Persevering in the face of struggle, challenge, and physical demands.
Dark places happen in the midst of struggle and challenges that extend long periods of time and distance. How many times have you found yourself working in a team with external demands at emergency paces. Where everything is a fire and the expectation is nights and weekends for weeks, if not months?
How did you feel?
How did your team react?
How did those who remain (didn’t quit the team or leave the company) sustain through this challenge?
Adopt these 3 habits to survive today’s fire drill that is lasting …3..5…8 weeks long
- Mentally Strong— DECIDE to like the things that are uncomfortable (One tactic I do here is for meetings that are uncomfortable and inconvenient, such as 7am, noon, and 10pms daily meetings… you know, because who needs meals.. is create empathy for the room; allow people to be emotionally honest; and then seek to GIVE the participants value… going into a meeting hating it and then being a pill as my Grandma would say is disrespectful to you and them)
- Celebrate the micro wins — with extended efforts at “full speed response” the end may not ever really come. It may simply fade to normal, or in more likelihood the strategy will shift to a sustainable alternative. In either case, YOU must find micro wins on what you are doing and celebrate those with your teammates. Do not wait for external gratitude or reward. The milestones may change, move, or evaporate. If you tie yourself to those endpoints that you don’t control, you will be disappointed most certainly. It is here where you will also lose the culture and team you had when you started the journey — either through attrition or through people pulling back.
- Fuel your body, you must find a way to get 7 hours of sleep and eat NON-processed foods.
You will persevere by building a tolerance to fatigue, progressively
As a species, we are capable of facing and sustaining effort amongst extended demands for both our minds and bodies. This is our evolutionary benefit and advantage that has served us well. At times of challenge it is hard to imagine success forward, or even completion. Yet, as highlighted above YOU can establish practices that enhance your mental and physical (well at least support) health.
Adopting these practices helps you find advantage and opportunity in these tough moments. It is when we are looking for opportunities, when we are able to see leaps in innovation and efficiency through the hard dark times.
Mindset, focus, effort, and self care will yield the results we seek. If you don’t know where you are on this journey or have questions — ask. Seek them out. Measure if you can and journal when possible. These habits will help you SEE your progress and those wins are the ‘micro wins’ that are so valuable on this journey of life.
Engage your team, peers, and leaders. They WANT you to succeed, help them enable you.
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About Me
I am a father, study of human behavior, strategist, cybersecurity veteran, and a coach and mentor on a journey to give more than I receive everyday. I lead teams globally, build products, and daily an executive for a leading company where I serve the largest companies in the world using the largest cloud deployments in the world impacting the financial services, healthcare, and fintech industries. I provide these publications and content through my media agency to deliver insights and advantages. Mindset, mental strength, mentorship, personal improvement, health, fitness, and humanist ideas are drawn from personal research and practice. Everything read and heard is my original works and my own perspective. All rights reserved for noted authors and sources. I produce research and strategy, as well as provide advisory services that include inquiries, briefings, consulting projects, and presentations on published findings as well as bespoke speaking engagements where I often keynote at conferences, seminars, and roundtables annually.