Last week’s post has been kind of a strange exception, but still pretty consistent to my most recent writings. After the summer break I kinda explored this structured way of writing that produced some vertical, longer form (11-13 min reading) posts. Summer recaps have been another experiment, to keep up consistency while resting and recharging.
Looking back since the beginning of Already,Yet I can clearly see a lot of different experiments. Some sort of little steps here and there sometimes based on refining what was already there based on a feedback or an inspiration. Some other times to explore more of a pivot towards something new. I’m at a point again where I want to exploit the opportunity I have to try out different things. An opportunity that a little public with no expectations guarantees me and I invite you to give me some feedback on these changes in any way you’d like.
I’ll be looking back to the concept of retrospective that started the project, in a new, more methodic way, and see what happens for the next few weeks. I’m trying to understand what works best for me, for my schedule, for my energies, and for you who read me. Of course the context change continuously and so will my writing until I feel like I haven’t found quite a stable form for this project.
Way to long introduction, let’s try to keep it shorter the rest.
Takeaways (TL:DR)
Focusing on your work and reach flow states is not something to give for granted. Taking care of yourself in the ways the most suit your schedule, preferences and possibilities is very important to be able to have a fresher mind and achieve this results with more intentionality.
We should always value feedback up to the point to which allows us to question ourselves and generate a growing process. This also means that we must critically reflect on our values to interpret the content of the feedback and not necessarily following blindly the suggestion of the giver. Any feedback is always a great gift, we must take care of it.
Being more flexible, being more welcoming, being more thoughtful of your public. These are the lessons I could learn from a great failure during the facilitation of a workshop. As for the feedback, accepting that the frustration comes from our inadequacy to adapt rather than from the conflict with the problem itself is a great starting point to analyse to situation with a personal growth mindset
🍊 Welcome to the latest issue of Already, Yet – a weekly retrospective about not feeling ready, but doing things anyway.
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Weekly retrospective
I will be using some very common retrospective frameworks to summarise most valuable things that I can distill from my week. Hope there will be something valuable for you as well between the lines.
Happy: focus mode
The first is something positive, something I’m really happy about and I was missing for some time at this point. Last week I got some opportunities to work uninterrupted for some time. I was particularly happy for Friday afternoon session. I really enjoy the flow state, and finally I’m noticing that my mind is ready to stay in that focus state. I’ve been experiencing a lot of struggle in the last few months to stay focused, I felt a lot of mental fatigue.
Although I’m going through a hard time emotionally I began to take care of some few obvious things and they made a lot of difference. I’m eating better, I’m sleeping better (even if sometimes less), I exercise, and most of all I’m finally doing something I never done in my entire life: I’m drinking a lot of water, before and after sleep, a bit less during the day, but still more than before.
Another huge improvement was to force me to begin to talk more with some closest friend about how I’m feeling and this is surely removing a lot of the struggle from my thoughts. Don’t hesitate to share vulnerabilities, is liberating and helps way more than I thought even though you don’t find any solutions in these conversations. Is not about finding a solution at all, but it helps a lot anyway. Try for yourself if you’re going through some hard times.
Going in flow state feels great. Ending up feeling productive and get things done and stay present to them feels even better. I’m super happy and I’m looking forward to cultivate this sensations and keep having more focus time every day or at least every week.
Meh: receiving feedback
I recently received a very straight forward feedback while talking on the road with my boss. I will share this completely out of context but basically he pointed out that I “should be less obsessed with precision in some situations”.
It doesn’t feel completely new to me, it could feel strange for some of you to read about such a counterintuitive feedback but let’s reflect together for a moment.
I know very well this issue, I’m sure I’ve grown a lot in the last few years around this. I’ve learned, sometimes the hard way the expression “perfect is the enemy of done” I learned a lot about prioritisation, about choosing my battles and draw a line to be more clear when to give up on things and just proceed.
Of course it feels strange that someone asks you to be less precise, less demanding on your work. But it’s not about the outcome, it is about attitude and balance efforts over returns and the ability to generate actual value. In my previous company one of the principles of the company culture was “remember you must unlock the value”. And from some conversations I had these days with some former colleagues, I’m sure this is exactly about this topic.
So the feedback wasn’t new, but struck me to hear it again. Looking back I really see myself today way more flexible, way more focused on going forward towards the goal and ready to give up on personal battles. And yet from this feedback emerges that is still apparent from my behaviour some kind of superfluous commitment to stretch the boundaries of how much value a client, a project, a product, a decision can possibly take or perceive, the same way you try to close your overloaded suitcase by jumping over it.
It’s strange, at this point in my career I feel like I’m really close to find a balance and a clearer view over this, and yet I still get this kind of feedback. I’m sure I should be even more careful but I’m struggling to go much further than this as I believe in the value I can bring with my passionate attitude, and the value I can create for people by pushing and stretching the boundaries a bit further than “optimally expected” (optimally from the perception whom is more concerned to manage me as a profitable resource rather than deliver as much value as possible, I may argue).
I don’t know, I struggle to compromise a careful behaviour more than I got, up until now. I’m happy of the feedback as I love to work on myself and grow, I believe it planted a new seed and will evolve to new challenges sooner or later, but I’m getting mixed feelings this time.
Sad: failing to facilitate
The last event is the complete mess I’ve done facilitating a workshop this week. The goal was completely changed a week before, I had to reorganise the entire plan of activities. But this was not the problem. It came out pretty well on paper, it was perfect for the new objective.
What I did completely wrong was to ignore the participants background. In the rush, I designed a workshop for myself, and not for the client. I programmed activities strongly aimed at creative professionals, and I faced the truth of being unable to engage someone with a different way of thinking. I struggled to find an alternative to adapt and keep the focus over the goal of the day. I noticed this situation, I knew it was on me, it was my responsibility as a facilitator, and yet I couldn’t help myself on take it personally and feel provoked by the lack of cooperation from the client. But it was clear in my mind at that moment that the frustration was mostly coming from my inadequacy to manage the situation rather than from the client’s behaviour.
I gave up, and after some awkward moments, we let the last hour and a half of valuable time go to nothing and call it a day without the most important output an decisions we expected from the activities, it was quite a failure to me.
I’m really collecting a ton of different experiences organising and facilitating workshops, I talked about them several times in previous posts, and there’s so much I’m learning from them. This is probably the hardest lesson to learn from them at the moment, and luckily the only one that I can consider a complete failure. I’m still reflecting on past examples I had by observing others in similar situations, and I can see how I can improve by just being more welcoming of unexpected demands and behaviours, to ask and to learn how to redirect the energy of unmet expectations towards building back up a new path together with the other person instead of resisting and create tension to be released into nothing.
I lacked flexibility, I paid the price, I learned another lesson.
I’m not sure of this new format, but I hope you liked today’s post, that’s what experiments are for after all. The newsletter is slowly but steadily growing so don’t hesitate to leave me a feedback in the comments, or by answering with an email.
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Thanks for reading to the finish and see you next week!
Tobia