How are you and your team’s energy levels? Are you seeing signs of ‘Covid Coma’? You are definitely not alone!
In our line of work at Next Practice Business Coaching, we have the privilege to talk and work with individuals and teams from all walks of life and many different industries. In this article, we’ll look at our observations and seven ways you can increase your energy and your team’s.
I have mentioned this before but, I am always humbled uplifted by the stories and insights that people are willing to share with me as we look to work to support their efforts through our advisory services.
Something has been different over the past 3 months.
observations from within our team and the broader community
In the conversations that we are having with people at the moment, what IS clear is the unprecedented ‘confluence of events’ right now in our world, and this appears to be affecting our emotions.
Whilst these are observations of trends, maybe our lack of energy has combined with a growing sense of helplessness.
It’s hard to feel excited about a project or a new strategy at work when we are watching such major events unfold across the world every day, at all hours of the day, without a break. You and your team will have different things they feel desolate about – national disasters like flooding related to climate catastrophes, ongoing issues surrounding Covid such as supply chain issues or health matters or war breaking out in various regions – there’s a lot to be rightly concerned about.
being overwhelmed into inaction is not helpful
Our lives, it seems, have been neuro-hacked to keep us addicted to the news cycle, particularly bad news. We need to talk about how we’ve potentially fallen deeper into a vortex of helplessness. Quite apart from long covid, these habits are sucking the life force out of all of us, and it is affecting our work.
It seems to me that we have become detached. We’re unable to live in the present and struggling to concentrate on the duties at hand. Maybe, it’s enough to get up in the morning and start to move in the right direction.
It’s not harmonious to be so absent in our lives and so strongly connected to the world at large at the same time.
STOP – just check in with yourself for a moment. Do you have this sense?
What to do?
We opened this conversation up amongst our team recently. We simply started a conversation at work about this ‘feeling’ that we were having. Although we didn’t know it at the time, this normalized the discussion about what people were feeling, seeing, hearing amongst colleagues, clients, and friends – it was clear, this was staring us in the face.
As a result, we widened the conversation to our clients and wider network with aim of supporting them in their actions once it was discussed.
actions that you can consider for you and your team
- Have the discussion – open the floor to identify if you and your team have this ‘feeling’. What is your team seeing and hearing?
- Determine what is in ‘our’ control and what is not. It is ok to feel out of control when it comes to events we cannot influence. Be clear on what events you can influence.
- Perform a basic self-check-in – how are your energy levels? How well are you sleeping? Are you fuelling yourself with the right ingredients? Do you exercise away from work? Are you separating yourself from media/ technology at times? These small changes can make a world of difference.
- Have our team set up routines, rhythms, and habits that we can control and influence to help us and the business move closer to our ‘dream outcomes’? This is the key – name those rhythms, routines and habits that keep us together and focused – if you haven’t got them in place – what could they be?
- We do not use this situation as a ‘crutch’ to lean against or an excuse to use –we understand this is circumstantial BUT we are going to work through it because we understand what we can and cannot control.
- Let’s get back to basics and set ourselves for success – what is our purpose/ our why? What is our ‘dream outcome’ How are we going to achieve that? How do we meet our customer’s needs? How can we support them to achieve their ‘dream outcome’ in our work?
- STOP – take a deep breath – Albert Einstein said, “In the midst of every crisis lies great opportunity.”
So, we might not bounce back as quickly as we thought……BUT we will bounce back.
You know you aren’t alone in this – it appears we are all feeling it, but this too shall pass.
Reach out to me if you want to talk through the above points. We are always available.
Keep scaling All.
Nick and Team @ Next Practice
