Enjoy this video transcript of this week’s Monday Moment episode.
Good morning and happy Monday! I’m Monica Wofford and this is your Monday Moment.
Heck, everything else has changed so why not change backdrops, change scenery, and maybe even change location? But a lot of things have changed that are so outside of our control, much like. Mother Nature, and we’ve not dealt just with Mother Nature, but you may, or may not know, that as we’re recording from Florida, Mother Nature is a frequent element in our conversation. Number one, this is the rainy season and it is ridiculously humid. In addition, it’s been raining all day and likely will for the next 10 of them. You can’t always combat what’s happening and elements, like weather, are constantly changing. When it comes to you being a more effective leader, sometimes you’ve just got to adjust as well, and more importantly, sometimes you just have to be grounded, no matter what happens. Today’s Monday Moment I brought outside because I want to talk with you a bit about the element in a phrase that I’ve said for probably 20 years, but maybe you’ve never heard it as a leader. You have to be able to be yourself and then lead yourself before you have any real business leading other people. Today is about leading yourself and there are three areas I’d like us to take a much closer look at in order for you to achieve them.
Make Plans
The very first area of focus is to make plans. Now, hopefully after the month of June, we will all be so sick and tired of talking about post pandemic recovery options or spikes, we can move on to some other topic. But in the interim, chances are, if you watched last week’s Monday Moment, you’ve learned a good bit about strategic planning and are possibly looking at making a plan for the future based on which model you chose, what people to involve and your timeline and other criteria. In this case, I’m actually talking about leading you. Remember, making plans is about you looking at the kind of life, career, position, family, bank account, or weekend. outing that you want to experience. Making plans is about being specific and in your post pandemic recovery, we’ve had far too long of feeling stuck because we couldn’t make a lot of plans, much less, specific ones. The time is now to create some. Figure out what you want to experience, figure out what that looks like and in granular detail. It doesn’t mean it will all come to fruition exactly as you’ve written, but until you write with that clarity, the chances of it happening, are nearly nothing. So, when it comes to leading yourself more effectively, first and foremost, make plans.
Make Peace
Secondly, make peace. There are people who’ve said things to you. There are people who’ve done things to you. There are wonderful events that were rained out and you were tragically disappointed. There are people who truly hurt your feelings for which you now maintain resentment, or maybe you’ve been hatred. I’ve had a few and I’m sure you have too. And what they say about hate or resentment or jealousy or anger is that it’s like buying poison that you want to give to someone else and then you drinking it. Make peace with those items. I would never tell you just let it go because that’s a pipe dream and as a leadership coach, I prefer to work within reality. Instead of just trying to no longer think about, figure out how to make peace with it. Figure out if it’s worth your time and energy to continue feeling the frustration of what you believe should happen, but isn’t. Figure out how to alter your expectations so you stop expecting a textbook jerk and then some, to be nice to you all of a sudden. Make peace with what’s in front of you and certainly make peace with what’s behind you, because until you can move in that direction you won’t be able to move forward or gain any momentum.
Make Decisions
The third category and topic of the art of leading yourself is to make decisions. And I was making one, as I was thinking about that topic of whether I should go this direction or that direction. It really doesn’t matter. It’s about you making, not only decisions, but good ones, and those will be different for every person and every situation, but I’ll even give you a wild and crazy example. You may have seen long ago, the Monday Moment where I was in workout clothes and lifting weights and made a joke about if y’all think I’m sweating on this video, not so much… but you may have also heard me refer to the fact that I’m a runner when it’s convenient and when I feel like it who during the pandemic period of time, gained, much like many, the COVID 20. So. I made a decision recently to stop complaining about things getting snug and not fitting and to do things in ways that were different. I made a decision to stop being lazy about my eating. I made a decision to stop valuing Oreos as if they had some amount of nutrition. Your decisions may be in different areas. Make a decision about the book you’ve been wanting to write. Make a decision about the song you’ve been wanting to get recorded. Make a decision about the new fabulous profession you wish you’d have taken on 20 years ago. Didn’t Confucius say the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago or now? Make a decision because pandering and pontificating and spinning around the inability to make a decision really hinders your ability to be productive and in many ways puts handcuffs on your flexibility, and certainly your momentum. Think of it this way: On a rainy Florida day with Amazon rainforest like humidity, I made a decision to get an umbrella. Instead of complaining about the weather and the rain and the moisture, I also decided to simply get really cute rain boots! If only all decisions were that easy.
When you begin talking about you leading yourself, I want you to consider making plans, certainly making peace and making good decisions. That sounds simple, but you’ve lived long enough to know that you’re the only one who can truly lead you and your situation. You’ve got this and yes, you can do it.
I’m Monica Wofford and that’s your Monday Moment have a great week and even better Monday and of course, stay contagious! And ah! If you are not a part of the Contagious Community, now that we might be able to talk about being contagious again and not have it sound so dire, go to MondayMoment.com, enter your name and email, and you will receive these Monday Moments straight to your inbox. And hopefully at some point they’ll stop including the word pandemic! Talk soon and have a great week.
Monica Wofford, CSP is a celebrated leader who develops future leaders. CEO of Contagious Companies, her firm delivers and designs leadership training for managers who’ve been promoted, but not prepared, and the leaders who promoted them. Author of Contagious Leadership and Make Difficult People Disappear, Monica and members of the Contagious team may be reached at www.ContagiousCompanies.com, www.MonicaWofford.com or by calling 1-866-382-0121.
