conversations about toxic industry norms, overwhelm, and self doubt. Some attendees went dug into the weeds of personal disappointments, professional detours, and experiments in self care.
These days, it is nearly impossible to find employees, teams, organizations, or industries that aren’t muddled or traumatized.
Messy is the new normal, but that doesn’t mean you have to succumb to the mess!
You can tidy up your mind and reduce the mental and emotional overwhelm that leads to self doubt.
You can cultivate a healthy ego and build capacity to see the mess more clearly, choose your way through it, and show others the way.
And if surgeons and military officers are doing inner work, you can too.
Tidy Up Your Mind
Start by noticing your emotional response to the mess and the thoughts behind it.
Am I strong enough to survive this?
I can do hard things.
…but I am not prepared for this!
Why are things always hard for me?
What emotions accompany these beliefs?
Do they make you more or less inclined to trust yourself as a leader?
If your innermost thoughts and beliefs leave you more confused, it’s time to cultivate a healthy ego.
Cultivate a Healthy Ego
To fortify yourself for leadership, you must be willing to edit and curate the elements that inform your ego.
This means choosing experiences, relationships, and beliefs that reinforce:
the thoughts you want to have
the way you want to feel
the kind of leader you want to be
the kind of leader you’d want to follow
…and weeding out those that don’t!
Making these choices may seem awkward and clunky at first, but with practice you will develop the ability to make coherent and compelling choices, especially when life gets messy!
You will believe in yourself more and others will want to follow your lead.
