Premise:
The past few weeks of lockdown have had some kind of impact on each and every one of us. Most of the people that I speak to (and believe me, I speak to a lot of people every single day) tell me that they have become busier, more meetings, more work, more calls. I’ve seen something similar happen to me as well.
Are you busier now than pre Covid?
This is surprising on many levels. One would expect that the exact opposite to happen. Most businesses are closed. Not much is being produced or sold or repaired. So, why are we all busy? Shouldn’t we all have more time at our hands?
Craving Connections:
In my opinion, we are craving for connection of some kind. The calls and meetings give us that. Also, what could have been addressed in a coffee corner or near a water cooler conversation in 5-10 mins is now scheduled as a 30 min meeting. And everyone wants to seem and look busy for the fear of being considered irrelevant in the near future.
Reflection:
I took the opportunity to slow down a bit during the past few days and reflect on the journey so far, first about what we have experienced from a lockdown and the physical distancing and the impact it’s had on me.
Once, I started the reflections, I did not stop there. I tried to think about the past few months and the past few years and the past few decades (almost one and a half of which I have spent at my current employment).
The result of this reflection is that I feel that I’ve done the exact mistake that I didn’t want to do – spend too much time, energy and effort in one area of life and to a certain extent ignore other areas of life.
Healthy, Wealthy and Wise:
If you’ve been following my blog, you would already know that I talk about seven (up from six) spheres of life that we need to work on and keep in balance, if we are to lead a balanced life that is both happy and brings a lot of peace with it.
These seven spheres of life can be categorized into Health (Physical, Emotional), Wealth (Relational & Financial) and Wisdom (Intellectual, Spiritual and Creative). Each one of these spheres needs work on a continuous basis in order to maintain harmony and balance.
The Four Key Resources:
My reflections showed me that I have only been focusing on three of the seven spheres, which has led to a feeling of imbalance in my life, which I intend to correct going forward. The only way we can do that is by being intentional about where we are spending our four key resources (time, attention, energy and emotions).
We get a limited quantity of each one of these resources and where we spend them is up to us. If we are not intentional about it, we can easily fall into the trap of spending all of them in one or two or three spheres (just like I did).
Comfort Zones:
These are typically our go to spheres because, we are comfortable in these spheres; we are good and successful in these spheres and the others make us nervous or uncomfortable in the least. So, we end up ignoring them for as long as possible.
Role of Celebration:
One way that I intend to use to deal with this nervousness and the feeling of being uncomfortable is to find small wins that I can celebrate. I’ve learnt in my studies that every time we celebrate something, we feel good about it and that makes it easier for us to do more of it.
So, the assumption that I am making is that if I find something worth celebrating in each one of the spheres that I am uncomfortable in or nervous about, it will enable me to overcome this nervousness and help me do more of it. The more you are able to invest your resources, the more focus you bring to it and thereby bring balance in your life.
Invest According to Seasons:
Thanks to my reflections, I know exactly which spheres of my life I have been neglecting for the past few months/years and what I need to do to bring them in balance.
One common mistake that people usually do, one that I have done in the past is to try and go overboard or try and split the four resources equally amongst all these spheres. It is not necessary and can even be counterproductive.
Just like nature has its seasons, we have seasons where one or two of these spheres takes more precedence than others. You will already know which one’s need more focus in this current season. We should not forget the other spheres and continue to invest our resources in them albeit lesser in the current season.
I know which season I am in and what spheres of my life needs more investment and which one’s less. Do you?
My Personal Celebration:
Since we are talking about reflection and celebration, I would like to also celebrate the fact that this is my 700th blog post on this blog. I started my blog on 19th March 2010 (My first blog post is here.
Over the past 10 years, I’ve created 700 posts. I have learnt a lot along the way.
Lessons Learnt:
Continuous Improvement:
You improve at anything that you invest your energies. My ability to articulate my thinking has improved vastly from the time that I started on this journey, which surprisingly has helped me in my regular work (in drafting emails or reports, which is what most of my time at work entails).
Cheerleaders, Naysayers and Ignorers:
You will always find three kinds of people in your journey. The cheerleaders, the naysayers and the ignorers. Whom we pay our attention to will determine how well we do in our lives. So, be careful and intentional about this. This is the single most important thing we can do in our lives.
Surprises:
Life and people will always surprise you. The blog posts that I am the proudest of, the one’s that were the most difficult to write and the one’s that you think will be well appreciated are usually not the one’s that are shared or read widely.
The one’s that are well received are the one’s that I just wrote while waiting in a que or at an airport and are typically very simple (maybe the exact opposite of this).
But I have learnt that while they are important, it is also important for me to write pieces like this one, which might not get widely read or shared or appreciated but help me clarify and articulate my thinking to myself, more than anything else.
Evolution:
Having a blog (or for that matter a diary or a journal) is that it accords us the ability to go back in time and see our thinking evolve from where it was to where it is now. The biggest benefit that I see in maintaining this blog is that I have seen my thinking and articulation of topics that are most important to me evolve.
Creative Outlet:
Every one of us needs a creative outlet to lead a balanced life. It could be singing, dancing, painting, coloring, drawing, pottery, sewing, cooking or for that matter anything else. For me it is words – written and spoken. What is yours?
In Conclusion:
In conclusion, I think all of us need to carve out time in our lives for reflection. At least, this is something that I intend to do every 90 days and recalibrate where I spend my four resources. This will help me lead a much more balanced life. The question you need to ask is what you will do.
PS: Here are some of my most popular posts till date:
How could Flipkart respond to the open letter to its founder by a dissatisfied customer
Life Lessons Learnt from the Movie – Mission Impossible – Fallout
Leadership Lessons from An Oscar Award Winning Animated Short Film
