Excuse me while I have an existential crisis
Last month I clocked five years leading my own business. Kind of hard to believe…and I could have let it slip by just like any other month, but it was fortuitous that I’d planned to take a couple of days out to reflect and plan for the new financial year.
And I’m so glad I did.
Because as Gretchen Rubin is credited with saying, “The days are long, but the years are short” - it is all too easy to get caught up in the ‘doing’ of life and not pause nearly enough to reflect on where we’ve come from, where we find ourselves and where we want to head next, in the context of what’s happening around us.
And when we fail to pause and recognise these things, it’s also too easy to fall into an existential trap.
I hear this often from the leaders I work with. They’ve reached (or are close to) the pinnacle of their career; as CEOs or Executives they aspired to be where they are now but once they get there find themselves asking questions like, “Is this really what I want?”, “Is this it?”, “Am I making the impact I want to make”, or even “Is this/am I enough?”.
I’ve written previously about the perfect storm of middle age and leading from the top, whatever the business you find yourself in.
The time when the juggle of daily life is real – be it wrangling kids, caring for ageing parents or navigating newly emerging health challenges amidst all the other stuff that modern day life throws our way to elevate our cortisol levels and trigger exhaustion.
With half a lifetime behind us and another whole half of a lifetime ahead, us middle-agers have a chance to re-focus our attention on who we want to be and the impact we want to make on the world – as a human and a leader.
But to do this, we need to be deliberate.
So when it came time to sit down and reflect, I decided not only to think about the past five years, but the decade that got me to now. And I was unexpectedly surprised/shocked/enlightened by what I realised and how it’s shaping the way I think about the decade in front of me.
What’s your story…really?
My initial reflections were rudimentary and surface-level. Sure, it’s felt like a ‘busy’ time – young kids, transition from corporate career to running my own practice, and quite a few life challenges thrown in along the way.
I told myself, “I think I’m doing okay, all things considered”. But I needed to dig deeper. Because I’m not leading this life or my work for it to be just ‘okay’ or to keep myself wondering if I'm focused on the right things or being my best.
Before deeply reflecting on what’s got me to this point in time, I had a series of thoughts marinating in my head (which if I'm honest I’ve had floating around for a while and which resonated with the themes of an awesome book, Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman).
These thoughts that have been voiced to me in similar ways by others in a coaching space many times over. Does any of this sound familiar to you?
Feeling like you’re meant to lead impact in this world but that you might be falling short of your own (and maybe others') expectations?
Constantly thinking about how you can 'make the most' of your time and 'be in the moment', whilst grappling with how you're going to reach your goals and aspirations for the future?
Focused on productivity and results and juggling that with an eternal search for how to sustainably incorporate reflection, rest and recharge into your life?
Like so many other humans and leaders I talk to, I need to know who I am and what I’m doing has purpose. That I’m learning and growing and making an impact. Otherwise, what’s this thing called life all about?!
So I mapped out the nitty gritty milestones of the past 10 years. Bear with me...
Pregnancy, babies, toddlers.
Leading a team across Australia and part of a global leadership team – travelling at least a week out of every month and regularly taking early morning and late night calls.
Son hospitalised three times in his first 18 months of life – once when I was on the other side of the country (thankfully not anything long term, but a cause of immense stress at the time).
Renovated and sold our home, before moving into another and renovating again.
Sudden death of my Mum.
COVID hit midway through my career break after leaving my stable employment of over 15 years…and then I decided to start my own business.
Diagnosis of a chronic health condition (not to mention the frustrations of navigating the health system over many years to get to this point, followed by ongoing challenges self-advocating for effective treatment).
Kids starting primary and secondary school.
Passing of my father-in-law after an 18 month illness.
And all the other ‘stuff’ that life throws at us all – good and bad - day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month…you get my drift and you probably know it all too well yourself.
Wow, just wow!
I don’t share this to say, “Look at me!”. I share it because there I was thinking that I was just doing ‘okay’, when really the reality of what can happen in a decade is eye-opening (no doubt not just for me) and before looking any further, I realised I needed to give myself some grace.
Because it’s not just about what’s happened, but what these experiences have taught me, how they’ve forced me to adapt, influenced my choices and decisions, and how consequently I’ve shown up in all aspects of life.
Zooming out and taking stock matters because if we want to lead a purposeful life (and avert an existential crisis), we need to be deliberate about a few things
Learning from our experiences.
Recognising the stories we tell ourselves about who we are – and re-writing them if they don’t align with or serve the purpose and impact we set out to achieve.
Getting out of our own way.
In his book, The Big Leap, Gay Hendricks talks about how ‘liberating and expressing your natural genius is your ultimate path to success and life satisfaction’, with your ‘zone of genius’ being the set of activities you are uniquely suited to do.
He says that ‘By age forty, many of us have tuned out the Call to Genius and are getting loud, repeated alarms hidden in the form of depression, illness, injuries and relationship conflict’.
We can get stuck in the trenches and ignore these calls, and when we do we lose the perspective we need to see what’s working for us, what we need to pat ourselves on the back for, and what we need to focus on to live and lead sustainably. Side note, this predicament can be a fast track to burnout too – Dr Marny Lishman’s written a couple of great books about this for middle-agers; Burnout to Brilliant and Crisis to Contentment.
If we don’t know our own story, we can’t figure out if it’s fit-for-purpose or we need to re-write it. And whether it’s some minor edits or a major overhaul that’s required as we look to the next time horizon, we all need to be deliberate in reflecting.
That’s how we can plan for our life and leadership to unfold in a way that’s real for us – aligned with who we uniquely want to be and to connect our decisions and actions with the impact we want to make.
So what next?
I don’t know about you, but I’m putting my hand up to constantly re-learning. This stuff isn’t rocket science, but when we’re stuck in the weeds we can lose sight of what really matters to us and how we can bring our vision for life and leadership to fruition.
There was absolutely a case of cognitive dissonance that played out here – the contrast between “I’m doing okay” and “There’s got to be more in this”.
My 10 year reflection laid the foundation for thinking about what I want for my next 10 years on the planet – and to be curious about how I might need to re-write my rules of how I live and lead to make my vision a reality.
And it steered me back to Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman, the trusty resource I mentioned earlier.
This book turns traditional theories of time management on their head, suggesting that 'the real measure of any time management technique is whether or not it helps you neglect the right things'.
Time matters when it comes to focusing on the things that will enable us to live and lead our purpose.
Burkeman talks about how we humans live for an average of 4000 weeks and many of us spend an inordinate amount of that time:
Trying to control what is uncontrollable (in essence, the finite reality of our existence).
Expecting that plans will bring certainty to the future.
Getting stuck with a sense of inertia as we inherently try to do too much.
Avoiding the discomfort that comes with realising our own limitations - that we in fact can't know or control everything, and that life is inevitably a series of problems and choices that aren't always easy!
Burkeman challenges us to let go of the need for control so we can focus on the things that matter most (read stop doing lots of things that don't really matter) and live the life of meaning, progress and impact that we desire.
You need to read (or re-read) this book for yourself, but here are some reflective questions from the book that might help you write the rules for your next 10 years of life and leadership. In Burkeman’s words - to help you ‘come to grips with the reality of your situation and to start to make the most of your finite time’.
1. Where in your life or your work are you currently pursuing comfort, when what's called for is a little discomfort?
2. Are you holding yourself to, and judging yourself by, standards of productivity or performance that are impossible to meet?
3. In what ways have you yet to accept the fact that you are who you are, not the person you think you ought to be?
4. In which areas of life are you still holding back until you feel like you know what you're doing?
5. How would you spend your days differently if you didn't care so much about seeing your actions reach fruition?
Whether or not you’ve experienced a mid-life existential crisis, the likelihood is that there’s treasure to unearth in the life you’ve led - if you want to be deliberate about shaping the life you lead going forward and the legacy you leave behind.
If we want to live purposefully and lead impact that’s positive and sustainable, we need to lift ourselves out of the moment we’re in.
Is it about time you took stock of your life and leadership?
Are there stories you’re telling yourself that no longer align with the human and leader you want to be?
Do you need to re-write some of the rules that you’re living and leading by to shore up your impact?
And maybe, just maybe do you need to give yourself a little grace in the process too?
