This is the Too Many Trees newsletter, where I share what I’ve been writing and reading in the realm of leadership and personal development. My coaching practice is centered around the idea that we are more effective in moving towards our goals when we become more conscious and intentional in focusing our time and attention, and learning how our unconscious patterns are holding us back. If you know somebody that could benefit from my perspective, please forward this to them or let them know they can set up a free intro chat with me.
As we enter 2021, I wrote my annual year in review, where I reflected on how thankful I am for the relatively easy time I had in adjusting to the vicissitudes of 2020, thanks to my privilege and economic security. Despite the pandemic, I was able to grow my coaching business and meet my original 2020 goals, including getting accredited as a Professional Certified Coach by the International Coach Federation.
The challenges I had were around managing my own well-being and self-care - below is an excerpt from the post that may resonate:
I put pressure on myself to do everything on my to-do list so I could “earn” my value, which made each task feel like a burden and an obligation, which made part of me resent doing it, so I would procrastinate by playing games or reading crap on my phone, which made me feel even more worthless, so I would put more pressure on myself to get things done, and downward I would spiral. It was really frustrating to watch as a trained coach, because I could see what I was doing to myself, and yet found myself unwilling to change the pattern.
In response to that pattern, I decided that my 2021 mantra is “Enjoy the moment”.
Seems simple, right? But it is surprisingly hard for me for various reasons, and I will continue to explore what’s going on there.
P.S. If you’re interested in reflecting on your 2020, and setting your intentions for 2021, I found the questions at Year Compass to be helpful, as well as a reflection guide from Kelly McGonigal.
And now for the normal personal development content:
LinkedIn: These are ideas or questions that are helping my clients, and that I share via LinkedIn to help a wider audience.
What options are you not considering? Coming up with more options creates choices where they didn’t exist. As Virginia Satir put it, “…to have one choice is no choice; to have two choices is a dilemma; and to have three choices offers new possibilities.”
Look for something new, or stick to what you know? Sometimes it's time to pick a path and execute, and other times it's worth exploring to see if there's a better path. The key is to being clear for yourself which you are doing at the moment.
To make something easier, do more of it. Disciplined practice allows us to rewire our brains to move through the phases of conscious incompetence to conscious competence into unconscious competence.
Finding a new community is a critical part of making a life change, because the fastest way to change ourselves is to change who we associate with.
Articles and resources I’ve recently liked :
Heather Cox Richardson wrapped up the year by sharing a brief history of the rise of the Movement Conservatives in American politics since Ronald Reagan. It’s a concise but powerful description of how a small set of wealthy elites have proceeded with their agenda to dismantle the New Deal activist government of FDR that created the wealth and prosperity of the mid-20th century, and replace it with their desire to increase their own wealth (increasing inequality) and decrease the ability of government to provide a safety net for all.
The US Federal Government Needs a VP of Engineering, not a CTO - danah boyd always provides an illuminating perspective by discussing people’s actual experience, rather than forcing people’s responses into a preconceived perspective. In this piece, she shares her fear "that we will see a significant flood of solutionism when what’s needed most is humility and curiosity." She identifies corrupt procurement, corroded HR, and partisan communications as key issues to address to help technology work for government, rather than throwing more technology at the problem of government.
Thoughtful exploration of holding boundaries at work by Marianne Bellotti: “It is so easy for social good organizations to become toxic workplaces because it is so easy to violate or indeed completely throw out appropriate boundaries.”
I finally got around to listening to Tim Ferriss’s podcast where he shares his own childhood sexual abuse and his (still in process) journey of healing. It illuminates a lot of his drive towards mastery over his life, as he (unconsciously) sought ways to exert control over the world. One of the key questions he shares to begin investigating one’s own trauma is “what are you unwilling to feel?”, and for him, he was unwilling to feel helpless.
But as his co-host Debbie Millman says, “Suffering [the feeling] is not as hard as the avoidance [of the feeling]”.
And Tim asks the question of “How can you use your suffering as a way to connect with people rather than isolate yourself?” In other words, when you keep your suffering private, you lose the opportunity to find a community with whom to share and grow together. He was surprised when he started sharing that many of his friends had similar childhood traumas they had never shared, and it made it easier to realize he was not alone.
Out There: On Not Finishing - a beautiful reflection on experiencing the present moment fully, rather than only the finish or the goal: "Our world does not like “out there.” It likes here, or there, but not what is in between. Here is what you are before. There is what you are after."
Thanks for reading. See you in a couple weeks.