Laura's Learnings

Documenting my life

Author: lauraslearnings (Page 3 of 7)

The importance of taking ownership

June 9, 2022 / / 0 Comments

I followed an event on zoom recently, held by an online content creator. It was essentially a webinar, so they were talking over a PowerPoint presentation, explaining different concepts and sharing information, specifically regarding one of their areas of expertise.

There was one slide which, I believe, contained one of the key points of the whole event. And this slide had a mistake. 

The first thing the content creator said was that someone was going to get fired. 

I was really surprised by that statement, even if it was a joke. 

I must add, they immediately said something along the lines of this being their responsibility, ultimately.

But still, that initial reaction really stuck with me and I wanted to try and unpack why.

As mentioned, this was said as a joke and they later reiterated it was ultimately their own responsibility, so this is not a personal criticism or attack, but simply a way for me to share the reasons why this stood out to me and what I have learnt in the last few years.

1. Avoid finger pointing and take ownership

Although “anonymously” (i.e. without calling someone out explicitly, of course), it rings close to finger pointing. Usually (I can’t speak for this case specifically) this means blaming someone specific and letting them take the blame, shame and expecting them to fix it. Generally the issue is more nuanced and there might have been a series of events that led to the mistake. As someone who is in charge of a presentation, you need to validate the slides you use. If you trust someone else to prepare them and don’t double check, it is still your responsibility. Ultimately it’s the presenter’s responsibility to guarantee the quality of the event, I believe. I think the idea of being a team and the importance of working together towards a goal is a key pice to keep in mind, usually.

2. Don’t use fear as a weapon

I really appreciate when a manager, leader or anyone in a position of power does not rely on guilt and shame, but rather tries to support and be compassionate. 

A great leader eliminates fear, a terrible leader weaponizes fear

Gary Vaynerchuck

Of course if someone you work with, especially if you are their manager, makes a mistake, you should let them know and work towards this not happening again. But ensure this is done in private and with compassion

3. Ask Why?

The main way to avoid repeating mistakes is to understand why sometuing happened and how to prevent it in the future. This will help get to the bottom of the issue, and it might turn out that the blame is not on the person that seems to have made the mistake initially.

There is a famous technique called Five whys, which is an iterative process that will help you investigating the root causes of an issue. I saw a post on LinkedIn which had an example similar to this:

Problem: I was late to work

  • Why 1: there was traffic
  • Why 2: I got in the car during rush hours
  • Why 3: I woke up later than usual
  • Why 4: the alarm didn’t go off
  • Why 5: I had forgotten to check and change the battery

Going back to the webinar example, maybe this presentation was done in a rush? We can dig deeper and try to understand why. Is it the person who prepared the slides’ fault? Maybe they had not discussed priorities or someone requested a last minute change which did not go through the slides. As mentioned before, the situation is usually quite nuanced and it’s important, I think, that the manager or leader encourages improvement and growth, rather than using worry and threats, even if jokingly.

What do you think? What would your reaction to someone else’s mistake be? Let me know in the comments below!

How to get out of a rut

June 2, 2022 / / 0 Comments

As a few people have noticed, I have not been consistent with posting new articles on this blog lately. I must say that I have made significant progress in other areas of my life and I am very proud of it, and it’s natural to shift priorities from time to time. In the previous post I discuss a few reasons as to why I stopped posting.

In this article I will go over what I have done to get myself out of this rut, if you will. Only time will tell, but I think I have identified a few key points that have been helping me lately. Of course, please be mindful that every situation is different. In this case, this blog is a personal passion project of mine, so the stakes are low and I know I enjoyed publishing the first articles.

Go back to the why

The first thing to do is to reflect on your motivation for why. In my case , thinking back to the reasons for starting a blog in the first place, what I wanted to get out of it and why. This concept is something which is well known and it could seem obvious, but it’s not always easy to remind ourselves to check in with our why. In some cases you might even re-evaluate your core motivation and reasons for doing a certain thing and start going a new direction. This could be as extreme as deciding to quit/pause the project altogether: I think this demonstrates a lot of perspective and bravery and will allow you to focus on higher priority things. Or will find that a reminder of the initial goals and motivation is what you needed to fuel your next steps – great!  In any case, you know what you want now, where to focus your energy, and why.

For me, the first article published is conveniently titled Why am I starting this blog?. Reading it back and thinking about it was a good reminder of why I started the blog and how I believe consistency is key. So I decided to get back into the swing of things and really focus on the blog in the upcoming weeks.

Another thing to do is to talk to a friend or family member, as this can help evaluate the situation from an outside perspective. They will be able to offer their point of view and support and theh can help you figure out your next steps.

Get clarity 

When a task feels daunting, I stop and reflect. Often I find it’s overwhelming because I am unclear on what the different steps are and how I can break down the project into smaller tasks. In this article arguing if motivation is what we are missing, I quote James Clear

Many people think they lack motivation when what they really lack is clarity. It is not always obvious when and where to take action.

This can happen without you realising. It’s usually good to take a step back, realize you don’t need to go from 0 to 100% in the next hour or day, but you can anyway make good progress, that will compound. 

In my case, I saw “restart blogging” as a huge task of publishing weekly posts for months in a row, sharing the content on different platforms, planning articles in advance for when I went on holiday and so on. Of course, these are all separate tasks. I don’t have to have months worth of articles ready by tomorrow. I can set up some time to share the content. All this was now not an overwhelming project, but a series of activities to plan and tick off one at a time. 

Plan

Once you know what you need to do, it’s important to define when you are going to focus on different things. I think having a strict schedule works in some cases, depending on your personality and the task at hand. But even if you prefer to be inspired in the moment, it’s useful to block your calendar to ensure you will dedicate this time to this project.

This is also helpful because it means you have a default response for what you will be doing on Tuesday evening, for example. No need to think about it, it’s already been decided by past-you. It could sound weird, but it has worked for me in the past.

Track

I find that tracking my progress is motivating, as I can see what I have accomplished already, how much effort I have put into something and the results that came with it. I suggest writing it down using either a notebook or a digital tool. I usually pair this with the plan I do every week as part of my weekly review (which I had also stopped doing, unfortunately).

Enjoy the journey 

You decided to work on this project for a bunch of reasons, which are now clearly defined, as per point 1. This is something you want and hopefully like to do. Of course there will be parts of it that will not feel easy or interesting, but it’s important to try and enjoy the journey as much as possible. And appreciate what you are doing and accomplishing along the way.

For me, I had forgotten that I actually enjoy writing. I like focusing on something which is challenging but not extremely tough and seeing the progress made. Writing helps me think and connect the dots. It’s tiring but also relaxing, in a way, because you are forced to put all your attention on one thing. Link to Deep Focus and Astronaut book.

For other parts of this project which I might find less interesting, I can set up a timer and challenge myself to complete a task in 25 minutes. I can make myself a coffee and eat something while chipping away at whatever I need to do. I can go to a café and sit outside in the sunshine for an hour, before seeing some friends. 

You can buy yourself something you wanted for a while as a reward for completing a big and challenging task.

Find ways to make the process fun, if it isn’t already, and appreciate it!

Find pockets of time

Hopefully you’re having fun and enjoying the process most of the time.  In the moments when you are not enthusiastic about a specific task, you will probably be able see progress and this will be motivating. So much so that you will start to look for time in which you can work on these tasks that build up your project.

It is 22:06 at the moment, I have just finished an online class and I felt slightly tired and could have easily started putting on my pjs and spend the rest of the evening on my phone. Instead I know I want to write this article and get back on track with this blog, so I opened Notion and started working on this draft instead. And now that I’ve started, I am actually enjoying it.

Another thing I noticed is that sometimes it’s easy to fall into the “it’s too late now, what is the point” trap. Something had gone wrong at 10 am and now the whole morning is ruined. You couldn’t go for a run because it was pouring outside and so you lay on the couch the whole day. Or, in this case, I had a class until 22 tonight, so the rest of the evening is gone. In some cases it’s good to have a buffer between different activities and time to reflect, relax, do nothing. But I find it’s incredibly easy to dismiss a portion of thr day because of something else that happened or will happen around that time. In these cases it’s useful to remind ourselves to find pockets of time and take advantage of this, since it all adds up and you will feel satisfied in the end.

Get in the flow of things 

I find that the more I leave a task and procrastinate it, the more difficult it seems. Once I start, instead, I often find that it is not, in fact as tough as I imagined it to be. The weird thing is this happens also related to activities you already know. I have been writing this blog for months and I liked the act of writing, elaborating my thoughts etc, but it still seemed so hard to start again. Probably I’d just gotten out of the habit. I have noticed just how simpler it feels once you are back in the flow. As mentioned before you start looking for opportunities and your perspective shifts. One thing leads to another also in terms in inspiration and ideas, topics to discuss and things to share. When writing one thing I think about another topic that could also make a good article and so on.

I hope you can take some of these pointers if you are in a rut – I know I will come back to it if needed 

Why I stopped posting

May 26, 2022 / / 0 Comments

I have not been publishing new blog posts. To be more precise, I have been procrastinating publishing new blog posts. 

Using this as an example, I will try and unpack a few thoughts on the topic, related to perfectionism, progress and habit building.

Perfectionism

Probably the main thing that is stopping me is this: I am trying to make sure everything will go smoothly from now on. This means no more lengthy breaks, always sharing on social media, continuously thinking about new topics and ideas to share or things to document, just to name a few things. I am waiting until I have enough drafts, ideas, knowledge to feel fail-proof.

Making sure everything is perfect from the beginning is generally very difficult. In reality, publishing a post is the key action. The main thing is to write something I am proud of and hit publish.

  • For some aspects, the marginal gains are usually small after you are 95% there – it’s only through experience that you can have significant improvements, in my experience. 
  • In other cases, there will be things you can’t control or things that change for various reasons, so there is no point in worrying about those and procrastinating.

Progress not perfection

As mentioned above, in hindsight there will always things I could do better and I’m sure I will look back on the first posts and find ways in which they could be improved, once I have more experience and knowledge.

Having a blog means I am able to document the progress, but this is possible only if I actually publish. This is actually one of my main goals for this website.

As the quote says: “Done is better than perfect”. I always strive to do my best, but I like this saying because it reminds me that the real improvement happens through repetition and continuously challenging yourself to learn from your mistakes and move on and create something new.

Break it down

If I think about maintaining a blog, a bunch of things I need to do come to mind. I find this can feel overwhelming because you somehow think you must to everything at once. In reality, each task is a separate thing and recognising that you don’t need to do everything right now is simple yet effective, and it can be easy to forget, especially if you are trying to pick a project back up.

Keeping up the habit

Another reason why this now feels so much harder than a few months ago is that I am not in the habit of writing and, especially, posting, anymore.

I used to write new posts on Saturdays or Sundays, then publish them and sometimes share online. It was something I “just did”, it was part of my weekend routine and I thoroughly enjoyed the process. I still really like writing and taking a moment to reflect and share my thoughts.

Although this is a specific situation, this applies to many other scenarios: meal prepping or eating healthy, exercise, doing a weekly review, etc. It’s important to not lose the habit, or starting again will be more difficult.

This is why yesandyes suggests to have so-called “bookmark habits”, i.e. simpler versions of your usual habits that you know you can do no matter what. This way, you are sure you don’t lose that muscle memory you can’t keep up with the “complete” habit for a while. For example, Sarah, the author, will make her bed even when staying in a hotel on holiday. 

In summary, I am happy I tried to dig a bit deeper and I thought about how I can help myself, now and in the future. I will probably come back to this post sometime in the future. 

The power of consistency and envy

March 19, 2022 / / 0 Comments

The story

The setup

During the first lockdown, around May of 2020, I had signed up for the Couch to 5K program. A friend had done the same, she’d started one month before me, so she was slightly ahead of me and would give me tips. I would ask her about her progress as it was inspiring and motivating.

The progress

She kept running. She injured herself around October 2020, but didn’t use that as an excuse and started running again as soon as she was feeling better.

I went on holiday in August and took a break, then I moved and fell out of my routine. When I thought of restarting, I felt lazy and I new it would be uncomfortable to begin with, so I basically stopped running. I had never got to 5K.

The last time I heard from her, around January 2021, she was running 7/10K, if I remember correctly. At the time it was a very big achievement and something to celebrate, I was so happy for her!

I did feel a bit envious and wondered if I could have done the same or how long would it take me to get to that point, now, but I let the thought go and moved on.

The surprise

We didn’t keep in touch, it had been a year. I stumble upon an online video that describes her experience in running an ultra-marathon trail in September 2021. Almost 60 km!! Running.l I was so amazed and impressed – I texted her, hoping it wasn’t too weird, after one year. I just had to congratulate myself

The takeaways

This was a great reminder about the power of consistency. We started at the same time, I have finally restarted running (thanks to the couch to 5K program) and can just about run 20 mins at the moment of writing this. My friend ran 60K.

Envy, the good kind

Brené Brown talks about envy in her book Atlas of the Heart. In this article, I review the book and share my thoughts. One of the points that stood out was the difference between good and negative envy.

Good envy will show you what is possible and will inspire you to act. Seeing that another person has something you want will help you understand your wants and dreams better. By feeling envious, you can dig deeper to figure out why you feel that way and what exactly is the cause. Ask yourself: what do you envy? What about it is something you wish you had?

What do I envy?

In my case, I don’t think I will ever run an ultra marathon.

What I admire and strive to achieve is the level of consistency and constant showing up, even when things don’t go as planned. Being able to put in the effort day in and day out, when it’s raining or snowing or too hot to even walk comfortably outside. Be willing to feel uncomfortable, especially after having to take a break from running.

Crucial caveat

Of course, we have to compromise some things in our lives and I am happy with my personal achievements and progress.

I am proud of showing up consistently and striving to feel uncomfortable in order to grow in other areas of my life. I am definitely focused on improving myself and setting goals for myself and I thrive off of big and small steps towards them.

While my friend was training and running, I spent countless hours doing and learning about improv, I launched this blog and kept up with one or two weekly posts for three months and made significant improvements in other areas, which make me really excited and proud. And sometimes we just need to rest and focus on recharging and that’s ok (and should be encouraged morel).

Final thougths

Seeing this friend achieve such a huge accomplishment was an extraordinary example of the power of consistency. It was a great reminder of the importance of health and fitness, as well as the enjoyment exercise can bring.

It reminded me of this image by James Clear [full article here]. He writes: “Improving by 1 percent isn’t particularly notable—sometimes it isn’t even noticeable—but it can be far more meaningful, especially in the long run. The difference a tiny improvement can make over time is astounding. Here’s how the math works out: if you can get 1 percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done. Conversely, if you get 1 percent worse each day for one year, you’ll decline nearly down to zero. What starts as a small win or a minor setback accumulates into something much more”

do not disturb

How to stop being a people pleaser?

March 13, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Who is a people pleaser?

A people pleaser is someone who often doesn’t want to create discomfort and will end up putting others’ needs before their own

Common traits of people pleasers include:

  1. Agree to do things (e.g. attend events, parties) even if they don’t want to
  2. Help others even if they are busy
  3. Don’t disagree with someone else
  4. Don’t want to bother people or create a fuss
  5. Feel responsible for other people’s emotions
  6. Are anxious if someone is mad at them
  7. Say sorry and apologise for smaller inconveniences

People-pleasers usually appear kind and generous, but by putting others before themselves they can encounter issues.

Cons of being a people-pleaser

  • They feel too much responsibility, even if something is not actually entirely in their control
  • They will feel stress and overwhelmed, from saying yes to too much. This can lead to burnout
  • No progress on their own goals. By prioritizing others, they will put their tasks that benefit themselves only on the backburner

These are two questions (and answers) often asked about people-pleasers:

Do people pleasers have low self-esteem?

Since they tend to please others and put them before themselves, this could in some cases be linked to low self-esteem. This is connected to the concept of internal versus external validation. If a people pleaser feels their value depends uniquely on others liking them, it might be helpful to work on improving their self-esteem.

Are people-pleasers annoying?

Since they try to not cause discomfort, they can appear indecisive and therefore unsure. They might not take a stance even when requested. This can be frustrating and annoying if it’s a recurrent thing.

How to stop being a people pleaser?

Start saying no to small things

  • Practice makes perfect. Here are some common examples: declining to get a coffee/meal with someone, asking for the correct order if it gets messed up, not signing up to the store fidelity program, telling the hairdresser if you would like something different, asking for the correct change.

Set up boundaries and make sure they are communicated and enforced

  • Notice when you repeatedly engage in a specific activity when you would rather not
  • Define an appropriate boundary
  • Communicate that boundary or make sure anyone involved is aware
  • Stick to that boundary and repeat if questioned, without it turning into an apology

For example, if the folks of the gym class you follow always go out after class, but you would rather not stay out late, you can either establish that you will go for one drink and leave after an hour or you can just skip the event afterward. “No” is an answer and a full sentence, so you don’t need to give an explanation, although it will depend based on how close you are to the group.

If they insist, just remind them you need to go and be firm about it.

Use policies so it’s not personal

If you are afraid of people taking it personally, you can always use policies. A policy is conventionally a rule that is applied in every circumstance. Therefore will be more easily accepted as a general boundary rather than a specific decision. For example, a policy might be “I am budgeting for a pottery course this Spring, therefore I am not going out to dinner more than twice a month and I have already gone out this month”. This clearly is not a no to the specific dinner you have just been invited to, but a general rule. You don’t need to give explanations, but it can be helpful to give a simple reason and clear goal.

Don’t give too many details

This will mean there is less opportunity for discussion, others won’t try to find loopholes and “excuses”. Be firm in your decision

Say thank you instead of sorry

People-pleasers tend to feel responsible for others’ emotions and will often say sorry even if the inconvenience was small or not their fault. Apologizing too often and when not warranted can be perceived as unsure and less trustworthy. Try saying thank you, instead. For example:

  • thank you for your patience instead of sorry for being late
  • thank you for catching that instead of sorry for the typo
  • thank you for your explanation instead of sorry for this stupid question

    Of course these examples hold if the inconvenience was small and it didn’t have any real impact

Block time for yourself and your goals – and stick to the plan

Make sure you prioritize tasks that are important to you, even if they don’t benefit others or if this means other activities get pushed back. Block some time in your calendar and follow through when the time comes.

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2023 Laura's Learnings

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑

%d bloggers like this: