What Would You Do With A Blank Slate?

Writing on January 2nd is hard. The possibilities are endless—and yet so are the expectations. I want to jump into my year with a karate chop slicing through a cinder block, but I’m still processing my holiday break reflection, uncertainty about the new year to come and my exhaustion from entertaining two kids for nearly two weeks straight. That’s a lot of kid time for this working mom (Respect, stay at home parents.).

By far the most challenging part of starting fresh this week is starting fresh. Taking a step into a pure white canvas and bringing to it my inevitable mess. My optimistic, ambitious, well-meaning, out of practice, fearful, unrested mess. In my head there’s a dance party of perfect, pristine images that refuse to connect to words. So my goal right now: let them dance. Be where I am, which may be exactly where I need to be.

And where am I? 2018 was an exciting and successful year professionally, but an intense and exhausting year on the personal front. On top of living the busy life of a working mom of two, caregiving for my uncle with Parkinson’s kicked up a notch this year and moved into the foreground of my personal priorities. Heading into 2019 with even bigger goals for both business growth and writing projects while continuing to navigate my uncle’s care—leaves me with the worry that doing all I have planned may not be possible.

This is the fear that winks at my empty page, my blinking cursor, my new year, my blank slate.

But I don’t need to choose it as I often did in 2018. I fed that beast with stress and resentment and false helplessness. That is simply not who I am, but I was tired and angry. My work, my practice this year is to forgive myself for stewing and to excise that thought with surgical precision.

In the face of my new year with endless possibilities, I vow to:

1. Actively choose to believe what I want is possible.

2. See the beauty in the mess.

The mess means I’m bringing all that I am, including my fear to the work. This is what it looks like when you forge forward despite all the reasons not to do so. There will always be excuses to stand in one place. You need not look far to find them. When you ignore them, step into the uncertainty and challenge the naysaying with your action, you can find new confidence in course correcting back to your unique path. My path includes uncovering my fears and my solace in writing and inspiring and being inspired by my incredible clients—all while triaging multiple calls a day from and about my uncle. It is both beauty and mess and also fraught with lessons that are mine for the learning.

How to Powerfully Close Out 2018

One evening last week, I was wrapping up my day of coaching sessions and writing some emails to clients while sitting on my bed. My puppy, Taco, who is now six months old, was lying across my feet, and I was working away to the tunes of my daughter’s piano and voice lesson in the living room. I snapped a photo of Taco and sent it to my husband.

“You have the best job,” He said

“By design,” I responded

I welled up with pride. I created this. I had a vision. I wasn’t sure it was possible, and I made it happen.

Now, as I close out my year and begin anew, I move through a process that helps me acknowledge the seemingly small (but truly big) successes like this one, find compassion for the moments I went off course and set intentions for the year to come.

Here’s how it works:

1. Celebrate your wins.
Whether it’s closing a new client, getting a new job or promotion, defending your dissertation, starting your own business, getting married, getting divorced, surviving cancer—you are all out there doing incredible things. Make a list of all of the big things along with the smaller moments that somehow felt transformational. Honor them. Celebrate them. Notice the ways you brought your unique gifts to those accomplishments and how what others may see as failures could show up on your wins list.

2. Be grateful.
Who in your life has shown up for you this year, without even a request? What are the moments that felt like luck or some divine intervention? Spend time on an accounting of all the things you have that bring you joy. It may not be all you want in life, but take time to focus on what you may be taking for granted—like for some it could be good health. Think about all that your health affords you to do in your life and notice how that can minimize the want or the hunger for what you do not yet have.

3. Forgive yourself.
No, not everything went as planned. You lost your cool. You yelled. You fumbled in your moment to shine. But you’re also human, and humans are flawed (sorry to break this news). In order to forgive yourself for what did and didn’t happen in this past year, I recommend writing yourself a forgiveness letter. And go deep. What compassionate words would you use to calm yourself for saying that cruel thing to your friend out of jealousy or for not listening to your partner because you had to finish an email or for knowing a relationship was over, but letting it go on too long? How would you talk to a close friend about those things? When you feel like it’s complete, read it out loud. Feel the emotions. Let the tears flow. With acknowledgment and forgiveness (and frequent reminders of both), you can work to leave these things in your past and not use them as the foundation for your new year.

4. Choose a theme for the new year.
You may still be in holiday mode and not yet ready to plan out your 2019. That’s OK. Or maybe you’ve made New Year’s resolutions in the past that you gave up on somewhere between January 5th and 12th. Instead of that approach—I like to start my year off by choosing a word that will be my theme for the year. It can give you direction and help you choose how to move forward in your role or your business. It can also serve as your mantra in moments when you’re working towards a big change. I asked my daughters what they would choose as words to guide their 2019, and my seven year old jumped up and shouted, “Oh, I know mine! Except for food—ADVENTUROUS!” I can’t wait to see how this comes to be in her life, and I more than sort of hope that it does spill over into food.

As I do this reflection in my own life and then multiply it in my work with clients, the turning over of years has become one of the most simple and powerful rituals I use to gain clarity and momentum. It helps me to define what success looks like for me—knowing that my wins may sound either lofty or mundane to others—and that truly, none of that matters. In the spirit of my 2019 word, LISTEN, it prompts me to get quiet, observe, gather the clues and then alternate baby steps and giant leaps on my own unique path.

5 Ways To Pull Other Women Up Without Overcommitting

The mid-career and senior women leaders I work with have busy lives. Many of them are mothers, so in addition to their demanding full-time jobs, they’re also responsible for the lion’s share of the household management duties—what I like to call "the third job." They’re the primary communicators with the school and childcare professionals in their lives. They make sure dogs are walked, that everyone is dressed in clothing approaching the right size, and they figure out how to minimize the impact of the family tornado in their living quarters (although this is typically the first area to go in over-scheduled times).

When we dig into their values and priorities, one of the conflicts we uncover is that they are deeply committed to advancing women leaders and supporting the more junior women at their organizations, and yet they have no clue how they can add commitments into their lives without teetering into overwhelm.

There’s already no room in my life. How will I fit this in?

That’s when we look at the challenge in a new way. Pulling other women up doesn’t have to mean attending weekly networking events, taking on a mentor, creating your own Feminist Fight Club group (though that’s just plain fun) or securing a board position at a nonprofit. There are many new choices we can make WITHIN our existing work hours that will do more to support and advance women’s careers.

Here are 5 ways to get started:

1. Be generous with feedback.
It can be tough to give feedback, but it is a critical method of learning for adults—so it’s worth it. When you can offer both praise and critique for specific behaviors and actions, your employees and colleagues are given an opportunity to improve in their roles and also become less resistant to accepting feedback when it comes from other members of the team. Sometimes as women we fear not being "nice" when we give feedback. I turn that around to say: "You’re not being nice by withholding feedback that could be useful and advance someone’s career!"

2. Spread the love of office housework equitably.
How many meetings have you walked into where one of your male colleagues asks a woman at his level to put the bagels out on the tray? What’s so hard about dumping said bagels onto a flat surface? When you notice that the women on the team are always the ones who take notes at meetings, plan team outings or organize the giveaway tchotchke closet—speak up and let your male colleagues know they can/should also bear responsibility for these tasks. If you see women constantly volunteering for things like this, go back to step one and give them feedback. When women spend their extra time on these activities, they can miss an opportunity to step into more strategic work that could get them promoted, in turn thwarting our goal of getting more women into positions of power.

3. Call out bias when you see it.
Where there are humans, there is bias. We look at life through the lens of our own unique set of experiences, and with that our propensity is to create our future experiences based on what we know. That’s why it’s critical to have a diverse set of voices speaking at the same volume in the room—so we have a variety of lenses and data sets feeding into the greater whole. Too often, organizations don’t exhibit that level of diversity, and a culture of bias takes root that is tough to challenge and expose. But if you are a woman with a respected voice in an organization, and you see another woman being overlooked for a role or promotion because of some kind of bias, do the right thing—speak up. Share your POV with trusted male colleagues who will support you and stand with you to untangle these institutional biases.

4. Courageously be the model of work-life balance you want to create.
If you need to leave work at 5 to pick up your child at 6, if you’re managing a chronic health concern or you’ve set a goal to get your butt to the gym in the evening because it refuels you for the next day—honor your commitments. Those boundaries DO NOT make you less valuable. Have the hard conversations with your superiors about exactly what you need to perform at your best, and don’t feel you have to explain why. When you step into this courageous space of advocating for yourself and acknowledging your non-negotiables, you are clearing the path for other women to do the same. When the fear comes up in the asking, know that this is not only about you and your life—you’re taking a stand against the rigidity and face-time you’ve faced in your career while also paving the way for others to feel like it’s possible to succeed in both career and motherhood.

5. Participate in women’s networks when possible.
Some of the most rewarding moments of my digital marketing career came through my participation with the Women’s Network, WIN, at American Express. I connected with many more senior women than I ever would have in my role. Seeing them and learning from them helped me to see what was possible. If you are mid-career or a senior leader in an organization that has a women’s network, find some way to participate that resonates for you. You don’t need to volunteer to take on a second full-time job or plan the group’s largest event. You can speak on a panel, take part in speed mentoring or do your part to show that although we’re not there yet, it is possible to make strides toward equity and a meaningful career.

In order to make changes in our organizations, it’s critical to participate in a way that works for each of us individually. If you jump in up to your ears and raise your hand to run every powerful committee, you will burn out and resent the work. Choose a way to engage that will bring you energy and momentum—and also inspire you to sprinkle these same behaviors into other areas of your life. For me, this means listening to a room full of women who were flattened by their organization’s town hall featuring a panel of all white men and acknowledging "You’re right. Representation matters. Keep exposing what should be obvious by now. Continue to share your voices and find allies who will help you amplify them. This is possible. Let’s do it together." Because it is, and we will.

How To Create Your Own Super Secret Annual Review

Annual reviews bring up a mix of complicated feelings.

Doubt, guilt, fear, frustration, indignation.

Hope, pride, appreciation, gratitude, compassion.

The emotions rise to the surface one by one or all at once—and then we must put on a brave face and push through our feelings so we can string sentences together and advocate for ourselves during the dreaded conversation. No matter whether the overall tone of the exchange is deflating or empowering—it is typically one of the tougher dialogues we experience in our careers.

While I haven’t had one of these reviews in a few years, I remember the internal conflict I would feel when it came time to hand my self-assessment (the part I could control), over to my supervisor who had the final say on my performance, compensation and professional development. In essence, I was relinquishing ownership of my own learning and growth.

Now, with distance from the experience and a boatload of new leadership tools, I know the way to avoid this uncomfortable scenario: Get ahead of it.

I work with clients to complete their own super secret annual reviews and professional development plans for the year to come. Here’s how we do it:

1. Start with an organizing principle—your values
In order to evaluate yourself, you need to know what you’re shooting for in your career. If your life and career are driven by a certain set of values—this would be a great place start. My personal values are courage, connection, inspiration, peace and fun, and to stay on track I make a list of all of the ways I’ve been in action around each of these values and the results that have come from these actions.

2. What did you learn and where can you improve?
This is my favorite part of the secret review. If you’re a human being, there are always things you can do better. Where in your career are you not living your values? Where are you not getting the results you want? Because nobody will ever see this document and it will not impact your compensation, you can feel free to be 100% honest. Plus, you’re evaluating yourself based on what’s important to you and not what’s critical to your company. Of course, if you’re in the right role these two sets of criteria would likely align. If they’re vastly different, that is data that can inform how you move forward.

3. How will you follow your curiosity in the coming year?
Start by asking yourself: What are the things that energize you, that bring you into flow? The things that when you’re doing them make you feel most like you? How can you add another dimension to that expertise? What are the things you want to learn that are disconnected from your current role, although your intuition is driving you there anyway? When generating this list of learning opportunities, note which items on the list feel like a "should" and which give you butterflies just imagining the possibilities. Next, map out the months of the year and note your curiosity focus for each month being sure to strike a balance between aspirational and practical. January will be storytelling while February could be sharpening public speaking skills. With a loose map, you can set your targets and allow yourself to flesh out the details at a later date.

When it comes to timing, I highly recommend doing your Super Secret Annual Review before you complete the self-assessment for your role. This way, you can allow your own review to inform the document for your company. Know that for your own review, you can throw around sentence fragments and simple language. There’s no need to spend extra time dressing it up. It’s for you, and only you know what you mean, at least most of the time. If it seems like an unnecessary step that you don’t have time for, remember that the one person responsible for driving your career forward (in the direction you choose) is you. Your boss and your company and your mentors may provide guidance and valuable input, but you are the only one who can put that data through the filter of what’s meaningful to you and decide on your best next move.