How to improve performance and drive growth during times of uncertainty

How to improve performance and drive growth during times of uncertainty.

I was about to wish you a happy New Year. But in some ways it's not new. It's feeling all like it did a year ago or even two years ago. Doesn't the oscillation of what we're experiencing just exhaust you? The kids were about to be back in school and were snapped back in our living room. We're going to be able to take that vacation, but we're yanked back to lockdown. I'm going to be able to see my colleagues and coworkers, and even go out to lunch, and there's that reversal, and I'm working from my bedroom again.

How might we look at all of this differently? And rather than the lens of oscillation, look at it through the lens of tension. Now, what is it that is right inside tension that you and I desperately need in this current moment? Energy.

Wherever there's tension, there is energy right inside of it. Read more about it here: Believe it or Not, There is Treasure in Tension.

Now, here's the beautiful thing about tension, it always seeks resolution. And tension will either resolve itself towards a preferred future and an ideal state, or towards homeostasis and the status quo. You get to decide which way the energy moves.

Now, here are two things that can help you move the energy and resolve tension towards a desirable state:

Learn how to name your state

• In our current reality, in the current situation, if you are feeling a sense of anxiety - dread, deep disappointment - if you can look internally just for a moment, locate that emotion and name it. Give it a name and you reduce the allostatic load, the stress load, on your system. Cortisol, adrenaline, epinephrine, norepinephrine, by up to 50%.
  
• Why is that important? When you reduce the stress load, you gain access to your executive function. And inside your executive function, there are more options available to you. So the first thing is learn how to name your state.

Ask what's possible

• But we don't want to live in a state of negativity and cynicism and pessimism. So naming the state is not about that. It's freeing us up to do the other side, which is to ask what's possible, and to be able to visualize and imagine the possibility of more connection, more freedom, more of a sense of progress.
  

When you do these two things together, you are steeped in what is real and what is ideal. And so I wish you a year of growth in the middle of difficulty, a year of joy in the middle of loss, and a year of deep, powerful human connection in the middle of a virtual environment. This year, learn how to name your state and to ask what's possible.