Personal

It’s been over 8 weeks since my last post, a long 8 weeks. In the midst of this pandemic, we’ve lost child care, experienced reduced salaries, and coped with the stress that working, parenting, care-taking, housekeeping, and generally living brings. Even for those of us who are lucky to still have a job, I must admit that it’s been an exhausting and overwhelming ride.

Since May, my 1 year old and I have been traveling back and forth between our house in Iowa and my parents’ home in Kansas City. Alternating homes every couple of weeks, with my mom serving as our primary childcare. We’re lucky that we have family to care for our little one.

With the past 12 weeks on the road, the exhaustion started to set in. We couldn’t get into a bedtime routine, with several night wakings regularly. Although it was wonderful to spend time with my folks, being away from home just made things harder as our lives were split between cities.

As more and more companies announce indefinite work from home, and schools start to announce return to learn plans, it’s not surprising that the stress of this pandemic and our new normal are taking a toll on even the strongest of us.

As I reflect on my past 12 weeks, I wanted to share what I’ve learned, in case it helps you.

1. Make hard decisions. You know what your priorities are and what your values are. Make decisions that align with those values, even if it hurts people’s feelings or if they disagree with you.
2. Do something for you – that makes you feel refreshed. Take 15 or 20 minutes and do something for you. Give yourself that facial massage before bed, the pedicure in the middle of the day, or mow the lawn for some alone time.
3. Give yourself a break. You’re not going to use this time to learn a new hobby or get the celebrity abs you were hoping for. It’s okay if you skip that workout, or in my case, the week of workouts. Sometimes, you need to work on your mind and spirit.
4. Set goals for your week. I needed to feel like I was moving toward something, so I use a Full Focus Planner (from Michael Hyatt) to set my weekly priorities. This helps me plan my week strategically and tactically by what I’m planning to achieve – one day at a time.
5. Check in with yourself. Ask yourself, “How are you doing, no really?” I am someone who powers through any challenge, and puts my emotions aside to get stuff done. That can be helpful in many situations, but not when what we’re living seems to be never-ending. I try to spend at least once a week getting real with my own stress and emotions, without judgment.
6. Don’t be scared to begin again. During this epidemic, we’ve tried so many different approaches – creating office hours or shifts to work, switching responsibilities when we went part-time, switching to grandma daycare and traveling between cities, and now, finding in-home nanny solutions. I’ve also lost team members, gained some team members, and launched some initiatives in a 12 week period. And even when I felt like I was down and out, and knocked a few steps back, I paused, took a breath, and realized that there’s always a chance to begin again.

We all have that list. The one we keep in the back of our minds, and replay in our moments of solitude. We all have the list of things we wish we would have done and didn’t, or the things we wish we could take back. COVID-19 is forcing us to experience these stages of grief – the grief of the loss of our old lives, routines, commutes, daycares, and the true loss of precious life.

Stages of Grief

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross talks about the stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. We know her work, we all use it in our daily conversations. It’s become almost so common in discussions on grief and dying that we may have forgotten what it actually feels like to experiences those stages. Enter this unprecedented time we are now faced with.

As I find myself flipping between bargaining and acceptance, I couldn’t help but find myself longing for something, Maybe a longing for normalcy, for life as it once was. As humans, we are inherently built for human connection, and maybe, what I need to find is a purpose or meaning beyond this pandemic.

In the absence of control, we make choices to cope, and look ahead.

Identify Joys in the Pain

I remember when I was in grad school and didn’t have time to do the things I wanted. I remember that feeling of sacrificing fun for work. That’s always been my personality, dig in, achieve the goal, and put aside my desires to accomplish that goal. So to make me feel a little better about spending every waking moment balancing my corporate job and school work, I used to make a note of what I would do once grad school was over. I wrote it on a post-it note, folded it up, and dropped it a jar. It was filled with things like, go see a movie, go to the gym, ski, learn how to ride a motorcycle, take more trips. This was my motivation to get through something tough, and find something to look forward to.

This time, several years later and due to very different circumstances, I’m filling the jar with something different – something more focused on defining and creating meaning for my life. We, as humans, are driven by connectivity and a desire to belong. In this time of quarantine, we are extremely connected to our immediate family unit. We spend 24-7 with one another, and that honest feeling of belonging is so critical to being your whole self (another blog topic for another day). However, what we’re missing right now is the expansion of our circle – our extended family, friends, mentors, neighbors, and even the kindness of strangers. We miss the family get together for Easter, we miss the kid’s birthday parties, and we even miss the chance to go to the gym to see familiar faces.

Make Your Creating Now Jar

So this time, I’m going to fill my jar with new wish lists, for me and for my family. All you need is any jar, a stack of post-it notes and an open heart. Be honest, but also, just have fun with it. And when this is all over, and we go back to the hustle of our lives, just pull out the jar, draw out the first thing, and go do it. Go create the life you want – one choice at a time!

• Make more trips to see family in person. But also, video chat more with friends and family. Video totally changes the experience and connection. Now that we’re all inside, I feel like I’ve been more connected and engaged.
• Go to the spa – or whatever you damn well please for your birthday. Each year, I try to reset and relax. This year, work was crazy, so I decided to take a meeting instead of taking that time for me. It was a compromise I was willing to make, but next time, I’ll make the choice to take care of me because work will always be crazy.
• Put down my phone. My multi-tasking desire got in my way – and I would listen to a podcast or read while I was nursing Elle, or talking on the phone each time we had mommy and daughter time, or actually sitting down and having dinner as a family.
• Take that vacation. We kept putting off trips, and since we’re grounded for who knows how long, I wish we had just booked the trip. So, in the jar will be a list of destinations! YOLO.
• Stretch beyond my small circle. I found out my young cousin had COVID-19. She was on a ventilator for three weeks, but pulled through and is home recovering. Her wedding, three years ago, was the last time I had seen her. It was a reminder that I need to stretch my circle wider and more often.
• Make my health a priority. That means, eat right, build muscle, and get moving! If you’re like our house, we’ve taken more walks in the past 4 weeks than in the past 3 years we’ve lived here.
• Show gratitude more often. Being home means I am even more confident that I chose the right life partner. I need to express that appreciation more often.

So what about you? What are you putting in the jar?

Why I started Creating When

This pandemic is an effing challenge for us as individuals, for our families, for our kids. We’re a bundle of nerves about sick loved ones, or that our loved ones will get sick. Our teams have all shifted to be remote, and as a leader, we need to be sure they are feeling safe and secure, and still meeting deadlines.

Meanwhile, you’re having to meet your own deadlines, finish performance reviews (late), attend the 6 hours of Zoom meetings, make the kids their breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, another snack, change the baby’s clothes because she is wet, and you don’t know how or why, create schedules to home school the 8 year old because chatting with friends of Messenger Kids is unacceptable, clean the house to limit the spread of germs, talk to family members about how they are feeling, respond to emails you missed because you were calming a screaming toddler. And now it’s 6 PM and time to make dinner, clean up from dinner, give the baby a bath and spend an hour trying to get her to sleep in her bed, only to have her wake up in 15 minutes. Ugh, I’m exhausting just recounting my day.

So it’s no wonder that you are trying to survive and maintain or regain your sanity.

My wife and I have always been a great team, and I’m thankful for that. I truly cannot imagine being hunkered down in this pandemic with anyone else. Three weeks ago, we realized that we were both going to be working at home, with an 11 month old and 8 year old and we immediately sprung into planning mode. How were we going to make this work? Well, on week three, day 2, I feel that although overwhelming, it has been managing.

Tips to balance work from home life

Here are a few things we did, maybe it will help you!

1. Agree on an “office hours” schedule and stick to it.

When you have two working professional parents, schedules can be crazy. My calendar is usually full of meetings, and I have 7 direct reports and a team to manage. We first created a schedule of 2 hour blocks of alternating time to work and take care of kids. That didn’t work as planned, so we shifted, and for the last two weeks, we’ve done 3 hour blocks of time. These hours were shared with our bosses and respective teams to manage expectations of when we’d have dedicated work time vs when we’d be on baby duty. I would still take calls during baby duty, but the team knew that I would be multi-tasking.

2. Be disciplined. 

This is a tough one, but get up at your scheduled time, get dressed and get ready, and make your coffee. This will make you feel like a human. On the blocks where you are on kid duty, take them for a walk and get some vitamin D. (Read the benefits of Vitamin D) The first few days were cloudy here, and it was miserable just being trapped in the house. The sun came out and it has been glorious – so go enjoy it. Again, it will make you feel human, and we need to feel human right now. For those of you who are better than me, get your workouts in a few times a week. I need to do better at this, but I was tired and fell asleep the other night at 8 PM with the baby. So instead, I practiced Tip No. 6.

3. Find some zen. Take the time to practice mindful meditation.

I started the mindful meditation practice only a few months ago and it has helped me settle my mind and body. In just 5 minutes, it will give you a refreshed sense of self, and help you set intentions for your day and express gratitude. My team and I started doing guided mindful meditations last week, and I’m hoping they will find it beneficial in this heightened time of stress. I personally use the Ten Percent Happier App, and my wife uses Headspace. Both are great. Start with 5 minutes, and keep at it. Don’t think you have five minutes? You do – create it.

4. Turn off the TV, stop reading the news. 

For the first two weeks, we had the news on constantly. We were tied to our phones, searching the new updates of positive COVID-19 cases, scrolling through Twitter, and what came out of the latest press conferences. It was completely stress inducing without us really realizing it. We, as people, want to have a sense of control, and this pandemic is forcing us into a new world of uncertainty. So instead of watching the news constantly, turn it off – and focus on what you can accomplish. Work on what’s important right now. Feeling productive will make you feel a sense of control of your world.

5. Eat ice cream on the porch.

There are moments that spark joy in all this chaos. Hold on to those moments, and create those positive memories with your family and loved ones as much as possible. It’s all about give and take, and sometimes that means taking that 30 minutes and enjoying some ice cream together as a family and doing work later.

6. Give yourself a break – practice self-compassion.

We are in unprecedented times. I saw a quote from John Maxwell that said, “Just because you’re struggling, doesn’t mean you’re failing.” I needed to hear that this week. It is impossible for us to be great at work, great parents, great home school teachers and great housekeepers. It is physically, emotionally, and mentally impossible. Do what you can today, and try again tomorrow.

Learn more about Laura.

Photo by Austin Chan on Unsplash

If you are like me, the past few weeks have been a struggle – mentally, physically, emotionally. My wife and I have been glued to the TV, constantly reading articles and checking the status of all the Covid-19 cases in our state. We are spouting out statistics of that latest news nugget that was shared. It is all consuming.

We’re home with our 11 month daughter, and my 8 year old step daughter. The past two weeks means we’re juggling the stress of our careers, parenting, homeschooling and normal home life. It’s absolutely exhausting, but you know that, you’re there too.

So, as I sit in my office, with my sleeping daughter strapped to me in her Lillebaby carrier, the 11 month old not 8 year old, I felt compelled. Maybe I felt like commiserating with the other work at home moms out there, or maybe it is in my delirious state due to not sleeping for the past year, but either way, here we are – creating this. Rather than staring at the TV and being glued to my phone reading the latest news, I wanted to create something instead of feeling powerless. 

Rarely do we take a moment to reflect. Rarely do we reflect on our life – the one we’re presently in, and the one that we desire – the one we are creating. What intentional life are you creating right now? So instead of using the excuse, “I’ll do _____ when I have time, when I have more money, when my kids are older, when I get there…” let’s make a collective commitment to create it now. Create your when, today, and every day.

Creating When is intended to help create a community of life creators – all of you who are defining your purpose, and making your communities, workplaces and selves better.

Join me as I share my personal and professional journey. Share yours with me. Let’s create the life and world we want. Let’s create our when.

Learn more about Laura.