A New Year's (Anti) Resolution
A year ago I was returning to work from my second maternity leave and starting a new job. I was excited but also stressed: what will working motherhood look like, I wondered, with two kids...at a new job that requires more travel... on a team with fewer parents… at a company where I hadn’t built up my “capital” pre-baby?
I was walking to the metro, mulling over some potential stress-management-related resolutions, and scrolling through Facebook when I saw somebody had commented “yasher koach” on a friend’s photo. It’s a Hebrew expression used to wish somebody congratulations, translating to “may you go from strength to strength.”
That’s when it hit me: what if this year I made an anti-resolution to manage my stress?
In classic multitasking-working-mom-mode, I simultaneously swiped my SmarTrip card and dialed out to my husband. “I have an idea,” I told him. What would happen if I doubled down on a strength instead of solving for a weakness?
“Could work,” he said, “so what do you think you’re really good at?” With a train approaching the platform and no time to overthink it, it just came to me, “I know I get really busy but I feel like I’m good at enjoying my life.” I was good at balancing the demands of the high-pressure jobs I gravitated towards with the things outside of work I loved: traveling, spending time with my family and friends, and making time for myself. For all the things I knew I could work on, I knew one thing for certain when it came to my strengths: if time management and prioritization were competitive sports, I would be the league’s LeBron James.
Channeling my inner LeBron throughout 2019, I kept my anti-resolution and it was one of the most transformational years of my life. My experience wasn’t a fluke and here’s why:
The efficacy of cultivating positivity vs. mitigating negativity is backed up by science. It’s exactly what positive psychology, “the scientific study of the strengths that enable individuals and communities to thrive” is predicated on. A field founded, according to the University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center, “on the belief that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, and to enhance their experiences of love, work, and play.”
I had a ready-made decision-making tool. In calculus would you ever sit down to solve the problem without a formula and a calculator? Of course not. So when it comes to our lives, which are more complex than any math problem, why do we make important decisions without some kind of proven framework? The “am I enjoying my life?” question became a mantra I asked myself on a daily, decision-by-decision basis. When wrestling with the inner conflicts of some of my biggest decisions, it would also prove to be the “true north” of my inner compass.
With both the science and a formula by my side, I flipped the script on reducing stress and shifted to my cultivating-enjoyment-mindset. A year later, here are the top three impacts the experience had on my professional life:
Work became more meaningful. There are three components of a job: the things we do that we like, the things we don’t like but do because we have to, and the extracurriculars. As I thought about “enjoying my life” when it came to my extracurricular time in the office, I found myself passing on some of the perfect-on-paper stretch opportunities. I opted, instead, to carve out more time for mentoring women inside my company. It wasn’t going to accelerate my path to the next raise or promotion as quickly, but I always left those coffees so energized—even on my busiest days. They’re also exactly the type of thing I would have limited—telling myself I didn’t have time—if I had been solving just for “reducing stress.”
My business exploded. In 2019 I also started my own business, Something Major, as something of an accident. As a working mom of two under three with a demanding full-time job, fitting in the coaching, speaking, and facilitation hours felt like a never-ending game of calendar tetris. There are so many things I probably should have said no to because of my bandwidth, but I found myself continuously saying yes. In fact, if I had been solving just for reducing stress, I probably would have said no to some of the most important opportunities that grew my business. Since I was doubling down on my anti-resolution of enjoying my life, I just kept saying yes and figuring it out from there. I was busier than ever but genuinely loved what I was doing.
I became happier and more present as a working parent. This was about being more thoughtful about home and work, and being more present in both spaces. The 2018 version of Randi rushed to the teacher appreciation luncheon, arriving 20 minutes late and spent the whole time answering emails. The 2019 version of Randi made a point to commit to what I was going to attend (the science fair was a yes, manning the holiday sale was a no) and actually enjoying the time I spent there. I wasn’t necessarily spending more time with my kids (in fact, during some stretches I was spending less) but I was spending it differently.
Sometimes honoring my enjoying-my-life mindset actually meant missing my kids’ bedtime or saying yes to an extra work trip that might close a deal: as somebody who enjoys and takes pride in my job, “enjoying my life” in those moments meant finishing that work with a level of focus and integrity; rather than rushing home and—like the old Randi—physically being there with my kids but on my laptop the whole time. In fact, those rushing-home-working-the-whole-time moments were always the most stressful: I was trying to do everything all at once instead of carving out dedicated time to focus on work and focus on family. When I finally got that right (and, trust me, it didn’t happen overnight) my enjoyment factor in both arenas sky-rocketed. Cultivating this shift was the hardest and took the most effort. It also had the biggest impact, however, on my satisfaction as a working parent. Particularly notable in what will unequivocally go down as the most professionally-demanding year of my career, to date.
In the spirit of doubling down on strengths, as I enter 2020 I’m renewing my commitment to this very same anti-resolution: enjoying my life. The twist? I’m investing even more into enjoying the most important relationships in my life. They are truly the personal fuel to my professional fire. As you look to 2020, instead of making a resolution that solves for a weakness what transformation will you experience when you double down on a strength?
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Randi Braun is an executive coach, consultant, speaker and the Founder of Something Major. Copyright, Randi Braun 2019.