Sometimes change happens to you, and sometimes you invite change into your life.
I recently did that when I decided to bring a sweet 9-week old puppy to my household, and it’s turning into a deep-dive personal experiment in adaptability and resilience. Between house training her, managing the initial ambivalent feelings of my older girl Kaylee to her new younger energetic sister Ripley, and knowing that I need to find profound new ways to get work done in the cracks of time between puppy naps and training sessions, I’ve really tossed a lot of things up in the air.
One of my core practices I use to sustain my energy and mindset is daily cold dipping in Lake Ontario. I’m part of a group that dips at set times each morning, and the camaraderie, encouragement and accountability has been a big contributing factor to me marking Dip 327 this week and celebrating 13 months of cold dipping. However, Ripley doesn’t care about my morning dipping commitments, so I’m adapting. In the process I’ve had some insights about what leadership means when you strip away some of the usual support structures, visibility and community around you.
Whether you’re cold dipping in a lake, inspiring your team, handling a challenging conflict at work, or trying to find a way to manage stress and uncertainty in some way, here are 3 insights I wanted to share with you that can help.
Start with Leading Yourself
People who feel the pressure of a changing business environment or needing to uplevel because of promotion often reach for the tried and true approaches. Before you try to find tactics or strategies to make you a more inspiring leader, I think it’s important to take a step back and ask yourself, “How well do I lead myself?”
In my puppy-inspired adaptability experiment I’m living now, my decision on how to make my daily dip happen isn’t rote. I need to create it each day. I do feel the absence of being able to dip with my group, but in this time I’m learning to re-connect to my own individual choice and passion for this daily practice. This is building my own resilience and self-reliance in the process.
I believe inspiring leadership is less about performance and more about presence. How do you show up when nobody’s around? If life starts to throw you some unexpected curveballs, notice what happens to your mindset and your inner dialogue. Do you look adversity in the eye and decide to take action on the things you can control, and surrender to the things you can’t? How you show up in the seemingly small moments of everyday life (like training a young puppy to sit) can reveal a world of valuable insight about how you show up elsewhere too. Leverage those opportunities to build self-awareness so you can level up your leadership.
Claim Your Identity
A big pitfall when people need to level up their leadership is they overuse past strengths and choices. As Marshall Goldsmith says, “What got you here won’t get you there.” Spending time to reflect on your identity can be hugely valuable in helping gain traction in expanding your leadership influence.
What’s important to YOU? I’ve been confronting that question myself with my dipping practice. With my puppy’s schedule, I can’t join my established dipping group at the set times anymore. The accountability and camaraderie it provided me is gone. Riding the tailwinds of group energy isn’t there now and won’t be for several months until my puppy is older and more independent. I’m choosing to show up for myself, and I’ll be honest and say that some days I need to dig a little deeper to get into the water than others.
Getting clear on the identity you want to step into is a differentiator in leadership as it is sourced from deep within yourself and your values, not just from a job description. Your daily choices reflect that identity. As James Clear says, “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your identity. This is why habits are crucial. They cast repeated votes for being a type of person.”
Celebrate Your Wins
When you’re busy, it’s easy to forget to pause and celebrate your wins. This is natural because a lot of what we consider to be productive and effective is getting stuff done. When you’re strapped for time, why bother to reflect on your day and notice the things that did work well or where you deserve a pat on the back? My days now run in short blocks of time determined by a young pup’s nap schedule. I’m making sure I’m giving myself lots of internal “high-5’s” for each step of my learning curve as I train a young dog again and make these adjustments.
Claiming your wins is a critical way to fill your own cup. Without it you set yourself up for perpetually looking to others for kudos, gratitude and acknowledgement. It sets you up for relying on extrinsic motivation and validation.
If you flip it around and take the reins of encouragement and acknowledgement into your own hands, you tap into the sustaining power of intrinsic motivation. A practice of personal celebration can be as simple as writing down 3 things you’re grateful for at the end of the day. Leading from a place of abundance and gratitude helps you navigate the stressful and uncertain day. It helps develop a richer level of self-awareness and resilience that guides you forward, no matter how challenging or uncertain the issues of the day may be.
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