Lessons from Lockdown - A Unique opportunity to look inwards

Being in the very fortunate position of having a job, having my health, and being connected to the outside world, was not lost on me when it was time to start in a state of lockdown, in what feels like years ago now. Although some of the restrictions have been lifted here in Denver, Colorado, where I reside, my team is spread globally, and some reside in areas where there are now stringent lockdown requirements. This event's impact will be felt for years to come, and the focus on the teams' health and wellness I will temporarily leave for another (soon to come) article. But for here and now, its time to get more vulnerable (thanks Brene Brown for putting a name to it!) and share my experience of self-leadership and development towards hopefully one day being the equivalent of an elite athlete in the business sense (or boardroom).

It's worth pointing out two key things here since this comes up time and time again when I coach others, or when the topic of leadership inadvertently comes up at a CEO roundtable or during a podcast. Number one - Lead yourself first! If you are not good at leading yourself, stop, don’t pass go, don’t collect $200 … work on this first! Secondly - Be coachable! I’m of the firm belief that if you think you know it all … it's (almost) too late, you’re cooked, done, and your ego now probably rivals the size of Texas.

A few days before Denver went into lockdown, I decided to get a gym membership. Obviously, I didn’t know at the time that I couldn’t use said membership until gyms re-opened. Not long after that, I decided to find a Denver-based coach. Why? I knew I needed to lift my game, and I wanted to become a better version of myself - which meant I couldn’t do it alone, and I needed someone in my corner. Not that I didn’t think I was performing in my role, but I didn't feel I was performing, nor feeling like an elite athlete - A-grade all the way.

I’ve had coaches and mentors throughout most of my career, and as I’ve progressed, I would like to think that I have become more and more coachable.

So as my schedule changed from constant travel around the US and globally, being stuck at a home office meant that I could get stuck into bettering myself - so I got stuck into the data. From getting the standard biometric measurements at the gym (once it re-opened) through a detailed analysis of where I spent my time in my calendar .. and everything in between. Although we may feel we know how out-of-shape we are or know that we are spending too much (or not enough) time on certain priorities in any given week - until you get the actual data - you are merely guessing.

Once I took stock - not only was I in worse shape than I thought, but I was also spending my precious time on stuff that was not critical to my role, nor enough quality time with my family. The data told the story - so now it was time to roll the sleeves up and get to work.

With my coach's help, I set several goals to get these parts of my life (and work) to where I felt they needed to be. It sounds pretty straightforward, set some goals, and off you go!

But, I knew better, so I knew that many things needed to change on how I actually do the things that needed to be done to achieve those goals. Like many, I didn’t have the greatest track record of setting and achieving goals in the time I originally set out.

As much I am an early adopter and have an app for almost everything - I knew that this was also my downfall. So I went ‘old-school’ - got a physical journal, created a physical habit tracker (you know - where you actually have to put a cross in the box next to each habit for each day).

It has now been over 5 months of pretty consistent compliance (which I also measure) in:

1. Daily journalling
2. Habit Tracking
3. Measuring outcomes regularly, and
4. Seeing the culmination of all these lead to some great results.

My individual results aren’t as important to anyone else, really, but the journey is what is transferable.

So what did I actually learn during the journey so far:

1. Write in a physical journal - Daily.
2. Keep a habit tracker that you evolve as you go - routine sets you free!
3. Find ways to measure your performance to check you are on track.
4. Be kind to yourself.
5. Be Flexible with certain aspects of your schedule - sh!t happens.

Daily Journaling

For a long time, I thought that merely having a hard talk with myself each morning and then each night was sufficient to shift through the gears effectively as a top performer. Although I did see some improvements, once I had journaled for a month or so, I noticed step changes and improvements.

There is something to be said for being focused on a few things (only), and going into the day with that focus. This shouldn’t be limited to what needs to be achieved. I would that priming the mind to be in a certain state of gratitude and awareness in what type of person I wanted to be that day made a huge difference. For the avoidance of doubt - getting this granular can drive me crazy, but once I saw the results of doing this, just like the extensive habit tracking, I knew I needed to keep up this uncomfortable process.

Did I duplicate some information, for example, my daily schedule (from my live digital calendar)? - absolutely - but this was a small price to pay to see the forest for the trees on where I was spending my time, and was that actually appropriate?

Habit tracking

My initial instinct was to “get an app for that!” - but this didn’t work for me. Instead - I grabbed an old-fashion notebook, got a ruler, and drew a grid to allow me to track a bunch of habits for a month. Initially, I tracked about 8 things, spread across health and fitness, strategic thinking time, family and personal time, and so on. Over the course of a few months, the list grew to include key items I knew I needed to focus on, and now, its back to about 10 items. As certain habits were ingrained and done every day, I determined whether I actually needed to track it anymore. I found that this varied - since somethings I don’t want to forget the importance of doing, so they stayed. Others were replaced by the next thing I wanted to work on. Some of the key habits I have tracked include:

1. Family time
2. Strategic thinking/deep work time
3. Fitness/workout
4. Nutrition
5. Commit to connections (i.e., relationships)
6. Intermittent Fasting
7. Action inbox @ zero

Measure the data - make decisions

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” - we’ve all heard this so many times. The key to making meaningful change is understanding where you at, then plotting the course from there. As much as I hate going into the mega-detail like this, it was necessary to determine:

1. Where I was spending my time as a CEO versus where I needed to spend my time
2. How many meaningful interactions/discussions was I having internally and externally per week, versus what “commit to my connections” needed to be;
3. How much meaningful, engaging time was I spending with my family per week versus fleeting moments where you are forced together;
4. What my BMI% was versus where I wanted it to be;
5. What my daily caloric input was versus output, and so on.

I can guarantee that, once you start this process, you will uncover some uncomfortable truths. I had a few revelations and also found that some of my methods of measurement were inaccurate, which meant that my baseline position was not correct. In all these situations, I was further behind than I wanted to be.

The other key lesson I learned here is that I needed to be consistent with those methods of measurement. Whether it was using the same journal and habit tracker ongoing or the same machine at the gym to measure my BMI or my food journal - once you start changing, its harder to confirm you are still on track. Don’t change systems just because you find yourself bored ... I get it. It drives me crazy too, but its meant to get boring.

I’ve left the most important part of this point to last - the measurement systems give you feedback from which to make decisions and take action. In the same vain - garner as much feedback from those that you work with, are around, who are dear to you, to check if you are on track. If you don’t have a coach - get one! We all need someone in our corner - having a coach who not only kicks my butt when needed but also helps celebrate (and importantly call out) those small victories - is critical to staying on course with your goals - PERIOD.

Be kind to yourself.

If you are hitting all your goals every day, I suggest you are setting the bar way too low. Eustress is important for development, and find your areas of stretch. Setting stretch targets is very powerful, but ensure you are not beating yourself up too much when you don’t achieve them, or when you are falling behind on certain goals. Be realistic, reassess whether it still makes sense to pursue those, or whether they need to be adjusted.

If you are trying to follow a rigorous regime, chances are life will hit you from the side and can put you into a tailspin. In these moments, I’ve had to dig deep to ensure I don’t beat myself up too much; I’ve tended to do that throughout my career. I found it critical to consult my coach at these times where possible and get into the journal and try to unpack the situation and see how I could get myself back on track.

Control the tension between flexibility and strict scheduling

After I initially performed a thorough review of where my time was going, I identified several areas that needed to change. I started by locking in time in my schedule that was specifically carved out to tackle those things. Some of these required some serious brain-power like deep work, or strategic thinking, whereas others required less, such as reviewing emails as a batch process. The challenge often is that context switching is not trivial, particularly when going in and out of deep work. My initial approach failed me since there were times where things would pop up, unscheduled, by change, or by the fact that people wanted to randomly discuss matters (yeah - they were being human ... can you believe it?). When this happened, I suddenly lost that time and did not hit the mark on what was suppose to be achieved in that time slot. 

It took some work to figure out that I needed to have time-slots carved out, but keep them “untitled” to mix and match what I actually was to accomplish in those timeslots. 

This was one of the biggest groundbreaking revelations I had, it may sound ridiculous, but it was amazing how much better I felt AND how much easier it was to stay kind to myself once I made this change.

Although I could go on, and I will probably go deeper on some of these, I think this is the crux of it. 

Change for change's sake is a waste of time. Meaningful change, in line with whatever is your “20-mile march,” makes a massive impact on not only your life but those that you influence around you. This, in itself, makes it a worthy ideal - worth pursuing. After all, how do you define success?

Happy marching!