November for a lot of businesses can mean absolute chaos.
I worked in technology selling Xbox’s, then the wine industry and finally toys before I moved to Yoga full time…as you can imagine Oct/Nov/Dec was just craziness for us. We called it the silly season and it was the season where if you lost the season then you lost the year- sales (££) wise that is.
There was A LOT of pressure to hit ‘the number’ (our sales targets) and deliver, deliver, deliver. The pace was fast and unrelenting with just so much to do and frankly never enough time OR people to do it. I’d love to say it was a fun time, but honestly it wasn’t really. The stress usually overtook any of the fun that was there to be had.
*an evening of fun at an awards 'do after a gruelling day in the office of back to backs and external presentations- i remember feeling exhausted and you can see it in my face*
So, resilience plays a critical key role in our ability as humans to just survive this season.
For a while I used to get pretty triggered by the word resilience. I resented the fact that ‘big’ businesses refused to accept that their working practices and culture was the "thing" that was impacting people’s resilience and instead they tried to shift all the blame in our direction. Well the business wasn't going to change so I took my power back.
I decided to figure out what activities I could do that would build me up, help me recover and nourish my resilience in those crazy seasons.
Over the month I've been sharing some of these personal tips and learnings on how to nourish your resilience, and during classes we've really been working on how we tap into that inner strength that lives within us.
Still to this day though one of THE MOST important wellness activities you can do to nourish resilience is to sleep, but I appreciate that during silly season even that can become a bit allusive too.
So below I would like to share an exercise with you all that I used to do to help me navigate the season.
Surviving Silly Season Exercise
When you are dealing with massive amounts of tasks under pressure it can be really hard to see the wood through the trees and all you can focus on is what needs to get done and your worries.
This activity was something that I revised daily and enabled me to move through tasks when I felt like I was drowning.
It’s actually really simple.
Write down all your worries in a list – I used to call it ‘things I’m worried about’
Go through this list and assign a word next to each one
Control – is this something I can directly control and I can action
Influence- is this something I can influence, but ultimately somebody else needs to do the action
No Impact- is this something that I will have no control or influence over
The worries where you have written ‘no impact’, GET RID OF THEM. If you cannot control or influence them then they are taking up precious space and energy in your mind and you do not need them. So let them go – you can use a meditation to help you do this, or scribble them out, or rip them up. I used to scribble them out.
The worries where you have control – simple, you focus on these actions first. What are the small steps to help you overcome this worry. Do those things
The worries where you have influence become more complex.
Write the name of the person or people who you need to influence next to them.
Figure out your approach to influence, is it a Teams call, a meeting to discuss, a brainstorm to help support or just an offer of help to this person who needs to complete the task
Set a deadline in your mind. At what point is it too late for this person to take action, what is your plan B if plan A doesn’t work out. Bring other relevant people on the journey with you here too
Hey presto …. You now have a list of actions that feel more controllable and the ones that don’t feel controllable you understand Plan B and you are willing to let go.
Let me know how you get on and good luck my friends! You've GOT THIS!
Love, Tash xx
