Combatting Long-Term Exhaustion

For many of us, stress became a lifestyle. Beyond the glamourization of hustle culture, society normalized the body’s warning signals as the price you pay to be successful and we accepted it as a collective.

But then we hit our tipping point, and no you’re not imagining it. Something is different. People are more irritable. Your colleagues are less conversational – even more so if they were forced back into the office. You may have even noticed a change in your ability to concentrate, stay focused or complete a task. Believe me, you are not alone in this. According to a new poll by the Canadian Women’s Foundation, 48 per cent of moms are reaching their breaking point, and a staggering 67 per cent said they were concerned about their mental and physical health. I can raise my hand and say that I fell into this category the past few months, which necessitated a break.

These are the consequences of a society stretched too thin, and the behavioral changes we are witnessing are to be expected in the third year of the pandemic. Stress moved into exhaustion, and we’re feeling it as a collective. According to the World Health Organization, symptoms of exhaustion costs the global economy $1 trillion dollars each year. It’s time to change that.

Stress or Exhaustion?

First, what is exhaustion, and how is it different from the daily stress we’ve become so accustomed to? For starters, stress is generally directed at an event or a deadline. As a result, there’s a foreseeable end where life can return to our routines. However, with exhaustion, the symptoms are more subtle, progress gradually and have a cumulative impact on our well-being. Exhaustion is the product of months, or perhaps years of compounded stress.

According to health professionals, symptoms of exhaustion may include:

• Depression

• Difficult concentrating

• Low motivation

• Nervousness or general anxiety

• Muscle weakness

• Stiff shoulders

• Whole-body tiredness

• Insomnia

• Alienation

Exhaustion also has a longer recovery time. When I went on my break with my son, I slept 30+ hours in the first three days. I didn’t even know I needed that. Psychologists suggest it may take up to five years to heal all exhaustion-related symptoms. The key to combating the triggers and environments that lead to burnout and exhaustion is prevention. It starts with identifying the causes and implementing better systems. Something I am working on personally, and really thinking about professionally.

Building Better Work Environments

For employers, creating a healthy work environment starts with acknowledging all the various ways the last three years have affected their team. It’s also understanding that we may have no idea what someone on our team has experienced during that time. Your colleagues have experienced loss in its varying forms - loss of loved ones, loss of time, certainty, opportunities, and in some cases perhaps a loss of identity. Ignoring that is not an option. Here’s are some suggestions for employers:

• Get to know your employees again. Ask questions, but then (actually) listen. Ample studies show that employees are happier in workplaces where they feel included, supported and have a sense of belonging. Research also shows that 77 per cent of employees have suffered from ‘zoom fatigue’ since the beginning of the pandemic. Take the time to have conversations with individual team members and facilitate opportunities for co-workers to get to get to know one another again. We’ve gone through a lot.

• Be flexible. After 2+ years of working remotely for most of us, being back in the office can be a big adjustment. While some employees may be excited to be back in a structured space, others are anxious. Be considerate.

• Reduce workplace stress. There is so much to say about this, and the study I co-led on Happiness at Work in partnership with the Canadian Mental Health Association, showed that we needed to reduce workplace stress even before the pandemic. We needed to adjust workloads before the pandemic, and this still applies today. A few practices employers can implement include: making sure employees are taking regular breaks (and their full lunch breaks), encouraging taking time off, and not expecting responses to emails/messages after work hours.

The consequences of ignoring the exhaustion that is plaguing many right now is dire. Research shows that the effects are cumulative. It doesn’t matter if an employee's stressors are occurring outside of the workplace, they carry it with them regardless of its source and it shows up in how we are able show up each day. That means employees are carrying the stress of the past 2+ years into the office with them, especially if we haven’t had the opportunity to process what we’ve experienced. Compassionate and empathetic leadership is required, and the pandemic has shown us there are multiple ways of doing things. That’s a lesson I believe we can continue to apply as we continue to tackle exhaustion in the workplace.

Understanding Loneliness

Loneliness changes you. It’s something many of us are continuing to come to terms with as pandemic restrictions lift and we try to remember how it used to be. Except we feel different. That’s because the years we’ve spent in isolation may have changed the structure of our brains, according to new research. In our natural state, our brain registers safety in numbers and in contrast, views isolation as a threat to our well-being. According to neuroscientists, the pandemic may have shifted that, because we began correlating isolation with safety. Now, as we begin to reintegrate, we’re beginning to discover just how drastically social distancing has changed us and how we interact with one another.

The tricky thing about defining loneliness is that it’s subjective. How we define the term depends on us and how we feel in our environments. Loneliness is different from isolation. It’s not that we are alone – it may be that we may feel unseen, undervalued, and/or experience a lack of belonging. Essentially, loneliness comes down to the perception of being alone, and can therefore persist even when you are surrounded by people. Pre-pandemic, I remember being in a conference room with 100+ people and feeling alone. It is what’s also interesting about how the term belonging is defined, “…a sense of belonging does not depend on participation with, or proximity to, others or groups,” (Rogers, 1951). You can be in a room full of people, in close proximity to others and even participating, but that doesn’t mean you won’t experience loneliness in that setting.  

As human beings, we crave community. Although COVID-loneliness may have been triggered by isolation and social distancing, it continues to exist as restrictions ease because it inevitably redefined how many of us view ourselves and our connection to others and our communities. It changed our perception of belonging. Many were stuck inside with roommates, family members, partners and even strangers. But oftentimes, these interactions failed to mitigate creeping feelings of aloneness because the conversations may have been unfulfilling or there may have been a division in opinions.

Healthcare professionals have long been sounding the alarm on the consequences of long-term loneliness. Similar to other forms of stress, being lonely puts you at a higher risk of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. It also increases your likelihood of physical ailments such as heart disease, cancer, stroke, hypertension, dementia and premature death. Psychologist Julianne Holt-Lunstad of Brigham Young University compared the risk effects of loneliness, isolation and weak social networks to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. “The general public recognizes how loneliness might influence our levels of distress, our emotional or mental health,” Dr. Holt-Lunstad said in an interview with the New York Times. “But we probably don’t recognize the robust evidence of the effects on our physical health.”

Loneliness is taxing, physically, emotionally and economically. According to a study by AARP, the costs of medical care related to social isolation and loneliness is roughly $6.7 billion in Medicare spending. In early 2022, I conducted the Workplace Belonging Survey and found that one in four women feel lonely in the workplace. The study also revealed that less than half of Americans felt connected with others at work and only 34 per cent felt they had an ally at their workplace. These numbers suggest that loneliness and feelings of isolation are much more prevalent in our homes, communities and in our places of work.

When we connect with others, remembering that the last few years have changed all of us in ways we couldn’t have anticipated is important. Personally, I don’t know if we’ve started to process the impact of our experiences, because many of us are still experiencing a lot of change and uncertainty. We don’t just ‘go back to how things were’ overnight (and perhaps we shouldn’t go back to how things were, but that’s for a different post). As we begin to recover from the last few years, a part of our healing is dependent on community and how we show up for each other. For leaders, this will continue to necessitate patience, empathy, and a lot more understanding.  

Managing Stress with Social Media Hygiene

What information have you taken in, in the last few minutes or hours, and how has it affected you? In our constantly-connected and rapidly changing world, we are being overwhelmed with information at all hours of the day, and that can take a toll. April is Stress Awareness Month, and it’s time we look at all the little ways our online interactions are affecting us.

With limited in-person events over the last few years, our entire world shifted online. We came to rely on our social media feeds for our daily source of human interaction, and they played a crucial role in helping us (try to) stay connected. While social media is a powerful tool of connecting and building with community, it can also be exhausting, invasive and anxiety inducing when used without intention.

Think about a time where a stranger's post or comment online upset you, or you spent a bit longer than anticipated scrolling through your feed. Chances are, you did not intend to spend your time in that way. We often check our social media feeds for a “quick” update and more often than not, that update takes significantly longer than anticipated. This can become particularly detrimental especially during times of political turmoil or social unrest. We “doom scroll” to feel in control, and informed, but the information we take in can have the opposite effect.

Consequences of Poor Social Media Hygiene

The impacts of overusing social media can fuel feelings of stress, anxiety, isolation, fear of missing out, inadequacy or even dissatisfaction in quality of life. It causes us to subconsciously compare our lives to people we know little to nothing about. Studies show that high usage of specific platforms increase feelings of loneliness. It can even decrease your quality of sleep, and act as a distraction from work, family life and other responsibilities, adding to feelings of guilt and anxiety.

The problem is, we sometimes don’t know how much time we spend scrolling. Those “quick checks” eat away at our day and energy, before we even realize it.

A few suggestions:

●    Start with self-monitoring in order to assess how much time is spent on the various platforms and how they make you feel. This involves being more mindful of when you’re picking up your phone/devise, and how you’re feeling both before you pick it up, and after you’re done scrolling.

●    Turn off devices (or go into airplane mode) at specific times during the day. This may mean no phones while you’re eating, or no screens an hour before bed. For me, I leave my device in a different room overnight so that it’s not the last thing I check before bed or the first thing I check in the morning.

●    Cleansing your timeline and following people/companies that support your intentions. If you want to use social media to stay connected with loved ones, then honour that by being intentional about who you follow.

●    Cultivate your social media experience. A big piece of this is knowing that you don’t have to consume everything that’s out there. Yes, staying informed is powerful and important, but excessive use can come at our own expense.  

Social media is a powerful tool and there are positives to using it - from community building to earning a living. Self-monitoring and being intentional about which platforms you engage on will help with managing stress and ensuring you are using them to your advantage. 

Addition by Subtraction: The Reverse Bucket List

Think about a time where you crossed off a major goal. How did you feel when you reached that milestone, and how long did that feeling last? For many of us, the moment is fleeting. We give ourselves a day or two to embrace the satisfaction of a job well done, before getting right back to it and committing to achieving an even loftier goal. But this isn’t sustainable. In fact, biologically, it’s not meant to be.

The problem with the achievement high, is it fades just as quickly as it appears. We are taught about the importance of being goal-oriented, and that’s not necessarily wrong. Do we stop ourselves to ask why or what are we chasing? We dream bigger, do more, and reach higher because sometimes we are chasing a feeling that was never intended to last. The human body doesn’t allow it.

It’s called homeostasis and it was introduced in 1926 by physiologist Walter B. Cannon. According to Cannon’s research, our bodies have built in regulatory systems that manage everything from our temperature to our temperament. It keeps us balanced and in our neutral state. While our baseline may be altered by our circumstances, upbringing and family history, generally speaking, our “ground zero” is neutral, and it’s the state we return to after experiencing emotional arousal.

In short, this means that your brain is hardwired to regulate your emotion and return to it’s baseline, a feeling that some of us are trying to avoid. Think about how long excitement, or anger, or embarrassment generally lasts in your body – these feelings are gone as quickly as they come. According to Joshua Freedman of Six Seconds, each time we process an emotion, within six seconds it impacts every living cell in our body. It is understood that every time you experience an emotion, whether you label it as positive or negative, your brain responds by returning back to your baseline. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as the hedonic treadmill, and it’s the reason your achievements and acquisitions are unable to bring permanent happiness into your life – which is sometimes what we think they will do.

So how do you get off this proverbial treadmill? According to Harvard Professor Arthur C. Brooks, creating a reverse bucket list can be helpful. Rather than focusing on what we’d like to add into our lives, he suggests that long lasting happiness can actually be found through subtracting. By creating a reverse bucket list, you’re able to spend more time feeling content and grateful by subtracting the energy, tasks, people and things that drain you.

The goal isn’t to live a life without goals. Goals are powerful and wonderful markers of growth. But when we make them our defining purpose, we forget that there’s an entire life that’s meant to be lived, outside of just achieving specific goals and especially when the goalpost tends to move each time we achieve something. Take the time to ask yourself where your goals are leading you, and if the resolutions you set every new year or every quarter, will truly allow you to get to where you want to go and who you want to be.

Here’s What Productivity Hacks Are Missing

I wake up every morning at 3:45 AM. It’s not because I have a deadline, meetings in different time zones, or an early flight. I do it because I initially had to due to the pandemic in order to have uninterrupted time and get some work done. Over the last two years, I’ve found that my magic hours are between 4:00 and 7:00 AM. It’s unconventional, I know. I’m reminded of this anytime someone comments on how early I go to bed or how early I wake up. But don’t worry, this isn’t another article trying to get you to join the 5 AM club – or in my case, the 4 AM club.

This post is intended to do the opposite. Maybe. 

When we’re looking for a new routine or healthy practices, we often look to what others may be doing. We want to know the secret. But there’s a danger in that. In following the footsteps of others, we forget that we have our own.

As a mother to a young child, I’ve learned that uninterrupted time is sacred. But that’s not the sole reason I do it. I never had to guilt myself into waking up at a certain time, and my decision to do so was based on personal observation. Those early morning hours are when my thoughts flow, my mind stays focused, and I feel I can get the most challenging work completed. And so, I honour that window, each and every day (yes, even on weekends), because it’s when I’m ready to pour over research, dive into new subjects and engage.

Many of us often make the mistake of focusing on what we should be doing rather than who we are. The most important productivity hack isn’t getting up with the sun; it’s learning to work with your body's natural rhythms and your learning style.

The key to maximizing your productivity is personal observation and self-reflection. Take the time to know yourself and understand when you feel the most equipped to handle daily tasks. To maximize my productivity, I schedule my intense work between 4-7 AM, and then schedule my client-facing engagements, calls, and meetings after drop-off and before pick-up. By prioritizing the most taxing task each day, I can maximize creativity and efficiency.

Ask yourself, when do you feel most ready and inspired to tackle challenging work? Is it first thing in the morning? Is it after a HIIT workout? Or is it, in the middle of your day? By looking at how you structure your day, your energy levels and your productivity, you’ll be better able to understand when your mind and body are best equipped to handle your daily tasks. For some people, taking an inventory of where they spend their time and how they feel throughout the day is helpful in understanding how they can optimize their day.

There’s no one-size-fits all to productivity. The problem is we’ve been fed that idea for so long we get frustrated when “proven” methods don’t work for us. Time-blocking, the Pomodoro method and waking up early are all excellent ways to maximize your productivity – but only if those are the methods that work best for you.

The only way you can understand what works for you, is through trial, error and observation. If it takes you 30 minutes to focus, the Pomodoro method may not be the best option, but time blocking could be. In a culture that’s hyper-focused on productivity hacks and efficiency, sometimes the most powerful and productive thing you can do is be yourself. 

Being a Woman with Ambition

Sometimes what can hold women back in their careers is not a lack of ambition, commitment, or tenacity – it’s the existence of it. What happens when ambition becomes “too much” for others? While there’s been significant progress on the treatment of women in workplaces, it’s time to start asking ourselves why some still feel intimidated by a woman with clear, unapologetic ambition.

The answer lies in the nuances between theory and practice. We raise our youth to believe they can be anything they want. To believe that we’ve moved beyond gendered stereotypes and limiting mindsets. Until it’s time to align our words with our actions and make room for the youth we’ve raised. Yes, the world is decorated with female leaders, in all industries and professions. But at what cost?

There are dangers that come with being a woman who is perceived as ambitious, even if you’ve not only shown, but also proven, that you’re willing to make things happen (especially so if it’s on your own terms). We see it unfold in the corporate world, classrooms, in family units, and on political stages. In addition to being labelled aggressive, bossy, and/or difficult, the “likeability”, qualifications, and intentions of ambitious women are often questioned. Yes, we need to #BreakTheBias.

In 2018, I conducted a study called The Tallest Poppy (stay tuned as we are going to run the study again!). While conducting my research, I heard from countless women who shared stories about the consequences of their ambitions. They told stories of workplace bullying, hostility, and feelings of loneliness and isolation. It’s easy to dismiss individual stories as examples of jealousy, envy, or a scarcity mindset, but when it becomes a common theme in the lives of thousands of powerful women, it becomes more than just a story. It could be a sign that society is not prepared for the women it has raised.

Here’s the thing – the world needs ambition. It reminds us of that often. Women are at the forefront of grassroots movement, the pursuit for justice and are often the first to sound the alarm when things are not as they seem. From Women’s Month to the Women’s March, we’ve been changemakers every step of the way. But our ambition can sometimes place a target on our back when we choose to use our grit, talent, and skills to further our own careers.

Having ambition has consequences, perhaps because society sometimes places limitations on what women can be ambitious about. Is everyone encouraged or “allowed” to be ambitious and high-achieving? The answer to rectifying how we treat ambitious women is in recognizing that how we define the term and who we celebrate for being ambitious, and who we do not.

We move forward through radical honesty, at both a social and individual level. It’s time we sit with ourselves and understand why we are comfortable telling our youth to reach for the stars, and dismissing them when they finally get that seat at the table. In the workplace, that looks like fostering an environment where the success of a woman is celebrated, rather than a threat to the status quo. At the individual level, that means looking at those around you and paying attention to how you respond when they communicate their needs, vocalize their aspirations, and/or share their achievements. 

How to Make Mistakes

The Importance of Mistakes 

Failure can tell you a lot about a person, it can also tell you a lot about yourself. We’re often told that closed doors and missed opportunities are a critical part of any success story. That we learn more from the losses we incur, than the wins we would celebrate. And while there’s an immense amount of truth to that, there is much more to the conversation.

Why Mistakes Matter

I’ve failed many times before and have made my fair share of mistakes both personally and professionally (and continue to make them!). From failing my first ever exam in university (Economics!) to failing my G2 driver’s test (twice!), and the CHRP exam (twice!), to many, many more. When going through failure and making mistakes, I can share with you that the language I used to use with myself was definitely not as supportive as what I would say to others when they experienced something similar. Naturally, I began questioning myself as well as my skills and capabilities. When I think about this now, I realize that I did not know how to make mistakes and learn from them. I saw success as a linear track, and believed that if I worked hard 'enough', if I was smart 'enough', or if I was good 'enough,' I could keep disappointing missteps at bay. At the time, I didn't realize that the path to success is a terrain paved with failures and setbacks – I couldn't have one without the other. It was never about being 'enough.'

We are more likely to make mistakes when we push ourselves out of our comfort zones and aspire to something more than what we know. That’s why our relationship with making mistakes is so important; it has a direct impact on our willingness to expand our horizons and seek more than what’s familiar to us. When we allow ourselves to learn from our mistakes, we approach situations with a growth mindset rather than a fixed one. So how do we fix our responses to making mistakes?

It starts with understanding and questioning our inner dialogue. The next time things don’t go according to plan, sit with your inner critic and start realistically challenging the negative communication you use with yourself. Become the critic of your inner critic. Let's explore this.

Your Inner Critic

Self-talk is how we make emotions real. It sets the tone for how we act, react, and interact. When we make a mistake, the internal dialogue that consumes us tells the story of what we believe about ourselves, our abilities, and what we think we can achieve. Further to that, we talk to ourselves at a rate equivalent to speaking 4,000 words per minute (Korba, 1990). We apparently have a lot to say to ourselves. We can fail your way to success, but to do that, taking the time to understand limiting beliefs and the language we use with ourselves is critical.

Name It

Don’t sugar coat it. Call it what it is and there’s power in saying things out loud. It allows us to address things head-on and understand the disconnect between our subconscious and rational minds. What emotion comes up for you when you stumble on your journey? Are you afraid? Do you feel like you have to be perfect? Only once we call it out can we start confronting the limiting beliefs we have. What will happen if you fail? Play out the scenario. I often do this with my five-year-old son and we play out the scenario and different possible end results. Often, we can diffuse paralyzing emotions by showing ourselves that what we are afraid of isn’t actually grounded in our present experience.

Normalize Making Mistakes

We romanticize accomplishment and reaching our goals, but sometimes we forget the reality of that landscape. Making mistakes isn’t a possibility; it's an inevitable reality of doing things you’ve never done before. The issue is we tend to view failure as being negative and we equate it with negative emotions and subsequently engage in negative self-talk. I never did end up getting my CHRP designation, but I think I did just fine without it. I’ve learned that multiple choice and I don’t get along, and that’s OK (just don't use me as your lifeline when playing Who Wants to be a Millionaire). More importantly, what I’ve learned is how to speak to myself when things don’t go the way I thought they would. Interestingly, this is also what helps with resilience. It’s what you say after that matters the most.  

When we normalize making mistakes as a critical part of our journey, we'll begin to shift our perspective and change our relationship with the inevitable obstacles. This is why mistakes are such a powerful learning tool. It creates the opportunity for us to understand and unpack our own behaviours and internalized beliefs systems. It shows us the limitations we place on ourselves and our learning.  

Our flaws, shortcomings and oversights are all a part of the experience, and we have a compelling ability to learn and expand our perspectives. But to surrender to this, we must first learn how to make mistakes, or rather, how to honour them. 

Your Habits Are Your Strategy

Goal setting has become such an integral part of our culture. It’s in our workplaces, our personal lives, and even in our relationship with our bodies. We’re taught that if we want to prioritize developing sustainable change, we need a metric to measure our success - otherwise we won’t know if we are on target. However, our belief in linear success ignores the road to success including the detours that we may experience along the way. It’s not about setting SMART goals, although those can be important too. It’s about the mind's natural reward system and developing habits that support your overall goals.

Each time you cross something off your to-do list, your brain celebrates by releasing dopamine, the “happy hormone,” that’s connected to positive feelings like pleasure, learning and motivation. Our brain craves dopamine, and so every time you accomplish a goal, however big or small, you want to repeat the action. This results in higher productivity, and prolonged excitement around goals.

Now, let’s look at the reverse. When we set bigger goals, we can struggle to continue once we get past the initial wave of excitement. There are a number of reasons as to why this happens. To begin with, it may be hard to imagine accomplishing something different from how you usually go about your daily routine (and oftentimes we operate in automaticity). This is generally what happens when the initial excitement of a project or goal begins to fade. You may be left with the realization that this goal is more daunting than you initially perceived, and feel less motivated to continue putting in the work.

However, when we change our approach and instead focus on building supportive habits, we’re better able to take incremental steps towards what we hope to accomplish. So, how do you do it? How do you train your brain to focus on the trees, instead of the forest, when it feels like we live in a culture that teaches the reverse? It’s by reminding yourself that if the goal is the forest, your habits are the trees. Growth is a pattern of learning and unlearning. All of us, no matter how accomplished or conscious, picked up unhealthy habits somewhere in our lives, be it from our friends, family, classmates or the influence of our environment. In deciding what sort of habits and practices you’d like to adopt, it’s equally important to analyze your existing behaviors and to take stock of what habits no longer serve you.

One of the best practices for both goal setting and habit building is visualization. Once you have a particular goal in mind, take the time to imagine yourself accomplishing that goal. Then work backwards. The goal is to understand what habits and patterns were needed to support you in accomplishing that goal. Take stock of how you spend your time, the routines and practices that may (or may not) support your intended goal, and who you surround yourself with. Science also shows us that incremental progress and growth are two important ways to stay motivated. Sometimes, we get discouraged with big goals because they seem unattainable, and far off into the future. Ultimately, habits are just as important as your goals.

The incremental changes that happen as a result of changed patterns also indirectly create a contingency plan. If these last two years have taught us anything, it’s that sometimes life just happens. Somedays, you won’t be able to work on your goals, and those days may stretch out into weeks, or months because life happens. And that’s ok. By focusing on developing sustainable habits, you are inevitably striving to accomplish that long-term goal. Think of your habits as your strategy. Each habit you set is creating pathways in your brain and supporting you in creating the changes that you are seeking.

Your goals shouldn’t overwhelm you. Instead of just focusing on a big vision, look at what you can do this week to support the goal you’re aspiring to accomplish. Through consistent habits, and small changes, what may seem impossible becomes more of a possibility.   

The Power of Inspiration

Research has shown that inspiration is the key to staying motivated. It awakens us to new possibilities by allowing us to transcend our ordinary experiences and limitations. Inspiration propels a person from apathy to possibility, and transforms the way we perceive our own capabilities, and that’s something many of us could use more of right now. But how do we get there?

According to psychologists Todd M. Thrash and Andrew J. Elliot, there are three main aspects to inspiration: evocation, transcendence, and approach motivation. By its nature, inspiration is not something that can be planned. It occurs spontaneously, without intention or our own self-imposed limits. Think about the last time you came up with a solution or were inspired to set a new goal. In the first few moments, your mind didn’t focus on possibility or practicability. That is the power of inspiration; it reaches beyond logistics and allows you to create something entirely new. The next step is to bring that vision into reality, through approach motivation. According to Thrash and Elliot, inspiration involves being inspired by something and acting on that inspiration. Sometimes we stop ourselves from acting. Here’s are some ways you can build and tap into your own reservoir of inspiration, even when it feels impossible.

Learn

Explore industries completely different from your own in order to understand how they do things. After the movie Avatar came out in 2009, I booked a tour at an animation studio to learn about their processes. Although my work had nothing to do with animation, I was inspired by the way they created the animated experience and wanted to learn more. After the tour, I applied some of their processes to the way I do things in the L & D space (even 13 years later). Listening to another person's perspective, learning about another industry, and exploring new processes can sometimes give us a jolt of inspiration that we need. It’s a great way of challenging and expanding our own perspective.

Movement

In 1889, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.” Current research shows that there’s science behind that. According to a study out of Stanford University, walking helps boost creative ideation, cognitive function, and improves memory. Encourage more movement in your day and give yourself space to just breathe.

Time

We tend to believe our productivity is tied to how much time we spend working, but that’s not entirely true. According to the Journal of Positive Psychology, engaging in creative activities that you enjoy can actually impact how you feel in the days following the activity. In the study, researchers asked university students to keep a daily diary of their experiences and emotional states over 13 days. After analyzing the entries, researchers found that there was a pattern of participants feeling more enthusiasm and higher “flourishing” than usual following days they were more creative. The study defined flourishing to mean an increasing positive growth in oneself.

Recently, I was inspired by a tweet to make a list of Things I Never Regret. I use it as a reminder of where I draw my inspiration from. My list included playing, learning and spending uninterrupted time with my son, as well as going to the lake and waking up early. It’s easy to convince yourself that you’re too busy to be creative or to “play.” But what if you gave yourself time to do so each day?

Oftentimes, we become so focused on learning new skills and honing our talents, that we forget what encourages us to create our magic. When we continuously create from a place of exhaustion, and deplete ourselves of the opportunity to create, learn, and play, we engage in work that may not be reflective of our truest ability.

The power of inspiration is in redefining what’s possible for you. Sometimes what we need to propel us forward is a reminder that we can overcome many of the limits and barriers that keep us stuck. Sometimes that involves getting out of our own way and encouraging some movement, exploration, and play.

Now is Not the Time for Toxic Positivity

It can be difficult to watch someone you care about go through a challenging time. Whether they are struggling with depression and anxiety, grieving the loss of a loved one, or having a rough day, our immediate reaction is to try and alleviate that hurt. We want to show up for the people that we care about and remind them of all the good they have in their life. But it’s time to start unpacking how we process life's harder moments. Think of a time when a friend has opened up to you about a hardship they were experiencing. What was your immediate reaction? Did you tell them not to worry so much? Or remind them to count their blessings, and look for the silver lining? We respond to uncomfortable emotions with positivity as a form of support; we want to make our loved one feel better, and to remind them that things won’t always be this way. But who are we actually helping?

According to research, this type of misdirected positivity can be damaging and can cause additional feelings of stress and isolation. It’s called toxic positivity, and it happens often. We see it on our social media feeds, in our relationships, and in our everyday interactions. In many ways, it’s actually become the normal response to any display of heavy or uncomfortable emotions. We want people to cheer up. We may get awkward because we don’t know how to show up for those who are grieving. We ask how someone is doing, and then immediately follow up with a solution that they did not ask for. We want to skip past the grief, the heaviness, and the difficult conversations, and go back to how things were before. But in doing so, we are erasing moments that define someone’s life. We are asking them to ignore their very real and very raw experiences, because they make us uncomfortable.

Oftentimes when people engage in toxic positivity, they do so because they care and want to be part of the solution. But what if we resisted that temptation? The most powerful action you can take when someone is sharing their hardship with you, could be to take no action at all. Human beings crave belonging. We want to know that there is space for us when we aren’t feeling like ourselves, and that our loved ones want us around even when we aren’t our best. So what should you do, when a friend/peer is sharing their struggles with you? Hold space for it, both my listening to them (not just hearing them) and letting them to feel the way they do.

Some Suggestions:

• Listen to understand, rather than listening to respond. It’s not our job to “fix it” or solve the problem and it is likely that the other person does not want us to. When we share our vulnerabilities, we aren’t looking for a solution, we are looking to be heard. The best thing you can do is listen and feel into what’s being shared. By doing so, you’re able to validate feelings.

• Avoid inserting yourself in the conversation. We tend to want to relate to people’s experiences by telling them about a situation when we’ve experienced a similar hardship. This shifts the conversation from what they are currently going through, to what you once went through. While it may seem like you are bonding over a shared experience, it decentralizes who the speaker is. Instead, respond by affirming that you’re listening and if the conversation and relationship warrants it, ask how they would like to be supported.

• Use informed optimism. Unlike toxic positivity, informed optimism is rooted in reality. With informed optimism, you acknowledge and validate the emotions present, while acknowledging that things can get better. This can be a powerful practice because of the link between emotional acceptance and psychological health.

If you are on the receiving end of toxic positivity, it can be disappointing and isolating. But know that your feelings are valid. It’s okay to not be okay. Our ability to feel is what makes us human, and that includes emotions – which can make some people uneasy. Your job isn’t to minimize your feelings for the comfort of others; it’s to be who you are. As we begin to become more comfortable allowing ourselves to be emotionally present and vulnerable, we will naturally give others permission to do the same. The next time someone you care about is telling you to look on the bright side, tell them how that’s making you feel. We learn in community, and we heal this way too. By teaching others how they can show up for you, you’re indirectly teaching them how they can show up for themselves as well.

The most powerful thing you can do is hold space for the people that you are connected to and be with them in their vulnerability. In a world that prioritizes actions, there is power in being still.