Picture this.
It was make or break.
It was the evening before one of the biggest opportunities for Top Five.
I was going to be front and centre at the Employer Of Choice Breakfast with the 80 best employers of their industry.
Not only that, but the state government was also endorsing my work as ‘an organisation that can truly build supportive, productive and mentally healthy workplaces’ plus one of clients was going to be sharing how our work supported them through a tricky merge.
An opportunity like this is the stuff dreams are made of.
So, I arrived at the hotel with five minutes to get ready for dinner with the state government Program Director. Time to change out of casual jeans and runners and into something more professional, and… f*** I’d left my suit bag on the plane.
I had nothing to wear tonight or for the main event tomorrow except for the jeans and runners I was standing in.
My stress levels were at a crossroads.
When faced with stressful situations, our stress vices have evolved over the years to include booze, chocolate, Netflix and the old classic, critical self-talk.
My vice of choice, like for so many other women is critical self-talk.
The younger me would’ve fallen into a tirade of statements like:
And those self critical thoughts would have hijacked my night and turned me into a stiff cocktail of overly professional with a twist of apologetic, hot mess, and losing myself in trying to prove I could be taken seriously.
And it had nothing to do with the jeans and runners.
Left unchecked, these thoughts can spiral to become far bigger than any small issue. Our brains love to dive into the stories of past mistakes that create a solid case that those critical thoughts are the only truth. But they’re not.
Research shows that critical self-talk is a default for many women when they’re under stress.
Back in my hotel room, I flipped the self critical script on it’s head and made the most of the opportunity.
The Program Director arrived for dinner, laughed at my story and said “let’s drive out to the airport and try our luck”. On the way, instead of getting lost in a sea of hopelessness and apologies, we shared fond travel memories of how things go wrong but become part of the adventure. Lost passports in Turkey, missed planes in Peru and lizards mistaken for Tsunami alarms in the night in Thailand…
It was real and human and an adventure.
Not stiff, professional and forced small-talk while I quietly shamed myself for making such a careless mistake.
This isolation time has been a priceless experience in humanising things. Kids are zooming through the background of Zoom calls. People are acknowledging how messy life is when parts we usually keep separate overlap in a heap.
I hope we keep the value of being human over perfect.
The truth is that folks in any team will take turns to make mistakes. We all face the stress crossroads sometimes. Our thoughts about these mistakes have a significant impact on cultures and how we show up.
If your team is in a habit of making the small things into big things, then let’s chat about how our mindset hacks and resilience programs can lift focus, performance and all around human-ness in your team.
We’ve been running loads of these programs online with new teams and have three new spots about to open up. If you’re team wants in, book some time in my diary and let’s talk about how we could help.
Having the tools to short circuit the wild thought loops of hopelessness and self-criticism means that we don’t miss life as it happens.
For now take care and keep it simple.
Excited regards,
Clare Desira
Director, Top Five Movement
:: 2018 – 2019 INTERNATIONAL COACH OF THE YEAR FINALIST ::
Because negative thinking is boring
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