Shedding & Galloping
Earlier this month I went through boxes of paperwork that seemed to grow out of nowhere. I'm never in the mood to do this but something about the rain and lots of football on TV made it fun. The recycling bin was FULL TO THE TOP.
When I told my friend Lisa about the paperwork project she said it made sense because it’s the end of the year of the snake and “shedding” happens.
I don’t know a lot about the Lunar New Year but this sounded right to me.
So I started asking some of my clients what they’re “shedding” this month. One said “playing defense.” I loved this for two reasons:
He’s aware he’s been reacting to conditions around him and it’s wearing on him
He’s choosing something different and more effective
Being in a reactive state happens when you feel like you’re at the effect of the circumstances or people around you: constantly putting out fires, drinking from a firehose, and white knuckling your leadership because you’re squeezed from above AND below. Some days this is just how it goes. But over time leaders pay a price for leading this way and they get less effective. It’s leading from below the line: playing not to lose; playing from defense.
The concept of being below the line is both simple and misunderstood. It’s tempting to judge being below the line as bad which just pulls us down even deeper because we’re making ourselves or others wrong.
Talking to Annalise about this recently, she asked the big question: if it’s not wrong or bad to be below the line, what is it?
Here’s where we landed: it’s just an indicator. Like the blue dot on our Maps App telling us where we are.
We’re hard wired to react defensively to anything that feels threatening and uncomfortable—like the many challenges we face every day. And we may do this in a range of ways: people-pleasing, avoiding things to keep the peace, insisting on our rightness, or getting overly controlling to make sure things happen the way we want them to happen.
Below the line we’re reacting to problems or challenges—things we want to go away or to fix. This can work but usually we just get temporary relief until the next time the problem surfaces. And the reactive cycle begins again.
So when my client said he wants to shed “playing defense” I heard that he wants to break this reactive cycle. Here’s what this looks like:
It starts with awareness. Often we’re below the line and don’t know it. So first we need to notice: what’s happening in and around us? How do we feel physically? (heart rate, heat rising, tightness in our fists, shoulders or chest). What unpleasant emotions are emerging? What story are we telling ourselves about what’s happening? What part of the story is actually true? (More on this next month).
AND we practice this awareness without judgment, just like we don’t blame or shame ourselves for being where the blue dot is on our Map App.
It requires seeing our problems and challenges a little differently. This means not focusing on what we DON’T want but on what we DO want. It’s a fundamental shift in our attention from everything that’s wrong to what we want to create in our lives and work.
It means making a shift from looking at the world through a reactive lens to looking at the world through a creative lens.*
I know this may sound a little woo woo, but I notice when I talk to my clients about this shift they get it. Asking “what do I want and what’s needed to get me there” feels qualitatively different from “how do I fix this problem?”
So the big questions:
As we leave the year of the snake and start the year of the horse, what will you shed and what are you galloping toward?
*Tap into any of these resources to learn more about the Line and Creative Leadership:
The Conscious Leadership Group: Video on The Line
The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz
The Power of TED by David Emerald
Mastering Leadership by Bob Anderson and Bill Adams