DRIVEN Newsletter Feb 7, 2023
Are You Draining Your Mental Energy?
As I look back at the first month of 2023, I’m grateful that I invested fully in Laura Vanderkam’s annual Time Tracking Challenge. Although it was a bit cumbersome, I walked away celebrating all I do each day. I’m now actively multitasking.
Wait, WHAT?
We all know that multitasking is a fallacy; we are NOT actually doing two things at once. Rather, the brain toggles back and forth at “lightning speed” between two tasks, resulting in a significant drain of mental energy.
While this is the case, we can effectively multitask by combining a cognitive task with a physical one. A familiar example: exercising while listening to an audiobook (which is exactly what I’ve done). Cooking, exercising, and driving are other activities typically coupled with learning or entertainment.
January has also sparked my creativity, as I’ve taken the components of DRIVEN to Wellness and massaged the content’s delivery style. The result will allow clients to support their human capital by asynchronously building Sustaining Resilience and being more effective in their working practices.
Looking ahead, late February will mark the close of a five-month coaching engagement involving more than a dozen DRIVEN clients. I learned so much from onboarding these motivated professionals simultaneously. It’s fascinating to witness the various growth rates, spurts and stagnation as each client experimented with tools, techniques and practices over this series of sessions.
Although I still have multiple sessions booked for February, I’ve enrolled in Tara Mohr’s 7-month training called Playing Big. Coming highly recommended, I decided not to pass up the opportunity to engage in this program. I will clearly rely on my habits and practices to keep me grounded during this ambitious month!
I’m also looking forward to presenting to my colleague Danielle Raniolo’s new cohort invested in Transform Now— a virtual program designed to achieve and sustain ever-evolving health goals. I get to share with them “the what, the why and the how of building habits”. This is one of my favorite topics to speak about, being the geek who believes that habits don’t confine us, but liberate us!
Speaking of sharing, this will carry over to four of my mastermind groups:
1. The She-Pack has taken on a yearlong exploration of the concept of Radical Self-Acceptance.
2. The Goddesses are examining Attachment Styles and Internal Family Systems as has been introduced to us through a set of interviews on We Can Do Hard Things.
3. The C-IQ EU Collective will launch a peer group coaching circle, where we can, among other things, practice coaching techniques and gain feedback from other highly seasoned coaches.
4. The Story Sisters will be exploring how to better use time, starting with a week-long time log to see where we’re each beginning.
I’m feeling warmly energized and supported during this cold but short month. Let’s see where it takes us!
Cheers!
-Deborah Goldstein
Discover The Five Graces
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Have a Listen.
When coaching clients share frustrations about their team members, bosses, leaders and direct reports who drop the ball, I empathize. I understand the compulsion to go the extra mile and to expect others to do the same. So, it should go without saying that Brene Brown’s final contribution to her phenomenal podcast Unlocking Us was hard for me to hear. This two-part episode focuses on people doing the best they can in the moment. If you’re feeling resistant to this idea about others, then RUSH to listen! Brene makes the unpalatable, digestible.
Male Inequality, Reframed.
Here’s a potential topic for your next DEI discussion: “Men and boys are struggling.” If your reaction is “Baloney” or “It’s about time” or any of the dozen other plausible retorts, take a breath and consider that if we’re going to have impactful inclusive conversations, they must include everyone. Here’s a video that lays out the facts and figures on how men and boys are falling behind. And when anyone falls behind, it negatively affects all of society.
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